Be Selfish. Practice Yoga.

When teaching yoga to young people, especially when many of them are new to yoga, I remind them that the practice of yoga is really about learning about themselves and perhaps how they each relate to the world. I ask them to be selfish; to take away from their yoga practice the necessary skills and knowledge that might be relevant to their current lives and their personal goals.

At a fundamental level, our basic instinct is to survive. We can’t help anyone else if we aren’t alive and able. Learning how to adapt and be resilient in a changing world is fundamental to our existence, each of us, individually and collectively. This starts with awareness and presence. What’s going on now? Use yoga to learn present-moment awareness. Use mindfulness-based practices to not let your personal intentions get “hijacked” or disrupted by distractions and unimportant mental constructs. Use yoga-based movements to train your body to be balanced, strong yet flexible, hard yet soft, determined yet adaptable, aging yet youthful. Use these skills to be aware of change as it happens and to survive through, or breathe through, or move through, the inevitable hardships and stressful challenges in your life. Use yoga to re-program your body when stressful or traumatic events happen, to re-wire your neurological circuitry and let go of bodily stressors which no longer serve you, and to build resilient whole-bodies.

In a competitive world, our desire is to perform well. To win a game, we practice playing the skills of the game better. To score well on an exam, we study and learn the information being tested. If we don’t perform well, it’s not a reflection on who we are, the fabric of our being; we just didn’t perform well. Use yoga to learn focus and to enhance personal mind-body-spirit performance. By learning to let go of thoughts and behaviors that aren’t serving you well nor enhancing your overall ability to perform well, you are better able to focus, to see clearly, and to perform naturally as you have learned and practiced. By focusing on the performance of your whole being – body, mind and spirit – you bring your whole best-self to the game of life.

In our modern world, our instinct is to strive for happiness. We tend to be happier when we are well. We tend to be happier when we feel engaged and connected to people in our lives and in the natural world around us. Use yoga to discover your strengths, what makes you thrive, and to learn how your body responds to healthful and unhealthful habits. Use yoga to discover the natural and instinctive needs that our bodies desire for supportive personal interactions, community, time in nature, and feelings of acceptance, compassion, gratitude… and love.

Of course, survival and performance and happiness are all connected. We are all connected. Use yoga to explore the wondrous possibilities of mind-body-spirit connections, the miraculous possibilities of our human existence, and the infinite Oneness of our Universe. Feel connected. Accept possibilities. Have faith. Practice.

Yoga is not just about seeing how far you can stretch or push yourself into a posture. Yoga is about learning about yourself and how you relate to everything around you; it’s about finding balance between your desire to strive and your natural instinct to just live; it’s about learning how to move through – and breathe through – life’s rough spots and living well when you’re tested; it’s about being aware, paying attention, and letting your whole-self thrive naturally and holistically.

Go ahead. Be selfish.

Survive well and be happy. For yourself.

Practice yoga.

We’ll all benefit from each other’s wholehearted practice!

A Winding Path. A Constant Direction.

My work has led me on a winding path: architectural / structural engineering; teaching skiing and snowboarding; training and developing staff; leading outdoor hiking and biking trips; teaching middle / high school; designing homes; managing programs, projects, and businesses; improving systems and processes; facilitating health and wellness programs; training athletes; working with wounded veterans and people with disabilities; teaching yoga. It’s been a wild ride, full of adventure, full of learning, full of change, full of kindness and love.

In fact, I am going through another change right now as I announce my re-re-retirement as an actively employed professional engineer. Yes, I will continue to help long-standing clients like Vermont Barns and The Wadsworth Company as a part-time design and business development consultant; I still enjoy the creative, problem-solving process collaborating with like-minded timber frame artisans and Vermont “homestead” developers. But, I am letting go (again) of the identity of a professional structural engineer. I don’t believe the identity alone allows me to thrive on a day-to-day basis in my natural wholehearted way.

My path has always been directed with the intention of helping people, serving others, and making connections… Connections between what-we-do-today and a greater good, connections between people, connections between challenges and answers, connections between ways-of-living and nature, connections between mind and body and spirit, connections which help us all come together…

So, whether it’s working in the non-profit or the educational sector or the wellness sector, whether it’s working independently or as an employee, whether it’s coaching or teaching or leading or training or facilitating groups, I’m back on my way. Diverse, yet directed.

Kokopelli lives on. Planting seeds. Spreading joy. Bringing new life to local villages.

Wish me luck. I’m open to ideas. But, I really just wanted to say:

I’m baaack!

Connect, Cooperate and Collaborate

I believe it is our natural, indigenous tendency to get along with each other: to connect, to cooperate, and to collaborate. It is at least the way I work best. From my perspective, we are responsible for ourselves and for each other.

It seems that we live in a world of specialization, separation, competition, comparison, and blaming others for things that occur in our lives. Things happen. But we are all in this together, aren’t we?

Who-we-are, in my opinion, is NOT the story of what-happens-to-us. Who-we-are relates to how we practice living in our daily lives, how we do what we do. Are we practicing living our daily lives in a manner consistent with our life’s purpose? Are we paying attention to our intentions, individually and collectively? And, are we missing out on real opportunities for expressing our higher selves and living full lives by separating ourselves and not connecting with others?

It is with these thoughts and feelings that I will try to better focus the work I do, again. I have believed for a long time that my work should be a true expression of who I am. In an economy based on competition and comparison, it seems natural that most workplaces promote attitudes of competition and comparison, specialization and separation, sometimes requiring daily work defined by the needs of others or an employer. It is so easy to be caught up in the race…

One of my skill-sets is problem-solving in the professions of building systems, structural and architectural engineering. I have found challenging and engaging work in these fields. I have accomplished much for which I am very proud. But, it is difficult to express myself fully in this field of work alone, to approach my work in my natural wholehearted manner, when I am defined by someone else’s definition of my scope of work and my job responsibilities. I don’t want the business needs of someone else (an employer, for instance) to define who I am.

It’s time to take charge of my work and my career, again, and to find like-minded, inspired individuals and organizations with whom to connect, cooperate, and collaborate. I am confident that I can find ways to better practice living and working in a manner more consistent with these intentions here in this southern Vermont community.

I am so very fortunate to have a few people in my life who see the bigger me, the real me, and who have consistently believed in me and my work. Thank you Rob and Besty Wadsworth of Vermont Barns and The Wadsworth Company, Jo Kirsch and Andrea Ross of Heart of the Village Yoga Studio, Linda Walsh and Larry Geller of Ability Plus, Eva Belanger of Warriors Live On, and Paul Jensen of Albany Therapeutic Massage and Sports Performance Center. Thank you also to my yoga teachers, especially Beryl Bender Birch, Biff Mithoefer, and Eoin Finn… and Jo Kirsch… and also every skier and snowboarder with whom I’ve ever shared the slopes… for helping me see my light. Thanks also to my parents, Alex and Natalie, Jo (again), and my warrior brothers and sisters, for accepting me and standing with me… even when I walk astray. And thank you even to my engineering peers, who have continually given me the chance to perform valuable and important community-building work, albeit somewhat specialized, even when I randomly walk in and out of their business world!

So, I am announcing that I am re-re-retiring from my work as an employed professional engineer! I will continue to do some project development and design work as a self-employed consultant, working on projects and collaborating with organizations doing timber-framed and sustainable home design/build work, but I will also focus more and more on working with non-profits and educational organizations as a coach, a teacher, a visionary, and a team leader and facilitator, too… connecting, cooperating, and collaborating.

Here we go again. One life to live…. celebrate impermanence!

Learning to Be Me

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. ~ Henry David Thoreau

After writing my last blog post about the 4 indigenous callings of The Warrior, The Healer, The Visionary, and The Teacher, and understanding that- just like the seasons- my calling changes, I have gravitated towards understanding more about what I believe to be my natural calling- The Healer. I remembered my fascination with the Myers-Briggs personality-type profile work (with which I was involved years ago in my professional life) and my “tested” profile of INFP.

So, I looked it up again…

Ahhh, the INFP profile is “The Healer.”

Interesting….

From Please Understand Me II – Temperament Character Intelligence
by David Keirsey

Healers present a calm and serene face to the world, and can seem shy, even distant around others. But inside they’re anything but serene, having a capacity for personal caring rarely found in the other types. Healers care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community.

Healers have a profound sense of idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. They conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place, full of wondrous possibilities and potential goods. In fact, to understand Healers, we must understand that their deep commitment to the positive and the good is almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. Set off from the rest of humanity by their privacy and scarcity, Healers can often feel even more isolated in the purity of their idealism.

Also, Healers might well feel a sense of separation because of their often misunderstood childhood. Healers live a fantasy-filled childhood-they are the prince or princess of fairy tales-an attitude which, sadly, is frowned upon, or even punished, by friends or family members. With external pressure to get their head out of the clouds, Healers begin to believe they are bad to be so fanciful, so dreamy, and can come to see themselves as ugly ducklings. In truth, they are quite OK just as they are, only different from most others-swans reared in a family of ducks.

At work, Healers are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. Healers are keenly aware of people and their feelings, and relate well with most others. Because of their deep-seated reserve, however, they can work quite happily alone. When making decisions, Healers follow their heart not their head, which means they can make errors of fact, but seldom of feeling. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, like the other Idealists, a remarkable facility with language. They have a gift for interpreting stories, as well as for creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion. Frequently they hear a call to go forth into the world and help others, a call they seem ready to answer, even if they must sacrifice their own comfort.

From Truity.com:

Healers (INFP) are imaginative idealists, guided by their own core values and beliefs. To a Healer, possibilities are paramount; the realism of the moment is only of passing concern. They see potential for a better future, and pursue truth and meaning with their own individual flair.

INFPs are sensitive, caring, and compassionate, and are deeply concerned with the personal growth of themselves and others. Individualistic and nonjudgmental, INFPs believe that each person must find their own path. They enjoy spending time exploring their own ideas and values, and are gently encouraging to others to do the same. INFPs are creative and often artistic; they enjoy finding new outlets for self-expression.

INFPs value authenticity and want to be original and individual in what they do. They are often concerned with a search for meaning and truth within themselves. Following tradition holds little appeal for the INFP; they prefer to do their own exploration of values and ideas, and decide for themselves what seems right. INFPs are often offbeat and unconventional, but they feel no desire to conform. The INFP would rather be true to themselves than try to fit in with the crowd.

INFPs are accepting and nonjudgmental in their treatment of others, believing that each person must follow their own path. They are flexible and accommodating, and can often see many points of view. It is important to the INFP to support other people; however, the INFP may react strongly if they feel their own values are being violated. They especially hate being steamrolled by people who insist there is one right way to do things. INFPs want an open, supportive exchange of ideas.

INFPs may initially seem cool, as they reserve their most authentic thoughts and feelings for people they know well. They are reflective and often spiritual, and often interested in having meaningful conversations about values, ethics, people, and personal growth. Typically curious and open-minded, the Healer continually seeks a deeper understanding of themselves and of the people around them. They are passionate about their ideals, but private as well; few people understand the depth of the INFP’s commitment to their beliefs.

INFPs are sensitive and empathetic, and engage themselves in a lifelong quest for meaning and authenticity. The mundane aspects of life are of less interest to this type, and they are more excited by interesting ideas than by practical facts. They typically accept others without question, and may take special interest in offbeat points of view or alternative lifestyles. They often have a special affection for the arts, especially the avant garde, as they love experiencing new concepts in self-expression.

Oh yeah… and a famous INFP? John Lennon… one of my boyhood idols…

Deep inside, there are some things that you just KNOW. We put labels and descriptions on things and classify them as types. But as we learn more and more, we realize more and more what we really already know… about ourselves and about our worlds. And that we don’t need to judge, classify, or compare them… but it’s also good to understand ourselves and others.

We are each special and unique… we are each human just trying to Be ourselves… but we are all also learning to live together. Aren’t we?

Wasatch-Inspired Callings

Like powerful cottonwood bending in stiff North breeze,

Steadfastly standing through cold Winter freeze,

I am here; I am present: Warrior am I.

I am present: Warrior am I.

Like granite earth lying beneath warm Spring streams,

Lovingly embracing our flow South with ease,

I pay attention; I seek heartfelt meaning: Healer am I.

I pay attention: Healer am I.

Like East desert sun on hot Summer days,

Clearly shining light as we walk together on our way,

I look for truth without blame or judgment: Visionary am I.

I look for truth: Visionary am I.

Like raindrops silently sitting on West-facing tree leaves,

Trusting Fall fate, knowing nature’s wisdom always succeeds,

I am open to possibilities without real attachment; Teacher am I.

I am open to possibilities; Teacher am I.