Bohemian Wrapsody: Yoga with Chelsea at 808 Wellness: Kihei, Maui, HI: November 7, 2018

The path of yoga isn’t always easy. Self study requires discipline and a desire to keep walking no matter what you see or how difficult the climb. Waihe’e Ridge Trail hike the day after my Not A Heart Attack.

The yoga sutras don’t say a lot about where to place your hands or your feet, your hips or your shoulders, but they do have a lot to say about where you place your heart. The yamas and niyamas, sutra 1.33 and other wise suggestions help keep our hearts clear. The heart center, the anahata, translates as ‘not broken’, and advises that we don’t need to make our hearts better or bigger, but rather we could use a good cleaning. Like classical asana, some alignments are easier than others.

I've worked myself into a frenzy at the mere mention of selling our house here in Hawaii. I’m looking for all the help from the sutras I can get to help calm my troubled heart. Of course its a bigger issue than just selling a house, its selling a lifestyle, its selling my dream. Hawaii is beauty and beaches, but even more than that she's a land of lessons, and like any great beauty, there are complexities. These islands are formed by volcanic activity over a hot spot in the Earth's mantle. Deep down, where you can't see, she's fiery and unstable. Occasionally she erupts, and gets cracked open, her insides spilling out, simultaneously destroying old paths and creating new ones. The islands grow and her landscape is forever changed. This magnificent transformation happens from the depths, and in the most remote location in the world.

This is my third go around with living in Hawaii, in this lifetime at least, and I'm sure we've been at this, me and Hawaii, way longer. I never just accidentally arrive here, its a calling, she's an invitation, and like these hauntingly enchanting islands themselves, my experience here has always been fierce and complex. Always alongside me is a low grade battle of belonging and self worth, an ancient yearning for connection in an ever changing world. These mental musings show up here more than any other place, or maybe they are always lurking, and I’m willing to be more vulnerable here. When I fall apart here in Maui, I'm caught, always, in the gentle loving rock of her ocean waves and the majesty of her breathtaking sunsets. Almost every evening I watch the day turn to night, as reassurance mainly, that even as the sky turns dark its never without light. The stars and the moonbeams walk home with me every night. Hawaii is my spiritual home and I love her like no other place on Earth.

Caught in the loving arms of Maui’s magnificence. Mahalo. Keawakapu Beach.

Life in Hawaii, not as a tourist, but as a yogini is extra interesting. I guess that’s what you call it when you end up in the Urgent Care because your heart explodes in yoga class. I got cracked wide open, mid air as I was rising into Warrior I. It hit with such burning pain and intensity it brought me to my knees. Heartache does that. It’s the worst brand of sting. especially when it sneaks up on you and takes you by surprise.

What I was attempting to practice is what the yogis call karuna. Usually translated as compassion and linked to forgiveness, its one of Buddhism’s four immeasurables and one of Patanjali’s first suggestions on how we might connect to our own selves and others (PYS 1.33). Neither compassion or forgiveness are my strongsuit, especially when it comes to David. Bless his soul. I’m furious with him for even suggesting we sell Maui. How can he possibly not see her value both literally and spiritually? How dare he not see how much I love it here. How can he not see me? These questions boil underneath our relationship, not yet out in the open because I’m so angry. We’ve had several heated discussions and I can’t get him to understand what I’m talking about. I can’t get him to understand me, to see me. My heart is aching and crushed. I’m bound so small and wrapped so tightly around the hurt I ended up in urgent care, wired for EKG. I literally thought my heart was dying. Even resting in savasana felt like an alien would pop out of my chest any moment.

And perhaps that’s exactly what happened. My EKG report indicated my heart is strong, my blood test confirmed I’m well hydrated and clean. This was a volcanic eruption of my own heart cleansing a path of destructive thinking about relationship and roles, about self worth and belonging, about forgiveness and freedom.

After the initial hit to my heart and finding myself knocked to the ground, rock bottom, in that way you know when you’re at your limit, that I cannot go on this way. I cannot be a victim to the ties of marriage in the traditional way. Who says the man is always the bread winner? Who says the man makes all the choices? Who says whether Hawaii is a good investment or one who’s time is up? I was already on my knees so asking for some help was right there. I asked for clarity and strength, for guidance to ease my pain, something, please anything to stop my heart from breaking apart in a million pieces. I asked for compassion for me and for David. I included our dogs Lucy and Star, our sweet little bungalow, and entire island of Maui in the prayer, just for good measure. The Dalai Lama says, “if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”.

Karuna was hard I have to say. I’m holding on to this anger and I’m mad at David and I’m mad at men. But I’m mainly mad at myself. The practice of compassion helped me let go a smidge, enough where I can see I have a choice in this matter. I could be silent and invisible like my old patterns of relationship, or I could forgive myself simply because my bank account is lower than his. I’m the one who left my career to tour with David. It was one of the best choices I’ve ever made. But like the shifting tectonic plates deep below these islands, I can, and must shift my own heartstrings. If I don’t value my own art and own nourishment, how can I expect David to take me seriously when I carry on about my big yoga book dreams and don’t follow through with the same intensity as I tour? I mean, I can do both. I juggle a thousand jobs out on tour, why not slide one in for myself?

I’m stuck and confused about what it means to be a wife. What is the duty of relationship and what is the obligation to nourishing my deepest self? I might not have had a heart attack in the classic sense, but these questions attacked my heart with a ferocious smack it knocked me off my best warrior stance. Who am I fighting more, David or myself? The sheer seeing of my own weakness, my self-induced powerlessness, co-dependent bindings, old fashioned feminine leanings sent me into panic. Oh my God I’m a mess. Who would ever buy a yoga book from me? Who would ever listen to me tell them how to put the sole of their foot on the floor or their soul in alignment with their heart?

Hogwash I say. The greatest warriors I know, who happen to be women by the way, don’t present themselves as perfect and pretend they have it all together. Their strength and wisdom comes from broken hearts and hard won battles with anxiety, depression, relationship, money, sex, and you name it. Maybe I’m starting to be more real, more believable precisely because I struggle. Its what I’m interested to explore in yoga and its spilling out in this blog and in my book. Its where my lava is flowing after my heart breaking open.

I found forgiveness and compassion for myself. It felt awkward and scary and it made my heart beat with even more intensity. I wobbled up and finished the practice. I laid in savasana in pain and fear, gasping for air because I thought it could be my last.

Part of me had to die, to quit breathing the toxic fumes of low self esteem and self worth. Of anger and worry and fear. From time to time it rears its head, sending me into panic, and I struggle. And then I break free to make it to the other side, a little bit stronger. Today I did. Which is a good thing because I wrote that check to Urgent Care for $600 just to have them tell me I was fine, and I didn’t even feel bad about it.

Well, maybe a little bit. But I’m working on it.

Health, Love, and Rock N Roll