My first car was a Chrysler Colt. It was a small car and I had to turn off the air conditioner to accelerate onto a highway, but it was all mine and I loved driving it. After about 9 years and over 100,000 miles, it began to require major repairs. A month or so after one part was replaced, another part would break.

One afternoon as I was leaving work, I discovered a long scrape down the passenger side of my car. Someone had misjudged pulling into or out of the space beside me and had dragged their bumper down the length of my car. I was upset for a few minutes as I stared at the damage and then it dawned on me that how it looked was no longer of any consequence. I had to buy a new car soon and I just had to keep this car running until then. With that thought came a feeling of freedom. If it got a scape or another part started to fail, so be it, and I stopped being concerned about the Colt’s condition.

If the world is divided into those who are packrats and those who are not, without a doubt I fall into the packrat category. I am not very good about throwing things away. Though I may not have used something for five years, who knows, I may find a need for it next week. Even worse, sometimes I do, which immediately justifies keeping everything else. I have a friend who is my opposite. She goes on cleaning sprees and weeks later realizes she threw away something important like a bill she had not paid. When she tells me about this, I find it even harder to declutter.

In truth, the majority of the time the things themselves are not the problem, it is the emotional attachment I have to them. Realizing it was pointless to fix the Colt’s scrape released my attachment to it. I have a harder time throwing away a gift received years before or a postcard sent by a friend. I know in many cases it is not practical to keep these items, but the emotion is there.

As the winter comes to a close, it is the classic time for cleaning house. A good spring cleaning clears away staleness and opens the house to the light and warmth of the season. This is an optimum time to clear away the clutter that has accumulated over the year.

Clutter is not just the physical items we hang onto long past their useful life, but can also be the thoughts and routines in which we have become stuck. Do you find yourself repeatedly reviewing events or conversations from your past or continuing to follow a routine that no longer serves you? Can you let it go? Just like physical objects, these all have emotions attached to them and it is easier to hang on to them than to release them. However, just like cleaning house, the freshness that is created by mental spring cleaning allows more space and freedom in your life.

Many years ago I worked on a weather-related computer project that was extremely data intensive; numbers streamed into our system every hour of every day. My group wrote programs that created graphs, charts, and other visual displays that our client used for analysis. Central to the system was the database that stored the information used to create our graphics.

Unfortunately, in an effort to save money the company used an old database that was not designed to handle such a large task. Though the data flowed in well, we could not get it back out quickly. When trying to do a quick check of the weather, we sometimes would wait upwards of two hours for the results to appear. Of course, by that point, the information was outdated.

Not surprisingly, the project failed. The database was the foundation upon which the entire project was built, and when it did not work well, the rest of the project crumbled.

In yoga poses, the foundation of a pose is crucial. If the foundation is not set properly, the entire pose is off. In standing poses, if the feet are not placed well, the alignment of the rest of the body is altered as the legs, hips, back, shoulders, and head all shift to compensate. Balance may become more challenging, and the strength and flexibility benefits may be lessened or negated. When the feet are placed well, the rest of the pose can be built above them with a great degree of control and stability no matter how complex or twisted the pose may be.

All of us have some type of base upon which we build our lives. These essentials may include our network of family and friends, our health, our jobs, and our possessions. However, one constant in life is that there is always change. Nothing stays the same forever. Some changes are sudden: an accident or winning the lottery. Others can be anticipated and prepared for: starting a new job, moving to a new city, or the birth of a child, though the full ramifications of any change, major or minor, are usually not completely predictable.

When there is a significant change, our lives shift. What was important beforehand may become completely unimportant afterwards. Winning the lottery may make money worries disappear, but may cause a variety of other problems. When a child is born, the wellbeing of the baby and a good night’s sleep become the new parents’ focus for quite a while. A health crisis may cause us to examine our physical habits and modify the way we eat, move, and exercise.

Often a change forces us to examine what is really important to us, and we focus on the necessities. How well we adjust depends in part upon the solidity of our base. If we have set our foundation well and know what is truly essential, we can weather all of life’s changes.

A few years ago, a tree fell on my next door neighbor’s house and its branches fell across mine. The tree had been about 60 feet tall and a crane was required to lift it off of our roofs. The tree removal company’s representative said that because of the position of the houses and the size of the tree, a large crane that could lift 70 tons was necessary.

The next day when the crane, the crane operator, and the operator’s assistant arrived, the crane operator was clearly not happy. All that was available was a 35 ton crane and so what should have been a routine job was now difficult. Since the crane was small, it did not have the height or leverage of a big crane. Instead of parking the big crane on level ground in front of the houses and lifting the tree straight back into the woods, the smaller crane had to be balanced on a hill to the side of the houses and the tree swung out sideways to avoid decks, windows, and other houses. Though it took over an hour of preparation, the tree was finally lifted away. Other than some minor damage to my neighbor’s gutter and a board on his deck, it went well.

The assistant stood beside me the entire time describing the process. He was impressed with the crane operator’s expertise. The assistant said he probably would not be able to handle a tree like this for at least two or three more years. The crane operator, who had been working with cranes for over 20 years, said he had spent the evening before drawing out different scenarios. Though he made it look easy, he said it was one of the most difficult jobs he had done in a while. If there had been a slip, the tree would have demolished my neighbor’s roof, upper floor, or deck.

When someone makes a task look easy, we often fail to recognize the skill involved. I had never watched someone maneuver a crane or thought about the expertise required. If I had not spoken with the assistant, it never would have occurred to me that this was challenging.

We are accustomed to a certain level of proficiency when interacting with others. Have you ever become impatient with a person who is learning a new task like a young driver who is driving so slowly and carefully he backs up traffic or a new cashier who cannot figure out a store’s cash register? Yet we have all been a novice at some point. Do you remember the first time you cooked or ironed, or your first day at your first job? If you can smile or wince at the memory, you have probably come a long way since then.

We have spent a lifetime developing our skills. Though our abilities may seem routine to us, it would be hard for someone else to replicate all that we do in a normal day in its entirety. An indicator of experience or skill is how smoothly and easily we perform tasks, but like the crane operator’s assistant, we all need to begin somewhere and have the patience to learn and allow our abilities to grow.

Have you ever noticed that when children describe what they want to be when they grow up, it is always something spectacular? They want to be a princess, an astronaut, or the president.  There is never any doubt; the world is wide open to them.  They do not see the limitations, only the possibilities.

This lack of limitations, and at times common sense, can get children into trouble, like the assumption that they can jump off anything and be perfectly fine.  I put my parents through quite a lot. My platform of choice was the swing set and I jumped off it many times.

As we get older, we begin to experience the limitations the world imposes on us and gain some sense of self-preservation. As we do, our expectations change. We learn that gravity really does exist and that falling hurts sometimes.

This sense of self-preservation keeps us from doing crazy things that could cause us bodily harm.  However, when taken too far, it restricts the scope of what we believe is possible, which reduces our willingness to extend ourselves.

One of the joys of teaching yoga is watching people experience what is possible.  Many times when I demonstrate a new pose, the class’s reaction is negative, something to the effect of “I can’t” or “I’ll never be able to do that” or just laughs of disbelief.  When people try the pose themselves, many find, much to their surprise, that it is possible to get into some semblance of the pose.  They may not have the flexibility or strength to move into its final form, but on that first attempt they achieved more than they expected.

Balance poses tend to be viewed as pass/fail poses; they either work or they do not. Usually the more complicated the balance, the less likely there will be instant success. Repeatedly falling out of a balance can be discouraging, yet each time we fall, we learn.  When we finally do succeed, the success is sweeter due to the effort it required to get there.

There are many things we cannot do on the first try.  If we gave up the first time we tried to walk, none of us would be walking today.  Almost anything we accomplish requires steady effort. When you find yourself saying “I can’t,” take a step back and see if this is something that probably is not wise, like jumping off a swing set, or if it may be doable like learning to walk.  Many times a better phrase is “not yet.”

About fifteen years ago I went on a two week rafting trip out west. The trip had been organized by a group a few years before and when one person dropped out, I was invited to join them at the last minute. At the time I had been working long hours for months and had not taken any time off. Though it would not have been convenient for anyone on our programming team to take a vacation for the next five months, I was going to have to start taking days off anyway and my boss and I decided it was better to take leave then than a few months later.

The trip was wonderful and within a few days the worries and concerns of the last several months melted away. A week into the trip we hiked to a waterfall. A large section of the trail was a boulder field with rocks of all different sizes and shapes. I stopped in the middle to take a picture of a mountain and while trying to find the optimal shot, I stepped on a loose rock. The rock shifted and I fell, breaking a finger on one hand and jamming several on the other hand.

The guides were paramedics and though they bandaged and splinted my hands well, I was useless for the rest of the trip. I could not paddle, carry anything, or even cut my own food.

In the days that followed as we floated down the river, it slowly dawned on me that I was extremely unhappy and it had nothing to do with my hands or the trip. As I thought about it, I realized my job had taken over my life. I was regularly working twelve or more hours a day including weekends on a project that had very little chance of succeeding. I had lost my life outside of work entirely.

When the project ended six months later, I left the company and became a consultant so I would have more control over my hours as I tried to figure out what to do next. After a while I realized how much I enjoyed my weekly yoga classes, and over a period of seven years, left programming to become a yoga teacher.

Most of us do not have the luxury or desire to just sit for days on end without any diversions. I would not have done anything of the sort if I had not slipped on the rock, and I probably would have continued at the same frantic pace for years. I doubt I would have slowed down on my own, and my life would have taken an entirely different course.

With telephones and computers we are accessible twenty-four hours a day and there is television to fill our down time. It feels wasteful not to be busy doing something every minute of the day. It is no longer part of our culture to sit on the front porch and watch the world go by. We do not give ourselves the gift of time.

Without time to relax with no distractions, we often do not truly see what is happening in our lives. The thoughts and feelings that are below the surface are stifled by our constant activity.

An important part of Hatha Yoga, the physical form of yoga, is relaxation. Restoratives are a category of postures where the body is supported, and they are usually held longer than other categories of poses. Though some restorative poses are active, many are restful so we can relax into them and just be. Final relaxation or Savasana, done at the end of every class, allows us to integrate the active practice we just completed. Our bodies are quiet though our minds are aware.

Over the years, I have seen many students in restorative poses and Savasana come to realizations about their lives. Some insights have prompted changes, others acceptance.

How long has it been since you have had a few minutes of stillness? Can you find five or ten minutes a few times a week to relax and let go? Try it, who knows what you may discover.

A few weeks ago as I was going through a stash of old VCR tapes I found in my basement, I ran across a talk show I had recorded in 2002. One of the segments was a satellite interview with Jamie Lee Curtis. If you don’t remember her, she appeared in the movies Freaky Friday, Perfect, A Fish Called Wanda, and the Halloween horror series.

At the time of the interview, Ms. Curtis was 43 and had just finished a children’s book about self-esteem. She decided she wanted to address self-esteem in adult women as well, so she called More magazine and proposed a story and photo shoot about body image.

We all know people who appear on the covers of magazines have the aid of make-up, lighting, camera angles, and airbrushing, but rarely do we know how much help they have. Ms Curtis decided to show the world how she truly looked in comparison with her glamorous image.

In the magazine there were two pictures of Jamie Lee Curtis. In the first she was wearing brief shorts and a sports bra with no make-up or jewelry. In the second picture she was wearing a stunning black dress and heels, full make-up and professionally styled hair. It took thirteen people three hours to put her together for the second shot.

In the first picture she looks good, but she looks 43 with the stomach, hips and thighs of a normal woman her age. In the second picture she looks like a movie star, unnaturally young, poised, and perfect.

The pictures show how much the entertainment industry can enhance the human body and the falseness of most media pictures. The accompanying article underscores how ludicrous it is to hold ourselves up to these perfect images. We will fall short unless we have a team of people and hours to spend creating that glamorous look.

Hatha Yoga, the physical form of yoga, is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. With its growth, there is concern that yoga is feeding into our society’s fixation on the body. This focus on the body can range from looking good in cute yoga clothes to being able to do cool yoga poses.

Though Hatha Yoga can have an effect on appearance over time, this was not its original purpose. In some older forms of Yoga, the yogis neglected their bodies while they sat and meditated for days, weeks, months, and even years. Hatha Yoga was a shift in philosophy where the body became important because a healthy body enabled the yogi to handle the rigors of spiritual practice. This is a far cry from cute clothes and cool poses.

In all forms of Yoga we are seen as more than just our bodies. This is understandable because no matter what happens to us physically, whether we get a cold, sprain an ankle, or just get older, changes to our bodies do not alter who we really are inside.

Though Hatha Yoga brings our focus to our bodies, it can be used as a method of exploration. We can see how we physically change over time and realize that no matter what is happening to us physically, there is more to us than just our appearance.

The More magazine article: http://www.more.com/news/womens-issues/jamie-lee-curtis-true-thighs

This past spring I went to a language workshop. Since learning a language involves speaking out loud and practicing pronunciation, the first two hours of the workshop were devoted to encouraging class participation. The teacher spoke about the safety of a classroom environment, that we were all learning something new, and that perfection was not expected. Also, by speaking up we would benefit from the individual corrections that would be missed if we stayed silent.

Even with all of the teacher’s reassurances, there was still an air of hesitation. All of us had spent years in school raising our hands and answering questions or ducking to avoid them. Everyone at some point in their life has given a wrong answer and sunk down in a chair when the teacher corrected them. It is a part of our school experience that most of us happily left behind.

As adults when we return to the classroom, it is by choice. For enrichment classes like the one I took, no grade is attached, or if there is a grade, it does not impact anything else in our lives. We are there because we want to learn, but still, the anxiety of not being able to answer a question or answering incorrectly remains.

At one point in time it was possible to read all the books that had ever been printed since there were not that many printed books. Now, there is more information available than we can possibly hope to absorb on any given subject. It is impossible to master every subject; the breadth and depth of human knowledge just is too great. Therefore, though we can be knowledgeable about a broad range of subjects, we cannot be an expert in all of them. There will always be someone who knows something that we do not.

This can be disconcerting or it can be quite comforting. This does not mean we should give up learning, but we should not feel stressed because we are not an authority on every subject.

Since there will always be something unknown to us, there will always be new discoveries. If you watch a small child when he learns something new, the smile on his face lights up the room. He is so happy he can barely contain himself. As adults we may not show the same outward glee, but there is the warm glow of satisfaction when some aspect of the world suddenly makes sense.

What a dull place the world would be if we knew everything; the thrill of discovery would be gone. When receiving a gift, part of the fun is in the unwrapping. You know something is there, but until the paper is removed, it is a mystery. When we discover something new, there is the same sense of revelation. What was hidden has been revealed.

How lucky we are to be able to delve into and enjoy our discoveries of the unknown.

Before each session begins we offer a week of free sample classes.  The purpose of these classes is to introduce people to yoga and to our yoga studio.  The classes are very basic since there is usually a mix of people ranging from the very fit to those who have not exercised in years.

In a sample class several years ago a marathon runner chose a spot at the back of the room. A few minutes later a former ballet dancer set up beside him.  As part of the class we did the hamstring stretch pictured below. The marathon runner lifted his leg about a foot off the floor. The dancer lifted her leg up, held her foot in her hand, and brought it back over her head to the floor behind her. In essence, she did the splits upside down.  The runner looked over at her and then at me in a mild panic as he struggled to raise his leg higher.

Obviously, the runner and the ballet dancer had very different bodies.  Both had spent years competing in their chosen activities and their bodies had become as strong and as flexible as the demands of their training required.  Both were also very competitive and spent the class watching each other.  Because of the differences in their bodies, it was an unequal competition.  Some poses were easier for one, some for the other.

Yoga is not competitive, but at times that is hard to remember.  In the physical form of yoga that we practice, competition does not work.  Most poses require a combination of flexibility and strength.  Through lifestyle, injuries, accidents and age, we all develop different areas of tightness and flexibility, weakness and strength.  Though the dancer and the runner were the most extreme examples I have seen side by side, in every class there is quite a range. Often I see people sneaking glances at each other, comparing their poses to others.  The attitudes range from “I am better than she is” to “I am not good enough.”

However, in yoga classes, there is the choice not to compete.  In the end, what is the point?  The person with the most flexible hamstrings wins?  As far as I have seen, no one receives a new car, gets a million dollars, or is instantly enlightened solely because they are flexible. Instead, the gain is more personal.  More flexible hamstrings allow more movement in the hips which over time may relieve an achy lower back.  There is also just the simple enjoyment of watching the changes in your body as you continue your yoga practice. It does not matter what everyone else in the room is doing; your challenges and gains are yours and yours alone.

All of us at some time in our lives have been in a competition, whether it is in school, sports or in our job.  The playing field may be level or there may be obvious inequities, but any time there is a competition, there are winners and losers and no one wins every contest.

We have a choice in how we view our world.  Do we immediately make every situation a competition? If so, is it necessary or does it create anxiety and stress?  There is a thrill in winning but losing is not as much fun.  In a place like a yoga class where no one can “win” in every pose, is the competition worthwhile or does it lessen the enjoyment?

In many cases how we view the world determines our experience of it. As summer and vacations approach, see if you can simply take pleasure in an activity just for the joy of it with no attachments to the outcome.

When I took trigonometry in high school, I was in the first class that did not learn how to use trig tables.  We spent one class looking through the tables in the back of our textbooks and then we never looked at them again. Calculators that did trig functions had become inexpensive and the school system decided trig tables soon would be obsolete.  Instead of spending the semester learning to use the tables, we were taught how to use our calculators.

Several years ago I worked with a math teacher at a local high school to design a calculator for people with disabilities.  She considered it part of her job to teach her students when to use a calculator and when another method would be better.  For some types of problems calculators save time, but for others it requires fifteen minutes or more to enter all of the information into the calculator, where it only takes about three minutes to do the entire problem on paper.

In our everyday activities, we do not hesitate to use tools to help us. I use a computer and a calculator to balance the yoga center’s books. I have never used a ledger or performed all of the calculations by hand. I could, but the computer and calculator save time and effort. We have remote controls for our TVs and GPS systems are decreasing our need for maps. To go even further, we use light bulbs instead of candles to light our homes, and microwaves and ovens instead of fire to cook our food.  All of these make our lives easier and more comfortable.

Interestingly, in yoga classes many do not use the tools available to make their yoga practice more comfortable and manageable.  Our yoga center has all manner of props including blankets, chairs, block and belts. They can be used in numerous ways to aid alignment and to make challenging poses safer and less intense. For example, in seated forward bends, a blanket under the hips reduces stress on the back and makes the poses more accessible for people with tight hips and hamstrings.

Many think of props as being remedial.  In some ways, this misses the point. Advanced students with hamstring flexibility usually do not need to sit on a blanket in seated forward bends, but doing the poses without a blanket does not make one advanced. Advanced students use the props they need.

One of the major ethical guidelines in yoga is Ahimsa which means nonviolence or non-harming. Most of us have heard about this in connection with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and we tend to think about nonviolence in relation to others.  I regularly see people who are late wait at the door of a yoga room for the instructor to motion them in so they do not disturb the class during centering. However, many do not treat themselves with the same kindness. Often people prefer to strain rather than use the necessary props to make their poses as beneficial as possible.

When it comes to how we treat ourselves, Ahimsa can be difficult. In the end, it does not really matter if we can touch our toes or do a fantastic backbend.  In our everyday life, it is just not that big a deal. Life can be challenging enough on its own, so it helps to be as kind to ourselves as we can. See if you can begin to practice Ahimsa using the tools you need to create a happier and less stressful life.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, I used to be a computer programmer. I enjoyed this since each program was a giant puzzle to be solved. There was a limited set of commands that the computer could understand, but an infinite number of variables. The goal was to write a program that was elegant using commands and variables efficiently. In my programming career, my projects ranged from security systems to calculators for the visually impaired to graphics for a television show. Though they were all written in the same computer language, the language was applied differently in each project.

When I attempt a new yoga pose, there are times I feel like I am programming again. I know what the pose is supposed to look like, but what body part goes where and in what order? Out of all of the possible movements, which ones will take me there?

Overall, human bodies are very much alike. As with any other type of organism, there is a general template for humans. We all have the same organization of limbs, joints, and organs that are placed in the same areas. We can distinguish a human from all of earth’s other creatures.

Some of the larger yoga workshops that I have attended have had over 100 participants. In one workshop I left the room for a few minutes and when I came back, everyone was doing a seated forward bend. Since everyone was facing away from me, at first glance they all appeared to be identical. They were doing the same pose and I couldn’t see anyone’s face. As I looked around, I began to distinguish individual differences. Some people were folding quite deeply; others were a little stiffer. A few were obviously working with injuries. It quickly became apparent that everyone was doing their own pose even while they were part of the larger group.

Within our human template there is an amazing amount of variation. While some are challenged to touch their toes, contortionists can fold themselves into all types of positions. There are those who can add huge columns of numbers easily in their heads, singers with perfect pitch, artists, scientists and philosophers. Some of us are introverts, some extroverts. Some are naturally organized, some are not. For each trait we have, there is usually an opposite trait that describes another person. Each of us has our own combination of traits that make us who we are and different from everyone else.

One aspect of yoga is an appreciation of our individuality. While being part of a forest, we are still our own trees. Even within our similarities there are infinite variations. We live our lives our own way, following our own path, different from everyone who has come before us and from everyone else who will follow.