Turning Shit into Shinola

The highest compliment that I ever received from a reviewer when I was a choreographer/dancer of my own small company was, "Lynn Rescigno certainly knows how to turn shit into shinola." My company had an extremely small or sometimes zero budget and I had to go out and look for dancers that were let go from other companies. The dancers considered themselves flawed but my strength as a director was uncovering hidden beauty in other companies' castoffs. The secret for doing this was letting go of what "proper/correct/beautiful" dance was supposed to be like. Lots of unexpectedly wonderful things came about when I was able to play like a child instead of work like a boring rule-fixated perfectionist. When you look into things instead of at them, then hidden secrets are revealed to you.


I would say that the biggest problem-solving skill that we can ever acquire is the ability to let go of controlling any certain outcome. This is difficult for us because then we are vulnerable----like a child. But that is the point.

Look at something as if you are seeing for the very, very first time.

By letting go of control, the things we need can come to us. An example of this is the breath. You can say an exhale is letting go and an inhale is receiving what it is that you need. It's really that simple.

One of my teachers says that we don't have control over anything at all. We can respond to events that come our way but we can't control them. Our responses then become our practice. When we respond with a sense of opportunity rather than with a sense of crisis then we make shit into shinola.

An example of this happened to me just the other day when my car would not come out of PARK. I walked to work and taught my classes, then i was going to use my AAA membership and then use my money to pay a mechanic to fix the car. I had a sense of control about my circumstances.

But because of all the walking and teaching, i was too tired and needed a break from everything. I walked to Starbuck's in Red Bank, NJ. At Starbuck's, I saw a friend who owns a really old car(1978) and he knows many things about repairing cars. He was more than happy to look at what was wrong with my car. We got out the owner's manual and just played with ideas for a while. It turned out that a fuse was blown and was very easy to change and fix.

I did not expect things to be solved so easily and maybe the things that you face aren't this easy but letting go of trying to take complete control of everything will allow for solutions to be made possible.

My being prepared with money and AAA were not even part of my solution. The best thing that happened that day was accepting the help that came my way. For everything else there's VISA, but letting go of control is priceless.

I know many people will say that they are not able to trust that their needs will be met without their attention to controlling anything and everything possible. But they will be.....

Amit Goswami, my teacher and quantum physicist, uses the example of M.C. Escher's "Drawing Hands". The two hands draw each other into existence.......You can't tell which hand is actually the hand of causation since they are both existing simultaneously. They are both being created and are creators of each other. They exist because of each other and are the answers to each other's questions. So actually, your problems and your answers are existing simultaneously too. Don't blame me for this........I did not make the world but this is an idea of how it works. This is just basic tantra.

On Facebook recently, Terry McClusky posted a picture of his food at a diner in L.A. It was a picture of scrambled eggs and a piece of chicken on a plate. He wrote,"The answer to the age old question of which came first the chicken or the egg, they both arrived at the same time."

Intrigue & Miracles in the Present

It is extremely important to learn to live in the present, we also must learn how to do so happily. Living in the present unhappily is really no better than being miserable due to resentments regarding a time gone by, or fearful and anxious due to the imagining of a time yet to come.
We must learn to be fully present and completely detached at the same time--just like watching a play or a movie unfolding. Being fully present means paying attention to what's happening.
We will succeed in staying in the moment only if we really want to be there. How can we do this???? especially when things are seemingly not going right, when unwanted things occur, or when we are confronted with a present that doesn't seem so desirable.
One way is to try to see everyone we meet and everything that happens to us---even or especially the difficult people and incidents--as special and meaningful. If we do so, we will be much more interested in the unfolding events of our lives. We will be aware of the synchronous miracles which keep us perpetually intriqued and excited by what's happening in front of our eyes. We will be living a sacred and meaningful life rather than a profane and meaningless one. Things are not intrinsically or inherently ordinary and common and we can see clues pop into our awareness like "messages in a bottle."
Swiss psychologist, Dr. Carl Jung called this experience "synchronicity". Synchronicity is the phenonmenon of "meaningful coincidence" and it helps reveal the meaning behind the events of one's life.
Scientist David Bohm said," Everything is connected to everything else. We are not sure how this connectedness works, but there is a certainty, there is a separateness without separateness."
Being interested and aware in the unfolding of our days events, we can take the next step or say the next line without confusion or stress. Acting in the moment is acting without having to think and acting on how things feel.
The method of learning to be happy in the present is an extension of what's called "guru yoga"---of deriving teachings and guidence from everyone we meet and in everything that happens to us. The word "Guru" is sanskrit for one who removes your darkness.
In addition to learning how to stay grounded happily in the present, we also need to sort of float above it. We must learn how to keep up with change. Time never stands still. Being overly attached to what's happening now is guaranteed to bring unhappiness when what's happening now ceases and something new occurs.
We need to be at ease with what might seem to us to be paradoxical or contradictory instructions. In terms of living happily in the present, we have to be grounded and detached at the same time----riveted to the present because of the miracles and teachings that are potentially all around us all the time: but also with a relaxed attitude about the passage of time and the fact that everything is in constant flux.

The Post Breakup Blog

There was a very famous, wise, and fullyy enlightened yogini in India named Anandamayi Ma. She used to cry at weddings, but not for joy. She could see the newlyweds projecting all of their hopes, desires and grandiose expectations on to each other, each one blind to the fallacy of the lofty fantasy.

I have been doing a lot of listening lately. Listening to people talk about the things in their lives that are not making them happy.

A common theme is that they are looking for love that is eluding them. many of them believe that someone else is going to make them happy and fulfill all of their wildest dreams. But here's the pure yogic truth: the love or happiness you experience at any time with any person is not coming from them; it's coming from you.

Actually, as my teacher Geshe Michael Roche says," everything you are experiencing in your outer world is just an out -picturing of your own mind." If you want your world to change; you have to change yourself at the level of mind.

Changing the way your mind thinks takes much effort on your part. Since your world is produced by your habits of thought, you have to break the habit of thinking in a way that is causing you pain. You have to sit down each day and work out the antidote to your particular suffering. You must create in your mind how you want your world to be and then you have to practice being it yourself. This will definatly involve you giving what you want to other people first. As Gandhi said,"Be the change that you want to see in the world."

I have just gone through a breakup recently and it was very different than any other breakup i ever had, at least from the stand point of mind. i have been practicing yoga as a science and not just a hobby for about thirteen years. The scince of yoga is about learning to perfect your relationships; with yourself, with others, with community, with the earth, with the cosmos etc. Learning about a knee joint is learning about a relationship; when it's working in harmony or when it's not working in harmony for example.

My ex was a musician living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His life was an out-picturing of want he wanted: gigs, fame, money, rootlessness, short term pleasures and perhaps a show like VH1 ROCK OF LOVE.

My world was changing too but in the other direction. My business was thriving with students that were dedicated, longterm practioners. I basically created a family that valued quality, stability, good humor, intelligence, creativity and presence of mind. I was able to see the out-picturing of my own mind. I was getting back what I was giving out. Even in this terrible economy, I have a 30% increase in attendence from last year and my prices are on the high end of the spectrum for yoga classes.

Without a doubt, you get the picture that you hold in your mind. Many people have said this phrase in one way or another: Patanjali, Iyengar, Dharma Mitra, Bob Proctor. They are all masters , they know what they are talking about. You should listen to them and quit complaining about everything.

Consciously Designing Our Destiny

The Buddha said, "Even if one conquers thousands of men in thousands of battles, he who conquers himself is the greatest conqueror." He also said, "Heedfulness is the way to life, heedlessness is the way to death. The heedful never die, but the heedless are dead alreay, though living."

The Buddha is talking about methods to end our own suffering through evolving our mental processes and habits. When we stay stuck in the past and in our past reactions, we stay stagnant.

Neuroscience calls the process of evolving our brain and our reactions to our environment neuroplasticity. At one time it was thought that by the time we were adults our brains were hardwired and the way we viewed the world was firmly established. Neuroplasticity says that we can change our brains dramatically and that the brain is designed specifically for you to do exactly that. When our thinking changes, the outcomes of our lives change. We can be available for an endless amount of experiences. We just have to have the willingness to have them.

In order to change the mind and the way it works, it takes patience and practice. We have to take time each day doing something called "mental rehearsal." Mental rehearsal is used by NASA and is also used by many sports organizations. Participants mentally practice something that they have never experienced before. The premise is that mentally rehearsing something becomes as real to the person as the actual experience itself. In fact, the brain can't tell the difference between what it's remembering and what it has actually experienced. New neuro-nets are formed because of this and the brain evolves.

For example, in Superbowl XLIII, James Harrison set an all time record for his 100 yard return on an interception right before halftime changing the course of the game. This is a once in a lifetime experience and was never experienced before by James Harrison. What he had to do to arrive at this moment was accomplished during practice sessions, both mentally and physically. He had to understand how the Cardinals' offense worked and learn the tendencies of quarterback Kurt Warner. James Harrison had to put time in each week growing and changing his brain because each opponent's offense is different. His mind had to become greater and more available each week under the pressure of playing teams he has never played on the Steelers' weekly schedule. Practice comes first....but grace comes in, too. When something amazing happens, like the 100 yard return, it illustrates the magic of grace meeting effort in the natural world.

We can do the same thing by developing our ability to pay attention. By sitting each day for a few moments of mental rehearsal of our choosing, we develop a neuro-structure capable of contemplating new possibilities and experiences until they are made manifest. What we think about, we bring about. We get better experiences when we reach for better thoughts.

Practicing over and over commits our new neuronets to continue firing together. They get stronger until they become our new way of being. We become what we contemplate.

After Superbowl XL, Ben Roethlisberger contemplated having an even greater outcome the next time he played in such a game. Superbowl XLIII was a dramatic contrast to his Superbowl XL performance. This time Ben Roethlisberger was key to the Steelers' win because he was mentally wired for the experience. His last drive to Santonio Holmes was cool-headed and adaptive in the last two pressure-filled minutes of the game. The fruits of his mental practices can be seen now in Steelers' history, giving them the sixth of their Superbowl trophies. Superbowl XL was a template for Ben Roethlisberger to work from, but his conscious attention to improve his future outcome took effort and courage.

Courage and effort equals change, as opposed to stagnation and laziness, which keep us where we already are.

Ben's decision to have a greater outcome came also with the reward of being asked to appear on David Letterman, which is another new adventure that has come from the fruits of actions which started way back at each of his practice sessions. Everything starts by simply showing up to practice.

In the movie What the Bleep Do We Know, Dr. Joe Dispenza peaked the interest of every viewer who saw it with his "I Create My Day" interview. He said:

"I wake up in the morning, and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now, sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down, and get to the point of where I'm actually intentionally creating my day. But here's the thing.

"When I create my day, and out of nowhere, little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neuro net in my brain, the more I accept that that's possible. It gives me the power and the incentive to do it the next day."

The Perfect Place to Be

There is a popular Indian tale about the baby monkey and the baby cat. When the baby monkey is separated from his mother, he swings from tree to tree frantically searching for her. When the baby monkey finds her, he clings tightly to his mother's neck. The baby cat is different. When she is lost, she sits still and cries out, "Meow!" The mother cat hears her cries and comes to her. The mother cat picks her baby up by the scruff of her neck and away they go together. The baby monkey is on the path of effort and the baby cat is on the path of grace.

Grace comes to us, too, when we are still and rooted in truth. When grace comes, it picks us up.....in its embrace. To fully do yoga the effort has to eventually stop. All of the learning, all of the trying, all of the striving, all of the forcing while practicing has to stop. Then, in the being, grace enters.

In the seated pose, Dandasana(staff pose) all you have to do is be there sitting looking inward. Dandasana is like a seated Tadasana (mountain pose). It is a tiny mountain and can be looked at as the "homeplace" of the seated practice. In Dandasana, we find our placement on our sitting bones with the legs like strong roots extended in front of us or for those with tight hamstrings bent slightly. Our spines reach up with ease out of the quietness of our firm base. The arms are fed by the heart center and through their placement in the shoulder sockets. If they are placed well,both the bicep and tricep can extend fully without hyperextending the elbow joint. The palm of the hand comes to the ground near the pelvis with all fingers extended foward. The head makes the dignified gesture of rotating forward on its axis joint and the eyes look inward. With this gesture, our physical body reflects our inward-looking mind. In Dandasana, we can look to the internal invisible practice of Bandhas or locks.

Moola bandha or "root lock" is applied by drawing the sides of the pelvis energetically together and lifting the very base of the spine upward. Uddiyana bandha or "flying up lock" occurs when, after exhaling, a vacuum effect is created with the diaphragm muscle drawing up in the ribs, making the belly hollow out. Then jalandhara bandha or "cloud- catching" lock is applied by rotating the skull on its axis to bring the chin downward.

In dandasana, when the bandhas are applied skillfully, we feel like we are being embraced much like the baby cat being picked up by grace (the mother cat).
In dandasana, we can sit and be. We are sitting but we have a sense of direction and a sense of purpose. B.K.S Iyengar says that all we need to do to have a yoga pose is to have a base/center of gravity and a sense of direction.

Do you have a sense of direction????

When we have a sense of direction, we feel purposeful, interested and content. We feel full of life when we do dandasana purposefully. Our body becomes the “homeplace” for our mind and soul.

Feel your sense of direction as you sit there reading this now.

I Used To Be Like Phillip Rivers, But Then I Changed.

On the CBS sports show, Bill Cowher was asked,"Coach, who do you think out of the 2004 draft is the best quarterback? Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers, or Ben Roethlisberger?" Bill Cowher said,"That's easy...Ben Roethlisberger."

As a teacher and owner of my own business, I am the quarterback of my team. I run the offense when I teach and as many of you know, I aspire to be just like Ben Roethlisberger......so do many little 10 year old jersey school boys who used to wear Eli Manning's jersey--hahaha. But in my 2008 season, I was like Phillip Rivers. Phillip Rivers is a great quarterback for sure, but he commits a lot of personal mistakes with his actions and words. He plays the game well but he tends to be overzealous and passionate-even taunting fans of the opposing team. It seems he means well but when he opens his mouth he gets himself into trouble. He's able to inspire his teammates and was able to turn a losing season around and make it to the playoffs. Those close to him really know that he means well. He has spontaneity to keep plays alive and responds to things in the moment, often throwing off his back foot which for most quarterbacks is an ungrounded thing to do. He's trained well but he still lost to Ben Roethlisberger in the playoffs.

Ben Roethlisberger is impeccably groomed as a quarterback and as a leader. Last year, in my Phillip Rivers year, I started out with a lot of personal skill, I received certifications in yoga anatomy and prenatal yoga to add to my long list of prior yoga trainings. I had a studio in the works, worked for a thriving studio, and at a busy exclusive gym. But then things began to fall apart. The studio had to close because the neighbors in the vicinity protested the opening of a studio with its own parking lot in their neighbohood, I left the thriving studio because of issues with the owner, and I was in trouble at the exclusive gym that I worked at because I told a very disruptive student to "shut up". No matter what I did to save myself, it wasn't working. I had to scramble but i still got sacked. When things hit bottom, I decided to start again at the beginning. Mybiggest strength, like Pillip Rvers' biggest strength, is the ability to interest and inspire people while having fun playing the game that we play. Lttle by little, my class attendances began to improve as I had a renewed interest in making my subject matter fun but relevent to the students. I would say I ended the season making it to the playoffs thanks to mid-season coaching by the Iyengar Institute.

If I'm to make it to the "yogic Superbowl" i'm going to have to respond to situations like Ben Roethlisberger responds. If he's losing, he gives it his all and learns immediately from his mistakes. If he's winning, he's humble. He's knowledgable as a leader, not a braggard, and kind to his teammates, fans , and the opposing team's fans. He understands that winning comes from his actions toward others. He thinks before before he acts and when he acts it is with "Steeler Diplomacy". He has outstanding karma to be in the situation that he's in. This is a practice. Developing karma like his takes complete participation and mindfulness in farming correct seeds in thought, word, and deed. In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Swami Svatmarama said, "Constant practice alone is the secret of success." Changing karma, as well as changing anything about ourselves requires us to let go of the way we used to be and the reactions we used to have. Being different and having different outcomes are very possible. Last night in class, I had students practice viparita salabhasana (see picture). This is not something I would normally do because for so long I had a certain style of sequencing asanas that worked well for me. But this pose is a jolt out of my comfort zone, as well as the students' comfort zone. It is a totally invigorating and provocative pose and it has after-effects that just make you want to get up off your ass and play in your own version of the Super Bowl. It makes you want to write an entry about Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, Swami Svatmarama, karma, and viparita salabhasana all at the same time. Now, you try it.

Sit Well...........(especially in New Jersey)

When practicing yoga a student should sit on a blanket. Sitting well is the key to developing a practice that is both introspective and physically connected.

When you use a blanket, or blankets, to sit upon, you are able to open your chest and receive breath in your lungs more easily and fully. Receiving the breath is the most important component of yoga. Doing a pose without regard to the breath is not yoga, but just exercise. The breath has the power to open the body from the inside. It also has the power to still the mind which is the definition of yoga.

When we sit on a blanket we are able to set up the beginning of our practice session well to have good beginnings and understand the value of starting something in a regal way. We place ourselves and our open chest elegantly, not haphazardly or with a shut down sense of physicallity. When our chest is easily lifted, our mood is easily lifted and it's easy to then have elevated thoughts. Sitting beautifully = thinking beautifully.

When we sit on a blanket, we have an enhanced relationship to the earth, we have room to reach down to the earth from our pelvis and release our hips more completely. When our sacrum is lifted pressure and constriction around the abdomen is eased and the heat from the region is lessened. Our chests can lift off of the abdomen too creating more ventillation of the hot abdominal region.

Students that can sit easily without a blanket should still use one for all of the aforementioned reasons and also because we want to be able to develop deeper and different relationships to things that we are familiar with. And we all are very familiar with the position of sitting.

The value of sitting well has not been hard to teach to students in the places I have taught. However, it has been difficult to teach in the state of New Jersey where the relationships as well as the air are mostly bad, and the egos big. haha. Please, New Jerseyans, sit up on a blanket at the beginning of class.