WARNING: This post is filled with the rantings of an oversensitive yoga girl living in a sometimes insensitive world.
Maybe it's the well over a decade in the world of all things yoga and meditation, but it's common for me to work the yoga lexicon. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has spent time (some not even 10 minutes much less over 10 years) in the yoga world and I find that my yoga girl speak sometimes raises a few eyebrows. Maybe that's why I laughed out loud when I read Alex Smith's funny (and, at certain points, dead-on) article, Dating a Yoga Goddess. Ah, yes, friend/mate/partner/family member beware: we yoga folk can be a bit different.
Not too long ago, I went to someone's house with a friend. My friend is related to the people we were visiting. Our time at the house was spent sitting on couches facing the TV -- which was on. Personally, I find the TV a distraction when I'm trying to have a conversation with someone. I also find myself disgusted by my own zombie-like draw to the TV -- even when I don't care what's on the screen, I find myself staring at it blankly, while half-listening to the other person. At one point, the host, who was telling me a story, broke off in mid-sentence to comment on something that was happening on TV.
Being different and all, I found myself feeling a bit hurt by this (there's more to this story than I'm telling here -- my hurt was compounded when my friend accused me of being impolite when I spent too much time with the couple's 4-year-old child). I understand that today's world is filled with multi-tasking and that it's common for people to spend time with people in front of TVs, while texting etc. That said, it still saddens me when I see a group of people out together with each person on his/her phone (either texting or talking). Attempting to converse with people while the TV is on (or while texting), or labeling simultaneous TV watching and talking as "quality time" doesn't do it for me.
WARNING: I'm about to pull from the yoga lexicon. Wait for it...
Where's the presence? I'm having a conversation with you and you're half watching the TV and half talking to me? Call me freaky yoga girl, but that equals zero presence, not a whole heck of a lot of resepect and a serious lack of connection. Now I'm going to go out on a veeeery shaky limb and say this: my idea of relationship (or relating on any level) is presence and connection. If those two key ingredients are missing, I'd say that the relationship is on shaky ground.
After mentioning my displeasure with our visit, my friend chided me by saying: "This is how we do things. We're a TV family." Ah, I love that justification. This is how we've always done things, this is how everyone does things, so it MUST be right, why change now -- blah, blah, blaaaahhhh. I fully understand that this is how things are "typically" done. If Gandhi or Jesus or Mother Teresa or anyone else who's made history had done things the way they were typically done then history wouldn't have been made and people's lives wouldn't have been irrevocably changed for the better. But what do I know -- these are just the rantings of a weird yoga girl.
This past summer, I wrote a blog post about yoga studio pet peeves and I was horrified by what happens in yoga class. Answering iPhones in class (the teacher AND the students), texting while in Downward Dog, packing up and leaving during Savasana -- yoga requires attention, not multi-tasking. Citta vritti nirodha, people!!!!!!
As you may have gathered, I'm a bit sensitive about this topic, as I've caught lots o' flack for being "different" (I'm being kind when I use this word -- usually I hear the word "weird"). [In fact, my friend will undoubtedly read this post and get seriously annoyed with me.] Call me crazy, but I'd bet that back in the late 1800s people thought that Gandhi was weird. It's possible that all of his non-violence babble and hunger strike efforts were a bit...odd, unconventional, and weird. And Jesus -- well, heck, he must have gotten quite a few odd looks what with all of the wine-drinking (after turning water into said wine) with his 12 male friends. Suffice to say, I think weird is a matter of perspective.
Perhaps that's why I don't mind letting my yoga freak flag fly. This can make me...misunderstood at best and unpopular at worst (can you hear it now -- "Ugh, Diane is coming over, so we have to turn off the TV. She's probably one of those anti-TV freaks. I just want to check the score of the game, what's wrong with that?!?!"). Yes, if this were a demented children's book, the title would be: You're Different and That's Bad.
For the record: No, I do not dine at a person's house only to lecture my host about the treatment of the animal that's being served on the table for dinner. No, I don't break out into spontaneous OMs or suggest that we have a fireside chant after dinner. No, I don't lecture people on the benefits of yoga and make them feel bad if they don't practice. I realize that my habits/belief aren't "the norm." I guess my question is this -- does this mean that the norm, while the accepted way of doing things, is necessarily the "right" way (or the only way, for that matter)?
Yes, I pass on the meat being served at dinner. Yes, I don't drink alcohol (a personal preference, NOT some sort of social statement). Yes, I have been known to go on silent retreats in which all day is spent in silence, with no reading, writing, or listening to one's iPod. Yes, I'd rather spend time in silence than with the TV on. Yes, I spend a little more money buying organic food. This doesn't make me right but I don't think it qualifies me as a card-carrying weirdo either.
Such as the road of someone who cares about something as weird as presence in an exchange or a relationship. Maybe that's why I have this total obsession (I have iTunes programmed to replay it in an endless loop) with Pink's new song, Raise Your Glass. If you were in the Philadelphia airport a few weeks back, that was me with the iPod dancing her way through the terminal. There she goes again -- freaky yoga girl.
So to my friend and all of the others who do things the typical way -- no worries. Live and be happy. I'm certainly not right and you're not wrong. There is no better or best. Just think before you use the word "weird" again, ok?
And for my fellow "weirdos" out there who are choosing to be, as Pink says, wrong in all the right ways -- this dance is for you:
Namaste!
No comments:
Post a Comment