I say this with love: Why I'm glad John Friend resigned from Anusara

The past two weeks have been a whirl. An intense process began to take place in the Anusara Yoga community - a process of questioning & scrutinizing, of waiting & hoping, of listening & judging, of leaving & staying.

I'm not an Anusara certified or inspired teacher. I'm not an "insider" who can claim to have any close-hand information about John Friend & the incidents which have led to this. I'm not a longtime member of the kula, I don't get to rub elbows with John & the immediate circle of teachers around him. What I am is a student & what I know is this - Anusara has given me the deepest transformation I could ever hope for in myself, on and off the mat.

It is a deeply dynamic & creative hatha yoga practice which is elegantly woven with intelligent alignment. Yet behind this science lies its soul, the beautiful life-affirming & heart-opening Tantric philosphy of intrinsic goodness. It brought the best out of me so that I could face the worst without fear. Furthermore it's allowed me to share this teaching with my students, whose practice have flourished, whose bodies have clearly transformed & whose hearts have shone brighter because of this powerful method. Most of all it's shown me Grace, that it's around me & in me. That we are never without. Trusting Grace is the biggest gift I've given myself, one that I've come to understand through this practice.

I'm so greatly blessed to have a teacher in Desiree Rumbaugh who's taught me to be grounded in the teachings that she's passed on with genuine & honest clarity. "Grace is always there to support us, it teaches us that we can no longer take the blame for everything. Nor do we take all the praise." While I hold the highest pedestal for the practice of Anusara, I've never held John Friend in the same light. And I don't mean this with disrespect. As someone who've only been studying & practicing the method for 3 years, I saw how others revered him almost to the point of being god-like, a behavior which I've always found curious. So when it was time to study with him, if only for a brief week, it was almost a sigh of relief to come face to face with a human being... simple in appearances, extraordinary in intelligence, knowledge & wit. Nevertheless still a human being.

So I can only imagine how shocking & heartbreaking it was when news of his unethical behavior broke out. For teachers, students & followers of John who've held him so high all these years, adored him without extent & placed him synonymously with Anusara, it must be a fierce & crushing blow. So once again I maintain an observer's perspective, all at once detached in my emotions & yet amazed at the amount of anger, judgment & condemnation that rose from the greater part of the community.

But now I understand. I could never feel the same anger so many others have felt simply because I've always regarded him for what he is - a person. I could not feel betrayal because I do not have a personal relationship with the man. I could never pretend to feel the hurt he's caused around him. But when more respected teachers & colleagues started to leave, many like Tara Judelle & Noah Maze who I admire deeply, I couldn't be emotionally detached anymore. I was saddened beyond words.

And so it's with love & respect that I say this - I'm glad John Friend resigned from Anusara. I'm glad that by his doing so he's separating the teacher from the teachings & allowing others to recognize the same. Yoga IS a practice of remembrance because it's so easy to forget that we are students as much as we are teachers. Anusara is bigger than any of us. It's brought us to where we're at today, it certainly brought our teacher to this place. Whether by his own will or forced by circumstance, stepping down is what integrity calls for in this situation. And he did it. It's with the same love & respect I hold the ones who chose to walk away, who fueled the fires of transformation. All this is Grace. And yes, it's not the merry-bohemian-happy-shiny-easy-to-love form of Grace. But it is Grace nonetheless.

I didn't discover Anusara 3 years ago... it discovered me. In the same way that it moved through a man many years ago in an ashram in Ganeshpuri, who was taught compassion, to never give up on students... who was inspired by this philosophy of love & grace and was shown the faith that goodness lies in each & every one of us.

tout est grâce

No matter how upside-down it all temporarily appear, we will have no fear because we know this secret: Life is crazily in love with us - wildly and innocently in love with us. The universe always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it." -- Rob Brezney

One of my dearest friends from college reminded me of this beautiful quote by St. Therese of Lisieux, "All is Grace". Imagine thinking & seeing everything in this light. How that changes not only our perspective, but our attitude towards the very things that would normally make our heads explode. So now instead of getting angry or busting out of my seams when something undesirable goes my way, I think to myself I'm being shown something here. It could be something that I needed to learn or realize. Heck, it could simply be showing me a personal breakthrough that hey, I can do patient too!

Until very recently, I've repeated a certain line to myself almost like a mantra that true enough, reinforced itself on me all the more. That I don't do well with uncertainty. That not knowing kills me. Which of course is a blatant lie. I've had my share of uncertainties & crossroads, dilemmas & left in the dark moments, but not one has managed to knock the life out of me. Apparently here I am, still standing after a thousand. Or maybe even more.

So truth is, I do well with uncertainty! But it was easier to bitch, claw someone's eyes out or make someone else responsible while I was at it. But I'm done abusing myself & others that way. I can't know everything & I certainly don't need to. When has it really made me happy anyway, struggling to get the answers? We all have questions, we can either spend our life asking or we can spend it living. So many things in my life are uncertain right now... so what? Big freaking deal. I'm still going to make the most out of it & I'm going to have fun. The most important thing I already know ~ today Love is truly infinite & abundant in my life. I look around me, past all these uncertainties and I see... there is much to be grateful for.

When we cease to believe that we're victims & instead co-creators of our fate then we see that Life is crazily in love with us. It's time to give some love back.

path of the heart

When you open fully to your experience you discover how wonderful it is to be alive; sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, sometimes ordinary, sometimes sublime. You learn not to shut down when feelings become bothersome; to stay awake even when it’s unpleasant. This is the path of the heart: to develop tenderness toward yourself by opening to the wonders and complexities of your self, which allows you to open to the wonders and complexity of the world. - Dr. Gail Parker


i have been asking my self these days the big Why's (why can't it work this way, why can't it be...) and i realize that i really should stop questioning and start trusting. each time i question my own decisions, i plant a seed of doubt that makes me forget the reasons that have brought me here. it's so easy to give in to sadness especially if it's something that we've grown so used to in life. but when we've taken on a path of seeking & healing, we can no longer ignore our heart's desire to be happy.

one half of me has already started Exploring ~ moving forward with the intent of fully living out dreams which have been shelved for far too long. yet the other half of my self is still bleeding from the cut that it took to break away from the very things which have kept me bound. this must be what it means to be fully present, when we can sit with happy & sad and embrace both equally. when we can allow the sadness to pass through, as gracefully as we possibly can without fighting it. when we can remember joy or the hope of it, even in the darkest moments.

such is the path of the heart. to love both light & dark with gratitude & compassion.

what keeps me from shrinking back is the belief that there's no loss when love is truly present. it's a matter of expanding how we think love should be. love can't be limited to promises & relationships... to anniversaries & traditions. love is bigger than any of these. it's only when we begin to understand the hugeness of love that sadness no longer becomes threatening. like a dust of rain cloud in a vast blue sky.

LOVE is big.

where do i begin.

these past few days & weeks have been filled with so much.... love, friendship, support, endings, new beginnings, the promise of adventures, good vibes, deep connections & most of all freedom. sweet exhilarating freedom. i look back at my own past & i see how things do happen for a reason. i see how things are falling into place because i'm finally trusting life.

for a long time i've held on to so many things out of fear of losing control. i've silenced my own voice & crushed my own heart. now i realize how life unfolds perfectly when we surrender to its flow. all the baby steps i've taken to approach my edge, all the times i've cowered & ran back to my safe zone, all those were not in vain. i learned my own way. with all the pain, heartaches & tears it took, the process of becoming is beautiful. i see that now.

we can heal ourselves and we can change our life. we can stop feeling sad the moment we choose to be happy. we have to trust our heart & take risks. when we do things out of love, how can we go wrong? love is amazingly big. bigger than our imaginations combined. and we cannot control it, we can only learn & enjoy it.

i don't know what tomorrow brings and that's the magic of it. my heart is the boss of me now... i will let it lead me every step of the way. with my mind, arms & heart open, i'm stepping into the flow of grace with trust that life is unraveling beautifully.

letting go

i've had the special and most amazing opportunity to experience a past life regression. as the name implies, the experience involves hypnosis to 'visit' memories of our past lives. this practice stems from the belief that who we are, what we're made of are karmic outcomes of previous lives. Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutras, believed that current problems can be understood and addressed through memories of these lives. whether we believe in it or not, the message(s) that we get from this experience can be truly valuable.

it is through this that i finally understood the root of my sadness - this energy that has existed and lived with me ever since i can remember. now that i know how it came to be, i can no longer close my eyes to the fact that while i cannot do anything about the past, i can do something about the present. i know that it's time for me to release it, and in doing so free myself.

it's only the beginning days of transition and already the separation anxiety is kicking in. on most days i look forward to that happy and complete future that eluded me in the past, but on some days doubt and confusion creep in. the sadness is overwhelming and twice i had almost allowed myself to succumb to it. but i know too much now. i know that if i don't do anything differently, then nothing is ever going to change.

i still find it baffling how we can't make some things work even when it seems we have all the right ingredients to do so. i never thought that having a great partner - a partner you love immensely and who loves you back in equal measure - can still mean it's not enough. i can only go back to John Friend's words - "You have to always be student to the Grand Artist, don’t think that you’re always in control. Trust." as my yoga practice teaches me, i remember to open to grace and to trust it.

i'm doing my best to be clinical about this, approaching the situation objectively and remembering to be kind to myself when sadness and guilt threaten to overcome. but one can only be so clinical to a point for how else can we treat matters of the heart.

and so i'm taking it one day at a time. my heart becomes light when i think of all the wonderful possibilities out there. i know that the one for me exists. i don't know who, how and when it's going to happen - i am but a co-creator in this whole spectacle. but one thing i do know is this - whoever that person may be, he's got some pretty big shoes to fill. and i'm glad, because whoever is up to the challenge can only mean it's the real thing.

the end of the day, i'm blessed to be on this journey, blessed to be taking it with such amazing beings. i see how things have slowly fallen into place... how i came to be on this island, how i found my heart's calling, why i'm doing the thing i love that it hardly feels like work. like two dear friends said - i must approach my edge gently & with awareness - and all is coming. it's time to surrender what belonged to the past. my heart is grateful to know that i had it once, and that it was beautiful.