Nana & Dominatrix - my inner parents

Fullest Summer Round 1 - Lotus Roots in MYOGA SEASONS for Subscribers, Southern Hemisphere 2024

I used to jokingly describe my yoga teaching style as a cross between a Nana and a Dominatrix. I even included this in one of my very first stand up sets. In my memoir excerpt below, these roles translate into Nurturer and Disciplinarian. Though many of us rely on external influences to nurture and discipline ourselves, we are all capable of cultivating these archetypes internally. In this way we reparent.

Nurturing Disciplinarian photo by Russel Walder

As I did in the last (Southern Hemisphere) Season, I am sharing again from my book Trust the Longer Journey. In honour of today’s heart-centered focus, here’s an excerpt from the chapter

Cultivating Compassion:  Fullest Summer - Anahata

“In contemplating parenting, I was more sharply aware of how my own father wasn’t there. From even before my birth he wasn’t there. Clearly he was there for the conception! My mother left my father when she was about 6 months pregnant with me. While there were a few other times he appeared when I was very little, I can only consciously recall 2 times that I met my father in person - at age 12 and then again at age 29. Each time was only for a few days.

My mother is a vivacious and charming woman so she always had someone around - other husbands or lovers - but none of them were my father. So I called no one Dad. No one. Not even my biological father. In my 20’s I started calling him Sherlock because his middle name was Holmes and, like Sherlock Holmes, he had a predilection for puzzles, the twilight zone, and altered states of being which were usually facilitated by drugs. Only recently have I been able to feel gratitude for my bounty of father figures. When I was younger I focused more on the fact that I didn’t have one steady father.

Sabotage has an interesting word heritage. It comes from a French word meaning “wooden shoe” and literally means to walk noisily! The image I have here is that we’ve created harmony in our lives; we’ve orchestrated various elements of ourselves into a virtual music of being. Then the aspect of self wearing the loud wooden shoes enters into this harmonious song and starts clomping around!

It’s in these jarring, disharmonious moments with myself that I rely on self-parenting. I’ve caught myself being the child who is wearing wooden shoes into the concert hall. I see the child in me that is testing boundaries or kicking down the wooden block towers that another part of me so carefully built.

As the Nurturer - traditionally played by the mother, but in the interest of keeping the roles open and not stepping into the sticky territory of gender spectrums let’s just say Nurturer - I listen and empathize. Perhaps my inner child felt afraid and her fear kept her from following through on her commitment to show up. Or maybe she showed up in her wooden shoes intending to sabotage the creation by attracting attention with her noisy steps. Perhaps she didn’t feel seen or involved when the plan was first created to put the commitment into action.

In order to incorporate all aspects of self, so that the alienated part of myself can fully “buy-in”, the whole agreement may need to be readdressed, taking into consideration what’s really do-able on a day-to-day basis. Or maybe that saboteur in me exists for some real and difficult reason and hasn’t felt strong enough yet to transform her sadness through the regular iteration of showing up on the yoga mat. She believed that in order to get through all the public things in her day, she couldn’t show up on the mat because it would break apart her fragile scaffolds and leave her in a helpless puddle unable to function and meet her responsibilities. So the Nurturer comes in and assesses. 

I find it helpful to distinguish between judgment and assessment. Assessment is recognizing what-is. Judgment pastes a value statement on top of what-is which says that what-is is good or bad, right or wrong.

So what’s the truth of the emotion? Is this child playing at being sad, mad, or fearful? If so, then the Disciplinarian is called in. Now let’s remember that discipline, in its best sense, means to be a disciple to your own highest or expanded self, your greatest truth. And you might quibble here and say you don’t really know what that means, but I’ll wager you do really know what is true. Essentially, it feels good when you live from your highest truth and it feels like shit when you don’t. Simple. Requires skillful awareness to discern, so it’s not always easy, but essentially it is simple.

The Disciplinarian comes in and steers the wayward, and sometimes theatrical, energy of my child self back to the task of self-actualization. Even if this task seems as banal as drinking a glass of lemon water in the morning, it is the follow-through that is more crucial than the task itself. By following up on the task - which we can perhaps relate to better as an agreement we made with ourselves, or others - we develop, establish, and sustain personal integrity.

If the circumstances or emotions that have distracted the inner child from harmonizing with the commitment are true - the grief is deep, the anger is high, the fear is all-pervasive and debilitating - then my inner parents act together to create a safe space for the emotion to be felt, expressed, and released. This is all done without losing sight of the longer journey.

My inner parents, Nurturer and Disciplinarian, help dry the tears and then offer the glass of water to rehydrate. They hold the child warmly and safely, and model slow, steady breaths for her. They steer the energy of anger into an outlet, such as on the yoga mat in an intensive set. Thus, they skillfully apply the resistance to the thing being resisted, i.e. - keeping up with my commitment, to the very thing itself! 

These are the wise parents most of us never had. If you were lucky you did have parents who were clear enough in themselves to serve you in this way. Or you may have had part-time wise parents who could do this for you on occasion, when they themselves happened to feel balanced and connected to Truth. Afterall, who trained them and where or how did those people get their training? These are skills that we might avoid developing because it feels like we’re being self-centered, yet we humans very clearly live and grow in a web, so how each individual evolves helps everyone else evolve too. 

So, in many ways, I became the man, the Disciplinarian, the steady father figure I craved externally. People might not think this from the outside since most people consider me feminine-looking. However, I have all-ways felt masculine, which, in essence, meant to me that I had a right to be self-governing and not seek approval or permission from others first. The tomboy does as she pleases and she’ll kick you in the shins if you don’t like it. Or if she doesn’t like you! Which I’ve done.

People seemed to expect a woman or a girl to be less direct with her thoughts and words and actions than I generally am. Unless I temper myself I can be perceived as “too much”. One dear student/friend has a great retort for when someone says she is too much. She replies, “Well you’re not enough! Be more!”

Also, as I imagine the father or authority figure to be (and perhaps why so many men struggle), I almost all-ways felt responsible for whatever was happening around me. If someone came to me for help, or seeking knowledge of some kind, I would do my best to help and to give assurance. Even if it meant scrabbling to find an answer or pretending I knew when really I didn’t. All of which kept me on my toes. 

I was competitive, ambitious, and driven by no one but myself, it seemed. I have all-ways loved learning for the sake of learning because the world, and my opportunity to exist here on this planet, fascinate me. 

Yet maybe there was also some unconscious part of me that felt if I could only be the absolute best at everything, then my father would be present. Truth was he couldn’t be present. He drank too much, resulting in a number of DUI’s, revoked licenses, a near-death accident, and stints in prison for both the DUI’s and for going AWOL from the military during the Vietnam War.

As far as I'm concerned, it wasn’t prison that kept him from being part of my life. It was the victimization that kept him from shifting out of the past. It was also the addiction to alcohol that kept him impotent from making lasting changes. I learned so much from him, and from other members of my family who lived in the clutches of addiction, that I barely touched anything that would artificially shift my brain chemistry until after I was 25 years old. 

Even though I’d had two long-standing live-together boyfriends before Patrick, somehow the timing and the nature of who he was, and of our relationship, made it such that I began to flower. While I had learned from Charlie before him how to stand up for myself, from Patrick I began to learn how to allow myself to be seen and heard in a more intimate and revealing way.

Initially I was so inept at vocalizing my inner thoughts and feelings, even though I could write them easily enough, that I would hand my journal to him to read instead of flailing through a verbal conversation. With time and patience, I learned how to formulate words and speak them as the thoughts and feelings emerged within me, but this took years. I trusted this man in a way I hadn’t trusted anyone before. Through Patrick I had, essentially, a father figure who was steady and supportive of me being and doing whatever it was that I wanted. With that support I began to blossom. 

Think of how a flower has a sturdy stem underneath it. The stem of our human body, the waist, when strong and active, enables the lungs and heart space to be open, to breathe. With that stem-support, the flower can allow its petals to open and its beauty to shine forth.

The trouble was within me. Accepting external support was not familiar territory. While I did love him, I did not feel the familiar passions I had come to associate with relationships. The sort of passions that could punch holes in doors like I’d done with Charlie! What I did feel, though, was something quite new and far more revolutionary to my development - a steady flame.

India for us was like a time out of time. He had gone there to further his career and I had gone there to decide on one. Love worked its healing ways on both of us…”

Drawing I made to communicate the spirallic and encompassing nature of MYOGA Seasons, copyright 2010.

Now to embody some of what I was story-fying for you from my own life.

Back-bending can be tricky business for many folks. As we move into the heart-opening focus in Anahata chakra, we’ll play with opening all doors of the heart - front, sides and back. I see the heart centre as a four-doored vehicle :). We’ll also establish strong roots to support the heart space’s ability to blossom by strengthening the legs and core. If you’ve just come from First Summer, you’ll still be very aware of how to activate and rely on the core all-the-way-around.

Our element here in Anahata is Air and our pranayam practices will wake up the breathing muscles, as will the leg exercises. As always, honour yourSelf. If Breath of Fire is too much for you right now, stay with Ujjayi or Sitali Pranayams.

Here's what Others have to say about this practice:

"Thank you Melissa! What a beautiful practice, and beautifully communicated." ~Caroline

"Love this one Melissa. Great way of getting back into my practice after a bit of neglected time away. The reading and the familiar postures and aching thighs post-Frogs are a timely reminder of what I've been missing out on. Hope you are well. xx" ~Viv

"Dear Melissa, this is a stunning practice! Beginning with those beautiful mudras....I am loving the chance to learn about mudras and feel as though I am seeing my hands newly. One victory for this week has been that when I move into savasana, I can really feel my body release, and release quickly. Seven months to perceive the next level of release! Beautiful practice today...I feel luminous, the day feels luminous. Thank you." ~Barbara

In each Season, we focus on at least one (what I call) “tricky” pose, which can often be as seemingly untricky as Warrior 2. As you can see below in the uber-short TVNZ spots, we certainly can pop into poses with little to no prep, but greater stability, integration, and confidence is available to us when we build foundations from the ground up and integrity from the breath outwards.

By taking this approach, we begin to re-cognize the levels of awareness that might be missing when other classes or teachers have us pop into a posture without first building foundations for it.

Backward-bending often brings up fear, which can turn into excitement and energy when we support ourselves internally with the breath and externally with the root system of our strong legs and the stem support of the core all-the-way-around.

So if you haven’t done this practice in a while, or ever, please be patient with both me and yourself. Engage fully in each seemingly small aspect along the way and I’m pretty sure you’ll still by challenged. If not, be in touch and I’ll be happy to suggest ways you can intensify your self-practice!

When I first began teaching more than 20 years ago, breathing was barely touched upon and I was a bit of a renegade in my focus on it. Even 13 years ago when I was asked to return to teach for another year on the Good Morning Show in NZ, they asked me “not to do all that breathing stuff”. Click that link for the short 5-7 minute live broadcasts from those years.

Now, primarily thanks to the notoriety of Wim Hof and the need in the populace (due to Covid’s impacts on the lungs), breathing training is everywhere. However, if you’re still new to breathing tools, please check out the Sounds module.

The video above is simply an edit of the same breathing we do at the start of Round 1. I like to give as many video options as a I can for free subscribers. In this practice, we'll play with Breath of Fire, with the arms overhead.

In Round 1 (linked behind the paywall for paid subscribers) we focus on the roots of the lotus. At the very start, we find the roots in our feet, even in sitting cross-legged, and in the hand mudra as well. In Round 2 we’ll move into the Lotus Buds and then Lotus Blossoms in Round 3. The living lotus plant roots itself down into the muck and then rises up into the clearer waters to leaf, bud, and blossom into the air, our element here at the heart chakra.

If you want more time and foundational practice before we proceed to this Season’s Round 2, go to Level 4 of MYOGA Basics.