Ayurvedic Summer Support

Happy Summer!

 

Here, in the Pacific NW, we’ve already had a good number of smoldering days…. pitta season has landed! Time to shift gears in our practice, diet and lifestyle rhythms so that we can balance out the increased fire element that pitta season brings. I find such great value in aligning my practice, diet and lifestyle with the flow of the seasons and the moon. Attuning to seasonal rhythms is called ritucharya, a derivation of “ritus”, the external seasonal rhythms, and “charya”, which means to follow.

 

This wasn’t always the case for me. Culturally we aren’t taught to follow these rhythms. In fact, we’re taught to ignore them and our bodies, and push through life at high speed. This isn’t how our bodies work. Like the earth and its seasons, human biology is cyclic. We’re most healthy in body and mind when we flow with the natural rhythm of the seasons.

 

When I was in my late teens and early twenties and trying to be “healthy”, I would eat a cold salad every day for lunch at work. Lots of veggies … that’s good, right? Oh also, I was living in Wisconsin, where cold and snow dominated the scene for almost half the year. When it’s cold outside, Ayurveda recommends eating warming foods. Cold salads certainly don’t fit into the “warming foods” category. As I was eating my raw veggies, I would experience a deep chill to the bone, specifically in my low back / kidney area. As I reflect back on that time now I had a myriad of other symptoms of this mal-aligned dietary choice. It took me years to get out of this habit because … well … it was a habit, and I thought I was doing the right thing. If we know what to pay attention to and listen, our bodies are constantly communicating with us.

 

So here we are in pitta season, and I want to help you learn how to best support yourself during this time of year. The pitta dosha is composed of the fire and water elements and is related to all the transformative processes in the body and mind. These processes include the digestion of food and the processing and assimilation of experiences and emotions. Pitta dominant folks are passionate, ambitious, and tend toward the “type A” personality. When the pitta dosha moves into excess there can be irritability, reactivity, anger and jealousy, inflammation, rashes and other “hot” conditions. As the outside temperature rises, we’re best supported by cooling, soothing and calming practices. When it’s warm outside, our body pushes our internal heat to the periphery to disperse it, and this means that our digestive fire (jatharagni) actually decreases.

 

PITTA SEASON RECOMMENDATIONS

 

ASANA: Include lots of variety, less intensity, and postures that promote a sense of ease and lightness. Work at 80% of capacity and don’t take yourself too seriously! Include poses which put pressure on the belly like Locust and Bow pose which build jatharagni, lots of Twists and Side Body openers, like Revolved Triangle and Revolved Head to Knee pose, which improve circulation and clear stagnation of the abdominal organs, and Forward Folds like Wide Legged Forward Fold, to calm the nervous system during the busy season of summer. Add in more Restorative and Gentle Yoga practices. You may use a Lowered Gaze, dristhi to root and soothe.

 

PRANAYAMA: Lengthen out your exhalations and practice Chandra Bhedana to down-regulate, and Sitali / Sitkari to cool.

 

MEDITATION: Focus on the coolness of the inhalation. Visualizations of non-firey images, such as a lake, a river, a mountain, or a blue sky. Affirming mantras cultivating non-judgement, compassion, and forgiveness.

 

MANTRA: “There’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing you need to do, there’s nothing you need to undo, and there’s no one you need to be”.  Let these words really sink in … What does it feel like to not have to do or be anyone during your practice?

 

DIET: Focus on eating and drinking lightly, with a mix of raw and cooked veggies, and incorporating sweet, bitter, astringent and cooling foods. Sweet foods such as fresh fruit, grains, and lightly cooked root vegetables can “sweeten” the sharpness of the pitta dosha. Bitter foods such as leafy greens, green vegetables, cumin and saffron are cooling and drying, balancing the heating effect of pitta. Astringent foods (one’s that leave a puckered or dry sensation in the mouth) such as legumes, some fruits such as apples and pomegranates, some veggies like broccoli and cauliflower, as well as basil, coriander, dill, fennel and parsley, can also aid in cooling and creating a sense of lightness. As the temperature rises, remember to include lots of good oils, like avocado and coconut, and stay hydrated with electrolyte-rich fluids, like herbal infusions – nettle and oat seed is a fantastic combination with the qualities of sweet, bitter and cooling. You can find out how to make herbal infusions here .

 

Beginning this week, we’ll be discussing pitta characteristics, symptoms of imbalance and practicing pitta pacifying yoga. If you want to learn more about how to practice wisely during this season, join me!

 

Blessings,

Emily

Energizing Practices for Springtime

Happy May!

Spring is in full force here in the Pacific NW. The days are longer, the warm air is flush with potential, and our plant allies are deepening their roots as they grow tall reaching for sun. Mother Earth is growing her lush and colorful coat, and the smell of summer is beckoning.

When we open our senses to truly experience nature, we become familiar with the qualities of the seasons (hot, bright and active, or cool, dark and quiet), the actions of the plants and animals (growing, reproducing, harvesting, storing or hibernating), the influence of the moon and the qualities associated with various parts of the day.

As you hear me say quite a lot, in class,

 

“What’s happening outside in nature/prakriti, is happening on the inside too.”

 

This is why it’s so powerful to align our practice with prakriti. This simplifies the task of deciding what to practice, and when and how you practice it. We simply look at what’s happening in nature for guidance on how to tend to our inner garden.

In my last newsletter, I wrote about the kapha dosha, how it shows up during this time of year, and how to work with it. If you didn’t catch that article, you can here. In addition to balancing kapha, we can support and celebrate the energy of spring with brhmana techniques.

BRHMANA AND LANGHANA

The tools of yoga can be divided into two energetic principles. First, there is expansion (brhmana). Second, there’s reduction (langhana). There’s also a balancing principle called samana, but for now we’ll just talk about the first two. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve worked with brhmana and langhana within your yoga practice. Here are some basic qualities each:

BRHMANA

  • Expand
  • Increase
  • Energize
  • Nourish
  • Building
  • Strengthen

LANGHANA

  • Reduce
  • Eliminate
  • Decrease
  • Calm
  • Purify

We create brhmana or langhana effects by:

  • Choice of asana
  • Sequence
  • Repetition / stay, pace
  • Breath adaptation in asana
  • Directional flow of breath
  • Pranayama, chanting and mantra

 

When we’re feeling dull, sleepy, stuck or exhausted, we can work with energizing brhmana techniques, and when there’s mental distraction, acute anxiety, or stress, we can encourage a calm and relaxed nervous system by applying langhana tools.

My intention for this article is to highlight the application of brhmana techniques in yoga, to help us continue the progression of moving from the inwardly focused, reflective, and contemplative energy of the cold winter months, into the building, growing, and creating energy of the warm, more active part of the year.

So how do we cultivate brhmana? Here are some suggestions:

  • Elongation of the inhalation (puraka) and internal retention – holding the breath in for a moment (antar kumbhaka)
  • Warming and Energizing practices
  • More movement, such as in vinyasas, or pulsing into and out of postures, and less static long holds of postures
  • Chest and Shoulder Openers
  • Backbend postures
  • Upward gaze (dristhi)
  • Higher pitch and faster pace of chanting


THE MEDICINE OF SONG

This has been a beloved practice of mine, well before yoga came into my life. Using my voice to sing, chant, and even hum, simultaneously grounds and uplifts, soothes and activates, and centers and expands. Sound creates a rooted sense of vitality in the body, mind and heart. The medicine of song and vibration is potent.

For those of you who join me in class, you know of this love. We chant a lot together. Recently I introduced a new mantra to you. I learned this one from a senior yoga therapist I’ve had the pleasure of studying with over the last 6 years, named Gary Kraftsow.

“Om satyam chaitanyam anandam atma”

Om – This is thought to be the sound of universe. It represents all states of consciousness – waking, dreaming and deep sleep, all words and syllables, and contains the creator-preserver-destroyer qualities of existence (the experience of birth, life, death/awakening). When we chant Om (AUM) we are aligning with all of this, and remembering we are intimately connected to everything in the universe.

Satya – Truthfulness. Satya is one of the yamas, the social guidelines of yoga. The yamas help us to learn how to best connect and relate with community. They are the dharmic principles of social behavior and help us establish right interaction with others. Satya in this mantra, also speaks to the truth of our true self.

Chaitanya – One who is endowed with consciousness. One who has the ability to “wake up” and experience supreme reality. Supreme reality refers to what’s actually happening in the moment. Because of our previous experiences in life and our conditioning, our perception of reality is colored… it’s as if we were looking through our own uniquely colored glasses. Yoga helps us to see clearly (vidya), to see our conditioning and beliefs, and how they influence our perception of reality.

Andanda – This is translated as bliss, however, it’s not the emotional state of bliss we typically think of. It’s a radical sense of okayness, acceptance and peace. It’s the joy of peace. This is the layer or kosa that lies closest to our true self. When we tap into ananda, we remember our innate wholeness, which is unwavering and undisturbed in the presence of confusion, fear, anger and craving. “Joy is that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens” – David Steindl-Rast. This is ananda.

Atma / Atman – Breath, one who breathes, our inner/true self. Our true self is regarded as our soul or spirit. It is eternal and unchanging, and is the part of ourselves, which, exists underneath our ego identities, and our conditioned beliefs. We practice to wake up to this truth, to connect with this part of ourselves, and yoga is the mirror that reflects this luminosity back to us.

Chanting this mantra reminds us that we are already fully awake… and underneath confusion, fear, anger and pain, underneath suffering… underneath it all, our true self abides in the joy of peace. When we chant these words, we remember we are already whole and complete, just as we are in this very moment. In the light of clear seeing (vidya) we sense our thread, intimately woven into the fabric of the universe.

Explore chanting this mantra while sitting, or incorporate it into movement. You may also mentally repeat this mantra throughout your day.


HARNESS AND CREATE

As spring continues on, I encourage you to look to nature for guidance on how to nourish yourself. Now is the time to gather your prana reserves, and direct it into art, relationships, adventures, projects, and everything else your heart dreams of creating. Work with brhmana in your practice for inspiration, to stoke your passions, and to build your resiliency.

 

In gratitude,

Emily

Listening to the Whole

While I was living in an ashram in Southern India, I spent much of my time sitting cross-legged: practicing pranayama, inmeditation, listening to lectures on Indian Philosophy and to Swamiji’s talks, and eating meals.

When I wasn’t sitting I was practicing asana, hiking the mountains of upper Kodaikanal, or foraging for fruit, though the monkeys always seemed to get there before I did.

One day while coming down the mountain, I lowered my left foot to meet the earth and with no apparent misstep, twist, or torque, I felt an excruciating pain in my left knee.

I couldn’t bend it and was forced to hobble down the rest of the way with what felt like a pegleg. I had to walk like that for days afterward. Eventually the severity of the pain began to dissolve, but it never completely went away.

Living With Pain

When I returned to the states, I didn’t have health insurance, and when it became mandatory to get insurance, I had the catastrophic kind. Definitely not one with benefits to see a physical therapist.

I haven’t been able to hike with any amount of elevation gain because on the descent it was always trouble, and I’d be laid up not being able to walk properly for a couple of days or more.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a handful of different types of practitioners: a chiropractor, a physical therapist, and an acupuncturist who specialized in sports medicine. I did all of my homework, trying this, trouble shooting that:

  • Was it my vastus medialis (one of the quadriceps muscles) not firing properly?
  • Was it weakness in my gluteus medius?
  • Tight tensor fascia latae?

At the end of an intense year, finally my physical therapist (whom I adore) recommended I get an MRI. There I was a couple weeks later, laying as still as possible, getting my knee scanned. If you’ve never gotten imaging like that, let me tell you, it’s really challenging to lay still, even for someone with a lot of mindfulness practice like myself!

When the results came back, everyone was surprised to see that I had fluid in my anterior tibia marrow. This can happen when there’s injury to the bone, but typically the body reabsorbs this fluid over the course of several months.

Why hadn’t mine? Well, we weren’t sure.

The following months were spent doing lymph massage, elevation, castor oil and essential oils, with alternating hot and cold applications. Every night, including almost every night while I was traveling and teaching in Thailand, I would spend a half hour or more with these therapies. I also did fascia massages one to two times a day while my students were practicing savasana. Now you know what I was up to at the end of class!

After a couple of months, my knee had recovered. I sat cross-legged for much of three days while I was in a yoga therapy training without pain. While I need to condition my body to do big hikes, I’m now able to go down stairs and down hill without discomfort.

I’m over the moon!

Our Body Knows

The reason I’m writing isn’t to detail the history of my left knee, though I wanted you to know the significance of this injury in my life. I’m writing because of something my physical therapist and I talked about, that helped me to shift my relationship with chronic injuries.

She told me that we all have our “spots” that flare up when there’s some sort of imbalance in the physical body, mentally or emotionally, and often these spots have been injured in the past.

But when they flare up, it doesn’t always equate with being re-injured. It could be that when there’s emotional stress or upset, we’ll experience pain in that all too familiar area. And what’s going on during these times is communication.

Our body is saying:

  • “Hey, there’s something important to pay attention to!”, or
  • “Something’s not quite right, it’s time to slow down and feel.”, or
  • “We’re doing all we can, but we got a cold, and sensation is more present right now.”

Rather than viewing the discomfort as an annoyance, we can learn to listen with appreciation for what our body’s trying to say to us.

I seem to learn this lesson over and over again.

Listening More

The inner voice that tells me to check in on a friend, only to learn that they’ve just gotten dumped. That gut feeling to slow down as I’m approaching an intersection, right before a racing truck blows his stop sign, nearly hitting me. The way that my heart feels when I just had a disagreement with my partner, which, I failed to navigate gracefully.

I know that my body and my heart are communicating with me all the time. And yours is as well.

I’m learning to listen more and more, and to allow myself to be guided by the wisdom that’s coursing throughout me.

The more I listen, the more clearly I can hear.

 

As guest posted on everydayintegrity.com, a lifestyle blog about personal spirituality founded by my yoga student, Jules Williams.

Energize in Kapha Season

Kapha season is upon us. The fertile mud gives rise to the buds, flowers and foliage of Mother Nature. Similarly, the earth and water elements in us provide a stable and rich foundation from which we can spring forth. Kapha is the season of growth and upward movement. We emerge from our cold weather introversion, stillness and hibernation, toward manifesting that which we’ve dreamt of over the dark months.

In all of my classes this month, I’ll be explaining the Kapha dosha and how to practice in a way that aligns with the current season: late winter through spring. We’ll focus on postures, breathing exercises, mindfulness tools, and inner teachings which compliment, celebrate and balance what’s happening outside in nature, because what’s happening outside is happening inside as well.

Join me and learn how to engage with your practice skillfully and intentionally for the Kapha season.

  • Tuesdays & Thursdays | 9:30-11am | The Yoga Space
  • Wednesdays & Fridays | 12-1:15pm | Yoga Refuge
  • Fridays | 5:30-6:45pm | Yoga Bhoga
  • Sundays | 11am-12:30pm | Yoga Bhoga

If you can’t make it to a public class and want to learn what Kapha season has to offer to YOU, specifically, and how to best support yourself during this season, schedule a one-one-one lesson with me.

Here are a few considerations to get you started with your Kapha season practice:

  • Warm, activate and energize
  • More vinyasas and less static holds of postures
  • Core work, twists, chest openers and backbends
  • Create space in joints and explore the upward momentum of prana
  • Upward gaze/dristhi
  • Ujjayi, Breath of Joy, Surya Bhedana, and Brahmari pranayama
  • Listening Meditation

I look forward to practicing with you!

In kindness,
Emily

You Are Enough

 

Each year, it’s not uncommon for me to write about my challenges with New Year’s resolutions. I used to make resolutions every morning, week, and month, and certainly every New Year. This was when I was in the throws of disordered eating, in my pre-teen and teen years. It was a painful cycle of feeling awful in my own skin… I didn’t like myself.  I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror or how I felt, and I was years away from loving myself. Now, decades after those painful experiences, I still cringe at our cultural obsession with resolving to be a “new you”.

Yoga teaches us that, at our core, we are perfectly imperfect. We are born into this world with an innate understanding of love, compassion, and equanimity. We already know how to live in relationship with the qualities of non-harming, honesty, and generosity. However, as part of our human condition, these inherent attributes are buried underneath the experience of avidya – not seeing clearly, reactivity, cravings, and fear. We need not search outside of ourselves to become the best version of us. What we do need is practice, commitment, patience, and community, all of which can help us remember our vitality and inherent luminosity, and free us from the shackles of habit and misidentification.

I was talking with a friend recently about chanting, and how people chant in different directions. As yoga practitioners we often chant the same or similar mantras in different melodies, perhaps with different instruments, in community or by ourselves. What I mean by chanting in different directions is that sometimes practitioners will chant to a deity, or God, to invoke the qualities of that being in themselves, versus chanting to that part of themselves that is already awake. The latter is my personal practice. I won’t go into why… that’s another conversation.

I bring this up because when we’re working toward making positive change in our lives, it’s easy to reach outside of ourselves… to look toward someone else that knows “better” than we do… that “looks” like we want to look… that “is” someone that we want to be. Then, we align ourselves to those constellations by trying to do what “they” do. I just used a lot of quotations there (visualize Emily air quotes). While we can all tap into our similarities as humans, and we certainly can learn from each other, it’s counterproductive when we start comparing our differences and fall into the trap of feeling like we’re inferior. Even worse are the feelings that we’re broken in some way.

Don’t get me wrong…  despite all the work that I’ve done, I still grapple with challenges of insecurity, inadequacy and imposter syndrome (I’m extremely humbled that I get to do the job I do as a yoga therapist). Right now, I’m here to speak with you from the other side, and I write to remind you that…

YOU ARE ENOUGH

At your core, you know what you need, and, when there’s confusion, there are teachers, practitioners and friends to help guide you. You don’t need the latest diet or exercise fad to achieve a state of self-love and to grow. The practice is to love yourself right now. If that’s not accessible (believe me, I’ve been there), then my advice is to aim toward finding one aspect of yourself that you like… maybe it’s your work ethic, your eyes, or your ability to be a great friend.

A practice of mine as of late has been to contemplate a part of myself that I appreciate each day. One day it might be my sense of humor. Another day it might be my curiosity, or my strong legs as I’m hiking or walking up lots of stairs. I think it’s useful to include personality attributes as well as body positivity. When we aim our attention to the aspects of ourselves that we can honor and celebrate, we are shifting our mind state from criticism to appreciation. Our state of mind colors every waking moment of our lives. I won’t dive into the psychology of how and why this works right now (let me know if you want more information and we can chat). I will tell you that this stuff works. This is not a bliss bunny “all is good” approach. What I’m suggesting is that you love yourself as you want to be loved, or as you are already loved by your community. For me, I think of this practice as loving myself like my Aunt Leslie loves me.

I’m here if you want to talk. I’m here if you want to sit down and practice. I wish for us all to remember how perfectly imperfect we are, and to relinquish our attempts to be different. I wish for us all to celebrate our humanness, and to remember that we have one another on this path of waking up to our ever present beauty.

Love,

Emily

Ritual

 

When I woke up last Monday, I was not in the mood to meditate. Sometimes, I’m excited for my sitting practice, and some mornings–like this one–enthusiasm for practice stands at odds with the desire for a different kind of practice: snuggling with my sweetheart in bed. These mornings are a reminder that my practice really begins way before I sit down on my cushion. Often, the biggest hurdle to clear is that first step–in this case, just getting out of bed. The vast majority of effort we put forth in any practice is the effort needed simply to begin. And to repeat. This is where the power of ritual comes into play.

Ritual is a part of all spiritual paths, all religions, and every culture from around the world. Ritual is something I’ve been drawn to my entire life, and yet I didn’t grow up in a family who had rituals, nor was I handed down ritual traditions or customs. Still, there was something so deep, so primal that arose in the midst of this ritual desert, that, as a child, I started to seek guidance from others to create my own rituals. The first place I looked to was witchcraft. Celebration of the natural world, the seasons, the sun and the moon seemed quite natural to me. Harnessing the power of the elements and paying respect to that which is bigger than the individual was soothing to my existentially troubled self. So at 11 years old, I got a few books, set up camp in my closet, and started studying.

My folks soon found the books and, in a flash, they were taken away. It wasn’t because my family is religious and thought it was ungodly to worship anything other than the big G. Instead, they took the books away because they knew how powerful witchcraft could be, and they were worried for my safety. But they didn’t recognize the reason I’d reached for that practice in the first place, and they didn’t offer me another way to feed this hunger. So I was back at square one, making it up myself.

The power of ritual is its ability to create a mental state that is fertile for practice, and a heart open to our innate wholeness.

Over years of searching, I’ve learned that ritual doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be as simple as praying before a meal, lighting incense, or practicing japa (the repetition of mantra). Ritual functions as a form to rest into. It’s a structure that prepares one’s mind and one’s heart to wake up. When done absent-mindedly, ritual is simply an action. But when performed with intention, ritual holds incredible power. The power doesn’t lie within the ritual tools, gods or goddesses. The power of ritual is its ability to create a mental state that is fertile for practice, and a heart open to our innate wholeness.

These days, I sit six days a week, taking one day off as Swamiji taught me. When I was living at his ashram in the mountains of Kodaikanal (Kodai), we would practice and study six days a week. On the seventh day–Friday–all of the ashram students (anywhere from two to ten of us) would take a frightening taxi ride down to the quaint city of lower Kodai to stock up on supplies (like toilet paper and notebooks) and luxuriate in coffee and chocolate. (I should note that, while Swamiji instructed us to take a day off from formal practice, he didn’t encourage jumping head-first into indulgence. This was a habit we developed all on our own.) After the day in town, we would endure another taxi ride up the mountain to the ashram, our senses overstimulated from the bustling shops, sweet treats, and talkative city folks.

When I was at the ashram, my practice was very rigid, and I didn’t yet understand the significance of Swamiji’s six-day practice rhythm. So on Friday mornings before the taxi arrived, I would sneak up to the roof of the ashram and practice asana and pranayama. To my type-A personality, a day of rest from formal practice seemed like a waste of time. I wanted a calm mind and a peaceful heart, and I wanted it now! As the years went on, I shed layers of perfectionist striving and angst, and in alignment with a sweeter relationship with myself, my practice evolved to be gentler and more spacious. It was six years after the ashram that I finally had the courage to take my teacher’s advice and started taking a day of rest from practice. On my days of rest, I feel steeped in gentleness and flexibility, and know that these attitudes are as important to my practice as the six days of consistent sits.

However, last Monday was not my scheduled day off. So, I did what I always do and dove into my sitting ritual:

I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and washed my hands. I walked into my studio (a beautiful room in my home dedicated to practice), and quietly closed the door. I grabbed a striped blanket and a purple bolster. I opened the blanket, placed it on the wooden floor in front of the altar, and laid the bolster on top. Then I walked towards the back of the studio where I keep my practice shawl. Swamiji gave me a lime green shawl for Christmas when I was at the ashram, which we celebrated with a group sing-along of American pop songs. He told me that every time I practice with this shawl, it gets juiced up and infused with practice goodness – I’m paraphrasing here. When I didn’t feel well, he told me to wear the practice shawl, and it would help.

I draped the airy shawl around my shoulders and walked back to stand between the altar and my cushion. I leaned down and quietly flipped the hourglass (which is really a half-hour glass, as it takes just over 30 minutes for the last grain of sand to descend to the bottom), picked up the candle in its ceramic dish, lit the wick, and gently set it back down. I lifted my mala up off of the altar and hung it around my neck. I stood upright and drew my palms together in anjali mudra (prayer), and pressed my thumbs into my heart center. I took a deep inhale and as my body began to exhale, I hinged at my hips, and lowered my head in a deep bow to the altar. I stood upright once again, turned a half circle to my right, looked at my cushion and bowed again. I stood up, completed the circle, released my hands and took my seat. I wiggled in my seat for a few moments to settle, placed my left hand in my right palm, and quieted my eyes. After all of that, I felt a little better.

The form keeps us on our toes and shows us instantly when we’re not present.

A couple days ago, while I was bowing to my cushion, my mind wandered right in the middle of my bow. Instead of carrying on and plopping down on my cushion, I stood up and turned back to my altar. In small moments like these lie the teaching and support of ritual. The practice of bowing had offered me a form that highlighted my distraction immediately, instead of my distraction turning into a rampant snowball of mental fabrications. This is actually the reason another teacher of mine, Michael Stone, explains why Zazen practice incorporates so many bows. Okay, well one of the reasons, anyway! The form keeps us on our toes and shows us instantly when we’re not present. So, turning back to my altar, I stilled my gaze, now a tad crisper in support of my concentration. I exhaled and bowed deeply, lingering at the bottom of my bow in reverence to the part of me that is peaceful and awake, and to all of the others who have also bowed as practice. Then I stood tall, turned to my right and bowed again to my cushion, my concentration steady.

When I’m engaging in ritual, whether it’s in my studio, or at the dinner table, I feel all of the people before me who have also put flame to a wick as prayer, and all of those seen and unseen who have joined their palms together in gratitude. With this attitude of interconnectedness, I feel the support of our larger community of practitioners. When I don’t really feel like practicing one day, I garner the strength and steadiness I need to sit or get on my mat from our collective sangha (community). And on the days I feel focus and ease in my practice, I know that spills over to others, too. For me, ritual weaves us together and is a blessed companion on my journey of waking up over and over again.

 

 

 

Christmas Eve Yoga


Join me for a 9am Hatha Class at Yoga Bhoga on Christmas Eve. Whether you celebrate this holiday or not, let us come together and practice in community. Get ready to stoke your inner fire and calm your nervous system, which will prepare you with the tools you need to navigate your upcoming festivities, and to enjoy them to the fullest extent.

Got Anger?

Friends, we are in the midst of so much tragedy in our country and in the world. Extreme fires and hurricanes, neo-Natzis, DACA, North Korea, and so many more examples of natural and human destroyers. I don’t need to dive into the details here… you know them already, and there’s a lot of fuel to feed the fire of anger and to exacerbate anxiety. My intention in writing to you is to give you some tools to navigate these tumultuous emotional waters.

FEEL ALL THE FEELINGS

It’s essential that we allow ourselves to feel whatever’s arising in our hearts… that we not turn away from our experience. The important part here is that we learn to cultivate a healthy relationship with anger and we learn how to allow it to be digested properly and released. Sometimes in spiritual circles there can be a tendency to categorize emotions as “good or bad”, and then the practitioners grasp onto pleasant emotions like joy and shun unpleasant emotions like anger. This spiritual bypassing is toxic. It’s the shadow of how some practice spirituality. I’ve seen this in organized religions and in yoga.

Before I learned the term “spiritual bypassing”, I referred to the folks that vilified the “bad” emotions as “bliss bunnies”. And when I began my yoga journey I was weary of these “bliss bunnies” that floated around on clouds of denial and superiority. I came to this practice with a lot of trauma and upset in my life, and there were times in those early days that I was left with an aftertaste of “otherness” and rejection. I felt bad for feeling bad.

As I continued to practice I came upon teachers and traditions that welcomed the entire range of human emotion. They offered tools to help with facing the difficult stuff, so it didn’t linger longer than was needed. After the Orlando shootings I shared one of my favorite techniques called Embody the Mind with you. In this mindfulness practice, we learn to transition from ruminating on the story of the emotional experience, which keeps it stuck and spinning and festering, into feeling the emotion in our bodies and allowing our bodies to do the work of processing the experience. I highly recommend you revisit this meditation. After you practice it a few times, you can take it on the go and do mini versions in the moment when intense emotions arise, rather than waiting until you can get on your cushion.

EXCITED ANGRY VS. EXCITED INSPIRED

Nervous system excitation can manifest in so many ways. When our sympathetic nervous systems are activated, we might feel anxious, fearful, angry or enraged. We might want to leap out at someone or something in aggression, or run the opposite direction. In other circumstances of sympathetic arousal we might feel enthusiastic, motivated, or inspired. And often our body’s physiological response can even feel similar in these very different emotional experiences, such as a quickening of the heart, breath that feels bigger in the chest than in the belly, or an increase in temperature.

Paying attention to the flavor of nervous system excitation is useful for a couple of reasons:

  1. Discerning different types of excitation can help us to better identify what’s really going on in our emotional landscape and when there’s chronic anger or anxiety, we may be able to gain more leadership in how we feel when we realize that perhaps some of the times we had translated the excitation as anger or anxiety, it was actually inspired.
  2. We can learn to transform an excited anger or anxious state into an excited inspired state. Sometimes when I’m feeling my nervous system up-regulated, I lean into the excitation and explore how I might direct that energy in different ways. Do I need to go for a run or dance? We can discharge pent up stress by moving or shaking, because our bodies are wired to “shake it off”. But not in a “don’t sweat it” or “let it roll off your back kind of way”. No, the shaking actually completes a stress response cycle that’s innate in how our bodies function. It helps our bodies digest and release the stress. We’ve just learned to over-ride the impulse, unlike a dog that shakes after barking at the mail carrier to re-set his nervous system. And maybe after the run or shimmy session I feel inspired to organize a support event or donate? Whether it’s anger or love, it’s all Shakti, the primordial cosmic energy. In all the yoga practices we’re working with Shakti – directing it, harnessing it, building it. We can apply the same process to working with anger. How can we transform the energy and utilize it for our benefit and the benefit of others?

BE REAL

The more we speak openly and honestly about where we’re at and how we’re feeling, the more we normalize being human. It can feel lonely when it seems like everyone is actually living their Facebook happy selfie lives. One way to break down this isolation is to be real with ourselves and with each other. The next time someone asks, “How are you?” pause before an autopilot answer rushes out of your mouth. While it’s not always necessary or the right timing to launch into the whole story (though sometimes it is and it’s useful!), you may be surprised the big impact that can be made from just a little more real talk in our day to day lives.

If you need more support, I’m teaching a workshop that can help! Yoga Therapy for Anxiety on Saturday October 7th at Yoga Refuge. Register online early, as there are only 7 spots left!

What Fuels Your Motivation?

Happy New Year!

‘Tis the season for new year’s resolutions… yoga classes are packed, the gym is bumpin’, and people are swearing off sugar and refined flour across the nation. While all this inspiration for self-care and growth is great, if you’ve ever made a plan to change a habit, you know how hard it can be to stick with it.

Before I go any further, I want to be clear about my opinion of new year’s resolutions–I approach them with caution. Here’s why: when I was a teenager and young adult, I would make grand resolutions way more often than once a year (sometimes every day). At the center of every resolution was the desperate desire to be a more worthy me, which always meant losing weight. And what ended up hurting more than the severe restriction of calories was the belief that I had to be something else than what I am to be worthy of love and affection. This kind of resolution does more harm than good. Therefore, the guidance I am about to offer on how to implement healthy changes, is rooted in a deep reverence for our innate, already present wholeness.

While I don’t make new year’s resolutions anymore, I am working on changing something in my life right now. I’ve experienced insomnia for the last two years. After unsuccessfully trying lots of different dietary shifts, nutritional supplements and herbs, yoga postures, breathing, and mindfulness tools to calm my nervous system, I’ve just embarked on Cognitive Behavioral Sleep Restriction Therapy. I’m only a week in, but it’s working! To sleep like a baby for four hours in a row is like magic in my world. And even though I’m feeling and seeing the benefits, the process of sleep restriction is pretty tough. Just last night I had to put forth a LOT of effort to stay up until my scheduled bedtime. Truthfully, my husband, Mike, had to put forth some effort on my behalf as well. Have you ever kept a tired puppy awake during the early evening so they would sleep through the night? It was kind of like that. Just because a change is tough doesn’t mean it’s not helpful, but to ensure that I’m implementing changes in a nurturing and productive manner, I like to look at what is motivating the change.

WHAT FUELS YOUR MOTIVATION?

One really important consideration in the practice of healthy growth and change is how we motivate ourselves to take action. Unfortunately, what many of us learn growing up–especially if we participated in sports or dance–is the technique of motivating ourselves through shame. This isn’t true for all coaches or dance teachers (my dance teacher was a refuge of love and genuine support), but it is true that the practice of criticizing the athlete is a common approach to get them to work harder. Whether we had these experiences growing up, in school, or the workplace, or we’ve just been around it and seen it, this act of fueling motivation from shame becomes ingrained in our psyche. It can be so habituated that we might not even know we’re doing it.

Thankfully, there’s another place we can draw strength from to take action: love. Love for ourselves, and love for others. While the action taken might look the same on the outside regardless of motivation, the effect is absolutely not the same. When we’re motivating from shame, we get exhausted. This is because when there’s shame, the body is experiencing stress, causing stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol to flood your system. I won’t detail all the ways in which stress creates hardship within the body because there’s plenty of research and writing on that topic. But suffice it to say, the effects of stress are not good. And while we can’t control the external stressors in our lives, like traffic jams and work deadlines, we can be intentional with how we relate to ourselves, and our experiences, so that we don’t add to the stress we’re experiencing. We can do this through nourishing self-discipline.

NOURISHING SELF-DISCIPLINE / TAPAS

Tapas is one of the personal ethics (niyamas) of yoga and it’s considered the most important practice of the yogi/yogini, because without dedication to that which we’re cultivating, we won’t succeed. Whatever we’re growing–whether it be compassion, generosity, the ability to concentrate, a garden, a family, or a business–it all requires commitment. If I weren’t committed to watering my raspberries and tomatoes, they wouldn’t grow. It’s the same for our personal evolution.

When we use the word “discipline,” there’s often the implication of some external force that is imposing structure, harshness, and rigidity on our lives. There’s also a correctional association with discipline. However, this isn’t the way that yoga views self-discipline. Yoga looks at self-discipline as a nurturing action to promote wellness. Tapas comes from the place inside of us that wants to learn and grow; it’s an expression of self-love and a commitment to the path of yoga.

As we practice tapas, the body and the mind become more regulated and balanced, which is necessary when we begin looking inward for self-study (svadhyaya). If our body systems are dis-regulated in any way, investigating our inner terrain (our habitual thinking, behaviors, and emotions) isn’t going to work so well. Have you ever been really anxious or upset and tried to engage in self-reflection? Good luck! When the body or the mind is out of whack in some way, we’re not able to see ourselves clearly. Everything is muddy and confusing. However, when our biology begins to come into balance, we’re able to see where to focus our practice and what’s holding us back. Being kind with ourselves and putting forth the energy needed to thrive in our lives, is the root of positive change.

That all sounds great… and how do we practice tapas, specifically? Tapas is an attitude, more so than a specific practice. The attitude of tapas is one that rises above unskillful habits and the inner critic. I employ the practice of tapas through making sure my blood sugar is balanced, I’m hydrated and I get some outside time. I practice tapas when I wake up in the morning and motivate myself to get out of bed and onto my meditation cushion even when I’m tired. I’m practicing tapas right now as I write this by committing to a certain number of hours of work before I go play in the snow. Nourishing self-discipline requires some restraint at times. I’m delaying my snow play gratification, because I am dedicated to my work as a yoga therapist.

So rather than making a plan to lose weight or never eat sugar again, how might it feel to resolve to be kinder to yourself? To be an ally to your own self rather than an enemy? How might it feel to motivate from a place of love rather than criticism and shame?

With a full heart,

Emily

Embody the Mind – A Tool for Orlando

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As I sit to write this month’s newsletter, all I can hear is my heart crying “Orlando”.

How can I write about anything else? This colossal tragedy, loaded with misunderstanding, hate, violence, and murder, creates ripples that unsettle and affect all of us.  When I first read the news my body was flooded with hot anger, then frozen with fear, followed by a core-deep feeling of grief. Each emotion occupied and saturated different parts of my body. All of this happened quickly and over the course of only a few seconds. Then, I clicked to another post/page and, almost immediately and without much thought, I was reading something completely different.

As you can see, my most immediate stress response is “flight” vs. fighting, freezing or submission. I noticed myself fleeing the pain of this terrible event through distraction. But I didn’t actually need to run-away to survive these feelings. I wasn’t in danger from any immediate threat in my environment. I could choose to FEEL. So I did. And this is how I did it …

Many years ago, I came upon a practice that Ajahn Amaro Bhikkhu calls Embodying the Mind. This is a meditation that helps us shift away from the psychological trap of an emotion that we are feeling, to experiencing it viscerally. I use this practice both with the initial onset of intense emotions, and afterwards, the latter because I don’t always have the immediate time or space to fully process an experience when it is happening.

  1. Begin by relaxing the body as much as possible. Get yourself comfy by propping your hips up on a blanket or block, by lying down on your back, or by taking crocodile pose (lying on your belly with your hands stacked and your forehead resting on them). Take the first few minutes or more to breathe deeply into your abdomen (it will be easiest for the body to breathe this when way in crocodile pose). Then, once you feel settled, let your breath return to its natural rhythm. You may stay in this position or you may choose another for the next meditation.
  1. If you’re not experiencing immediate upset, deliberately recollect the traumatic memory, charged thought, repeating anxiety about a future event, or whatever is troubling you. As soon as you have created an emotional reaction to that memory, thought, or worry, stop intellectualizing about it. Stop the direct thoughts surrounding that emotion or experience. This is a challenging part of the process, but it is an essential one. The point is to stop storytelling and just feel. When we are telling stories, caught on a thought train, cycling through the scenes from a previous experience, or making up scenes for a future experience, we aren’t feeling … we are thinking. This practice is about the sensations your body is experiencing.
  1. Notice where you feel the emotion in the body, and become intimate with the sensations by asking yourself the following questions:
    • Where is the feeling in my body?
    • How big is it?
    • Does it have a shape?
    • Does it have a temperature?
    • Does it have a texture?
    • Does it have a color?

    Be interested in the sensation. What you will come to realize, is that while the feeling in the body isn’t comfortable, it’s also not intolerable. The visceral sensation of fear, anger, desire or craving, greed, envy, etc. isn’t actually the part of the experience that seems so unbearable to us. Suffering comes when we start telling ourselves the story of who we are, who other people are, why we are feeling this way, what we want and don’t want, and what might occur in the future.

  1. Accept the sensation for what it is: a sensation. It’s one of the myriad feelings we experience in the body. In this exercise, there is no space for story or judgment, just the raw sensation. Stay with this for 5-10 minutes.

Finish the meditation by beginning the release process. Breathe spaciousness into the area of your body where you felt the emotion, allowing your breath to wash over your tissues. Then, sigh through your mouth with long exhales. Soon, you’ll start to feel your body let go. This phase might take two or three times as long as the holding phase, but be patient and continue as long as needed to clear any trace of the somatic sensation. Once you feel the sensation has dissolved, rest for a couple more minutes to finish the meditation.

Hopefully, this has given you a basic understanding of this practice, so that you can begin to use it.  I find it extremely effective.  I’ll conclude with another example of how I’ve used it …

A few years ago, on a silent retreat with Michael Stone, I had my first teacher–student interview. In the Buddhist tradition, this is a meeting where the student can ask the teacher questions and request guidance. At the time, I was struggling a lot with feelings of shame because my father was dying of cancer and I wasn’t taking care of him in Wisconsin. I was in Portland, living, while he was dying. I felt like a bad person and a horrible daughter because I chose not to be in Wisconsin with him.

I asked Michael what to do. At the time I already knew about and practiced the technique I just described, but sometimes we need to be reminded of our tools, as he did in this meeting. He told me that the next time shame arose I should stop telling myself the story about how I am a wretched person for not being with my father, and instead, focus on feeling the shame in my body. The shift was immediate and powerful. I still remember the first time I practiced this when shame surfaced in relation to my father. When I stopped the storytelling and felt the feeling in my body, it moved through my tissues and dissolved. It’s not that the initial practice freed me from all shame … I wish that were the case! It did, however, create a sense of leadership over my emotional experience. That’s what I want for all of us … I want us all to have the tools, the community, and the agency to manage our most painful emotions.

May we have the courage to feel deeply AND remain steady in our center.

Love,
Emily

 

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