Our lives are a constant interweaving of the wounds and the resources, the sufferings and victories that when strung together with devotion to ones esteemed path becomes a work of art to be prayed with, beautified with and through which we adorn ourselves and the lives of whom our work touches.  It is easy, too easy really, in cultures priding or privileging the wounded healer to focus too entirely on the moments in which we were missed, abused, hurt, or dealt an unlucky hand of sorts.  Looking to these places of scathing helps to cultivate interest in how to heal both ourselves and others which is an invaluable contribution. The shadow of this searching for healing out of our wound is that too much time focusing on all the painful beads stringing our lives together is simply only half the picture. We can become fixated in how much we have overcome. I can assure you it is not a contest. The person fixated on how much hurt their family bestowed is as much an emotional sinner as the person in complete denial of any madness they encountered.

Sitting at dinner the other night, my husband said to me “Well your parents must have done plenty of somethings right because you turned out really fine.” Well in fact, my beloved is correct. If I reflect, if I really look back at the truth, I can see not only the bloody gore of emotional upheaval, but I see many beads of both matter-of-fact rightness and easy rhythm as well as sparkling moments of positivity. My parents did a whole lot of things right actually. They took me to the opera from the time I was a little girl. I was raised going to theater and museums. The first snow of every winter my mother and I baked chocolate chip cookies. My father played catch with me in our yard. We had a garden. My mother read to me every night. My dad proofread my papers. I was allowed to apply to any college I wanted. We ate dinner together almost every night.

There are of course plenty of memories that lay in mind far from ideal that have left scar marks on my heart. But lest I forget the many more moments of health and true love my parents bestowed to me in my life. In the face of our very human family flaws there were many more moments of family rhythm, normalcy, congruency, and freedom and love. Enough of these moments got strung together like beads to create a space in which frankly, I really ended up totally fine.

I did not leave unscathed, but then again who does. Frankly, leaving home not hurt is unlikely and I might even guess unnecessary even. For how else do we then feel the call to make things better? How else do we learn to tolerate the pain of being hurt by the things and people we love? The way in which we learn this and the how in which we continue on from those places becomes our medicine, our teachings, our lessons for other down the road. No bead on the string of our life is arbitrarily placed--not when you are endowed to a life of devotion.

Think of a string of mala beads. All one hundred and seven of them plus the last one making one hundred and eight, are strung together with a prayer.  Each bead is unto itself individual, but it is connected to all the others for the entirety of the strand. Each bead is momentarily focused on during meditation to keep pace and rhythm, which focuses our attentional muscle toward greater awareness of both higher and deeper states of consciousness. If each bead on the mala of your life is a moment or memory then how will you choose the beads that make the strand? For me, coming out of a school where the culture is to privilege the wound, it is easy to string a slew of disfigured beads together. I could ruminate on those all day. This however feels inaccurate, and it focuses my awareness to encapsulate an energy only in the pattern of get wounded, get healed, repeat. A strand of only the most glamorous memory beads feels equally as inauthentic. It skips some of the essence of why I am meditating and praying anyway.  It skips the cuts and scrapes that inspired me to sit down in the first place. The most accurate mala I can fashion from the memory beads of my life are a rich and diverse combination. I must fashion a mala that holds within it beads of memory filled with inherent resource, health, comedy and love.

These strands of beads hold tremendous power for focusing and broadening our awareness. So why then should we focus our life work only out of the instances and memories of the times there was less than (fill in the blank). Let us weave bead after bead with prayer and devotion in such a way that all the health of the things that went just right and all the things that went good enough and all the things that went better than expected are woven into the fabric of our consciousness. The wounded healer has tremendous power--I know this to be true. But the compassionate sees the goodness and wellness right in front of their eyes. If we do not hold this for ourselves the people with whom we work will not learn to hold those moments either. 

The mala is the garland of a life we wear made memory-by-memory, moment-by-moment, that is strung together with a devotion to the privileging of life in all its forms. Its beauty does not rest on the glow of each bead individually, but rather the potency of the collected pieces strung together. This is good enough.

Bubbie is the Yiddish word for Grandmother. It is a term of endearment and to this day I know not a soul who embodies the old school Bubbie tradition quite like mine. But then again, I think everyone believes their Bubbie is the cutest. Mine though people, is really cute. And if you sit with her long enough to really start talking she is a wealth of wisdom, comedy, and unmatched strength.

Bubbie was quite the cook in her day and she called all of us in the family her best costumers. In fact her food was so good that my uncle used to sell some of her items like chopped liver, kugel, and gifilte fish in his Jewish deli. People all around Baltmore used to look for Minnies chopped liver. The item was so epic it was considered a poetic symphony of Jewish eating delight, much like the chef herself. 

When I was young and before it was trendy to be gluten free, dairy free, soy free and the like, I would eat all the food she made. I ate all her cooking because I loved it and I loved her. I always felt nourished by her without thinking twice. As I grew into my teens and began to see my family in more of a stark broad daylight, I was less able to tolerate some of her foods. I became more controlling over what I chose to consume and I believe accepting and rejecting food was one of the ways I did that.

I became vegan, watched my sugar intake, stopped eating carbs and in general became the one in the family rejecting the foods of our family. But rejecting the family cooking was synonymous with rejecting the family. I think I had to do this for my own sanity and growth. But that time did not come trouble and pain free. In fact quite the opposite. I was heart broken that I felt that in order to find myself I had to reject my family and of all people Bubbie.

People have a whole vast array of relationships with their grandparents. I certainly was not close with my Grandfather the way I was with Bubbie. I never had a nanny so if my parents couldn’t take care of me I got sent to Bubbie’s. So basically she helped raise me as much as my parents, but of course she never reprimanded me. She only every fed me delights and told my I had a shena punim (which means pretty face). Her support was unending but I felt like as I grew into my later teens and twenties she started to loose me because I was changing. I was defiant because that’s what you do at 18. It was  hard to move to college and be away from her and the guilt was consuming.

Bubbie could never quite understand why it was that I wouldn’t eat her food anymore. I think on some level she felt disappointed she could not connect with me in the same way as we once had. After all, when I moved to college our relationship drastically changed. I used to talk to her almost everyday and see her at least once if not twice a week. This then became weekly phone calls, which became monthly phone calls, which became bimonthly phone calls, which became three visits a year. More recently I have been trying to call her more, even if she only stays on the phone for a few minutes.

Bubby is hard of hearing, and refused to get a hearing aid after all these years and she is pretty good at reading lips. But it is hard to read lips through the telephone. She sort of just asks me if the weather is good, if I feel okay, if I am done with school, and if still teach people to bend in half. (which is her understanding of yoga which is of course partly true).  I have come to earn that even thought the three to five minute conversation might not be that satisfying for me, it is for her.

For her to hear my voice and have me tell her I am alright and happy and for her to know I am thinking of her, is enough. She always ends the call with profusely thanking me for calling her.

"thank you, Livia. Thank you dear for calling. Thank you so much for calling sweetheart."

This without fail brings tears to my eyes every time we say goodbye. My parents tell me when I call her it makes her day.

For many years I felt a tremendous weight and guilt for moving away from Bubbie. I felt like she would never understand how and why I couldn’t live in Baltimore anymore. Still when we end our brief phone conversations I feel that twinge in my side of wishing I could live there for her. She gave me so much I wish there was something I could give her.

One day when I was visiting a while ago, I expressed how I felt badly I lived so far away. She looked me in the eye and said in her distinctive polish accent “Vell, I only want you to be happy. You have to do what makes you happy. Then I am happy.” So it is hard to be so far away. I know she wishes sometimes it was like the old days and we could all be together. But Bubbie was never one to stop me from following a dream and so she has smiled and sent me on my way for a long time now.

What brings me closer to her in our distance nowadays is when I cook in her vein. I have perfected the art of the kugel and although I still am gluten free, soy free, dairy free, egg free. Whenever I make it, I always have a little piece. Guess what? The allergic responses I have to those food items doesn’t really come into play as intensely when I eat the food that was made with such love, care and devotion.

Kugel might not be good for your waistline or your cholesterol, but it is health food for the soul. 

I often tell my clients that it is important to deposit into their Gratitude Bank on a regular basis. Little comments like “Thank you for doing the dishes” and “Thanks for making the bed” actually go a long way. It is too easy in our daily routines to miss the little things we do for each other in partnership to keep our homes running smoothly.  Sure, I know that even if I don’t say please and thank you, Elliot will do the dishes. But I also know that when I do say please and thank you he feels appreciated.

Small deposits in the gratitude bank can also look like “You look nice today” or “That shirt looks great on you” or “I can see how hard you are working these days”. Small acknowledgments that do not seem huge in the moment pay big dividends later on.

Just like we deposit money into our savings account, its important to regularly deposit into our emotional savings. It might not seem important now, but down the road it will matter. Down the road when we need to really pull out some of those resources it will be important.  When our partner gets a job and we have to move, we will need those resources in the emotional bank account to help remember all the reasons of being together. When we argue or go through tough times we are withdrawing from our emotional reserves and Gratitude Bank accounts. So if we have not been depositing into it regularly, then when we find ourselves in a pickle, or shall I say it bluntly because don’t I always? When the shit hits the fan, we will be glad we said please and thank you, gave little gratitudes, appreciations and encouragements.

Of course I often think relationships are exactly like asana practice. In fact some of the greatest insights into my own relationships have come via my practice. The mat is the testing ground so to speak. In general I find that how people treat their mats, treat themselves on the mat and treat each other on the mat is exactly how they are behaving in every other circumstance in their lives.

I just spent four days doing some intense asana work with one of my most favorite teachers and people in general, Christina Sell. In our time together we spoke about how one approach we can take to working on the more challenging poses is to practice them like little deposits in our asana practice bank. We don’t have to expect to hit them every time we practice. We do not have to set up the perfect sequence and work to the apex challenge pose--which sets us up for elation when we hit it and devastation when we don’t.

Instead another approach is to touch in on these poses regularly. Not in an apex kind of way, but in a  ‘Oh, here is this pose’ kind of way. Frankly I like the slight nonchalance of this approach that is actually not nonchalant at all. It has intense purpose actually. The idea is that if we put these asanas into our practice accounts regularly, then when we do the apex pose sequence strategy we may find our selves closer with less drama. There is also much to be had in the sense of making small deposits until the day we cash in and the pose comes. And in the meantime, no time is wasted. We still gain the benefit of practice. We are gaining strength, agility and dedication in and through committed practice.

It’s not like it costs me anything to say: “Thanks for making the bed honey”. If anything it costs me more when I notice the times he doesn’t make the bed and then grumble to myself “Argh! Doesn’t he know he should make the bed?!” That is like expecting a yoga teacher to know all the little nuances we like in our practice to get us into some pose. So if the teacher doesn’t put that pose in there for us, then we are left blaming the teacher or the sequence for us not getting the pose. In psychology we have a word for that; it’s called codependence. We also have a word for giving gratitude and appreciations to our partners; it’s called generosity.

I can tell you that since I started investing in this depositing gratitude practice with Elliot, I have found our times of conflict less severe, and more easily recoverable. On a similar note, I used to mainly practice the peak pose strategy. I got some poses. But I also got a little injured, sometimes blocked, and my practice in some ways felt draining rather than fulfilling. More and more (inspired by Christina) I have been working on sequences with repetition of strong fundamentals while then dabbling in a few harder poses into the sequences without some huge pomp and circumstance. So this weekend when I went into the fiery cauldron of intense group practice, I hit some poses pretty solidly I had not before.

Additionally it seems like this continued practice with harder poses consistently placed as regulars in the sequence, builds a kind of foundation in practice where when I get the pose its not happen stance or arbitrary. Because I have been building strength and flexibility all along the way as the secondary gains of my deposits in my asana bank, it’s not the sequence that gets me the pose. I get me the pose. I am big fan of making things less by chance and more predictable, especially in asana.

So it’s not the circumstances that make or break the argument. It’s all the other deposits I have made until that argument. Have I been consistently withdrawing or even over drafting emotionally? Or, have I been regularly depositing?

Strong balanced asana practice I am finding yields a similar stability physically, emotionally and energetically. I find my practice more grounded than ever, more ferocious than ever, and more whimsical than ever. I also find my relationship to be rewarding, loving and challenging. Elliot and I have had to withdraw a lot from our emotional savings this year being so far apart. But we have found ways to continue to deposit back in as well.

There will be times when our asana practice asks a lot of us—we will have to take huge withdrawals to get the challenging poses. Remember challenge in asana increases because the shape is asking us to be balanced in something unstable and flexible in something beyond our flexibility. Hmm, that sounds a lot like marriage and ongoing relationships to me.

The times get tough when our partners ask us to stretch far past what we think we can, could, or would. The times get tough when our foundations of stability decrease through space, lack of appreciation, illness, etc. So I think of the emotional deposits like supporting the foundation for when we need it.  I think about repetition in practice as solidifying the foundation for the less stable poses—when I really need it.

And so it goes.