a love letter on growth
Hello you,
I’m back on my deck, again. It’s Saturday afternoon, and I just finished co-leading an event for my teacher, my friend, Tiffany. One day, I’ll tell you all about her, but for now, I’ll simply say that my evolution as a teacher is largely credited to her.
I’ve been thinking a lot about growth lately: how it seems to work damn hard to be inevitable. Sometimes we strive for it. We read more, we exercise more; we meditate, practice yoga, go to therapy. And sometimes, despite our very best efforts, it happens to us. We lose our people. We survive abuse or rape or disease. We find ourselves over-worked and under-rested.
We wake up in the middle of a goddam pandemic.
And then we are stunned into stillness, paralyzed by circumstances. Growth is demanding our refusal to sit in the gap of ambivalence, leaving us with a choice to make. Will we choose to lean into the fray or numb ourselves from it?
On Tuesday evening, I was talking with a friend about last week’s letter and how jarring it is to realize that mental health, like life, is so nuanced. What do I mean by this? Well, when growth made its demands of me, I chose numbness. And I chose it in the name of strength, but what I realize now is that I wasn’t being strong. What I was was impenetrable.
Our experiences can shape our thoughts, but how freeing is it to flip that, you know? What if, instead, our thoughts shaped our experiences?
The next morning, I woke up to an email filled with post-conversation afterthoughts. If you’ve come to my classes, you know I like to offer little vignettes when I teach, and if you’ve come to my classes, you’ve probably heard me quote my friend. Please indulge me while I do so here. The man is annoyingly in tune, which is to say that his insight is pretty special.
“May is Mental Health month and how fitting that the color that represents this awareness is green. You have a lot of green going on at your house, between the herbs and the grass, the universe is surrounding all of us with the precious reminder that green is growth from the cold bitterness that is winter, and perhaps that is why mental health month is so fitting placed in May.”
I never considered the subtle symbolism. I’m not even sure I knew that mental health awareness month is represented by green, but again with the nuance.
Because growth is impossible without vulnerability, and vulnerability feels better when it’s a choice, I’m choosing to share my reply with you.
“Please allow me to expand... Green is also my favorite color. Never mind that I'm forty-five years old and still maintain a favorite color. It has always been a truth, and I'm content to let it be until it isn't. It also - and this is just occurring to me as I spend a little time at Ellis Island working between classes - is the color of Anahata, or, in English: the heart chakra. Anahata's Sanskrit translation is unhurt or unbeaten. There is great beauty in irony, isn't there? It - the heart chakra - is noted as the origin point of love, compassion, and joy, which is probably why it resonates with me as another favorite. According to Hindu and Buddhist traditions, it's associated with balance and serenity. God grant me, right?
My overly practical nature had me shunning the idea of chakras for years, before my overly practical nature challenged itself, which is to say I reframed my viewpoint. As I studied them further in one of my trainings, I came to the realization that these are just pretty names for things that already exists. We feel and radiate love, compassion, joy, and serenity from our hearts, after all. And when circumstances create a hiccup, we feel it in our hearts. In other words, when our heart chakra is blocked, our joy, our serenity begins to wane, and it shows in our behavior. In other other words, when we are heartbroken, we are more likely to act like dicks.
It's worth noting that Anahata is at the center, bridging the gap between the three upper chakras and the three lower. Whatever is happening there radiates, for better or worse. A little deeper dive into this takes me to a more esoteric space than feels something short of meritable, but the foundation feels right.
Anyway, it, too, is green. Anahata.”
Well, I need to give my plants a little attention before time gets any further away from me. Miraculously, I’ve finally learned how to keep them alive. I’ve finally learned that growth, whether personal or floral, is particularly rewarding when we choose to invest in it.
With love always,
Adi
p.s. While I do find certain elements of the chakra concept to be a bit too esoteric, they are an interesting study. Both this link and this one will lead you on a nice journey through them.
