Bells.
Sometimes someone says something very, very wise, and it is the exact right moment for you to hear it, and the words reverberate within you and around you like a singing bowl.
You are a bell and the words are bells and you bell together.
And then, later, you can re-hear the words or conjure them up in your mind, and it’s as if that bell is still ringing, still sending faint vibrations through the orbit of your life.
Sometimes so much is going on in the moment that you miss the original ringing, but it happens anyway, and then later you remember and you feel that circular hum around you, clearing everything out with quiet steady truth.
Sigal.
Many years ago, in Tel Aviv, I used to trek to Sigal’s house three times a week for yoga. And by “yoga”, I mean intense body-mind-spirit practice. And by “house”, I mean a small falling-apart shack by the sea.
We were a small, devoted group of oddballs, and Sigal was our intense recluse of a teacher. She lived yoga, and we lived to learn.
Occasionally someone would yelp during shavasana when a rat scampered over their leg, and maybe Sigal would yell at us when we weren’t getting a concept, and at times we would all collapse in laughter, but mostly my memories from this time are about the potency of the quiet: internal and external quiet.
It was the quiet that rang in me like a bell.
Sure, things were blowing up (literally and figuratively) in the city and in my life, but these times with Sigal were for deep tranquility, turning inward, softening and releasing.
Her classes would go about two and a half hours, with meditation, and then we’d all kind of pass out on the floor for a while and then gradually we would emerge from this bliss-state into a slightly more functional bliss-state, and then we would sit with her and drink mint tea and be quiet.
Talking.
Sometimes a new person would show up, and they would either be scared off by the intensity of it all or dive right in. Sometimes they liked to talk, a lot, and you’d wait for the quiet to reach them.
One day this young woman came, and at the end, sitting in a heap, huddled in blankets, steady breath, the steam rising from our tea, she started talking about cellulite, and she wouldn’t stop talking about it.
I wasn’t paying attention at first, because I was too deep in quiet-state, but at some point I looked up and suddenly we were all listening.
She was saying, “I really liked the practice, I liked how physical it was and also all the resting, that was really good, but my main goal right now, like I said, is to work on cellulite since I’m already in pretty good shape. Is this really going to help me with that or should I just stick with pilates?”
Not my area.
We all looked at each other.
Sigal answered, “That’s not my area.” She sounded bored.
“What do you mean? You’re a yoga teacher. How is that not your area?” the girl wanted to know.
Sigal’s eyes flashed. “I deal with cellulite of the mind. Brain-cellulite. But the body kind, that’s not my area, I don’t know about that and I don’t think about it. Not my area.”
That’s not my area. Back to breathing.
This is the phrase that reverberates when my monsters have something critical to say about my almost-forty-year-old body.
Thinking something is wrong with how my body looks, deciding that the container which houses my beautiful soul and allows me to move and breathe is somehow unattractive or not good enough because it doesn’t look like it did twenty years ago or because it doesn’t measure up to the fantasy world of magazine standards, believing all the invented external reasons to feel bad about myself…that’s cellulite of the mind.
Not being impressed by the monster-critique…that’s the real yoga. By which I mean: that’s presence. That’s the ringing bell of presence.
“Oh look, I’m worried about cellulite and other forms of not-truth again. That’s okay. I can let it go. It’s not my area.”
Back to breathing. Back to presence.
Presence.
Presence is my area. Noticing the internalized self-criticism is my area. Saying thank you to my body for everything it does for me is my area. Legitimacy and permission to feel bad about myself if not liking myself is what’s temporarily true for me in the moment, because hey, we all have this intense cultural conditioning to unravel, that’s my area too.
Everything that falls into the category of “how can I take better care of myself, with as much love as I can manage”, that is my area.
Everything that falls into the category of “oh here’s another bullshit thing that is supposedly wrong with me”, that’s not my area. Unless I want to try to heal what’s behind that, because that takes me back to things which are my area.
Last week.
Every once in a while I make the mistake of reading stuff on Facebook, speaking of things that are not my area, and last week I saw that someone I vaguely know, a YOGA TEACHER of all people, had posted something about cellulite.
Specifically, it was a photo of a young, thin, white, tanned, toned, able-bodied woman with flawless skin and a phenomenal body (by current cultural standards), and she was pinching her butt, for no apparent reason, since, in this photoshopped picture, there was nothing for her to even theoretically object to.
The statement on this, from, again, AN ACTUAL YOGA TEACHER, a dude, was this: “Every woman hates to have cellulite! Those hideous looking fat deposits…”
I don’t remember the rest. I asked if his account had been hacked, and added that while not all woman necessarily hate to have cellulite, all the women (aka people) I know hate to be told that something about them is hideous.
He didn’t respond, and I unfollowed, because life is short and I have enough brain-cellulite and internal criticism of my own to explore without needing to see more external reminders of Things That Are Not Truth.
What is my area and what is not my area.
My area:
- Noticing my thoughts and feelings without letting them define me, without thinking that they are the whole of my existence.
- Permission and legitimacy to be where I’m at in the moment. This is me, this is my stuff, this is my pain, this is what I am experiencing right now.
- Cultivating an environment that supports my quiet knowing of truth, my bell state. And if that means removing people/situations/experiences that are not bell-friendly, so be it.
- Trusting that new people will come into my life who share my mission, it is safe to let people go.
- A body relationship based on trust, listening, support, caring and love.
- Breathing.
- Asking “what is true and what’s also true“.
- Creating my own culture, surrounding myself with reminders of what how I want to live.
- Talking things out with my monsters, and coloring together.
- Remembering that there is a huge difference between what yoga means to me (the gentle art and science of getting quiet enough to hear who I am, what I need, how to take care of myself and meet myself with love), and what yoga means to a lot of other people (pink leotards, a thing someone might do at the gym, handstands, stretching). Apply translation as necessary.
Not my area:
- Comparison.
- Trying to “fix” myself.
- Participating in a surrounding culture which values self-“improvement” and pushing past limits, and devalues listening to my body or trusting internal wisdom.
Words that are like bells.
It’s helpful for me to have these reminders of truth, these words that are like bells:
Not My Area. Now Is Not Then. Nothing Is Wrong. Not My Bus.*
If I can’t remember truth, a song will work too.
At Rally (Rally!), we used to sing sea shanties every night.
Singing is calming, steadying. It reverberates. It changes internal space (in your body, in your mind) and external space (in the room).
And sea shanties have a repetitive chorus, which means they work like secret mantras: they replace the things repeating in your head with something that rings at a different vibration, a different frequency.
So if my normal headspace is choppy, jumping from worry-thought to worry-thought in an endless loop: “He said X, and I should have said Y, and oh no what if everyone hates me, and how am I ever going to achieve Z if I don’t take care of A, B, and C, and what if people figure out that I’m no good at anything, and ugh, everything is a disaster…”
Replacing it with something else that is equally repetitive but less zappy — something steadier, a better loop — brings me back to quiet, presence, the ringing bell of truth.
Of the mind.
This is what I try to remember each time I get sucked back into things the bigger culture thinks are important.
Things like cellulite or imaginary numbers on scales or defining what I do for a living or business models and deadlines and accomplishments and “get things done” and “do epic shit” (because otherwise if we aren’t doing things — meaningful things — every second we are apparently wasting our lives?) and all the ceaseless pressure that comes along with this.
This is not my area. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be. I can choose my area.
And right now I choose being a bell. A reverberating bell of remembering.
Comments! Aka come play with me!
You are invited to share things sparked for you while reading.
Or you can delight in saying NOT MY AREA to anything that is not your area! It’s surprisingly fun. Or ring a bell. That’s fun too.
I’d also love to hear other phrases that work like bells for you, or anything useful you’ve received from this site (concepts, phrases, reminders) which do this for you.
As always, we all have our stuff. We all have stuff and we’re all working on it, at our own time and pace. It’s a process.
We make safe space for this, and for each other, and we support this sweet corner of the internet by not giving each other advice, not analyzing each other, not telling people what they should try or how they should feel. We meet ourselves and each other with warmth and sweetness. We practice.
Love, as always, to the commenters, the Beloved Lurkers, and everyone who reads. And bells.
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Thank you for this post. <3
Singing, humming, toning, finding harmonies and leaning into them — these are some of my ways of being a bell, of reverberating. Of remembering myself, body and soul.
Oh, and I am brimming with thoughts and feelings right now. Humming helps.
This post is exactly what I needed tonight. Your words are reverberating within and around me, filling me with their hum, like a singing bowl. Much gratitude.
Hello, Havi. Thank you for this post.
Much of your words work as bell phrases for me, so thank you for that, too. For example I often go “shit is not about me”. Or that changing one thing about a pattern at a time is enough, and “noticing the pattern counts as a thing”.
Oh! And it actually made me gasp one time when you asked Slightly Future You for advice, and the first thing she said was “Let’s habe an RGW.” (replenishing glass of water) Now I practice having more RGWs (which is also about staying in touch with body, and simple solutions, and take-care-of-myself-first). Very cool.
Also I have bell poems. I like to memorize them or print them out and carry them around in my wallet. I think it works a bit like the sea shanties. For example, here are some of my bells for hanging out with the HowDareYouBe(HappyWhileOthersSuffer) monsters:
“you do not have to be good. you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves…” (Mary Oliver)
“..you are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. you have a right to be here…” (Max Ehrmann)
and the entirety of Jack Gilbert’s A Brief for the Defense http://www.smith.edu/poetrycenter/poets/abrief.html
Bell poems! That is genius. I am going to try this!
Yes, genius! Thank you. 🙂 I love the phrase “bell poem”, and the idea of carrying them around with me. I love the poems you shared, and offer some of my favorites in return (not sure if these are all technically poetry, but they read like poems to me):
“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” (Buddha)
“Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.”
(David Whyte)
“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” (Eden Phillpotts)
I love this!
As a kid I used to save my favorite little sayings from tea bag tags, tea boxes, magazines, and give them a place of honor on my bulletin board, repeat them to myself religiously. (Actually I still do this).
“If you don’t know the answers, it’s OK.”
“An elderly man asked his gardener to plant a tree. ‘But sir,’ the gardener said, ‘this tree won’t bear fruit for decades!’ ‘Then plant it right away!’ said the old man, ‘for there is no time to lose.’ ”
“I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. TAKE HEAVEN! No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present little instance. TAKE PEACE! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. TAKE JOY! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty… that you will find the earth but cloaks your heaven. And so I greet you… with profound esteem and with hope that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.” – Fra Giovanni (1433-1515)
Thank you for the reminder of the Mary Oliver poem. Those first few lines bring me to tears every time.
I have always loved the phrase, “not my circus, not my monkeys.” Even when I am confused about which monkey belongs to me and which monkey does not, I get a sliver of delight imagining myself dressed as an acrobat who is sorting monkeys. Invariably, my imagination ends up with all of us hanging upside down in the middle of an empty circus tent with more than half the monkeys having run away because they don’t want to play and they just weren’t “my monkeys”!
I think of this phrase, too, all the time! I think “circus” is particularly apt, because the chatter of my monsters and the expectations of others in my life and the incessant noise of our culture really does feel like a circus sometimes. Not the carefully-choreographed show of the circus, but what I imagine to be all the chaos that happens backstage and between shows. I picture trying to load a bunch of monkeys onto the train to go to the next show, trying to train them to stand in a pyramid, trying to make them behave when there are a lot of innocent bystanders waiting at the gate. And when I can remember that the monkeys aren’t mine, and I don’t need to be affected by all the noise and hubbub, it’s like the world drops away. When I remember…which is an ongoing process.
That book that comes through the library now and then and causes me inarticulate anger, the book that’s about “yoga without the meditation and chanting shit,” the book that is “the voice for a modern generation of yoga.”
Not. My. Area.
Loving myself unconditionally and being present in my body. That is my area. Lavishing myself with love and care and gentleness. That is my area.
Like others I find your words are the ones that often ring true and clear , and go on reverberating for me. ‘Not my area’, is going to echo for a long time here I think!
This post! THIS!!!
Oh, how I would love to find for “intense body-mind-spirit practice”. I have once (sort of) but it’s just not… spiritual enough.
Thanks for the yoga concept of “chitta vritti nirodha: not generating fluctuations in consciousness.” I so, so, SO appreciate it <3
Thank you for this – rang very true for me…
I’m lucky enough to have just returned from an evenings singing with four friends… Singing for the joy of it, the deep reverb of harmonies, the smiles at hearing a new improvised phrase coming out of my soul without bothering the brain… Oh wow was that me?!
Love the not my area – liberation from all those shitty burdens- yay to clarity!
Yum. So much of what you write nourishes me so deeply. Thank you!
Once I made peace with my fat on a rocky shore by a bay. There were/are so many textures around, the gravel, the rocks, the seaweed bits and shells. Lumps and bumps and places worn smooth. Imagination became a microscope and went in close close close to fat cells, saw the storage of power, saw the electrons, the space between the electrons in the atoms. Imagination became a telescope on a satelite and looked at beautiful textures of shoreline, like shoreline of my thighs….
It wasn’t a peace that ended war–plenty of back-talk still comes on the ‘weight’ topic. But then again, it never left.
Once in a while I remember: change perspective, come closer, get the big picture. It’s beautiful.
Oh that is so lovely, what a beautiful (and poetic) image. Thank you!
Havi-isms that have particularly resonated for me – these are concepts/tools/phrases I either use *all the time* now or are just so important to me now it doesn’t matter how frequently I use them, it just matters that they have created some massive shift in perspective for me and have had a big impact on my quality of life:
– fractal flowers
– All Timing is Right Timing
– everything about the concept of superpowers
– stone skipping
– talking to/interacting with monsters
– legitimacy (i.e. all the feelings are legitimate even if, maybe especially if, a particular feeling is not what I want to be feeling…and the resistance and the want are legitimate, too)
– interviewing slightly wiser me
– video game, try something different (cannot even begin to describe how helpful the whole “Smack. Ow.” sequence description in the video game post was for me)
– shit is not about me
– oh wow, what beautiful wishes
I’m sure there is more, but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of this. <3 <3 <3
WEAR and TEAR is a big one for me, along with Shit Is Not About Me. And everything about talking to monsters, and being allowed to *have* monsters… In fact, permission generally.
Phrases get stuck in my head – from books or poems or whatever. At the moment it’s ‘she can’t scare and she can’t spoil’, which is from one of the Hannay books. And there’s ‘go bravely on’, as well, which is a painting that I nearly bought and also a quotation from Thomas Merton.
And then there’s ‘yellow crown imperials’, which was a game my brother and I used to play with my cousin, and if the Weeds caught you then you said ‘yellow crown imperials’ and they had to let you go immediately. I have a picture of yellow crown imperials as my desktop background.
I made a pair of earrings in glass crystal beads in the bi pride colours at the weekend. It’s called ‘Visibility Charm’, and it works far better than I expected it could have done.
There is a church opposite my office, and the clock chimes every quarter hour. And that’s a very good thing for reminding me about what is and isn’t my area.
(Just a Few) Things That Are Not My Area
+How to Take Care of Your [Cupcakes] – not my area!
+How to cook with animal products – not my area!
+[Body Melting] – not my area!
+Zombies – not my area!
+Why my gender identity is hard for YOU – not my area!
+Why you don’t think what you said was offensive – not my area!
+Why you think I should trust [Glorkapluvarians] – not my area!
+Fundraisers for causes I do not/cannot support – not my area!
+Blatantly sexist professions that get a free pass somehow because SPORTSBALL – not my area!
+anything that uses “yoga” and “boot camp” in the same sentence – not my area!
+Electoral Politics – not my area!
YEAH!!!! Not my area!
This is really powerful and I need to borrow more from it.
Not my area!
I like these bells. Many of mine come from music. “For those of you who hated, you only made us more creative.” – Missy Elliot. “I pray one day for accuracy.” – The Cure. Today I have Flight of the Conchords “It’s business time”, because we’re doing business planning. There are so many wise words out there, spiritual teachings and good advice. But what works for me is when I find a song with an attitude that makes me buzz, I play it over and over and over, as loud as I can stand, jumping around if it’s got a beat, until it is part of my brain. Thanks for making me notice this as a strategy I can consciously use.