In my last post I mentioned that there is more to live for than the fear of subcutaneous fat, something that most can probably relate to.  We live in a society that has demonized this very valuable and necessary tissue.  We pinch it, poke at it, grimace at the sight of this harmless tissue on our bodies.  We hide beneath baggy clothing, scoff if it hangs over the waist of our pants, cut it out of pictures, and waste endless hours trying to burn it away, only fighting against the natural balance of our bodies.  I’ve perhaps spent more time than most engaged in these self-centered pursuits, and for what?  My reasons are somewhat biologically based and rooted much deeper in my eating disorder, but that doesn’t excuse these behaviors.  I am most definitely not healthier, stronger, or more beautiful for any of it.  Indeed I am less healthily, have lingering physical problems and at the ripe old age of 29 I have osteoporosis.

Subcutaneous fat is not the devil it is made out to be and in fact 70-80% of our fat is subcutaneous!  It is NOT the cause of illness or disease.  This is caused by visceral or abdominal fat which is what is packed between organs.  This visceral fat raises the levels of free fatty acids in the bloodstream which can then go on to clog arteries, causing heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, or other health issues.

Visceral Fat vs Subcutaneous Fat

Someone who has little extra subcutaneous fat (to which I’m now just referring to as fat) may be healthier than someone who exists at a low body fat percentage.  A lack of fat can cause problems with metabolism, hormones, a susceptibility to getting sick, they can bruise easily, and for women a lack of period and low bone density.  Fat is protective and much needed!

A female typically deposits their fat around their hips, thighs, and buttocks and having fat shouldn’t dictate our feelings towards ourselves if we can’t fit into skinny jeans designed for a 10-year old.  Should we starve ourselves or exercise our bodies into the ground to hear the satisfaction of the zipper closing? I think not.

In other totally unrelated news my phone had an interesting message the other day  I’ve been getting a plethora of signs from the universe sine I’ve arrived home from Bristol.  As I sat in a waiting room at the doctor’s office I pulled out my phone to play a word game where you connect letters on a 5×5 grid, however my phone had better ideas.  Smack in the middle of the screen were the unmistakable words:

EAT ME.

Seriously.  I can’t make this stuff up.

Photo Credits: thelifeathletic.com, dnfitness.wordpress.com

My immediate reaction was “Yes, get the word out!” but as I took a pause and read the flurry of activity surrounding it I realized that this montage suggests that “real woman” can’t be skinny, something that simply isn’t true.  While many may not like it there are healthy, skinny woman out there.  Skinny woman who don’t have curvy hips or voluptuous breasts, woman who are still as beautiful as any counterpart.  Let’s face it.  All woman are beautiful.  Fat, thin, skinny, average, and everything in between.  And guess what?  We are all real woman.

That being said, several of the woman in the above picture do have well documented eating disorders or body image issues (but what woman doesn’t?), and even the women pictured in the “Hotter Than This” photos almost all have body shaping gear on as if to suggest that what their natural shape is still isn’t good enough.  While I still wouldn’t take the step of denying them the status of womanhood I would argue that images of bodies, especially those who are going through times of  disordered eating or sickness, thin or fat, shouldn’t be paraded around as normal or healthy.  THese images can be and are disturbing and don’t need to further dig us into the hole of Photoshopping, plastic surgery, or general body dissatisfaction that is present in our modern times.

In rebuttal to this picture the following montage appeared this morning:

The pictures are in the same vein, (and all Photoshopped), but the message is different and I couldn’t agree more!

This comes at a good time for me as I digest everything that has happened over the past month.  I’ve never felt so in my body before and while it is a welcome place to reside having so much feeling both mentally and physically is quite a switch.  IN a rebound from not taking care of myself for some time I’ve seen the numbers on the scale creep up since coming home (yes, yes throw it out right?) and it is hard not to react to this.  I’m sitting with these feelings and sitting in these sensations.   As I recognize and confront what once seemed insurmountable and uncomfortable starts to shift and abandon its hold.  So what if the numbers change?  So what if my clothes are different?  These material and external things aren’t where life vibrates, aren’t’ where the warmth of my heart or the manifestation of my soul appear. They are only dark illusions that have filled my space for far too long.  I can make the choice to turn my back and walk the other way.

That isn’t to say that these thoughts don’t  still try to lure me back, but it is my choice to move forward and move towards authenticity and a full and happy life.  No gym requirements or bizarre food behaviors allowed.  I have my breath, my body, and my spirit.  This is where my roots are and where I grow.  I’m choosing to abandon my “recovery” ideal of living on the edge of health.  If that is where I end up fine, but if it isn’t what happens then so be it.  I have more to live for than subcutaneous fat.  Of course an eating disorder isn’t really about the subcutaneous fat, but putting it in such blunt terms sure sounds ridiculous, right?

How is your relationship with your body?  Have you noticed it evolving over the years?

Photo Credits: Facebook

As part of this I’ve decided to let go of my very part-time job tutoring in Columbus City Schools.  While I did enjoy the work when I was there, a lot of the logistics weren’t working out well.  Rushing there and then rushing out to teach on most days was driving me crazy.  Not good for someone who is very vata! I am also picking up 3 more yoga classes and with adding in all my Phoenix Rising work of at least 20 hours a week this flying around like a mad woman wasn’t going to fly!

I’m also trying to figure out how to untether somewhat from technology.  While I love blogging and networking I am feeling that some of it has become a bit much.  In trying to reach out to others, connecting with those also on a healing journey, as well as to those in and around the yoga world I have somewhat lost sight of myself and where I, Hannah, fit in with all of that.  It can be exciting and addicting to see readership grow and while there is value in it I also don’t like becoming attached to the statistics and numbers and always trying to hit the ceiling of the “biggest day” my blog had or of trying to push it forward in some inauthentic way.  I feel like I always have to be on and at the forefront of the next big story that may be connected to eating disorders or yoga.  I am not a journalist and being in this mode is exhausting!  Add to that my bazillion RSS feeds that I follow and I don’t have much of a day left over!

There are many interests I want to follow in the yoga world and I need more real time in order to do this. Perhaps by unplugging somewhat I can become more plugged into my passions!  Yoga philosophy, anatomy and physiology, learning Sanskrit and continuing to grow as a teacher.  I am still intending to blog regularly but may not be as plugged in inother capacities.  A great quote I read yesterday sums this up.

“Technology is the God that limps.  It thrives on reason but suffers from a dearth of wisdom.”

No matter what we do technology will always be a left-brain dominated pursuits.  It takes the whole and makes it into parts, dividing and organizing in a linear fashion.  Like the left-brain it is at times helpful, but when too dominant it can lead to being unbalanced.  We need some of the right-brain pursuits in concert with the left to find our best path.  I invite you to embark on this with me.

On a related note here is an amazing clip of a TED talk relating to this left-right brain talk.  An amazing story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU

Somewhere between Columbus and Vermont I lost my script.  Maybe I left it at the airport in Washington, Burlington, Cleveland, or perhaps it floated out the window as I flew above the snow-capped mountains and sunset lit skies.  Whatever the case I lost it and I don’t want it back.  I’ve forgotten my lines and instead of thinking forward to what will be, planning, anticipating, waiting, I move to a place where I can live in the moment.  The idea that we know what is to come is an illusion.  I have planed and planned for some much of my life.  Fighting for perfect, linear alignment, but the truth is that nothing is linear and alignment is only fleeting.  Instead I move to embrace what is, no matter the shape, color, way, or method in which it comes. Ritual and routine have a place, but to become attached to them is only a set-up for failure.

This morning as I sat in reflection this idea of non-attachment, or vairagya is what stood out to me.

1.15 When the mind loses desire even for objects seen or described in a tradition or in scriptures, it acquires a state of utter (vashikara) desirelessness that is called non-attachment (vairagya).

Interestingly vairagya is often spoken about alongside practice or abhyasa.

1.13 Practice (abhyasa) means choosing, applying the effort, and doing those actions that bring a stable and tranquil state (sthitau).

Through my practice I move towards becoming aware of my actions, thought patterns and tendencies; this awareness is where ritual and routine are important.  They cultivate the ability to discern the actions, speech, and thoughts that move me down the right path towards non-attachment, not only in moving away from that which does not serve but ultimately in never taking it on in the first place.  This is vairagya.

I find that I don’t feel attached or drawn to so much of what I left in Columbus.  I wasn’t jumping up and down this morning at the first opportunity to make it to the gym.  I wasn’t excited to numb out again and return to my old ways.  No, instead I sat.  I sat and I felt.  I felt awkward and big, almost as if my body became a giant triangle at my waist, the energies of the unknown spilling over my boundaries, in my mind enlarging the confines of my body.  Perhaps something I could interpret as being fat, gaining weight.  I felt unsure of what step to take next.  How to facilitate the movement, the flow, of my life into something that is more authentic.

If I had chosen to become enmeshed right away in the distraction of movement I would have missed the small flicker of excitement at reclaiming myself, the idea of nourishing and resting myself as I know I need.  Indulging in self-care beyond a massage or a manicure.  Self-care becoming self-love.  Something lost along the way.

Self-love.  No, not a selfish ideal, but instead selfless.

As I went through the day today I had a calmness about me that I haven’t felt in a long time.  Yes I did work out, but even then I wasn’t attached to what I was doing.  In the moment it felt good to move and lift weights, but if tomorrow doesn’t allow for that movement or if tomorrow my body doesn’t want to do it then so be it.  I’m choosing to listen to the vibrations of my soul, rather than the chatter in my head.  Will each day be this easy to choose one over the other, no, but that is also ok.  I am here and here I am. What is happening now?

Elissa Cobb, the director of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, posed a question that is resonating strongly with me and I pose it now to you:

What if your life became your spiritual practice?

Photo Credit: Acidcow.com

And so it begins.

After stepping out of my life for almost three weeks I now sit on an airplane typing this; preparing to step back into my life, and stepping into it in a much more authentic and present way.  Present in all the capacities that I can be: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  I’ve spent so much of my life residing in the safety of just the physical and the mental that I’ve missed out on a lot by neglecting the other two.  Perhaps I didn’t even realize that they existed.  Failing to meet the basic needs of food and rest will do that to a person.

I emerge from this training strong and empowered to flourish, grow, and heal in my life.  My time in Bristol had many different shades and tones and interestingly it was as if my life was sent into rewind and then someone hit the fast forward button. Even my tone and verbiage correlated at different points to certain times in my past.  In real-time I went through a hyperextended back, a break-up, three moves (one atrocious!), and then to cap it all off I came down with a bad cold and a low-grade fever for four days.  In my sick misery I stumbled through the days, almost unable to be present in any capacity except physical and gravely frustrated by this.  I found myself at a crossroad.  I’ve never before been away from home and sick, whether it was really sick or eating disorder related and not gone home.  On the second day of being sick I felt so horrible that I was ready to call it quits.  My body and mind ached and I just wanted to be home. Then I realized it.  I don’t have to be at my physical home to be home. I have the power to nurture myself and to make the decision to rest my body to allow it to heal, to recover.  This is the path I choose.  I remained in Bristol and I got better.

This power to heal, to nurture myself resonates in a bigger sense.  I have often likened eating disorder recovery to a dance, two-steps forward, one-step back.

I’m calling myself out.  I’m one-step back.  Before going to training, my struggles were worsening.  Too much working out and not enough fuel.  I have an unfortunate ability to ignore my body and not hear its sufferings.  It was only after stepping out of my life long enough to come to some sort of equilibrium that I realized how much I hurt.  Without the mask of a stomach ache I could feel my bones ache with fatigue and hear my joints click.  I can feel the fogginess in my brain and while I can go on with it and often do, it just doesn’t feel right.

I have an intention upon my return to come back to create a stronger structure.  A focus around meals and a balance in movement. I don’t need to be working out an hour a day and then doing an hour of yoga.  What I do need is to listen to my body from the inside and allow it to come into truth from the inside out.  Will I like the result?  Perhaps not externally, but that isn’t what I am choosing to live for.   Maybe the Hannah of yesterday, thin, sometimes too so, isn’t the Hannah of truth.  I’m tired of holding up those mirrors of a stranger looking back at me when I look in.  I’m ready at last for the external to match the internal.  Even amidst all my recovery I don’t ever know that I’ve allowed that to happen.  I’ve remained attached to what I thought I should be, what I thought I should look like.

I get goose bumps as I write this but over the past couple weeks I’ve gotten many signs that this is a chance at rebirth.  This is a chance to metaphorically give birth to myself.  The unconditional love that a mother gives their child.  I can give this to myself. A second chance.  After so many years I fear what could be on the other side of not taking that chance.  I don’t want to find out and will gladly shake hand of truth and step forward.  Both feet in.

This is where I find my balance.

Balancing on Two Feet.

Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman.

Today she weighs 23% less.

PLUS Model Magazine came out this week with a powerful pictorial in which it claims that most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia, which is considered to be under 17.5. The pictures show a plus sized model (size 12?!?!?) paired with another strikingly skinny woman.

The magazine wants clothing retailers to start catering to more women as they claim more than 50% of women wear a size 14 or larger.  What is a plus-sized model these days? A size 6 to 14.  Is that even plus-sized?  Last time I checked those sizes weren’t in a plus-sized section of a store!

In fact the skinny women in this case is more likely to be “unhealthy” than the “plus-sized” one.  These models fall within the healthy range of BMI’s.  A BMI that is too low can lead to a weakened immune system, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, gall bladder disease, osteoarthritis and certain types of cancer.

What do you think of this claim about the models, the call to cater clothing more to the 50%, or these photos?  Should BMI be a factor in judging health as it doesn’t take into account those who have small or large bone structures or a lot of muscle.

Photo Credits: Dailymail.co.uk

Last night I came across this and posted a brief blog to elephant journal:

With my random thought pattern this somehow led to an internet search for variations of the words yoga guru.  During that search I came up with some odd results when I googled various combinations.  A montage of my favorites!

Photo Credits: signsfunny.com, bodyproud.org, jenniferanistonsource.com, blogs.babble.com, thehindu.com, thetoyzone.com, galixeblog.com.my, sparkpeople.com, isabelsehbe.com, businessweek.com, littleabout.com, tulsachange.com, metrolyrics.com

This is going to be my last blog for a few days, until I return home from Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training. The intensity of it all has been making it hard to do what I need to take care of myself and share it all with you.  No worries though!  I will be back stronger than ever when I return home!

• THE article of the week.  How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. And a few follow ups: Rebuttal One,  Rebuttal Two, Rebuttal Three.

• Sex or yoga? Either way an amazing practice and body! A great reply by the amazing Jeannie Page!

• How much are you paying attention in your yoga practice? Yoga autopilot?

• Flat abs? Total myth!

• Can you imagine this is a modern magazine?

• Bad body image?  Not really about the body!

• Feminism a disease? I won’t be reading Maxim again!

Did you miss some of the posts on Balancing on Two Feet this week?  You can catch up here.

Monday: The Fat Trap

Tuesday: Yoga Inspirations

Wednesday: 13 Hours Later

Thursday: Before ED there was OCD

Friday: Pulsations of Truth

Saturday: How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. A Response.

Photo Credits: Equinox.com, about-face.org

If you are paying attention in the yoga world you have probably come across the recent article from The New York Times, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. This article outlines the dangers of the practice of asana as it has evolved in the West.  Yoga in our culture has become much about the postures, rushing quickly or straining from pose to pose in what could better be described as calisthenics, bearing only a minor relation to the true roots of the practice and virtually ignoring the integrity of the postures.  While the occasional class in this manner shouldn’t cause many problems, a repetitive practice like this will slowly reveal underlying physical weakness and cause problems later down the road.

The main yoga teacher cited in the article, Glenn Black talks of the tradition of yoga and that it wasn’t designed for classes en mass or people who sit in front o their desks everyday.   Bodies such as these says Black aren’t made to jump into physically demanding classes once or two a week, straining to get into pretzel like contortions. Yoga isn’t about pushing people or forcing a student into the pose.

Several descriptions of extreme cases of injury follow, some temporary and some permanent.  Yikes.

So what is my reaction to this article?  The author, William J. Broad, who has a book coming out next month, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards,  and Glenn Black are correct in their words and I remind the reader that they need to look at the first word of the title.  HOW. Yoga does have enormous potential to cause injury and it frightens me at times to see students put their trust in teachers who have little or no training especially in areas such as anatomy, assisting, and sequencing.  I shudder looking back at my first months of teaching when I hardly knew what I was doing or the potential for harm that could have happened in my classes after just a basic 20-hour weekend training, which was allowed by Yoga Alliance.  I had only my own body and practice to go off of.  Thank goodness that nothing ever happened and that I had my background in studying anatomy and physiology in school as well as teaching it to fall back on.  Still should I have been teaching yoga then?  No.

Something that is not often discussed is the need for awareness of the body in space in yoga.  It is essential for a new yoga student to develop this before they can really move on with their physical journey.  A lack of this knowledge is what contributes to injury.  Ask a student to flex their foot and you will see many variations of what this means.  It isn’t about the way the posture appears but rather the movement to get there and then once there the alignment to remain safe.  There is a learning curve is stepping into this. Students need to be patient and willing to  strength and integrity in their joints and muscles before forging ahead with too advanced or too fast of a practice.

Teaching to large classes makes it difficult to really serve each student and mixed levels also presents an issue.  So what is the answer? It is up to the student to be responsible for themselves and their body.  They need to know when to push and when to back off.  Yoga is more about cultivating this tool than the actual postures themselves.  Don’t try to get into a pose more deeply just because the person on the mat next to you is.  The practice isn’t about them, it is about you.  What will you gain by matching them?  Perhaps a pulled hamstring?

I’m not saying that yoga can’t be used in a more superficial way for those wanting to change their body; It doesn’t have to be a deeply intense personal journey for everyone.  I am however advocating that the approach towards this needs to shift in order to remain safe, strong and healthy.

What are your thoughts on this article?  What is the power of yoga to harm? Please comment!

Photo Credits: http://www.vancitybuzz.com,  http://yogawithsubhash.com

On the day I left for training I somehow managed to hyper-extend my back.  Ouch.  The sensation was so bad as of yesterday morning that I thought at one point that I was going to be stuck on the floor for an extended period of time.  A sort of deep clockwise pulsing variety of feeling.  Totally consuming.

After our lunch break we were watching a demo when suddenly out of nowhere the reasoning behind my back pain became clear to me, along with some other odds and ends that had happened throughout the past two days.  This feeling was an indication of an opening in my first chakra, something that has been chronically blocked and anything but present especially in the past few vata intensive weeks.  This opening and grounding represents the ability to stand in myself, in Hannah, in my true nature.  I don’t’ have to reside in the monkey mind of my brain and in the past few days that part of me has been joyously quiet.  Even with the struggle about working out I have been calm in my thoughts, both waking and sleeping.  For the first time in a month I am sleeping all the way through the nights!

SInce I stood up Wednesday afternoon my pain pain has disappeared.  Rather odd for something so intense. It was as if pain  was the only way I was going to hear my body.  Pretty amazing?  At least I think so!

Richard Simmons has been waxing and waning in popping up in my head. I’ve been walking to and from where I am staying to the training center, about a mile each way, but he can interject into my thoughts with that not being enough since it isn’t really “working out.”  The past two nights I have also gone to a modified Ashtanga class and then a full Primary Series, but again, not enough. I wasn’t dripping sweat and hadn’t lifted any weights besides my own body.  Thus a back and forth struggle.  Will I be able to tame this beast for the next 12 days?  I hope so.  What will happen to my body?  Will I really turn into that pile of mush I so fear? Perhaps I will emerge stronger and more able, allowing me to become a stronger support for both myself and others, an opportunity to step into the stillness of the work I advocate.

Have you ever had to step into stillness to find your truth?