Look, Ma, I can do this with one arm tied behind my back!

Have you ever heard of frozen shoulder? This is not some new, chic cut of beef at your local chophouse, folks. I currently have roughly 30% of normal range of motion in my left shoulder. And as a once-per-week yoga teacher (meaning, not professional, but still very much engaged with teaching and practicing) this can really get in the way. Forget demonstrating a pose with arms out to the sides, what about even the business of working to find a comfortable position to sleep, or strongly regretting reaching up mindlessly to attempt to put a pony tail in my hair. Ouch!

Okay, so this is not all that tough, honestly. I've been through childbirth, breast cancer and reconstructive surgery, not to mention some long drawn-out periods of outrage and remorse before. Like every other human on this planet, I have some experience with difficulty. With this, the worst I can say is that it's a constant vigilance to remember that I'm not at 100% on that side, or else dealing with the immediate reminder of pain that comes when I twist through a doorway a little too quickly, say. And in the long run, I feel I'm at peace with the fact that there's likely to be some pain and loss of function sometime between now and when I finally shuffle off this planet. I can even say that as one of the long list of side benefits of a meditation practice, I have become something of a connoisseur of discomfort. It's the only way to really look at and gain insight into this aspect of life, the suffering part, you know? What is this sensation? Burning, throbbing, pressure, tingling, etc.? Is it static or changeable? Unpleasant or simply intense?

What inquiry really comes down to is, what attitude arises relative to the discomfort? I've mentioned that the physical discomfort thing is just fine right now, for however long or short, and intense or light, that it needs to be. But what about the discomfort of having your capability taken away? What is it like to be a yoga teacher who is limping around the studio with one broken wing?

One answer, a real temptation, is to go into pity mode. Why me? When will this ever be resolved? And worse, how can I practice or teach without my down dog pose (you maybe know this one, hands and feet on the floor, butt up in the air, like a two-sided human tent)? Then there's the pride option: I'm going to look pretty strange, hobbling between my mat and the wall of the studio, trying to keep up and failing any appearance of that. There are also the temptations of anxiety, depression, resignation, denial, annoyance, frustration, sloth; there's a multitude of lousy places to take this, right? Some of these have attempted a visit as well, trust me.

Today I was at my beloved Thursday morning yoga class with Jeanne Ann Whittington. Jeanne Ann, ever generous, had agreed to focus this class, at my request, on shoulder function and alignment. As an acupuncturist, Chinese medicine practitioner and super-alignment Anusara yoga teacher, Jeanne Ann is an expert in my book at helping one work wisely with such a shoulder disability. So here I was, facing a movement class designed at my specific request, with a choice. Do I skip the class? The shoulder's been hurting more in the last few days, and I certainly know I need to protect it from damage. But I also know that it's possible to stay very present to sensation and actually learn a lot by working through the physical experience of this shoulder moving in its limited range. And I prefer if at all possible to keep the rest of my body awake, open and strong. So I went for it. And if you'd been a fly on the wall, it would have looked pretty strange, this asymmetrical, floppy arm, half-there series of movements I followed.

But here's what was cool: this practice became very clear because I had no idea what I could do. You know what that is: It's beginner mind! I had a million questions to work through...How can I move this? Can I do this pose at all? What does it feel like? Where is the edge between comfortable work and painful striving? How does it feel to crumble on the mat and give up when you'd normally be flowing through the thick of it? What can I do here, and what can I gracefully (maybe, I'm ever hopeful)  surrender to not having, today? Everything was new today on my mat. What a gift!

There came a point when I remembered that this is always life, and will be until my last breath. There's arising and passing away of strength, of mobility, of physical capability. I had a view of myself in my last day on earth, breathing. I pictured myself saying, what do I have here? Okay, got breath, nothing else anymore. So how is this breath? Is it as full as possible, right now? How about this one? Not really with all these words, but just tasting, exploring and maybe even enjoying the experience of still being priveleged to breathe, whether quietly, or labored or panicky.

So don't worry about me, or my shoulder, or anything. Because I won't. It's all an adventure, seeing what I've got today and doing the best I can with that. And how about you? What can you do, right now?

Hey, slow down, pal!

I was driving on one of the main streets in my hometown of Concord recently, behind one of those phantom-driver cars. You know the ones I’m talking about? There is no apparent driver, at least that you can see from behind, just a normal-height headrest with nothing sticking up over.

This phantom was driving super slowly and hesitating at every intersection even though we had the right-of-way at each one. The reason I bring this up is more in reference to the guy who was behind the phantom for a while and in front of me. This pickup driver was in some kind of hurry. It was important to him that he weave back and forth, right on the butt end of the slow car. Eventually the slow car pulled over for a bit, and the pickup gunned his engine and sped by. Then I filled in and proceeded behind the stately paced phantom driver.

We are all in such a big hurry. I have to admit, I also had to do a little deep breathing to keep peaceful pace behind the 15 mph-below-the-speed-limit person. My guess is that the driver was searching for an address, or just really cautious behind the wheel these days. This gave me a valuable opportunity to slow down and notice what impatience feels like. Strange, too, because I did not have any deadline that I was about to blow, so there was no concern about inconveniencing another person, or missing the plane to my daughter’s wedding, or anything like that. Just driving more slowly than I’m used to on that road, feeling my chest and throat stiffen up and my gut buzz most unpleasantly. Then, right following this curious attention toward impatience came blessed release from most of the tight buzz. Breathe...right, there’s no rush... settle back. How wonderful!

I actually used to be that pickup truck guy, not too many years ago. I can remember this one incident, standing in line at the sandwich counter in the building where I worked. The deli worker had the audacity to pick up the phone and take an order while she was waiting on me at the counter. She scribbled the other order down, asked a few questions for clarity’s sake, and then hung up and came back to me. Where is the justice, I fumed, the sense of first-come-first-served? Is my time not important? Was I not standing at the counter, in the flesh, rather than calling from a remote office? I remember going into full-blown retail fury mode, giving this person a piece of my mind about proper queuing protocol for customer service optimization, or some such annoying blather. I’m sure this was extremely instructive for this person, what with the orders piling up and people still waiting in line behind me. Not!

Time is a funny phenomenon. When we firmly believe that there’s a finite amount of it, we horde it and get real worked up if someone tries to steal some of ours. Like that deli lady “did” to me. What if there’s actually all the time in the world for everything to happen perfectly? I think about all the times I’ve been so worked up in a hurry, and then actually been truly late for whatever I was racing to. I can’t think of a single time where anybody died, any relationship was rattled for more than 10 minutes, or there was any meaningful deterioration to any aspect of my life. Further, for those times when there has been a true emergency, the resources were fully there to move like lightning, to take care of what needed attending, and to accept what the outcome eventually was, for good or ill. And even more magically, all of that happened without any reference to time, and whether there was enough of it. Granted, I’m not an emergency response professional, but I have to guess that these people must somehow come to grips with the fact that they’re giving their all, using the time, skills and resources available, and that whatever happens comes from their best efforts and is therefore the best outcome possible.

In the deli situation, everything was also happening perfectly. I was perfectly invited to contact some patience with and compassion for a service worker in a tough situation. (As it happened, I missed that invitation. No problem, I’ve had many, many similar invitations over the years, the perfect amount in fact. I’m hearing them nowadays pretty consistently, thank you very much for asking.) And yeah, the deli worker was invited to listen beyond my irate tone and actually consider whether there might be an adjustment to the first-in-first-out process that could keep everyone feeling respected. And I did get my sandwich, and so, I presume, did the person on the phone. And there was exactly enough time for all of this to happen perfectly.

So stop racing around in a dither like you’re running out of time. Take a breath. Give the driver in front of you two car lengths. You might actually find the chance to notice that there’s a lot to enjoy when you stop racing past it all. Check this out for yourself, and let me know what you discover.