Before I had a spiritual practice I had a ballet practice. These are two very different approaches to the concept of practice. Dancing was always about the future: gaining the skills required of a performer and sweating through the repetitive process of rehearsals to prepare for having your moment in the spotlight. There were a few hours of afterglow and then it was back to work for next year’s show.
The emphasis was all about being perfect. Every single day was spent in front of a mirror where I was taught that a dancer could never be perfect enough, starting with her body. If you didn’t have the right kind of foot your pointe work would be dull. If you didn’t have the right kind of hip sockets your leg extensions would never be high enough.
The list went on and on and your teachers would never let you forget that the only way to be less imperfect was to work harder; be tougher on yourself as if you could restructure the skeleton given to you by your parents.
Our dancer’s discipline was so powerful that we never missed a beat during barre exercises, even as the ballet master strolled around the classroom slicing the air with a stick just inches from our behinds. The message was, “Get that thing tucked under and while you’re at it, go on a diet.”
This all held true during my 18 years as a New York modern dancer, but in different ways. All the perfections I had aimed for were now contraindicated by the aesthetics of the downtown art world. To be considered really interesting, not only did you have to have top notch technique—which I did—but you needed to be everything a ballet dancer was not. Plain, chubby, quirky, earthy. Buns were out, baldness was in. Long limbs were out and hairy armpits were in.
How you looked still mattered and it was still not something you do much about. Not that I didn’t try. I dyed one side of my buzz cut turquoise, shaved the other side, and kept one long hank of center hair draped over my nose, just kissing my upper lip.
Like all dancers of that time, I had a strong habit of disliking my body. Constantly being told what’s wrong with you can do that to a person, and so can existing on the dancer’s diet of cigarettes and diet Coke. Disliking my body was not too far away from disliking myself all together.
Fortunately, I had the great gift of meeting the Buddhadharma and yoga. Honestly, it arrived just in time. I learned a new approach to practice that was not about being perfect, but was about being present. These practices focussed on generosity, compassion, curiosity, joy, connection. When my teacher told me I was born with basic goodness I knew it was true. This was a major turning of the wheel for me, away from the dancer’s life of critique and competition and toward the life of a spiritual seeker. I stopped dancing professionally in 1994 and opened my yoga studio in 1998.
Here are three ways that my Spiritual Practices Changed My Relationship to My Body.
1. Everything you practice creates an imprint.
The great yoga master, Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar once said, “I have spent my lifetime exploring what happens to my sternum when I press my big toe down.”
This was Mr. Iyengar’s way of cultivating curiosity in his students; of not just teaching them what to do, but how to pay attention to what they do. He wanted us to understand the yogic and scientific principle that every action creates a result, by embodying the process of cause and effect.
Try it right now. Sit up nice and tall with your feet flat on the floor. Now push the ball of your big toe down, as if you were pressing on a gas pedal. Do you feel any thing else happen? Maybe some work in your calf or foot or spine?
Try it standing with one leg in front of the other, as if you were in mid-stride. Press your toe into the floor. Do you feel a lift in your chest? A connection anywhere?
It doesn’t really matter if you feel anything. The point is to become curious about how your body is connected.
Directing one’s curiosity to physical sensation is a yogic method for developing concentration. Practicing like this on a regular basis in yoga class transforms almost everyone’s relationship to their body in a positive direction. When you place your attention on what is happening in your body—not what you think should happen, or how your body looks—but actually what is happening, your relationship to your body changes. It’s no longer about the future but about right now.
Another word for this is mindfulness, which means “placing the mind.” When you do this with purpose, it is called Mindfulness meditation, or “consciously placing the mind.”
The regular practice of Mindfulness Meditation helps you become aware of your repetitive thought patterns, in turn enabling you to shift those patterns. Once you stop walking down those old, stale pathways, they start to grow over. A new pathway will form, one that you have chosen. Science calls this Neuroplasticity. Buddhism calls it Liberation.
When I became fully aware of my negative attitude toward my body, it was just a matter of commitment and practice for me to change that habit.
It’s an ongoing work-in-progress, or you could call it a practice.
2. Impermanence
Your relationship with your body is the longest relationship you will ever have. Like any long-term relationship, you go through phases of interest, understanding, disconnect and tenderness. Sometimes you feel at home in your body and other times you don’t recognize your own flesh. Your body will change in unexpected ways as well as predictable ways, depending on how well you feed it, move it, give it sleep and love.
Since I started strength training a year ago, I am stronger than I have been in years. I have grey hair now. I have wrinkles. My body is pliant and stable. I am a strong senior woman, a fit crone.
At the same time, I freely admit that I have the same hairdo I had in high school although my cheerleader sweater no longer fits me. If there is one thing we know about bodies, we cannot freeze them at any one age.
I have learned that the most powerful way to create dissatisfaction with my body is to deny this truth by indulging in the fantasy that if I change my behavior, then my body will “get back” to how it once was—as if that was the key to happiness.
The tendency to resist change is not just my favorite flavor of suffering. It is part of the core teachings of Buddhism, which begin with the Four Noble Truths.
The First Noble Truth says that Life involves dis-ease, discontent, anxiety, chafing.
The Second Noble Truth tells us that the reason we suffer in these ways is that we do not understand the nature of reality. We get confused when things keep changing all the time. We want what we don’t have (younger, thinner, smooth) and we don’t want what we do have (older, thicker, wrinkly).
This is a slippery slope that leads to craving, e.g., plastic surgery, starvation diets, over-exercising. These “solutions” are not fixes; they aren’t even band-aids. They are just the path to more craving and discontentment.
The Third Noble Truth says that we can alleviate our suffering by understanding the truth of impermanence. In fact, one of the first Buddhist teachings is about accepting the fact that you will die; that death comes for sure and comes without warning.
For some people this is a deal breaker and they don’t go further into Buddhist study because it seems so depressing! But, if you’re still with me, the lesson here is that by acknowledging your own impermanence, it puts you face to face with the preciousness of your life.
We can learn to relax with things as they are. Instead of wanting our body to be different in a way that cannot be, we can learn to take care of and appreciate our one precious body.
Here is a meditation for understanding the truth of impermanence in your body.
Take a comfortable seat on a chair or cushion. Give yourself a moment to settle in and connect to your natural breath.
Visualize yourself as:
a newborn baby, soft and pink;
a toddler learning to walk, unsteady and eager;
a young child going to school
and on… at some point you will stop seeing yourself and go into imagining yourself in the future:
a teenager
a young adult
a middle age adult
an elder—now you are aging, your hair and skin are thinning, your gait is slow, your eyesight and hearing are waning
and on… visualizing yourself all the way to your death.
This meditation is meant to help you let go of your attachment to your body.
3. You cannot get enlightened without your body.
When Gautama Shakyamuni was deep into his search for how to live a life free of suffering he tried getting enlightened without his body.
He joined a group of other spiritual seekers who were living alongside a river. They theorized that only loss of desire would bring freedom from discontentment and suffering, and they vilified the body as the ultimate source of all desire; every day the body wants food, shelter, human contact. So they spent their days meditating with pins in their tongues and their nights sleeping on nails. They ate almost nothing, thinking that if they could conquer pain, hunger, exhaustion, and exposure to the elements, they would be free.
Eventually Gautama—the future Buddha—had an insight. He realized that deprivation was not the path to freedom from suffering anymore than his lavish life as a rich prince had been.
He ate some rice pudding, found some energy and began to walk through the forest looking for another way. Having some strength in his body turned out to be a good thing and allowed his body to be the vehicle for his own awakening under the Bodhi tree.
In “The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life,” Shantideva writes:
The value of this human form
Lies only in the way that it is used.
Back around 1984, my choreography partner and I were featured in a magazine. I think it was US Magazine. It was a big spread, about 8 pages, of the two of us demonstrating the various “moves” that we used to choreograph Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun video.
I obsessively looked at those photos and criticized my body to the nth degree. My arms, my neck, my hair, my smile—on and on and on. I couldn’t stop. I would get drunk or high with my friends, pull out the magazine and pick apart every image of me.
I found that old photo spread when I moved a few years ago and as those memories returned, I felt sad. I should have been on top of the world but instead, my physical confidence was so low all I could do was hyper-criticize myself rather than feel chuffed by that opportunity.
Of course, when I looked at the pictures now I didn’t see separate body parts. I saw a very cool young woman that projected strength and creativity through her powerful, clear movements; and she just happened to have choreographed MTV’s Best Music Video of 1983.
Shantideva recommends that we take good care of our body. Eat well, sleep well, walk and spend time in nature but don’t go nuts working out!
There is a fine line between caring for your body and being overly obsessed with it, whether from a negative critical perspective or from indulgent pampering. Being preoccupied with one’s body is a waste of time for one who wants to be a bodhisattva, because self-obsession is a barrier to feeling connected and available to others.
One of my dharma teachers told me that he once asked his teacher, a very venerable Zen master, “What are you actually doing when you meditate?” The master answered, “I’m correcting my posture.”
Oh, yes, your body will wake you up! When you are meditating for a long time, your knees will start to speak to you, your back will ache, you might even fall asleep and completely fall over on your face. No kidding, this happens all the time in meditation halls. Often the sleepy person will wake up, sit back up and then fall asleep all over again. But everyone else in the hall feels quite alert by then. The sleepy person became a bodhisattva allowing his body to wake us all up.
Shantideva also wrote:
Regard your body as a vessel
A simple boat for going here and there.
Make of it a wish-fulfilling gem
To bring about the benefit of beings.
One way of expressing your appreciation for your precious life, your one and only body, is to use your body as a way to be uplifted.
Dress with care, be graceful in your movements and gracious in your interactions with others. This is mindfulness in daily life which is not the same as prioritizing fashion, over-exercising or being physically rigid. When you can learn to be at home in your body, as it is and as it changes, you will start to feel whole. Your body will become the gateway to liberation which helps you feel more connected to everyone and all that is.
Hey, Yoga Teachers!
Did you know that you can get 30 CEUs for Yoga Alliance if you take my upcoming workshop called Developing a Sustainable Practice?
To maintain your membership in Yoga Aliance you are required to earn 30 CEUs in every two years. This 5-day workshop will give you all those credits.
For more info, this course is listed on the Yoga Alliance website under my name in the YACEP section. Or you can email me with any questions.
Practice Opportunities
Explore the notion of sustainability in yoga. This work is about presence, curiosity, and personal connection; it is never goal-oriented or performative.
Through nourishing movement designed to balance your physical and mental strength, you will embody sustainability as you experience:
Inspiring dharma talks
Medium-paced asana flows that combine precision and playfulness
Meditation for focus, awareness, and mental nimbleness
Breathwork to regulate the nervous system
Restorative yoga to relax and refresh
Return home feeling more energized and expanded in your capacity to move, breathe, and live well into the future.
*** CEs available for Yoga Alliance ***
Spiritual refuge offers a path for connecting to the basic goodness of the body, breath, and mind. Breathwork, meditation, and OM Yoga are all effective tools that offer healing, self-awareness, compassion, and mindfulness.
Join legendary yoga teacher, Cyndi Lee, for a week-long program that immerses you in deep embodiment, mindfulness, and curiosity. Through meditation, breathwork, yoga, time in nature, group discussion, and more, you will:
Understand the relationship between breathwork, meditation, and asana.
Develop a reliable structure for ongoing personal practice.
Enhance your work as a yoga or meditation teacher.
Begin, or further, your Buddhist studies.
Transform boredom into curiosity.
Each day’s work will build on the day before so you can observe the effects of your practice. Return home with resources that offer you a refuge for the rest of your life.
*** ONLY 4 ROOMS LEFT ***
This retreat is open to everyone! Our practice will focus primarily on sitting and walking mindfulness meditation, sustainable yoga, and restorative yoga. Yoga props will be available in the yoga studio and modifications will be offered for everyone. Each morning will include a short dharma talk and group discussion.
Wow, this was such a beautifully written post, and touched me deeply.
So very many in this world struggle with anxiety over their body, myself included, & strive for that level of acceptance which often seems out of reach. Thank you for sharing your personal story, and then circling back as you did with further discussion, including that of understanding & learning to accept, the truth of impermanence when it comes to our body.
Much food for thought, thank you again!
Oh, and loved the "prom" photo!!!
I have yet to take your yoga classes, but I love your writing and how your understand "being a person." Thank you.