420 Yoga – Is it High
Time?
If you’re a yogi, then you know all about the post-yoga
high; that floaty feeling that all is well, that you are one with the
universe. You forget your troubles. (And
sometimes your shoes or where you left your car.) It’s one of the reasons we
get hooked on the practice. We become aware that we are not our troubles, or
our shoes or our cars, and that we are connected to each other and that there
is a higher power. These after effects are calming if not downright
intoxicating!
Why not get high first and then practice? If yoga practice is designed to alter our awareness,
why not enhance the experience with pot? Is it just another tool to shift
consciousness? Is it a yoga prop? It’s legal for medicinal purposes in many
states. Just like other prescription drugs. There is no question that drugs can
dull the pain – physical or otherwise – that can leave us so distracted that we
are unable to be in the present moment.
There is no question that that shift of awareness can make us feel safe
enough to look at and explore the pain.
And before I go any further, let me just say, there is
nothing less yogic than saying *I* know what yoga is – and what it is not. Which is almost always followed
by an imperious tone decrying: MY yoga is better than your yoga. Or worse: I’m
practicing yoga and you are not. So I’m literally squirming in my seat right
now, aware of that presumptuous possibility as I state my views.
I know that some of
my students use medicinal marijuana.
Though not in my class, to my knowledge. I have lots of students with
high anxiety, chronic pain, PTSD and other chronic conditions. It goes with the
territory in therapeutic and restorative yoga. I understand the benefits of pot
for pain, nausea and anxiety. I want my students to feel better. I want them to
feel accepted. I want them to experience the deeper dimensions of yoga. I just
don’t wanna do it from the cheap seats.
By that I mean, I
absolutely do not support getting high and practicing yoga. (Keep reading for
one possible exception!)
Here’s the thing.
Life IS easier when you take the edge off. Like right now, I’m thinking if I
had a margarita RIGHT NOW, I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable with how this is
gonna land with some people that I care about, including aforementioned
students. I would be funnier. (Buy me a drink some time and you’ll see!) I
totally get it! When life gets uncomfortable, we look for distractions…. Of all
kinds!
For the sake of
argument, let me explore its opposite. What if it weren’t a distraction? What
if that margarita were just an assistive device? A prop that led me to an
expanded experience of who I am? I’m all about using props to make the practice
better. Advocates say, pot is a spiritual experience. (To which my inner bitch
responds, “So is freebasing cocaine. Is that next?” “So is sex. Are we gonna….”
You can see that the scenarios are endless.) Seriously, though, I absolutely
agree that smoking pot reduces pain and anxiety, et cetera. So what’s the
problem? Why not use pot as an assistive device while practicing? Why am I
being such a bitch?
There is a lot that
is unclear in the research of THC, the mind-altering ingredient in marijuana.
So I’ll stick to what IS clear and irrefuted in the scientific literature that
supports my, oh so humble opinion.
Almost immediately,
THC stimulates the release of dopamine, a feel-good chemical in the
pleasure/reward center of the brain. But what goes up (artificially) must come (sometimes
crashing) down. And after a couple of hours, dopamine down regulates, which can
lead to sadness and even depression. Can you say vicious cycle?
THC alters the parts
of the brain “which helps control memory, mood, concentration, time perception,
and motor skills.” (See http://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/your-brain-marijuana
for full article.) It discombobulates your ability to concentrate and move your
body. It distracts you from feeling what is happening in the moment. This is the
opposite of the intention of yoga asana practice. No one would recommend getting high and
operating heavy machinery. Do you really think less of your most precious
vehicle, your body?
Smoking pot has
really improved my memory. Said no one. Ever.
THC increases heart
rate between 20 to 100 percent! Do you really want to be less aware of what is
happening in your body, possibly double your heart rate and then do a physical
practice that requires more of your heart in the most literal and basic way?
As a student, your
answer might be yes. As a teacher, I have to “Just say no.” And I have. More
than once, a student has come to me before class and confided that she took
some kind of mind-altering medication to alleviate something or other. My first
question: Did you drive? This is where
nonjudgment and nonviolence collide at the intersection of accountability. In
these situations, I have tried to persuade said student to stay for a super
simple restorative practice. (Think SNL skit as you imagine this conversation.)
If I can keep you off the road, I’m contributing to the well-being of all
beings – at least the ones on your drive home.
I get the temptation
of showing up under the influence. I get the pain of isolation. I’ve been in
the kind of physical pain where I could not practice moving or sitting. And I
shudder to think of the damage I might have done if I had taken something to
make me unaware of the pain so I could practice. Because pain of any kind is a
warning that something is wrong, that you are in danger. And covering it up
doesn’t remove the danger; it simply removes – or at least dulls - your
capacity to experience it. And yes, maybe the danger is an illusion, the
psychic pain of separation or the mental anguish of PTSD and panic. I know
these as well. And I believe that trading in one illusion for another with a
mind-altering drug misses an opportunity for the discernment that is yoga.
Granted, I am lucky.
I have a strong practice and lots of tools and support to guide me. So that
even though I may be thinking, this would go down easier with a margarita, I
also know that that is a signal that I need to get curious instead. If I think a margarita will make me funnier,
what’s really in my way? (blow back) I know that clarity will come with the
tools of my practice and the support of a few “foxhole” friends. (For Brene’
Brown fans, that’s marble-jar friends.)
Which not everyone
has. And that’s my exception. I have had private clients who have cancer, PTSD,
or chronic something-or-other who have no one and no thing to support them.
They have taken anti-anxiety or other meds so they wouldn’t puke or panic in a
session. But a big group of people who may have racing hearts and paranoid
thoughts, who are unfocussed and disembodied, who have some underlying
condition that is so serious that they can’t practice sober? Way out of my
league. I don’t even know what league that is.
Instead, what if you
could come to yoga class in all of your messiness – sober. We don’t need more
places where we feel safe to numb out; we need more spaces where we feel safe
to be real; where we feel seen and held and supported so that we can feel the
depths of who we are. We need ring-side, drug-free seats for that.
We need yoga to be
the gateway drug to awareness.
That’s my unpopular,
uncomfortable opinion. It’s not intended
to change yours. It’s just a response to people who have asked for mine. AND
it’s High Time we realize that our opinions, like our pain, our not The Truth
of who we are.
Namaste,
Leslie Kazadi
