Why You Can't Reach Me

            My phone is generally within easy reach and I am often not very good at ignoring its seemingly constant buzzing.  If you text me, I generally will get back to you fairly quickly.  It’s the culture we have created with our technology and our need for instant gratification, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  That leaves me trying to mitigate it so that I’m not spending the entirety of my days interacting via a small screen and an even smaller keyboard.  I am always working on being less technology-dependent.  When I’m spending time with friends I do make a conscious effort not to answer messages and open emails, but my phone is still nearby and I am still aware of its presence.  If a text comes in that seems really important, I will probably still open it even if I am trying my very best to be present without my technology.  Constant phone monitoring has become the norm when hanging out in a casual setting.  Phones are in laps, in pockets, clutched for dear life at all moments and we are all guilty of it. 

That being said, there are certain parts of my day during which you will be absolutely unable to reach me.  Some of these are not done on purpose, such as the fact that I am not going to answer my phone when I am in the shower.  However, when I am exercising I purposely disconnect from my phone, from email, from social networking, from any sort of digital communication.  At the gym my phone is in an armband and is only there because I use my phone for music during my workouts.  I am vaguely aware that it might be lighting up and buzzing but I will not check it.  Lately I have even been using the Do Not Disturb setting.  Whatever it is can wait.  I will not answer texts until I am done working out, and I certainly will not answer a phone call.  I am completely checked out from anything that is not the physical exercise task at hand.  Gym time is also no phone time.  When it comes to yoga, I am even stricter with myself about my phone.  During class, my phone is in my bag in a locker in a completely separate room.  While I’m on my mat, I forget that my phone exists.  I forget that most things exist besides my flow of poses and my breath.  I am not even a little bit aware of whether my phone is dinging or vibrating or spontaneously doing a funny dance in the locker.  The room in which I am practicing yoga is a sacred space, free from communication with anyone outside that space.

As I increase the amount of time I spend consciously disconnecting for the purpose of yoga or gym time, I find myself less attached to my phone throughout the rest of my day.  Spending time unplugged and focused on my body does wonders for clearing my mind of all the clutter.  On my mat, I can visualize outside thoughts as little bubbles that I can just pop to make them disappear.  My vinyasa is my number one priority whether it is for those 90 minutes of class or for five minutes of sun salutations in the morning.  Exercise is what keeps me physically healthy but it is also what keeps me mentally sane.  Disconnecting is an important part of that, and so is prioritizing my gym and yoga time for the sake of the benefits it provides me.  You can’t reach me while I’m practicing yoga because nothing is more important in that moment than what I am doing on that mat.

Start Each Day With an Intention, Not an Expectation

           Sometimes a yoga teacher will have us start class with an intention for our practice.  It could be an intention to really push yourself to your limits during this class, or an intention to listen to your body and respect what it needs, or an intention to focus on your breath and on clearing your mind of outside thoughts.  In the same breath, yoga teachers often remind us to enter into the practice without any expectations for ourselves or for the outcome.  This can seem like a contradiction.  At first glance it is, but upon closer examination it makes a lot of sense.

There is a difference between having an intention and having an expectation.  An intention is a hope and a focus for your practice, kind of like a drishti (visual focal point used in various poses) but for the mind.  You have succeeded with your intention if you can honestly say that you worked on it by the end of the class.  It is not a specific goal that you should feel badly about not attaining if you do not succeed.  In fact, it is not even something that you can check off that you absolutely completed because the whole point is to work on living this intention, not to approach it like a work task.  It is something to be mindful of during your practice without allowing it to distract you from the practice itself.  It integrates into the flow of your poses and can be applied as broadly as you need it to be.  It is your ruling philosophy for the course of the class and you can form it based on how you are feeling mentally or physically to begin with, or based on how you anticipate you might feel during the particular sequences you will be practicing during that class.

An intention is not an expectation that today you will finally come up into headstand.  It is not an expectation that you will take the most advanced modifications of every pose offered, and conversely it is not an expectation that you will have to take the easiest modifications offered for the poses.  These are far too specific to be in keeping with the spirit of having an intention in the first place because at the end of the class you will definitively have either done or not done these things.  While this can be exciting if you do accomplish what you expect to, it can leave you feeling like you failed if you do not reach these expectations you have set of yourself and that is not the point of a yoga practice.  Yoga is meant to uplift you regardless of the outcome of the practice.

            If you apply the concept of starting with an intention to the start of your day, then each day can be uplifting regardless of the outcome.  You can base your intention for the day off of how you feel when you wake up, or you can base it off of the tasks you know you will be facing during your day.  If you wake up feeling sad, anxious, or just generally negative about the day then a helpful intention might be to acknowledge and honor your emotions.  You can use this intention to focus on allowing yourself to feel various emotions, even the negative ones, without allowing them to take over your day and prevent you from being productive and functional.  You can’t just delete or ignore negative emotions, but you choose how much you let them affect you.  Of course, you can be mindful of your emotions on any day but you can make it your intention if you feel that you will need to pay extra attention to them on this particular day.  If you know you have a jam-packed day of places to be and things to do, then a good intention might be to focus on being aware of your breath throughout the day.  Keeping your breath in mind will allow you to manage the amount of stress that a non-stop day can cause.

            An intention for your day can serve as a backdrop to everything that happens, as it does during a yoga class.  At the end of the day you can return to your intention, as you do at the end of a yoga class, to reflect on the role it played in your day.  It won’t be a matter of having completed something, but rather a matter of having actively worked on taking care of yourself.  An intention is an acknowledgement of what you will need mentally and physically during a practice or during your day, and you can always check in with yourself and come back to that place where you started.