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Elena Brower
Anusara & Rajanaka Yoga Teacher
Elena Brower, Certified Anusara® Yoga Teacher, is the founder and co-owner of Virayoga, in New York City. Teaching 12+ years, she's been featured in the New York Times, Yoga Journal, and FitYoga, as well as the ELEMENT YOGA series of DVDs for Anchor Bay Entertainment. She is a faculty member at Kripalu, and in collaboration with Flavorpill, Elena teaches large-scale yoga classes, most recently at the Museum of Modern Art, Bryant Park and Times Square, with plans to reach cultural institutions in cities nationwide and worldwide in the next 2 years. In 2010, Elena will be working with adidas to teach the methodology of Anusara yoga to their instructors globally. Currently she teaches benefit classes in support of Yoga Gives Back, offering financial assistance in the form of microcredit to women householders in India, the Breast Cancer Fund, and Pamela Miles' Institute for the Advancement of Complementary Therapies, offering Reiki treatment to patients and health care staff.
Copyright © 2013 - Dr. Frank Lipman
Art Of Attention: Stand Still And Choose
Elena BrowerAugust 12
Recently I was on an airplane watching a show in which two adult women were discussing a falling out they’d had. One of the women, upon being confronted with a description of her behavior, replied by saying “Well, that’s just HOW I AM and I can’t change that.” Once I finished judging her for her ridiculous closed-mindedness, I came to realize that I’ve used this excuse hundreds of times myself. So I began writing this down: There’s a choice here that we can explore. None of us are any ONE way. We choose who we are, moment to moment, day to day and year after year.
A close-to-home example: in the heat of a recent error in judgment on my part, I indulged in typically self-punishing, exhausting thinking. However, for the first time in my adult life, I actually stopped to breathe — and sensed the dramatically escalating inner pain literally squeezing my heart. I felt the tension emanating through my torso and down into my hands. For the first time, in that moment, I ASKED, in the silence of my own heart, for an opening. And I received that opening; from there I entered into a state of inquiry.
What IS this feeling? Can’t I just be sorry and move onward without this wild need to punish myself with sabotaging thoughts or actions?
I leaned over the metaphorical edge of the well of self-judgment, and instead of plunging into the usual damaging free-fall, I held myself still. I remembered a line from a great track, “Live through this, and you won’t look back.” I got really quiet inside, and the moment passed through, releasing my heart on its way out.
In the asking, I realized that trajectory from damaging thought to damaging behavior is simply NOT a path for me anymore. At my heart, I’m NOT a person who needs to be punishing herself with self-blame and self-destruction for making mistakes. It’s simply been a choice I’ve made in the past.
My point is, when I ceased to engage with my “usual” tendencies, and truly paid attention to what those habitual thoughts were doing to me, they ceased holding me hostage. In that moment of choice, I realized that those expressions of self-loathing were actually inefficient attempts at deflecting attention away from my actions! Using this well-honed but very destructive escape hatch of “hating myself” to avoid taking responsibility, I’d actually found a way to make those around me feel bad for me. In lieu of a clear-eyed apology, I’d make it even more about me.
So to set an efficacious example for my son, instead of now stating “that’s how I AM,” I have chosen to change gears. In that moment, instead of transforming my mistakes into an inappropriate, attention getting self-hatred session…I just apologized.
Please pardon that digression; that’s a whole lot of information to arrive at a constructive choice, which I can hopefully convey in the following contemplations.
My questions:
With these questions, I’ve chosen to starkly observe the ways in which I have sabotaged my own free will. I have chosen to identify the way I have, until now, chosen to negatively alter my own state of being. I stand still, and choose not to be too hard on myself. I have taken to remembering that I needn’t be a slave to what has, until now, always been true.
I want (and need) to be making choices about who and how I am.
Now.
Today.