In the Presence of a Storyteller

Last night, I met one of my heroes. Dr. Carl Hammerschlag is a Psychiatrist trained on the East Coast who has worked many years with Native American populations in the Southwest. He has written books about how to get in touch with the true healer within. In addition, he publishes a great blog called Schlabytes.

Dr. H lives in Phoenix and Lisa, one of his daughters, teaches yoga at a studio where I occasionally practice. The two of them decided to host a workshop combining his gift for storytelling and her gift for dynamic yoga. I am usually a middle to back row yoga student, but last night, I brought my yoga mat right to the front row - I wanted to be as close to the Storytelling as possible.

Dr. H did not disappoint. He opened up the evening with a story about a Native American man, sitting in a teepee with his grandson. The grandson noticed his grandfather staring intently into the fire, and thinking he was upset, the grandson asked, "Grandfather, why are you upset?" The grandfather told his grandson, "I have two dogs nibbling at my heart. One dog is fear, and the other is love. They are both slowly nibbling away at my heart." The grandson candidly asked, "Which one will win, grandfather."

And his grandfather said, "The one that I feed."

After Dr. H's introductory metaphor, we partnered with another yogi in the room, did a few partner stretches, and then shared a candle lighting experience. As we ended this section, Dr. H reminded us of the practical wisdom of the word "Namaste" - to look for others whose inner lights remind us of the light inside of ourselves.

For the next hour, Lisa, Dr. H's daughter, guided us through her energetic style of yoga. We swayed back and forth, threw our arms into the air and even shook our bon bons, all in time to dance and yoga music. This was not the yoga I was used to, but Lisa's enthusiasm was truly contagious. After ramping up our energy, and then slowing us back down, she returned us to a place of comfort and openness from which to sit and enjoy for her father's stories.

As Dr. H rose to begin his part of the workshop, I opened my journal and prepared to jot down whatever Schlagbytes I could capture. I have included a few below. He spoke for "35 minutes of uninterrupted Hammerschlag" and opened up the floor for questions.

At the end of the evening, I approached Dr. H with a copy of one of his books and asked him to sign. We spoke a bit about practicing medicine and then I shook his hand, telling him what a true pleasure it had been to share this experience with him. He was gracious and humble.

A few Schlabytes:

- Take leaps of faith, not leaps of certainty. Dr. H encourages us to avoid making moves from a point of certainty. He ascertains that one's future will no doubt be a repeat of the past if one always insists on acting from a place of certainty. Instead, he encouraged us all to take risks, and move from a place of vulnerability, as this is the only real opportunity for new growth.

- You must learn to dance in order to heal. Dr. H is the son of Holocaust survivors. For much of his life, he harbored what he considered a justifiable anger toward Germany. It was not until he came to Native American country, where he was labelled a "White Man" and blamed for past atrocities towards Native people, that he realized he needed to explore his own feeling towards Germans. On one of many proceeding trips to Germany, Dr. H was at a World Cup Soccer game where a young German man, draped in a German flag, lured him into a celebration dance in the street. Dr. H could not help himself - as he joined the young man in his dance, celebrating a German soccer win, Dr. H realized that he had finally learned his healing dance.

- You must ask for what you need from others. Dr. H points out that most of us are terrible at asking for what we need. Instead of directly saying to someone, "I need you to do this for me," we drop hints and act in ways that suggest what we want. When we don't get what we want, most of us blame the other person's stupidity, or inability to interpret our many hints and indirect gestures. The truth of this scenario is that the only person to blame for not getting what we want is ourselves - for not having the ability to ask.

- If it doesn't feel good, you are doing it wrong. This is what Dr. H's wife told her daughters during their first "sex talk". This bit of a wisdom has many other applications in life - and Dr. H summarized these by saying, "Don't subordinate your own feelings by letting someone else to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel."