I find I get cyber inundated all the time now. Newsletter after newsletter. Sale upon sale. Buy this. Try that. Read this. Listen here. Go there. Be here. Look at me now. And now. And now.  Its exhausting to be so berated by the constant stream. Truthfully, as someone on the other end too, it is exhausting to keep up with doing the inundating.   I actually think a lot of us are tired from too much screen time. So If you have taken the time to read this, well thank you.

Those trusty algorithms we love to hate and hate to love are designed for the loudest and flashiest to be assumed the best. Don't you sort of find it the least bit scary that you can be "perceived" as an expert based on how many connections, programs, and likes you portray or are projected to portray? I fear at times I have caught "subjectivitis" which is an overuse injury of the ego perpetuated by self promotion and shared self realizations, teachable moments and self related business ventures.

Its hard. We want to feel connected in an age where the world is simultaneously disparate and oh so small. Our natural instincts to create community have found voice and pathway through the ethers and the internets. The impulse is so human. So natural. So necessary. We are not meant to be isolated beings. Patanjali was wrong. Enlightenment is not self realization. It is the awareness of being both simultaneously oneself and interpersonally connected. It is not my choice or even preference that the women who are like my sisters basically live on the other side of the country, and one across the globe. But luckily, our global interconnectivity keeps us not just in each others hearts but also in present contact through Skype and email and the like. Community is no longer the immediacy of location. Our community is as they say, global. 

As you know I have dedicated my work to expanding repertoire physically, emotionally, relationally. I do this by working individually with people offering mentoring and counseling. I do this through holding workshops. I do this through the online teaching world. And when the time is right again, I do it through weekly classes.

I have prided myself on trying and I think for the most part been successful at finding “Right Relationship” to social media. By that I mean I have built not an online business but an online educational environment with at times therapeutic benefit. When you think about it that way, its pretty cool what I have been able to create with the gracious and lively participation of people from all over the world. In many ways it is a dream come true. I worked with media very deliberately and thoughtfully. Ditching all pieces that felt icky in my body. I took online courses and felt into what worked for me as a student and learner and what was draining, unnecessary and arbitrary. I did my best to not shame or blame or victimize my colleagues into purchasing programs. I stated observations. Noted my feelings. And provided an invitation to a potential solution. I engaged conversations with relationships I had been nourishing through yoga practice for years. It has for the most part been so organic. No recipe. A conversation. So far it has worked mostly (well up until Facebook went and changed their stupid algorithm again).

Not everyone is suited to the online work. For some people engaging in a webinar is tediously annoying, always comes up short, and creates confusion and not understanding. A screen is not a person. But I am experimenting with the notion that if the two people on either side of the screen are be embodied and themselves while learning, teaching and engaging, than maybe the screen becomes the tool for transmission. A technological boon. Not a drone of community destruction. I have worked pretty hard to set up systems within my system that insure a culture of recognition, safety, learning, connection and service. And yes. I do believe that is palpable online. But I think it must be mostly because of the people on the sides of the screen. Those people know that everything in life takes time. Nature has her natural due dates. She does not operate in scheduled posts and newsletters. She doesn't back date. Or give you a highlight reel. She simply keeps turning in her due time. I fear sometimes in my work, I have fallen out of rhythm with Due Time. 

We live in a culture where everything can be scheduled, planned, factored. We are told we need to be medicated, fixed, treated. We live in a culture with few pauses. We are both implicitly and explicitly told to be "on" all the time. We are so visible. We are so available. If we want it. We want it now. And the options to consume are endless. "At our finger tips" is no considered a positive selling point. 

This past December I reached a breaking point. I had a melt down around much of my online work. Though I knew it was good work, I was spending so much time on the screen I thought I was loosing a grip on reality. I actually couldn't tell what was me, what was you, what was them, what was real and not real. I realized that I had made myself downloadable. Accessible day or night across the globe, my voice, my face, my teaching could be in someones house. On the one hand this is so cool, exciting, exhilarating. And also a great honor that what I have to say and offer is useful across a wide span.

On the other hand, I wonder if this effects what we call the akashic field. I wonder if my etheric body got a run down from being here, there and everywhere. In the swirl of it all I thought perhaps I am not cut out for this. Perhaps I should close up shop and get a job counseling at a clinic if possible and practice and meditate daily. No muss. No fuss. 

See the thing is, I must admit that when I first started all this, not many were talking about topics related to the intersection of Yoga and Psychology.  Sure there were conversations happening. Research was happening and had been. But nowhere near the depth and breadth of conversation and research happening now and happening in a way that is main stream. Never the popular kid, I built an entire identity around being "other", around being "fringe", around being "different". You can imagine my identity crisis now since what was fringe is now popular and center. The intersection is the main drag. As it turns out, I am not so unique after all. 

Everyone wants to talk Shadow. People are waking up to the who notion of projection and counter transference. More and more folks want to discuss power dynamics between the teacher and student. Even in the years I have been going about my business trusting what I see to be relevant and necessary for yogis to understand as products of western culture, more people are using the language of psychology. Sometimes I wonder if its co emergence or if the free market of the internet affords an insidious covert piracy. I'd like to think its the former. But the later also occurs. It is, well, very hard to tell sometimes.

It was just that. THAT terrible madness of keeping up with the intellectual Jones' and the cyber Kardashians that sent me into a tail spin. I was confused, territorial, frustrated, lonely. The absolute hysteria and mania I felt inside as a result of these swirls dropped me into a place that was so far from Kansas. It was not pretty. 

The yellow brick road turned out to be a kind of faith in fortitude. I kept trusting in the things that felt good. The online classes were doing good for people. The one on one work was creating change. I just put one foot in front of the other and sought council from some of my closest confidants. Each was surprised to hear how spun-out and desperate I was. They each told me that from the outside all looked smashingly successful. But thats the thing about social media. We are only one dimensional on the screen although in reality we are multi dimensional beings. Social media is a stream of subjective consciousness masked as objective product. Too much subject is narcissism and too much object is self abandonment. (A notion I first learned sans the psych terminology form my philosophy teacher Douglas Brooks).

Sounds lovely for our mental health does it not? Lets all be narcissistic self abandoning humanoids snapshotting our lives. Lets all turn ourselves into straw and tin men and cowardly lions. Lets all be in black and white. Lets all be only two dimensional. It is nearly impossible to convey the total complexity of a person on a screen. Though I do try. I do my darnedest.

To help me out of my stupor, my husband took me off line for 10 days. We went sailing. And you know what we did? We waited for the wind. There is this sacred alchemy between the sea, the wind and the science and art of setting your sails. Its a dialogue. Literally. Now I am no sailor, but if you set your sails well, you can gain a lot with just a little wind. You cannot control the sea or the wind. You can only have a conversation. Our trip leaders were two of the most patient people I had ever met in my life. I suppose that is what happens when the wind weathers you. You learn to wait. To be patient. That you are not in control. That there is Due Time

Like us, each boat has a heart and soul--it is a living breathing thing conversing with its environment. I have often described my "business" that way. Its a real entity, with personality, with grit, with desire having a conversation with where it came from and where it is and with whom it interacts. It is a sentient expression of something form inside me, that I have birthed into this world  connected to me but existing other than me too. I am not privy to all of its pending unfolding. And I do not know exactly what the wind will be like tomorrow. I can only have conversations. In Due Time.

I am not anxious. I am looking for ground.
I am not depressed. I feel the world deeply.
I am not hysterical. Its called pms. (Which by the way is not a Syndrome)
I am not sick. Its called menstruation.
I am not rage-full. I protect my pride. 
I am not distracted. Its called dreaming. 
I don't have low libido. Its called having rhythm and trusting That. 

Do not shame me blame me guilt me chastise me or make me into a victim needing saving. I am not an entity to be medicated.

I am not a prize or an anchor. 

You gave me mud, so I made bricks. 
You threw me straw, I spun gold.
You gave me ice, with it I built fire to melt it and bathe in the moonlight. 

You hope I'll never change. I know its all I will ever do.

The day before flying east from Boulder, CO to New York, my husband said to me: 

“Isn't it weird we didn't get those 24-hour check-in messages from United?"

It was with that we realized the purchase of the tickets (which was to have been made by me, never went through.) I know what you are thinking. Some kind of cosmic Freudian slip eh? I, the one in charge of the tickets and the one up in arms about going “forgot” to buy the tickets. Funny. I didn't forget. The stupid website wouldn't take my card. 

So with that we used up our accumulated miles and paid some absurd fee to bring our cats and less than a day later we arrived in the land of bright lights where the under world is a real world. 

I have now lived in New York for a year. Which by no means makes me a “New Yorker”. In fact, I often feel like the country bumpkin in the big city. Whereas in the other places beginning with "B" in which I have lived such as Burlington and Boulder, I had style (and by style I mean that whole flowey pants thing which I call Somatic Therapsit Chic), in New York I am plainly a dirty hippy. I am literally one of the tree huggers here. 

New York is an exquisite madness. She can be very mean, incredibly generous and wonderfully magical. In New York, the underworld is the real world with the subway as a massive equalizer. I supposes if you are ridiculously rich and can take cabs everywhere, you live in a different kind of world. But for most of us, we and the rest of New York City, ride the subway. 

I remember a few months ago the train was very crowded one morning during rush hour. Somewhere along the F line going uptown, a young girl got on the train with a huge backpack easily weighing more than her. She seemed on the way to school and she just stood there, with a wide stance, hands on hips and not holding onto anything as the train lumbered along. she barely even flinched or lost her balance. I thought to myself: “Well, if this little girl can do it, so can i!” I stuck with this can-do-attitude for a few weeks but it promptly ceased after I was riding the A-train one Sunday and was yelled at ferociously. And by the way, this was a different someone than the person who literally sat on me one time on the train. Yes. Sat on me. You can imagine the troublesome nature of such an event when your core wound involves questioning if you can exist in the world. 

How about when that lovely doctor contracted Ebola and before he had been diagnosed, had gone all out and about Manhattan and Brooklyn getting his organic farm share and going bowling. That did not bode well for me. I stopped riding the subway and going to dance. I didn't go for 2 months. 

How about the time I was walking home from the grocery store and suddenly out of nowhere a cop car comes swinging around the corner and 4 cops get out and grab the guy I had just walked passed. I later found out that someone had been attacked the previous evening at my subway stop. I am not making a one-to-one connection by the way. But needles to say, the two events really were very calming and encouraging as you can imagine.

Then of course there was the time someone literally spit on my foot as I was walking into the subway stop. And yes, I was wearing flip flops. I promptly stopped wearing flip flops on the train. 

Then there was the time, I was followed. Yes followed. For about 5 blocks. Spotted on the train, and followed from the station until I hid behind a giant truck for about 5 minutes and lost the person like Nancy Drew. 

Oh, and then there was the time, and this was early on mind you, I got so overstimulated and freaked out by the intensity of the city, I turned off all the lights and went underneath the bed, swaddling myself in a blanket. I proceeded to call one of my best friends back in Boulder who could barely make out what I was saying amidst my hysterics. I think  it was something about leaving New York and coming to live with her instead. Now, granted I had been here for a total of one week. Obviously I crawled out from under the bed.  Occasionally I need to be swaddled. 

Oh, and how about the time I tried to go grocery shopping in one those little grocery stores which all of you who do not live in New York think are cute and convenient. Well, they aren't. They are not cute. They are not charming. They are madhouses of insanity where your heart and hunger go to die. The store was so crowded with people so hungry and tired i was surprised I wasn't eaten. My basket was about half full with items when I thought “This is ludicrous.” I sat the basket down right where I was standing and walked out of the store with nothing. 

I cant say that I came to the city bright eyed and bushy tailed. I can’t even say I arrived with any form of excitement. I cried most of the plane ride and spent plenty of time in a resentful pout. And yet, there is that strange allure of New York. She is the Wild card. The madwoman. You never know what could happen because it is chaos here. Pure chaos. Once you accept her as the rhythm and you move with THAT, it does get a little simpler. I am excellent at people weaving. now. New York, I have discovered does not sympathize with your resistance and yet, she rewarded those who stick it out--those who are willing to be changed by her over and over again.

A friend, a New Yorker, once told me that you know you are New Yorker when you find yourself slamming your hand on the hood of a cab and shouting at the driver to back off. Yea, that happened. 

Another friend told me that the only way to survive is to meditate daily. Mission accomplished. 

Another recommendation was to begin drinking heavily. I now understand the recommendation. 

Still others told me to defy my marriage and refuse to go. 

While others told me to buck up and shut up. Build a thick skin and toughen up. 

I did get the recommendation to wear lots of scarves and always have the earbuds in. That has proven to work great. The subway is a perfect place to listen to the Hanuman Chalisa. 

They say if you can make it in New York, then you can make it anywhere. Well, that may or may not be true. I am not sure. I look at people who have recently made the opposite landscape moves to me and I think: "You lucky little shits". Somedays, honestly I do not feel as though I am “making it”. It more feels like I am slowly being squashed. Other days, I think New York was the best thing to ever happen for me. The troubles I faced as a newbie here are like floating in a Mill Pond comparatively speaking. Don't be fooled. I realize my New York is not everyone's New York. (this is meant to be a funny piece if you couldn't already tell).

I can assure you this. Once, twice, thrice, hell, I have actually lost count, I have felt like I was going to die. Like literally as though I was being ripped at the seems—stripped down to the core with nothing but a bleeding and beating heart on the floor. And each of those times I have thought, “I will never recover” “I will never make it” “I am dead inside”. And each time I manage to stand up all skin and bones and feeling heart, and keep on going. And in that getting up I am always reformed stronger. I have given up “putting myself back together”. Because the truth is I cannot go back. There is no going back after you get spit on riding the subway. I will never be put back together in the same way as before. Which is a good thing. The city is so abrasive that you could be cut, torn or demolished at any moment. But if you are willing, if you can withstand the pressure, and the grit, and you are willing to be changed, you can be polished.