Yoga, Yoga Everywhere. Yoga Near and Far.

Deep thoughts on accepting responsibility for your role in every moment.

So, Yoga is huge. No, not like popular-huge, but huge like everywhere, omnipresent, in everything. Sometimes I get down on myself for not practicing a physical (breathing, poses ...) yoga everyday or all the time. Like reading the scriptures, I feel guilty when I skip it because I know that it has such a huge immediately positive effect on me. But whenever I read about yoga, I am overwhelmed once again with how little I know about it. Yoga is, in facy, everywhere.

It is everywhere because it is about the state of the heart. What we see as "yoga" are just different ways that people practice and try to get their heart in the right place. So, yoga is everywhere, and so now I don't have to feel guilty for skipping my asanas because there are many things that I can do to lead me closure to a "yoga heart" -- my words, not real. I used to joke that I did yoga standing still when I would put this peppermint oil on my temples and take some deep breaths during rush hour. I think I was right. My intension was to rebalance and refocus and to alleviate physical or mental pain. Mission accomplished -- Yoga standing still.

An article in Yoga Journal this month talked about accepting responsibility for your part in every moment, which will bring joy in the power of truth. When something goes wrong who do we blame? Next time its totally your fault, just embrace it. It's at least partly your fault. It's at least partly my fault. What does that mean about you today? tomorrow? What does it mean about this moment? Where can the truth of the moment take you?

Ironically, I guess I already knew this... for other people. When my students whined this year about not having the book for the first few reading assignments because they had not ordered it in time or the bookstore had run out, I had the whole class chant silently, "It's my fault. I don't have the book because it is my fault." Then I gave them a list of reasons it was there fault and what they could do about it. It starts with admitting it. If you think it is the bookstore's fault or the teacher's fault, you will not borrow the book from a friend; you will not photocopy the pages; you will not stay up late to get the assignment in on time because it's someone else's fault so why should you put in the effort? But if you don't move past the blame and get the work done, you miss out. You fail. You drop out or whatever, and I don't want that for my students. Some of them have been on that spiral for years.

So in the case of my students, I was trying to empower them to take control of their education and of their lives by admitting that they have power and control and at least some "fault" in every moment. It worked for a few. But I think I need to take my ideas inward. There is intensity and power in being honest in the moment and that is something that people practice when they do the asanas or postures that westerners know as "Yoga." The poses can not be done correctly if your body is out of balance or if you are not respecting your personal limitations. Yoga postures are about checking in with your body and your heart. Accepting the moment and making the next step.

I practice on the mat. I practice in the classroom. I practice as I mother. Who is responsible for this moment? What role do I play? What does that mean for today? For tomorrow?

In the article, Sally Kempton wrote, "The Blame frame is inherently dualistic: If it's not my fault, it is yours. If it is yours, it's not mine. You're the perpetrator. I'm the victim." But then their are people who feel they are always at fault. They take all the responsibility and this habit is just as untrue and out of balance and robs people of joy. We all contribute. We all exist in the space and in the moment, and truth always exists somewhere whether we accept it or not.

"I noticed that part of my imbalance came from my mind's search for a way not to blame myself," Kempton said. Maybe I create imbalance when I tell my students to say, "It is ALL your fault." Maybe I need to find more space for my contributions to their pain. But maybe there are too many of them, and I am not that far along in my yoga study. Dear Me.

As I get deeper into the world of yoga, I am impressed with the depth I see before me. I am impressed with how it fits into the Gospel of Jesus Christ so beautifully. I am impressed with myself and my ability to become something and someone who is ever changing and eventually forever at peace.

First Day, New School, Olympic Dreams

So, last night I was officially assigned to teach a class at Salt Lake Community College. This is on top of 7 courses I will be teaching at Utah Valley University. So, the end of the email from the coordinator who hired me said, "So, will you be able to make it tomorrow?" TOMORROW!? The first day was apparently today, but I thought it was next week. Dear me. So I stayed up late, through something together and almost died when my alarm sounded at 6 a.m.

I really do love the first day of school. I always have -- as a student and a teacher. I like change. It's fun and different. Maybe I like drama too. Not sure. Anyway, I had to stop and ask several people for directions before I found the office and my classroom. But it all worked out in the end.

As a class I had my students do a giant brainstorm of all the media involved in the Olympics. We talked a lot about mainstream media messages NBC commentary and newspaper coverage. Then I had them get on computers and search for underground and less noticeable media messages that have been made about the games.

This seemed fairly obvious to me. Look up videos on You Tube posted by athletes and spectators. Search Google blogs for peoples accounts of attending or watching the Olympics. Look for small Web sites, fan sites, athlete sites la, la, la. Instead I look up and every single students is staring blankly at the same list of Google hits from their obvious search of "Olympics." So I said, "Someone go check for interesting clips on You Tube and someone else go search Google blogs." Next time I look up, 8 of the computers are playing the same Chinese cartoon, which was obviously the first video that came up on their search.

I mocked them, and we had a good time about it. But, I am sort of shocked that even with the computer generation, they don't always know what to do with the Internet. They blog, but they don't know how to search a blog. They know how to find funny videos, but they can't search You Tube to learn something. Nothing against them at all because it was early, and they were really fun in class. But it is sort of a sad cultural commentary.
Also to their credit, I did the exercise myself later today and much enjoyed the junk they found.

Social Penetration Theory

For years I have taught my students about social penetration theory, which basically says that relationships become more intimate when you share information about yourself. There is a lot more to the theory, but that is the main gist of it. As self-disclosure goes up (from both people) intimacy goes up.

In a different course today I had my media students consider how blogging affects -- proves or disproves -- social penetration theory. Remember the theory doesn't say "hanging out together makes friends feel closer." It says, "Sharing about yourself makes friends feel closer."

So, I think blogging is evidence that social penetration theory is true. Blogging might also have all kinds of positive and negative impacts or society and relationships, but at least in this case it proves the theory correct.

My UVSC students pointed out that the sharing has to be felt on both sides. I write, you read, you comment. You write, I read, I comment. It seems that this is the only appropriate way to use blogging to strengthen relationships, according to my UVSC students. But of course you can use Blogs to share information, make money, learn something, or whatever, and that would be different.

We also pointed out that blogs can be used to create pseudo relationships, which are one sided relationships in which one person feels connected to another because they know a lot about them, while the other person does not know the first person. For example, If were to run into Jon Peter Lewis at the airport, I would want to talk to him about his life and his time on American Idol Season 3. I might even get a little star struck. I would be showing that I have a pseudo relationship with him while he has no relationship with me.

In the case of Jon Peter Lewis, I might send my cute daughter to break the ice outside of Gate 54A at LAX. He, he, he.

Anyway, I guess my students decided that the blogisphere can show us multiple examples of how the underlying concepts in the social penetration theory are correct. Do some research. It's interesting.

Rate My Professors

So, I just set up this new blog, and I wanted to know if you could find it using a google search. My last blog was at Jillfellow.com, but it is missing. Long story. But when I searched, my blog did not come up... but look what did .... my students' comments about me on Ratemyprofessors.com. Nice. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I'm trying to embrace it. I guess my issue is that I know students talk about me, but it feels more intense when it's circulated by mass media, you know? 

Check out this link to read what my students have to say about me:  http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1085293