Out of the darkness – into the light.

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My nana went blind.  Cataracts. I remember the day when my mother told me that the doctors could not help her.  I cried and cried out of fear for her, sadness and overwhelming compassion.  How could you live in this world and not be able to see?  Well, I guess many of us do that even when our eyesight is perfectly fine!

Sometimes Nana would come to stay.  I remember I lost her once.  I searched the streets and scoured the neighbourhood wondering how she had ‘escaped’ from my apartment?  And as I was ringing the police I heard a little snort-like snore.  She had found my bed and big white fluffy doona (duvet) and had completely disappeared into it!  No bumps or lumps…..a tiny little figure buried alive by duck- down and feathers.

She smoked too and it would be exasperating to find her attempting to light her cigarettes.  I was always utterly amazed how she never set her hair alight nor the curtains for that matter.  Of course, when people met her they would shout at her.  Why is it we assume that people are deaf when they are blind. When screamed at, Nana would politely respond “I may not be able to see you dear, but I can certainly hear you”!

But the sadness for me was to pick her up on the weekends and find her sitting in her little room all alone facing a wall and patiently waiting for me to take her out.  As she became older, feebler and a little more vague, I found it better to leave her in the car and park it somewhere in the sunshine.  I would buy a cup of tea and piece of cake and together we would sit chatting, enjoying the warmth of the sun and each other’s company. She once said to me “oh, thank you dear, what a lovely restaurant”.

How much do we take our eyesight for granted?  And do we use it well?  Today I look out on the beautiful Chinese elm that hugs my balcony – turning yellow, orange and gold in the Autumn sunshine.  My heart leaps out of my chest when I pause to be so aware of the beauty with which I am surrounded.  I can see, (albeit with multi-focals) and I can go anywhere I want to; to observe, partake and appreciate what this extraordinarily- attractive world can offer me.

One late night, not so long ago, I caught the tail-end of a BBC production on the story of ‘Tetiny’ and Dr. Ruit’s, work high up in the Himalaya.  Nepal is close to my heart as is the plight of those who live there, and Fred Hollows is one of the great men whose legacy I honour.  Make yourself a cup of tea. Watch this gorgeous story about Fred Hollow’s protégée and friend Dr. Ruit and their efforts to eradicate blindness amongst the world’s poorest through innovative cataract surgery technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Ytco4mi5o   (No duvets in Nepal but plenty of cliffs!).

Better still…..for your week’s café latte fix you can give someone back their sight!

http://www.hollows.org.au/our-work/Nepal

Of course, there is unnecessary blindness in all developing countries….throughout Africa, South East Asia, Australia, The Pacific, China ….everywhere……

Yes, it can be said by those who can see, so many in blindness have given us much.  For example, Andrea Boccelli ignites the fire in those who love music and Helen Keller in those who love words…..

However, in saying that, these words from Helen Keller will always stay with me……

“Death is no more than passing from one room to another.  But there’s a difference for me, you know.   Because in that other room, I shall be able to see”.

Four out of five people who are blind don’t need to be…

Let’s SEE what we can do…

(Photos sources: Fred Hollows and Dr. Ruit’s sites).

My Yoga Journal: Enlightenment might be nice – staying sane will suffice.

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My name is Anita Atherton [Hello Anita]. I have been doing yoga and meditation for about six months now [Oprah applause].  I just wanted to say that I wake up every day feeling happy and positive [Insert Oprah “Everyone in the Studio Audience is Getting a CAR!” applause].

But seriously, I am in a much better space than I was six months ago. I had no idea how bad it was until seeing how good it can be; but this is something I have to do on my own. I can tell people how great it is and what a change it makes – but most people don’t want to know.

At first I was terribly hurt and offended, but each day my wisdom, empathy and compassion grow and I appreciate that for me too, it wasn’t until I was ready to seriously make some changes, that I was ready to receive any help.

I remember a university teacher of mine telling me years ago to “take the Mickey out of yourself before anyone else can”. This was with respect to conducting a sales presentation, but it resonated with me for a long time. It became my “shtick” to overcome extreme shyness.

Growing up, I was shy and self-conscious – I am very tall, my ears stick out and I used to turn the colour of beetroot if anyone looked at me sideways; I felt silly.  In high school – I felt like that  pretty much all of the time. However, I was studious and conscientious and it paid off in terms of results.

I went straight into University after leaving school which is right about where the wheels fell off. The main thing I remember in the first year was hearing that Marketing graduates could earn up to $32k in their first year of employment.  I was 18, I had my driver’s license and my first car, and this was my ticket to financial emancipation!  So the subject matter was excruciatingly tedious and mind-numbingly boring (for me), THIRTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS?  Where do I sign?!

Truth is, the subjects WERE incredibly dry – economics, statistics, accounting – I hated them all in their own special way.  My work ethic went straight out the window, I failed subject after subject time and time again – but I made some firm friendships at the pub on campus!

Outside of school, I didn’t know that life could be enjoyed and not endured.  No-one said to me that maybe I was failing at these subjects and partying too hard because I was doing the wrong course. Rather I came to believe that I was failing this fine course because I was partying too hard and not working hard enough.  So, believing that I was not very intelligent or hard-working after all, I heeded the “Take the Mickey” sales advice and adopted a new persona to see me through the course and my subsequent career.

And everyone bought what I was selling.  My self-deprecating humour was framed as “ability to laugh at oneself” – really a shield to protect enormous self-doubt and insecurity.  Outwardly I was calm, confident, successful, funny, popular and easy-going.  But that wasn’t really me.

The “real me” was the voice in my head telling me what a fraud I was.  Every single day she reminded me that I don’t work hard enough, that I’m not intelligent enough, that I don’t really know what I’m doing.  She told me I drank too much, smoked too much, that I am pathetic, that I am fat, ugly and lazy. She told me that my friends didn’t really like me because they didn’t know the real me.  She told me my husband would leave me if he knew what I flake I really was. She told me I was a bad mother and my kids would probably end up alcoholics as well. She told me I was too weak to do anything about it, she told me it was too late to change.

She was a real bitch, actually. If she were an external friend I would have un-friended her on Facebook a long time ago!  Instead, I put her in charge and believed every word she said.

Living with this inner turmoil was a living hell. I suffered with chronic anxiety.  Medication and alcohol provided such sweet, sweet relief from that yakkety-yak that I turned to it more frequently and in larger quantities.

If my husband asked me to do even the smallest thing I could snap. That cow upstairs had such a long to-do list lined up for me, whilst telling me I was fat, ugly and lazy – and reminding me of every unkind thing anyone had ever said or done to me and devising knock-out blows for a revenge strike upon those unsuspecting persons… well!  If HE thought I had time to fit in what HE wanted…it got ugly.

Weirdly though, for a long time the pain was of great comfort.  A case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, I guess.

The pot of gold at the end of this bleak “rainbow” is that I took a small step in a different direction towards yoga and dabbled in meditation.  Look, I can’t explain how or why it has happened for me, but that bitch upstairs has now left the building.

It is my aim here to be a yoga enthusiast, not a bore. Whilst here I feel comfortable sharing my experience, I have learnt to keep it to myself as well.  I have found along the way that many people – often those closest to me – actually do not want to hear that I am happy and have actually lashed out in the unkindest of ways. While I’m looking up not down and smiling not frowning and all that – many people seem quite keen to throw me and my skipping rope under a lorry.

The cow who used to live upstairs would have told me that they were right. Who the hell did I think I was anyway?  Did I think I was better than them?  Why did I deserve to be happy?  Why me anymore than the next person?

But I don’t care what she thinks.

I am not addicted to smoking, medicating, spending, drinking or people-pleasing anymore.  I don’t desperately need people to like me. I like myself very much and I can say no. I don’t get on the scales anymore – this fabulous body delivered my two gorgeous children AND it can now do a pretty decent shoulder-stand.  *I don’t suck my tummy in anymore because according to yogic principles a soft belly equates to a warm heart– and besides, tight abs hinder digestion. Hello! Is there a downside to this ancient practise?!

I know how to live fully within each moment – or drag myself back there if my thoughts carry me away. If the old tart that used to live upstairs pops in, I give her my best Buddha smile and offer her a cup of tea – but she never stays.

Until next time we meet,

Om & out.

AQA xxx

* Stephen Levine, an American meditation teacher who has written extensively on healing counsels that the state of your belly reflects the state of your heart.  By consciously softening your belly again and again, you can let go and open to the tender feelings in your heart.

 

My Yoga Journal: Catastrophising – (Just eat the cheese!)

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The first time I heard this term I was sitting in my GP’s office having my anti-anxiety medication script re-filled. Cool as a cucumber, she looked at me and said “Anita, have you been catastrophising again?”  It’s a great word – applicable to myriad scenarios.

I decided to write about “catastrophising” a week or so ago and since then it has manifested itself in many conversations.

Let me start with a definition:

“When a person experiences an unhelpful emotion (e.g. depression and anxiety), it is usually preceded by a number of unhelpful self-statements and thoughts. Often there is a pattern to such thoughts and we call these “unhelpful thinking styles”.  One of the things we have noticed is that people use unhelpful thinking styles as an automatic habit.  It is something that happens outside of our awareness.  However, when a person consistently and constantly uses some of these styles of thinking, they can often cause themselves a great deal of emotional distress.”[1]

Some of the great catastrophisers of our time include Chicken “The Sky is Falling” Little and the child in Kindergarten Cop who suggests Arnold Schwarzenegger’s headache is most likely a brain tumor.  This may seem amusing, but this poor kid probably had a mother like me – I’ll explain later.

It’s a funny old world we live in, which facilitates, encourages and endorses a catastrophic way of thinking.  Just watch the news.  My 3yo once asked me why I watch the news; my 6yo answered – “it’s because you need to find out all the bad things that have happened in the world”.  My 6yo is a Master Catastrophiser (hence his nickname:  “Worst-Case-Scenario-Mario” or “The Master of Disaster”), but I think he is bang-on in this observation.

For a watered down (but doubly toxic) version of “monsters under the bed” reporting, catch a glimpse of  “A Current Affair” or “Today Tonight”! Helping you keep one step ahead of all of those trades-people and supermarkets that make it their life’s work to rip you off. Oh, puh-lease.

My husband comes home from work exhausted and beaten; dying a death of a thousand cuts – paper-cuts that is!  The industry in which he works is living proof of The Chaos Theorem. Instead of a butterfly flapping its wings in Santiago – if a man falls off a ladder in Broadmeadows, the rest of the building industry drowns in red tape and paperwork now – and ad infinitum.

When – exactly – did we stop taking responsibility for our own actions?

If I trip over raised concrete in the street – making me look and feel like a bit of a dill – should the council / the layer of the concrete / the tree’s roots that lifted the concrete / the planter of the tree / the creator of all things pay [me] for that?

Whilst catastrophising ensures I feel that EVERYTHING is my responsibility, I live in a litigious society which promotes the fact that it’s all someone else’s fault!

I choose to laugh at myself tripping over the tree root, bung a Band-Aid on my face and learn to watch where I’m walking. Accidents happen. Move on – more carefully. You can take this on good authority as a woman with a ripping scar and nine screws permanently in her left hand after a martini-induced dance-floor mishap. With friends…at home.

I previously worked in a sales role in which I lived and died by the monthly numbers.

Here, the world ended (for some people, quite literally) on the last day of the month. It began again on Day 1 of the following. It was constantly and oppressively stressful. It was an environment in which it was very hard to achieve just the sales targets, let alone navigate the vicious office politics.

A previous boss of mine, whom I hold in very high regard as a coach and mentor and who remains a good friend, offered me advice once on how to survive the environment. He told me to always prepare for – and expect – the worst, so whatever happens will always be better than what you imagined.

This person also unconsciously chews the hair off his arms under stress, suffered a minor stroke and has on-going heart concerns – so whilst I appreciate the sentiment, hindsight suggests I take these pearls of wisdom with a couple of handfuls of salt. He, on the other hand, should probably lay off it.

We are both out of that game now. Relaxed, happy and successful – able to enjoy a laugh about “those days” together with our families – over a few “too many” vinos!

Catastrophising is not purely a corporate phenomenon.  In fact, it was not until I became a mother that I truly unearthed my innate talent to catastrophise.

Becoming a mother raises the stakes immediately.  It begins in pregnancy.

The books. Oh! The books. I stopped reading the books.

I was convinced early in the gestational period that eating a single piece of soft cheese was going to result in my having a child with severe disabilities; one who would surely require round-the-clock specialist care; most probably within an institution – with a team of Swedish neurological experts (who would “tsk-tsk” (in Swedish) in my general direction, whispering to one another “this would never have happened if she hadn’t eaten the cheese”).

From this point, having children – I have heard described beautifully – is “like having your heart walking around outside your body”.

From a place of intense love and a primal instinct to protect, also comes a tsunami of catastrophising thoughts. You think your headache is an undiagnosed brain tumor (refer Arnie, earlier). You hear a cough from your child’s bedroom in the middle of the night and curse your GP for not picking up the resurgence of Bubonic Plague.

Why am I saying all this?

I think the more we pretend that everything is okay the more we damage one another.

Chicken Little may have been deemed a crackpot after the acorn incident, but at least the chick voiced its fears aloud!

By talking about our fears and anxieties THEY – not us – will break down. Sometimes giving your voice to the crazies – the monkeys – in your head can make them seem small and silly. Meditation gives me a small moment to look at them, sit with them, smile at them and put them aside.

Leaving them left un-checked inside can wreak havoc on you mentally, spiritually and physically. Believe me, I know.

Until we meet again,

Om & Out.

AQAxxx

This article has been contributed by Cool, Calm & Collected’s student, writer & eternal work-in-progress, Anita Quigley Atherton.

[1] http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au

[2] Walt Disney image – ‘Chicken Little’

My Yoga Journal: The Y&M Effect

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I’ve been feeling like a complete fraud lately. Until last Tuesday I hadn’t practised yoga or meditation for six weeks – in which time I also joined two committees.

Fortunately, unlike medication, meditation doesn’t wear off – so I was able to keep the monkeys at bay and a relatively still mind for the weeks that Annemaree was traipsing through India.

In fact, I had a bit of an epiphany about The Y&M Effect. I thought – and had been feeling – that I was supposed to be feeling calm – all the time. In actual fact, it is about being mindful; being present; being aware; feeling fully and letting each thing pass – as it always inevitably does. The trick is to notice how you feel, feel it fully, sit with it and examine it for a moment and then let it go. The thing NOT to do is feel it, feed it, succumb to it and take as many people as you can hostage on the way through (recall: Christmas / husband / headlock).

Being calm all of the time – whilst a refreshing change from being completely loco – would be a bit dull. Variety is the spice of life after all, and who wants to sail through it like a lobotomized chimp anyway?

Over the past months I have actually come to quite like myself. Being kind to myself, instead of being my own harshest critic and taskmaster, has brought me to appreciate my quirks and idiosyncrasies. Meditation has opened up a rather pleasant internal conversation – which results in my own happiness, contentment and gratitude by and large. No, I’m not hearing voices – it’s not THAT sort of internal conversation.

I know that I am warm, generous, funny and kind. I have a lot to offer and want to offer it  up in any way that might help my local community or others less fortunate. This seems to involve becoming a committee-tart – but as a home-based Mum I have the time to give and so I give gladly.

Liking yourself is quite handy when you embark on spending extended periods of time alone with yourself in a dark room, with your eyes closed under a blanket. As far as I am aware, meditation never made anyone go blind either.

As an Aussie, liking yourself, ( or daring to admit  it), is just not the done thing. Our mob subscribe to more of a “tough-love” approach, believing that life is bound to disappoint you anyway, so best we let you know you’re not ‘much chop’ before you hear it from strangers. But to be a part of our mob you must be smart and by God you’ve GOT to be funny.

Our mantra could be this saying I came across recently “If you find yourself losing an argument, start correcting their grammar”.  Aussies are sometimes the product of long lines of intelligent, slightly depressed individuals with superiority complexes and smart mouths (albeit, on the whole, hilarious).

It is exhausting trying to maintain the mask of being the funniest / wittiest / cleverest person in the room and, for me at least, all behaviours were a form of armor to keep people at bay, so I couldn’t get hurt. Oh, and ALWAYS with a drink in hand.

Through Yoga & Meditation I have softened – I have ALLOWED myself to soften through letting go of the armory.  I am easier on myself.  I am easier on myself because I have come to quite like myself.  Today I prefer to let my character develop and manifest through my actions, rather than just being the ‘cleverest Dick’ at a dinner party.

I am finding it much more rewarding and fulfilling to simply learn and become educated without having to form an opinion which must be defended to the death.  Attaching to an opinion – for me – shuts down such a big part of my brain’s ability to take information in – like trying to “live in the moment” whilst thinking what your next facebook status update will be!

Until next we meet,

Om & out.

AQA xxx

This article has been contributed by student, writer & eternal work-in-progress, Anita Quigley Atherton.

My Yoga Journal: Flipping My Thinking

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Writer, student and eternal work-in-progress – AQA

This article has been contributed by student, writer & eternal work-in-progress, Anita Quigley Atherton.

I had to let the cleaner go last week.

For over a year now I have been scrimping and scratching in the household budget to keep her coming for just a couple of hours each week. Alas, we have some exciting things to save up for this year so something had to give – and switching the electricity off just wasn’t flying with My Darling Husband.

I have embraced the frugality required to stay home and keep house and raise a family. I shop at Aldi and Cotton On rather than Leo’s and Country Road. I take small delight in life’s daily rituals (formerly regarded as monotonous drudgery) – I fold a bit of love into the beds each day; sprinkle tenderness into the lunchboxes each morning; inhale the unspoken appreciation from my family’s clean washing – oops sorry, that’s Snow White and I haven’t any dwarves. Sometimes, I even hand-wash dishes which don’t fit into the dishwasher! So why have I decided that scrubbing the shower recess is beneath me? Maybe Meatloaf was onto something when he sang the words “I will do anything for love – but – I – won’t – do – that”?

Cinderella only swept a bit before frocking up and finding her prince and even then I bet she engaged at least one of her ugly step-sisters to keep the new palatial digs sparkling – how else could she have lived Happily Ever After?  Maybe there’s something vaguely erotic about my husband picturing me tying an apron around my waist and licking batter off a spatula Nigella-style whilst slavingat work.  In my (inside only) track-pants, reeking of bleach and up to my elbow in porcelain registers a little lower on the raunch-scale.

Then I remembered attachment and how “having a cleaner” is all tied up in the vision of how my life is supposed to “look” (FYI – in my head, it looks a lot like a Donna Hay magazine). The first step is letting that go, completely.

The other problem is I hate cleaning.  Formerly, as a perfectionist, I made a sweeping mountain range out of a molehill of a task. Rather than just clean the shower recess, I would end up with the entire contents of the bathroom cupboards over the floor for sorting and cleaning; which led to a clean-out of the make-up bag including cleaning all the make-up brushes; which meant a trip to IKEA after much research on the net to find the perfect storage solution to get the bathroom paraphernalia back into the cupboards by colour, size and product type. At the end of it (24-48 hours later) I would be so exhausted that I couldn’t bear the thought of cleaning the shower recess for another six months!

My GP calls this “catastrophising” – both in thought and in action; a common habit of people suffering from anxiety or depression apparently. For me, catastrophising meant building the biggest, most devastating, worst case scenario in my head prior to engaging in an activity – then completely over-doing the activity – then worrying about where I fell short in said activity afterwards and beating myself up about it. Around and around and over and over again. For Ever After.

This is where yoga and meditation has really helped me the most. With a quiet mind it is virtually impossible to catastrophise; to make mountains out of molehills; to build up the worst case scenario so vividly that you are paralysed into complete inaction and fear. With a yogic approach and a still mind I can just breathe, and then do, and move on.

I have stuck to my kitchen wall “7 Small Things to Make Life Effortless” from the zenhabits blog – one of which is to Clean as You Go.  I need to remember that cleaning the shower recess is just cleaning the shower recess. I am not selling the house. I am not preparing for a photo shoot. I am not entering the National Bathroom Cleaning Titles. Be quiet, just breathe… and then clean the shower recess.

I also recognized that I had fallen into an old thought pattern regarding the cleaner. I was thinking “poor me”, “we don’t have enough money for this”, “we need to make more money”, “I am missing out” and once I caught myself, I flipped the way I was thinking. How lucky am I to have a home to clean and the time to clean it when so many don’t have either?

Om & out.

AQA xxx

 

A Beginner’s Journal: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back.

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This article has been contributed by student, writer & eternal work-in-progress, Anita Quigley Atherton.

So, since beginning yoga, deep relaxation and meditation with Annemaree at Cool, Calm & Collected in October last year, the effect on me has been profound.  I lost a small amount of weight, was drinking less, smoking less, eating better, sleeping better, worrying less, shouting less, spending less, having more sex – that’s right! MORE SEX. My Divine Husband agreed that yoga was the best thing I had ever taken on.  From the moment I began I never took an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety pill (hello calm, adios sex drive) and never felt the need to. A year back my GP had told me that I wasn’t going to stay on them forever and I would need to put something in place to replace it. Eureka! I had found it.

From the beginning, Annemaree’s feedback to me was that she had rarely if ever seen someone progress quite so fast, which we put down to me having been overwhelmingly “ready” to change things up in my life. I still agree this to be the case, but I have also learnt a few more things about myself in the recent weeks.  Whilst always encouraging and supportive of my staggering switcheroo, Annemaree also – very gently – warned that I would most likely take a couple of steps backwards.

Enter Christmas School Holidays and I was moon-walking backwards so fast you would have sworn Michael Jackson had risen from the grave.  Despite my excitement about the Christmas holiday with the children and my husband’s extended family, my mother and my brother at a beautiful seaside resort; despite enjoying the process of preparing salads and sides for Christmas Day lunch ahead of time (while My Divine Husband was out on the tiles with workmates); despite enjoying the process of selecting, lay-buying, picking up and wrapping all of the gifts we were giving to loved ones (while My Divine Husband lay on the couch watching AFL re-runs 6 months out of season)… well, despite all this, as soon as My Divine Husband finished work, the kids finished school, we packed the car and headed away and my peaceful little ritualistic routine had been smashed to smithereens. I fell apart.

I don’t mean daintily fell apart. I mean on Christmas Night I was a snot-spraying, quivering, wailing banshee woman who TOTALLY LOST IT with My Divine Husband after he put the kids to bed and DARED to say “did you forget to pack [something] for the kids?”. Up until that point – that teensy weensy tiny tip-tap of a moment, that itsy bitsy little comment – I had been putting so much pressure on myself to “stay calm” that I kind of imploded. Exploded. I think, at one point, I had him in a head-lock actually.

Put down to an obligatory Christmas melt-down, things calmed down, we talked, we moved on and eventually I let go (not just of his head….) and we enjoyed a really beautiful relaxing holiday.  When I got back I had a private session with Annemaree for an hour and a half. Still shaking and breathing shallowly I explained what happened while we were away and there was that calm, knowing smile and nod that said “hmm, I thought you would take a step backwards eventually”.  The private session was like taking a refreshing cool shower, the yoga practise was like coming home. The private session was perfect as it helped me to refine the positions I had been learning in the group classes and prepare myself for continuing to practise at home while Annemaree was away in India for five weeks.

I am not sure what, if anything, I would have done differently in the lead-up to The Christmas Night Episode. I guess I know (and boy, so does my husband) that I am not super-human, that being calm doesn’t mean you can do it all, that I am beautifully human, flawed with warts and all – but working on it. So I will continue to practise. My husband is back at work now, the kids are still on holidays and hell-bent on driving me stark-raving crackers – but I am still breathing, I am still writing, I am still studying and constantly learning.

Om & out.

AQA xxx

Just Breathe

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Three years ago I received a telephone call from my youngest brother, Paul.  I shall never forget the anguish in his voice as he explained that his first newborn, 6-week-old baby Thomas Rowley, had just been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis.

I felt the pain well up inside me as he spoke and I tried with all my might to stay calm for his sake, but alas the tears started to flood as I realized how significant and challenging this little boy’s life could become.  Not to mention, the pain and strain on his lovely parents, Paul and Tania.

My yoga training flew straight out the window….or so it seemed.

I cried and cried and cried.  I simply couldn’t stop.  I hibernated and tried to be calm, making copious cups of tea and laying my hands on anything that might be soothing  chocolate and licorice mainly).

Yes, it sounds as though it was all about me, and it was at the time!

I was of no value to anyone who came within a tear drop’s distance of my whimpering self.  In all, I cried for 24 hours non-stop.  I awoke throughout the night sobbing.  I sobbed doing the dishes, in the shower and walking along the street.

A headstand was out of the question because I simply would have drowned.

With red-rimmed eyes, a throbbing head and a heavy heart I attended a class being held by my yoga teacher, Shanti Gowans.   Ironically she arrived into Melbourne that weekend. I attended her class and tried to remain inconspicuous amongst my yoga teacher friends.  Yes, there were inquisitive looks.  Puffed cheeks and swollen eyes were not characteristic of my persona and when one asked me if I was OK, I immediately broke down like a wailing banshee and grabbed at anyone who would hug me.  Yes, ‘I’m fine’ I said.  Well, that was authentic – not!

Shanti didn’t breathe a word and not a word passed between us on that day.  I laid down on the floor to take part in her 2-hour yoga class.  The tears came and came until my yoga mat was flooding.  I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t smile.  Wavelets of water slid across my chest and every time I tried to do an inversion the tears would back-track and slide straight up my nose.  But…deep down I knew that something would eventually turn the ‘tap of tears’ off and prepare me to be of support to wee Thomas in a calm and peaceful manner.  But what?

Have you ever attended a crowded yoga class and believed the teacher was specifically and exclusively talking to you?

All I could hear her say was “if you think your life is falling apart, just breathe”.  Over and over. “Just breathe”.  “Just breathe”.  “Just breathe”.  In and out, softly, gently, deeply.  “If you think your life is falling apart, just breathe”.  The breath will heal you, hold you, and comfort you.  “Just breathe”.

I tried.  I really tried.

That afternoon I was committed to take my own yoga class. I didn’t want to disappoint my students by cancelling.  The room was dark so I assumed they wouldn’t notice my face’s disfigurement.  And….. most of the class was done with the ‘eyes’ closed.  I bottled up the tears and when the students had all departed from the room, I sat alone in what seemed like the very trough of misery, and howled.  And then…. ‘just breathed’.  Again.  And again.

The more I focused on the breath the more the pain in my heart started to subside.  The tears began to diminish and within a few more hours, I calmed right down.  I had grieved. It was no longer about me. Anyway, I greatly dislike being absorbed ‘in me’. It was now to be about Thomas. I had stepped out of my own way and was ready to be of service.

…to be continued

(with love from ‘Auntie’).

(and thank you Fiona Handbury for taking this beautiful photograph of our Thomas).