Udhianna Bandha and the root of love and hate.

I am filled with hate.

 Up until two years ago this was the state in which I lived. Incensed, Enraged, Filled with hate. It was the underlying theme in all my actions, and the engine that drove my life.

 In India, I woke up one morning and all the hate was gone. It wasn’t a gradual change, or something I was working towards, or aspiring to or was even really aware of.

 Until it was gone. Then I was suddenly so aware of it in it’s absence it was like waking up with no core. Like taking the lava out of the earth. Sure it was peaceful not to have a spouting volcano coming out of my insides, but I actually had no idea what I was going to do without it.

 My first thought was, would I die without this burning engine of hate to fuel my actions? Can I be bothered to do anything at all? Am I still a writer or an artist without this burning passion? For the next few months, all my moments were of curiosity…who am I and what propels me without hate.

 Over the next two years, I peacefully floated without hate. And then in September I began working at a job with a woman who could effectively push aside all my calm and get straight to the volcanic matter on the inside…but it was short lived and exhausting, and I tended to try to let it blow through as much as possible.

 And then I came to study yoga at Still Point, and had Lucy point out to me that I “didn’t like to be inside my centre.” She spent an entire class pushing in my belly and saying “engage your udianna bandha, Amanda”. Now it must be said, that one of the reasons why I came to study with John is because he is the first person I have ever heard really give Udianna bandha ( pulling in from your belly button) as much importance as Mulha Bandha ( pulling up from your anus), and I already had a pretty strong feeling that it was indeed something I was missing.

 And Lo, but wasn’t there just a whole place inside my body that I was Indeed cut off from, and wasn’t that place just absolutely filled with hate. The rage started slowly but began to build on a daily basis. I am not even sure I noticed it until the morning I woke up, looked around my room, thought about having to go into the shala, and silently acknowledged that the idea filled me with hate.

 Horrified, I tried to empty the words from my mind, “ I am NOT filled with hate.” I tried to connect to my breath, “ I have already moved beyond the place where I am filled with hate. Yoga has cured me of my filled with hate-ness.”  I spent the next week silently seething about everything. I hated the classes, and hated being surrounded by people, and hated that I had made an agreement about my food needs that had been miscommunicated so that I was ill, and hated that my body was falling apart.

 And then, on top of the root of hate that was burning in my stomach. RIGHT ON TOP of my belly button, seemingly coming straight out of my udianna bandha, like a sign of my failure to engage, I popped a hernia.

 So here I was, one week from completing my Teacher Training for Level one. Humilliation hemorrhoids only just barely at bay and making me imminently aware of my imbalance in the Mulah Bandha, guts popping out of my Udi Bandha, hating my practice, hating the Shala….filled with hate.

 I am failing at yoga, I thought. I didn’t even know that you could fail at yoga, but I felt deeply that if you could, I was.

 On my last day of practice, I was putting in a huge effort to try and rise above all the hate, and find my joy in yoga, and failing. And then I gave up. I felt my heart fall, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion, and I just stopped trying entirely. And as I stopped trying, I took a deep breath inwards, and felt my body connect all the dots, mullah to Udhi, to heart and out my breath, and I began to cry. With every breath I took, I felt my body connect into this incredible core of strength inside my body, and I cried harder. I realized that underneath all that rage, was an incredibly deep layer of grief. I went through the layers, crying about everything that had ever happened to me, every bump and bruise…and break…I cried from Uktasana through handstand, an hour of crying, and felt my practice get lighter and lighter with every pose as I let go of all my grief. And then I left class and cried for the rest of the day. Long wrenching waves of tears, and then moments of intense quiet. A storm of tears.

 I cried about my daughter, and all the children that I haven’t had, and all my fears around not being able to support myself, and all the years spent alone, and all the mistakes I have made, and all the times I have been misunderstood, and all the times I have misunderstood, and all the ways I struggle to communicate with my family, and all the ways I try and try and fail and try again…

 B came in to snuggle me at one point, and then Sarah brought food, but mostly I was left in peace.

 And then when I fell asleep. And when I woke in the morning, I knew there would be more tears, but that I was strong enough to let them go, and that underneath all that anger, and all that grief, there is in fact love. And that if I stop myself from feeling hate, then I am also stopping myself from really grieving, and really being able to feel love. All these emotions are what it means to be human. To have them, and to let them go. Just like the sky is always blue above the clouds, underneath it all, at the centre, there is a quiet huge strong love.