That's what friends are for

Having a chat with my dear Mum the other day, and she dropped into the conversation "Living the life you lead, I just worry that you will be lonely, all of your friends back home may have forgotten you!" She had a point, I have been gone nearly 18 months, I have missed birthdays and births, good times and bad with my beautiful kulla back home. But it made me stop and think, have I really been lonely at any point in the last 18 months? Maybe on the overnight bus leaving one place and going to another, the long haul flights, or perhaps the times I have arrived somewhere and not known a single soul. Nope. Nada. Not once could I recollect being on the road, and being lonely. Sure I miss people back home, I long to cuddle my new nephew and sit and have a wine and a chat with the girls, but I can't say I have been really and truly lonely. I have my days where I think WTF am I doing on a side of a mountain in India (as my dear friend Nikki put it) and there have been times where I have sat on my bed and cried from the sheer uncertainty of everything, but lonely, I have not felt.

Dinner out

Everywhere I have traveled, I have always met amazing, incredible, inspiring and truly beautiful people. To the point I now expect it where ever I go. Usually within days or even hours of arriving somewhere, I connect with cool people who are also on a similar path, taking time out, traveling, seeing the world, living. From all walks of life, all age brackets, all races, religions and genders - I am always surrounded by like minded people. How lucky am I. In fact, I think I felt more alone in the city of Sydney at times than I have with my back pack on my back with no fixed address. Interesting really. Even here in Mcleod, I have an amazing circle of friends - my birthday was one of those times where I really felt so incredibly lucky to have met such great people. Dinner, cake, presents....all from the clan here that are a mix of locals and expats. Friends, people who I share my life with, mates that are part of the good and the not so good. We do normal stuff, hang out, drink coffee, go to dinner and Sunday we even did brunch (how very Sydney of us). We go to yoga, philosophy class, chat about life and the stuff that makes you feel connected to people.

My birthday cake made by my friends at Cafe BuDan

And then I have the friends that come and go but are always connected where ever we are in the world. My gorgeous friends in Sydney and Melbourne who take the time to drop me an email, skype or a quick note of facebook. Ahhhh, technology, what would we do without. But the true test was recently I had a beautiful friend from Aus come to visit, it was like I had only seen her yesterday. No distance or time will test true friends. So Mum, I know you are worried, but I am each day grateful and thankful to the amazing people that come into my life each day, who keep me sane (Catherine) and who share the ride, and who remind that no matter where you are, true friends are like gold. So thank you to all of the beautiful people in my life, you keep me from ever being lonely :)

How to get a yoga body

A few years ago, a yoga teacher confided in me that she knew a fellow yoga teacher that “didn’t have a typical yoga teachers body”. As someone who was about to embark on their training, and who does not have a “typical yoga teachers body” I was deeply worried by the comment. Firstly because I desperately wanted to learn more about yoga and the best way to do that seemed to be to undertake teacher training (I had no intention of actually teaching) and I could not stand on my head – I was already paranoid that I would be surrounded by amazing yoga practitioners that could manoeuvre their bodies into pretzel like positions, and secondly I had finally in my 30’s decided to like the curves and realise I was never going to have a wash board stomach no matter how many crunches I did at the gym (and trust me I had tried). Fortunately for me I landed myself some pretty amazing teachers who did not really care if I could stand on my head or the state of my stomach and taught me what yoga is, and perhaps what it is not. As my teacher Mark Breadner so aptly put it “putting your leg behind your head will not make you a better person.”  His teachings on yoga opened my world into the ancient science and I feel incredibly blessed to have met such an amazing teacher.  I quickly learnt that “the typical yoga teachers body” was not an indication of a realised being.

Having just come from Rishikesh, the “home” of yoga, I can not help but feel a little jaded by what has become of yoga. Pictures of people in contortion plaster the walls in Rishikesh advertising teacher training. Clearly they are targeting what westerners come in search of. Yoga teacher training is the new “thing” to do whilst on your gap year,  and of course your stay in India is not complete without visiting one of the many ashrams. Perhaps the final straw was after a nice Hatha Yoga class, a gushy student was praising the “amazing instructions and incredible adjustments” that the teacher had given. The so called amazing adjustments nearly put my neck out, and once again, I am reminded of how fortunate I was to receive such clear, comprehensive and careful asana instructions from the incredible Nicole Goodwin. 

My fellow travel companion (who coincidentally I met on the teacher training course a few years ago) and I were left feeling, well perhaps disappointed. Not to say that you can not find teachings on the sutra’s or the ancient texts, but it appeared that what the market was asking for was asana. Or should I say body contortion, it was beginning to feel a little like a Cirque de Soleil recruitment drive. I think it was the movie “Alfie” that Jude Law quips about the “best thing about the latest yoga craze is the yoga butt”. Funnily enough he could not be closer to the truth in some cases. Yoga is becoming a physical exercise class and the principles and teachings are getting lost amidst the desire to twist and turn your body into crazy and in many cases unsafe moves and to get the allusive yoga butt.

One way to get a yoga butt....to sit on it :)

Some of the most amazing teachings I have received on yoga have come from teachers that have a great yoga butt. Simply because they have sat on it and done the work, not the body contortion, but the meditation, the study, the introspection, the stuff that gets you closer to the point of yoga – to be in union, to join, to yoke. I learned an incredible amount from people like Mark and also Swami J (his website is amazing, please check it out if you are interested) and his butt is perhaps not trim, taught and terrific - sorry Swami J :) - but it is in my humble opinion closer to yoga than a Manduka mat and Lululemon gear will ever be.

I love you

“Love, love is a verb, love is a doing word”  (Massive Attack)

I heard a beautiful saying last year “Love is all that is left” (courtesy of Swami J). It resonated with me for so many reasons. It is simple yet complicated on varying levels and when you take everything way, strip things back to the bones, you are left with nothing other than pure love. I am not talking about the Hollywood version of romantic love that we are so conditioned to see and expect, I mean the purest form of love. The love that is in your heart, that can catch you by surprise when you take in a breath taking view, when you see a child tentatively take their first steps, the kind of love that we all have at our core, that is part of our very being. It is inherent, it is pure, and it is at the heart of every living being.  Or as it was explained to me in the Buddhist context which I kinda like -  “to love someone is to simply wish them happiness”.

Being a native English speaker I am often asked to explain or interpret anything from an article in the daily newspaper to a complicated English Grammar study guide (which I struggle with sometimes if I am honest). And recently I have found that love has been a topic of choice, from a throw away remark from a friend to helping another friend read a simple romance novel.  It got me thinking about the meaning of love, the definition of a single word and how do you then explain it to someone in a simple yet meaningful way. Easy. Or is it? And then does it mean the same thing in all languages?  In English it is clear, to say you love a friend,  a family member or a partner are all varying degrees on the simple, or not so simple, 4 letter word.  How do you explain the difference? And should we differentiate? And this is for your nearest and dearest, what about those you don’t know, or worse, those you do but they don’t make the Christmas card list, the ones that push your buttons and maybe you even use the “H” word for them (hate). Our enemies, is it possible to feel love for them? Surely not you would think. But then, it comes back to how you define love and how you allow yourself to feel it. We are often conditioned to categorise people into like and dislike, from the moment we meet someone we are subconsciously, and sometimes even consciously looking them up and down and figuring out what we resonate with or perhaps what repels us.  From hair colour to shoes to physical features to tone of voice, our senses start before we even realise it picking up on signs from people that help us to pigeon hole people into the friend or foe box. 

Something that is human and we all do it. It is also useful in helping us detect danger or build trust, but then the old saying “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” rings in my ears and I am reminded that I hope people don’t look at me on the days I have not washed my hair or donned my best attire (which at the moment is limited I must tell you) and decide on that alone whether I am nice person or not. But I am side tracking, and back to the main topic, love.  So often we love those close to us, and are ambivalent about those that are not. And we place conditions on our loved ones “If you do this, then you will make me happy, therefore I will love you.” We are conditioned to love but with strong attachment to our loved ones that we often place unrealistic expectations on them “you will bring me happiness” is perhaps the best and most dangerous. No one can give us long term happiness except the person that greets you in the mirror each morning, bed hair and all. 

So love, how do you explain it. I am still lost. I was asked when I would tell someone I loved them, and I of course replied to anyone who I love, based on that definition that is my friends, my family and when it has been the time my partner, ( I can practice sending love to those I can’t say I like a whole lot but that is a work in progress) but to those close to me, I love them so why not tell them.  Simple right.  “So when a girl says to a boy I love you, then it is just as a friend......” Hmmmmm, not sure how to answer that one. This is where my simplistic definition stolen from Buddhism maybe didn’t cut it. Love all of sudden became complicated. Then when you get the innocent question “how do you make love?” well that complicates things even more :) But for now, I am going to stick with the simple version, “to wish someone happiness” and based on that, I love everyone, even those who are not on my Christmas card list, I still wish you happiness.