Anthony Ware’s personal story is weaved into a holistic lifestyle guide for men to make positive seismic life shifts while showing that yoga isn’t about twisting like a pretzel.
Most days, I’m a guy getting his Zen on. But that’s not the way life has always been for me. Growing up, I was an overweight “husky” kid that spoke “white” and got good grades. Although I had a healthy sense of humor, I developed many negative habits to mask body image issues. My body image and self-esteem issues stuck with me until my mid-30s…when I added a yoga practice to my lifestyle.
It was a cold Fall day in Chicago back in 2005 when I walked into my first yoga class. I started practicing to meet women and train for a half-marathon. It helped that the class was included in my membership at XSport Fitness in the Old Town Neighborhood.
During my first class, I tried to muscle through all the poses and forgot to breathe on more than one occasion. Sound familiar? That first class was brutal. It didn’t help that I was trying to “man up” during the tough poses instead of backing off and asking for help.
What l loved for that hour of class was how the rest of my crazy world disappeared. Almost 9 years later, I’m still practicing but my reasons have evolved to support the changes in my life. My practice has been a grounding force during business failures, heartbreak, losing everything, periods of depression, and now thriving with a healthy dose of self-love.
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By the time 2010 rolled around, I had a regular yoga practice consisting of a few days a week. It was mostly physical—the poses. It would take me losing everything and hitting rock bottom to realize I still had much to learn. In August of 2010, I had the bright idea to register for yoga teacher training. It wasn’t the best time considering my life was in a steep downward spiral. I was an emotional wreck and flat broke thanks to a recent business failure.
A few weeks into the training, I was smack dab in the middle of learning about hip opening poses when a river of emotion hit me like a ton of bricks. Tears were streaming down my face—I had lump in my throat the size of an apple. My hips were hurting yet feeling good at the same time. Waves of emotions and memories rushed over me.
My first thoughts were, “How did I find myself in this situation?”, “What the hell?”, “Not so manly”. I was a hot mess, but I tried to play it cool. Of course I tried to play it cool—I’m a guy! And we are programmed to think that emotions and vulnerability are signs of weakness. It’s key part of our “man code”.
As it turns out, the weight of years of repressed emotions from playing the strong role and not sharing feelings is not a good thing. Who knew? Instead of, or maybe, in addition to…a healthy dose of pent-up frustration from life, I had a mixed bag of emotions locked away. Stressed out had become my normal. Through a lifetime of practice, I had become an expert at stockpiling emotions.
If someone asked me, “How are you?” I would reply with “fine” (F.I.N.E., as in ‘Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional,’ ‘Feeling Inadequate, Needing Encouragement’ or ‘Feelings Inside Not Expressed’). The result was a Pandora’s Box spring-loaded with dynamite. The only thing it needed was a spark, something like a death in the family—or maybe a hip opening class.
Oh those hips…Hip opening poses helped me learn how dangerous it was to lock up emotions, and that sometimes those emotions can suddenly explode on you.
In the hours that followed my hip moment, I had flashbacks of Papa, my paternal grandfather, who had died on my birthday; Damon, my youngest brother who had committed suicide in 2003 at the age of 22; and random thoughts of days gone by. I thought I had addressed those issues, but in reality there had been a ton of emotions lingering.
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Yoga is an old-school technology used in modern society. It can help you be more connected with your thoughts, fears, hopes and passions. You could think of the parts of your yoga practice as a bundle of apps for vulnerability—a sign of real strength—and self-awareness. Yoga isn’t about fancy poses or turning yourself into a pretzel.
My intention is to help the fellas connect to the benefits of a yoga practice and make mindful living more accessible to them. For example, guys complain about stress or emotional confusion, and yet we don’t make time for ourselves. We often wait until the stress explodes into a major health, job or relationship issue.
I want to help as many guys as possible get unstuck, chill a little and start living happier lives—whatever happy means to them—by adding a yoga practice to their lives. By helping the fellas, I have the chance to impact their lives and help them make a positive impact on their friends and family.
Flexibility Not Required isn’t a one-time read. It’s a lifestyle guide for self-guided, experiential learning…a toolkit it to help you get your shit together.
You can read it from beginning to end or skip to the chapter that resonates with you today. I provide you with knowledge and guidance not strict rules. Take what’s useful for you today and incorporate into your life. Leave the rest for another day. Flexibility Not Required will help you create subtle and seismic shifts in your perspective, lifestyle, relationships, health, mindset and behaviors.
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Peep this…a yoga practice cleans out the clutter in your life—physical, emotional and mental. The benefits to your sex life are secondary. There’s nothing you need to improve. No blue pill. No row boats or side-by-side bathtubs. Just you getting to know you. It helps you clear the life clutter that we worked so hard to build up over the years. If you want real mind-blowing sex, you aren’t going to find it from a pill or anything external. In fact, I think you need to stop worrying about sex and focus on cleaning your mental house.
We have to take a trip inside ourselves and become more aware of our physical and mental health. This is the first step. We must become more connected to our own sexuality before even thinking about sharing our mind, body, emotions and attention with anyone else. We need to weed our garden.
Our weeds are all the things that cause stress, anxiety, depression and self-esteem issues. This includes the macho mentality that we lean on as a crutch. If you asked me 10 years ago, I would have said that sex is all about how long I can last, my size and the number of partners I’ve had. I’ve heard ‘once you go black, you don’t go back’ way too many times. In the past, I’d laugh it off but then I would freak out about my sexual performance.
Today, I think sex is grounded in my ability to be fully present for me and my partner.
Presence is the key to intimacy. Before you can be present for your partner, you need to learn to be present for yourself. You can’t have one without the other.
A yoga practice—meditation, breathing or any combination of the 8 Limbs—teaches you to be present for yourself.
On a deeper level (yes, I said deeper), a regular yoga practice can help you to start loving your body. As a former “husky” kid, I carried body image issues with me for over 30 years. Even as I went from 165 lbs to 215 lbs and back to 160 lbs over the past 10 years, you would think that I would have started to feel better about myself. Not at all.
It wasn’t until I added a yoga practice to my lifestyle that I started to appreciate and love me for the person I am. My self-love turned into a new level of confidence. It has been much easier to be present for myself and my partners now that I’m not totally absorbed in tearing myself down with mental bombs.
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Did you know that only men were allowed to practice yoga?
Imagine that…world with no yoga pants, or juice bars or three-day music and yoga festivals. It was a bunch of dudes seeking some level of enlightenment from a teacher…a male teacher. Today, many men will only practice if their doctor told them or their partner drags them to class.
Even though the world has changed on many levels since those early manly days of yoga, the fundamentals have stood the test of time. Your challenge is to practice and explore how they can support your journey.
The 2000+ year-old seminal yoga book, Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, defines yoga as “the cessation of the fluctuation of the mind.” My interpretation is that yoga is the practice of hanging with the rapid changes in your mind until they become white noise…background clutter that allows you to focus on the present moment.
The word yoga means union. It comes from the Sanskrit word “yuj,” to yoke The union is between the individual and the Divine—you define what Divine means to you. For some people it’s God or a god, the Universe or just something bigger than themselves. I think Divine is the flowing current of Life in this vast universe that exists on levels I cannot comprehend.
A yoga practice helps to improve your connection or reconnection to the world around you and with yourself. The connection I’m talking about is a sense of awareness like walking by a tree and noticing what is happening to the leaves not just the trunk or actually listening to the person when you ask “How was your day?”.
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When I was a kid, there were two house rules related to hanging out in the kitchen. First, you could help cook. Second, you could clean. Choose one or leave the kitchen. I usually choose the former over the latter.
My dad or great-grandmother would let me stir the final mixture in a bowl or help scoop out spoonfuls of flour, spices or butter. For the desserts, I got to lick the bowl or spoon. One thing that stuck with me is that I rarely saw them use a recipe book.
As I got older, I started to cook on my own. By older, I mean 8-years-old. In the mornings before school, my brothers and I would cook variations of French toast, eggs, pancakes and bacon. For dinner, my dad left us a note to cook whatever he set out on the counter. When he had time between his day job and his business, he would throw down on comfort meals that included veggies, cornbread, liver, mac & cheese, chicken wings…you get the point.
My favorite meal dad cooked was a strawberry cake with strawberry icing. Dad never measured the ingredients as he put them into the big mixing bowl. He said that he could tell by the look and feel of the cake batter. Between the four of us, it never lasted more than two days. To this day, it’s the best cake I’ve ever tasted.
What’s cooking have to do with adding a yoga practice to your life? Everything.
A few comparisons include:
- Some people won’t like the new menu items and bitch about it directly or with sarcasm.
- You’ll have people that want to borrow your recipes because they like the results.
- Don’t add too much spice at once or your taste buds my hate you.
- You can create new concoctions with the ingredients you already have available.
- You won’t become a celebrity chef overnight.
- You can’t order take-out for this process…you must do the work.
A yoga practice is an addition to your lifestyle not a quick fix. If you try to rush the process, you may end up back where you began with a little extra frustration. Even though you’ll start to notice small changes in the beginning, lifestyle changes take time.
Focus on learning a little and then figure out how to incorporate it into something you’re already doing. For example, if you’re a runner, you can use your breathing practice (Pranayama). Back to cooking, you can practice cleanliness (Saucha) in the kitchen. Two ingredients that I’ve combined over the past three years are shaving and mediation.
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I love food, but it hasn’t always been an easy relationship. In 2003, I weighed 215 lbs. Today, I’m back to my high school weight—165 lbs. My change didn’t happen overnight. I’ve worked through my unhealthy eating habits. From bored eating to emotional eating after breakups or bouts of depression, I’ve done it.
Women don’t have a monopoly on pints of Häagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. During a rock bottom night, three years ago, I ate an entire DiGiorno’s Pizza, two Big Kit Kats and a Vito (Italian meats) sandwich from Jimmy John’s. All of that in a three-hour span, I ate all of it because I was depressed that day. The quick, feel-good moment was great but I paid for it for the next few days. It was an epic food hangover.
My yoga practice has helped me to become more aware when crisis moments start to creep into my life that trigger the feelings and reasons I want to eat—my food response.
On normal days, my yoga practice has helped increase my awareness of the impact of what I eat has on my body and energy levels. For example, when I eat a burger and fries, I feel sluggish and full. On the other hand, when I eat an avocado and portobello mushroom sandwich, I feel full but not sluggish. If I start to crave a Kit Kat, I pause to see if I’m trying to mask an emotion or just want something sweet.
No need to make big changes. You aren’t going on a diet. You are changing your lifestyle and have several eating choices including Paleo, Plant-based, Vegan, Pescatarin (fish is cool) and Omnivore. Try all of them. It’s your choice. Just don’t follow a trend or fad. Your eating habits evolve with your lifestyle. Your yoga practice will help you become more aware of the impact of what you eat has on your energy, sleeping and overall feeling.
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A fascinating part of a yoga practice is the impact it has on how I view the world and my relationships within it. It’s inevitable that change will happen between you and your family and significant other (if you have one); your friends (new and old) and most important…you with yourself. Why does this happen?
One of the main reasons is that you begin to develop or strengthen your connection to your awareness. Not a Spidey Sense or even The Force for that matter. Through your yoga practice you start to peel away layers of bullshit that you built up over the years. The layers take the form of stress, macho attitudes, stubbornness, never-show emotion layers of life. All the stuff that a real man isn’t supposed to do.
Your awareness has always been there but it was buried. I’m not a handyman but it’s like when you renovate the floor an old house. You tear up the 1970′s shag carpet and scrape away 7 layers of paint. When all your hard work is complete, you find an incredible hardwood floor beneath all that crap.
The hardwood floor minus the crap is your awareness. Even though you can’t see it, your awareness is what helps accelerate the changes in your life. It creates the space in your mind to observe and respond in your life.
This new level of connection with your awareness will create space for you to hit the pause button in your life. The result will be a chance to evaluate situations from different perspectives than before you peeled back the layers. This leads to a different set of behaviors, lifestyle choices, and most important…outcomes. For example, you start to become more aware of the impact certain foods have on your body.
Your internal monologue sounds something like this…“After eating X, I feel slow and tired. When I ate Y, I had an increased level of energy compared to X.” Your awareness gives you a moment of pause to fine tune your eating habits.
Your new level of awareness will cause you to lose friends and alienate some family members. That’s their issue not yours. They may say, “Why are you trying to change?” or something along those lines. Their comments may be hidden in sarcasm.
Seriously, people will take offense with you for taking time for you instead of focusing on what’s happening in their lives. On the other hand, you may spark something in them. I prefer that latter…that’s the optimist in me.
One last benefit of this connection to your awareness is you start to really hear – not just listen – to your inner voice. Negative and self-defeating thoughts start to jump out like drops of water in a pan of hot oil. This creates another opportunity for evaluation just like the food example.
I’ve only scratched the surface but you have to start somewhere. The more knowledge you have and are able to incorporate into your life the more you build confidence. Awareness is a key component of that process.
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Flexibility Not Required: Yoga for Guys v1.08 by Anthony Ware is now available through Anthony’s website, www.zendoughboy.com, and in August on Amazon. Join Anthony on Twitter @zendoughboy or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/zendoughboy, and make sure to sign up for his newsletter on his website.
Photo: 256-722