Are you HEALTHY/REPRESSED?
I subscribe to a newsletter by Yeah Dave, The Schtick. Its a wonderfully REAL account of a yoga teacher’s journey through life, and his humorous take on everyday life’s events. So I opened up my mail today and I saw an email update for his blog site. So I clicked on it and read this interesting piece.
A few weeks back, he had attended a wedding. As the party reached full tilt, he ran into a group of people smoking cigarettes. “Hey can I bum a smoke?” he asked. Most of them know what he does for a living (teach yoga) and looked at him with an expression of such surprise and disappointment as if he’d just, I quote him, “unzipped my fly, hung some brain, and said, ‘Do you guys mind? All that dancing is making sweaty.’” Apparently, it was that awkward. ”Big deal, so I have a cigarette 3 times a year. Go ahead, circumcise me, or wait, that’s not the expression…crucify me!”
Well, I don’t smoke, and I’m pretty allergic to alcohol, so for the most part, I turn it down. But once in awhile I’ll loosen up that danda (staff) from within my a** and just have some fun… Nevermind that I get itchy, splotchy and extremely ugly. Its just one of the many benefits of being Asian. And that’s all secondary to fun 
But whenever I do, I still get questions from people who seem to monitor my life’s fun index as if they were traders in my life market! So going back to Dave, he made a rather nice comparison btw HEALTH (very important), and REPRESSION (very important NOT to have).
Let’s take a moment to define the difference between wellness and repression. Wellness is one’s honest aspiration to a healthy diet, consistent exercise, loving relationships, and here and there allowing those cute little inner demons to come out and play. Otherwise, those demons, repressed, will scratch and claw their way into your life via what the Bhagavad Gita defines as their 3 entry points: lust, anger, and greed. But suggesting a path to wellness that eliminates all vices entirely is completely unrealistic for 95% of Americans (or, the world for that matter).
Life is a grind and we must reserve the right to sometimes let loose. Or…the stress we keep in and the frustrations we hold back will be as toxic as the worst addictions.
On that note, I now sign off. But not before I reach forward for that bar of dark chocolate that has been silently eyeing me the whole time I’ve been sitting here. Come to momma….
*No yogis were harmed in the photoshoot