I was five when I put on my first ballet slippers. I turned my feet out to the world like I had done with my eyes since birth. My feet, like my eyes, were seeking approval. It usually appeared in a smile on the face of someone high above me. It qualified my existence somehow. So with my eyes and my feet I continued seeking that approval, reaching further and further away from myself year after year.
My feet struggled, unlike my eyes, they had a new east-to-west position. I had to get my knees and hips involved to sustain it. Other parts of my body, like my arms, were forced to move away from me as well, to maintain balance. Pliés, tendus, relevés, and hundreds of other exercises followed in regimented succession each requiring more of me. The only thing that didn’t seem to turn away from me was my heart, and yet later I realized it had too.
I gave it away to dance and nothing mattered more. Like the girl in The Red Slippers, I was put under a spell that took me far away from myself to dance until I couldn’t dance anymore. I missed some of my childhood. I missed more of my adolescence. I endured a steady diet of pain, blisters, criticism, and rejection. All to perfect a technique that helped me physically express notes in a score of music played by someone else. Even the physical expression of the notes was usually not my own. It was dictated, step-by-step by a choreographer who saw me as simply the paintbrush for the ballet’s masterpiece. My only reward was the occasional smile or applause that somehow told me I was visible to the world, and what I was doing had merit.
I stayed externally rotated outwards for almost 23 years under the illusion that I was dancing for myself. However, if I dared to hear the music differently than the ballet teacher or the choreographer, I was chastised. If I dared to perform the steps differently than directed, I was criticized. I became like a circus animal, performing on cue, never questioning the command and ever fearful of the criticism. All the while, I worked diligently with great discipline to perfect and perfect and perfect every movement of my body. It wasn’t until many years later, when I was dancing in New York, and a teacher in a ballet company screamed at me saying, “You don’t always have to be perfect,” that I stopped to question what I had been doing all these years. If I wasn’t supposed to be perfect, who was I supposed to be? My whole reason for existing crumbled under the power of her words; and for the first time since birth I turned inwards.
Unfortunately, I found there was nothing there. I got lost in the vast emptiness inside me. I didn’t know how to navigate it. I’d always denied its existence. I’d never listened to its needs. I didn’t feel equipped to recognize it. I couldn’t bear the formless, unidentified void I found there. It became dark and scary. I had to reach out again for something new.
I moved. I married. I made a different life creating brands, and a baby --my son. Still looking outside to be recognized, I pressured my husband and myself with unyielding determination, winning every award possible in school, gaining New York status in an ad agency, and working 24/7 as a “married team”. The rewards only spawned me to push us both to work harder, raising the bar higher, which found me several years later drowning in the tears of our failed marriage.
Despite it all, I was still convinced the answer was somewhere out there, so I went on a spiritual quest to find it. I went to church and traveled to ashrams. I danced with the Sufis. I went as far out there as I could go, thinking if I could tap into the right energy, my life would be better. Everywhere I went I ended up in the same place: with myself - a stranger.
Still not willing to face her, I was drawn into business with a live wire that almost got me electrocuted. He was a con artist, who preyed on single moms and played on a dream I'd had with my ex to own our own ad agency. Needless to say, this guy ended up taking me for everything I own. The shock of it brought me back to earth in a fetal position –there unable to trust anyone but myself, I finally turned in again this time with the help of yoga.
I was in hell, so it wasn’t a stretch for me to choose Bikram Yoga first. The 110℉ temperature didn’t bother me. I had been introduced to Bikram by an old boyfriend, but now decided to make a commitment to it. I went a few times a week at first then everyday, and then sometimes twice a day. Memories of not getting it right plagued me for a while. Turning my feet and legs inward was extremely foreign. It was painful. I lost my balance.
Ten years passed before I got a fingernail hold on what the yoga was doing. I started a steady meditation practice with an amazing teacher (an understatement) who helped me begin a less fearful journey inward. This along with the repetition of the 26 postures in Bikram allowed me to slowly go inside myself, where I could take the vast emptiness there in small increments. The first thing I noticed was the random recording of other people’s voices telling me what to do. Finally, I heard a small voice. It was very quiet and almost inaudible. It said I was pushing too much.
I started pulling back on my efforts, but it was too late, since I pushed myself instead of gaining strength in my new alignment, I ended up injuring myself. A friend recommended a neuro-muscular masseuse who was also a yoga teacher. Little did I know the magnitude of how he would transform my life, helping me get stronger mentally and physically, by putting me on a path of deeper self-discovery through an alignment-based yoga.
While I’d been able to concentrate on articulating my muscles in ballet, in my alignment-based yoga practice I actually have to listen to them. I don’t have the distraction of a mirror or music to take me outside of myself. I don't even have a lot of movement to jar me away from myself. I actually have to be still in a pose. I have to stay and be with myself. Though yoga is very similar to ballet, where the teacher dictates the action, the practice is designed to open up and direct the energy of your body, so you can transcend the ego mind, which only distracts you with unnecessary emotional responses and rebellions.
The yoga mind isn't a distraction. It sets me free. It doesn't have the attachments to the ego, so allows me to work and play with less interference. I keep my new budding yoga mind expanding with a steady practice of meditation, alignment-based vinyasa, and Iyengar yoga. Now no matter what is going on outside me, I am less affected, and more attuned to my own inner voice that is growing louder and clearer every day. My ego mind still likes to chatter incessantly determined to throw me back into my turned-out world. But I’m determined to stay centered and keep exploring the unchartered world inside me.
