Me and my Wrench

31 January , 2010. Denise Ferguson

I bought a wrench today. It was a very liberating experience. This morning at 7am as I was filling the watering can to water the garden, the outside tap seized up and wouldn’t turn off. I had to turn the water off at the mains (which was an event in itself for me) and deal with the problem after yoga. With the male part of the home do-up equation living in Australia, I have found myself many times being confronted with the fact that if I want it done, I have to do it myself. So today when confronted with the ‘tap that won’t turn off’ predicament, I bought a new tap, and a wrench and I changed the tap myself. I used to be pathetic when it came to guy stuff, so when I phoned Mum to tell her I fixed it, she actually put the phone on speaker so my sister could hear. My sister cheered in the background and has nicknamed me ‘Bob the Builder’. Peter the Plumber would be more appropriate, but what would she know... she can’t change taps. When I told my ex, he promised to reward me with more tools and a tool-kit. He also confessed that, after spending half of his life in the Army, then Navy and serving in Iraq, even he has never changed a tap. Hmmm, nice to know the Australian Defence Force keeps the world safe with Lieutenants who can’t even change taps. Who’s the pathetic one now?

Okay, I know it’s not that much of an achievement, but for me it was. After christening my wrench, I put it next to my hammer, hand drill, screwdrivers and measuring tape then went back outside to study my workmanship. I have come a long way from trying to sand the ceiling without putting sandpaper on the sandpaper holder-thing. I had made assumptions that (a) I am not capable of doing some things and that (b) even if I was, I was not interested. How wrong I was. I have now let go of the limitations I once placed on myself and am ready to tackle any problem with an open mind and a deep breath. I may still not know the name of the sandpaper thing but I do know that it only works if you put sandpaper on it.

Dad

27 January , 2010. Denise Ferguson

I’ve been getting quite into my gardening lately and I have a tomato plant which is laden with tomatoes. In the early morning or evening, as I water and tend to the garden, I have started thinking of my late father who was an avid gardener himself. Every time I pick some tomatoes, I think about sitting around the dinner table as a child; Dad would remind us every night that the vegetables we ate had been grown by him. It didn’t change the fact that I thought vegetables where disgusting. I used to casually sneak peas and cauliflower off my plate and drop them under the table. When we got new carpet Mum told me that I wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. I was shocked that she had known all along! Once (after being left at the table because I refused to eat my dinner), I ran outside and threw my veggies in a tree. Mum threatened to make me go and get them and told me I’d have to eat them anyway. I thought it was mild child abuse.

These days I love my veggies, and I love eating the ones that I grew even more. What would be even more special would be to eat some vegetables proudly grown by my father but that won’t happen. We often don’t appreciate the things we have until they are gone. I now use my gardening time to reflect on Dad and practice gratitude for the things I have.
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My path or yours?

21 January , 2010. Denise Ferguson

People fascinate me.  Meeting them is nice, but getting to know them is much better.  My fascination stems from the different relationships I have and how our pasts influence how we feel in the present, and the different ways we look towards the future.  In a nutshell, I want to know what makes people tick.  I draw some conclusions by practising non-attachment to my own desires, in order to compromise for those around me, thus discovering new ways to approach life.

Compromise has not always been a word at the forefront of my vocabulary, unless someone was compromising for me.  Over the years, I have refused to compromise, been forced to compromise or in later years, chosen to compromise my wants, for the wants or needs of another.  As I mature I have learned how liberating compromise can be.  It has given me great opportunity to see things from a new perspective.

When making the decision to honour my own needs, or to compromise what I want for the needs of another, I aim to discover who will benefit the most from following their chosen path, and whether or not that path could potentially align with my deepest desires.  When I look outside of my chosen path, whilst keeping the end goal in sight, I get to understand people more and figure out what drives them, resulting in even deeper bonds with the ones I love.

Sweet sweet karma

8 January , 2010. Denise Ferguson

I had a visit from Karma today. Over the past few weeks, whilst my teaching schedule has been more lenient (or non-existent), I’ve been attending some yoga classes with an Auckland city yoga instructor named Mande White. As I was breathing my way through one of the most difficult abdominal sequences ever, feeling the most intense commitment to the moment and my body I thought to myself....... this is Karma. The yoga classes I teach are challenging, and I like to encourage people to push beyond the point of wanting to give up. Today I was encouraged to find my own limit and I enjoyed it.

My personal Yoga limit stretches far however as I completed the sequence I had to remind myself that wimpering, or crying could be deemed inappropriate. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one feeling the burn when ‘Ryan’ a few yogis down from me confirmed that perhaps everyone was hovering at the edge of their ability. ‘It’s stinging my abs’, he said. Wimp. My cockiness turned to shame as I realised I felt nauseaous. I concluded that perhaps I’d pushed too far and maybe Ryan wasn’t being a wimp after all. When Mande mentioned his ‘groin thrusting’ my challenge was not to look. We don’t do that at the Yoga Sanctuary.

Was the mild nausea, trembling and holding back of outbursts a sign I was working too hard? For me personally, it wasn’t. I pushed to the limit and I stayed there for a while, but I know where my limit is. I felt passion, commitment, stillness and not an iota of pain as I practiced.  The intensity came from staying at the edge of my ability, but when I felt nauseaous I knew it was time to back off (I also knew that throwing up in Mande’s lovely yoga studio just might get me blacklisted). Mande gave me a gift of endurance, strength and honesty today and I am grateful.