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Assembling a Chair – A Yoga Blog

June 15, 2021

At the outset this blog may look like it has nothing to do with yoga, but just like my Freddy Mercury blog, this one is indeed also a yoga blog.

A Gift is Always Welcome

It’s always great to receive presents. My husband gave me a desk a couple of months ago to put at this beautiful window we have in our bedroom. As I type this out I can hear the birds chirping. At least one of the birds is a nightingale! Outside the window are trees of various kinds.

What I was missing though was a comfortable chair to go along with the desk. For months I’ve been using an Iyengar Chair, so when my friend Medha said she wanted to give me a chair I gladly accepted.

Yoga & Chair Assembly

The chair is an Astrix gaming chair and super comfortable. While my husband assembled the chair I couldn’t help but notice that humans have an unconscious tendency to sit in postures resembling yogasasanas. I was inspired now just like I was with my Freddy Mercury blog and promptly started taking photos.

This is how the chair came to us. We took an inventory of the screws and other bits that

He started with assembling the wheels:

Reminds me a bit of Baddhakonasana.

Carefully reading the manual to make sure we don’t make any mistakes:

Sort of like Janu Sirsasana.

The backrest is comfortable and sturdy.

Marichyasana.

Making sure we don’t miss a screw.

Bhardwajasana.

Putting the armrests together.

Ardhauttanasana.

Ensuring the wheels fit.

Malasana.

Always happy about building things. 🙂

Sukhasana.

What do you think? Do you also find yourself seeing what you love everywhere?  Do you think that this blog is a yoga blog?

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Wellness

What About Our Healing?

May 20, 2021

I took a class the other day for a student who zooms in from Singapore. Just as we were about to start class she got a WhatsApp message. She (uncharacteristically) excused herself and checked it. Looking up she said, “My mom’s brother just passed away.”

I’m not sure what the ‘right’ reaction to this news is given the circumstances. The night before I heard that two of my husband’s friends have lost their mothers. During dinner my in-laws told us of a family friend, a doctor, who also succumbed. The week before that I got news that a family friend whom we’ve known since our days in Bangladesh, passed away in the hospital. Friends and well-wishers tried to frantically get in touch with her son. But in these times, the tone and timbre of our grieving has also changed. We are all going through collective trauma, ironically in isolation.  But what about our healing?

So I asked her if she wanted to take some time, call someone, perhaps even postpone the class. We ended up continuing with the class.

I woke up this morning feeling like I need a week off to clear my head. It’s perhaps a symptom of being under long term stress. We managed the first lock down by going online, catching up with friends over wine on zoom, baking banana bread and having it with dalgona coffee. This second wave has brought with it tragic news on a daily basis. So tragic in fact that we no longer check the news for numbers. So tragic that most of us have actively started to do whatever we can to help – donating, amplifying voices on social media, and even just staying in and balancing our chores with work.

Stress over a sustained period of time starts to change people. What we are living through is not only stress, but also trauma. No wonder many of us have started complaining about fatigue and a sense of disconnect from our surroundings. We feel like we’re on auto-mode, robotically marking the beginning and end of days; the beginning and end of weeks. Half of 2021 will be over next month, and many of us can’t tell the difference between this year and the last.

I’ve bought bed-sheets, new flip flops, changed the arrangement of my yoga room, joined a yoga sutras chanting class, even set up WhatsApp for Business and included that on my Facebook page. Only to realize that these aren’t the changes I need.

Resilience is a way of coping with trauma, and many of us continue to be brave. What about the healing from this trauma? Psychotherapist and counselor Simi Mathew says sometimes just hanging in there and going through the trauma is also a healing process. “But the actual healing,” she says, “which is about letting go and healing the actual scar, that happens when we are aware of it and we actively seek help for it.”

Perhaps even as we trudge through another meeting; as we look wistfully at the beautiful weather in Bangalore these days; as we stay up late doom-scrolling and wake up groggy; even then our healing is happening.

Scenes from our Liguria Yoga Retreat two years ago. Soon we shall all emerge from this time, ready to move, dine and practice together again.

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Yoga

A Note of Thanks

April 29, 2021

We’re living in unprecedented times right now.  None of us actually thought we would end up in a situation where the roads in our overcrowded cities would be painfully empty again.  In March 2020 I looked out at the busy junction outside my apartment and tried to digest the surrealness of it all.  A year later I live in an apartment that doesn’t face a loud busy road but wonderful neem and bougainvillea trees.  If I crane my neck just so I get a peek at Ulsoor Road.  These days I find myself craning my neck a bit too often, incredulous that today things are so much worse than a year ago.

At this moment my work gives me lots of solace, and I am grateful for that.  I realize few people can claim that, and that makes me more grateful for the choices and decisions I’ve made.

My first online class during the pandemic was in March last year.  It was a forty minute call because Zoom only allows forty minutes for free users.  It was a mix of my private and group students.  I am grateful I had an old MacBook that I could use because my Lenovo has a malfunctioning camera (I am looking to replace said Lenovo).  I am grateful that my living room at the time was rectangular and clean, which made it easy to position the laptop at an optimum angle for teaching.  I am grateful to those students who gave it a go.  That support has kept me going financially, emotionally, intellectually and also spiritually.  At a time when many yoga teachers were turning up their noses at teaching online, I was able to jump on the bandwagon fairly quickly because of the acceptance and encouragement I received.  None of us knew this would become a way of life, and in retrospect most of us are thankful that we went online sooner than later.

I’m thankful also to all those teachers who collaborated with me, bridged boundaries to connect, learn and grow virtually.  Our sangha or community has grown in ways we never thought possible.

We are in the middle of one of the greatest challenges we have faced as a country, and I can only hope that things get back to normal soon.  But until then, we must keep doing what we can, with the song of gratitude in our hearts.

From two years ago at Rainbow falls in Nagaland. Happy, carefree and amidst nature.

 

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Yoga

Word of the Year (2021)

December 22, 2020

BLAZE

Social media is constantly trying to tell us that this year has been a terrible one.  This message has gotten louder specially now that the year is ending and we’re all making resolutions for the next year.  However, if you listen to the softer voices, you’ll realize that there is a parallel dialogue going on; one where this year hasn’t been the worst, but actually one of the best.

I remember last year vivdly for all the travel and good work it brought me.  Last year was defined by movement – to travel, to work, for leisure and for the soul.  This year was a stark contrast to last year.  The world was indoors, the skies cleared up, Netflix reduced it’s video resolution (for a while at least).

It was seemingly the perfect time to take up a new hobby, to read the TBR books, to clean the house and your friends’ list.  It’s no surprise most of us got none of this done, this year was unforgiving with its strangeness.  I thought I’d go through the pile of books accumulating on my bookshelf (and on most other surfaces in my apartment.  I also thought I’d write my magnum opus.  The piles continue to grow and the magnum opus is a dream.

But I’m also well rested, bubbling with ideas, still in love with yoga.  I have the energy to teach 7 consecultive classes and the enthusiasm to draw rough outlines for my magnum opus.  I write 3 journal pages a day and read a chapter every night before I sleep.  This year has given me an important pause.  Next year I’m ready to blaze on…

[You may also want to check out a similar reflections exercise I did last year.]

With gratitude…always.

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Yoga

Staying With Your True North

December 19, 2020

I don’t remember exactly who sent me the Yearly Compass, but sometime around this time last year I got the free downloadable document on WhatsApp and promptly printed it out.  On a Saturday morning I sat with a friend in Cubbon Park and we spent a few hours filling the document, coming closer to my true north.  I did the same this year, in my living room with a friend.  As I started my yearly roundup and reflection, I started wondering what draws me to this activity year after year…

My Experience

There are many advantages of doing a yearly review, or reflections for the year.  Below are some of the benefits I have personally experienced.

  • Helps you be more mindful.  Regardless of how hard we try to be mindful daily, a year is a long time and we often lose track of the bigger picture.  When I look at my year in retrospect I can see where I went off track, and what caused me to alter my course.  These then become lessons for next year.
  • Helps you appreciate your achievements.  While doing the yearly review I was bummed that I didn’t have anything I could count as an achievement this year.  No second book, no endorsements, no big money making projects.  Then I started to look at the year a bit more closely and realized that I had also won a National Yoga Competition, scored really well on my exams and started a yoga calendar that everyone is loving.  Sometimes we get so lost in doing things that we forget to celebrate getting things done.  Journaling helps us to take a pause and a breath.
  • Self assessment/introspection.  There was a project I undertook at the beginning of the lockdown which I realize I should have never agreed to.  The vision wasn’t aligned to mine and had I said a firm no I would’ve saved a lot more time.  I learned that I have to trust in my true north and say no to whatever doesn’t make my heart sing.
  • Keeps you focused on the goals for next year.  I love this aspect of yearly reflection.  When I see my goals listed clearly before me I feel like I’m aligned to my true north.   On the other hand, it’s also good to assess your goals every once in a while and make sure these are actually the goals you want to work towards.
  • Gratitude.  If you have the attitude of gratitude, you can always see the silver linings.  The ability to see the stuff that you have going for you even in the darkest time is truly a gift.

Journaling is not fancy and doens’t require too much time.  Use this prompt to start your journaling practice:

You can download this prompt here.

There’s so much more I could say about how much journaling has helped me and how I consider it to be a mainstay of my spiritual practice.  Medha and I have created a yoga calendar for 2021 where journaling is an integral component.  Today we’re going live on Instagram to talk about how the Yearly Compass has helped us and how our spiritual practice has been impacted by our journaling.  Please join us.

I speak more about my journaling practice in this YouTube video.

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