Marc Holzman, Author at MARC HOLZMAN

Leave a Comment | Tagged With: Ayurveda, covenant, habits, integrity, oath, promise, self-care, vow | Filed Under: ayurveda

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the importance of what it means to take an oath. As I watch a parade of diplomats take oaths in our presidential impeachment hearings, I find myself playing a guessing game of who is taking their oaths seriously and for whom is oath taking just a hollow formality.

When the framers of our US Constitution put oaths in place in the 18th century, it was not a casual proposition. Placing your hand on a bible and vowing to uphold the Constitution was a gesture of sworn accountability and a commitment to “truth” in the presence of God, colleagues, friends and family.

Oaths are not confined to government. Couples take marriage vows (in sickness and in health), and doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Fun fact: my favorite line in the more modern translation of the Hippocratic oath is “I will not be ashamed to say I know not… ”

Even Ayurvedic practitioners keep an oath and ask blessings of Lord Dhanvatari, the Hindu god of Medicine.

So what is this sacred potency that is nestled inside the language of an oath? To be sure, the potency doesn’t lie within the actual words but in the intention that sits behind them. In much the same way as a yoga pose risks being a dry, hollow shape without intention breathed into it, an oath devolves into dry, hollow words without integrity breathed into it.

As I begin to revamp my Ayurveda Habits Course, I am considering asking students to take a solemn oath–a covenant–to commit to their daily self-care. Habit-change science has proven that when you make a promise with specificity–preferably in writing–the power of the new habit already begins to inculcate.

For example, vaguely saying to yourself: “I’d like to start eating an earlier and lighter dinner a few times a week” is a little, dare I say, weak. But writing down on paper “I, Marc Holzman, solemnly vow to eat an early and light dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays” holds promise and power.

Now, that may sound silly at first blush, but really what you’re doing is making a sacred promise to your soul–a sworn declaration honoring the gift of embodiment which is the vehicle through which your dharma (AKA your soul’s mission) acts.

Perhaps poet Mark Nepo can sum up more eloquently the importance of taking an oath to ourselves:

To Marry One’s Soul

Being true to who we are means carrying our spirit like a candle in the center of our darkness.

The same commitments we pronounce when embarking on a marriage can be understood internally as a devotion to the care of one’s soul:

to have and to hold …

for better or for worse …

in sickness and in health …

to love and to cherish,

till death do us part…

And just as two ropes that are married create a tie that is twice as strong, when we marry our humanness to our spirit, we create a life that is doubly strong in the world.

And in this light, I present my oath to you:

In the upcoming year’s events, I, Marc Holzman, vow to LISTEN more when I teach so as to better serve. Oh, and I will not be ashamed to say “I know not.”

Amazing opportunities to reunite await us in the coming year. Let’s have some fun in 2020.

It’s a promise!

3 Comments | Tagged With: incompletion, intention, meditation, Nidra | Filed Under: meditation

One of the ways I create unconscious chaos for myself is by leaving situations incomplete.

I’m not merely referring to errands on my daily to-do list, although, if not jotted down on paper, those mundane errands have been known to bang around in my brain at 3am.

I’m talking about a lifetime of conversations I’ve walked away from without saying what was truly in my heart and mind. Relationships that have ended with no closure. Childhood trauma where I was too young to speak up or defend myself because I didn’t feel safe or really understand how to.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re gliding through your day when suddenly, out of the blue, you’re hit with a memory of an unreconciled argument from yesteryear. Where did THIS come from? Before long, you’re replaying the argument in your mind, but this time, of course, you create your own ending in which you deliver that crushing, perfectly worded, final blow. You are victorious! Congratulations! You’ve just controlled the past. (Ok that was slightly sarcastic).

Life coach and author Dr. Gay Hendricks has much to say about this phenomenon and reminds us that nature loves completion; it abhors a vacuum. And incompletion is a kind of vacuum. The first philosophical concept I learned in Tantra was the Five Acts of Shiva which include, after creation and sustenance, dissolution. So, in the example above, when we leave a conversation without fully revealing what’s in our minds and hearts, a pressure begins to build inside us, and the force of nature propels us to seek completion. Ideally, that completion happens in the present moment in real time. Often, unfortunately, it resurfaces years later as a recurring, painful memory begging to be put to rest.

So how do we tie up all those incomplete moments? Therapy can help to some degree, but I’ve really made some interesting headway through a consistent Yoga Nidra practice. When I completed my Nidra Teacher Training, this was one of the most promising realizations.

Yoga Nidra is a guided meditation technique that harnesses the biology of sleep for a spiritual purpose. Using a series of breath, body, and awareness techniques, it consciously follows brainwaves down towards sleep where thoughts naturally distance themselves. It is here that we plant the seed of our intention because it is here that the mind is at its most receptive and able to integrate it.

One intention I have been working with lately is: “I release all incomplete experiences of my past. I rest in pure awareness.”

I’ve fallen in love with Nidra and am committed to sharing it in every workshop, retreat, and public class that I teach.

12 Comments | | Filed Under: journal

Let’s just say my relationship with straight men is confusing.

I was harshly gay-bullied all through elementary school and much of high school. And while I harbor no resentment towards the male species, I have often felt that I had to work too hard to find common ground between us.

Until this past weekend …

Sixty empty chairs were arranged in circle formation when I entered the main room of the EVRYMAN retreat where I was invited to guest-teach just one hour of yoga during the weekend and to be a participant if I wanted. And I wanted. Sort of. But my heart was racing and my mouth was dry because I didn’t expect such a large turnout. Sixty straight guys and me on a healing journey? Buckle up, Marc.

EVRYMAN is a scrappy, B-Corp startup with an ambitious mission: to help men become better men by providing a safe space to bond, share, trust, be vulnerable, and listen–NOT to problem-solve (which men love to do), but to deeply listen.

Curated and facilitated by a group of dynamite therapists and life coaches, the weekend demands deep, uncomfortable inner work in a group dynamic. Last year, there were 30 participants. This year, there were 60 plus a waiting list. So this scrappy B-Corp, which deliberately removed the second E in EVRYMAN (they couldn’t afford the EVERYMAN domain name) has clearly tapped into something.

For example, did you know that men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women? For myriad reasons, men isolate, swallow emotions, and suffer in silence. EVRYMAN provides the decompression valve.

As the weekend progressed–whether in small break-out groups, around the dinner table, or on a silent hike–I watched these brave men doff their heavy armor. The trusting and sharing deepened. The laughter amplified. Tears flowed more freely while embarrassment melted away. Decades of unexpressed fear and loneliness released into vulnerability.

VULNERABILITY!

This had been the missing link!! It was in our willingness to be vulnerable with one another that I finally found comfort on the soft, fertile, common ground of our shared humanity.

We all have closets. A closet is simply the inability to have a difficult conversation, and gay people don’t hold a monopoly on that. On the surface, our closets may appearto be different (notably, mine sports a rainbow flag), but they’re not.

The commonality that all closets share is that they’re dark and lonely on the inside. And our willingness to be vulnerable with each other about that feeling of isolation holds the power to free us from it.

On Sunday evening, at the end of the weekend, we all filed back into the barn for our closing circle. Only two days earlier, we had sat in the same formation, alone together … sweating, unsure, isolating ourselves in our own minds. Now, as I looked around the circle with 60 closet doors flung wide open, one thing was palpably clear:

In just 48 hours, vulnerability had turned Every Man into EVRYMAN.

Marc Holzman

AYURVEDA 101: Origins and Purpose

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