Yoga When You're Yearning

Bacon. Cigarettes. Sex with the ex who messes with your head. New clothes you can’t afford. A new job. A boob job. You name it, we yearn, usually for things to be different than they are.

It’s normal (right?): we humans crave earthly delights and typically find ourselves nice n’ happy once we’ve satisfied our carnal pangs for things like pork. Or porking, for that matter. (Yoga Police: I don't eat pork, it was just a good punch line.)

There’s no trouble succumbing to these cravings, really. The trouble lies more with the underlying restlessness that motivates the urge in the first place. Coupled with the compulsion to overfeed the yearnings, we humans have the miraculous ability to turn otherwise innocent hankerings into full blown addictions. Our addictions, all forms and expressions of them, are simply desires to escape from the present, to be somewhere else, to feel like someone else, because we have been conditioned to believe that who we are right here and now is somehow not good enough. It’s a mad race away from the mirror, away from our true selves.

The Tibetan Buddhists have come up with an elegant little term for this very subtle element of the human experience. The word to describe these cravings or “hooked qualities” is: shenpa. I love when a word sounds like nothing else I’ve ever heard, such that it bears no associations in my mind. Sure, it’s one letter away from sherpa, but its still very much its own animal, this word. Its sound is strong yet soothing, much like the quality it describes. Shenpa is strong because it hooks you—it adheres to your mind and your mind to it, Crazy-glue-style. But it’s as soothing as it is strong, because it’s usually familiar, like an old friend who can find his way around your house in the dark and knows where to find light switch.

But what if you’re a goody two-shoes whose lips have never touched liquor? What if you really don’t have a run of the mill addiction, such that there is no group for you that meets in the basement of the Lutheran church?

You self-proclaimed emotionally stable straight edges aren’t getting off this easily.

You see, shenpa doesn’t always manifest itself as an addiction to material things or substances. You can just as easily be hooked to your own thoughts about who you are and who you are not as you are to hashish. You can be hooked to thinking certain thoughts about yourself and your place in the world, thoughts that ultimately limit your ability to authentically and intimately relate to others. So there, all you self-righteously sober intellectual brooding types. Try surrendering your thoughts. For like a whole week. I dare you. Who would you be then? Huh? Huh?

I jest. We’re all in this together. The point is that no matter what your shenpa looks like (an image you just might want to keep to yourself) , the force that pushes it to the surface of your consciousness is often an intense longing to get out of pain, to run away from anything that might require you to get really honest with who you are.

So what-in-the-Samhita has yoga got to do with it? Well, yoga is the ultimate grounding practice that insists that you inhabit your body fully, all the while emptying your monkey mind of thoughts. Remember that stupid old expression “ Make like a tree. And leave”? (jeez that’s bad). But in yoga, it’s pretty much the opposite directive. Yoga insists that we learn to stay, by cultivating presence of mind and body. Our thoughts will wander, as thoughts do, but moving the body in and out of poses leaves little room for the mental masturbation that feeds the hungry shenpa. (The Hungry Shenpa—could be a massive and furry googily eyed sci-fi creature, no?) Yoga is a practice that teaches us to stay present with your yearnings, to observe them with compassion and to quiet the inner dialoges of self judgement. Something to the tune of, "I'm so stupid. I have no willpower. I'm a stupid lazy slut" is not so helpful when you're trying to guide yourself away from addiction. But yoga gives us permission to turn the volume down on our inner critic and let go of the need to feel numb to the world or our own weakness. Shenpa and its many manifestations, is very good at clouding your vision, keeping you stuck, or just leading you farther and farther away from the life you want to live, the person you want to become. The remedy that yoga offers is a chance to weaken shenpa such that it has less power over mind and body.

This does not mean that every time I am aware of shenpa, I immediately get on my mat and start saluting the sun. This is virtually impossible, because there are times when, by the time you’ve realized that shenpa is in the house, you’re already three sheets to the wind, crying hysterically because you ate 15 brownies, drank 4 bottles of wine, smoked when you said you wouldn't, and slept with that guy and his brother. Or some version of all of the above.

So when the yearnings advance to a darker place, infiltrate the mind and won’t let go, that is indeed shenpa, doing its dance in your head, waltzing its way to your neurotransmitters, which are at the mercy of its steadfast grip. But thankfully yoga, even off the mat, lets us stay present with the breath and body, still acutely aware of shenpa and the many roads it would have us travel if left to our own devices, but more conscious still of the power we have to master it and let it go.

The Serious Case of Mula Bandha Face (MBF)

It's no laughing matter. For those of you who are reading the words mula bandha (moo-luh bahn-duh) for the first time, please hang in there. At least for a few more sentences. Trust me when I tell you that no one who does yoga really even knows how to tell people who don't do yoga what mula bhanda is. I'm convinced.

This is not to say it's some big yogic secret reserved for an enlightened flexible few. It's just that there is honestly no elegant way to describe the inner workings of the mysterious mula to anyone without sounding like a potty mouthed pervert. Because to engage mula bandha, when all is said and done, means: to contract one's anal sphincter muscles. That's right, folks. Repeat after me: anal sphincter muscles.

Kinda gross, right?

Suddenly the initial awkwardness of learning the phrase mula bandha seems worth conquering when "contract your anal sphincter" is the alternative.

Now, sanskritly (totally not a word) speaking, mula means "root" and bandha means "lock". So, I will leave you to do the math as it relates to the instruction to contract...that muscle that begins with the letter "s". (I just can't bear to type it again.) Here's the problem: while this mula bandha business is really good for all kinds of things like balance and breath and alignment, it can also make you look, if you're working really hard, like a type-A, undersexed, underpaid, overworked, possibly constipated, yoga-achiever, shall we say. Picture that baby's expression on an adult who is doin the yoga, and there you have Mula Bandha Face (MBF).

So, while there are plenty of reasons to incorporate mula bandha into your practice, my feeling is that the instruction "Engage Mula Bandha!" should really be followed with, "But beware of Mula Bandha Face". It's kind of like when your mother told you when you were eight or so, never to cross your eyes or they'd stay that way for life. Same risk factor with MBF. Cause I've definitely seen my fair share of folks whose faces have frozen this way.

I suppose its only natural to loose one's tranquil "serenity now" visage when concentrating on contracting that muscle. But it bears mentioning that minding your mula can make for some serious, strained and scrunched up faces, which can't be good for the spirit, let alone the skin. And if you've ever noticed, a facial expression, contrived or not, can often have a direct correlation with the way your feel. You've heard shrinks say, or perhaps you've read it in a Readers Digest at the dentist's office, that if you keep smiling, eventually you'll start to feel happy. We'll, I am proposing that the same line of reasoning applies with MBF, that beloved expression of constipated concentration. Make MBF long enough, and you'll start to feel mentally, if not physically, clogged.

MBF: it happens to the best of us, but there is help. So, the next time you're inclined to monkey around with you mula, just try to soften your expression, smirk a little, and be mindful of your MBF. Besides, you never know where the yogarazzi might be lurking. And the last thing the commercial yoga world needs are more pictures of serious people doing serious yoga. Seriously.

For an unpretentious explanation of mula bandha, perfect for the yoga nerd in you, check out this article in Yoga Journal by David Life. (BTW, does anyone believe that's his real last name?) Anyway, read on: http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/217