In the kindest way possible, he explained that it was too difficult for him to continue any communication with me and asked for some time—without e-mail messages or calls—to get over everything. At the time, I’d simply logged out and pretended the e-mail didn’t exist. It’s not that I was in total denial. I’d seen the writing on the wall for quite some time, but I’d hoped that it was scribbled in disappearing ink. And that after a couple months apart, Brian would feel different about everything and that maybe someday we could even go back to being friends.
Sprawled across the creaky ashram cot, I felt reality hit me. I had lost my best friend, probably forever, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Maybe the ashram guard was right. Maybe I was a bad woman. I had convinced myself that it would be easier on Brian if we stayed together until I left on the trip, but I could see now how selfish that choice had really been. In an effort to delay the pain of separation, I’d strung Brian along and maybe hurt him more than I would have if I’d just made a clean break the moment I knew I was leaving NYC. And worst of all, I was the one who got to move on—experiencing new things, meeting new people every single day of my adventure—while he was the one left behind to pick up the pieces.
Suddenly I felt sick. For the past two months, I’d successfully repressed any breakup-related emotions, pretending that if I wasn’t back in New York, none of it was actually real. Now, as I sat alone in the Shraddha dorm, a hollow sensation settled in the base of my stomach like a sticky mass of pulp at the bottom of a freshly carved pumpkin. I could run away to the farthest recesses of the globe, but I could never really escape my problems. All the irrational fears I thought I’d gotten over suddenly came flooding back: What if I never found anyone I loved more than Brian? By the time I got back from the trip I’d be twenty-nine. What if that was too old to start my dating career? What if I never found The One or got married and had kids? What if I wound up an old lady surrounded by cats and other scary things, like doilies and dusty knickknacks?
Of course I remembered having had a similar reaction when things had ended for good with my first serious boyfriend, Rick, but back then, I’d been a naive twenty-two, not a practically over-the-hill twenty-eight. And at the time I’d been living at home in Maryland with a huge support system of friends and family. If I’d been back in the States right now, my girlfriends would have organized an emergency intervention session: sappy chick flicks, an overstuffed box of Puffs, and a full pan of extra-fudgy brownies (the real deal too, not the bullshit low-fat kind). Or I would call one of my best guy friends, and he’d be at my door in a second, ready to cuddle on the couch with a funny movie or to take me out dancing until 3 a.m.
But here at the ashram, all I had was a pamphlet on Proper Breathing and Ayurvedic Massage, a lumpy mattress, and a few raisins for dessert—if I was lucky. Just as I was slipping further into my self-created pit of despair, an unexpected voice pulled me back.
“You’re cutting meditation class too, huh?” asked the friendly girl who slept on the cot around the corner from mine. I’d chatted with her a few times in the twenty minutes they gave us between evening chanting sessions and mandatory lights out, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name. “I’m Laura, by the way,” she said, saving me from asking her again.
“I’m Jen. And yes, I too am a Shraddha slacker,” I replied, extracting myself from the cot.
We both laughed, and Laura admitted that she was mainly there for the yoga. I could believe it. With a six-pack that could rival Gwen Stefani’s, she appeared to take her practice very seriously.
“Have you been doing yoga for a while?” I asked, contemplating the insane amount of crunches and cardio I’d need to add to my workout repertoire to get even a single ab of steel like hers.
She sat down across from me. “For almost seven years, actually. I got into it right after my divorce, and it seriously brought me back from the dead. Now I have my own studio in L.A., which, ironically, my ex-husband has been running for me while I’ve been touring Southeast Asia and India,” she added, pulling on a baggy T-shirt, a requirement for our morning yoga session.
“Wow, are you serious? The fact that you have your own business and are on good terms with your ex is pretty impressive,” I said, rummaging through my bag to locate my sports watch.
“Yeah, well, it took a long time for us to make peace with one another, but eventually we realized we were much better off as friends. Lucky for me, I was only twenty-seven when we split, so I had plenty of time to start over.” I mentally did the calculation, and my brain did a double take. I’d assumed Laura couldn’t have been much older than I was, but in fact she was thirty-four. If that was the effect yoga had on the aging process, I might change my mind and move into the ashram for good.
“And really, all of my most delicious love affairs have been in my thirties,” she added.
“Really? That’s comforting to hear. I’m twenty-eight and recently single for the first time in four years and I kinda freaked out about it just now,” I confessed, oddly comfortable chatting with this relative stranger about my personal crisis. “Not because it wasn’t the right thing to do, but it’s hard to say good-bye to a boyfriend no matter what the circumstances.”
“I totally understand. I know how devastating breakups are, but it does get easier. And on the bright side, you don’t have to deal with divorce lawyers,” Laura replied. “But you really are in a great place right now. I’m so envious that you’re starting this phase of your life because it’s the best. You can travel for a couple years, date whoever you want along the way, and still have plenty of time to get married when you get back. Or not at all if you’re smart,” she added with a wink.
Clang, clang, clang, the postmeditation bell sounded, signaling the half-hour tea break.
“Ooh, I better get going before the flock descends. But I’ll see you in asana class,” Laura said.
“Definitely. And thanks for the pep talk,” I replied.
As I watched Laura head down the hall to the communal bathroom, I wondered if maybe she’d been dropped in my path for a purpose. It’s not as if I was already drinking the ashram Kool-Aid or anything, but our meeting just seemed like too much of a coincidence. Maybe I had done something right in a previous life after all?
Just then Amanda poked her head around the gauzy fabric “wall” that separated our bunks. “You okay?” she asked.
“You know what? I actually am,” I said. “I just had a temporary freak-out about a bunch of stuff. The guard was just the icing on my stress cake, but I’m feeling a lot better now.”
“Only you, Jenny B,” Amanda replied, laughing and plopping down next to me. “I’m glad to hear you’re okay. But just in case, I brought you a little surprise,” she said, reaching into her pants pocket. “Ta da!” In her hand were two mini Kit Kat bars from the stash of chocolate we’d secretly purchased for Holly.
While being forced to remain inside the walls of Shraddha had triggered my emotional free fall, in a paradoxical twist, it was the ashram that helped get me back on my feet again (and my head too, if you count the vertical posture I finally mastered). It’s not as if my sorrow and panic miraculously disappeared. But surrounded by hundreds of people, all seeking stillness of mind and mental peace, I eventually started to absorb that energy.
As soon as I got out of my own head a little, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one wrestling with inner demons. Many of the students were facing a personal or professional crisis of some kind. A handful admitted to borderline abuse of booze, pills, or powders. In sadder cases, a few were grieving the loss of a loved one. But no matter what their reason, most considered Shraddha an ideal place to gain clarity or seek refuge.
Although swamis in cotton robes subbed in for men in white coats, in some ways, ashram culture wasn’t a far stretch from a drug rehab or mental health center. Which, in a way, made it that much more appealing to me. A strange admission, I know, but books and films about substance abuse fa
cilities or psychiatric hospitals—stories like 28 Days, A Million Little Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Girl, Interrupted—have always fueled one of my escape fantasies. It’s the one where I selfishly fall apart for once in my overachieving, always-put-together life, run far away from society and all its pressures, and just chill out and heal with the other patients. A product of my hyperactive imagination? Of course. But since arriving at the ashram, I had begun to wonder if maybe this trip around the world wasn’t my own subconscious version of therapy.
As the week at Shraddha passed, something interesting happened: I actually began to let go. Let go of my regrets about the past. Let go of all the fears about my future. Let go of trying to figure out exactly who I was or who I was supposed to be. Maybe it was the constant surge of endorphins or the absence of liver-corrupting substances in my bloodstream or the mandatory hours of silence, but as the days floated by, a calmer and happier version of me pushed its way to the surface.
It was a slow and subtle evolution. But as my legs wobbled up into their very first half-locust pose, I felt an exhilarating sense of control over my body. On another occasion, I was sitting cross-legged on the lakeside yoga platform, eyes closed and hands in the chin mudra pose, and I could suddenly quiet my mind for ten whole minutes. But the most valuable and meaningful ability I gained at the ashram was to send a prayer out to the universe each day that Brian would find happiness and romance in his life.
When Rick had professed the same desire for me right after he broke things off, I’d been too devastated to comprehend the magnitude of what that meant. But as the wounds healed and we reconnected as friends, I realized how blessed I was to have had someone in my life who loved me enough to let me go. And I could only hope that, someday, Brian would understand that too. Because I did love him with all my heart and knew we both needed to take our own time to heal and move forward. That’s what I was going to do for myself and what I’d always wish for Brian. Because we both deserved love in our lives—wherever and whenever we would find it again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Holly
INDIA/SHRADDHA ASHRAM
NOVEMBER
It was still dark as I fell into step with the two hundred other students trudging down the path to the open-air prayer hall for morning satsung. With everyone wearing the mandatory teacher-training uniform—yellow T-shirts to symbolize learning and white pants to indicate purity—we formed into a homogeneous yogi mass.
The humid tropical air clung to my skin like a sari. Greenery was everywhere: palm leaves reached to the sky like fingers, and tufts of grass tickled our feet over our flip-flops. We climbed the steps, silently slipping out of our shoes at the top, and ambled through one of the dozen or so arches leading into the prayer hall.
The scent of lemon oil assaulted my nose as I fell into a cross-legged position on the stone floor. We slathered on this natural mosquito repellent religiously, but it didn’t seem to deter the bloodsuckers in the least, especially when we were stuck in a shoulder stand or other posture where we couldn’t easily swat them. The head swami wore his trademark orange wrap skirt and a T-shirt that covered his protruding stomach. He sat in the lotus position on a stage decorated with pictures of Shraddha’s founding gurus. The framed photos were draped with garlands of orange flowers, and a smattering of burning candles provided the only points of light. Staring at the swami expectantly through the early-morning darkness, I listened as he began a guided meditation that sounded almost familiar after seven days inside the ashram.
“Close your eyes…Inhaaale deeply, exhaaale completely…Concentrate on either your third eye—the area in between your eyebrows—or your heart center…Watch your thoughts as if you were an outside observer…Let them pass by as your mind starts to quiet…Now try repeating a mantra with each exhalation to give your mind a place to rest…If you don’t have a mantra, use the universal mantra, Om.” A deep stillness washed through the prayer hall.
Even after a week of enforced discipline, trying to “quiet my mind” as the swami had instructed was leaving me more frantic than peaceful. In fact, I felt physically ill. It took only five minutes of sitting cross-legged for sweat to trickle between my shoulder blades, my right foot to fall asleep, and pain to crawl up my spine. With nothing to distract me, my restless mind went into overdrive.
Dad would probably have my head examined if he knew I volunteered to sit on the floor every day for an entire month and listen to a man wearing a skirt.
Just breathe in, breathe out…
Maybe I’m being selfish spending money to meditate instead of immediately helping Esther.
I WILL quiet my mind. My mind is now quiet….
Being here kind of feels like boot camp. But I bet even at boot camp they feed you first thing.
Oh Lord, Holly. Shut up!
I wonder what we’re having for breakfast. If the food is so healthy, why is the swami so fat?
My internal chatter was just that—pointless noise. And I seemed to have lost the volume control. I hadn’t expected an ashram to be a spiritual happy hour, but I’d imagined it to be a sacred space where I could kick off a daily meditation and yoga routine. Besides a crazed morning subway commute, a lunch inhaled at my desk, and squeezing in a gym class, I didn’t have many meaningful rituals in New York City, let alone one to connect me to something greater than myself. But my romantic expectations of ashram life did not exactly match reality—it felt more like I was at battle with myself. Rather than evolving, I felt I was regressing.
I’d first fallen into yoga when I was training for the New York City marathon a few years back. I’d read that yoga’s deep stretches would help soothe my sore muscles and speed recovery after long runs. For me, yoga was more about stretching and lengthening muscles than the spiritual stuff that went along with it. Well, at least at first.
Eventually, though, I fell in love with the relaxation period at the end of each class. After an hour spent twisting my limbs into impossible-looking positions, balancing on one leg, and expanding my lungs with deep belly breathing, finally being able to sprawl out on a mat left my muscles buzzing and my mind blissfully silent. I wanted to be able to invoke that silence at will. I wanted to find a solid center in an ever-changing world, a place of peace I would know how to return to when sadness or fear threatened to knock me off balance.
I’d known that the ashram experience would involve entire days where the only things I’d have to do would be to sit in silence, listen to lectures on how to connect with the divine, and practice headstands—which didn’t seem so tough after sharing my bed with cockroaches in Kenya. Though I’d understood that it’d be no trip to the spa, I’d thought it’d be invigorating—like plunging into an icy cold pool and then wrapping myself in a warm towel. The big shock, however, was just how much my body and mind were rebelling. I wasn’t just uncomfortable, I was miserable. So after a week, instead of beginning each day in peaceful silence, I sat waiting impatiently for the moment meditation would end and the swami would interrupt my internal ramblings by chanting in Sanskrit to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god believed to help remove obstacles on our spiritual path. “Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha Pahimam…”
Even then, my knees ached from sitting cross-legged, and attempting to sing in a language I could hardly pronounce—let alone understand—got old fast. Self-conscious, I’d pretend to participate by silently moving my lips.
I wasn’t the only one having a tough time. I noticed that many of the other students had circles under their eyes that matched my own, and they couldn’t seem to keep from squirming during meditation either. Sitting on the other side of me was Chloe, a Pilates instructor and badass dancer from Brooklyn with baby blue eyes and endlessly long legs. She’d walked right up to me the very first day while I was sitting on a stone ledge outside the prayer hall during teatime. “I heard you were from Williamsburg, too,” she said, plopping down next to me. I know I should have been focusing on life at the ashram, but
in a land so unfamiliar, it was comforting to reminisce about running in McCarren Park or hearing bands at Union Pool. Then the bell rang to signal the five-minute grace period between lectures, and we were engulfed in a sea of students not wanting to be marked late.
“Do you kinda feel like we’re in a cult?” Chloe had whispered. “Seriously, think about it: They’re making us sleep-deprived and hungry so we’ll break down. And they keep us so busy so we don’t have much time to talk to each other.” I had worried I’d landed myself in some kind of Indian cult with the militant schedule and guard stationed at the gate. Chloe’s admission kept me from thinking I was all alone.
Now I glanced over to see Chloe drawing a block calendar in her notebook. A few years younger than me, she looked girlish with her lanky body, choppy brown hair, and freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. I watched as she carefully placed an X over each day we’d passed inside the ashram. “How many days do we have left?” I whispered.
“Twenty-one,” she said dejectedly. Another student turned around to give us a stern look, signaling us to start chanting or keep quiet. I could have sworn his eyes were a devilish red, but I attributed it to an overactive imagination—or sleep deprivation.
Straightening my back, I tried to focus instead on the spiritual talk that had just begun. According to Swami, the biggest obstacle on students’ spiritual path is a preconceived notion of what yoga should be. “Yoga is more than just physical postures—it’s about attaining unity of body, mind, and spirit through self-discipline,” he told us. We could master self-discipline by practicing the “five points of yoga”: proper exercise (the physical yoga postures, such as the tree pose); proper breathing (aka pranayama—controlling your breath helps you better control your mind); proper relaxation (such as lying in savasana, or the corpse pose, at the end of class); proper diet (unprocessed vegetarian food); and positive thinking and meditation. Okay, the message sounded easy enough to digest: ditch my expectations, and rein in my appetites. Learn to control my body in order to learn to control my mind. I knew what I had to do, so why did actually doing it seem like such a challenge?
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