Beautifully Ordinary

The following post was written by Liz Beres, a NYC-based dancer; dance teacher; and yoga teacher, certified by The Perri Institute for Mind and Body. Liz currently teaches yoga privately and at various gyms, including that of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY through Plus One. She is continually intrigued by and appreciative of the power of mind/body practices, and is grateful for the chance to share her musings on MindBodyBrew's digital platform.

Do not ask your children

to strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable,

but it is a way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder

and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting

tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry

when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure

in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.

- Excerpt from William Martin’s "The Parent’s Tao Te Ching"

I am by no means a runner. But I do enjoy a brisk jog here and there, to brush off the residue of a tough week, or take hold of an extra dose of energy I may have woken up with. The freedom that comes with that tearing through space can, in the moment, rev one’s confidence; with my feet pounding the pavement, I feel invincible, capable of ditching whatever is plaguing me and barreling into a future of abundant potential. Running along the East River just a few days ago brought on this sense of power within me, and also a sense of awe--at the glory of the sun beating down and the salty water’s waves rushing along with the wind. Such beauty packed into one seemingly ordinary, simple moment.

How often do these kinds of moments appear out of nowhere, lasting for mere seconds and yet overwhelming us with gratitude and wonder? Thoughts, emotions, physical sensations of the past, present, and future crashing in like a river’s wave, spilling over your entire being, only to leave you, soaked from the experience yet already part of the next moment in time. These are magical instants, pure and potent in their form and insight. One might even refer to them as extraordinary.

The shaping of the word ‘extraordinary’ suggests that the extraordinary is based in the ordinary--that only from such a common, solid foundation can we reach beyond to whatever else may be possible. So I wonder, why is it that we don’t give the ordinary its due? Why does a stigma exist in relation to what is typical of the everyday? Why are our expectations so frequently tied into extraordinary feats?

I am not proposing that we become complacent, nor am I shaming the act of goal-setting and subsequent act of pursuing those goals. Lately, I just question our society’s tendency to set the extraordinary above the ordinary, as if the latter has no place or value.

In a world where knowledge can be gained in an instant, time spins faster and faster, until the surrounding environment inevitably blurs, and its colors, its sounds, its textures fade. Real presence requires a slower rate of travel, no? What are we speeding towards anyway? If I should hazard a guess, I’d venture to say many of us are racing towards a career that will bring us more prestige and a higher income; others of us are sprinting towards a future filled with more material possessions; and still others of us may be desperately diving towards a larger social network, with the hope that we will feel more supported and loved.

What we do with our time, energy, and resources is of course up to each one of us. Dealing with all that we must to survive in today’s world results in a complex web of decisions and actions. But I wonder if we could – with just as much innovation – do more with less if we recognized what is already right in front of us. I myself have been seeking simplicity as of late – less stuff, less waste, fewer commitments. I joke that I want to be a more ‘normal’ person, who has the time to cook dinner at home or spontaneously take a walk to the park. As I slowly attempt to simplify my day to day, I am recognizing how much of the world I have missed in these last few years. Waking up to a day free of obligations can be so delightful; preparing a meal can become a quieting meditation. My vision, my hearing, my sense of smell, and even my sense of touch are steadily reawakening to the subtleties of our world. The world that I’ve been rushing through always was vibrant; I’m just recognizing its beauty once more.

If there’s one thing my yoga and meditation practices have gifted me with, it’s the comprehension of awareness, and the lack thereof. Broadened awareness brings with it details that otherwise might have been missed. Awareness of how we are or how matters are can lead us to more mindful decisions and actions. Becoming aware of the world draws us back to reality, with all its beautiful and harsh truths. When we become aware of what is, we can dream of what could be. I feel as if a closer relationship to the ordinary, through awareness, actually could tie us more deeply to the past, which can be an expert guide towards our future travel, steering us along the same path or carving us over to another.

When I read the passage above, I became filled with hope that I could succeed at living an ordinary life by the time I have children. To see our routines as extraordinary may be a stretch; if, instead, we can meet more ‘normal’ moments with the freshest eyes we can muster, perhaps the power of what is can emanate more vividly and be shared and valued more widely. If we can experience each moment for what it is--joyous or gloomy, fascinating or boring, harrowing or arousing--how much more extraordinary will those magical moments of our existence become? Before we teach our children of this life, we must first interact with its rawness. Only from there can awareness and gratitude come.

-Liz Beres

Monday Mantra: Inessential

Last week I taught class themes encouraging students to release what they might recognize as inessential - not necessary - to continue carrying along in body and mind.  Sometimes when deep into the yoga practice, we come face-to-face with something we do not need which we have been holding on to. It can take the form of a concern, a thought pattern, or a habitual judgment.  It can feel like a pang in the heart, a pain in the hip, or a pulsing headache. By freeing ourselves of the space it occupies, we create room to cultivate something we need to grow in its place. There is an exchange.

Mid-week, the word "inessential" took on sharp potency when I read Oliver Sacks' Op-Ed for the New York Times, My Own Life: Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer.  Mr. Sacks, thinker/writer/neurologist, is dying. An excerpt:

"Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well).

I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential."

I encourage you to read the full piece. It is honest, heartfelt, simple, and inspiring to those of us who still have time to live on this earth. Mr. Sacks has given us a gift. I am grateful that in the process of his detaching, he found a moment to share this lesson with us as one of his inessential tasks...always teaching by example.

While it might be a futile exercise until the moment we learn of our impending death (perhaps we truly cannot answer until that precise moment), I would like to pose two questions to all of you:

What could you let go of that is inessential to your living? What is essential to your living on which you could place a greater focus now?

- TaraMarie Perri

Functioning in Autopilot

On Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, I attempted to escape the city and go back home like thousands of other travelers, wary of the incoming weather. Everyone at work had already left for the day, and I hurriedly closed up with the anxiety of catching a flight pressing me forward. At 5:58 PM, two minutes before I intended on being out the door and searching for a cab, the phone rang. Annoyed, I answered and went into autopilot, not giving the client on the other end of the line my full attention. At 6:10 PM I was out the door, beginning what would be the longest trip to the airport I’ve ever endured. Already nauseous from the lack of food in my belly, I pressed my forehead against the cold cab window, trying to steady myself as the bumper-to-bumper traffic sent my body into a dance of never-ending undulations from the quick and frequent accelerations and stops. After the first hour of what was usually a thirty-minute trip, the driver and I started commenting on the enormity of the traffic. It took me a moment to realize that I had been so focused on getting to the airport that I had almost forgotten I was sharing the same enclosed space with another human being.

He told me that he was from a tiny little village on a mountainside in Kashmir, in a place you could only get to by mule, not car—a place that didn’t have electricity until 1985, and where he remembers using kerosene lanterns in high school. He told me that he laughed deeply when he heard on the radio that the oldest man in the world is 111 years old. He said that his relatives are older than that, but no one would come across their village in the mountainside to know. His uncle, who he claimed was 114 years old, is still walking, running, talking and growing hair. He said his grandmother lived to the age of 112. When he told her that he was moving to America, she couldn’t understand why he would want to leave their mountainside. “You have everything you need here, what more do you need?” she asked him.

He told me that his grandmother never touched money a day in her life. He asked her, “Grandma, what about food?” She told him, “We have a goat, we grow rice, we don’t need anything else”. Then he asked, “Well, what about soap?” She answered that she makes her own soap. And finally he asked, “But grandma, what about the barber? You have to get your hair cut.” She told him that the barber comes to visit and he trades her for rice. Although his grandmother lived so long, he told me that he would not, because of the high stress and lack of simplicity that he experiences here.

What started off as the longest trip to the airport ended with an explosion of thoughts and a deep appreciation for the gifts of storytelling and wisdom. He must have apologized five or six times for “speaking too much,” but I assured him he was not, and that I wanted to hear more. This made me think about the fact that in this beautiful city filled with millions of people, who are doing a billion amazing things, so many tend to function in autopilot. How often do we get from work to our doorstep without having any recollection of the journey? Oftentimes, I find that I slip into autopilot as a tool to combat the stress of the many tasks I have committed to. It seems that New Yorkers especially are prone to overscheduling, frequently getting swept up into the ceaseless current. Being trapped in the car for two hours wasn’t something I had planned or thought I had time for, but after reflecting on the day as a whole, I realized that I had gotten so much more out of that two-hour cab ride than the nine hours spent at work. Sometimes we forget we are humans first, not just vessels with which to get “work” done. I am reminded of this every time I get back on the mat. Sometimes it’s difficult to set aside time for your practice when you have so much going on. But like my trip to the airport, setting aside that time is what you need in order to get everything else done. It isn’t the number of emails we answer in a day that benefits us on a larger scale: it is the times that remind us we are human.

Monday Mantra: Need

"I already have everything I need."

Inspired by Brianna Goodman's Sunday post on the Brew, "Observing Our Losses and Our Gains," I recalled this mantra. I do not know the exact source but it was a mantra I received years ago from a friend when setting off on my dream to build our creative teaching and research community. I knew there would be major sacrifices as I left my six-figure corporate salary to start something new. The mantra kept me sane during that transition. I can say the risk was well worth it but, boy, it was scary!

I think it goes without saying that this mantra is not solely reserved for financial or material situations. These six words still soothe my nerves during anxious moments of anticipating a new opportunity, pathway, or adventure, or when holding on too tightly to a fully-imagined hope I have placed far off into the future. Yet daily life remains the best source to recognize when to apply such wisdom. Brianna gave us some great examples to ponder.  Here is one of mine:

Recently, I moved apartments and I have to admit I have not fully unpacked. I am living only with the bare necessities and a few neatly stacked piles of cardboard boxes. While I realistically need to unpack a little bit more to at least make my new place function like my home, I admit I have slipped into appreciating the sparse quality of having very little to distract me in my environment. Minimalism and simplicity in my home is incredibly appealing and comforting. I tend towards white walls, clean lines, and no clutter. Here I have created a whole new level of minimal, even for me!

Lately, I have begun to wonder what would happen if I never unpack? Would I lose a part of me by never glimpsing the contents of the boxes? Life has been going on. I have been eating, sleeping, and working just fine without the contents of those boxes. Yes, some of my beloved books and favorite dishes are stuck in hiding and it will feel more like home to have them out in the open. But for the time being, I am curious what I could part with because I can no longer remember it.  Out of sight. Out of mind.

Do you have any uses for this mantra in your life?  How do you define a "need"?

- TaraMarie Perri

Monday Mantra: Simplicity

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“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

- Albert Einstein

Upon hearing this quote at a conference I attended last week, I knew it had to be our Monday Mantra.  I am afraid that simplicity can be misunderstood.  Simplicity is often equated with weakness when weighed against complexity; the former associated with the easier route and the latter with the harder journey.  But for many of us living in the fast-paced world of technology, 24/7 lifestyles, and consumer culture, I would argue the reverse might require some investigation for balance.

What if we defined simplicity as pulling back to the essentials? Wouldn’t we all be on board for that?  Simple living requires organization and making choices. Simplicity asks for focus and discipline.

The Fall season is about to begin this week.  Fall energies boost us to harvest and prepare, and in our inspired enthusiasm, sometimes we can take on way too much. Perhaps this adage can inspire you to embark on those Fall projects with measured restraint, keeping the natural work mode of the season simple and focused.

- TaraMarie Perri