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by Rachel Meyer
It’s over a month now that Michael Stone is gone.
What an odd phrase that’s: gone.
Gone, Gone, Gone past Gone totally past
Like many people, I can’t fairly imagine it.
Michael’s face retains popping up on my Facebook feed, and for a split-second my thoughts thinks it’s a brand new weblog or an unheard podcast or an upcoming retreat, for the briefest second excited to see what knowledge providing is perhaps across the nook.
And then I bear in mind he’s gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Gone from struggling into the liberation from struggling.
*
Memorials have been showing repeatedly; sleek, all.
Michael’s brother Jayme’s hauntingly-perfect eulogy concerning the vast wake that Michael leaves. The heartbreakingly-real, but unbelievably-grounded regular FB updates from Carina and workforce. Compassionate tributes from Spirituality and Health and Tricycle and Lion’s Roar, the Buddhist neighborhood coming collectively of their collective grief. Matthew Remski studying Michael’s letters about how family wakes us up. Mainstream media protection in The Washington Post and The Globe and Mail, difficult items typically written from a secular perspective that throw round thorny phrases like “charismatic guru” and “opioid overdose.”
In the wake of Michael’s sudden loss of life, the overarching themes from conversations amongst my yoga trainer colleagues have been:
1) ohmigod that is so f*cking unhappy, and
2) we now have GOT to speak extra transparently about psychological health within the yoga and wellness communities.
Yoga lecturers: how has this tragedy touched your hearts and minds?
And the place will we go from right here?
*
It is 2008.
Michael’s first e-book, The Inner Tradition Of Yoga, has simply been printed. There’s not a lot else on the market prefer it.
I stumble throughout a duplicate within the philosophy part of an honest-to-god real-life Barnes & Noble, again when there was such a factor in San Francisco’s Union Square. I learn half of it instantly, impressed, sitting there on the ground in a caffeinated half-lotus.
The subsequent day, ensconced in a restaurant on Polk Street, the man to my left faucets my shoulder, leans over, gestures on the cowl, and asks incredulously, “The inner tradition of yoga?!? Is there even such a thing??”
Michael Stone was in contrast to another.
He set a exceptional commonplace.
Since that second practically a decade in the past, he has been my touchstone for what it means to be a considerate, humble, sensible pupil, trainer, author, meditator, activist, and yoga thinker.
Here was somebody who’d studied with Richard Freeman and was a legit Ashtangi, an mental who’d lived a Thoreauvian life in a bus within the wilderness, an activist who utilized yogic ethics to the Occupy motion and known as for engaged Buddhism with a watch towards social justice. Here was a trainer who melded psychology and yoga philosophy and Buddhism within the most-approachable of how. Here was a globally revered scholar-yogi who didn’t promote out to multinational firms by changing into an envoy for yoga pants. Here was a younger husband and father who was without delay engaged in household life and grounded within the monastic/ascetic mannequin, a seeker who’d skilled with the greats and was honing his personal voice on the similar time.
Michael’s work gave me permission to be a yoga trainer who was not all the time perky and chirpy and stuffed with woo-woo bliss-talk. He made it appear potential to be without delay severe and humorous and engaged and introspective, versus a run-of-the-mill yoga fitness Barbie.
As a pupil and as a trainer, his work inspired me to really feel all of my human emotions. To aspire to steadiness quite than bliss. To purpose for sattva as an alternative of glowing.
That he struggled shouldn’t come to any of us as a shock.
That all of us wrestle shouldn’t come to any of us as a shock.
*
I perceive Michael’s concern about being forthcoming about his psychological health.
In April 2016, I wrote an article for The Washington Post about my own struggle with postpartum depression.. The piece had been on my coronary heart for 2 years, and it hungered desperately to be articulated, like nothing else I’d ever written earlier than. The last essay took months to return collectively, and I used to be happy with the ultimate end result.
It felt true, unvarnished, melancholy, entire.
But within the days earlier than it was printed, I used to be terrified. Wracked with nervousness. The morning earlier than it got here out, I sat on the ground of my workplace, shaking, and wept. It felt like the final word popping out of the closet. Total bare vulnerability.
Because “speaking [my] desolation was terrifying. I was a yoga teacher. I was supposed to weather the storms of parenthood with grace: be positive and perky, measured and resilient, lose the baby weight in a flash, thrive on green juice and quinoa whilst wearing my baby like a kangaroo.”
Wasn’t I? Isn’t that the shakti cheerleader fantasy we’ve collectively constructed, Instagram publish by Instagram publish?
After the piece was printed, I used to be overwhelmed by an outpouring of solidarity from throughout the globe, women yogis reaching out to say, “You spoke my truth. I see myself in your words, and I didn’t have the words to articulate this experience myself. Thank you.”
(It’s all the time the items which might be most terrifying to publish that ring a bell, that folks relate to most. The entire expertise was such a superb reminder to belief the vulnerability on the coronary heart of intimacy.)
A number of days later, I reached out to Michael and shared my essay with him, mentioning that I’d lengthy revered his work and imagined he may discover it of worth, or at the very least relatable.
The subsequent morning I awoke to his reply. Michael wrote, “This is the most tender, accurate, & clear article I’ve read in months. Perfectly sad and inspiring.”
It was, and all the time will likely be, one of many highlights of my profession.
Michael and I by no means met in person. But I’ve spent a whole lot of hours “with” him and his teachings through the years, listening to his measured voice whereas hiking the paths of Northern California, driving the twisting roads of Marin en route to show in Oakland, sitting on buses in San Francisco sending metta to the strangers throughout from me, training silently on my kitchen flooring in Portland whereas my son slept upstairs, meditating on a airplane flying cross-country to start a brand new life in Boston.
I do know I’m not alone. These years, these hours, listening, all, have been a lesson within the influence one person can have on one other (1000’s of others), quietly, throughout the miles.
I’m perpetually grateful.
*
In the inimitable void that Michael has left, I’m heartened to see that his instructing workforce remains to be shifting ahead with upcoming trainings, such that his instructing may proceed, even in his bodily absence.
Among so many classes through the years, these stand out:
Enlightenment is intimacy. And household wakes us up. Michael described enlightenment as intimacy. A closeness with what’s. A transparent-seeing; a deep-knowing.
I preserve pondering of Carina, their youngsters, their unborn baby. I preserve pondering of how insufferable the grief of loss should be, the heart-shattering miracle that will likely be that forthcoming youngster. I preserve pondering of the truth that we simply by no means f*cking know when our day will come.
All of non secular apply is simply taking care of issues. Years in the past, I scrawled this podcast nugget down on a chunk of scrap paper and taped it to the wall. My husband discovered it in a shifting field within the basement a number of days after Michael handed. It nonetheless feels true.
Yoga is about studying to be awake on this planet. Michael’s e-book of the identical identify, his podcast, too, emphasised as a lot, without delay poetry and prose and philosophy and meditation. Very very similar to Virginia Woolf’s, his writing was without delay literary and philosophical and grounded within the stuff of actual life.
Your life doesn’t want you to consider it on a regular basis. Perfectly easy. Perfectly sensible.
Yoga is about studying to be actual. Yoga means dropping our masks, releasing the armor. Finding ease in your being, your body and thoughts. We are allowed to really feel the total depth of the human emotional spectrum with out invalidating or doing violence to our psyches by denying the extra shadowy of these feelings. This means studying to be with all that we really feel—even probably the most irritable, politically incorrect, troublesome, difficult feelings—and trusting that, with the assistance of the breath, we will stick with them, and watch them “arise, unfold, and pass away,” all of the whereas residing in that place of equilibrium. This is the true work of the yogi.
*
Teachers, the place will we go from right here?
What does a brand new paradigm appear to be? And how can we assist colleagues who’re struggling?
Here’s what I’ve bought to this point:
1. We can’t put each other on pedestals. ‘Nuff said. Matthew Gindin’s reflection on “Putting To Rest The Myth of The Heroic Self” over at Tricycle addresses this effectively.
2. We must be extra clear about our personal humanity, and daring sufficient to acknowledge greater than bliss. We must be genuine about the truth that, sure, completely, we’re human, and we expertise the entire realm of human feelings. We can’t prioritize bliss over the opposite facets of being human, fetishizing a sure saccharine happiness fantasy that appears like glittery leggings and handstands on the seaside. We must TALK about these items, to step into the world with our personal armor eliminated. Nobody needs a trainer who’s all cotton sweet, capturing unicorn rainbows out the butt.
3. That stated, we have to educate from our scars, not from our open wounds. As an eating dysfunction survivor, as a postpartum depression survivor, as a lady, as a mom, as a associate, I can serve of us who are suffering and wrestle with comparable life circumstances by saying, “Ok, I’m not perfect, but here are some tools yoga and meditation have taught me that helped me, and maybe they’ll help you, too.”
Our job is to assist each other really feel higher in body and thoughts, proper? To use what we’ve realized and practiced to supply a measure of ease, freedom from bodily struggling, freedom from psychological struggling.
So possibly on our bios the place we point out how delighted we’re to have studied with Rockstar Teacher A and Rockstar Guru B, we will additionally point out the methods wherein we’ve been broken-open and the communities we’ve realized to serve in consequence. This recent piece from Josh Korda articulates this concept properly.
4. We must be vigilantly self-aware of our personal non secular bypassing. If you don’t know but what that’s, I extremely advocate you dig into Buddhist psychologist John Welwood’s work. “Spiritual bypassing” happens after we use non secular beliefs and practices to keep away from coping with painful or uncomfortable emotions, wounds, or points. Lots of this occurring in and round yogi social media, amirite?
5. We must launch disgrace and be daring sufficient to be susceptible. Most of us know too effectively the risks of establishing a shiny facade. Vulnerability results in compassion results in intimacy. Check out Brené Brown on each of those themes if you happen to haven’t achieved so already.
6. We must redefine happiness as profound okayness. Tara Brach (one other sensible and fantastic Buddhist trainer with a psychological bent) presents this grounding definition, and I can’t adore it sufficient. Happiness as profound okayness is essential to re-conceiving a yogic strategy that’s greater than perpetual euphoria (which isn’t sustainable, nor lifelike, for anybody aware of the First Noble Truth. Life is struggling, bro. Ask the Buddha, he’ll fill you in).
7. We can’t be afraid to get assist after we want it. I can by no means faux to grasp what it’s wish to cycle between the manic/depressive episodes of a bipolar prognosis. We all wrestle in our personal methods, and are healed or given solace in our personal methods.
As Julie Peters’s excellent recent essay argues, “yoga, self-care, and alternative forms of medicine cannot fix everything.” So you do you. Whatever that takes to deliver you to thriving. Including meds. Including acupuncture. Including ayurvedic drugs, and so forth. and so forth. It’s all gravy.
8. We’ve gotta be humble and genuine—courageous sufficient to cease promoting a fairly picture.
The up to date yoga scene is dominated by commodification. Most of us lecturers are painfully conscious of how social media has turned yoga apply right into a performative reputation contest, quite than a meditative non secular self-discipline and path to freedom from struggling. So what can we do to be extra genuine as lecturers, to chill out into the wabi-sabi qualities of being with out spewing our guts like a sizzling mess? Where’s the steadiness?
9. Finally, we have to discuss extra brazenly about loss of life. Because, as I wrote last year in Yoga International, “death is as real and as sacred and as holy as life. Because suffering and sorrow are the necessary counterparts to contentment and joy. And because I’m willing to bet that some kind of suffering (what Buddhists call dukkha) brought most of us to yoga in the first place—whether it was pain in our knees, or aches in our hearts.”
*
“When we inspect our everyday experience in detail, we see that death and birth occur one after the other in every successive moment. What we see in one breath cycle we see everywhere.”
— MS
My three-year-old son and I made a pilgrimage of kinds to Walden Pond the opposite day. I confirmed him the statue of the person who had been Henry David Thoreau, and instructed him he’s lifeless now. He bought unhappy and severe, and stated, “Mama, but will he come back? I don’t want him to be dead.” We sat down on a bench and talked about spirit, and divinity, and perpetuity, and what it means to go away the body. It was the primary time he’s ever puzzled, or asked.
“How do we go to be with God? What about you and me and daddy? How do our bodies know to breathe? We are still alive, right?”
Later, as I buckled him into his carseat, after we’d swum and fished for tadpoles and hiked to the unique web site of Thoreau’s cabin, he regarded up at me and asked, “Well, what about Ben (his friend from preschool)? Will he die, too?”
Gone, gone, gone past.
I considered Michael typically that day at Walden Pond. He had spoken in interviews of his personal Thoreauvian experiment, dwelling in a VW bus within the woods in his early 20s. This was one of many issues I’d most appreciated about him, that duality of being without delay an ascetic, a monastic, and a householder discovering awakening in his relationships.
Michael, thanks. Thank you for all of your service, your coronary heart, your ethics, the best way you labored to remodel your individual struggling into teachings that is perhaps of a lot solace and inspiration to so many. I think about you had no thought what nice influence your teachings have had all through the world.
And to Michael’s household: our collective hearts have damaged again and again in imagining your struggling within the wake of his sudden loss. To you, Carina, to Michael’s youngsters and to your unborn youngster, we provide tenderness and peace and strength.
Inhale, start the vinyasa.
Exhale, sit with the vacancy on the finish of the exhalation.
May you relaxation within the peace that passes all understanding.
* * *
Let’s co-create a listing of psychological health sources for yoga lecturers. You can publish them right here within the feedback or e-mail me at rachel@rachelmeyeryoga.com and we’ll compile them and share them right here.
Here’s a start:
If you might be so inclined, the link to donate to Michael’s family is here.
Tara Brach: Meditation, Psychologist, Author, Teacher
Yogaland Podcast: A true story of overcoming depression, panic & shame
Stephanie Snyder’s TED talk: Learning to Live
On the passing of Michael Stone and mental health in the yoga community (Spirituality &
Health)
Why I come clean to my students about my insomnia, anxiety, and sobriety (Tricycle)
A Zen yoga teacher gets real about postpartum depression (Washington Post)
~
Rachel Meyer is a Boston-based author and yoga trainer. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, On Being, Yoga Journal, Tricycle, Yoga International, HuffPost, and extra. You can discover her at www.rachelmeyeryoga.com or @rachelmeyeryoga.
Image credit score (1): Michael Stone Instagram, (2): by way of MelissaWest.com
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