Bye bye Bikram :(

Last Thursday or Friday, I drove the 20 minutes up the freeway to the Bikram studio, but there was weird traffic on the thoroughfare, making me late, which meant that I was locked out of class. And suddenly, in a moment, I had my answer: Bikram is not for me. My entire life is made up of appointments and being at the right place at the right time for other people. I need a place where I go just for myself, where I don't add stress to my day and life rushing (and no, I'm not in a place to dedicate more time over and above the already lengthy process).

My blood sugar has become so bad, and so unpredictable, that it isn't worth it. I had begun to imagine that my immune system was being activated, and perhaps even healing me, but my immune system being stimulated doesn't heal me. It hurts me. And I just have to accept that.

Thank you Bikram, for making me get in touch with my spine. Thank you for pushing me past limits I didn't know I had made for myself. Thank you for being a bad ass. You made me, for a brief period of time, feel like a bad ass too. Now I'll have to find other ways.

Peace out.

I guess it's 9/11.

I work with people who are hurting, and oftentimes within that hurt are questions of forgiveness. What is forgiveness? How does a person forgive? What does forgiveness mean? And I never answer those questions for another person, because those are deep questions about faith and belief, and it's incredibly important for a person to be able to make decisions about forgiveness autonomously, without the interests of other people getting in the way.

Larger issues of peace are incredibly complex. Forgiveness and peace may be inextricably linked, but how one goes about finding peace is also a deeply personal issue. Sometimes we get very sidetracked with blame, and wanting answers. Sometimes there are no answers. Sometimes life sucks and we just have to keep going.

In Bikram last night, the teacher (or supreme yogi, or whatever they're called) reminded us that Bikram helps us to find stillness, or forces us to be still. All I know is that at the end of the class, I want to jump up and run out the door. I want the hot to go away. I want to breathe cool air. But I heed those words (because what am I there for if I don't listen?), and I lie as still as I can, for as long as I can (probably less than the recommended three minutes), before I hurry to test my sugar and get some fresher air.

When I lived in the jungle, I had few moments of cool crisp air to breathe. When I came off the plane, I thought I would die. It felt like an oven (it was the equator, after all). And my body suffered in the heat, and my soul suffered with loneliness, but I survived. Sometimes all we can do is survive, and hope that God really is there and real, or else none of it means anything anyway and there is no point.

So breathe the hot air, because it's all you have. Be mad if you want, because it won't make the hot air go away. I like to be mad at God. God can handle it.