yogaServe

In addition to serving those in our community who are most underserved (currently – incarcerated youth, women affected by violence, and counselors of sexual assault victims), yogaServe’s mission is to unite the community together in service.

Service isn’t a zero-sum game. In fact, it’s the opposite – it’s cumulative. And can be transformative. What one group or person does in the spirit of seva doesn’t take away from another is doing – in fact, if we all banded together a bit more I think we’d make an even greater difference.

In the spirit of this, we want to help promote yoga opportunities here in Columbus that are giving back, in hopes of linking us all together.

This Saturday, Grow Yoga is offering “Yoga for the Cure” with proceeds going to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The class is at 1:30. For more info, check them out on Facebook or at their website.

Next up is Yoga Stops Traffic, an event that Yoga on High is participating in to raise awareness about human trafficking. The global event takes place on March 10 – learn more by going to Yoga on High’s page or their website.

If you’re a veteran please come out to a FREE class offered by Sarah Plummer, aka Marine Chick, this Tuesday at Feel it Burn in Gahanna. Learn more about it here or about Feel it Burn here.

Finally, if you’re not signed up already, be sure to get your tickets for Yoga Outreach Columbus! It’s basically a day full of yoga (two great classes) with all benefits going to the Mid-Ohio Food bank and Off the Mat, Into the World.

If you know of a studio or teacher giving back in our community, and want us to promote it (we don’t have hundreds of Facebook fans just yet, but I promise we’re aiming for it!) please forward it along. We love hearing about yoga off the mat and how you’re making a difference in our community.

peace.

A little over a year ago in the midst of yoga teacher training, some amazing shifts began to happen. I met some dear friends who shared my heart for service. I determined that it was time to re-enter the world of volunteering, to a space that breaks my heart but that drives me more than possibly any other work I’ve done (career included): serving women and kids affected by violence. I began making phone calls to local shelters, had meetings and phone calls, sat with Julia and Hannah and discussed how to bring yoga to the masses in our community. Astounding things happened – namely, people WANTED yoga. Halfway houses, shelters, prisons, pretty much anyone you can think of – they wanted it.

We ran into plenty of barriers along the way: logistical, legal, financial. I realized that formalizing things was way harder than I’d thought. All I wanted to do was teach. But just like the rest of life, you need to get your ducks in a row first. And I struggled with a lot of internal dialogue along the way.

Many months later we are still teaching a handful of classes, and looking to grow in an official way. To make a long story short, the divine opened doors and cleared pathways when I met three wonderful women in our community, one of whom is the head of Center for Wholeness, a local non-profit that’s been around for over a decade and doing great grassroots work. They’ve agreed to act as yogaServe’s fiscal agent and collaborative partner as we head into the new year and apply for a large-ish grant this month (fingers crossed).

THANK YOU to CFW and to any and everyone along the way who believed in this work and wanted to contribute or help or brainstorm or just be supportive. You matter. And we can’t do it without you.

Stay tuned for many more exciting updates.

“This would be a very easy gig to abandon”. That’s been a frequent thought in my mind since I started teaching weekly yoga classes at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility (CJCF). I drive 45 minutes from my home to the facility. When I arrive, I enter the main building. The first set of doors is open but the second set is locked. I wait a few seconds. There’s a buzz and a “thwock” as the doors are unlocked by someone sitting in “Control”. Mr Todd is behind the counter in the lobby. We greet each other as I sign-in, surrendering my car keys and ID. I clip on my Volunteer badge and walk through the metal detector. Mr. Todd makes a phone call and after 5-10 minutes a guard comes by to pick me up. The guard escorts me out of the main building via three locked doors and we emerge into the main yard. There are 4 dorm-style buildings on the West side of the yard, each houses 2 units. On the East side of the yard is the school. The entire yard is surrounded by a chain link fence about 12′ high and topped with coiled razor wire. Two locked doors get us into the school building and one final locked door leads into the library. Between my car and my classroom, I count 7 locked reinforced steel doors with shock-proof glass. No matter where you go here, you are on-camera.

No one in this place is here because they cut school or stole a phone. Most of the youths have been adjudicated on assault, robbery or drug charges. The majority of them committed their special crime while in possession of a firearm. The average stint in this place is about one year. They are typically sentenced to shorter time but once they get in, well…  If you take 130 testosterone-filled young men with attitudes & problems, troubles with addiction, histories of abuse, damaged self-esteem, poor parenting, mental illness and medication, shit’s gonna happen. And when it does, they get invited to stay a bit longer.

I move tables and chairs to create space for the class. There are 12 mats, so that’s the max number of students I can have, but there are typically a few open mats. With a population of around 130, a full class equals almost 10% of the kids incarcerated here.

Sometimes a youth will lose his temper and start a fight or argue with staff, resulting in a sort of “time-out” in their cell. Occasionally a kid will be on medical and have to miss class. Sometimes they’re just having a bad day and don’t want to practice. After another 5-10 minutes, a guard shows up with my class; about 8-10 young men, mainly between the ages of 14 and 18. The class is about 2/3 African-American and 1/3 Caucasion. I have yet to see any Asian or Hispanic youth here.

As they enter, some of the students are happy to see me. “Hey Mr. Reed! How was your week?”. Other youths, especially the ones that are new, tend to be cool and aloof. They’re very self-conscious and guarded of their maleness so this girly yoga stuff is kind of uncomfortable for them. An interesting phenomenon is that young males don’t want to practice bare-footed. They’d rather practice in socks. Part of it seems to be a self-consciousness about foot odor. I teach the new guys where the Top of the Mat is and we get started. I begin each class with Surya Namaskar A and B, straight out of the Ashtanga playbook. After 4 or 5 of each version, their pre-conceptions of yoga are already beginning to dissolve. And what a bunch of babies some of them can be. “This is hard.” “My knees can’t take that.” “I’m slipping on the mat.” Well, take your socks off ya goofball.

These are teenage boys that are all in this place together because they couldn’t control their actions in the first place. They’re confined and controlled 24/7 and all trying to be tough, cool and funny. It’s a recipe that makes for interesting yoga classes. Firstly, my classes at CJCF are very loud. There’s an almost constant banter going on between the guys and I’ve yet to be able to get them to all shutup at the same time for more than a minute. Therefore, my teaching voice tends to stay up near the “outside voice” range. Volume is the only thing I’ve found that consistently helps them to focus. One exception to this is when someone passes gas. Waves of glee and gross-out pass through the class, and for much longer than is comfortable for me to wait out. “Everyone farts in yoga class!” I bellow in vain attempts to restore order.

The thought comes to me again, “This would be a very easy gig to abandon.” At our first class, Mr. B. setup on a mat right in front of me and proceeded to glare death at me the entire class. Blatant “up yours” attitudes throughout class were new to this teacher. But at our second class, Mr. B. smiled a few times, asked questions and put forth some effort. It was awesome to see him warm to the practice. Nowadays, I sometimes ask him to take a front spot so others can see a model for practice other than me. Someone in their own peer group. (I recently learned from a CJCF staff member that Mr. B now practices in his cell.) And he isn’t the only one who’s changed. Other guys, in between farts jokes and fake punching their mat neighbors, find their breath for a few seconds and drop a little more deeply into the posture. It’s a precious few seconds, a time-flicker when understanding and change can occur. And a short opportunity for transformation is sometimes all they need to pick it up and let part of their life change.

My most recent class was very hard. About half the guys were new and they were a rowdy bunch. It was difficult to keep the class focused and on track. It takes a lot of energy and drains an old man like me of vital essence. After class, while waiting for guards to come and escort the guys back to their units and me out of the facility, I again thought “This would be a very easy gig to abandon. These guys aren’t getting it and don’t seem to want to.” On our way out, Mr J. (one of my students since class #1 and a consistent hard-worker) asked if he could give me something. I went to his cell with him, a tiny room with a tiny “bed” in the middle of it and books on the floor. Mr J. explained that he’d written an article about our yoga class for the CJCF newsletter and he handed me a copy. I took it and thanked him and then made my way out of the unit, across the yard and out of the main building, through numerous locked doors and the metal detector. I traded my badge for my keys and ID and headed out. While my car warmed-up, I turned on the dome light and read his article. He got it. At least one guy was picking up on the message about how they can find greater freedom in body and mind, and that’s a huge, massive win. I admitted to myself, “This would be a very hard gig to abandon.“

Tyler Reed

Tyler Reed has been teaching yoga at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility. The following is an article written by one of his students for the CJCF newsletter.

“Before participating in Mr. Reed’s yoga seminars most of us thought of yoga as a female thing. All stretch no sweat. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Maybe even you have underestimated yoga. Mr. Reed taught us yoga does have stretches and breathing exercises. But yoga is a way to be free with oneself as well. But as well as a healthy work out, freeing ones mind and body, and it is unique. There is so much our class has learned. Still learning. For yoga stretches the mind as well. Some things have even helped the class with anger and thinking before acting as well. So if you think yoga’s easy; think again. yoga just might help your life perspective a bit. It has for this class of kids who took it serious. It’s calm, relaxing, and a bundle of hard work and pain. But we have fun and learn with it. Think yoga’s still lame. I think our class could say different. We started with only me, and 4 other youth. Now we have a lot more. Some might think they are not flexible. But everyone’s skeletons are different trust me. If you think your up to the challenge and willing to work yourself to the extremes physically, mentally and more than ask to join the class. You never know it really might be for you. It is fun, painful, sweaty, calm, and peaceful… yoga can take you and stretch you beyond belief.”

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” (Rumi)

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on the fifth chakra – the throat chakra – not only because I’m planning a themed hatha class around it to finish out my yoga teacher training (though I’m sure that’s added motivation!), but because the power of its truth was like a punch in the chest that left a lingering soreness.

The fifth chakra governs the throat and other intuitive concepts like speech, expression, creativity, voice. You don’t need to care a lick about the chakra system or energy systems of the body to imagine the principles behind it. It’s you voice, your ability to move thoughts down and out of your head, or speak the truth of ideas that are borne out of your gut, your instinct, and speak them with courage.

This also goes beyond literal speech; symbolically – are you being yourself? Is the expression of your life and the way it’s unfolding really you? Are you being authentic?

I hate buzz words. The concept of authenticity is one that might come across like a loud and irritatingly neon-colored word on a self-help book. At least that’s what I used to think. But lately I’ve been peeling back its layers. What does it mean?

As I wind down 14-months of yoga teacher training I’ve come to the conclusion that this year, and all the events therein, boil down nicely into that one word.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river – a joy. In Sanskrit the throat chakra is called visshuddha, or “purity.” This makes intuitive sense; when you speak truth, it’s unsullied. But beyond that, the river of joy that flows within is the current of living the life you’re called to. You know it when you’re in it. And you know it when you’re not.

When you see others living with authenticity, there’s a joyousness and perfection to it that’s hard to describe. It’s like watching kids play. There’s no self-doubt; no second-guessing. They probably don’t care what you think. If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they’ll rattle off a list of 10 thing ranging from practical (yes, be a lawyer!) to impoverished (a painter?) to inane (a monster … uh, ok).

But somewhere along the way, we lose that sense of confidence and freedom. We pursue things because we think we’re supposed to. If we do that for long enough, eventually we have no idea where the river is, what feels joyous. We may have no compass or motivation to find it again. I’m about to get personal.

I’m like the worst-case example of all this. A year ago I felt chopped off at my roots, blowing around like ragweed in the dust, unable to even remember what it felt like to be in the current. Fortunately I was doing yoga at the time and a nutty idea came into my head – teacher training. It was impractical. It was time-consuming. It was expensive. And it was random. But I decided to do it, if only because something felt missing in my life and I was sick of feeling lost.

I missed teaching. I had quit teaching (little kindergarteners who were pretty fun and pretty cool and who made me happy) years ago, to climb the next rung on the ladder because that is what you’re supposed to do. I didn’t question that decision much. I had a full ride to Princeton for graduate school and what sane person turns that down? What ensued was a grueling two years of work that neither felt joyous nor rewarding. I missed teaching. I missed being with kids, and with people, but in my quest to over-achieve (a problem I’ve had since I can remember demanding that my mother teach me how to write my name in cursive at the age of two-and-a-half) I just dug in a little harder.

I eventually found a new “flow” in graduate school, and in my non-teaching career. None of this is to say that I was unhappy with that decision or am  currently unhappy in this phase of my life. But I lost my ability to know the difference. I moved back to Ohio to be near my family,  which was the right decision. But the pace of life here is different, certainly different from anything I’d experienced for the last 9 years. The marathon training seemed to grind to a halt. It was abrupt, and it was frightening.

There were no more 14 hour days. Or insane feats of achievement. I used to be able to quantify my worth by how fast I could run a mile, how many goals I could score in soccer, how many exams I could ace, or accolades I could accrue. Once you step off the treadmill, those things don’t matter. Nobody cared. I had a normal life with a normal 9-5 (which was precisely what I needed) but that was horrifically unsettling to me. I became un-anchored. I questioned my purpose.

And then teacher training. It’s reaffirmed for me first and foremost how much I LOVE TO TEACH. And it’s taught me to slow the hell down, to stop competing, to give myself a break, and to ditch the ladder and stop viewing my life’s activities as a vertical climb somewhere.

I’ve been living in the flow for the last year, initially in just getting on my mat every day and remembering what makes me feel joyous. Moving. Music. Cooking. People. Pursuing more things that felt joyous also opened a new path to my authentic self that I was too busy and too hard-hearted to notice before: teaching yoga to, and connecting with, people in need.

My previous self might have asked – what for? What’s the impact here? Can it be scaled? Does this make sense for my career? Do I have time for this?

Now the answers are clear – I don’t care. I do it because it brings joy. That’s the only reason I need.

I’ll leave you with an over-quoted Steve Jobs truism:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

jamie

This weekend I joined some fellow Ohio yogis down in Cincinnati for a workshop with John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga. Thank goodness I took today off from my day job. I need time to assimilate. To reflect. And of course, let my back relax and become human again after Friend’s notorious way of pushing you to your limits (9 full urdva dhanurasanas in a row – seriously??).

I did this pose for the first time in my life, too. Who knew?

I could go on for hours, maybe days, sharing insights from this experience. But part of my own personal goals lately are to speak less, talk less, even write less – and instead to turn inward and hold (the opposite of this pose above!).

But I do want to share just a bit. John asked us to reflect and come up with our own mahvakya, or “great saying.” A mantra, an affirmation, something we believe in our hearts and aspire to create in our life. This can be anything. One woman said, “I am love.” Another – “I am worthy.” What we believe in our hearts becomes reality in our lives.  Like divots in the mud you create with a car’s tires, spinning over and over again in the same place, our beliefs create those spaces in our minds. Tracks that over time become deeper; rainwater pools and falls in those places we’ve spent effort, time, and energy – for positive or negative. This is the power of a mantra or a prayer or a belief.

Deep in a forward fold, I pondered what great sayings I wanted to reflect. “I am worthy” is a good one that I use often. Instead of a mahavakya in words, one appeared in pictures.

Beside me sat myself, Jamie at age 5. She appears often, wearing her hair long and with long bangs and an outfit I recall vividly from first grade. My mantra was merely to sit with her, beside her in a meditation.

The meaning of this – ? All beings, no matter who they are, have this child within. You can look at anyone – even those who are hardened, dangerous, mean-spirited, whomever – and their essence, their worth – is still that of a child. A child like you, a child like me. They are victims of circumstances, but if you can picture them this young, your heart will open up.

With each breath, I meditated on service. Inhaling, wanting to bring healing to the community; exhaling, letting go of obstacles, beliefs about people’s worth. I thought of Tyler, who taught his first class last week at a juvenile correctional facility. Young men, just little boys at heart, locked up for a variety of crimes. Held in cells. Trapped in brokenness. Tyler’s spirit is beautiful; he wants to teach them the primary series and use the vigor of the practice to develop their strength and discipline.

Breathing in, picturing these young men, they could be anyone. Picture them as five-year old kids. What do they want? Freedom. Play. Fun. Just like the rest of us. Breathing out, imagine they are your own. Your kids. Your siblings. Your brothers. Your fathers. Your loved ones. Your friends. That could be them. We all have the capability of being broken and trapped.

Inhaling, expanding………… this is the beauty of yoga and service and of being reminded that we’re all at our core a product of circumstance and grace. Breathing in, I see the women at the shelter. They are broken, too. Beside them all, I see children. Younger versions of themselves, radiating light. I see my version of Jamie, too, sitting beside me. I am them. They are me. That could have been me. That might have been me, without the power of grace.

This vision visits me often and is in fact the core reason I found healing long ago. We are no more deserving of pain and suffering than a small child is. We wouldn’t wish it on our children, our nieces and nephews, so why would we wish it on ourselves. Instead, we know that children are deserving of love, unconditional love.

If you have difficulty giving that to someone else, try it – conjure up a five-year old image of them. If you have difficulty giving love to yourself, invite your own child to be present in meditation or prayers. The healing he or she may bring is difficult to describe in words. But you will never again be the same. This is samadhi. This is the freedom and grace and truth that hit Paul on the way to Damascus.

My mahavayka: may I see this innocence and brilliance and beloved WORTH in all beings, no matter who they are or what they’ve done.

peace,

jamie

Hi all. It’s been over a month since the last blog which is quite a hiatus. We’ve taken a step back for a bit to assess our options as an unofficial organization and are still in that process. Explaining all of it would probably induce sleep, so I’ll spare you. Let’s just say that we know WORLDS more information now about our financial and legal options in terms of making yogaServe a sustainable and lasting group so that more groups in our community can be served through yoga and so that more instructors can volunteer.

Due diligence is important, so we’ll continue exploring until we’ve got it figured out. None of this is fascinating fodder for a blog (sorry) but I wanted to share, plus include a few more reflections that are eminently more inspiring and interesting.

For starters, I’m feeling profoundly grateful. The yoga community is far flung across the globe but in reaching out to others doing yoga service work, the response has been incredible. It’s an honor to be part of the yoga community broadly, even more so the yoga community committed to bringing its healing power to prisons, hospitals, halfway houses, shelters, and schools. Every time I’ve felt  discouraged or overwhelmed I bring to mind members of this community humbly doing the work, and it gets me fired up again.

I think that can be applicable to all of us. Who inspires you? Who lights you up? Can you conjure their strength and inspiration when you most need it? This is the power of never having to work alone.

Second, this month I’ve been reminded why I came to yoga in the first place. I was tremendously sick a few weeks ago and stopped practicing, primarily because I couldn’t fold forward more than three inches without intense stomach pain. Returning to yoga has been a blessing. You forget how powerful it is until you don’t have it in your life. While lying on the back of an airplane curled in a ball (food poisoning en route!) I’ve never been more thankful for the power of pranayama. I breathed my way through that flight. I don’t know how I made it, but I did.

Are you tapping into the power of your breath when you need it? When you’re stressed? In pain? Fearful? Anxious? Sleepless? Angry? Breath reminds us that we’re human, that we’re all the same, but it can also inspire the divine. Just. Breathe.

Finally, a reflection on getting what you ask for. When you reach out to ask the divine – whatever version you believe in – for something in your life, be prepared to get it. If your request is unwavering and sincere, don’t be surprised when it falls into your lap. And don’t be surprised if you’re asked to go ten steps further. For me, I spoke aloud my desires to serve and build service in the yoga community and was met with an unexpected opportunity to find healing and service in a very personal way.

When you’re met with an overwhelming opportunity, or a frightening call to do more, to be more, to take a risk – will you do it? Will you walk into it? Can you open a door without a clue as to where you’re going?

There’s a metaphor I love, that you need both discipline/work and grace to succeed. Discipline is a bird pumping its wings it flight; without putting in the work, it would plummet quickly to its death. But a bird in flight soars on gusts of wind that are inexplicably powerful. Sometimes no work is required. Flying is act of wing-pumping and soaring, of work and grace. Of knowing when to let go and let the power of the sky and the wind take you further than you could go alone.

I’m working on that second part.

humbly,
Jamie

Earlier this week I posted a brief blog on the yoga movement in New Orleans, and yoga’s role in helping the community heal after the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Because of its six year anniversary, there’s been a lot in the news about the city. This article from The Atlantic is absolutely worth reading: “After Hurricane Katrina, Years of Post-Traumatic Stress.“

It’s hard to imagine the horror that others go through but story-telling is an effective way to awaken compassion and understanding. One woman describes her experience:

Six months later, the shock had worn off, and I was numb, dead, like a plug disconnected from a socket. Somewhere along the way, my brain’s neural circuitry had been overloaded. A fuse had blown, but I could not find the fuse box. I grew increasingly unable to think well, then to think at all. Broke, I took a job as a waitress, and life became something I witnessed through the wrong end of a kaleidoscope. I was disconnected, enraged, anxious. At night, I would fall asleep, then jerk awake moments later, my arms flailing as if warding off an oncoming attack.

In my dreams, the city was always flooding, even though I had missed the flood. I withdrew from the world. Sometimes I wondered if I was dead, suspended in a kind of posthumous existence in which everything appeared to be real but was a hallucination. It was hard to discern the root cause: Hurricane Katrina, the nervous breakdown I’d had in early 2005, the reporting I did as a journalist in the years prior covering the adult movie industry. Or, perhaps it was some inherent, unseen weakness in a malfunctioning brain that I could not see but that controlled me.

Over time, I would get better, but it would take several years, and, even then, there would be relapses. On October 13, 2009, four years after the storm made landfall, frustrated by a work-related problem, I walked from the living room of my apartment and into the kitchen. I stopped in front of a cabinet, rocked back on my heels, and slammed my head into the cupboard in front me as hard as I could. Immediately thereafter, I smashed my hand into the neighboring cupboard. In the wake of what had happened, I stood there, reeling.

Not all domestic violence victims develop PTSD, but it’s very common. The stats are discouraging: 89% of women affected by three types of violence will also have mental disorders and issues with substance abuse, and PTSD is probably one of the most prevalent.

When I teach women at the domestic violence shelter, I don’t think of them as trauma victims or PTSD victims.  Often they seem very normal. Those who’ve been impacted by violence have a powerful ability to set up a veneer to the outside world so that you have no idea what’s going on in their head or their heart.

Each time I read an article like this, it helps to awaken compassion for those suffering from trauma, my students included, and at least become more aware of what they are facing.

As I head into my third month of classes at the shelter, I wanted to take a quick moment to thank all of you for your support, for donating money for that mats, for offering your encouragement, or expressing interest in yogaServe in some capacity. I truly believe that healing and service is a collective effort, and this couldn’t happen without you.

Much love,
Jamie