In the Curve

It has been one week since my cat died.  He was eighteen and a half years old and had been with me my entire adult life.  Through many apartments, jobs, relationships and interests, through graduate school, periods of depression, moving to Seattle, getting married, he was my constant.  I knew him before I knew yoga and I miss him.

Not surprisingly, yoga has helped me out this week.  My friend Molly has a great saying she got from a professor in grad school, “You’ve got to practice in the straightaway what you’re going to use in the curve.”  She said last week when we were talking, “These are the moments we practice for.”  I definitely felt like I reaped the benefits of my practice as I faced the death of my beloved friend.

Despite the fact that I was feeling a lot of sadness and grief, I was also fine.  It was really clear to me.  Even when I was at the vet crying my eyes out and watching Merwin have seizures, I knew it was time to let him go and wasn’t having any wish for it to be any other way.  I was able to have my intense emotions without resistance.  I suspect that this is such an unusual situation that my vet didn’t even really understand it, mistaking my tears for an inability or unwillingness to say goodbye. I was in the reality of this painful event while also being aware of the larger reality that everything is okay. For me, this is satya, being with what is—being with my kitty, being with me, being with life, all without needing things to be different or thinking any of it is "wrong."

Ahimsa, non-harming or non-violence, was the other practice that has come in mighty handy.  Self-judgment is the most rampant version of violence around.  I have spent virtually no time re-thinking my choices, re-playing other scenarios that might have happened, questioning whether or not I did the “right” thing.  Every once in a while, I catch myself starting to go there, but I just drop it.  I feel quite sure that this has reduced the amount of suffering I have experienced.  I have still felt the pain, but I haven’t added suffering by judging myself and what I did.  This has been a big focus of my practice over the last year and I was grateful that it served me in this situation.

Yoga doesn’t make it so nothing bad ever happens.  It doesn’t mean that we will never feel anything unpleasant or difficult.  But it does bring an element of ease to even the toughest times.  To get to that place of ease, however, takes a lot of practice.  I really felt like yoga had my back over the last week, not because I am special or different, but because I have practiced.  This is possible for everyone.

I am on a committee that is developing educational standards for the field of yoga therapy and the concept of practice or sadhana comes up over and over.  What people seem to be talking about is a practice of poses and breathing and such.  For me, the truly transformative practices are those like ahimsa and satya—they change my relationship with myself, with others, with life.  And that’s pretty powerful stuff.

I am grateful to Dr. O’Hanlon at Animal Emergency Service East and Dr. Todd and everyone at the Bellevue Animal Hospital for the care they gave to my guy.