Resourcing the Revolution

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Changemaker Q&A with Kelly Connor: Sunrose Yoga

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I am so thrilled to revisit the Changemaker Q&A series with a new interview for the month of July! This month’s interview features Kelly Connor Sunrose, a fellow yoga instructor who lives in Portland. I first met Kelly as a student in one of her classes, and then had the pleasure of getting to know her better over the past year. She is an amazing being, and is doing beautiful work in this world. As soon as we sat down for tea last month to dig deep into what I am planning for Rebel Yogi, I knew that I had to share her story with you.

So, without further ado, here’s Kelly!

1. What is the world changing work that you are bringing into existence? (Tell us a bit about what your work means to you and why you think it’s important for the world.)

At this moment in time, what I am sharing is the spirit of exploration and curiosity. I’m sharing an approach that asks rather than answers. This has a way of emerging in all of the work that I do: as a yoga and meditation guide, as an advocate for peace, justice and the environment, as a writer and artist, as a mother.

It is tempting to harden around a sense of knowing. Knowing something ends a discussion, whereas asking or inviting begins one. To live in the spaciousness of mystery is counter-cultural, but perhaps necessary for our survival as a species. Hardening around a particular belief does not allow for community. And we are all in this together.

The work is at once simple, subtle and profound, gross. One thing leads to another and I’m letting myself be marked as I make marks myself.

2. What was the moment or situation that made you realize the way you were approaching this work was unsustainable? And, how did you find your way back to balance out of those challenges?

There was a time when I practiced law and yoga that assumed answers, adhered to a structure I had to follow, but believed to be damaging to most of the people involved with it. At the time, I felt as though real change had to come from within an organization, while respecting its structure. But that really took its toll on me and on my ability to do the work I knew I was put here to do. So for a while, I abandoned it all. I spent a lot of time in meditation. And that was important, but now I’m moving toward a place of integration.

I think allowing the process to unfold is absolutely necessary. Even if we sense that things will wind up a certain way, the unfolding is where life is happening. Jumping ahead to the cymbal crash at the end changes everything.

3. What are you doing differently now – how are you maintaining a balanced place moving forward?

I’m operating outside of “the law” now, in true rebel fashion. The work I do involves mediation, meditation, community radio and connection that makes sense to me. I’m doing the work that only I can do in the only way I can. By fitting into someone else’s mold, I could not do this.


4. If you could give that past self one piece of advice or guidance, what would it be? Or, if you wouldn’t change anything, why not?

I wouldn’t change anything, because the struggles that happened along the way seem important and even necessary. There was suffering, and a lot of it was “needless” in a sense, but those internal engagements brought me to this point; wherever that is!

 

Kelly Connor Sunrose, E-RYT, is a peace educator living in beautiful Portland, Oregon. Kelly’s uses art, yoga and meditation to remind people of their own brilliant gentleness. She spends her days mothering, making art, connecting with students and tending to her garden. Kelly shares her work online at http://sunroseyoga.com.

The Rebel Yogi Guide to the 8 Limbs of Yoga: Niyama

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This July I want to take you deeper into the full practice of yoga. This means that we’re going to explore the 8 limbs of yoga from the perspective of the world-changer. I’ll do my best to help you answer the question “just what are these 8 limbs, and what the heck do they have to do with me?”

Last week we began with an exploration of Yama, the abstentions, and now this week we’ll move on to the second limb of yoga: Niyama, the observances.

In the same way that the Yamas are the things we shouldn’t do, the Niyamas are the things that we should do. If you remember from last week’s post, we can also look at the Yamas as external work and the Niyamas as internal work; the Yamas produce their effects without being aided by any other factors, but the Niyamas are dependent on the successful cultivation of the Yamas to reach their full effect.

Similar to the first post, we’ll break each of the Niyamas into the sanskrit name, its general translation, and then a quick exploration of what each means for us in this particular context. And again, look for the patterns and the places that each of these recommendations overlaps with the others.

Sauca = Purity or cleanliness

This translates to purity of body, thought, word and deed. It can be broken down into external (the body) and internal (the mind, your attitude).

We can take this niyama literally, but also to mean embracing simplicity. When our lives are simpler, there is less to manage, and we tend to be happier. Add simplicity together with keeping the things that come into our bodies and minds pure, and we are better able to maintain a calm and steady mind. This in turn leads to generally being less stressed.

Santosa = Contentment

In this case, contentment means being just as we are, without relying on outside things for our happiness, to neither like nor dislike.

We can also look at Santosa as coming into right relationship with life, being able to surf the up and down waves that life brings our way. We can cultivate joy and gratitude, and focus on being present to the current moment – not living in the past or the future.

Tapah = Austerity

This one gets a bit more difficult to fit into a modern-society context; one literal translation means to accept pain without causing it. For this Niyama and the ones following, we’re going to take a more modern (read: less literal) exploration.

We can break this Niyama down by looking at a situation where someone says something mean or hurtful to you, and rather than retaliating or responding in kind, we simply choose to walk away from the situation. We could also look at this in a different light: as determination and perseverance through struggle, or simply the hard work that is required to attain a lofty goal.

Svadhyaya = Spiritual study

While the literal interpretation means the study of “scriptures and spiritual texts” or “practices that we have been initiated into”, I rather like the way that Jackie Dumaine looks at Svadhyaya. To do this, we take “study” to mean self-inquiry, exploration or observation.

This can mean that we are our own ultimate guru: we have all the answers within us, but we have to sit still and contemplate long enough to find them. We can also explore why we do the things that we do, and what our behaviors mean; for example, why we set an alarm with the intention to get up at a certain hour and then hit the snooze button for 30 minutes; why we talk about doing things like getting exercise and eating well but then don’t follow up; and other behaviors of a similar nature.

Isvara pranidhana = Surrender

The final Niyama means total surrender, allowing us to attain Samadhi (tranquility of mind).

Isvara pranidhana asks that we allow ourselves to flow; to do our own work, and then to get out of the way and surrender to what is and will be. We can do anything and everything as long as we do it with the idea of serving the world at large. The biggest piece of this is letting go of the things that we can’t control.

So how can the second limb of Yoga be integrated into your life, or your work? My guess is that you’re already practicing quite a bit of this without even knowing it. During the coming week, maybe try to pay attention to when and where you notice both the Yamas and Niyamas coming up in your everyday life, and feel free to get in touch with any comments or questions.

These explorations of the Yoga Sutras are being fueled by both the Edwin Bryant and Swami Satchidananda commentaries. I have also referenced the Yoga Code by Jackie Dumaine for this week’s post.

The Rebel Yogi Guide to the 8 Limbs of Yoga: Yama

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If you recall from last week’s post about Asana, this July I want to take you deeper into the full practice of yoga. This month, we’re going to explore the 8 limbs of yoga from the perspective of the world-changer. Just what are these 8 limbs, and what the heck do they have to do with me?

This week we begin an exploration of Yama, the abstentions, and next week we’ll move on to Niyama, the observances.

Yes, in a literal sense Yama refers to abstaining, otherwise known as “the things we shouldn’t do”. But before we get wrapped up in rules and regulations, just remember that these are guidelines along the path, road markers to guide our footsteps, and not absolutes. We can also look at the Yamas as external work and the Niyamas as internal work; the Yamas produce their effects without being aided by any other factors, but the Niyamas are dependent on the successful cultivation of the Yamas to reach their full effect.

Hang in there. This piece feels huge, and it’s a lot of information, but I’m going to do my best to make it as easily understandable as I can. We’ll break each of the Yamas into the sanskrit name, its general translation, and then a quick exploration of what each means for us in this particular context. You will likely start to see a pattern, that each of the Yamas interacts and overlaps with the others!

Ahimsa = Nonviolence

The first of the Yamas (which is the first limb of yoga) is understood to be the most important of the bunch. The literal translation means that we should not injure (or cause pain to) any living creature anywhere at any time.

What we can take away from the idea of nonviolence should also extend to ourselves; having kindness and compassion toward ourselves and others can be one of the hardest things that we do. At its root, practicing ahimsa means that we should be non-violent in thought, word and deed. This idea extends into diet, as well; in the strictest sense, a vegetarian or vegan diet is a requirement for a yogi, according to the Sutras.

Satya = Truthfulness

This one is fairly simple in its translation – one’s words and thoughts should be in exact correspondence to fact.

This one is also pretty simple on the outside: tell the truth. But it goes a little deeper, teaching us that our speech should not be deceitful or misleading, and should be for the benefit of all others. We can also dig a little deeper to ask if we are being true to ourselves, in our lives, our actions and our thoughts.

There is one exception – truth must never cause harm or result in violence (see above for Ahimsa). If there is a conflict between two tenets of the Yamas, then Ahimsa must always take precedence. “One should not tell the truth unkindly.” According to the Edwin Bryant commentaries, this includes not always speaking bluntly and truthfully to people about their shortcomings (aka: being tactful). Truthfulness should bring benefit to someone, and harm to no one.

Asteya = Non-stealing

This Yama translates to both not stealing (taking things belonging to others) and also to not harboring the desire to do so.

We can look at this in different ways: always being on time and being respectful of other people’s time – if you’re late to a meeting, you are stealing time from someone else; another way to look at this on an individual level is to allow yourself the opportunity to reach your full potential – if you don’t, you may very well be stealing something from yourself. And, really, the world needs you to reach your awesome full potential!

Brahmacarya = Moderation

Confession – the literal translation of this one is usually celibacy or abstinence from sexual indulgence, but we’re going to look at this a different way.

I think the more applicable way to look at Brahmacarya is to explain it as moderation in all things. We don’t want to eat too much, sleep too much, spend too much… Here we find the idea that we are able to figure out what “enough” means in our individual context, and then only do that much of whatever it is we’re talking about. It’s finding the balance: not eating too little, or too much, but just enough to keep us healthy and happy. It’s like Michael Pollan’s recent explanation of the diet that’s healthiest for both us and the planet: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Aparigraha = Non-attachment

This can be viewed as the renunciation of unnecessary possessions, not accumulating beyond our capacity to use things in the proper ways.

We can also look at this one as not becoming attached to thoughts, ideas or routines, as well as possessions. The past few years have seen a rise in the minimalist movement – people who want to live a simpler lifestyle, finding freedom from “stuff” by not assigning too much meaning to our possessions, and making decisions about what does come into their lives in a very conscious manner (see this post by Joshua and Ryan of the Minimalists for a great explanation).

Whew. That feels like quite a bit to chew on, so we’ll leave the discussion here. As I mentioned above, next week’s post will begin to delve into the Niyamas, which build upon what we’ve covered today. There’s no test, I promise!

So how can the first limb of Yoga be integrated into your life, or your work? My guess is that you’re already practicing quite a bit of this without even knowing it. During the coming week, maybe try to pay attention to when and where you notice the Yamas coming up in your everyday life, and feel free to get in touch with any comments or questions.

These explorations of the Yoga Sutras are being fueled by both the Edwin Bryant and Swami Satchidananda commentaries. I have also referenced the Yoga Code by Jackie Dumaine for this week’s post.

The Rebel Yogi Guide to the 8 Limbs of Yoga: Asana

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For most people in the western world, when they talk about “yoga” they’re usually thinking of some pretzel-twisted pose, or a power vinyasa class, or whatever version of physical practice they participate in or are familiar with. But if you happened to be following along during my teacher training, you might have noticed that in the first three of the Reflections Along the Path posts (one, two & three) I mentioned that yoga really wasn’t about the asanas at all.

I know what you might be thinking. Wait. What? How can yoga not be about the physical postures? Isn’t that pretty much all there is?

Well, dear reader, this July I want to take you deeper into the full practice of yoga. This month, we’re going to explore the 8 limbs of yoga from the perspective of the world-changer. Just what are these 8 limbs, and what the heck do they have to do with me? Why should I do yoga, anyway?

We’re going to start with Asana (the physical practice, the postures) because that’s where most people become acquainted with and learn about yoga. Then we’ll move along to the Yamas and Niyamas, then Pranayama, and finally into an exploration of stillness and meditation. If you have no idea what any of those words mean, don’t worry; by the end of the month, I hope that we will have remedied that.

By the practice of the limbs of Yoga, the impurities dwindle away and there dawns the light of wisdom, leading to discriminative discernment.” – the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book 2, verse 28

To give you a really simplified version of what this means – removing ignorance (gaining discriminative discernment through our practice), that we might overcome toxins and tensions.

The sanskrit words in the Yoga Sutras that reference asana are as follows:

Sthira-sukham asanam

Sthira = steady
Sukham = comfortable
Asanam = posture

This means that our physical yoga practice (the asanas) should be steady and comfortable. This isn’t to say that your personal yoga practice always has to be gentle, but in every posture, you should always strive to find a balance between effort and ease. By bending and twisting the body, we squeeze out the toxins that are accumulated in everyday life, and we strengthen our bodies as we also gain flexibility; keeping the postures steady and comfortable allows us to find the proper balance between strength and flexibility. And, as you’ll hear over and over, modern scientific research shows that practicing yoga can have a huge impact on levels of stress and anxiety.

So, yes. While it’s not about the asanas, that’s where we start. The physical practice is both very important and very beneficial; it’s the best place to start to build our foundation.

Swami Satchidananda talks a lot about the best yogis being good surfers, able to ride along the top of the crashing waves. What he means is being able to ride out the ups and downs of life in a more relaxed manner, not being tossed about by each change in the tides, not being flung from extreme highs to crushing lows, but instead finding a more gentle ebb and flow between the extremes.

Our asana practice is actually only the 3rd limb of yoga, not an end or goal unto itself. But, it all starts on the mat, with your own personal yoga origin story. What story will you tell, and where will your practice take you?

 

I have two different translations of the Yoga Sutras open on my desk as I’m writing this, a whopping 850 pages between them; I bring this up because what I’m doing this month is taking an incredibly complex topic and trying to break it down into bite sized bits. If anyone wants to have a deeper discussion about any of this, please ask questions and bring this discussion to life. The posts this month are intended to whet your appetite, lay a bit of groundwork for why we practice, and to open the discussion!

The Zen of Getting Shit Done

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If you’re anything like me, you struggle with the number of things that you have to or want to get done on any given day (or week, or month). The thing is, we tend to overestimate the amount of stuff we can get done in a day, but tend to actually underestimate the amount we can do in a longer time period.

And, we get stuck in the “all or nothing” trap.

  • If I can’t do this perfectly, I’m just not going to start.
  • I don’t have enough time today to finish this project, so I’m going to start tomorrow.
  • Ugh. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to think about this right now. I’ll do it later.

Do you see a common pattern to all of these ways of thinking? Yup – shit doesn’t get done.

I fall into this trap all the time. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’ve been sabotaging myself with this very thing pretty much every day since I got back from my teacher training. I have this gloriously long list of things that I intend to do for Rebel Yogi, many of which are time sensitive, and most of which are still sitting on my to do list, staring me in the face and inspiring large amounts of guilt every time I push them off.

I know this intellectually – if I could just break these big tasks into small bits and do one thing each day, I would have already accomplished most of what’s on that list. But, because I let myself think about the fact that they are all “big important” things, I psych myself out, and then I do nothing. I give myself an excuse, and I push things until tomorrow, or next week. And then next week the cycle starts all over again.

But what if we could start to train ourselves out of this “all or nothing” mindset?

What if, instead of looking at the big, important things that we want to accomplish and allowing the mental chatter to overwhelm us, we simply looked for the one small first step we can take. What if we took that step, no excuses? And what if we allowed ourselves to feel accomplishment around that small step instead of guilt around procrastination?

My guess is that we would all accomplish a whole lot more than we are now, and be much more relaxed in the process.

So what’s the balance? How can we start to convince our inner critic that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, that giving ourselves permission to “do something” is just as important, if not more?

What’s the first small step you can take today?

Now go do it.

The Rebel Yogi Origin Story – Part 3

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Back in April, a friend and fellow yogi requested that I do a more in-depth exploration of the “receiving the call” piece of the origin story. I’ve been mulling it over for long enough now that I think I finally have a proper response. The particular line from part 2 of this story follows:

That summer was a life changer. I went from armchair activist, signing e-petitions and not much else, to full out environmental activist. I was entrenched in the fight, had skin in the game, and was ready to take on the world. I had received the call loud and clear, and I knew that one of the reasons that I had been put on this earth was to save it.”

There are quite a few stories out there that involve the person who receives their call having a voice speak to them from above, some physical manifestation, or something a bit more obvious. To be honest, mine wasn’t quite like that.

My personal version of hearing the call was more of a certainty, an inner voice – that moment where there was no more hesitation or fear around the action that I needed to take, just the knowledge of what I had to do.

My certainty came with the words of one James Hansen, quoted by Bill McKibben in an email that went out to the 350.org mailing list. When one of the nation’s top climate scientists says that mining and burning a particular form of fossil fuel energy is essentially “game over” for the climate, it tends to get your attention. For me, it certainly did. I stepped up and became more involved in the fight than I had expected to – risking arrest, laying my body on the front lines, stepping up and saying loud and clear that if the fossil fuel companies wanted to wreck my planet, they would have to go through me to do it.

I tried to find the original post on the Tar Sands Action website, but things have been dismantled a bit since they joined up officially with 350. I did manage to find a post at another blog that has the full text of the email that changed everything.

So what does this have to do with you?

You’re a world changer. You wouldn’t be here reading this if you weren’t. But maybe you haven’t quite figured out exactly what it is that you are meant to do. Maybe you’re wondering if you’ve “received your call” but somehow missed it in passing; maybe you’ve been dabbling here and there, or throwing yourself full force into something you think might be “it” but you’re just not 100 percent sure.

My take is that if you have to wonder if you’ve found “it”… you haven’t.

It doesn’t mean you won’t. In fact, I’m sure that you will. But it’s like most things, in that it’s worth the wait, and it works a whole lot better if you don’t force it. If you find yourself in that not being quite sure camp, keep exploring! The exploration can be incredibly fulfilling, and worst case, you’ll figure out what “it” isn’t – which brings you one step closer to what is. And the closer you get, the more certainty will come with the path.

It took me quite some time and a lot of twisting and turning along my path to find environmentalism as a cause, and even more time to figure out that I had Rebel Yogi in my future. Do I consider any of the time or effort that I put in to getting here a waste? Absolutely not. Everything that I did, each organization that I worked with or cause that I championed, each step led me one step closer to where I am today.

So enjoy the exploration, savor the journey while you’re a part of it, and when your own “it” comes along, you’ll know.

—

Michael Margolis wrote a post recently about origin stories that provided the inspiration for this series of posts. This is part 3 – here are part 1 and part 2.