How I Engage: Navel Gazing or Navel Hazing?

When I think of navel gazing, I contract my belly. Somehow, looking too far in is a signal I need to look out; I deprecate myself for wanting to understand. I forget what I was looking at and get stuck on the fact that I am looking. But sometimes we all need to do this, dwell a while in our introspective nature.

This is different than hazing my navel, getting stuck in a fog of judgment, beating myself up for beating myself up. Sometimes I am caught in a pattern of repetitive thoughts or have a feeling that is so overwhelming I embed it to keep what wants to open like a geyser from shooting out into the world.

How I engage my navel, so to speak, reflects my degree of serenity. Chances are, how I do this is my way of simply dealing with what life deals me. My goal in any situation is  to recognize that victim mentality is default mode. After all, as a child we are born victims. We are at the mercy of adults. The adult stands in her light and her shadow and takes responsibility. I always aim to take responsibility. This also means I am responsible for how I react and interact with my feelings and thoughts.

Feelings are energy

A lesson we learn in meditation, in yoga, in 12-step programs, is that we are not our thoughts or our feelings. We don’t need a reason to laugh so why do we need one to cry? Feelings, we have all heard, are not facts. They are energy. It is that simple.

I teach and practice yoga. I started aerobics because I wanted to exercise but I did not want to go in, any further. To some, yoga as exercise is all it is and to others, yoga as exercise is not yoga. In my view, every generation, every culture, takes what the experience of history offers and remakes it to suit the time and people.

For me, yoga is exercise, but it is not only exercise. Yoga is how I engage. Yoga is asana and yet yoga is so much more. What started as exercise and relaxation has become a tool for growth and awareness, an opportunity for sharing and a means to learn more.

Care was a four-letter word

My life used to revolve around how I hazed my navel; I could not look out. I was so caught up in patterns and unresolved feelings that care was a four-letter word. I analyzed every action, every Freudian slip, every thought and anything that resembled a feeling. I lived so far in I did not know my body was anything but a space I wanted to leave. I was trying to see all the patterns inside as if I were an animal I could dissect. I was not feeling my feelings. I could barely recognize them.