Space Equality: Stay On Your Own Mat

I adore my personal space bubble. That delicate bubble floats around my body providing space to breathe and move freely. In my utopia, every single soul is granted a bubble large enough to accommodate expansive swan dives and extended stick poses. Of course, you're free to welcome guests in your bubble. An invitation is an absolute requirement though. No ifs, ands or buts about that.

In the real world, personal space bubbles continuously inflate and deflate throughout the day. Under some circumstances our beloved bubbles actually burst and disappear completely. Sometimes it feels as if people in this city are armed with invisible bubble popping wands. It's a wand bubble war out there. You're lucky if you make it down the block with your bubble still intact. 

But that is just the way of life for New Yorkers. Less personal space is part of the package deal we signed up for.  You'll find it in the fine print right under ridiculously expensive rental rates and startling rat sightings. But, so what? If you can deal with the fine print, you get to live in one of the most energized cities in the world. Besides if ample personal space was a prerequisite for our happiness, we would've  invested in spacious three-story houses in the suburbs long ago.

I'll sacrifice a little personal space for the common good. But, I'm far from okay with the ridiculous inequality in personal space. I'm fed up with people obnoxiously squeezing their way into my bubble. Complete strangers, men and women alike, have literally sat on my body to give themselves more space. I'm not kidding. No one has had the audacity to put their entire bum on me yet, but have thrown a good portion of their leg right on top of mine. 

Space is a feminist issue. I haven't had the courage yet to ask those people if they would sit down like that on a man. But my guess is the answer to that question is a definite and resounding no.

Women are simply expected to take up less space. We're taught to keep our bodies slim and slender. Our movements should be tiny and dainty to stay within the bounds of our extra small bubbles. Women sit with their legs crossed, while men have the freedom have their legs opened wide taking up as much horizontal space as they would like.

And women's personal space is more easily invaded. People sit on, push, and shove me because they know that in all likelihood I won't retaliate. They know I'm not going to call them out on it or give them a big push back. Even if I tried, most likely I would lose the fight miserably. To stay safe, I begrudgingly surrender my precious personal space and go on about my day.

Unlike bubbles, yoga mats provide visible and clearly defined personal space boundaries. I'm on my mat and you are on yours. Even in crowded classes, it's customary to leave little bits of space between mats and be mindful of your neighbor's space. You wouldn't put your mat right on top of your neighbor's. And all yoga mats are just about (if not exactly) the same size. The standard mat is large enough to accommodate a variety of body sizes and shapes comfortably.

There's no need to fight for personal space in yoga class. It's automatically granted to you no matter who you are or what you look like. Here's to taking the yoga with us when we leave class. May we always remember to stay on our own mats.

Pack Patience For Your Road Trip

The last few moments of yoga class are often the sweetest. Yogis take this time to join a small chorus of Oms, embrace humble silence, and express gratitude for another lovely day of practice. This week one of my instructors filled our last moments together with reflection on this Chinese proverb:

"If you are patient in one moment of anger, then you will escape a hundred days of sorrow." 

All day long I was having run-ins with anger and a few of its closest relatives, disappointment and frustration. Some of my nearest and dearest were struggling with life changes and annoying hassles that were putting up impassable roadblocks between them and their happiness. Before I stepped on the mat, I was annoyed and angry at them for wallowing and refusing to just let it go and move on. It was a classic case of anger begetting anger. Those words of wisdom were timed perfectly that afternoon.

I'm not opposed to anger. It's a completely normal and sometimes healthy human emotion. Sometimes a little bit of well-expressed anger can go a long way. When our rights are crumbled up and tossed in the trash like yesterday's AM New York, fiery anger can motivate us to stand up for ourselves and demand our angry voices be heard. Healthy doses of anger seem almost required for social change. No need to trouble ourselves with changing something if it doesn't conjure up our angry alter ego.

But when anger is only a feeling and not also a motivator for some sort of progress, it does nothing but get in the way of our happiness. Momentary anger can indeed put us on a road to lasting sadness. Angry people say things they don't mean and behave in shameful and regrettable ways.  Anger makes us damage (sometimes beyond repair) relationships we would otherwise wrap our loving arms around and lay a few big smooches on.

As the wise proverb advises, patience is the answer. A few deep breaths and a little patience give us time to hit the breaks and make that U-turn back on the road to happiness. Patience gives us the green light to bypass Anger Avenue and its jarring potholes altogether. So why then is it so ridiculously hard to stay patient and stop ourselves from giving the bird to the guy in the car behind us?

In his The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James, the Father of American Psychology, wrote:

If we were to ask the question: 'What is human's life's chief concern?' one of the answers we should receive would be: 'It is happiness.' How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. (pp. 67)

If James was right, even the things we say and do in anger are attempts to find happiness. We might be driving the mercedes when we should be in the jeep, but we are still just trying our darnedest to get up that big mountain to happiness. Fueled with anger, we are probably driving too fast to realize we are actually in the wrong car for the trip.

In those last few moments of yoga class, I realized that my angry friends are all just aimlessly searching the map for happiness and I was buckled in the passenger seat next to them. The mix of their anger with my anger might just make them drive right off the side of the mountain. But with patience we might all slowly pull into the rest stop to stretch our legs and rethink our itinerary.

James didn't claim that we all find happiness only that we are all looking for it. Maybe patience is what sets those who have happiness apart from those of us still speeding past the right turn.

Melanoma: Is that Beautiful Tan Really Worth it?

Oh how lovely it would be to be one of the lucky ones to soak up the sun's rays for hours upon hours without worry of the punishing sunburn. Born with pale skin speckled with freckles, I've will never enjoy that kind of freedom. Buckets full of sunscreen, big sunglasses, and a wide-rimmed floppy hat are a must before I can even so much as think about placing a toe in the sand on a hot summer day. It's annoying, frustrating and just plain scary. 

Skin cancer is no joke. Melanoma took my father's life before he could blow out the candles on his thirtieth birthday cake. I didn't know him, so I don't know exactly how he ended up in that incredibly devastating situation. But given the time of his youth, I'm guessing he spent countless hours in the sun without knowing how to, or even that he should, protect himself from those intense rays.

That was a different time. I cringe when my mom tells stories about laying out with her friends in the sun slathered from head to toe in baby oil. If she discovered I was doing something as inane as that today, she'd have to talk herself out of banging my head against the wall to knock some sense into it. I'd let her have at it though. Even though it would be hypocritical, she would be right. She and my father grew up in a different time. I know better. 

We all know better today. We are well aware of the risky combination of the big, beautiful sun and our bodies. It's no secret today that everyone must coat themselves in SPF to protect their health. Why then are the rates of skin cancer on the incline, especially among women in their 20s and 30s? 

Experts at the Mayo Clinic predict that one of the culprits is indoor tanning bed use. 

Indoor tanning bed use?! Oh my. That is much sillier than just forgetting to reapply the sunscreen. Using a tanning bed is synonymous with laying your beach towel out on the blazing sun itself. Skip the tan and go right to the coffin. 

That is harsh. I know. But maybe that big dose of that fear will help us all to throw away the obnoxious idea that a year-round, glowing tan is a prerequisite for being beautiful. Maybe we need it to finally have the courage to say it just isn't worth it anymore. 

Muster up that courage sisters and say fuck you to patriarchy's unhealthy beauty ideals. Throw your money at the sunscreen companies and let the tanning salon go bankrupt. 

Live long enough to blow out well more than thirty candles on your birthday. 

I'll Have Ahimsa With a Side of Fries Thank You

Summertime, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Time off. Beaches. June's pool. Sunny early mornings. Fresh veggies. Flip flops. Slurpees. Ice cold water. Big straw hats. Even bigger sunglasses. Freckles. Bathing suits. Watermelon. Hiking. Afternoon naps. Fireworks. Evening running. Lightening bugs. Shorts. Sangria. Cheaper fruit. Roof top evenings. Ice cream trucks. Cookouts.

Ugh. It pains me to do it, but I'm scratching (at least traditional) cookouts off my list of summertime faves.

Firing up the grill and throwing on a few hamburgers used to be the hallmark of a good ol' summer day. Add one or two generous glasses of wine and some good friends to the mix and that just might be my own self-made heaven. Alas, those days are nevermore.  I said adios to the traditional cookout last summer when I stopped eating meat altogether.

Many yogis adopt vegetarian or vegan diets because of the ahimsa. Ahimsa is sanskrit for non-violence or non-injury to all living beings. Although yogis have different interpretations of exactly what ahimsa means for everyday life, for some not eating animals or animal products is a definite requirement. Some even sweep the floor as they walk to avoid harming any small life forms in their path. It can also mean causing no harm to your fellow humans or yourself.  Whatever the specifics of ahimsa are for you, it's easy to understand that choosing non-violence is generally a good idea.

I'd like to wave my yogi flag high and attribute the end of my meat eating days to my devotion to ahimsa. But the truth is ahimsa wasn't on my mind last summer. Yoga philosophy just wasn't part of my repertoire then. Even if it had been, I'm not sure ahimsa would have convinced me to stop eating animals. Yogi or not, I don't believe humans are naturally herbivores. Our predecessors ate flesh for a reason. The human evolutionary trajectory would've been a bit different had our ancestors been able to survive off of a leafy green and berry only diet.

Going sans meat was simply a health choice for me. I'm grossed out by all the preservatives, dyes and other chemicals injected in the meat stocked in the average supermarket. The links between red meat consumption and diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer don't sit too well with me either. Since I wasn't head over heels for meat to begin with, replacing it with more veggies and tofu just made sense.

So, on a hot and humid July evening I took one last savory bite of a big, juicy burger and then vowed to never do it again. I opted to eat a mostly plant-based diet with the occasional fish dish. Pescetarianism was a compromise, omega-3 fats are important and the thought of living without sushi was somewhat devastating to me.

Turns out that day to day being a mostly-vegetarian (or pescetarian if you prefer) is easy as veggie pot pie. As long as I plan my own meals or preview the restaurant menu before plopping down in the booth, my belly is usually happy. Of course, there were some things to get used to. Loving and living with meat-eaters means sometimes prepping both meaty and veggie options.  I also learned very quickly to bring my own fruit, nuts and veggies when traveling. Chicken seems to be a prerequisite for almost all airport grab and go food. Unless you are willing to have a few potato chip meals, you learn to make room for the snacks in your carry on. And accepting a dinner party invite means either hoping the host is a fan of meat-free dishes or pestering them with your dietary restrictions in advance.  Albeit sometimes annoying, these are small sacrifices to make for a healthier body.

That is, until cookout season. Thanksgiving was hard too, but it was just one day. Cookout season is months and months long. You might think the chances of bumping into a cookout in the concrete jungle of NYC would be slim. Just the opposite, here public spaces are everyone's backyard. You can fire up the grill on the open sidewalk if you so desire. On any given weekend run, I'm sure to sprint past a cookout or two.

It's always the smell that gets me. As soon as that meat on the grill smell hits my olfactory bulbs, visions of burgers start dancing in my head. Bonafide 100% real meat burgers.  Clean and healthy veggie patties don't exist in that little daydream. There's no denying it, the smell of meat on the grill is captivating even for a mostly-vegetarian like myself. It takes every little bit of self-restraint I have to keep from giving my never-ever-going-to-be-a-vegetarian boyfriend the please share with me eyes when he enjoys his deliciously fragrant burger within nose reach.

My choice to go meat-free didn't start with ahimsa, but somehow that's where this summertime cookout temptation story ends. I didn't mean for it to happen, but resisting the burger cravings has become one small way for me to embrace non-violence. With two convincing reasons, my health and non-violence, I have a stronger defense against that alluring grilled meat smell.

No matter how you choose to interpret ahimsa, it takes considerable time, effort and buckets full of patience to live a life of non-violence. I won't go so far to say that humans are innately bad, but it only takes a quick glance a the front page of any newspaper to remind us how easily humans can act violently. All of our acts of violence might not be front page worthy, but they are equally tempting and challenging to resist. So we put our minds to practicing ahimsa and hope that someday it will come with ease.