Brahmacharya - Non-excess

I just finished reading Dr. Anna Lembke's book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. One of the things that stood out to me in this book is that pleasure and pain always seek equilibrium. When you experience too much pleasure, your body stops responding and you tilt toward the side of pain. When your body receives pain -- as in, say, a prolonged ice bath -- it responds by feeling pleasure afterward.

As humans, it seems we are hardwired for stasis. We do not handle extremes well.

The 4th yama of yoga is brahmacharya. It was understood by the original (all male) practitioners to mean living an esoteric life of chastity. Now it is more about living without excess.

I think it is a pillar of yoga because yoga is about balance -- the dark and the light, the strength and the softness, the difficulty and the ease. To live in or with brahmacharya requires notice and intention. It does not happen accidentally.

Here's another fact I learned from Dr. Lembke's book: Recent research from several independent sources, amongst them Virginia Commonwealth University, has revealed troubling findings about the pleasure/pain paradox: there is reason to believe that the extended use of anti-depressants actually causes depression or tardive dysphoria in patients. We cannot stave off pain forever.

So that's nice.

For the last month, I've been in very dark place. Cara told me it had lasted way too long and that I must call my doctor. He forgot to call me back. When I called again, he doubled my medication.

I never took it. I mean, I kept taking the normal amount. But I didn't double down. All I could think of was Lembke's book and the pleasure/pain paradox. What if it's possible that we are medicating ourselves into oblivion? And brahmacharya - what does it mean to practice non-excess when it comes to both pleasure and pain?

The fog began to lift a little this week. What remained was the realization that I had managed to sit in deep, deep discomfort for an entire month without doing anything.

Maybe I didn't do anything because you genuinely do very little when you are depressed.

But maybe I didn't do anything because I am building a tolerance to discomfort and an ability to stay present in pain.

Pranayama is one of the petals of yoga. It is the art and practice of breathing. I do not like manipulating my breath, so I asked why we had to practice breathing. Isn't breathing like the one thing we shouldn't have to practice? CHECK, I'm breathing! A+

But no. You have to practice breathing, so when you are in the midst of a difficult pose and breathing does not come automatically, you continue to breathe anyway.

My least favorite pose is Dolphin pose, Catur Svanasana. I freaking hate that pose.

You probably can't tell this is very hard by looking at the picture, but it is. Or maybe it's not that hard, and it's just hard for me. It turns out some of the easiest poses known to yoga are hard for me - Reclined Child's Pose; Downward Facing Dog. 

But nothing is as hard as Dolphin.

I feel like my head is going to explode with all the blood rushing into it. All my insides are squished together. I want to die.

Here are some other poses I do not like: 

(Wheel)

 (Crescent)

In all of these poses, my insides are stretched, my torso is under strain, my arms have too much pressure, and I feel I will eventually do one of two things: die or fart.

Obviously, either would be equally as unacceptable.

The one other thing these poses have in common is that I cannot breathe in them. I know Jade and Yoga Elsa would say I am breathing, I am just breathing "shallow sips of air." That wording makes me sound like a fairy, and what I actually feel like is a dying warthog about to expire.

One of the things with teaching yoga is that you have to have a calm and encouraging voice, so you can say things like, "Don't forget to breathe! I promise I'm watching the clock and I won't keep you in this forever. You can do anything for 10 more seconds."

But when I am in Dolphin or Wheel or Crescent, I do not feel like I can do it for 10 more seconds.

Ultimately, what both yoga and therapy teach you is to sit (or backbend or sidebend) in discomfort. They teach you to stay with the thing that is deeply unenjoyable and to breathe through it. Without seeking escape. Without jumping to action. Without railing and mitigating and ameliorating the pain. They teach you to remain in the raw and naked now, knowing that eventually it will end and you will breathe normally again.

Brahmacharya is non-excess. For me, the excess has been seeking to avoid pain and discomfort. I find ambiguity and uncertainty incredibly uncomfortable. Where will I work? How will I pay bills? When will I feel normal again? These are my Dolphin Pose. The challenge is to remain with the anxiety and to breathe through it, shallow sips of air at a time.

And that is the work of a lifetime.