Anyone who has ever attended one of my public classes, workshops, or retreats knows that I am obsessed with the podcast, On Being. I draw a huge amount of inspiration from it each week as the show’s host, the extremely talented Krista Tippett, interviews all sorts of scientists, philosophers, poets, musicians, theologians, and authors about questions that I’ve been asking myself since I was eight years old: “Who are we? Where are we going? Why are we here?” If those aren’t things that you normally ponder or deem relevant, maybe you can relate to this little anecdote and the lesson it revealed.
I’ve felt stymied by iPhone gods for the last 6 weeks because every time I’ve tried to listen to On Being, the audio comes out super sped-up and super high-pitched. All of my attempts to reload and refresh have proven unfruitful, and I’ve considered emailing the show’s headquarters to let them know that something is wrong with their production feed. Then of course my 11 year-old showed me an obvious icon on my phone that controls and normalizes audio speed and the problem was instantly solved. Critical error – my first instinct was to externalize the problem. For 6 weeks it never truly occurred to me that something was wrong on my end, and the result was low-grade suffering (really just sulking). Obviously this is a ridiculous example of a “first-world problem,” but I think it highlights a tendency that we all share. Our first impulse is often times to blame external circumstances rather than to adjust internal conditions and ways of perceiving. And this is one of my favorite things about yoga and why I think it’s so valuable: somehow the turning inward of one’s attention helps to cleanse and neutralize one’s perception, which diminishes suffering and restores peace. Be Well My Yoga To Go .
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