The "Gap" of Anxiety

Each morning for the last couple of weeks, as I turn on the shower, I sprinkle four drops of peppermint oil on the floor of the tub. It's wonderfully rejuvenating, and it helps me to make the transition from the grogginess and blues of waking up to the spirit of awakening to the day and, on most days, the practice that lay ahead in the next few minutes. This little ritual, really, began when I read about it in a magazine and thought, "Hmmm....I could use a pick-me-up first thing in the morning" and "Hmmm...I could stand to nurture myself a bit more."

Lately, I have been wondering about those morning blues. They are composed of an underlying hum of anxiety about the day: What's in store? What do I have to do? Whom might I offend? What could I possible not see coming? Will I have enough energy at the work day's end for my daughter and family? How will I get everything done?

There's also another piece of the anxiety that punctuates that hum: when ____ is done, then you can _____. At the end of this day/week/month _______ is something to look forward to.

I know I'm not alone in experiencing these spaces of thinking and feeling. I hear these words spoken by friends and colleagues all of the time. In short, we can get swallowed up by the worry of what is/isn't to come, and we can easily look to the future to spell us from that anxiety.

But the thing is, in each case we're not being present. Eckhart Tolle recently posted this on his Facebook page:

Dear Friends,
Psychotherapist Fritz Pearls said:
"Anxiety is the gap between the now and the later."
Where is your attention? Do you live in "the later" more than the now?
Then you are trapped in your thoughts, because what is the future other than a thought in your head?
Only your thoughts can make you anxious!
Bring your attention to the now. Seeing, listening, breathing, feeling the aliveness inside your body. Welcome home.
With love,
Eckhart.

I am remarkably moved by these words because of the way they capture anxiety as a kind of time/space emotion. We're living in "the gap between the now and the later," and we're missing the now. His reference here brings a materiality to the anxiety that makes it, somehow, more transformable.

One thing that occurs to me is that we don't quite know how to appreciate the now. It may not be our fault...we may come by this honestly. I don't have to explain how our culture drags us into the undertow that pulls us away from the present.

But this morning, as I stood in the shower breathing in the smell of peppermint, I experienced something new. For the first time since I've begun this morning ritual, I thought of Christmas. Not the Christmas to come in December, and not the spiritual meaning of Christmas. Rather, my mind and heart were suddenly sitting right in the middle of the ethos of Christmas culture: togetherness, awakening, sweetness. My mind quickly took inventory of the now: my dear partner giving my daughter breakfast one floor below, the low pressure system slowing us all down outside, the blessing of health, the comfort of rest, the fortune of a career that I love, the grace of a Moon Day.

It occurred to me that these drops of peppermint every day have become for me a way of working against that undertow. The sensory stimulation draws me into a powerful place of presence because it connects the days to one another in a great reset. In a way, this ritual helps to cleanse what has come before and what is to come. It brings me only to the presence of now. There is no "gap."

And it occurred to me, just before I sat down to write this post, that a dedicated Ashtanga practice does the very same thing. Every day, the same practice with all of its dynamic and subtle shifts in energy, connects the days into one, long, present space of living. No matter what will come of the day, we have the incredible, cleansing gift of practice, and a teacher, a shala, fellow yogis with whom to begin the day. And there we are, all breathing, all trying to feel our bodies and calm our minds and connect to something bigger that connects all of us to one another.

After a while, you can look around and see that there is no "When _____, then _____." There is no "What if ____????" There is only the limitless expanse of now.

Prioritizing practice

Having children brings to the forefront new questions about priorities. In my life since the baby came, every decision bounces off of the child as a point of comparison, of relativity. Almost every want takes time away from the child, and begs the question: is it worth it? Is it as big, as important, as necessary? When my partner and I were in negotiations throughout the pregnancy—you will do this, I will do that—we talked about the many pieces of our lives that would shift when our daughter arrived. Hobbies, athletics, social time, my practice. We negotiated the day, and thanks to my partner's generosity and emotional fortitude, I have a steady morning Ashtanga practice.

But it has not been without the underlying ache of guilt. My child is now 27 months, and I am just now, just this week, starting to let go of that guilt. I started practicing again about six weeks after her birth...small pieces at a time. I would get to Trikonasana and she would cry to be fed. I would nurse, she would return to sleep, and I would pick up where I'd left off, getting to Marichyasana before the next nursing...and so on. All the way to the end. Nursing her became part of the vinyasa, and I breathed through the interruption, trying to ride it like a wave through the practice. Within a few months I was back at the shala on most days. And now, generally, it's 5 days in the shala and one day of home practice (Sundays).

No doubt, she was the practice. She is. And my mornings away from my family spill back into our family in more ways than even I, ever-observant and awfully-analytical, can register. I practice for myself...but I really practice for them.

Recently I caught a glimpse of the whole picture: the birth, the journey back, the undulation of time spent with child and time spent on the mat, the negotiation with my partner for that precious morning practice. And I felt in that broader capturing of the practice that the guilt had begun to fade. It fades partially because I see my sweet daughter now practicing with such consternation: her palms together at the heart center, with furrowed brow, copying the gestures of her mother without my urging her to do it. Why, the other day she was looking at a digital picture of herself cross-legged, and I heard her whisper, "Sukasana." She sends me.

As she grows, and as I see myself becoming a kinder, clearer, more consistent person (mother, partner, friend)—even if these changes are only noticeable to me, for Heaven's sake—I can release the guilt I used to feel for prioritizing practice. It has taken some time, and I have to constantly recalibrate it. But it is only by understanding the immeasurable strength and balance, patience and softness that practice has given me, that I have begun to truly give myself permission to stand by it as a gift I give to myself and, even more important, a gift I give to my family.