Personal growth

Getting drunk gives you nothing interesting to say

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Recently I found myself working in a bar in Thailand where we were given a lot of free alcohol every night, and that’s probably the reason I haven’t posted anything on here for a long time now.

Don’t get me wrong I love going out and getting drunk as much as the next person. I had a great time working in the bar but it also robbed me of all interesting thought, whilst drunk and after.

Before working there whenever I’ve been travelling around I’ll have random thoughts about things/see or hear something interesting and mentally write posts about it (even if they don’t end up actually making it on here). And I think it’s a good habit, it means I explore and expand on thoughts about the interesting things happening around me.

Well when getting drunk every night, there’s nothing that interesting happening in all honesty. Yeah I could tell you load of stories which start with the horrible “We were so wasted and…” but who cares. There’s reason why when you meet someone and all their stories start that way it doesn’t generally make you want to hang out with them.

We’ve all (well most) been drunk and done silly things. And sometimes they’re pretty funny. But mostly only to those who were involved.

Some I glad I left as I’ve had so many more interesting thoughts since I did. Now I just need to get round to writing about them!

Why does it only take one negative comment to take us down?

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Literally just one, and it can ruin your entire day. Even if everything else has been good in your day and other positive things have been said to you that day, just one bad one and it takes it all down.

I’ve suffered from this for years, in both work and my personal life. I pride myself on being good at my job but even when I know I’m doing a good job at most things, just one bad thing and it makes me think I’m bad at my job and failing in some way

When it comes to work maybe it can be put down to imposter syndrome (where you never really believe you’re good or competent enough to be doing the job you are) so you accept the negativity more easily as you’re subconscious goes “see I was right”. But in our personal lives too? Do we really have that little self belief?

I was having a good day the other day, not the best, I’d spent most of it travelling so it wasn’t exactly a very exciting day, but nevertheless I was happy enough and good things had happened in the day. And then I got one message from a friend, which wasn’t even really negative, they just didn’t react in the way I expected them to and seemed a bit dismissive.

I may well even have just misunderstood the tone but it instantly affected my mood and self belief in such a surprisingly strong way. I dwelled on it, I focused on it and forgot everything good that had happened that day.

I was even conscious of it happening and so tried to focus on the positive things of the day instead but even whilst actively trying to change my mind set it was so difficult to pull myself out of the negative affect of just that one comment.

I watched a TED talk a little while ago on why negative things have so much more of a detrimental affect on us than the positive which is the only reason I was conscious of it. But still even with the knowledge that we have to work harder to get over negatives I didn’t do very well at it. I guess I need to practice more.

It may not have worked for me yet but it’s a great talk. You can see it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk

The only person anger screws over really is yourself.

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I had an extremely ex-brat moment the other morning and the only person who lost out as a result really was me.

(I know I’m travelling so not technically an ex-pat but there is really no better word to describe my behaviour that morning than ex-brat).

I am not a princess, I’m more than used to doing lots of things for myself but apparently I’ve forgotten that it’s pretty normal to do your own washing and not just hand it over to someone who brings it back, clean, folded and dry 4 hours later. So when I arrived at my hostel in Phuket I was actually annoyed to discover that when they said “laundry service” what they really meant was a washing machine that you had to use yourself.

And I didn’t even consider it as a viable option for a second. I went off in a strop to find somewhere else where I wouldn’t have to deal with the great hardship of doing my own laundry!

I mean it’s absurd. I spent an hour walking around (in which time I could have done one load of laundry) but nowhere would do it as I wasn’t staying at their hostels.

When I went back to my hostel they even agreed they would take the laundry out of the machine after the first load (since I had two and waiting was part of my objection) but by then I was so annoyed by the situation I said no and walked away.

I was actually annoyed, about doing something that I’ve done at least multiple times a week, every week, for years.

And the only person who lost out by my inability to just accept the, actually pretty normal and not at all difficult, situation was me. I was the one who ended up still having half of my clothes (and pretty much my only ones for hot weather) that needed washing.

It’s a really petty example, and I’m still appalled with myself for how much I objected to it, but having not felt annoyed or angry for a while it did remind me that actually that’s what those emotions usually do to us. We get trapped in them and lose sight of what course of action would allow us to cut our losses and still come out at least having achieved what we set out to.

Hopefully next time, when probably a more important situation, I’ll remember and deal with it better.

Fancy being bullied into making yourself sick, shoving a rubber tube up your nose or giving yourself diarrhoea? Then just go to yoga school – Yoga Teacher Training Week 4

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It sounds ridiculous but I was genuinely pressurised and even threatened with not completing my yoga teacher training if I wasn’t willing to partake in activities such as making myself sick or giving myself diarrhoea. Apparently it was a requirement of the course.

Bollocks to that!

What I’m talking about is a practice in yoga called Shatkarma. Shatkarma describes a group of “cleansing” techniques which are practiced in yoga as part of ensuring we uphold the Niyama called Shaucha; cleanliness both internally and external as well as mentally (Niyamas are just the personal code of conduct all should adhere to in yoga).

Now I can under understand how in order to be able to meditate for hours and have clear thoughts internal cleanliness is important. No one is at their best when they’ve been eating unhealthly, overindulging and essentially not keeping their internal bodies clean (just think of that post Christmas feeling) . Given this eating clean, healthy food would naturally seem important to yoga.

Making yourself sick however is 100% not something I can get on board with being considered as an essential part of any practice. Or being preached about to impressionable 20 year olds who are clearly there because they’re looking for something missing in their lives and haven’t quite yet learnt that it’s ok to take a step back and a minute to think in any situation to decide whether you are actually ok with something rather than just following what you’re told to do.

At the yoga school Shatkarma was scheduled in our timetable for 3 mornings in one week and then for added fun there was a full day cleanse (that’s the diarrhoea bit) at the end of the week.

The Shatkarma was carried out first thing in the morning and consisted of:

A nose cleanse -pouring salt water into one nostril and letting it come out the other)
Rubber netti – pushing a rubber tube up your nose and down and out through your mouth *retching from just thinking about it*
Making yourself sick – this was done by drinking as many glasses of warm salt water as possible in quick succession then sticking your fingers down your throat

When these were discussed in class it was repeatedly mentioned that we had to try all of them and at one point even stated it was a requirement of the course to do so.

We’ll I refused. If it was genuinely a requirement of the course to do it then I just wouldn’t be qualifying as a yoga teacher.

It amazed me how pretty much everyone else just went along with it though. Unless they had a health issue that meant they couldn’t (I.e. One girl had Chrones) they just all did it.

I even got into an argument with one of the girls about it who was saying I had to and it was just part of the course. To which I was trying to argue that if there was a yoga posture that I thought would be detrimental to my health for whatever reason I wouldn’t do it but I wouldn’t expect not to pass for that reason. Especially if I still learnt how to teach it (which I did for the Shatkarma too, although really what’s to teach in that one and it’s not like I’m ever going to teach anyone else it). But still it turned into quite a heated debate.

I then also had one other girl tell me that I was just objecting to it because I was thinking of it as throwing up but that’s just what it’s called it in the West. In the East it’s called cleansing which makes it ok.

Bhahahahahahhaha. No my objection is not a semantic one. It’s to the physical process that takes place when you throw up (sorry “cleanse”) that will take place whatever you call it.

Oh well that was the first bit of fun.

Then there was diarrhoea day. That was supposed to start with vomiting *natch* and then drinking more warm salt water, doing some twisting postures, more salt water, more twisting etc. until you started going to the toilet but even once that started you were supposed to continue the salt water and twisting until all you would expel would be clear water from a part of your body that is never supposed to expel water. Anyway that was the day cleanse which according to the school required a gross combo of rice, lentil and butter to be the only food you eat for 2 days after. According to the text book they gave us, that was true but also you were supposed to eat simple, not fired, rich or spicy food for 30 days after (probably because the cleanse will have stripped your stomach of all it’s good bacteria to fight infection).

Ummmmmm, rich, spicy and fried is pretty much every meal in India so given we were leaving just 7 days after the “cleanse” and I would then be fully back in the throngs of India and at its mercy for what I could eat, again it didn’t seem like the greatest of plans.

This time though we were told that unless we had a medical condition preventing us from joining in it was compulsory.

I debated making up a medical condition but in the end decided to go with honesty (it is one of the codes of social conduct in yoga after all), say I didn’t agree that the cleanse was healthy but that I would compromise and take part until the first inkling I needed the bathroom and then stop.

So I did and that was fine. All of the other girls weren’t though. One got so sick she couldn’t eat or sleep for about a week after due to stomach cramps.

Needless to say if I do ever become a yoga teacher I will not be teaching Shatkarma (unless it’s to give people my unfettered options of it).

Who knew “Your energy is just so bad” can be used as an insult in an argument – Yoga Teacher Training Week 4

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And of all places I heard it used it was at yoga teacher training school. I.e. at a place where most people there are really into yoga and so you would have thought are also really into the teachings of yoga, such as being calm and having non-violent thoughts towards each other.

Not the case at all. There were full on arguments across the middle of class on more than one occasion.

I have not been in as bitchy an environment since I went to all girls boarding school. It was actually quite incredible (and really entertaining to watch if you didn’t get involved in the drama).

There were 20 of us and we all lived in one place for 4 weeks, all going to the same classes everyday day so it is only natural there would be some fall outs, I just never expected them to be so public.

Maybe it’s because I’m English, and so have that whole reserved British thing, but in any location I would find it shocking for people to shout at each other across a classroom, let alone at yoga school.

But they did.

And then they used insults such as “you’re energy is just so bad” as an insult in the argument. AN ACTUAL INSULT IN AN ARGUMENT.

I mean really.

If you’re going to yell insults at someone across a yoga studio mid class, you should probably be reassessing how much yoga has “really changed your life” rather than yelling at someone else.

And also maybe start working on your insults.

Don’t enjoy life, just meditate!- Yoga Teacher Training Week 2

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We’ve had a lot of classes which mention detachment now, i.e. that if you want to be a yogi you have to detach yourself from everything in the world, food (hence the bland food), relationships, emotions etc. The result should be that you feel neither happy or sad, or like or dislike, so that your thoughts are no longer cluttered and you can just meditate.

Whilst that makes sense, it sounds really boring and not like something I want to work towards. The teacher has even described it as being like depression in how it makes people act once they achieve detachment.

That doesn’t make it sound great.

And the explanation as to why I should want this is because it will allow me to reach Samadhi (deep meditation) then enlightenment and eventually go onto a higher place when my physical body dies.

I don’t believe we have multiple lives though or that there is a supreme being and have been given no reason to believe so since being here therefore saying I shouldn’t mind detaching myself from all forms of enjoyment because it will lead to something better after this life isn’t a compelling motivation for me.

If anything it’s making me question bothering to try and be calm and meditate in the first place when you could just make your life about having as much fun as possible instead.

The Cult of Yoga – Yoga Teacher Training Week 1 Cont.

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I wonder how many yoga cults there are as a lot of the teaching and what we’re doing feels a bit cult like.

We’re being taught a lot of things about the philosophy of yoga but most of it is very akin to the type of things people were told years ago to explain functions we see externally of the body because people weren’t able to see inside or didn’t understand the different processes at the time.

We’ve been being taught about chakras and nadis and koshas all of which aren’t visible but are apparently real none the less. We’re given no reason for that belief though, they just are.

I do believe that our bodies are capable of a lot more than we use them for most of the time which is part of the reason why I do have an interest in learning more about yoga but the ways in which it is being explained that our bodies are capable of more, or how we can activate that capability is for me akin to someone having looked at the body from the outside years ago and then made up a story about how it all works inside. No justification is given other than, well that explains why x happens.

For example, we were told the other day that we have a certain number of breaths in our life. The justification being well dogs and other animals breath faster and they have shorter lives. Yoga teaches us to control our breathing therefore we will live longer if we become a yogi in the sense of dedicating our lives to meditation.

I then asked how old the oldest yogi therefore is, as surely if the theory is true they’ll live much longer than any average person, only to be told the yogis will have died before that point anyway so their soul can be reunited with the supreme being.

Oh ok then. Silly me, I’ll just believe it then.

Which is what most people seems to be doing though. They’re sitting nodding along saying they can feel this energy or that as we chant to some undefined supreme being making it feel more like a cult by the day.

Meditation, is it just hyperventilation? – Yoga Teacher Training Week 1

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I kind of managed to meditate for what I think is the first time ever this morning. It wasn’t for very long but felt like a good start. Having said that though the reason I could is because we did some breathing exercises first, called pranayama, which make you breath in and out really quickly, kind of like you would if you were hyperventilating. And hyperventilating makes you feel a little light headed so it does make me wonder whether that is really what meditation should be or if it’s a bit of a cheat as, well of course you’re not going to be thinking that much when your head’s spinning.

The complaints – Yoga Teacher Training Day 1 Cont.

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It states pretty clearly on the website of most yoga schools in Rishikesh that the food will be plain and healthy as you know, it’s a yoga school and that’s the food they believe you should be eating.

It’s also a yoga school in Rishikesh where part of the experience is supposed to be disconnecting from the world a little and giving yourself time to clear your head so you can learn to meditate properly etc. (something I’ve also always not understood/been able to do).

And yet at the first meal people were complaining loudly (in ear shot of the cooks, which is just a bit rude) that the food was so plain and disgusting and how were they going to supposed to eat this for a month. Ummmm maybe coming to a month long yoga course in india where its clearly stated that the food will be plain maybe wasn’t the best plan then, especially if even just one meal like that is apparently so much of an issue.

And then there were those who were so upset about the lack of wifi (it was broken) you would have thought someone just stolen something from them. Some of who were then advising others they’ve just got to deal with the coldness and suck it up (northern india’s pretty cold in January). I’d say keeping your body at a warm enough temperature is more of an essential life requirement than wifi really and if the lack of one was going to be sucked up, it should probably be the wifi. But maybe that’s just me.

Feeling like an outsider – Yoga Teacher Training Day 1

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We were free for most of the first day and so a number of us walked into the near by town at which point someone mentioned there was a Satsang (not 100% of the spelling) about to happen at one of the ashrams from a famous Brazilian Guru. Part of me was thinking “won’t we have enough of this in the next month anyway, let’s enjoy the free time” but I decided to go anyway, with no knowledge as to what it actually was that we were going to.

Turns out it was a session in which there was music which could be sung along to like mantras and then the Guru reading questions from people and giving his advise. The chanting at the start before the guru arrived was quite fun. It was the part when the guru was there that I was less sure of. He sat, and read a letter from someone saying they were depressed, didn’t have job or friends and what could they do. His advise to me though just seemed like almost platitudes or like an unqualified attempt as psycho analysis. There didn’t seem to be any particularly enlightening or enlightened information imparted but yet all those around me were furiously scribbling down notes and/or crying as he talked.

That made me feel quite a lot like an outsider anyway for just not understanding why everyone was so enthralled and emotional about what this guy was saying when quite frankly I was bored. It’s not that I was fidgety and needed to be someone, I was more than happy to sit and relax but what was being said was no greater than the advise I or anyone of my friends would give someone if they came to one of us with the same problem.

I then got back to the school. keeping my opinions kinda of quite, just in case, to hear people saying that they’d found it so powerful and uplifting and had even started crying just as the guru walked into the room as his presence was so powerful.

I had to leave the conversations as I just didn’t know what I could say without lying, offending a lot of people or most likely doing both at the same time!