Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy: A Bridge from Body to Soul

The word “surrender” conjures up images of defeat for those old enough to remember World War II. It is not something anyone would want to do. It may be seen as a dangerous path: giving up one’s freedom, giving up one’s mind to the control of another, being weak. To others, especially the yogi in a spiritual sense, surrender implies giving up in some way, and it is one of the most important steps on the path. To surrender is to let go of the “ego-mind.” The assumption is that our mind, no matter how great it is and how wonderfully it can rationalize and help us understand our world around us, can never really know it all. The mind might struggle to understand but never really know the mysteries of creation, the very mystery of life itself, the unknowns of the universe. Least of all, the mind is not able to provide us with the one thing we all seek (whether we know we are seeking it or not) and that is an experience of our own Divinity. To the yogi, to experience our Divinity, we must first surrender our “ego-mind.”

After a short time as a resident at Kripalu, and having attended some programs there, I saw an opportunity to join the teaching staff. I had been involved in various forms of teaching all of my adult life and had become quite skilled as an instructor. I made my desires known and was quite surprised when told that I needed to wait awhile. Here I was, a “teacher.” They really needed teachers and I was making myself available. Instead, I was assigned to a maintenance crew and then later to programs where I was an assistant. At first I thought assisting would be wonderful. At least I would be getting closer to my goal of being on the teaching staff. It turned out to be worse than being on the maintenance crew—much worse. As an assistant, I was reminded every day of my skills as a teacher while not being “allowed” to use them. I was in an inner state of torment. This feeling persisted for some time despite several “processing” sessions with my mentors and senior residents.

Gradually, I began to see what I was doing. My mind was defining me as a teacher and making the perfectly reasonable rationalization that I should be in that role, given my relative skills. On the other hand, I was living in an ashram because I was in search of my soul. Satisfying my mind would, on the surface, make me happier and more comfortable with life. Letting go of it was not easy. But I also had to consider that there may be something wonderful awaiting me on the other side if I could let go. My mind tried to come up with some good reasons for letting go of itself. This proved a very tricky process. Luckily, I had something else going for me—the spiritual lifestyle and the morning yoga and meditation practice. Each morning, I found I could go beyond the struggle with my mind. In those moments, it mattered not whether I was a teacher, a yogi, a janitor or a pilot. In those moments, I was beyond the limiting definition of a role. In those moments I was Divine.

Each day I began to feel the effects of my morning practice lasting longer into the day. I was free from the torment of my perceived limited role for most of the morning. One day I noticed myself actually enjoying the simplicity of my assisting role, handing out paper and pencils. After a few more weeks, I was aware that I had indeed let go. I was no longer in torment. I was enjoying almost every act of the day. The teachers I was working with sought my feedback on their work and I offered it because I genuinely wanted to support them rather than show them how much I knew. Soon, I was also in a teaching role and it was not anywhere near as big a deal as it may have been before. It was just another role. I had moved beyond defining myself in relation to any role—even the one that had defined my identity.

There was also a change in my teaching. I experienced so much more freedom in that role. My whole being was now present to those I taught whereas in the past only the “teacher” part of me could show up. My work was so much more effective and powerful. What a lesson! I now had some understanding of what it meant to surrender. Over the next several years I had many more opportunities to practice this—and it required practice. Of all the lessons I have learned on my journey, I feel that no matter how many times I do it, surrendering is always an “edge” for me. At the same time, each time I have done it I have been abundantly blessed.

I must add a word of caution here as well. While I believe that learning to surrender was an important step in my spiritual evolution, I also needed to know when not to surrender. I believe there is a need to discriminate between surrendering for the sake of learning to surrender and surrendering as an end-product of manipulation. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to make the distinction—especially from the mind. This is the time to learn how to trust your gut and go with it. More about that later.

Strangely though, as soon as I feel like I have mastered surrender in one area of my life, it will soon show up again in another. For about a year after Lori and I became partners, I resisted the idea of having more children. My first two children were teenagers and I remembered the level of commitment it had required to raise them thus far. I decided not to repeat the experience. Lori, on the other hand, had no children and wanted to experience that part of life. I’m sure this is a struggle for many couples and in telling this story I want to let you know first that I don’t believe there is a right or wrong answer to this question when it comes up in a relationship. I would, however, recommend the way I went about resolving it. The process is more important than the answer.

As I had learned so well during my ashram life, the way to solve most of life’s problems is to take the question to a higher power than my limited “ego mind.” So I did. At this time I was in the process of building my Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practice. I was giving a lot in my sessions, which was great, but I knew that I also needed to receive. At this point there were not any other trained Phoenix Rising Yoga therapists, so I sought out an old colleague who practiced a form of deep-tissue bodywork and asked him to work with me. At one point during the session he dug deep into my shoulder blades and found an “edge.” I asked him to stay at that place while I breathed and focused my awareness. I sensed he had hit just the right spot. Tears streamed from my closed eyes and I felt a softness in my belly. I felt like a little baby. I began to dialogue with myself to explore it further, asking my friend to stay with the pressure of his thumb under my shoulder blade.

I went home and talked with Lori about what had happened. We sat and cried together as she told me that she, too, wanted me to have what I wanted in life, just like the little baby. I told her I wanted the same for her. Together we embraced the possibility of both of us having what we wanted and that it need not take anything from either of us.

A Divine gift came in the form of a son named Joshua. After his birth as I held one hand on his head and one under his buttocks, I had a feeling he was communicating with me. He was asking me for my blessing and for my permission for him to be with me. I gave him a very clear “Yes, my son, yes!” His brother Jack was born three years later and did not need to prepare his path so well. By then I knew the blessings far outweighed the burden. I had surrendered to parenthood.

But I still sometimes struggle with being what I call “the perpetual parent”—now 25 years of it without a break! At other times I feel very blessed. I have a recent memory of Jack learning to swim. It was such a delight to see the grin on his face when he realized he was actually swimming. I will never forget that moment. And when I go to a kindergarten parent/teacher night, for what feels like the hundredth time, I feel like grandpa among the young parents, some barely out of their 20s and me pushing 50. It’s a great chance to once again shake loose the concepts that I’m using to create my reality. Lori told me once that in her Middle Eastern culture, each child that is born is seen as the bearer of gifts. At first I laughed about it and didn’t buy it. Now I’m beginning to see how it works. I see the gifts, the joy, and the pain, and surrender to all.

By Divine coincidence, about the time of Joshua’s birth I was working with a client named Ellie who desperately tried for several years to have children. Both Ellie and her husband had infertility examinations which came up negative but after several more months of trying there was still no baby. During one session after a considerable physical release around her shoulders during an assisted chest-opening posture, she sat in a crossed-leg position as I guided her in meditation. She took her time to speak after the meditation and I could see from her expression that something had affected her deeply. She told me that during the meditation she received guidance. She had learned that her desire to have children came from her desire to love. She also learned that whether she had children of her own or not, it would not affect her capacity to love and that what she really wanted to create in her life was an opportunity to love. Sometime later she told me that they had made arrangements to adopt a baby from Korea. By the time she and her husband were scheduled to receive their daughter, she was pregnant.

Now, they have two daughters six months apart from different parts of the world. Ellie’s story is yet again confirmation to me of the power of appropriate surrender. She was able to get all she had ever wanted. I believe her willingness to let go of wanting life to give it to her in a particular form was the key to her receiving such a blessing.

Ed’s story was similar. In the first few sessions, Ed had made quite a lot of noise in his release in various postures and there had been no connection to any event or circumstance in his life. In his third session, he began to cry and during the integration at the end of the session he reported feeling angry with his father and his grandfather. His anger came from the awareness that neither of these powerful men would accept him until he passed their test. The test was that he do something “outstanding” with his life. From what he could gather, both of these men held the view that if one did not do something “outstanding” with their life then they did not deserve to be alive. Ed was 42 years old and as yet had done nothing “outstanding” enough to satisfy his elders. Ed had done some pretty wonderful things, including establishing a successful shiatsu practice and gaining respect in the local community. To Ed though, this did not count. He was just biding his time. Sooner or later, he felt, he would have to reenter the corporate world he had left a few years earlier and prove himself a man. He frowned a lot and told me when we began to work that he longed for a lasting and loving relationship in his life. He now saw how he could never have such a relationship as long as he had not accomplished something “outstanding.” Until that time, he was less than a complete man, according to his father and grandfather. He allowed himself to feel the anger and to take in the new awareness that he had been mislead. That hurt. After all, he loved these men dearly and they had been strong influences in his life.

The awareness had come to him in the assisted posture we had been doing that day. For a time, while in the posture and when he came out of it, he felt the presence of a Higher Power. That Higher Power was his own spirit. It told him that he was perfect just the way he was. There was nothing he needed to do to prove himself to anyone. All he needed was within him. His only task was to listen to his truth and follow its guidance. This was so difficult for him, even though he knew it was what he needed and wanted to do. His grandfather was in his late 90s. He didn’t want to displease him before his death. He desperately wanted to reconnect with his father who had partly rejected him since Ed had resigned his corporate position. Ed didn’t know what to do. He wanted to surrender to his Higher Power but didn’t know how. I asked him if he would like to go back into the posture again and give it a try. He said he would like that, so we did. He emerged saying he felt more courageous and willing to let go. He had handed over to his Higher Power the responsibility for his father and grandfather. He was going to continue to love them both and continue to follow his inner guidance rather than try to win their approval by meeting their expectations. I wished him well and didn’t see him again for some time.

One day he came into my office without the frown. He came to invite me to his wedding and to let me know that he had made peace with his father by sharing with him his commitment to follow his inner guidance. His father understood in essence what he was saying and although he had struggled with the direction that he seemed to be taking, he acknowledged that Ed had to live his own life. He apologized for forcing his expectations upon him. He had been in therapy himself recently and could see how he had projected his own fears onto Ed. Ed was totally amazed by this outcome. His act of surrender had given him all he had ever wanted from his father.

It is difficult for my conscious mind to do this act of surrender without help. To let go I need to be free of mind-generated fears and restrictions. The best way I know of doing this is to use my body as the means of being present to myself. It’s amazing how soft I can get with myself after just two or three minutes in a supported yoga posture taking deep, releasing breaths.

Exercise

OPENING UP TO SURRENDER IN YOUR LIFE

Sit on your heels on the floor. Use pillows under your buttocks or ankles if you need to. Place another pillow on the floor in front of you. Join your hands behind your back and come forward slowly from the waist, placing your head on the pillow in front of you. (Be careful not to hyper-extend the back of your neck. The cervical spine should be perpendicular to the floor and the weight on the crown of your head). Raise both arms up behind your back until you find an edge. Focus awareness into the sensations and breathe deep, falling-out breaths. You are now in a variation of the Yoga Mudra—a posture that symbolically is about the essence of yoga. It is the posture of surrender. It is about the surrender of the ego-mind to allow the opening to the soul—the Higher Self. As you hold the posture allow yourself to let go in all other aspects of your being. Ask to surrender all that keeps you separate from your soul. This might include fears, habits, old beliefs that no longer serve you or anything in the way of your continued transformation. Come slowly out of the posture and sit quietly in meditation. Ask your Higher Self for guidance. When you receive it write it down.