Monthly Archives: October 2009

Interview with Steven Pressfield, Author of “The War of Art”

How this interview came to be.

I first became aware of the existence of The War of Art while listening to an Accidental Creative podcast in which Todd Henry, the moderator, said it was one of the best books he had ever read about keeping creatively juicy.  I bought it, read it, and freaked.

It’s not that I never knew Resistance was my biggest problem as a writer, I did. But here, in one short, concise, to-the-point, no-bullshit book was my diagnosis, complete with remedies.

This was gold.  This was money.  This, for me, was the Instruction Manual for Vanquishing The Bête Noire.

So I started “sneezing” about it all over the place: to my yoga students, on Facebook, on Twitter. I blogged about it.  I left comments on Pressfield’s website. I bought multiple copies and handed them out to people I knew would love it.  I placed copies next to all the lounge chairs in my yoga studio’s lounge.

Pressfield’s publicist contacted me. She told me Pressfield works with bloggers, grants them 3 questions that they could then post on their blog.

(How cool is that?)

So now all I had to do was think up three questions.

(Fail.)

It felt like the genie had come out of the bottle and granted me three wishes.  I felt instant anxiety.   I felt I needed to think up The Perfect Questions.

(Resistance reared its ugly head.)

I dithered.  I boinked.  I solicited help from my readers.  None came through for me (don’t worry, I forgive you).  This was clearly MY gig.

Finally, I just sat down and looked resistance in the eye, and went through it.  I came up with three questions.  Perfect?  Prolly not, but who the hell cares?  He answered them.  (Win!)

So here it is.  The Interview with Steven Pressfield.  He’s awesome.  I especially loved his answer to my third question.

(You rock, Steven.  Thanks!  And you are hard-core, dude.)

Kath: I really resonated with your analogy to fighting “the war” on Resistance.  And while I do believe I am becoming a better warrior (i.e. I am getting better at recognizing resistance and then just hunkering down and facing it), there are definitely times when I do not feel at all “equipped” for the fight. Do you ever feel “war weary?”  How do you “train”?  Do you now, after all this time, feel strong?  Is resistance still a big fight for you?

Steven Pressfield: Really good question, Kathleen.  I do feel “war weary” sometime.  Have you ever heard of Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach?  He has a really interesting model for time management.  I’m not sure this applies to everybody but it’s kind of a cool idea.  He suggests thinking of ourselves as entertainers or athletes—and managing our time the way they do.  Athletes have an off-season.  Entertainers work in blitzes; they’ll train, they’ll do their show, they’ll rest.  It’s okay, I think, to be war-weary sometimes, and it’s okay to knock off and recharge.

As for “training,” yes, I do.  Like you, I do physical stuff.  The gym.  Running.  My friend Randall Wallace (who wrote Braveheart) has a routine that his girlfriend Elizabeth calls “little successes.”  I do that too.  If I can start they day by overcoming more modest forms of Resistance (like not wanting to go to the gym), I can get a little momentum going and that makes it easier when I actually sit down to do the Real Work.  Little successes.  It’s good.

And yes, after all this time, Resistance is still just as powerful and still has to be beaten anew every day.  I don’t feel “strong.”  But I do have more successful time put in, defeating Resistance, so I’m more confident that I can do it.  But no, it never gets any easier, at least not for me.

Kath: For me, writing and exercise are two big areas where I confront resistance daily.  I know you advocate making your strongest resistance your primary focus, but when there are multiple resistances, how do you choose? There are just so many battles I can fight in a day!

Steven Pressfield: I guess I just answered that in #1.  The way I look at it sometimes is, How am I gonna feel at the end of the day?  If I drop the ball on four out of five things that are putting up Resistance, I’ll feel better when the day’s over if I’ve at least overcome the Biggest Resistance.  If I don’t, I feel lousy at the end of the day.

Kath: When I need motivation and inspiration to hang in there, I re-read parts of The War of Art.  I find it immensely inspiring and supportive.  I am wondering who you read for inspiration and support?  Who or what motivates you, who keeps you going?

Steven Pressfield: Sometimes I read The War of Art too!  I say, “Man, that dude is hard-core!”  Seriously, one thing that inspires me is friends who really ARE doing great work and really ARE following their own deepest calling.  They don’t even have to be friends.  One way I judge a great movie or book or album is, after I see it, I go out fired up to do my own work.  I feel a little shame.  “They’re doing it, I better do it too.”

My Recipe for Transcendence

I have had moments in my life, “openings, “ if you will, periods out-of-time where I have been able to transcend my small self,  break free of my conditioning, and see new and thrilling possibilities for living a more expanded existence.

These moments have been few, but they’ve been profound.

They have happened

  • On the cushion during meditation retreats
  • During (or more accurately, after) intense yoga practice
  • During “wave work” (a guided pranayama practice)
  • At the top of high mountains

Some of these experiences—like the mountain climbing ones—might be attributed to brain chemistry changes (endorphin rushes).

Certainly pranayama practices (“wave work” being an intense form of this) are reliable vehicles for attaining mind-altering (read: blowing) experiences.

It is harder to explain how cushion sitting works.

The cushion is, for me, a place where the engine (my brain) is allowed to idle until it runs out of gas.  Once all the fuel is used up, it has no other choice but to stop.  When it stops, there is an astonishing clarity that I can only describe as “transcendent.’

Do I live most of my life in this “transcended” state?

I wish.

But no.

But if I wanted to get there, do I know how?  Yeah, I do.

But this is what I try to do:

I try to organize my day, every day, so that I can spend some time “getting high,” (i.e. transcending my ordinary, rat-racey, goofbally, time-obsessed, to-do list-driven, whackadoodle life) by

1) breathing fast many times in a row,

2) moving my body in crazy ways that I think it ought to be able to move, but doesn’t

3)watching the shit storm that rises up in my brain when my body doesn’t move the way I think it should, or want it to

and then

4) sitting very still on a cushion and letting the whole drama, the whole storm die down in my brain.

Ahhhhh…….

And that, in a nutshell, is my Recipe for Transcendence.  Try it for yourself.  Feel free to substitute local ingredients and monkey with the proportions.  It’s kinda foolproof.

(So, do I get to add that to my 100 Recipes category,… or not?)

Wussie Wednesdays

I AM capable of guiding a soft yoga class, I AM!

There is still “Happy” in Happy Hour yoga, and there is still some shred of “Grace” left in the Power and Grace class.

(Isn’t there?)

Here’s the thing about me and yoga: I like to churn.  I like to find my edge and then hang out there.  (I’m an edge dweller.)

It’s called “Chalasana.”  It’s intentionally intense.  It raises the prana.  It raises it high.

And then the next day, I wake up and walk… with some difficulty, …into a hot bath.

(But my prana is high.)

But after ashtanga in the mornings and 2 really “churny” classes on Monday and Tuesday night, I was ready for something nice and soft tonight.

So that’s what I led (and partially did) in my all-levels drop in class (to much acclaim, I might add).

So thanks to the innate  marketing genius of  Lenore Urbano, Wednesdays are now going to be known as “Wussie Wednesdays.’

(Definitely not your mother’s yoga; bring your grandma!)

Talking To Myself

I didn’t go to Ithaca today.  I stayed holed up in my room (after early morning Ashtanga practice) and wrote.  And wrote.  And wrote.

I took a break for lunch, and to refresh my tea.  Then I wrote. For hours. While the cat dozed on the bed.

I wrote longhand, with my favorite pen (this one, which is the greatest pen in the universe).

What did I write?  It’s hard to describe this, but here’s what happens:

I sit down on my chair with my notebook propped on a pillow and I just “talk to myself.”

Or, more accurately: “I” (my ego, my “personality,’ my self that is all effed up by my conditioning and all the mad crazy things that have ever happened to me) talks to my “Self” which is that Wise Being deep inside who is not all distorted and effed up by conditioning.

Today, “she” the Inner Wisdom Guide, had a lot to say to poor effed-up Kath, and thus the all-day Write-Fest.

All I can say is that I’m feeling clearer, and it feels good.  But there’s a lot more to be hashed out.

(Good times.)

100 Recipes #4 Fail

People always assume I’m a vegetarian because I teach yoga.  But I’m not.  I was a vegetarian for many years (maybe 10?) but when I was a vegetarian my diet was pretty crappy.

Yeah, I didn’t eat meat, but I also didn’t eat well.  My diet had a lot of dairy. Cheese mainly.  Cheese dishes gave me my protein (this was way before the days of the “fake meat” Morningstar Farms products), and I like cheese, so I exploited it.

Then dairy began to give me gastro fits.  And then my diet really became a mess.  So I began to introduce fish and lean meat (chicken) and suddenly my headaches went away, my energy went through the roof, and I felt much better in my gastrointestinal tract.  In short, I felt balanced.

I still continue to eat some meat.  Not everyday, but occasionally.  And I make sure that the meat is what I like to call “happy meat,”meaning, that the animal did not suffer in a CAFO-type facility.  I eat only organic, free-range, grass-fed meat.  I buy it at the Growers Market or from Pag-Omar.

Last Growers Market, I bought some lamb.  There was a recipe in the Wegman’s magazine for Slow-Cooked Lamb and Beans and I made it yesterday.  It cooked in the crockpot all day while I hiked the Lynn C. Keller trail.

I ask you: Is there anything better than coming home from a day in the woods to a kitchen that smells all warm and delicious and dinner is already made?

But I have to tell you. The whole time I was eating this lamb?  I was thinking:

I am eating…..a lamb.

Mary had a little lamb.

Shari Lewis’ Lambchop.

No more. I can’t eat lamb.  Even if it was a “happy” lamb.  I can’t eat baby animals.

So technically I have another recipe to add to my 100 Recipes list, but I’m not going to be listing the ingredients and directions here.  If you want it, go buy the Fall 2009 Wegman’s magazine.  But just remember:

Mary had a little lamb

Its fleece was white as snow….

Books That Changed My Life #1

I listened to the This American Life podcast the other day and the theme was “Books That Changed My Life.”

(Ira Glass, the host, thought it was a rather unusual idea that a book could change a person’s life. Whatever, Ira.)

Not me.  Oh no. There have been many books that have completely changed the trajectory of my life.

The first one I thought of (but maybe not the first one that changed my life) was Richard Hittleman’s Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan.

I think it was 1976.  I was a senior in college.  I don’t even remember where I bought this book.  The college bookstore?  Walden Books at the Mall?  Who knows.

All I remember was taking it out every afternoon, spreading an old beach towel on the green shag carpet of the house I was living in, and doing it.  28 days in a row without a miss.

The blonde model on the cover wore a leotard and tights (with feet).  The illustrations were in black and white.  Each day there were a few exercises (yeah, he called them “exercises” not “asanas”), followed by a little one page “Thought for the Day.”  And then there were these words:

Do not do any additional Yoga exercising today.

Really?? This was revolutionary.  That a book about something good for you would not advocate doing it as much as possible and as hard as you could for as long as you could, was a totally novel concept to me.  And kinda crazy.  And intriguing.

Why wasn’t I allowed to do any more today?  Would something bad happen if I did more of these yoga exercises in one day?  I wasn’t going to take any chances.  I obeyed.  And everyday I came back for more.

I think it was that mandatory stop that kept me curious, interested, and hungry.  (I once heard about a Guinness World Record holder who ate an entire Volkswagon.  He did it by swallowing one little piece a day.)

That Hittleman book hooked me on yoga.  It also revealed to me an essential piece of my basic nature: as long as I can do something a little bit every day, and not have to swallow a whole big thing in one gulp, I could learn yoga, or eat a Volkswagon.

Holding The Space

This morning I drove to the studio and was the first one there despite the fact that it was already 6:10 AM and we usually begin by 6:15.

I hurried in, turned on the lights in the lounge, unlocked the studio, lit the candle, and only then went back and took off my jacket.

Still, no one came.

I gathered my yoga things and placed them within easy reach: mat, blanket, pranayama pillow and eye bag for savasana, zafu and shawl for meditation, and tissues.

After all this prep, still no one had come. I resigned myself to a “practice alone” day.  Usually we don’t practice to music but since there was no one there to consult or object, I turned on The Best of Wah!, as a soft, accompanying presence.

The morning was dark.  I dimmed the studio lights to a soft yellow so that the candle flame was the brightest light in the room.  I stepped on my mat, dispensed with the formal Invocation in Sanskrit in favor of my own prayer, and began.

Two sun salutations into my practice, Christine arrived.  I smiled at her, but kept going.  The practice had already begun for me and there was no going back.

Until Christine walked in, I didn’t realize that I had already decided on certain things.

The first was that I was not going to count my breaths (there is usually a 5- breath count in each posture). I was just going to breathe my breaths until it felt like “enough.”

I also wasn’t going to be a slave to the sequence.  If I forgot a pose, or did a few out of order, or skipped some variations, that was how it was going to be.

The rigid “form” of the practice was going to have to bend to me this morning; it was going to have to be much more elastic and forgiving.  I was going to do what I always tell my students to do, but rarely do myself, and that is: Let my body drive.

For a candle’s flicker of a moment I wondered if the music was annoying Christine and I toyed with walking over and turning it off—but didn’t.

No.  I wanted the music. It was creating a soft, reverential feeling in me.  It felt like a bhakti practice, this yoga, and oh did I ever need it after all the hard yoga I had been practicing in the past few days.

Christine rolled out her mat and practiced alongside me.  At one point I noticed that she too had veered “off-script” and was improvising a practice for herself, too—the practice she needed, I assumed.

I was just beginning the seated poses when I noticed that Christine was going into the last three finishing postures.  I was still doing vinyasas while she lay next to me, in savasana.

When I started Janu Sirsasana she quietly left the room, but not before I blew her a kiss, and she blew one back.

I finished out what my body needed to do then I sat on my cushion for quite a while: watching thoughts, breathing breaths, listening to the ventilation system roar in the room, and when that fell silent, I listened to the traffic, and the trucks grinding through their gears out on 15.

I thought of other times when I had sat just like this, alone, peaceful, holding the space for anyone who might want to come and do something like I had just done.

I practiced like this, alone, for the better part of 2 years before others came.

I thought about Sunday afternoons when Rick and I would sit together—he, facing the window; me, facing the wall.

As I put my jacket on, and shut the lights and dowsed the candle and locked the door, I thought about the words: Holding the Space.

The first time I heard them was in my first YTT.  It was explained to me that “holding the space” was what I, as a yoga teacher, “did” while my students were in savasana.

I held the space.  I safeguarded it from marauders, from anything that might threaten its peace or sanctity.

But now, as I’ve been reflecting on it, I know it’s much more than that.

This morning, whether or not anybody came, I was holding space for the possibility of practice.  Even though the usual people did not come, they know that they could have and that’s why I do what I do.  That’s why MSY is here.  MSY is “held space.”  And I am the holder of that space.

I am the un-locker of the door, the turner-on of the lights, and the one who lights the candle and breathes for you, even when you don’t come.  I hold this space for you, until you can.

Why I Wake Early (pace Mary Oliver)

My day starts at 4:30 AM.

Yeah, it’s early, but not if I get to bed by 7:30 (along with all the other 3 year-olds).

But I don’t.  I stay up. I watch crap on TV (that I truly enjoy) or I read (just finished Trust Agents by Chris Brogan of crisbrogan.com (awesome book!) until 10 or 11.

My Zen alarm clock (this one) begins to glow softly at 4 AM.  When the birds inside the clock start to chirp at 4:30, I turn it off, shuffle downstairs, pour my coffee which is waiting for me (“Delay Brew” is genius) and sit in the dark dining room and read by the blue light of the laptop. I check on the world.

I check the headlines and read my favorite bloggers.  Sometimes I’ll post a status update on Facebook.  Some mornings I might even Tweet.  After the first cup (usually Starbucks Sumatra) I am alert enough to write an email or two.

I eat some peanut butter (off a spoon) and it is at this point that the dog becomes interested in me.  If I’m feeling magnanimous, I will put some peanut butter on another spoon and give it to her.  She takes it under the table and eats it.  I like the sound her teeth make on the metal of the spoon as she tries to chew the peanut butter off it.

By 6-ish I am flying out the door, the motion detector lights guiding my  way to the garage.  I make sure I don’t forget to push the garage door opener before I back the car out.  This I check off as my first “Brilliant  Move of the Day.”

What happens at the studio I have already written about here.

By 7:30-8:00 I am back home, ready for breakfast.  I have already taken care of my body, my mind and my spirit.  Nothing in the whole wide world could happen in my day (and I mean NOTHING) which could in any way, shape or form take that away from me.

I feel blessed.

And that people, is why I wake early.

100 Recipes #3 Fail

I tried a new recipe yesterday, something I taste-tested on Saturday at Wegman’s at one of those stations where they give out samples.  It was a warm pasta salad with butternut squash, escarole, whole wheat fusili and lots of other yummy ingredients.  Perfect!

I took the recipe card and bought all the ingredients.  The card said it took 35 minutes to prepare.  An hour and a half later and a sink full of dishes I was still at it.  It turned out just as good as I remembered it in the store, but labor intensive?  Good god.

Too many steps, too many dishes.  If I’m going to commit that much time, I want to have a full Thanksgiving dinner at the end of it, not a pasta salad. You know what I mean?

So if you really want the recipe for it, email me and I’ll send it to you.  Instead, I am going to give you the recipe for a vacation I wrote today at Emma’s.  It’s raw.  It’s unedited, but that’s how we roll at Emma’s.  This one I would make at the drop of a hat, any day of the week.  I could eat this every day and never tire of it.

Recipe for a Vacation

  1. Chop into small pieces: anxiety, pressure, stress, frustration, irritation and anger.  Place into a blender and blend on HIGH until smooth.  Pour immediately down the nearest drain.  Flush with hot water.  Sigh deeply.
  2. Flatten 1 long stretch of white pristine beach.  Dot liberally with terns, plovers, and conch shells.  Carefully remove loud people and whiney children.
  3. At the edge of the beach add 40 trillion gallons of blue sea.  Ladle in dolphins, whales and porpoises.  Stir lightly.
  4. In a separate bowl combine: 2 weeks of time, 3 gallons of wine, 1 bottle of champagne, 10 limes, 8 large books and 1 pound of the best coffee you can afford.  Let sit.
  5. Cream together: 1 pair of flip flops, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 beach towel, 1 bathing suit and 1 sun hat.
  6. Fold the contents of the bowl into this mixture.
  7. Turn out onto the beach.  Smooth lightly.  Garnish with abundant sunshine, seagulls, white puffy clouds and a gentle breeze.
  8. Bake at 85 degrees for 2 weeks.
  9. Serve immediately.
  10. Enjoy!

A Waste of Good Poster Board

On Sunday I drove through town and there were abortion protesters at the intersection of 6 &15.

Kids.  Teenagers mostly.  Waving handmade signs with incendiary slogans about how abortion is murder, etc. etc.

Since it was Sunday, I figured they had probably gotten all worked up into a lather at Sunday School, decided to DO something about all these “baby murderers,” went to Walmart, bought poster board and markers, and that’s how they came to be here, waving their message at all the passing cars.

So what’s a passing motorist supposed to think about this?  What’s the point of this kind of public braying of your feelings/opinion in the middle of the street?  During the election, it was the Obama people with the signs.  Before them, there were the Iraqi war protestors.

If you happen to agree with the sign, maybe you smile or give a little honk and a “thumbs-up.”  If you disagree, you look away, or scowl at the person, or flip them the bird.

Either way, your opinion of whatever is on the sign isn’t going to change.  The person with the sign hasn’t given you any reason to change your mind.  There’s been no interchange, no dialogue, no debate, no anything.

The whole enterprise has just been a colossal waste of good poster board.