This one yoga teaching really rubs me the wrong way and is why feminism and traditional yoga don't mix. This is also my late contribution to the Daisy Chain Flower Crown collaboration.
Wow!!! Oh my goodness! Thank you so much for writing this fantastic, thorough, and brave postI I love, that as a younger woman than I, you are sharing this from your own observation and experience through the years.
I too have been thinking about this for a long time and was just starting to write more about it. Having been in this historical flow since 1984 I can attest that all you say was and – in my experience - is still true in the yoga world today.
My opinions may seem a little bit harsh to begin, but as a senior teacher in this western yoga I feel it is my responsibility to speak up. I believe – as I think you do too Ashley — that we women need to continue to take stock in who we are and who we have been in this process. Truthfully, I think we have been somewhat duped into thinking we have equal power in this decidedly sexist and hierarchical system was even worse in the 1980s and 90s, but this problem has not gone away!
Assuming that in one generation the underlying values we were taught have fundamentally changed maybe just wishful thinking. I'm proposing that we still carry deep scars from all we have learned and absorbed through our living in a hierarchical system that doesn't acknowledge - as fully equal - women's powerful and yes, spiritual gifts.
My observation is that we have both internal and external work to do. We, the women students, teachers, and leaders still need to dig deeper. There is more to observe, accept, and revise living deep inside as insidious remnants of sexism and self bias. No one is immune. We carry our cultures male dominance in our very cells still. But we can unearth it!
I feel many of us — the leaders, studio owners, new and long time practitioners — have unconsciously taken the old sexist, hierarchical model and tried to join INTO it to become the winners! Our self bias has unconsciously stimulated us to try to join their game (and hopefully win, which never happens) rather than set the new rules for our own.
In joining the fight to the top with the more masculine hierarchical paradigm we are try to find our strengths in the wrong place!! We need to continue to change the paradigm. End the hierarchy. Get rid of the "podium" model all together and teach our gifts...being very clear that we are DIFFERENT, they are delivered through different means and approaches to all aspect of yoga. and that our gifts are powerful. This is a time of "embodiment" and we are the leaders. It's time to offer a more inclusive and mutually respectful paradigm of teacher and student. We can do this together and I am so happy to share the path forward with so many of you that are arising now.
Thank you so much Ashley for this post and for all the wonderful work you do!
I totally agree with what you've said Patti and I don't mind at all that your comment is long--I also write books in the comment section of Substack 😂.
I am of the opinion that men ultimately fear women's powerful and spiritual gifts. And this system of patriarchy has been built on suppression of women's voices out of fear.
And yes, women need to look inward and have the strength to trust themselves and their personal experiences rather than writing them off or thinking they aren't valid because there is no "legitimate" text/teacher/book/system upholding their intuitive experience.
I'm a set-my-own-rules kind of person, Patty 😊.
I'd be so curious to learn more about your ideas of offering a "more inclusive and mutually respectful paradigm of teacher and student." We so need it. How can we collaborate to make that happen?!
I would love to find a way to collaborate, Ashley. We should talk more about that. I am just finishing my article about women and yoga in the west now. I had hoped to have it ready for woman's history month, but obviously...missed that.
I really needed this today! In about halfway through my second attempt at a 200-hour teacher training. My first one, which I dropped out of, was led by a man (and he was the sole reason I dropped out — his arrogance and contempt for us was so obvious that he was replaced shortly after I left). The one I'm in now, 9 years later and also in Northern Virginia is led by two women, both mothers, and I'm absolutely thriving in the environment they've cultivated there. Funnily enough, my old male YTT instructor also told us about dishes being his meditation. I never stop hearing about the damn dishes when it comes to yoga 😅
My least favorite, though, might be something I just read on the Yoga Sutras, number 47. The commentary reads,
"Once a life partner is taken by somebody, the wife becomes a goddess to the husband and he a god to her. If one partner dies, the other lives in the memory of that person—as a renunciate, never to marry again. Although the husband may be a drunkard, a devil, the wife will say, “He is my Lord. God gave him to me. Whatever he is, I will accept it.”
That last part shocked me, although I know enough about yoga philosophy by now that it shouldn't have. But still, ick.
So glad it resonated Lirpa and that you bravely tried a second time for a 200hour experience that fit your own needs. Maybe we both heard the dishes teaching from the same male teacher in NOVA 🤣
I've never read that commentary on the sutra. Can you share with me the author? That's the worst thing I've ever read about the Sutra and I've read A LOT. Can you clarify if this is 1.47, as in the 47th aphorism in the first book or does it show up in the second or third book (the fourth book doesn't have 47 aphorisms so it can't be that one). Here are my understandings of the 47th sutra in each of the first, second, and third books:
1.47: After mastering the highest level of samadhi (nirvichara saamadhi), then you will know your True Self.
2.47: You can find steadiness in your posture by relaxing the effort required to sustain it. You can find comfort and ease in your posture by focusing on the infinite. (what you referred to in your comment can't be this...lol)
3.47: A perfect body is one that develops:
-Beauty
-Grace
-Strength
-The firmness of a diamond
I'm a little confused about where partnership comes into this at all...?
Oh, it was in Book Two. The translation I'm reading right now is by Sri Swami Satchidananda. I have two other translations by other authors, but I picked up this one because it was the one most other students and one of the two instructors were using, even though they said it didn't matter which translation we read.
My male teacher was back in Minnesota where I used to live, actually! Although he's been around, so it's entirely possible you may have met him at a yoga conference or training somewhere at some point!
😂 That's a hilarious translation. So irrelevant in my opinion. Sutra 2.47 is such a powerful sutra too, considering it deals specifically with our approach and attitude toward asana. Find steadiness and ease in all you do. There's nothing wrong with that. Why bring in some weird dynamic with husbands, wives, and devlis, lol. Satchidananda did try to make his translation more palatable to Christian viewpoints, so perhaps that's where this misguided advice came from. Regardless, I'd throw that one out in the trash and forget about it. Makes no sense.
Oh, wow, I didn't realize he deliberately tried to make it palatable to a Christian audience, although it makes sense looking back through what I've read up to this point. I don't have a problem with that necessarily, but in addition to weird little things like that here and there, I thought the metaphors he used were almost childishly simplistic. Both of my instructors are actually Christians, so it's all starting to make a little more sense why that's the go-to version there. I think I'll use one of my other translations for the rest and see how they compare since they said we can read any of them.
I'm so glad I found your page! I'm already learning a lot from you, thank you! 😄
First of all, thank you for mentioning me in this post. I loved every bit of this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard to make my yoga practice washing the dishes or some mundane task. Which I understand the intention behind it AND I think as mothers we are told it is our only option left to practice yoga. I am grateful I don’t succumb to that as my only option because my 2 year old already has a relationship to the practice and understand a bit how important the practice is to me.
I'm actually surprised how common this teaching is, lol. Though I shouldn't be surprised. I think it just lands differently when you tell it to a mother. I'm so happy you're modeling the importance of making time for your yoga practice (and not doing the dishes) to your 2-year-old.
Hi Ashley, thank you for mentioning me in your piece and for this very powerful link in the daisy chain! Despite mainly being taught and trained by female teachers (not a conscious decision but perhaps a subconscious one), I have always been aware that the history of yoga asana is one of men and was created with male bodies in mind (and also of the abuse of power that seems to be present in many of the lineages).
Since becoming a mother, my practice has changed unrecognisably, rather than being devoted to being on the mat wherever whenever (often practicing through injury 🙄), my yoga practice is woven into the everyday challenges of mothering (which itself feels like a fast-track to the quest for presence I was looking for before). I admit I don’t make it to the mat nearly as much as before, but instead I feel into and am far more comfortable with my own home practice — my mat as a sacred place to return to, my movement shaped by how I feel on the day, rather than showing up and being taught disregarding how I am actually feeling.
Strangely I actually haven’t come across the dishes teaching (though I am sure I have heard some form of it), but I actively say to myself most days that ‘I choose myself and my creativity over the dishes’. The dishes can wait but my sense of wholeness cannot! xx
I love all of this, especially your affirmation: "I choose myself and my creativity over the dishes." How powerful. I've basically given up my yoga mat. Any asana I do I can do without a mat and most of my practice happens off of it anyway 🙂 Thanks for sharing your yoga practice as a mother. We all need to hear it!
This is such an important topic of conversation, thank you for writing it in such a detailed way and also for mentioning me in the post. I have pretty much only done my YTT with female teachers… it wasn’t conscious… and the most transformative training I did was with Uma who, as you mention, totally shed the light on the impact of Asana on the female body. I haven’t ever had the washing dishes teaching… but I understand the sentiment, and I have to say that Motherhood has been the most humbling experience when it comes to my practice. The mat meets me less but I actually feel more embodied in the true essence of Yoga than I probably ever did. Micro moments accumulate and I realise now that the hours and hours I trained and practiced before I became a mother was to help imprint it in my cells so that I could access it in tiny pockets to help keep me afloat in the challenging times. Thank you for this powerful and thought provoking post. Xx
I hope to study more with Uma in the coming years! I love her work. I'm in the US so she's not quite as accessible to me but thank goodness for online learning. And yes to all of the years of practice preparing us for the most humbling of challenges that is motherhood. Mine are 2.5 and 5 and the last 5 years have been so completely transformative in every aspect of my being.
Hi Ashley. I did my 320 hours yoga teacher’s training in India with a man who wouldn’t even look at me. It was there that I met my husband (now ex husband) I very soon had to adapt my yoga practice to a different life style when I became a mother. I practice yoga and meditate daily. But my yoga practice rarely exceeds 30 min and my meditation is usually 10-15. It works like magic. I’m also a single mum so no husband to “help out”. (I never liked the term “help out” because it’s his household and children so I see it as his fair share) So how do I keep sane? Shorter, but effective yoga/ meditation practices, writing, healthy food, pockets of joy and great friendships. And lots of compassion! Hope this helps..
Hi Imola! I totally agree with you on the equity front when it comes to divvying up chores and household responsibilities between partners. For me personally, I really struggle with asking for help in general, regardless of what it is for, so anytime I get the chance to ask for help, of anyone, is a useful exercise for me. I love your practice and that it can work like magic even in smaller chunks of time 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! It’s hard for me to ask for help as well. But certain things should not be viewed as help I think… why is it that it is the woman’s duty to care for her children and keep the house in order, and the man is “helping”…? Haven’t we made some progress? This is partly what killed my marriage by the way…
Ahhh, the dishes question! I have said that many times, especially when training yoga teachers. (In fact, I'm not at all sure I didn't start the saying in the first place. It was either me or Judith Lasater, I bet.)
The point I was hoping to make was never in my mind that doing the dishes was your best work or that you should even be doing them at all. The point I was hoping to make was that when in crisis — as I was at the time I first taught this idea — it is important to remind yourself that all actions are important.
In terms of doing the dishes as being a practice. It was never about making it your practice and giving up anything else that practice entails. However...sexism lives and the fact is that many of us with children were doing a lot of dishes! How does one deal with the feelings around that.
It was more in response to the very common statement, " When I get on my mat...". My thinking was, "What?? What are you doing the rest of the day?" I could never accept that being on the mat was the "place" for practice. Practice is everywhere and all the time. As a mother of four children, trying to maintain my "practices" I came to the realization for myself that - for me - children were the most advanced and challenging of practices. Not for all time, but for that time.
Dishes and laundry, long nights trying to get kids to bed. Putting multiple car seats in and grocery shopping with 2 fighting toddlers and a persistent 7 year old who wouldn't let go of wanting me to take him to McDonalds on the way home.
I definitely see now how "make doing the dishes your practice" is NOT a useful suggestion for women in our culture!!!
But/and the reality is that in large part we are still doing them. If not the dishes, another mundane task that we - understandably - resent doing. (I actually learned this lesson from a man who told me he liked doing dishes because he liked to be with the water. I love water, so that really spoke to me.)
So, what to do? The suggestion is/was to take action! Yes, political, personal, familial, in all ways to fight for the equality that we so (obviously) deserve. AND, not to waste our own valuable time being agitated and resentful whenever it is we had to do the dishes...or any of the other things we inevitably end up doing, for that matter.
Don't waste any time that might be useful for...paying attention, meditating on the water, the temperature....just paying attention to whatever you are doing.
This is not just for women. This is for everyone. ( I acknowledge that it is not a really good thing to say given the amazingly resilient sexism that still lives!!)
Of course, the injunction to do the dishes with awareness, is grounded in Zen too. Enlightenment is not a state that is reserved for so called "important" moments or actions. The nature of life is radiating over the sink, on the mat, at your job, and everywhere else. We have a choice about how much attention we pay to each moment. We always have that choice.
Practice is sacred. The point is that it cannot be denied you. We need to claim it in all the ways we can. That means, endeavoring to make all of our actions important enough for us to pay attention, attention, attention.
AND TAKE ACTION! Fight the fight! We are in this together.
It is also important not to sacrifice the moments in your actual lived experience that can help you on your own personal journey to clarity. If you end up having to do the dishes (dishes is metaphor for all the onerous tasks) don't add insult to injury by suffering every time.
Love all of this. And I have over the course of the last few months actually learned to not resent the dishes so much. As I said in the footnote in the piece, I completely understand and am on board with the sentiment of the teaching, it's more the delivery and positioning of it that sometimes makes it more problematic and less useful. My whole life is my yoga practice :)
Funny you mentioned the dishes; I don't know if I've encountered that as a yoga teaching, but I've taught it myself, lol. I think I started to see dishes in light of yoga practice because they are such a prominent experience of my motherhood journey. I don't love doing dishes, but I do love cooking (can't wait until the kids are old enough to help me with dishes!). I did used to have a couple of different dishwashing jobs, one of them at an ashram, which I actually enjoyed a lot because people really showed their appreciation. Maybe that's how the concept leaked into my own teaching of yoga for moms. To answer your question on least favorite teaching, I can't think of one but I do have a couple of teachings that keep compelling me to ask, 'But what does that really mean?" One of them is to avoid becoming attached to the fruits of your actions and the other is on pratipaksha bhavana because I just think it's so easy to turn that into spiritual bypassing. What do you think?
To answer your other question, I've been lucky to have many lovely female teachers, but my most influential female connections have not been through yoga!
I like your footnote - the "dishwashing" commentary is a sexist take on the perfectly lovely tantric concept of finding bliss and joy in every moment of your life.
The power we have to choose our teachers and how we interpret yoga philosophy is an extension of long history of yoga. As a feminist, growing my personal practice during the years of yoga guru sex abuse scandals, I got to choose my own path and my own community.
I'm not a mother, but I've managed teams throughout my career using the principles I learned through yoga. It's not dishwashing - but it's my way to practice satya, bringing my authentic self to work.
I love everything you say here. Yes to choice! Yes to personal practice! Yes to choosing our own communities that support us and lift us up! Yes to bringing your authentic self to work and double yes to using the Yamas and Niyamas as a guide to help you manage a team 🙂 If only the whole world could practice this...🙏🏻
Wow!!! Oh my goodness! Thank you so much for writing this fantastic, thorough, and brave postI I love, that as a younger woman than I, you are sharing this from your own observation and experience through the years.
I too have been thinking about this for a long time and was just starting to write more about it. Having been in this historical flow since 1984 I can attest that all you say was and – in my experience - is still true in the yoga world today.
My opinions may seem a little bit harsh to begin, but as a senior teacher in this western yoga I feel it is my responsibility to speak up. I believe – as I think you do too Ashley — that we women need to continue to take stock in who we are and who we have been in this process. Truthfully, I think we have been somewhat duped into thinking we have equal power in this decidedly sexist and hierarchical system was even worse in the 1980s and 90s, but this problem has not gone away!
Assuming that in one generation the underlying values we were taught have fundamentally changed maybe just wishful thinking. I'm proposing that we still carry deep scars from all we have learned and absorbed through our living in a hierarchical system that doesn't acknowledge - as fully equal - women's powerful and yes, spiritual gifts.
My observation is that we have both internal and external work to do. We, the women students, teachers, and leaders still need to dig deeper. There is more to observe, accept, and revise living deep inside as insidious remnants of sexism and self bias. No one is immune. We carry our cultures male dominance in our very cells still. But we can unearth it!
I feel many of us — the leaders, studio owners, new and long time practitioners — have unconsciously taken the old sexist, hierarchical model and tried to join INTO it to become the winners! Our self bias has unconsciously stimulated us to try to join their game (and hopefully win, which never happens) rather than set the new rules for our own.
In joining the fight to the top with the more masculine hierarchical paradigm we are try to find our strengths in the wrong place!! We need to continue to change the paradigm. End the hierarchy. Get rid of the "podium" model all together and teach our gifts...being very clear that we are DIFFERENT, they are delivered through different means and approaches to all aspect of yoga. and that our gifts are powerful. This is a time of "embodiment" and we are the leaders. It's time to offer a more inclusive and mutually respectful paradigm of teacher and student. We can do this together and I am so happy to share the path forward with so many of you that are arising now.
Thank you so much Ashley for this post and for all the wonderful work you do!
With love,
Patty
Ashley, I hope you will forgive me for writing so much!! I am just so passionate about this and so excited about your beautiful article.
I totally agree with what you've said Patti and I don't mind at all that your comment is long--I also write books in the comment section of Substack 😂.
I am of the opinion that men ultimately fear women's powerful and spiritual gifts. And this system of patriarchy has been built on suppression of women's voices out of fear.
And yes, women need to look inward and have the strength to trust themselves and their personal experiences rather than writing them off or thinking they aren't valid because there is no "legitimate" text/teacher/book/system upholding their intuitive experience.
I'm a set-my-own-rules kind of person, Patty 😊.
I'd be so curious to learn more about your ideas of offering a "more inclusive and mutually respectful paradigm of teacher and student." We so need it. How can we collaborate to make that happen?!
I would love to find a way to collaborate, Ashley. We should talk more about that. I am just finishing my article about women and yoga in the west now. I had hoped to have it ready for woman's history month, but obviously...missed that.
Let's talk soon.
🧡
Can’t wait to read your article!
I really needed this today! In about halfway through my second attempt at a 200-hour teacher training. My first one, which I dropped out of, was led by a man (and he was the sole reason I dropped out — his arrogance and contempt for us was so obvious that he was replaced shortly after I left). The one I'm in now, 9 years later and also in Northern Virginia is led by two women, both mothers, and I'm absolutely thriving in the environment they've cultivated there. Funnily enough, my old male YTT instructor also told us about dishes being his meditation. I never stop hearing about the damn dishes when it comes to yoga 😅
My least favorite, though, might be something I just read on the Yoga Sutras, number 47. The commentary reads,
"Once a life partner is taken by somebody, the wife becomes a goddess to the husband and he a god to her. If one partner dies, the other lives in the memory of that person—as a renunciate, never to marry again. Although the husband may be a drunkard, a devil, the wife will say, “He is my Lord. God gave him to me. Whatever he is, I will accept it.”
That last part shocked me, although I know enough about yoga philosophy by now that it shouldn't have. But still, ick.
So glad it resonated Lirpa and that you bravely tried a second time for a 200hour experience that fit your own needs. Maybe we both heard the dishes teaching from the same male teacher in NOVA 🤣
I've never read that commentary on the sutra. Can you share with me the author? That's the worst thing I've ever read about the Sutra and I've read A LOT. Can you clarify if this is 1.47, as in the 47th aphorism in the first book or does it show up in the second or third book (the fourth book doesn't have 47 aphorisms so it can't be that one). Here are my understandings of the 47th sutra in each of the first, second, and third books:
1.47: After mastering the highest level of samadhi (nirvichara saamadhi), then you will know your True Self.
2.47: You can find steadiness in your posture by relaxing the effort required to sustain it. You can find comfort and ease in your posture by focusing on the infinite. (what you referred to in your comment can't be this...lol)
3.47: A perfect body is one that develops:
-Beauty
-Grace
-Strength
-The firmness of a diamond
I'm a little confused about where partnership comes into this at all...?
Oh, it was in Book Two. The translation I'm reading right now is by Sri Swami Satchidananda. I have two other translations by other authors, but I picked up this one because it was the one most other students and one of the two instructors were using, even though they said it didn't matter which translation we read.
My male teacher was back in Minnesota where I used to live, actually! Although he's been around, so it's entirely possible you may have met him at a yoga conference or training somewhere at some point!
😂 That's a hilarious translation. So irrelevant in my opinion. Sutra 2.47 is such a powerful sutra too, considering it deals specifically with our approach and attitude toward asana. Find steadiness and ease in all you do. There's nothing wrong with that. Why bring in some weird dynamic with husbands, wives, and devlis, lol. Satchidananda did try to make his translation more palatable to Christian viewpoints, so perhaps that's where this misguided advice came from. Regardless, I'd throw that one out in the trash and forget about it. Makes no sense.
Oh, wow, I didn't realize he deliberately tried to make it palatable to a Christian audience, although it makes sense looking back through what I've read up to this point. I don't have a problem with that necessarily, but in addition to weird little things like that here and there, I thought the metaphors he used were almost childishly simplistic. Both of my instructors are actually Christians, so it's all starting to make a little more sense why that's the go-to version there. I think I'll use one of my other translations for the rest and see how they compare since they said we can read any of them.
I'm so glad I found your page! I'm already learning a lot from you, thank you! 😄
First of all, thank you for mentioning me in this post. I loved every bit of this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard to make my yoga practice washing the dishes or some mundane task. Which I understand the intention behind it AND I think as mothers we are told it is our only option left to practice yoga. I am grateful I don’t succumb to that as my only option because my 2 year old already has a relationship to the practice and understand a bit how important the practice is to me.
I'm actually surprised how common this teaching is, lol. Though I shouldn't be surprised. I think it just lands differently when you tell it to a mother. I'm so happy you're modeling the importance of making time for your yoga practice (and not doing the dishes) to your 2-year-old.
I didn't think about how common it is and how many times I have heard it passed around specifically relating to motherhood. I am happy too.
Hi Ashley, thank you for mentioning me in your piece and for this very powerful link in the daisy chain! Despite mainly being taught and trained by female teachers (not a conscious decision but perhaps a subconscious one), I have always been aware that the history of yoga asana is one of men and was created with male bodies in mind (and also of the abuse of power that seems to be present in many of the lineages).
Since becoming a mother, my practice has changed unrecognisably, rather than being devoted to being on the mat wherever whenever (often practicing through injury 🙄), my yoga practice is woven into the everyday challenges of mothering (which itself feels like a fast-track to the quest for presence I was looking for before). I admit I don’t make it to the mat nearly as much as before, but instead I feel into and am far more comfortable with my own home practice — my mat as a sacred place to return to, my movement shaped by how I feel on the day, rather than showing up and being taught disregarding how I am actually feeling.
Strangely I actually haven’t come across the dishes teaching (though I am sure I have heard some form of it), but I actively say to myself most days that ‘I choose myself and my creativity over the dishes’. The dishes can wait but my sense of wholeness cannot! xx
I love all of this, especially your affirmation: "I choose myself and my creativity over the dishes." How powerful. I've basically given up my yoga mat. Any asana I do I can do without a mat and most of my practice happens off of it anyway 🙂 Thanks for sharing your yoga practice as a mother. We all need to hear it!
This is such an important topic of conversation, thank you for writing it in such a detailed way and also for mentioning me in the post. I have pretty much only done my YTT with female teachers… it wasn’t conscious… and the most transformative training I did was with Uma who, as you mention, totally shed the light on the impact of Asana on the female body. I haven’t ever had the washing dishes teaching… but I understand the sentiment, and I have to say that Motherhood has been the most humbling experience when it comes to my practice. The mat meets me less but I actually feel more embodied in the true essence of Yoga than I probably ever did. Micro moments accumulate and I realise now that the hours and hours I trained and practiced before I became a mother was to help imprint it in my cells so that I could access it in tiny pockets to help keep me afloat in the challenging times. Thank you for this powerful and thought provoking post. Xx
I hope to study more with Uma in the coming years! I love her work. I'm in the US so she's not quite as accessible to me but thank goodness for online learning. And yes to all of the years of practice preparing us for the most humbling of challenges that is motherhood. Mine are 2.5 and 5 and the last 5 years have been so completely transformative in every aspect of my being.
Ahh yes I’m so so grateful I got to be in person with her. Similar season of motherhood here… 15 months and 4.5! X
I love that idea of the practice being imprinted in your cells. I feel the same way and it's nice to know that our past efforts are not lost!
Hi Ashley. I did my 320 hours yoga teacher’s training in India with a man who wouldn’t even look at me. It was there that I met my husband (now ex husband) I very soon had to adapt my yoga practice to a different life style when I became a mother. I practice yoga and meditate daily. But my yoga practice rarely exceeds 30 min and my meditation is usually 10-15. It works like magic. I’m also a single mum so no husband to “help out”. (I never liked the term “help out” because it’s his household and children so I see it as his fair share) So how do I keep sane? Shorter, but effective yoga/ meditation practices, writing, healthy food, pockets of joy and great friendships. And lots of compassion! Hope this helps..
Hi Imola! I totally agree with you on the equity front when it comes to divvying up chores and household responsibilities between partners. For me personally, I really struggle with asking for help in general, regardless of what it is for, so anytime I get the chance to ask for help, of anyone, is a useful exercise for me. I love your practice and that it can work like magic even in smaller chunks of time 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! It’s hard for me to ask for help as well. But certain things should not be viewed as help I think… why is it that it is the woman’s duty to care for her children and keep the house in order, and the man is “helping”…? Haven’t we made some progress? This is partly what killed my marriage by the way…
I see what you're saying now. Thanks for sharing this perspective and shedding light on a deeply rooted unconscious bias!
You’re not alone with it!! :)
Ahhh, the dishes question! I have said that many times, especially when training yoga teachers. (In fact, I'm not at all sure I didn't start the saying in the first place. It was either me or Judith Lasater, I bet.)
The point I was hoping to make was never in my mind that doing the dishes was your best work or that you should even be doing them at all. The point I was hoping to make was that when in crisis — as I was at the time I first taught this idea — it is important to remind yourself that all actions are important.
In terms of doing the dishes as being a practice. It was never about making it your practice and giving up anything else that practice entails. However...sexism lives and the fact is that many of us with children were doing a lot of dishes! How does one deal with the feelings around that.
It was more in response to the very common statement, " When I get on my mat...". My thinking was, "What?? What are you doing the rest of the day?" I could never accept that being on the mat was the "place" for practice. Practice is everywhere and all the time. As a mother of four children, trying to maintain my "practices" I came to the realization for myself that - for me - children were the most advanced and challenging of practices. Not for all time, but for that time.
Dishes and laundry, long nights trying to get kids to bed. Putting multiple car seats in and grocery shopping with 2 fighting toddlers and a persistent 7 year old who wouldn't let go of wanting me to take him to McDonalds on the way home.
I definitely see now how "make doing the dishes your practice" is NOT a useful suggestion for women in our culture!!!
But/and the reality is that in large part we are still doing them. If not the dishes, another mundane task that we - understandably - resent doing. (I actually learned this lesson from a man who told me he liked doing dishes because he liked to be with the water. I love water, so that really spoke to me.)
So, what to do? The suggestion is/was to take action! Yes, political, personal, familial, in all ways to fight for the equality that we so (obviously) deserve. AND, not to waste our own valuable time being agitated and resentful whenever it is we had to do the dishes...or any of the other things we inevitably end up doing, for that matter.
Don't waste any time that might be useful for...paying attention, meditating on the water, the temperature....just paying attention to whatever you are doing.
This is not just for women. This is for everyone. ( I acknowledge that it is not a really good thing to say given the amazingly resilient sexism that still lives!!)
Of course, the injunction to do the dishes with awareness, is grounded in Zen too. Enlightenment is not a state that is reserved for so called "important" moments or actions. The nature of life is radiating over the sink, on the mat, at your job, and everywhere else. We have a choice about how much attention we pay to each moment. We always have that choice.
Practice is sacred. The point is that it cannot be denied you. We need to claim it in all the ways we can. That means, endeavoring to make all of our actions important enough for us to pay attention, attention, attention.
AND TAKE ACTION! Fight the fight! We are in this together.
It is also important not to sacrifice the moments in your actual lived experience that can help you on your own personal journey to clarity. If you end up having to do the dishes (dishes is metaphor for all the onerous tasks) don't add insult to injury by suffering every time.
Love all of this. And I have over the course of the last few months actually learned to not resent the dishes so much. As I said in the footnote in the piece, I completely understand and am on board with the sentiment of the teaching, it's more the delivery and positioning of it that sometimes makes it more problematic and less useful. My whole life is my yoga practice :)
Funny you mentioned the dishes; I don't know if I've encountered that as a yoga teaching, but I've taught it myself, lol. I think I started to see dishes in light of yoga practice because they are such a prominent experience of my motherhood journey. I don't love doing dishes, but I do love cooking (can't wait until the kids are old enough to help me with dishes!). I did used to have a couple of different dishwashing jobs, one of them at an ashram, which I actually enjoyed a lot because people really showed their appreciation. Maybe that's how the concept leaked into my own teaching of yoga for moms. To answer your question on least favorite teaching, I can't think of one but I do have a couple of teachings that keep compelling me to ask, 'But what does that really mean?" One of them is to avoid becoming attached to the fruits of your actions and the other is on pratipaksha bhavana because I just think it's so easy to turn that into spiritual bypassing. What do you think?
To answer your other question, I've been lucky to have many lovely female teachers, but my most influential female connections have not been through yoga!
I like your footnote - the "dishwashing" commentary is a sexist take on the perfectly lovely tantric concept of finding bliss and joy in every moment of your life.
The power we have to choose our teachers and how we interpret yoga philosophy is an extension of long history of yoga. As a feminist, growing my personal practice during the years of yoga guru sex abuse scandals, I got to choose my own path and my own community.
I'm not a mother, but I've managed teams throughout my career using the principles I learned through yoga. It's not dishwashing - but it's my way to practice satya, bringing my authentic self to work.
I love everything you say here. Yes to choice! Yes to personal practice! Yes to choosing our own communities that support us and lift us up! Yes to bringing your authentic self to work and double yes to using the Yamas and Niyamas as a guide to help you manage a team 🙂 If only the whole world could practice this...🙏🏻