Fighting the Kapha

I was paging through my Sogyal Rinpoche today in preparation for teaching my evening yoga class, and found the one for my birthday. "Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts." Compassion is also the best protection. If you are strong and have a healthy sense of self, it's easy to focus on only the good things you've done in your life, the things that validate your beauty and strength. If you have less self-esteem, it's easy to focus on where you have "failed" in life. The fact is that you must have compassion for those who are not as strong as you, and resolve to to be there for them in whatever way they accept you into their lives. And, if you focus on your failures, compassion and learning from these stumbles is of utmost importance. As you find this equilibrium, you realize that you are part of a whole, and not even a permanent entity in this whole, but merely a fluctuation that makes the whole. My ups and downs are inevitable, but I can learn from them and use them.

This is why I love dabbling In the ancient system of Ayurveda. According to this sister science to yoga, spring is known to be the Kapha season: a marked difference from the dry, cold Vata-aggravation typical of winter. The surge of moisture in the spring prepares nature for leafing and budding but can upset the body's equilibrium. Many of us experience this excess of Kapha through increased phlegm in the sinuses and lungs, heaviness in the head, a sense of lethargy or stagnation and mood swings towards depression.

Last year and these last couple months, while pregnant and after I birthed my winter baby, I've been holed up in my cave, not getting much done in regard to my career, my passion, my meaning in life. My Kapha was not just seasonal, it was part and parcel of leaving my hometown, being pregnant without a support network, and preparation for nurturing a new alien being in my life who will be wholly dependent upon me for at least a couple of years (until he starts asserting his independence). But the time is to get moving and break out of the heaviness, to start nurturing myself more and living every moment like it counts. 

So, I'm creating a list of things to accomplish, and I'll add to it as more revelations come to me or as I hijack them from wiser people. Some may be very obvious, but obvious does not mean that we actually achieve an understanding of truth or think about them more deeply.

So here goes.

1. Treat every act in your day as if it were your last.