The Last Human Freedom

Freedom is an interesting word. It can mean physical freedom, such as not being in prison or enslaved. It can mean emotional freedom, as I wrote about three years ago. It can mean political freedom, which we are watching unfold around the world, but particularly in Egypt and Syria right now. And that is what we in the United States celebrate on July 4^th every year.

There are all sorts of arguments we are not free in our lives. We are expected to work and pay off debt. There is no country in the world without a government. And certainly there has been a lot of discussion about freedom when our phone logs are being watched by government agencies. But as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, governments “deriv[e] their power from the consent of the people.”

But as I have said many times before, I am not publicly political. What I think of the revolutions happening in Syria and Egypt, and what I think of Edward Snowden and the NSA, is not really important. But I think all these situations reflect perfectly what Jefferson said. We have to consent to any limitations on our freedom.

And that includes limitations on any type of freedom. Our deepest freedom, however, is one that we should never consent to limit, though many of us (including myself) often do.

Viktor Frankl, who was a holocaust survivor, said, “The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.” We get to choose how we respond to any situation. We can respond with anger and revolt. We can respond with acceptance. We can respond with fear. We can respond knowing we have joy and contentment within ourselves, and nothing external can change that. But we have to remember to consciously choose that response. Frankl further stated, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

I think it is important to look at the larger, political freedoms, not only for ourselves but for others. We live in a world where child prostitution and human trafficking occur. We live in a world where Google and Facebook are not allowed to exist in certain countries. But even if we had all of our political freedoms, how many of us consent to our own lack of personal freedoms? How many of us forget that space between stimulus and response to get to our last human freedom of attitude? 

Lawyers can be great at helping people obtain political freedoms as well as keeping people out of prison. But law does little to help us break free of our personal freedoms. Yoga, however, helps us there. It is not always easy. These are the limitations that are much harder to see. There is no whisleblower inside us to tell us when we are limiting ourselves. We have to learn to listen. And in that listening we have to ask if we are reacting or responding.

I notice when I am getting caught in my limitations when I am driving. Even after more than a decade of yoga and trying to learn to let go of my anger, when someone cuts me off on the road, I sometimes go into a fit of rage. Some days I can let it go quickly, but other times it boils inside of me even when I know it serves no purpose except to drain my energy. I know I am not alone in this. Road rage is a pretty serious issue and sometimes leads to death. Thus, driving is my teaching time as well. And I do a lot of driving.

Another common area of limiting freedom is our response to our physical bodies. We often feel defined by them rather than our higher Being. I cannot tell you how often I hear people say, “I’m too fat,” “I’m not flexible,” or “I’m in too much pain.” We let our bodies limit our souls. There is no doubt that our bodies have limitations at times. But look at the amazing examples of people who have done so much despite their limited bodies. Stephen Hawking, Roger Ebert post cancer, and all the stories you have hopefully heard of people on their death beds with a smile on their face and love in their hearts.

Our Being is bigger than our bodies and bigger than our road rage. No matter how limited we feel, we have to consent to giving up the freedom to choose our attitude. We can also choose not to consent. We can choose to feel that freedom regardless of external consequences. So, while people are celebrating a revolution over 200 years ago with barbeques, parades, and fireworks, how are you celebrating your internal freedoms?

Are you remembering to breathe deeply? Are you taking the time to ask if you are doing what you were put on this planet to do? Are you letting yourself forgive others as well as yourself? Are you finding gratitude in moments that at first are difficult? Are you choosing an attitude to serve your highest self or one that makes life more difficult? As Viktor Frankl said, this is the last of human freedoms. Nothing external has the power to effect us without our consent. It may seem difficult, or even impossible, to choose a different attitude in the face of adversity, but the choice is always there. What attitude will you choose?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, The Last Human Freedom, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Thanksgiving Year to Year

One year ago, I was at the US Ambassador’s house in New Zealand celebrating Thanksgiving in summer. And without realizing it, I actually put the same clothes on today that I was wearing then (I looked at photos). And yes, this should tell you how a summer in NZ is very similar to a winter in Arizona, but I digress. One year ago, I was grateful for the 10 months I had spent in New Zealand, from an earthquake, to new friends, to beautiful adventures, to finishing a thesis.

And that thesis looked forward to this year. The thesis was all about representing children, and that is what I currently do, though I do it in a slightly different context than addressed in the thesis. But this year has been about integrating my years digging deep into yoga and the law and emerging with some semblance of a future. And this year has been hard. It has been a struggle to finally integrate theory and practice, in law, but also on and off the yogamat.

Law school is an interesting theoretical adventure. Traditionally, law school is learning the theory of the law, and some would argue we spend too much time on that in school. We spend our time reading cases of situations gone awry, and sometimes tragically so, but cases become stories, and the people are safely behind the pages. We are protected from their stories similarly to how we are protected from the stories of the protagonists in a movie. 

But the practice of law is anything but peoples’ lives on a page. Instead, the practice of law is about peoples’ lives in your face. Crisis after crisis arises, and lawyers are expected to stay rational and calm. Human nature wants to send us into screaming fits of rage and fear, but that is not our role. Instead, we are asked to answer with calm rationality and turn the theory into practice – look at the situation from a purely legal standpoint. There are, of course, advantages to this. But it throws our systems off if we do not pay attention.

Yoga is quite the opposite. Most people in the modern world come to yoga through the practice first. In fact few of them have any idea about the theory behind it. Some want some exercise, while others want to stretch after their own exercise. But the theory creeps in. Yogis begin to act with more compassion towards others after learning to act with more compassion for themselves. Yogis learn to respond rather than react to the crises that inevitably arise in their lives.

But that flow from theory to practice and back is anything but smooth. The day after Thanksgiving last year I was not at a Black Friday Sale. Instead, I was on a boat between the north and south islands of New Zealand and who should I see but the Ambassador? I said hello to him and then sat back down. Then I started crying. I was so grateful for all that had transpired that year in New Zealand. And I knew I was coming back to the United States to a job I had, in many ways, worked my entire life to have. How amazingly lucky could one person be?

And here we are at another Thanksgiving. I have spent this month finding things for which I am grateful, from my breath to the wonderful people with whom I get to work. Being a first year lawyer is one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. But it is also one of the most enlightening and inspiring.

And while I was doing tree pose from the tops of mountains in New Zealand last year, this year, my yoga practice has struggled through a sprained ankle, hip pain, and simply too little time. But I have started attending classes again, meditating in the mornings, doing some asana, and even teaching once per week at the courthouse.

But just yesterday, the week of Thanksgiving, I saw it shine through like never before. Someone decided to yell at me about something, and in the midst of the yelling, I sent him a little compassion and thought to myself, “may you be free of suffering and the root of suffering.” That particular phrase is more Buddhist than Yogic, but it was a moment of reflection rather than reaction. And then I walked away from the conversation and did something else. The yoga crept out from where it was hiding and offered me a little solace in the moment - and hopefully the person yelling at me, though the thought was silent.

Theory and practice. Back and forth.

It is tomorrow in New Zealand, which means it is already Thanksgiving. So I am going to celebrate two this year. Today is a deep sense of gratitude for all I have learned this year, the people who have inspired me whether a “difficult” teacher or a friend with a shoulder, and the amazing opportunities to understand the ebb and flow between theory and practice in law and yoga.

Whether celebrating Thanksgiving in a country far away from the United States at the US Ambassador’s residence or in central Tucson in the midst of being a first year lawyer, the sentiment is the same. I think Lionel Hampton said it best, “Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”

Our hearts go with us wherever we are, and gratitude can arise in any moment. We can find all the quotes on the internet we want about gratitude, and learn all there is to know, but then it is about practicing that gratitude and feeling it deeply in the heart. That is the moment when theory meets practice. Can we take the sentiment of this day, this week, this month and carry it forward into our daily lives?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

There is Always the Breath

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. ~Thích Nhất Hạnh

I am truly blessed to have some amazing teachers in my life. Recently I got a really great reminder from two of my recent yoga teachers.  The first came from a teacher who I had not seen in awhile. I have not been attending her class much because of the pain in my hip. But something told me last week I had to go to her class. Although there were moments the class hurt, she came up to me at the end of class and said, “You might need to curl up in a ball and just breathe. You always have the breath.”

What a wonderful reminder.

And the reminder came again the next day from another of my amazing teachers. It was obviously a week where my hip was bothering me more than others, and she came up to me in savasana and simply said, “Breathe into the areas that do not hurt.” This breath is a beautiful way to move through our pain, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or any other kind. The breath is always there for us.

The breath is the gateway to our prana, our life force. In Chinese medicine it is called qi (pronounced chee). Breathing techniques are called pranayama because they move the breath in different ways. When we control the breath, we can control ourselves. As the quote above states, we can anchor ourselves through our breath. No matter what comes our way, we always have the breath.

I know that when we go into fight-or-flight, our breath shortens and speeds up. What I do not know is why it does that. I understand the evolutionary need to tense our muscles and be ready to attack or run for our lives, but is that not exactly when we need our breath to be most full?

Although we know we can always return to the breath, actually doing it is sometimes more difficult than we would like to admit. Our natural response is to turn away from the breath, to move strictly into survival mode. And yes, that is exactly when we need to focus on the breath the most. That is most when we need it to anchor us, not just in ourselves but in our external world as well.

But how do we ensure we can do that when we get so overwhelmed? Just like anything in life, practice, practice, practice. This is one of the major advantages of an asana (posture) practice. When the going gets tough, we always can come back to the breath. In an asana-based yoga class, hopefully there is a teacher reminding us over and over again to come back to the breath. When it is obvious pain remains, hopefully someone reaches out and reminds us the breath is there to tap into what feels good.

And we can practice pranayama, or breath control. The more attention we give to the breath, the more likely we are to remember it is there when we need it most. This post is not the time to go into all the different types of pranayama, but the Pranayama label (on the right) will grow with posts about various forms of pranayama and what they can be used to create in our lives. Each form of pranayama, however, brings our awareness to the breath and helps us remember to bring our awareness there more quickly when we need it most.

And finally, being as it is November, we can remember to always be grateful for the breath. Each morning when we awake, and each night before we sleep, take a moment and be grateful for the ability to breathe. Without trying to control the breath, or understand it, or even really notice it, just be grateful for it. Take a moment and be grateful for this foundation of life.

It is not always easy to remember to breathe in our moments of deepest frustration, stress, and anxiety, but the more we consciously become aware of the breath, learn to control the breath, and are grateful simply because it is there, the greater our ability becomes to stop and breathe in those moments we need it most.

What are your tricks for remembering to come back to the breath?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Finding Gratitude in Difficult Places

This post has been percolating in my mind for months. But this is gratitude month, and it is time to finally write it out in full. I have tried to write it numerous times, but it just sits on my computer, awaiting the words that never come. But the universe has sent enough my way that the words are ready to flow.

We all have our “difficult” teachers. They come in many forms. They are the people and experiences that test our practice. They are the people that pull us out of a reflective mentality into clenched fists and anger spouting. They are the people at work who gossip about us behind our backs, our friends who betray us, and our family who is just so close they know how to push all our buttons.

Usually our difficult teachers are people who know us best. While there is a lot to be gained while practicing deep breathing while driving and not getting mad at the people who cut us off, the real practice is sitting with the people we see all the time when they have done something we do not like. The practice is learning to engage with them. And it is also learning to see our experiences and our pain in new ways.

The question is, how do we learn to be grateful for these people and experiences and learn what we need from them?

The first iteration of an attempt at this post was a post called, “When the Body Does Not Behave.” But what I left out of that post was the underlying truth. I am, and have been for several months, in physical pain. And this is different than my hamstring injury during teacher training. This is ongoing pain. It is pain that interferes with doing yoga. It interferes with teaching yoga. It interferes with a lot of things, actually. It has become my teacher.

Living in the world takes some give and take. America just had a major election, and since Tuesday, my facebook feed has been full of people lamenting the anger and vitriol that remains post-election. Social media is an interesting experiment. Perhaps we say things there we would not say directly to a person, but we are willing to just spew whatever comes to our minds. But the people with whom we share it are ostensibly our friends. Apparently a lot of my friends have unfriended others, or been unfriended, because of their political leanings. It sounds trite to mention facebook, and I feel a bit silly for doing it, but it is a perfect example of these difficult teachers.

It is far easier to unfriend a person than face our deepest selves. But that is where the beauty lies. It is in those deepest places, when we are forced to see them, that we are able to connect the most with other people. But first we have to face the difficult teachers.

And that is not easy. That is why they are difficult. Most of the time I just get frustrated. All the yoga goes out the window, and I get annoyed, my breathing gets shallow, and the physical pain gets worse. But this month, November, I invite you to try something new along with me. I invite you to find a sense of gratitude in these experiences. They are leading us to something greater.

It is no easier to deal with an email from opposing counsel than it is to deal with intense physical pain, but both of these experiences are opportunities in our lives to stop, reflect, and practice. They are opportunities to ask ourselves what we could do differently and what we could learn from one another. It is much easier to be calm and reflective when we are away from the world. But the truth is that we live in the world, and that means we face these issues.

One caveat: I have heard a lot of people say that our greatest teachers are those who are the most difficult in our lives. Until very recently, I sort of blindly agreed with that statement. Now I see it a bit more nuanced. We need all sorts of teachers, and difficulty teachers play a significant role in how we interact with ourselves and one another, but we need supportive and loving teachers as well. That can be a post for another day, but that is why I did not start this post with comments about our greatest teachers being our most difficult. They are necessary, but so are so many others.

We may not be able to make the difficult situation disappear, but we can change our reaction to it. And what if we just said thank you? Thank you for allowing me to see where I still need to work. Thank you for bringing me closer to my humanity and compassion. Thank you for opening my eyes and heart to the full extent of the practice.

How are you grateful for difficulty in your life?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Clearing the Air

In the last post, we talked about the reasons to avoid gossip and its control on our society. While writing it, however, I kept thinking to myself, “but what about the times we need to talk about others?” I like to think of this as the “clearing the air” caveat to the problems with gossip.

Every day, I realize more and more how large the capacity is for humans to harm other humans, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. From sibling rivalries to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pain seems to be the modus operandi of the human race these days. Perhaps it is a reflection of the news we hear, but it seems to be getting more and more intense.

And as it gets more intense around the world, it gets more intense in our daily lives. Have you ever had one of those days where a family member, close friend, or even coworker did or said something that hurt you? If the answer to that question is no, count your blessings and stop reading here. And while you are at it, post in the comments about how you have managed it.

If you have felt that, what is the first thing you want to do after being hurt? Me? I want to tell someone. I want to shout from the rafters how wronged I was. And of course, I never want to accept how wrong I was. So the conversation becomes, “so-and-so is so mean, I cannot believe s/he did that to me.” But is that true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

It may feel necessary in the moment, but if we handle the conversation like that, it becomes gossip, and leads to all the negative effects associated with gossip, that eventually only hurt us more. I think there is a different way to handle the situation. A more yogic approach. A way that could potentially nip the downward spiral of email in the bud.

There are all sorts of teachings about using “I” statements. So, instead of saying, “Johnny hurt me,” we say, “I was hurt.” Instead of bringing the negative energy of gossip into the conversation, we can honestly look at a third party, explain our pain, and potentially ask for help in dealing with it. While in the moment, it may feel better to shout from the rafters what a terrible person Johnny is, at the end of the day, that solves nothing, the pain gets worse, and in addition, we have gossiped.

This step requires those attributes we learn on the mat – awareness and reflection. On the mat, we learn to be aware of our bodies and our minds. We notice when we take the body to a place of pain, and we think to ourselves, “ow, that hurts, I should stop.” If we do not take that step, we pull a hamstring (or whatever). Taking that moment also helps us find reflection. Learning to breathe, we learn to reflect and not react to life as it happens. “I” statements are similar. The reaction is the shouting and the blaming and the gossip. But we can own the hurt we feel without perpetuating the pattern of gossip and all the negativity that brings to ourselves as well as to others.

The second step of the process is a wee bit more difficult, and by a wee bit, I mean it feels impossible. The second step is owning our piece of it. As someone who works with abused and neglected children and sees a lot of domestic violence victims, I find myself saying, “it’s not your fault” a lot. And I always believe it when I say it. But outside of purely abusive situations, we often do have a part in the pain we perceive is caused purely by someone else. This is where an outside observer can be helpful.

Of course, we want someone to say, “you did nothing wrong, and Johnny is just a jerk.” (For the record, I have nothing against anyone named Johnny. I think I only know a few, and I have always had wonderful interactions with them. It’s just a name here to stop saying so-and-so.) But in order to clear the air and truly move forward, we need to get out of the gossip mode and into the healing mode. And that requires looking at our own part in the pain.

Did I say something I knew would make her angry? Did I want him to react that way to validate my belief about who he is as a person? Did I want to make her angry because I was still mad about our fight last week?

To be clear, owning our part in the process does not minimize our pain. We can still be hurt. We can still reflect and tell someone else, I feel hurt. But we can do it in a way that is true, kind, and necessary. The necessary comes when we realize that we need to get this off our chest or it will stay there forever. But we can have the conversation in a true and kind way and not simply as gossip.

Easy? Absolutely not! But when we actually take these steps, we begin to see the difference between gossip and necessary air clearing, and we also begin to see that when all is said and done, we can make a choice as to how to move forward. A choice determined by reflection and awareness and not one made in the heat of pain. And perhaps this process can even lead to forgiveness.

How do you clear the air of your pains?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Gossip Effect

Two posts ago, we talked about the issues associated with negativity at work and ways to move beyond it. But there was a glaring elephant in the post I neglected to mention – Gossip! Ok, the truth is that I wanted to give gossip its own post. I think it warrants that. 

There is little question the modern workplace is a bastion of gossip. The water cooler is more than just a metaphor for hanging out and not actually getting work done. Gossip has hit the places I work in ways that have truly opened my eyes to how we choose to communicate with each other and about each other.

While teaching English in France, I heard the teachers gossiping about the students and their families. Long before yoga became a daily practice for me (though I had already started practicing), those days in the teachers’ lounge were painful. While working at another job, I was struck by the amount of gossip that permeated the office. It was painful to hear and even more painful that I found myself getting caught up in it.

I have found it very, very difficult to escape the gossip mill anywhere in life. It is an easy way to connect with people – to talk about mutual people we know or to whine about someone who has harmed us. But gossip is harmful to us. It brings negative emotions to the front of our consciousness, and for me, it always leaves a nasty feeling in the air.

And yet we continue to gossip despite the plethora of teachings “against” it. As kids we are told, “if you cannot say something nice, do not say anything at all.” The Golden Rule teaches us to “treat other people as you would like to be treated.” These are great ways to think about gossip, but perhaps we need something more specific.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba tells us to ask three questions before we speak, “Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?” This is a general teaching about speaking, but it is especially important when talking about other people. First, so much of what we repeat is what we hear from others, and we cannot verify whether it is true. Lawyers, especially, must think about hearsay and whether a statement is reliable. We should, at the very least, consider that when speaking about other people.

The second question is, “is it necessary?” Something we say about someone may be true, but it may not be necessary to share with others. I do not need to tell everyone everything that happens between another person and myself. It probably will not solve anything, and it could just make me more upset. And finally, we should ask ourselves, “is it kind?” This gets back to the two teachings above, if we have nothing nice to say, or if we are treating someone less kindly than we would want them to treat us, we probably should say nothing.

This is not easy to do. In fact, we live in a world where gossip penetrates every aspect of our lives. We live in a world where every mis-statement made by a politician is reported for days, and often the statements are taken out of context and made to sound worse than they really were. We live in a world where People magazine and the National Enquirer are million (billion, perhaps?) dollar industries existing solely on gossip about people most of us have never met.

Gossip can only occur because we think the person about whom we are speaking is somehow different than us, and we can say something about them without affecting ourselves. Gossip happens in the moment and is rarely factually complete. By the time the story reaches a point where the facts are known, it has left our attention. It is a reaction to a moment in time that disappears when something more interesting comes along. But its effects on our consciousness remain, and like everything else in life, they get stuck in us until we let them go.

Yoga is about reflecting before reacting. We learn to ask ourselves if something hurts before we do it, and if it does, we find a better way. In that sense, yoga is the perfect opportunity to break free of gossip. Instead of reacting to the partial facts, we can stop and reflect and ask ourselves the pertinent questions – is it true, is it necessary, is it kind? We can have a yogic response to the gossip we hear as well as the gossip we may wish to speak.

If the answer to those questions is no, and we still speak it, how are we harming ourselves. How does gossip affect our beings? How does it affect the person about whom we are speaking? What if we only listen but do not partake? In all of those scenarios, negativity breeds negativity. In other words gossip only harms everyone involved.

I wish I could tell the world I have broken free of the gossip hold. I have not. But more and more I am conscious of the effect my words have on others and myself. It is a first step – a small one, but a first one. Do you notice yourself getting caught up in gossip? What do you do when you notice that happening? Are you willing to walk away? Are you willing to change the conversation? How has gossip affected you?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Starting Fresh for Forgiveness

When I was a child, I was forced to miss school twice a year when my non-Jewish friends went to school (unless, of course, the holidays fell on weekends). And yes, even in elementary school, I hated missing school. Think what you want about me, I can take it. Those two days were Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah literally means the head of the year. It’s the new year for Jews. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, the day we ask for forgiveness for all we have done "wrong" during the year.

As a child, I dutifully went to synagogue every year. Ok, usually I was dragged by my parents, but still, I went. I cared almost nothing about the holidays. Ironically, over the years I have stopped taking these days off from work, but they have begun to mean a lot more to me. I will be working all day today, and I will not be going to services, but the new year has me thinking, especially as it is tied to the day of atonement.

On December 31, everyone talks about resolutions. These are thoughts and ideas about how we are going to better ourselves going forward. It is a very personal endeavor, rarely focused on our place in the world. But the Jewish holidays being together like this are really something different. And it is my yoga practice that has connected me to this difference. The act of asking forgiveness is difficult. Instead of asking us to take a look at what we may like to change about ourselves and then heading out to a party, asking forgiveness requires us to take a look at how our being affects others around us. Some years this is easier than others.

Yoga, similarly, asks us to look at how our actions affect others. The Yamas and Niyamas, the first two limbs of the 8-limb yoga path, are rules for living. The yamas, specifically, address our interactions with others. They are: ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brachmacharya (just read the link – no succinct explanation), and Aparigraha (non-grasping). As a kid, all I heard was the need to ask for forgiveness for anything I had done to hurt another. A noble endeavor, for sure, but a little tough to grasp at times. Yoga has given me the tools to self reflect enough to examine what that truly means and to reach out with specificity to those I have hurt.

The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are, in some ways, somber. They are days of reflection, days of meditation, days to think long and hard about how our past year has gone. But first, we recognize the new year! There is something beautiful in the order. Before stepping into that somber world, we remember that no matter what we have done in the past, we can start fresh and renew. This is a new year, and the period of reflection is truly a chance to determine where we need to ask for forgiveness and a chance to move forward from that. 

It is also a chance to forgive others. The new year is a reminder that whatever they may have done to us in the past can be changed going forward. That is a refreshing thought. We need not hold on, another yoga lesson that is sometimes easier said than done. The time on the mat is a chance to reflect. It is a chance to turn inward and notice all the subtle ways we have missed the mark on where we wanted to be. 

But it is also the opportunity to let go, to see all that is new in the world. It is a chance to open our hearts to the possibilities of the year ahead remembering that we may make mistakes along the way, but also remembering that we can both forgive and ask forgiveness. We can also learn to preempt the need. We can set an intention to refrain from sending the nasty email (asking for a tone check from a friend helps). We can refrain from making disingenuous remarks about others. We can refrain from reacting through anger rather than thoughtful reflection.

What I have come to love about the Jewish New Year is that, like a yoga practice, it is both deeply personal and community oriented. The reflection is deep, but the need to engage others through forgiveness brings us together. It is somber reflection but also a chance to come together and celebrate the newness, not only of the new year, but also of the clean slate produced through forgiveness.  

I may be at work today, but these are the lessons my yoga practice has taught me about all those days I had to miss school as a kid!

And don’t forget the apples and honey! May your year be sweet and full of peace, light, and love.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

Understanding Judgment

Prior to this post, the word judgment has appeared only eight times and in only four different posts on this blog. And only one of them, here, discusses how we judge other people. I know I write the blog, but even I am shocked by the fact that judgment has not graced it more often. After all, judgment is fundamental to both yoga and the law, albeit for different reasons.

Being a lawyer means thinking a lot about judgment and not only the day in law school when I realized it is not spelled judgement. That was a profound day but I digress. Of course judges are asked to make judgments. But so are lawyers. Our clients expect us to know how the judge is going to judge, but we also have to stand up in court and explain to the judge why the “other side” is wrong, or why our client’s “side” is right. There are few ways around it; the law is adversarial.

Yoga is the exact opposite. Yoga teaches us to notice without judgment, to simply listen. It is not good or bad whether we can touch our toes or stand on our head. It is not good or bad whether we can meditate for an hour or 30 seconds. It is not good or bad if we are angry or happy. It is not good or bad if you practice Bikram or Anusara. Yoga is about learning not to judge, about learning how to be with what is and notice what is. Yoga helps us see the entire situation, not just our mind's version of the situation.

On the mat, this non-judgment is about our inner selves. We turn our inner vision compassionately on where we are today. While our ego may tell us we should be able to go deeper into a posture or we should be able to stop the thoughts in our mind, I think many people understand how to be non-judgmental about what happens on the mat. Whether it happens in practice is another story, but this is why it is called a practice. We are practicing being less judgmental with ourselves on the mat, and over time, it gets easier.

As it gets easier on the mat, off the mat, we can turn this same non-judgmental, compassionate eye on our actions and interactions with other people. This is taking the practice to an entirely new level, but we start with friends and family, those with whom we can practice, and if we make a mistake, hopefully will forgive us. When someone treats us in ways that cause us harm, we can look at them non-judgmentally and compassionately and know that even if their actions cause us harm, the intent to cause harm may not have been there. A bad day can make even our best friends treat us in ways we would not like, and I know I have certainly treated people in ways I would rather not on my most difficult days.  

There is no question this is a difficult practice. It is very easy to get pulled into the downward spiral of the pain and to lash out in response. It is easy to judge the other person, and ourselves, for actions that cause pain. But as the on-the-mat lessons begin to permeate our daily lives, we can begin to notice that judgment in the moment. We can learn to recognize them and step out of them and see them for what they are - a bad day, or a miscommunication. This understanding provides the foundation for the compassion people need from us.

In short, yoga has helped me differentiate an action from a person’s core being. And as the practice has deepened, it expands beyond ourselves and our friends and family to strangers and even "adversaries."

There is nothing about lawyering that requires us to decide a person is bad. Nothing. But the adversarial nature of a courtroom makes it difficult to hold the entire story. While there are some amazing problem-solving courts in this country where the focus is not on punishment but on rehabilitation, the vast majority of our courts remain adversarial. In the criminal context, this means that people who commit crimes because of untreated mental health issues end up in prison.

Those mental health issues become important, and the defense attorney’s job is to bring them out, but the action is punished by jail or prison time. We ask twelve people who have never met the defendant to determine whether he or she is guilty based upon very simple elements of a crime. We ask them to judge.  We leave little room for the entire story.

I want to be clear that I do not think it is okay to kill people, rob people, etc. But as I said here, judging the person is difficult. Yoga has taught me that. And the law continues to require there to be judgment. On one level, I know this is necessary. Child abusers, while they may have been abused themselves as children, should not be around children until they can prove they will never again touch a child. But I have yet to figure out how to reconcile this with the non-judgment practice on the mat. Perhaps this is why this issue has graced the pages of this blog so infrequently. I have come to no conclusions.

I have learned so many lessons from law and yoga in my life. I have learned so much about how similar they are and how much they can enrich each other. But here I see a fundamental difference, and probably a necessary one. So I turn to you. I want to hear what you think. What do you do? What about you? Do you see a difference? How do you understand judgment in your life?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Being a Yoga Lawyer

"I am a lawyer." Those words used to be hard for me to say. They are especially hard around yogis and those who tend to shun mainstream definitions of success. For a long time, I would answer the question, "what do you do?" with "I work for a judge," but that is no longer true. I am now, officially, a lawyer.

The other day, in a yoga class, someone asked me that question, and I said it, "I am a lawyer." Her response was simple, "I don't like lawyers." She then went on to clarify that I am not THAT kind of lawyer, but I got her point. It has been made to me many times.

Lawyers are simply unloved to many people.

This is unfortunate on many levels. First, I do not believe that because I represent children I do good law and those who represent corporations do bad law. We all do law, and there is a place and need for all of it in the world. I worked at a commercial law firm one summer. I learned two very important lessons: the people working there were great people doing their best for their clients, and that was not my path in life. It just did not speak to me, but I enjoyed my summer there nonetheless. I enjoyed seeing how corporate law works, and it fundamentally changed my view on the world in which we live.

Second, it is difficult to be in a profession so despised by so many. There is a reason lawyers have the highest incidence of substance abuse of any profession. The work is stressful, but even more stressful is constantly defending what you do to other people. It gets tiring to keep repeating, “not all lawyers are like that,” or “I’m sorry you had a bad experience with a lawyer. That should never happen.” I find myself ignoring people who say that, or worse, becoming defensive. And that brings me to the third point.

Third, the assumption by so many people that all lawyers are awful actually undermines the profession’s ability to deal with those who truly are problematic. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is actually basic human nature. When we feel attacked, our first response is not to say, “you’re right, there is a problem.” Instead, we turn on all defenses. We enter into the emotional fight-or-flight response, which similar to the physiological fight-or-flight response, shuts down all “non-essential” processes in us, and in this case, that means rationally recognizing there are problematic people in the legal profession. Instead, we go into defense mode and just want to find a way to survive.

This is not to say that is the response of all lawyers. By contrast, most lawyers would probably tell you there are some people in the profession who do not play by the rules, or who manipulate the rules to always work in their favor. The truth is that most lawyers are good people and good lawyers, and they exist in all types of the law. But with each rational conversation about how there are honest and less-than-honest members of all professions, it becomes more difficult to have the long conversation knowing it is probably just going to end with the person saying, “yeah, but I still don’t like lawyers.” It just becomes easier to say nothing or get defensive about the work. And as the criticism comes from all sides, it becomes more difficult to filter the true criticism from the hyperbole.

This week, for the first time, I signed a document under my own bar number. I have done a lot of law before this week, but I have always been able to get around the phrase, “I’m a lawyer.” Not anymore. I want to be able to be proud of what I do. I want to be able to tell people I am a lawyer without the look in their eye, or the response, “it’s good to know there are a few lawyers doing good work.” And yes, I want the lawyers manipulating the system to stop. But those are actually separate things.

I started this blog because in the yoga world I was embarrassed to be a lawyer, and in the lawyer world, I was embarrassed to be a yogi. Two and a half years ago (has it really been that long?), I thought it would be easier to be a lawyer in the yoga world. Funnily enough, this blog and other connections, have introduced me to the vast, and I do mean vast, world of lawyers who not only have an asana practice but who practice yoga on many levels. The yogis, however, have been harder to convince. And it does not stop with the yogis. It has been the discussion with so many people.

But with all that having been said, I am glad I chose this work. If nothing else, I finally understand how our political structure became so polarized - on both sides. It is unfortunate because we all have a lot we can learn from one another.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

In Our Element

As I have mentioned many times here before, yoga has helped me tune in with the natural world a bit better. Perhaps it is because I simply pay more attention, but I actually think I understand and feel the natural world more. I also crave it more. If for no other reason, that is one of the best parts of being in New Zealand. The natural world abounds here like nowhere else I have ever been.

Of course, that can have consequences, as I mentioned in thepost describing where I was attacked by a sea lion. But more often, I find I learn something about the world, and about myself without having to fear for my life . . . too much. The other day, I was kayaking in yet another of the beautiful cities in New Zealand, Kaikoura. In Kaikoura, snow-capped mountains meet native bush meet Pacific Ocean.

This was my first time kayaking, and as I mentioned before, swimming is not something I do well, so I guess I was putting myself slightly into harm’s way, but once nice thing about traveling alone is that when you do crazy things like kayaking, you often end up being paired with the guide, as I was. (As a digression, he did almost capsize the boat a few times while looking for paua [abalone] for his dinner that night and when he stood up in the boat to look at a crayfish cage, but we did not capsize, and I got back to shore without getting wet.)

We were hoping to see the orcas that had graced the coastline earlier in the day, but they were nowhere to be seen, even when the seals got in the water. Oh well. But it was from the seals that I learned my lesson. Seals are incredibly playful and with romp and swim with humans while in the water. On land, however, they are aggressive and dangerous and according to several signs around town, they will inflict “infectious bites.”

So what’s the difference?

On land, the seals feel vulnerable. They do not move as quickly as they do in water, and in the very recent past, they were hunted to near extinction while lounging and sunning away on the rocks. In water, however, they are quick, secure, and in their element. It is almost as though they have multiple personality disorder when it comes to interacting with humans, but really, it is about feeling safe.

A seal playing in the water near our kayak (next to some massive kelp)

Humans, and indeed lawyers especially, are no different. When we feel threatened, we become aggressive, inconsiderate, and sometimes vicious. While we will not (hopefully) inflict gangrene on anyone through a nasty bite, our interactions are infectious, and combined with misunderstanding and confusion, lead to the downward spiral of our relationships (and our emailexchanges).

But when we are in our element, when we feel secure and understand ourselves well enough, we can handle the exact same situation with more ease and control. We know that humans are the same whether they are in the water or on land, but to seals, the two experiences are entirely different. Filing a motion, replying to an email, and having a conversation with your boss are all the same situations whether we feel secure or do not, but our responses to them very significantly depending on how secure we feel.

In many ways, yoga and all I have learned from it have helped me find that sense of security more often. I certainly do not feel it always (and I know of no one that does), but the ability to respond rather thanreact becomes easier over time. In that way, yoga has helped me find my element and become more playful rather than aggressive. Apparently, however, I still bring out the aggression in others when they are not in their element (though sea lions are different than seals).

Do you notice a difference in your responses when you are in your element vs. when you are not? What do you do to bring yourself into your element and safety?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

Finding Community Across the Pacific

This has been an intense week. A week ago, I was in themiddle of nowhere, without internet, without a phone, even without showers (though strangely the huts had electricity during certain hours of the day). This week, I have been in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city at around 1.3 million people. The contrast was stark and not altogether easy for me to handle. To be totally honest, the thought of going back to the huge United States is a little overwhelming right now, but I am excited to be heading “home” soon. Just 2.5 more weeks in New Zealand. I cannot believe it.

I could not have asked for the New Zealand Family Law Society to have its conference. I was lucky to be able to attend, and it was incredible. I hold a special place in my heart for conferences, and it was at afamily law conference in Denver where I first taught yoga outside of teacher training. Conferences are about learning, but more importantly, they are about networking. Actually, I do not particularly like that word. Conferences are about coming together. They are about community.

And conferences on the other side of the world are about realizing (or perhaps realising) how similar we all are. In some ways, especially in a major stretch of metaphors, conferences embody everything I think yoga has to teach us as professionals. On the surface, conferences seem almost the antithesis of good yoga. They are intense, people rarely sleep, and at least at the conferences I have attended, people eat and drink far more than they should. I am, of course, the exception . . . or not.

But deeper down, conferences allow people to step outside their daily lives and take some time to reflect rather than live in a world of constant reaction. For a few days, the “other” lawyers become your friends again. Debates that sometimes devolve into zero-sum arguments in practice become opportunities to ask questions of each other, engage together, and discuss all the possible issues. No final decision has to be made. Everyone gets to be confused together. Hopefully, we can also be inspired and reinvigorated together as well. And this happens because we get away from the downward spiral of email and see each other’s faces, and talk, laugh, and debate together. We get to step away from daily life, and in doing so, we can put daily life into perspective.

But the best part is about building new community and reminding ourselves of the community in which we already exist. In that vein, I saw some friendly faces, both people I first met here in New Zealand, and people I have met in the US from both New Zealand and Australia. I also met many new people. Yoga is not just about asana and meditating and learning stress management techniques. It helps us step outside our lives long enough to realize how much we all have in common, how connected we really are. Conferences give us the same opportunity. This week, I am grateful for having had that amazing opportunity on the other side of the world. What an incredible beginning of the end of my time here. Now I just might need some more “traditional” yoga to recover from the conference.

What do you do to step outside your daily routine and find community?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

When the going gets really tough . . . we still have a choice

In the last post, I talked about how the snow here in Dunedin helped me see how important it is to prepare and how much our response to events influences our understanding of those events. As I mentioned, the post was not only inspired by the snow but also by a film I saw. At first I wanted to put them in one post, but there is no way to compare a snowy day to what the film portrayed. I have been thinking about the film all week, and I finally have the words to put down about its impact on me and what I think it has to teach us about yoga in everyday life.

The film is called "Brother Number One," and it is a documentary about a New Zealander who accidentally drifted into the waters of Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge regime. He was taken as a prisoner, tortured, forced to confess, and eventually killed. It was gut wrenching, and I was openly weeping, as were many others, even though there was not one scene of violence, and only a few grotesque pictures during the entire movie. I’m really hoping the film makes it to the United States and around the world. I highly recommend you see it. Here is a link to the film's website, and here is a link to their facebook page.

The last post was about snow and a yoga reminder that we can face just about any challenge life throws our way if we prepare for it and confront it with joy and wonder rather than fear and anguish. I thought about that as I walked out of the film into the snow. I had decided not to drive into town that day, but that meant taking a bus home, and the buses going up the hills were cancelled. I was irritated that I would have to walk up the hill, in snow. Then I caught myself. I just watched a film about torture, and I was concerned about walking up a hill? This is no small hill, but it still seemed petty after the film. It was not until the next day that I had my fun in the snow walking back down that hill.

So, when life throws us snow, or other minor issues, it is easy to say “be prepared,” and confront those situations with openness. But what about real torture? What about those situations that go to the core of our being set on destroying us? Remarkably, even in those situations, we have a choice. We can still choose how to respond.

Perhaps the most moving part of the film was when we got to see the “confession” of the tortured Kiwi. The Khmer Rouge required him to confess that he was a member of the CIA and/or KGB (honestly as I think about it, I cannot remember which one because the confessions were always about one or the other or both). In this “confession,” he wrote about learning spy techniques from Colonel Sanders and about his commander S. Tarr (his mother’s name was Esther). This man, while being physically and emotionally tortured, found a way to make a few jokes and pay tribute to those he loved. The Khmer Rouge were oblivious to his humor, yet I find myself thinking that he relished in it. He could play his own game, get outside of the horrific situation and embrace his inner self. It is impossible not to compare these actions to those of Viktor Frankl during the Holocaust.

And speaking of the Holocaust, that is my own family’s history. I have one remaining great, great aunt who was in Auschwitz, and many members of her generation died at the hands of the Nazis. I have visited Auschwitz. But to tell you the truth, I had almost no emotional reaction there. Instead, I cried while walking through Anne Frank’s house. The enormity of a situation is hard to conceive, but one person, one story, touches us in different ways.

These individual stories, from humoristic confessions to a grown man finding his peace amidst the horrors of concentration camps, to a young girl grappling with looking for the good in all people while hiding from the darkest side of humanity, remind us that even in these situations, our response remains within our control. The documentary reminded me that we all have capacities beyond that which we consciously know.

These stories, while painful and inspiring all at the same time, are not to show us that these responses are easy. But they are possible. Personally, I would rather come to know these capacities through yoga and Antarctic winds than torture or even disease. When we take the time to do yoga, to meditate, to be conscious of our responses to the little things in life, we train ourselves to be conscious of our responses to the harder parts of life. Learning to respond is like a muscle that can get stronger with use. Each time we stop and respond rather than react, we remind our conscious and unconscious selves that it is possible.

I am grateful to this film for this reminder. I hope the story can spread. And I hope we can all use it as a kickstart to begin being more mindful of our reactions and responses to that which annoys us, or worse, in our everyday lives.

Do you try to respond consciously to situations in life?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Being Careful with Words

I love words. I am really only starting to understand this phenomenon in my life, but I love them. Perhaps it stems from reading and writing about philosophy in my 6^th grade research project. Perhaps it stems from learning French and majoring in Comparative Literature and French and living in France two different times. Perhaps it stems from living in a house with 6 people, 3 of whom were either linguists or closely related and another one whose vocabulary rivals the Oxford English Dictionary. Perhaps it is even why I went to law school and probably why I blog. Yes, words are important in my life.

The more I realize how important words are, the more I realize how careful we must be with them. While the exact percentage changes every time I see it, there is no question that the vast majority of our communication remains non-verbal. So as wonderful as words are, they are never the entire story. Thus, words on a page can be misinterpreted. They can be read with a tone not intended by the writer. This is part of the phenomenon that leads to the Downward Spiral of Email.

But there is another problem with words. We assume that they have one meaning, when in reality they can have different meanings in different languages, but sometimes in the same language but across countries. When living in France, I expected this would be a problem. We spent some time learning about les faux amies – “false friends” – words that look the same between the languages but have very different meanings.

My favorite example is the English word preservatives. While in English, this is something that is put into our “food,” in French, the word “preservatif” is the word for condom. This creates a slight problem for American students who head to France and inform their French host families and friends that they love France because there are no “preservatifs” in the food. You can imagine the look of surprise. Luckily, we were forewarned, so I did not make that mistake – came close at least once though.

I knew there were differences between English around the globe as well. When teaching in France, a French student once asked an English woman and me if we spoke the same language, and we just laughed. Examples? I learned not to tell her that I was pissed when I was around children, but to say pissed off (not at the children, do not worry, but at a situation in which I found myself where children were also present). I also learned that pants means something different, and I should use the word trousers when stating that they can be worn more than once. And to stay on the French topic, the one word I would not teach the French children was rubber, the Commonwealth word for what those in the United States would call an eraser. Are you noticing a theme to these words?

But I thought I knew them all when I came here to New Zealand. I thought I would be able to communicate effectively. Before arriving in the country, however, a friend who had spent substantial time in Australia warned me that you do not root for teams on this side of the Pacific – rooting has a very different meaning.

What does this look at words have to do with law? With yoga? I hope it is a reminder that we cannot just assume that people understand us. We cannot assume that what we think others are communicating is really what they mean. Yes, it is much quicker and easier to assume that our interpretation is correct and that others will somehow magically understand us, but that is not how the world works.  Unfortunately, the modern world requires us to move faster and faster, taking less time to ask questions, less time to clarify, and less time to actually have the face-to-face interactions that help minimize (though not eradicate) miscommunications.

Yoga off the mat means reflecting on these issues. While there are sometimes humorous interactions, believe me, there are also disastrous ones. Miscommunications become misunderstandings, which become downward spirals, which become intense dislike. But a few moments of awareness and clarification can help alleviate this problem. A few moments of yoga off the mat can ensure that we are communicating as well as we can and not gaining the essence of words rather than a knee-jerk reaction and assumption to what is happening around us.

Where have you most noticed miscommunication in your life? How have you tried to alleviate it?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Tension, Tension, Tension and Release

This blog began as a result of an epiphany I had during savasana – lawyers need this. By this, I meant the feeling of calm and centeredness that I was experiencing at that moment. Sure, that feeling often dissipates the moment the mat is rolled up, but that is the point of this blog – to see if there are ways we can learn to find that sense of calm in everyday life.

Although I knew it at the time, I have since come to realize how much of the lawyer experience is just the experience of the 21^st century . . . to an extreme. There is no better example than tension and stress. Today, the word lawyer is almost synonymous with stress. I have conversations with people, see facebook posts, read comments on other blogs, all that say, “next week/month, things will calm down, and I will be able to relax.” We all know this is not what happens. Instead, new tasks come to our desk, and new problems arrive in our lives.

The tension mounts. We keep hoping and expecting to have a release, a day of calm, a vacation, and we allow the tension to permeate our lives until the moment we can finally let go.

The world saw this in action on Sunday night. For nearly ten years, the tension of a nation built. It was underlying everything, and for most of us we did not feel it explicitly, but it defined our actions. It also turned us against each other. People were “hard” or “soft” on their views, “with us or against us.” It sounded like lawyer speak, the adversarial model on a grand scheme. And the tension just mounted and mounted.

And then the "release" – Osama Bin Laden had been killed. In a moment, the entire country exhaled. Some would say the world did as well, but my experience of New Zealand is that it was important but not as important as for Americans. The tension that had defined the United States did not permeate the entire world (though it certainly existed outside US borders). I saw a poster that said, "9 years, 232 days since 9-11, where is Osama bin Laden," but the bin was covered by dead. There was no doubt that he defined a significant part of the narrative for the past decade to Americans.

And with that release of tension, we saw jubilation in the streets. Upon reflection, people realized that those dancing in the streets were mostly college students – the only people awake enough on a Sunday night to be partying, and the people most excited about a party, for any reason really. That night, and certainly the next day, people began to question whether such jubilation was a proper response. People were so quick to retract the jubilation that Martin Luther King, Jr. was attributed a new quote. But that dancing showed us what happens when we hold onto our tension, when we let it define us, when we ignore it hoping upon hope that a moment will come when “things will get better.” We act in ways we might not act if we had the time to reflect rather than react.

The problem is that the moment of exhale and release passes, and we go back to where we were. Another tension comes into our lives. Within minutes, before President Obama’s announcement in fact, people were already asking whether this would mean an increase in terrorism in the short term. Even when we go on vacation, we dread the extra work we will have when we return because we have not addressed it while “relaxing.” When we live to release tension at some future venture, it never really leaves us. 

This constant tension and waiting to exhale leads us to do things we would rather not do. For lawyers, it leads to the downward spiral of email, but it can lead to fights with our families and friends, missed opportunities of happiness, and a sense that we hate our jobs and even our lives.

Lawyers are great at that. This year has seen a few BigLaw partners committing suicide, and we know that lawyers lead professions in substance abuse. So what do we do about it?

Tension is always going to exist. The work is going to keep coming, and the world is going to keep throwing us lemons (or terrorists). If we hold out for a time when we expect that tension to release, we are going to act crazy along the way and probably the moment the bubble bursts. We need to find tools in our daily lives to release that tension. Breathing and savasana are two great tools, but there are others.

The first step, however, is to recognize when you are putting all your tension-releasing eggs in one vacation basket and ask yourself if there is a way to release your tension before then. 

What do you do when you find the tension mounting? Do you expect it to get better next week? Do you take a break? Do you take a breath? Do you ignore it?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved