Lessons In Gift Wrapping

Ganga White's poem sets the tone for the trauma-informed training hosted at the Samadhi Yoga Center in Denver, CO.

***

“Gift wrapped, please.”

Gift wrapped.

The polite request I dread to hear.

I inwardly cringe as I stand behind the cash register and feel like Buddy the Elf as I force a wide grin.

“Yeah! Of course!”

Please, I pray, if there is a Buddy the Elf come rescue me NOW!

I glance down at the curly creature of a coat that reminds me of the snipped remains of a golden doodle’s mane.

How am I going to gift wrap this hulk of fuzz?

Silent panic ensues.

Unlike me, my inner critic excels at gift wrapping. The perceived challenge prompts her to leap to center stage. She whips and whirls and triple-knots familiar narratives dramatizing my inadequacies, tangling up my mind with fear and blocking me from clarity.

There is though a slither of space in between the ribbons of anxiety for an illuminated truth from Denver to resurface and soothe:

Find refuge in the body.

I step back from the swirling mess of narratives and feel back into the body.

I find the breath. The breath finds me. I breathe. I feel the discomfort and instead of escaping into racing narratives, I stay with the anxiety burgeoning across my chest.

 Befriend the discomfort. Breathe.

I slow down my movements, becoming mindful of the touch of the credit card in my fingers as I finish the payment, the cushioned padding beneath my feet, the rustle of keys as a coworker walks away to unlock the jewelry case.

The breath slows, steady and smooth. I watch the reaction, and in the watching there’s space for mindful thinking to solve the gift wrapping dilemma.

“How do you react to challenge?”

The question posed during a long-ass held humble warrior pose.  

Profanities and sweat drop onto the mat.

Heat builds in my cheeks. I think they could pop. My thighs rage in a fiery burn.

In the throes of challenge, of staying close to the breath in moments of extreme intensity, the initial reaction is to check out of the physical experience and dive into scapegoating with judgment, criticism, anger, blame.

She’s holding us here too long. 

The teacher is the lead facilitator of the trauma-informed yoga training. She’s magnetic, lively, grounded, talented. She walks into the training emanating a natural ease, a confidence rooted in compassion, and her voice is clear, like sunlight, her words concise and catchy, drawing the room of yogis close and closer to listen and receive the wisdom of trauma-informed teaching.

I know I am in the presence of a true teacher. I respect and admire her. And right now, though, in this super long hold (meaning, the yogis hold the pose for a stretch of 10-20 breaths), my ego-driven mind is flipping her the bird. (But please, don’t take it personally.)

“How do you react when there’s challenge?” she repeats, and stops to stand by my mat, as if she’s in tune to my chatty mind begging and angrily protesting this paused part of the flow.

“Because how you react to challenge here on the mat is a good indicator to how you react to challenges and stresses off the mat.”

In the fire of intense sensation in this humble warrior one pose, the breath is still accessible and deep. There’s an aha, an epiphany singing and revealing the truth behind the reaction.

I retaliate with anger. I push back with blame. I jump back away from the experience with fear.

And in my reaction I forget that I have the power to advocate. I react with fear because my skills in self-advocacy are weak. They just need to be stretched and strengthened.

And self-advocacy, self-trust can be stretched and strengthened here in this humble warrior one.

The reaction reveals the pain point.

Humble warrior pose is a standing forward fold, positioning the sacred wisdom of the heart above the head. An invitation to let the wisdom of the heart center govern the mind. 

I find refuge in the body. I breathe. I trust that when my body informs me that it is time to leave the pose – when the breath is no longer steadily available and sensation leans toward sharp and harsh – then I trust myself to know when it is time to go.

Oh. A lesson learned on the mat illuminating the reaction off the mat.

The customer asks for the coat gift wrapped.

I’m fearful of making a mistake. I’m angry she asked. I’m looking for someone else to blame.

Find refuge in the body.

I practice humble warrior here – in the hustle and bustle of the boutique. I do not have to be great at every aspect of this job. I just need to show up, do the best I can do, and gently and honestly respond with compassion and integrity.

I ask for help. I leave the coat in the hands of superb gift wrapper and watch to take note.

Later, I slip upstairs for lunch. I sit on the back porch, listen to the leaves, bask in sunlight.

The silence fills me up.

I unpack the gift wrapping scenario. Breathe to cleanse the residue from the reaction.

The reaction reveals the pain point.

The line repeated throughout the trauma-informed training.

The line repeated as I interact with customers at the boutique – the stressed customer wanting the gift receipt, the mother searching for a winter formal gown for her daughter, the friends drinking wine as they try on jeans – my reactions and responses to them, and their reactions and responses to me can all be received with compassion.

I’ll never know the complexity of their story. And slowly I am beginning to see the intricate weavings of mine. My reactions are daily. So the micro-healings are daily.

All micro and macro-reactions are signals for deeper healing. The anger, blame, criticism, judgment of others, of self, stems from a grief yet to be grieved.

And when I sit with the grief, the wails that need to be heard, the fears that need to be met with kindness and grace, there’s a gradual opening of space for lightness, for the present, for expansion.

The fearful reaction from asking the coat to be gift wrapped lifts up a grief that I carry – that I am not good enough, that I am not enough, that my differences in skillsets and talents are not valued, and the experiences circling those narratives linger in my body.

“Baby, healing is an ongoing process.”

She cradles my hands, and for a moment, she takes the weight of my questions about staying or leaving, on purpose and place.

This moment alone is enough. A healing moment from Denver that continues to ripple across time and cradle me in softness.

This conversation with a spirited light-worker affirms the magnetic yes pulling me to travel to Denver for the trauma-informed yoga training. And trauma-informed yoga is truly people-informed yoga.

Healing is an ongoing process.

On the mat, off the mat, in Denver and in Austin, at the boutique, and here under the trees.

A series of moments continuing to ripple and rise and rinse a heart clean.  

I lean into the sun, the wind, and breathe. I find refuge in the body. I stay closer to my center by staying present with what is.

I know under my feet that the boutique is in full swing. There are coats and jewelry-holder cacti waiting to be gift wrapped, and there are lessons in compassion, in unconditional compassion, in deeper healing waiting there too, to be lovingly wrapped with a bow and bright pink tissue.

***

November Tunes:

*You Can’t Rush Your Healing – Trevor Hall  

*So Close – Tom Misch

*Saved – Khalid

*Don’t Move – Phantogram

*High On Humans – Oh Wonder

*1998 – Chet Faker

*Plans – Oh Wonder

*Deliverance – RY X

*The Woods – Daughter

The Confidence Tonic: Milkshakes, Airport Tees, and The Mile High City

Happily returning to a neighborhood coffee shop that whips up blissful cappuccinos and gives me a corner to center, muse and take in the sights of the Mile High City.

***

My confidence has been knocked.

I intuit an image of the inner golden orb emanating self-assuredness, steadiness and self-esteem, suddenly elbowed, punctured, pushed around by a quickening pace of life disagreeing with rhythm required for soulful renewal.   

I realize this as I create mini-adventures in the Austin airport during my wait to board and take off to Denver.

I sip a vanilla milkshake and explore. Linger and browse through magazines and bestsellers at the bookstore.

I buy a tee that reads: Tacos and Traffic, Austin, Texas.

“This is my life.” I tell the cashier, and think that perhaps the traffic is to blame for the emotional strain stretching thin my capabilities to access and embody my higher self.

My intuitive powers are foggy, clouded by shoulds, schedules, pressure to maintain a collected sense of self.

I struggle to decipher my inner voice from the loud whirl of thoughts.

I’m stumbling, and make rookie mistakes – with traffic, teaching, misplacing keys, driving in circles as I make up my mind about what I need to do next as I think of traffic patterns and avoiding rush hour mess.

My checking-in moments to pause, breathe, hear a divined answer, to feel into a response, are tainted with streaks of desperation and stressed emotional resources.

Walking along the terminal, water bottle cradled into the crook of an arm, my disappearing milkshake in the other, I feel the sudden weight of my backpack. The pep I characteristically have for solo adventures is simply deflated.

I want to be held. I want to shrug off my responsibilities. I want to feel like myself.

And perhaps my confidence is knocked because of the hustle, because of the perpetual going and doing I’ve thought I’ve needed to do to create a life in Austin.

Austin demands hustle. I’ve been rerouted in the transition from Kentucky to Texas, and for a sensitive, introvert like me, the move to Austin was enough. The surprising and unexpected redirects have asked for a continual rising up and resilience to push through to establish a life that is grounded and purposeful.  

Six months in and I’m unsure of the life I am leaving to get on that plane and go to Denver.

Is it a life I’m excited to return to?

I’m unsure. I’m too emotionally frayed to unearth the answer.

And there’s no need to determine the answer here in the terminal.

My shoulders ache, so I settle down into an empty row of seats and watch night approach.

My confidence aches, too, and I place my expectations, my pushy dreams and demanding shoulds at my feet. I know the answer is compassion. Not a bolstering, not a bluffing and puffing up.

I let my confidence be a little off center.

I accept that I’m a bit confused and distant from myself these days.

Compassion. This is a cycle. This is a season. This the tug of back-and-forth informing my being.

Compassion toward the days, the waves, the seasons and cycles where I want to tuck in, hide out, go incredibly gently, and be left be.

This is not the time to push, force, feed mantra or affirmations that do not resonate with my shifting, sensitive being.

Compassionate gazes toward the cycles of extroversion and going, and introversion and reflection.

In the allowing for reflection, there’s permission to relax and release and be. In the being, there’s the emergence of feeling, and feeling coos to be held, to be replenished, to be renewed.

And the remedy includes a morning and afternoon in Denver where there are no plans. There are no expectations and drives to capture the city.

I let the city come to me.

I let the breath come to me.

I let the answers come, when they are ready, to me.

And the answer is a walk in the cold to a coffee shop I adore. The answer takes shape in a dusty rose sweater from a beloved boutique and a plum and indigo scarf wrapping love and memories of travel around me.

I relish the cold. I love seeing the leaves turn colors. I walk in ankle boots and find comfort in the click they make against pavement I’ve travelled before, back to a coffee shop that I can nestle into and toward a downtown I vaguely remember, and toward a mansion that holds memories of creative writings with pixie-like beings.

Cue the chill. Cue Kings of Leon. Cue the cappuccino.

Cue the creation of space that naturally occurs when in a distant, different space, and I feel into a confidence that feels lighter because simply being restores.

The answer arises from a body that can only speak when there’s space to listen, to receive.

There may be no mistakes. Only lessons. And who knows how actions ripple across the web of interconnected being.

And right now, even the word lesson feels too much. So I don’t need to self-instruct. I can just breathe, savor every foamy sip of that cappuccino, enjoy the the Kings of Leon throwback and let my awareness rest and quietly be in the bright, cold embrace of the Mile High City.