I'm sorta sick of writing about yoga, and I've heard from a few arguably tactless associates recently that they are sick of me writing about yoga too. So I decided to write about something different. That's right, my cats. Write what you know, y'all. I actually wrote this a year ago, but shhh, don't tell.
Read This Is All I Know About Budapest in its entirety on Open Salon.
Recently I was talking to a friend about dudes who claim that their “feelings were hurt” for highly trivial reasons subsequent to displaying shockingly sociopathic lacks of feelings during breakups. No one in particular. Just, you know, in general.
I am not really a big “feelings” girl myself. Never have been. Don’t like sappy movies; not crazy about over-processing things; once had a boyfriend who would get mad at me for not squeezing his hand back when he’d squeeze mine. (The latter is a first world relationship problem and I kind of wish I’d hung in there longer on that one.)
Don’t get me wrong. I have feelings. LOTS of them. Lots and lots and lots. Boy do I have feelings.
I’m just not very good at talking about my feelings. And especially not with someone I have feelings for. In fact, if I am talking to you about my feelings, chances are it’s cuz I don’t have any. For you.
Still, I think I understand what feelings are all about.
I used to work for a yoga teacher who was big on the Marshall Rosenberg school of Nonviolent Conflict talk. In this paradigm, every conversation sounds something like this:
“Dude, when you disrespect me, I feel hurt.”
See what I did there? I simultaneously let Dude know that he/she disrespected me, without actually assigning Dude the blame for my feelings. Cuz, in reality, no one can make you feel anything. You’re pretty much in charge of your own feelings, sadly.
When we were on yoga retreats (aka yoga “bootcamps”), we would exercise this type of nonviolent speech according to a predefined shortlist of acceptable feelings. The list looked something like this:
List of Possible Feelings
Occasionally people would try to sneak in other feelings like “bored” or “irritated,” but Teacher would gently put them in their place and let them know that “irritated” actually means “angry” and “bored” actually means “sad,” or whatever.
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A few years after I learned how to communicate in nonviolent conflict terms, I found myself in therapy with a live-in boyfriend who we’ll call DB. At some point during our short-lived attempt to repair our godawful relationship, our bargain therapist suggested that he get better about talking about his feelings and that I, in turn, practice listening and respecting them. I was game.
Until, that is, the night that DB decided to exercise his right to have feelings. The conversation went something like this:
DB: “I’m gonna go out with my friend Ryan and get some beers.”
Me: But we have plans?
DB: But I feel like going out with Ryan instead.
Me: What? That’s not cool.
DB: You’re doing it. You’re not listening to my feelings.
Me: What?
DB: I said that I feel like going out with Ryan.
Me: Wait. Do you think that “going out with Ryan” is a feeling?
DB: That’s what I said.
Me: [Blank stare.]
Needless to say, therapy didn’t go anywhere, and neither did our relationship.
The end.
(I've discovered a new literary tool — when you can't think of a good ending for a story you just end it with "The End." Works literally every single time!)
Vanessa and Leslie and I are having a Recovering Yogi creative summit this weekend. I was looking for an envelope and found my old diary from when I was 8 years old. It's deeply enthralling. This is really embarrassing, but it speaks volumes about my lifelong ability to settle for less when it comes to boyfriends.
What I care about in a man, in order of importance:
Also, I don't remember who Gabe was. Seriously, no clue.
Talking on the phone gives me panic attacks. Luckily for me, I don't get cell phone reception at my house, and since I work from home and am basically a shut-in, that works out nicely.
Oddly enough, I do get text messages at my house. Apparently God wants me to type out all of my communication (which is obviously fine by me). Unfortunately, my friends and clients aren't always on board with God.
I get a lot of flack about the phone thing. Some say, "It's so much easier just to pick up the phone than to try to type out a message." Hmm. Easier for YOU maybe. I can type faster than I can think. On the other hand—and maybe this is a holdover from the days of my childhood spent endlessly dialing a rotary phone—I don't particularly find phone conversations to be quick.
First of all, you always have to do the formalities thing on the phone. That bugs.
And I never know when it's my turn to talk. Maybe it's PTSD from whatshisface (my last boyfriend) who would threaten to have me excommunicated every time he perceived himself as being interrupted by me, but I am always anxious about interjecting my words into the conversation.
I tried an experiment for a while where every time I talked to someone on the phone, I would wait patiently for my turn to talk. I would not interrupt anyone, under any circumstances, ever. But what I found, with some people, was that they were so uncomfortable with silence in a conversation that they would simply keep talking until interrupted, keeping us in this endless loop of being on the phone basically forever while they repeated things over and over again and came up with all sorts of imaginative filler statements.
And then I started to feel like I wasn't being patient and mindful, but in fact I was being cruel by letting this poor person spin out to depths of anxiety that could easily have been placated by my compassionate interjection.
Also, when you throw in the whole Right Speech factor, it's much easier to pause and think about the skillful way to say things in an email versus over the phone.
Maybe it's the misanthropic writer in me, but if I could have all of my interpersonal communication take place electronically I would be pretty happy.
A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real. -- Yann Martel
I recently went to a reading by my favorite novelist, Yann Martel. His first novel, The Life of Pi, is required reading if you want my love and respect. (And I'm not suggesting that you want that, believe me.)
I bought The Life of Pi for my last boyfriend. I was really excited for him to read it because, when we first met, I was captivated by his creative, offbeat way of thinking and our mutual fascination with religions, as two people who were brought up by boring atheists. Naturally, I thought he'd enjoy it.
Turns out, he didn't enjoy it so much. Because he never read it. Turns out he doesn't read novels. Turns out that he thinks people who read novels are kind of stupid and that it's a waste of time to read novels when you could be reading things like Guns, Germs and Steel or watching hours and hours of Ted.com.
We once had a rather heated argument wherein I defended novel reading and he said things like "I didn't say that you are stupid; I just said people who read novels are stupid." And I got increasingly confused and tongue-tied, as I often did when we argued.
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So, seeing Yann Martel speak, a few years later, was one of the most redeeming creative experiences that I've ever had.
He talked at length about the importance of reading novels. He talked about how people that don't read are basically depriving themselves of alternate views of the world that would enable the cultivation of legitimate and intelligent opinions. He said, "Literature is not just entertainment. It's a tool with which we dissect and interpret our culture."
Then he started talking about The Life of Pi, an odd little fantasy adventure story about an Indian boy named Pi who gets stranded in a lifeboat with a tiger named Richard Parker, lost at sea for 227 days. I won't ruin the plot for those of you lucky enough not to have read it yet, but in the end, The Life of Pi is a soliloquy on the nature of faith, reality, and the interpretation of events based on perception. It's also a really great story.
When Yann Martel was asked where he got the inspiration for this book, he said that it was born from a "fatigue with being reasonable."
He went on to explain that you can interpret life in two ways:
Intellectuals, scientists, politicians and capitalists generally go for option one. A reasonable outlook on life seems to be the most practical, does it not? But artists have to gravitate toward option two. Because being reasonable is a very good way to eliminate magical thinking. Sometimes, reason is beside the point. It breeds sterility. It crushes creativity. It leads us ultimately nowhere.
So when you read a novel, you're championing the cause of creativity and imagination.
I took a writing workshop at Green Gulch Zen Center in Muir Beach a few weekends ago. It was very humbling. I did use the time to finally commit this particular story to paper.
The prompt: "Something in me longs to leave a legacy"
The subject matter: The Ring
I have this intricate gold and garnet ring from Prague, the acquisition of which is a story of perseverance and valor.
Not really, but it felt that way at the time.
The ring was symbolic and also quite material gift to myself when I knew that my last relationship was falling apart. When I realized with utter clarity and despondency that, were I ever to want a ring, I would be buying it for myself.
And similarly, if I ever want a family, I’ll need to be resourceful and inventive.
I would like to have a daughter to leave this ring to.
I’d like to tell her the story of my trip to the Czech Republic and my search for the tiny jewelry store called Granat Turnov, down a cobblestone alley off the Old Town Square. How I tried this ring on my finger and fell instantly in love with it. How my quickly-falling-out-of-favor boyfriend and traveling companion talked me out of buying the ring (which, at $75, was an unheard-of steal in these days of gold inflation). How he didn’t either offer to buy me the ring, despite the heartbreak and disappointment so clearly visible on my face. And how we then sat at a café in silence and had an afternoon drink, miles of communication gap, resentment and waning love between us.
And how we broke up as soon as we got back to the States.
And how I then set about tracking down and purchasing the ring after all, through an elaborate sequence of steps involving the internet, a Czech translator, dollar-to-forent conversion calculators, a bank wire transfer, the postal service, and weeks of trust and patience.
I’d like to tell that story to my daughter one day. But for that, I’d need the boyfriend back. And frankly, I get along better with the ring.
One of my favorite books when I was little - and one of the only ones I've hung onto all these years - is a little gem called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I hold a special place in my heart for this fictional little boy who always gets the short end of the stick and has a very bad attitude about it.
I had a day like this yesterday. Here's how it went:
I think I'll move to Australia New Orleans.
Photo © andyfreeberg.com
After ten years in the yoga industry as a teacher, studio manager, and minion for alleged gurus, I started a freelance writing business: Outside Eye Consulting is based in Marin County, California, ground zero of the vapid yoga scene. Subsequently, I am one of the founders of the irreverent community forum RecoveringYogi.com. And in my spare time, I run my imaginary spice company, SimpleBasic and post daily musings to another favorite creative side project, Elderchic.
In January 2012 I wrote a small stone every day for the River of Stones project. You can read them on my Tumblr page.
