Non-Attachment and Parenthood
“I’m just another mother, another yogi, trying my best.”
I have been practicing this yoga now for a while. Some people get to a point in their yoga journey where they ask:
“Why am I doing this every day?”
I ask:
“Where would I be without this!”
Recent Yoga Practice at Yoga in Salento, Italy. Join me next year in October, 2022!
My practice keeps me in balance. It is a maintenance tool, sweeping my wellness into samastiḥ. Since I’ve always been a bit of a quitter, the fact that I am still at this practice over twenty years now, tells me it is working.
l too go up over the red line at times and lose my balanced mind. Yogic practice is meant to help with this but often it can’t compete with such emotion. With too much of this or that, too much practice, often our cit (shit) comes out when we are spread thin. It is my kids that have taken me to my edge this last year and a half during the pandemic. When I really lost my patience and my focus, I would sit in my room, close the door and wait it out. They didn’t need to see my red-line emotions erupt - though sometimes they saw it, and that was ok too. Dash would say":
“Mummy, are you crying again!? It’s really not that bad, Mummy!”
Daily mindful yogic practice - this invocation into the self - is an expression of deep looking that is intended to make us better people. It’s job is to keep us out of those red lines. It helps us hold back, write the letter to take action, work more intelligently and become more efficient in our daily routines. This happens when we apply austerity, tapaḥ.
Does practical longterm yogic practice actually make us better people? Maybe! And well, maybe not. Heck, I know a few assholes out there who practice yoga, and I bet you do too.
If we are looking through the same lens every day, we will fail repeatedly to penetrate the veil that holds us in this constant world of samsaric carnage. Sometimes we don’t even know that we aren’t seeing it because the veil is so thick. Other times we chose not to see it - blinded by some tradition or an anxiety to break the norms. Sometimes we reside in pain in fear of change.
This habitual pain - whether these repetitive actions are in our bodies or in our thoughts, this is like a dutiful dog tending to its owner who beats him, we often don’t see that it is unhealthy - that there needs to be a different way to see, act and live.
Our environments change when we choose to practice with discernment. The yogic language for this word is “viveka”. Having discernment of what kind of practice we do, who we practice with and how we are practicing. This is the filter we need to apply often. Then the messy behaviours, that red line belligerence...perhaps these become less acute and eventually go away altogether when we choose to listen, watch more clearly and apply discernment in all that we do on and off the mat.
~*~ Being like Ravana
The first ten years I practiced yoga, I wasn’t really a yogi at all. I may have been a yogi because I did asana, pranayama, meditation and chanting with diligence. I was like Ravana, collecting boons from Shiva while still being evil. You see, my behaviours weren’t changing. As I mature, some things have gone away, some have not: has it been the yoga that has helped me learn this? Maybe. Though I think it has been motherhood that has taught me more about yoga than any yoga pose or advanced series.
Motherhood has taught me that I am not capable of complete vairagya, non-attachment. This huge and great path I have embarked upon, has complicated my life as a yogi, but also enhanced it. It requires me to be better on and off the mat. Being a mother has become more important to me than any advanced yoga posture. Could I ever step away from this role as a parent and let go? The attachment to my children is carnal. My children have chosen me for their mother, and they need me to guide them. Sure they are young and won’t always need me as they do now, but at this time and place, I am completely bound to them and they are to me.
Children see everything with clear eyes: they may see me do fancy yoga postures on a regular basis, but more importantly, they watch how I speak, eat, relate to others, and act all the time. It has become clear that my yoga can no longer just live on the mat, it has to be visible in my actions so my kids can use this model to be better individuals. Through my modeling they will have the tools and confidence to reach their goals and dreams.
Mindful people focus on their their yoga practices AND parenting practices. They are the same. Dash is absolutely right when he says:
“it is alright, Mummy. It isn’t that bad.”
Patañjali shares that vairagya (non-attachment) is one of the main paths of the yoginaḥ. When the yogi has seen all (become omniscient - all knowing) and has turned away from that all knowing (reaching the cloud of virtue - the “dharma megha samādhiḥ”), and has completely withdrawn from the mindfield - separated the puruṣa - the higher self from the mind-field and all that it resides in (prakriti), and the guṇas no longer persuade the conscious self to experience this or that, or attach to that sensation of experience - it is now liberated! This is Patañjali yoga!
So what about the seventh series yogis out there - the parents - who can’t extract themselves from their job, minding their children - do they not get to ride on top of the cloud of virtue?
Yes, yes! They still will get to ride on the cloud and this is why: this time will pass. This time and place in our lives is impermanent. Exhausted parents out there (like myself), running around chasing their toddlers with their heads’ cut off like a chicken, how exhausted you are! It isn’t always going to be like this, the children will grow up and need us less. We will have energy again, though will we ever let go entirely?
One definition of avidyā - not knowing or being ignorant to - the first of the kleśas - is mistaking the idea that something is permanent when really it isn’t. There are only two aspects of yoga that are permanent:
Puruṣa is always conscious and always at its finest place - it doesn’t change; think about if you get to sit on the cloud of virtue - your liberated self (puruṣa) has nothing else to look at but itself. No attachments (no screaming children, etc). So it resides there.
The second constant that is always the same is that the guṇas are permanent - they change all the time, they are always influencing us to either experience something or liberate us from it.
For further detail, Edwin Bryant asks us, “Is there anything permanent?”
Yes:
1) changing guṇas are permanent because they are always changing - this is a permanent behavior of them. The Underlying essence of prakṛti is always changing. This essential nature isn’t destroyed.
2) unchangeable puruṣa - no change, pure - the essence always remains true - it is devoid of experiencing the 6 events we all go through: birth, endurance, change, growth, decline, destruction.
**
This awareness of being attached has brought me insight into other areas where I am holding on. When I open the basket of my kleśas - the big obstacles that hide my true and quiet self (puruṣa), this barrel is full of attachment, ego, aversion, not-knowing or just plain ignorance and clinging to this same life - the same behaviours that haven’t proven helpful - and it is the contents inside this barrel that continue to persuade me to go into overdrive, lose balance, and not see clearly.
Having a look with clear eyes at the obstacles that are hidden makes us honest. The yoga practice speaks less about the postures and asks us to listen to our behaviours. I want to blow that top off and go into those kleśas! I want to look at them, explore their caverns that have been stealing my mojo all these years.
Through asana, chanting, daily pranayama - my seated stillness - these kriyā yoga actions brings these kleśas into view and of course, limits them from coming - but nothing brings them to the table more clearly than children. Trying not to shout or yell is harder than you think - it would be so easy just to yell sometimes.
The yoga now is second but still required in order to stay balanced. I do a little bit every day. When I say a little bit - I very rarely do more than an hour and a half every day. To be a good mother, I have to keep enough stamina in my mental and physical body to share with my sons. I can’t cash it out all on the mat anymore; there always has to be some reserve in my tank. Almost every afternoon I chase a small person at the park or carry them up a mountain or a hill.
When I begin my practice, the breath starts the show. I watch and listen to the secrets of the bandhas and the breath and I notice how my thoughts support this orchestra. I slowly wake up my internal world and begin to watch and pray to my outer world. Most important, I am filled with gratitude each and every time I get on the mat, not expecting anything other than being present in what takes shape.
I watch my legs as I have used them as great vehicles my whole life - they’ve carried me up great rocks and mountains:
“Thank you for being there for me and continue to.”
I watch my hands and my arms and thank them for being so strong as I did many times hanging from a wall:
“You are tireless, I thank you.”
I see my abdomen with all its squiggly lines and lumpy bits for what it did for my life:
“Thank you for your amazing ability to grow - thank you for building two lives.”
And I give myself the honest pep-talk:
“I’m just another mother, another yogi, trying my best.”
And then I got on that mat, again and again. No matter what. And it repeatedly responds with:
“You’ve arrived. Stay and be present. I support you. You are okay, you can melt here. You can shine alone here. You got this, mamma.”
Almost twenty-two years of practice - daily since 2008, I am no stranger to taking breaks, re-inventing my practice (twice after two huge pregnancies), and I tell you yogi, or yogi-wanna-be, don't stop practicing. Keep your gear ready and able, for any day, after no matter what happened yesterday or or last night, and no matter what is happening now - the mat is ready and waiting for you to witness something old or new, or something begging your attention to change.
When you apply viveka - discerning awareness and complete deep looking and investigation - you’ll find something is there worth extracting. Pull it out. Write about it, share it. And if you end up in a muddy puddle, your kid may even surprise you:
“It’s ok, not that bad, actually. Let it go.” (thanks, Dashiel.)
Seek that solace in the silent places around you and within you. This great place where we balance ourselves with the world around us, and within ourselves - not going over the top and heading into the red-line...this place that is entirely yours - yours alone to dive into, this place is independence, alone-ness, freedom:
kaivalya.
** Tips for a sensible practice week:
I am a true ashtangi where I don’t add poses in - I don’t take them out - and I follow the series with devotion - this is only because it has been tried and tested for me personally, and I have found a great joy in this beautiful tradition and lineage. I also know I belong in it - I care deeply about my teachers who have practiced before me and shared it with me so selflessly - and so I would never muddle with such careful and potent - priceless and special yogic secrets that have been shared with me.
I rarely ever do a full series. A mature practitioner does a little bit every day, sharpening their asana and their breath and staying focused on what they are working on. Projects, drills, actions with meaning - this is a sound and safe yoga practice. Not repeatedly doing an asana poorly for the sake of the breath or following a series. Often the breath will fail to do its job if the asana isn’t clean and vice versa. And if the asana isn’t clean then where is the mind?
Take a look at how I adapt this practice of ashtanga yoga - it is a practice to support me in my daily life - this supportive girdle holds me in its arms, instead of thrashing my nervous system and making me rest on the couch all day after completing it:
Sunday - half intermediate to Karandavasana
Monday - first half of third to Viranchasana B
Tuesday - second half of third starting at Viparita Dandasana
Wednesday - first half of fourth
Thursday - try to do full fourth
Friday - some primary - usually just to Baddha Konasana
Have you found your sensible practice? Share it with me!
Join me for two upcoming events:
-Sunday, 31 October 2-4 pm for Backbending and Handstand Workshop
-Friday 5 November: 8:30 am Online Free Conference and Discussion
