In the common vernacular, “to have a backbone” means to have fortitude or strength of character. While I am not a fan of sayings and phrases that use the spine (or rather allusion to a lack of it) to diminish or shame people, I think the common usage reveals a cultural recognition of the centrality of the spine to our well-being and our character and its importance to us living in fullness.

From the perspective of yoga and yoga therapeutics, we can address many injuries and chronic pain by first ensuring the health of the spine. So what are some steps we can take?

#2 Take the Top of Your Thighs Back. In the same way that many people turn their feet out, many people stand with the tops of their thighs popped forward. This flattens the low back. So after you’ve set your foundation, take your hands to the tops of your thighs, just below your hip flexors and press the tops of your thighs back. Whenever you are standing in line at the grocery store or having a conversation, bring this to mind and just move the tops of your thigh bones back. What you’re doing is moving the head of your femur bone (your thigh bone) into your hip socket, where it is more aligned and much happier.

#3 Create a Curve in Your Low Back. The lumber spine, or low back, is the most commonly injured area in our backs because it is the most mobile. It is supposed to have a lordotic curve, meaning that the curve is concave in relation to the back-body. The curve is generally more pronounced in women than in men, but it is important for people of both genders to create the curve. We create the lordotic curve in the low back with “shins in/thighs out,” an alignment instruction used frequently in classes influenced by Anusara. To create shins in/thighs out, set your foundation (see #1 above) and then bend your knees deeply and place your hands on the outside of your shins. Lift your toes to fire the muscles on the outsides of your calves (for anatomy geeks, these are your peroneus muscles). Use your hands to hug your shins into the midline. Keep that, and widen your inner thighs back and wide apart so much that your knees will track right over your ankles. Keep both the hugging in of your shins and the widening of your thighs and bring your hands to your hips and maintaining both actions equally, slowly straighten your legs. To strengthen these muscles (which you might discover that up until now you haven’t been using that much), do this exercise 5-10x each day. Slowly come up to standing. You should now have a big curve in your low back. It’s actually too much curve, so now you want to tone your buttocks and lengthen your tailbone. Voila, you have a healthy curve in your low back.

#4. Create a Curve in Your Mid-Back. The curve in our thoracic spine, or mid-back, is supposed to be convex in relationship to our back-body. The action in this part of the back is more subtle. To create a healthy curve here, we want to do what is called “inner body bright.” To do this begin by closing your eyes and bringing to mind someone that you love. And then let this feeling of love fill you from your low belly right on up to the tops of your shoulders. With your breath expand your ribs and lengthen from your hips up to your armpits, getting really full. Let your outer body expand into and onto this feeling of love and fullness. It’s generally easier to feel this fullness and brightness in the front of our bodies than in our backs, so make sure you expand equally on all sides, getting as full in your back body as in your front body.

#5. Create a Curve in Your Neck. The curve in your neck, or cervical spine, should be concave in relationship to the back-body and all of the vertebrae should be moving in. To create this curve in the spine, we want to create what Anusara calls “shoulder loop” and then “skull loop.” To create shoulder loop, keep the fullness and length you created in step #3, then take one hand to the back of your skull and bring your elbow forward. Draw your armpit back to bring your shoulder blade onto your back. Press the back of your skull into your hand and lift your heart — this action creates shoulder loop. Keep that, and isometrically draw your hand upward to lengthen your neck and slightly tip your chin back down toward your neck — this creates skull loop. Now place your hand on top of your head and lengthen up into it, or as Noah Maze says, “stretch up through the top of your head, like there’s a party going on up there!”

#6. Wear Sensible Shoes. This is primarily for the ladies, but sensible footwear is important for everyone. I love my heeled shoes and boots and the way they look. But they’re really not great for our backs. Wearing heels pushes our thighs forward (and often hyper-extends our knees), often creating pain in the low back. Look for shoes that are both comfortable and stylish.

#7. Drink Plenty of Water! I know, this one is surprising, right? There are so many reasons to stay hydrated, but one of them is to keep your back healthy. Your spinal discs, whose main job is to absorb and disperse shock waves from regular impact, lose fluid throughout the day. They reabsorb fluid as you rest. Staying well-hydrated ensures that there is plenty of fluid available for them to take in.

As I offer these tips to you, I want to express my deep gratitude for all of my teachers, but most especially to my Anatomy/Therapy teacher Martin Kirk for teaching me about the wonders and actions of the spine and also for teaching me that physical health and alignment cannot be separated from the healing of our spirits.

“‘To heal’ and ‘to become whole’,” Martin began on the third morning of the training, “have the same etymological roots. Healing is about realizing and claiming our wholeness.” This principle, which was central to the training, is rooted deeply in the teachings of the Shiva-Shakti Tantric philosophy that underlies Anusara Yoga. This wasn’t the first time I had heard Martin speak these words or heard this philosophy, yet when he said this on Friday morning, it reached into new parts of my bones and being. As I let myself absorb the subtle layers of the principle of wholeness, it felt both simple and completely revolutionary at the same time. We live in a culture that continually tells us that we are ‘broken’ and that our value is tied to looking a very particular way — from billboards for plastic surgery that encourage us to change the shape of our faces and bodies to commercials for beauty products to Neosporin ads that tell us to “prevent the formation of unsightly scars.” So many of us take these messages on and allow them to become a part of the lens through which we view ourselves, striving for a completely unattainable and false ideal.

So the idea that we are already whole can seem completely radical. This morning, on the fifth and last day of the training, we talked about how it is a natural process of life for us to forget. We forget our worth, we forget our wholeness, we forget the flow of grace within. Pain and injury are often a part of this process of forgetting. We forget to align, and we end up injured, tight, bound, or in chronic pain. But, fortunately, we have yoga to give us a practice of conscious remembering.

When I show my yoga students how to realign their bodies, helping them to find optimal physical freedom, it is always to help them remember their own wholeness, to help them find healing and to remember all of the goodness that is already inside of them. I realize, however, that alignment instructions can sometimes feel like the teacher is trying to ‘fix’ something about you — have you ever felt that way? I know I have. Martin’s teachings this week gave me the ability to more clearly articulate that my teaching is always in service of the innate worthiness of my students, and that I am always seeing them (you!) as fully healed. My alignment instructions are helping them to realize the healing and wholeness that they may have forgotten. “It is your job,” Martin told us, “to see your students’ wholeness even when they can’t yet see it.” It is your job, he said, to help your students discover their own wholeness by helping them align their bodies in a way that allows them to experience optimal freedom and to live pain-free. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Sitting here in the airport writing this, I’m raising my hand. I definitely want that job. And feel really lucky that I have it.

To sign up for a private therapy session, contact me here.

11 women who have inspired me, not in rank order, and certainly not an exhaustive list. . .

1. Clarissa Pinkola-Estés, Ph.D.. Author of Women Who Run With the Wolves. My father gave me this book when I was a freshman in college. I drank in her inspiring words, felt the wild woman stirring deeply inside of me, and was inspired to begin a journey deeply into my intuition. Last fall, I got to meet her at a book signing during the National Women’s Studies Conference. I hugged her and burst into tears.

2. Paula Hodges. Assistant Principal of Punahou School Academy. My first job after college was an English teacher at Punahou School, Honolulu, HI. At that time, Paula was the coordinator of the Mentoring Program that I was a part of in my first year. By the time I left, four years later, she had become the assistant principal. She is clear, intelligent, kind, empowered, strong. She was a true model for me of the kind of leader I want(ed) to become.

3. Amy Ippoliti. Amy is a senior Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher. I have taken a Level 2 Advanced Teacher Training with her (co-taught with Ross Rayburn), as well as an online training, and she constantly inspires me to be my best, to step up another level. At the same time, she helps me to see that I am already worthy just as I am. Amy is fun, energetic, incredibly skilled and intelligent, and just basically bad-ass. She was also the January Yoga Journal cover model. I look forward to continuing to learn from her!

4. Jean Kilbourne. Creator, Killing Us Softly 4. I first watched Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women when I was a high school teacher. The film, which breaks down how advertising objectifies and commercializes womens’ bodies, opened my eyes. I taught the film to teenagers for three years and then had the opportunity to write the study guide for the film. I currently work for the nonprofit organization that produces and distributes Jean’s films, and I am honored to know call her a friend. Her leadership in making media education a serious field of study, her passion about the health and young being of girls, her clarity, her humor, and her confidence are continually inspiring to me.

5. Sara Rose. Director of Yoga Sanctuary. Sara is one of my yoga teachers and the director of the yoga studio where I teach. Sara is a woman of incredible integrity, vast generosity, clear vision, and a huge heart. She is an incredibly talented yoga teacher, a wonderful mother of two (she just had a new baby in February), and I have been honored to learn how to teach under her careful instruction. She is also humble, beautiful, and always committed to the highest for herself, for others, for the studio, and for her world. She was my first guide on my path of Anusara Yoga, and her teachings have brought so much light, love, and expansion into my life.

6. Michelle Obama. I think Michelle Obama rocks. I want to meet her and have tea with her. I admire her toughness, kindness, humor, intelligence, clarity, and professionalism. She exudes confidence, and I think she has a high vision for what she wants for our country and for our children, especially in regards to education and health. I am so grateful to have her as our first lady.

7. Elissa Cobb. Elissa is the co-director of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. She is incredibly kind, authentic, and wise. I love talking to her. She is has an incredible depth of knowledge about anatomy and mind-body connections. She is a wonderful teacher and a lovely friend.

8. Barbara Kingsolver. Author, Poisonwood Bible, Animal Dreams, Prodigal Summer, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and more! I love Kingsolver’s writing. It is elegant and grounded in history. I love how she uses her plots and her characters to challenge the status quo and give her readers a chance to question power and privilege. Her stories are rich and transport me into other places and times, and I have loved every book that I have read.

9. Sarah Faircloth. Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher. I am currently taking a Yoga Teacher Training with Sarah, and I am learning so much from her. She is fun, smart, and incredibly clear in her teaching. She is adding a lot of depth and clarity to things that I have learned before, and I love how she can take complex ideas and concepts and make them super accessible. Plus she makes me laugh. Totally inspiring. She’s a mom, and a rockin’ yogini.

10. Lisa Leizman. Lisa is a fellow yoga teacher, a dear member of my yoga community at Yoga Sanctuary, and the director of the the Lisa Leizman Dance Company in Northampton, MA. She is one of the wisest people that I know. She is steady, deeply grounded in herself, full of love, and incredibly intelligent and humble. She’s also super fun — she wrote a rap song the other day. She is someone I love to go to for advice, and I always love to practice yoga with her.

11. Florelle Olson. My mom. She has a huge heart and is really generous and loving. She taught me to make offerings (of food, of help, of love) to people, to make sure that people feel loved and cared for. I have never once doubted her love and support of me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Who has inspired you?

So, what is it that allows one to approach aging with gratitude and celebration rather than with dread? I think it’s the cultivation of what yoga calls vjana, which is applied knowledge, or wisdom. Vjana is taking all of the things you’ve learned from life experience, from books, from conversations, and more, and putting all of that into action to make skillful choices. It is finding yourself in a scenario that feels familiar and, knowing that you’ve been down this path before, pausing and consciously choosing how you will do it this time around.

Jana, a word and a concept that is inside vjana, literally means “knowledge.” It is more than just knowledge acquired from intellectual study, it is a knowing deep in your being — a realization of the self and of the nature of consciousness acquired from lived experience.

Vjana it is taking that deep, full-bodied knowing, and applying it to our lives. It is skill in action. It requires that we learn the art of the pause. The pause is the space in between breaths, the moment (or moments) of not knowing, the comfortable silence while we listen, really carefully, to the knowing within. Because when we pause, we can take stock, we can ask ourselves if we are in alignment with our highest vision for ourselves and for the planet, and then we can act with skill and mindfulness.

And the paradox here is that vjana, which remember means “applied knowledge,” also requires being okay with not knowing. The universe is a karmic universe, in that there is cause and effect. If you take the tops of your thighs back, it will calm your nervous system and release pressure off your lower back. If you get on your yoga mat every day and practice, your body will get stronger and more open. And the universe is also lilic. Lila literally translates to mean “play.” Lila is the principle that says, “you actually don’t know exactly what is going to happen next; you’re not actually in control.”

So cultivating vjana is both about applying everything that we have learned and about surrendering to the unknown. We do our practice and surrender attachment to the fruits. And I think this is what helps us age gracefully. It is karma that our bodies break down over time. The effect of living an extended period of time in a body is that it will wrinkle and become stiffer. And we don’t know when or how. What if we engaged with the mystery instead of trying to control it? What if we allowed ourselves to be surprised, and perhaps even delighted by the appearance of a gray hair or a wrinkle? What if we approached each new age by bringing in all of the wisdom we have acquired from all of the years we’ve lived before and with a beginner’s mind. Because you’ve never been here before. You’ve never taken this breath before, or this one, or this one. And because of all of the breaths you’ve taken before, you can have a sense of how you would like to approach this new breath.

My husband, Boysen, is a great model of someone who has cultivated, and continues to cultivate, vjana. He is constantly engaging in reflective practices to know and understand his feelings and responses and to ask himself how he might act differently next time to more fully serve the highest consciousness. He has shifted many patterns overtime by observing, taking stock, and making a different choice. It is inspiring to observe and I am grateful to be married to a man who lives in this way.

One of the perils of cultivating vjana is that it might awake our inner perfectionist — I know that is the tendency for me. We might think that we need to make just the ‘right’ choice each time we act. And I think it’s less about that than the intention. It’s about using what we know to act with discernment, and when we don’t get it right, maintaining beginner’s mind and then simply trying again. And, finally, being open to, and engaging wholeheartedly with, the play of it all. For the sheer delight of embodiment and for the chance to know ourselves more deeply through all of our ages and phases.

In my understanding, setting a New Year’s Resolution starts from a place of feeling not good enough, essentially of being in a place of lack. So the message seems to be that we need to do something — lose x # of pounds, study harder, eat more vegetables, etc. — to be better. In yoga, we begin instead with the premise that we are already worthy just because we are alive. Our deepest nature is innate worthiness. Worth is not something that anyone can give or take away from us, and it is not something that we can achieve through dieting, going to the gym, studying, etc.. We already have it. Rather than making ourselves somehow better through our yoga practice, we instead use our practice to uncover and realize our own true nature more fully.

I have noticed, too, that resolutions are also often about starting from a clean slate — wiping away the previous year and starting fresh in the new year — and this relationship to time feels discordant to me. In yoga, there is a beautiful concept — kalapurnata — which means “the fullness of time.” Kala comes from Kali, who is known as the goddess of time and change, and purna, which means “fullness” or “abundance.” To live in kalapurnata means to live fully in past, present, and future all at once.

So, rather than wiping away 2010 and starting with a clean slate, we look back on the year and see what we can learn from it. And all of the experiences from the year are worthwhile — even the places where we stepped out of alignment and perhaps said or did things that we wish we hadn’t. Those experiences are also teachers and when we reflect on them mindfully and consciously, we can use them to inform our present and our future. We remember our past and use it to act mindfully in our present and to consider what lies ahead.

Why does this matter? Now, more than ever, the earth needs us to be fully awake and to be living consciously from *all* of our experiences. To use our past to live mindfully in our present, with an eye to the future, is to be thoughtful of ourselves and considerate of one another and respectful of the impact our choices will have on future generations.

Seventh generation sustainability is an ecological concept that originated with the Iroquois — The Great Law of the Iroquois — that urges humans to think about the impact their current decisions will have on the seventh generation in the future. To do that is to realize that we are so much greater than just ourselves, to realize that our choices do matter and will affect not just others in our immediate sphere but people who come after us much further in the future.

To live in kalapurnata is to be aware that we live in a continuum of time, that we can never wipe away the year gone by (nor do we want to!). I invite you to look back on 2010 and take it all in — swallow it and assimilate it all, let it become a part of you. And from that place, look forward to 2011. Keep one foot in the past and one foot in the future, and it will then be possible to live fully in kalapurnata in the present.

I wish to thank all of my teachers and friends for the giftss of wisdom and guidance that have contributed to my offering of this writing. Most especially here, I would like to thank Amy Ippoliti for introducing me to the concept of kalapurnata and my dear friend Lizzy Tyler for her reminders to always begin from a place of fullness and worth.

Questions for further contemplation:
* What were your greatest teachings of 2010?
* In what moments or experiences did you feel in clear alignment? How do you want to bring that forward with you into 2011?
* In what moments or experiences did you feel out of alignment? How do you want to use that to inform what you do in 2011?
* What would it look like for you to live in kalapurnata as you enter the new year?

Experiences that challenge us make us a nervous because they are outside the boundaries of our comfort zone — they are edges. The term “edge” is a concept I work with in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy sessions. In a physical stretch, it is that point where there is a strong sensation, where something interesting is happening. If you go beyond this point, it becomes too much and perhaps changes from interesting into pain. If you back off too far from this point, it might start to seem like nothing is happening and lose your attention. In a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy session, I guide my clients to look for that place that gets their attention, and we stay there and explore. There are all kinds of edges — physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and life experiences. And the thing with edges is that they change when we stay with them. Over time, we expand so the edges transform and become part of our comfort zone.

It is also true that with practice, we become more refined in choosing our edges. We learn to discern when an edge is too far outside of our comfort zone, and therefore it may not be the optimal learning experience at that point in time. For me, I know if I am ready to step up to an edge if I can sense grace just beyond it. I feel nervousness in my body, but I can also feel the currents of grace flowing through me. In the instance of teaching the level 2 class this week, I will draw on my five years of study of Anusara in classes, workshops, and teacher trainings and my nine months of teaching classes in the Anusara style. I will breathe deeply and trust my experience and my body. I know it’s possible that my voice will shake at the beginning of class, as it tends to do when I step up to a big edge — and that will just tell me that I am putting my authentic self out there in a very visible and vulnerable way — and then I will trust myself and the universe and surrender to the currents of grace.

The past couple of weeks, I have been watching the Olympics and have been especially enamored with figure skating, partly because the athletes are doing very difficult yoga poses (natarajasana, ardha chundra chipasana, etc.) — while balancing on ice skates! But also, because the athletes use the experience of the Olympics to help themselves expand. The other night, in the women’s long program, the top seven skaters — the medal contenders — all had fantastic skates, many of them receiving personal best scores. They each took to the ice, stepping up to their own edges — the expectations of others, their expectations of themselves, the reality of skating on Olympic ice, etc. — and they trusted all of the training they had done before that moment. They stayed present and offered a combination of strength, athleticism, and artistic grace. And though there is competition in Olympic ice skating that is not a part of the teachings of yoga, they used that moment to make more of themselves — to expand into greater freedom and beauty.

Ultimately, I believe that it is a combination of fiery action and fluid surrender that helps us to make more of ourselves. Stepping up to an edge involves choice and action. It requires iccha (“will” or “desire”). Why would we step up to edges that gives us butterflies in our stomachs and make our voices shake? My answer is because I want the freedom, the expansion, the grace that is just beyond the edge. And I believe that we all know, deep inside in our place of deepest knowing, that the only way to get there is by going through our edges. We call on tapas (“heat” or “fire”) to help us move through the nerves, the discomfort, the strong sensations. And then, we soften, we lay back on the larger consciousness, we surrender to grace, and let ourselves expand into the energy of the space just beyond our edge.

• What is your heart’s deepest desire?
• How can you use knowledge (or what do you need to know) to help you align your body, both physically and energetically, with your true nature and your heart’s deepest longing?
• What are you willing to do (what actions are you willing to take in your life) to get what you want?

Though the first question — what is your heart’s deepest desire? — rolls off the tongue easily, it is a question that we can spend our whole lives contemplating. And the answer frequently changes as our lives and selves unfold and we enter different phases. What we most desire in our early twenties is usually not the same as what we desire in our mid-thirties, which is usually not the same as what we desire in our late fifties, and so on. And shifts in our desires are not limited to aging, but also happen with significant life events such as graduations, marriage, divorce, birth, death, illness, career changes, evolutions of self, and more. So the point is not to discover a finite answer but to check in regularly with our bodies and selves: what is my heart’s deepest longing at this point in time? Checking in with our deepest longing is important. There are many things that we desire, but some of them are more fleeting and superficial than others and some of them are closer to our true nature than others. It is the deeper, more essential longings that we are trying to uncover with this question.

When we start to get some clarity about what this deepest longing is, or even get a glimpse into what it might be, we can begin to explore how to align with it. In Anusara, we talk about the optimal blueprint for our physical bodies. Though each body is unique, there are universal principles that help us to align our bodies in ways that provide for optimal health and free flow of energy. Life experiences and habits pull most of us out of this optimal blueprint (for example, hours at the computer or driving pull our shoulder blades off of our back, overdevelop and contract our Trapezius muscles, and weaken our Rhomboids — resulting in a rounded, hunched over upper back). Yoga can help us to realign our physical bodies and repattern our muscles. As we do so, we simultaneously realign our energetic bodies. (I.e. moving our shoulder blades onto our back and practicing backbends invigorates the body, turns the body out to face the world, and can counter feelings of depression or unworthiness.) It is also a helpful practice to ask ourselves, in what ways are my daily habits, my relationships, my work, etc. in alignment with my heart’s deepest longing? In what ways are they not? What do I need to do to come into greater alignment with myself?

And then we come to the principle of action. The Kriya of a yoga pose or the choices we make in our lives is the expression or an offering of our heart’s deepest longing. It is the manifestation of what we are willing to do to get what we want. So as you look at the year ahead, what are you willing to do to manifest your deepest desires? What do you need to say “yes” to and what do you need to say “no” to in order to make it possible for the seeds of your intentions for the new year to take root and grow? Manifesting desires is not so simple as just wishing. Our yoga teaches that we need to take action as well. Perhaps, like me, you will commit to doing at least twelve Urdhva Dhanurasanas each week in 2010 to support you in building the strength and confidence to open your heart more deeply. Or perhaps you will commit to meditating at least ten minutes every day to help you become more focused and mindful or your actions. Whatever action or actions you choose to commit to, make sure that they are in service of your heart’s deepest longing and that your actions help to bring you into alignment with your true nature.

Happy New Year! May it be filled with joy, abundance, and many unfoldings and insights.

In the past week, I have been thinking about the voice of my yoga. How do I use my yoga to discover and connect with my truth and to help me share that truth with the world? What voice do I express with my yoga poses? And how do I even know what the voice of my yoga is?

An advanced yoga practice is defined less by our ability to get into difficult poses than by the skill to feel subtleties in our alignment and make refinements as well as by a deeply mindful approach to oneself and others. Similarly, the voice of one’s yoga is defined more by how we respond to ourselves (and others) than by the actual states and abilities of our physical bodies. For example, if I am presented with physical tightness and shakiness when I come to my mat, then that is what I have to work with, but the voice of my yoga does not have to be tight and shaky. I can align with consciousness and be accepting and compassionate with myself in my tightness, and therefore express a graceful, fluid voice. (It is also likely that if I am graceful, soft, and accepting with myself that my body will open more and become less tight as I practice.) On a day when my physical postures are wobbly and unbalanced, I can allow myself space to be shaky, thus creating a steady, compassionate voice out of my yoga, regardless of the actual steadiness of my posture.

Amy Goodman, host of the popular radio show Democracy Now!, says that it is the role of a journalist is “to go to where the silence is and say something.” I think that is the role of the yogi and yogini to go into the silence within, align with the greater consciousness, and then offer what we find there through our poses and through the way that we live our lives.

Shadow Voices

As a student of Tantric philosophy and a shadowwork practitioner, I do not believe that yoga is only about acknowledging and expressing the sweet, kind, and pretty parts of ourselves. I believe that yoga gives us an opportunity to look at and be with our shadows, too.

The shadow is a concept from Jungian psychology that refers to the parts of our personality that we hide from others, and often from ourselves. Through the process of acculturation, we learn to put forward the parts of ourselves that we have deemed are acceptable and push into shadow those that we have learned are not. Many of us push anger, shameful relationships with money, and feelings of unworthiness into shadow. But it is also common to deny our leadership, our gold, or our joy. Perhaps we were told that nice girls don’t laugh very hard, or we are afraid of being too big or too loud. . .

In order to be whole people living full lives, we need to reclaim our shadows — to go into them, to acknowledge them, to honor them, and to find appropriate ways to give them voice. I believe that yoga can help us do that. For example, if I am feeling anger when I come to my yoga mat, rather than pushing the feeling away (MYTH: real yogis and yoginis are blissful creatures who never feel anger), I can stay present to that feeling as I practice. I can be curious about it and notice how it feels in my body, and notice my thoughts. I can use the fiery energy of the anger to do poses that require strength and tapas (or tapasya, meaning “heat” or “essential energy”) such as handstands, arm balances and backbends.

Usually, when I stay present to my anger without pushing it away, I am able to, in time, see beneath it. I usually find fear or sadness underneath it, and then my yoga is to stay present to these feelings, too — to be curious about them, to notice how they feel in my body, and to stay open to whatever insights I might have into them.

The grand purpose of yoga is Citananda. Cit means “universal consciousness” and ananda means “bliss” or “pure delight.” We practice yoga to know ourselves, to align with the universal, and for the sheer delight of being alive. However, consciousness is not always ethereal and pretty. Some of the deepest experiences of consciousness can come from journeying into our shadows and exploring that dark, rich, and very fertile terrain. And delight does not mean all smiles and peace, though hopefully a regular practice of yoga will produce more of both of these. But I believe that we are meant to delight in life, and that means all of it. I certainly do not take pleasure in suffering (though I can see the potential for some interesting shadow exploration there as well), but I do delight in the very experience of being alive — amd the whole spectrum of emotions that come with that. Embodiment is messy. It is the joys and the bliss. And it is also the scraped knuckles, the scars, and the tears.

And yoga can help us go into all of it. To go into the silence and listen to the voices of our shadows, to align with universal consciousness, and to make mindful choices about how to express our authentic, whole, beautiful, and graceful voices through our yoga poses and in our lives.

This shift in perspective felt radical to me. Rather than being about another’s expectations or rules, discipline became about committing to myself and cultivating the virtues, values, and habits of mind that I wished to possess. Rather than restraint and punishment, discipline became about conviction, and about refining my alignment — physical, emotional, and spiritual. It was my choice to align with my heart’s deepest longing (or not), rather than something forced on me from the outside. I found this new definition refreshing and compelling, and, ultimately, liberating.

Every time I come to my yoga mat to practice, I am carrying out my commitment to myself — giving myself the opportunity to strengthen, open, and move toward greater flexibility and consciousness. And far from the limitation and restraint that I once saw it as imposing, discipline has become a gateway to freedom. Because of my steady commitment to my practice, every month or so, I find myself moving into a pose that I used to find impossible, which brings with it physical, mental, emotional and spiritual shifts.

One of the synonyms for “freedom” in the thesaurus is “full play.” In yoga, we can be playful at every stage of our learning. And through steady commitment to our practice, we gain access to poses that can bring sheer delight. Darren Rhodes, an inspiring Anusara yogi who can do more physical postures than anyone else that I know, is an extremely dedicated practitioner. Darren says, “When I come across a posture I really want to do, I ask myself, ‘How do I have to shift physically, mentally, and in my heart to be able to do that?’” Because of his willingness to commit and transform, he is rewarded with the ability to move his body with strength, fluidity, and grace.

I want to be able to get into the postures that Darren can. I want to play like that, and I want the expansion of mind, body, and spirit that comes with radical physical play. The postures that I am working toward require that I build strength, flexibility, and balance. To get there, it is necessary that I come to my mat time and again. And by committing to truly becoming a disciple of the highest in myself, I know that I will open many new places inside of me. And perhaps I will taste true freedom.

This struck me, not just as a poignant question, but as the fundamental issue at stake. Our belief in our essential worth, is not just a feel-good idea, a luxury to dismiss as new age or ‘fluffy.’ The fate of the planet truly depends on our ability — as individuals and as a species — to connect with and believe in our own value.

It makes sense that, as psychological research has found, when we do not believe in our own worth, when we do not value our own essential nature, we are more susceptible to self-destructive behaviors such as alcohol abuse, accident proneness, drug abuse, eating disorders, cutting, compulsive exercise, and more. When self-destructive behavior is extended beyond the individual to the earth, which supports and sustains our lives, then littering, pollution, clear-cutting, hyper-consumerism, and more must be included, too. As Guardian op-ed columnist Terence Blacker wrote (referring to Britain), “Litter is the nation’s favourite form of self-harm.”

However, believing in our essential goodness is not an easy thing to do. We, especially in the United States, are surrounded by media and cultural messages that tell us that we are not good enough as we are. We are told that we must achieve more, earn more, buy more, look better, etc. in order to be valuable. The core message of our consumer-driven culture is that we are defined by what we own — that products give us our value.

And, yet, scientists tell us that the planet simply cannot survive our current rate of consumption. (A 2008 World Wildlife Fund survey found that, “given the current rate of global consumption, and taking into account the capacity of the Earth to regenerate its own resources, the human species will need an entirely new planet by mid-2030 to keep up with our demand for resources and waste disposal.”)

We must do the work — the hard work — of turning inward, of finding meaning that is not connected to material possessions, of discovering for ourselves that we are, as so many spiritual traditions teach us, worthy just because we are alive. Our essential goodness is intrinsic and is not dependant on doing or having. It just is.

I have heard more than one yoga teacher say that yoga is not the path for the faint of heart. Yoga is not, as mainstream representations will frequently tell you, all about bliss. Yoga asks you to come present to your body and yourself. And yoga grounded in tantric philosophy, as Anusara is, asks that we sit with, and face, our shadows and discomforts. This takes tremendous courage and faith. Courage to stay when fear or unease arises, and faith in the process, faith in the greater purpose of the practice.

This is the kind of courage that is required of us. This is what these times need from us. (We have, scientists tell us, a very small window of time before we can no longer reverse the trajectory toward a major global-warming catastrophe.) The earth needs for us to have the courage to sit and breathe and come to know that we are worthy just as we are. Yoga is certainly not the only, nor necessarily the best, path to touching our own worth. In my own journey, I have also journaled, practiced daily affirmations, run marathons, read books, gone to therapy, meditated, and more. But, however, we get there, so much depends upon us believing that we — as individuals and as a collective — are worthy of saving.

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