Surrendering to theft

So, my phone was stolen last night. Not a very yoga topic, I know, but I’m struggling with attachment and surrender, two things yoga helps me with, so, close enough for a blog post.

Plus, writing almost always makes me feel better, and I really want to shake off the negative vibe that’s rattling me before I head off to the final day of an absolutely incredible teacher training.

Thanks to a fantastic organization called Street Yoga, I’m learning all about working with underserved populations and I’m feeling energized, inspired, and ready to make a difference in my world. I’m more aware than ever before of the suffering of others and the inequalities at play in our society, and more convinced than ever before that yoga can make a difference.

Last night I left training full of enthusiasm and gratitude for life. I met some friends at a party, where I gushed about possibly working with juvenile delinquents–a scenario that previously seemed impossibly intimidating but, now that I better understand how to prepare, might be a challenge I am willing to take on.

I stayed out late but didn’t get drunk, which somehow makes it more frustrating that my phone is gone. Because if I had been drunk and irresponsible, the theft would be “my fault.” Instead, the loss was an honest accident–it must have fallen out of my purse either in the cab or immediately afterward.

I realized right away that my phone was missing and as soon as I got back to my apartment I sent texts via email to my phone and to a friend. I also found some really cool software that I remotely installed. It used GPS to tell me my phone was across the street.

Across the street! But when I went back down and looked, nothing. I even went into the diner closest to the GPS pinpoint and inquired, but, nothing. Once the sun came out, I went back down and checked the street. Again, nothing. And then a new GPS scan this morning informed me that my phone had left the neighborhood. It is in the Bronx now. I can even tell in what building. But there is nothing I can do.

Which brings me to my struggle with attachment and surrender. It’s certainly a first-world problem, the theft of a smartphone. I know I’m fortunate to even have one in the first place. And yet its loss is still a problem. I love my phone. It connects me to the world and I am pretty dang dependent on it. You could certainly say I’m attached. But now it is gone, and I have to let it go.

I have to convince myself that the loss of my privacy–the knowledge that a stranger can read my email and my texts and has access to my contacts–is not going to crush me. (With the help of more cool software, I’m working on wiping the data remotely right now, so hopefully that pans out.)

I also have to confront the fact that another human being is willfully taking what is not theirs. I have to acknowledge that a person who would do this is part of the very population I am learning about this weekend and looking to help by sharing yoga.

So, given that irony–that I am spending my time and money working to help the kind of people who might steal from me–I can’t help but suspect there is a lesson to be had from this theft. What that lesson may be, I am still waiting to understand.

I am feeling sad and violated, and mostly, helpless. I have taken all the action that I can, so control is no longer an illusion. Surrender seems the only option, and yet it’s painful. I want there to be something else I can do.

But there isn’t. This is out of my hands now. So, calmed by my yoga breath, I will sit with what is, keep faith in what’s good, and do my best to trust that I will get what I need….if not my phone back, then something better.