Ease Up

In spite of all we do to try to be comfortable, life is full of discomfort. We run into the gamut of experiences as we go along, sometimes blissful, sometimes inconvenient, maybe fun, maybe unhappy. So what gets us through all of this? Can we find a sense of balance even when things are not so comfortable?



The yoga practice gives us ways of trying out strategies to find ease no matter what is going on. Perhaps it is a demanding situation at work or in a relationship, or with a physical injury or hard times with circumstances beyond your control. On the mat, maybe it's a twisting balance, a scary back bend or even just sustaining through something muscular and simple like Kapotasana (pigeon) or Utkatasana (Fierce Pose). Where can we loosen up, where can we let go of the gripping, what is the source of the support? Perhaps we can identify the impingement that we brought into the situation and by noticing that, we can better relax around it, or work into releasing it.

Taking things in steps and stages can help identify where the real issues might be -- perhaps in the body it is something out of alignment, perhaps in the workplace or relationship this could be true as well. Getting things lined up so that there is support for the moving parts... allowing the toes to spread fully on the floor, the inner core of the heel softening and leaning into the earth will allow a standing posture to unfold with more ease, even if it involves a twist in the ribs, and active squaring of the hips. Maybe attention and focus on the breath will help identify how one hip is moving ahead of the other, causing the twist in the shoulder that is tightening the neck. Just forcing the ribs around into an idea of a shape and letting the feet stay off balance is not comfortable and the shape is of no consequence without cultivating the awareness. In human relationships or with pressures at work, it can also be a matter of finding the balance between the all-out effort, and letting go of the goal -- that shape -- and exploring that which is actually happening in the moment.

You can keep breathing and just force yourself to hang on tight for another breath in that unpleasant place, but what you learn from this experience is "how hard it is," or perhaps make more room for judgments about yourself, others and everyone's inadequacies. Maybe all that gritting of teeth makes for an opportunity to pat yourself on the back for pushing yourself, just another way of inflating ego. Is that the path to happiness? I don't think so. It's a little like arguing forcefully until you win the argument but at the cost of the trust and respect in the relationship. Is "winning" the argument what makes happiness? Again, stroking ego instead of opening up to the possibilities of what could be loosened, of what caused the tension in you in the first place.

Thinking about ease rather than comfort can be a help on and off the mat. Not talking here about "hard" and "easy" but ease - as in what would ease the pain, or ease the tension, or ease the sense of confusion, or ease the pressure? Can the source of the discomfort be identified? Next time you are impatiently waiting, or feel you haven't got the time, or are about to snap at someone, or can't make up your mind, or feel that heat rising in the muscles, or the tension in your neck, or can't fall asleep or have to get up too early... what can you do to help find ease in the moment? Can you find your breath? Is there a way to use the inhale to draw strength, energy, a shifting of attention or an opening of spaciousness, and let go of something on the exhale (shoulders, jaw, tension in the fingers)? Allow yoga to help you learn to ease up. Whether you are comfortable or uncomfortable may stop being so important if you can find ease right where you are.

Time to Absorb - "BRFWA"

Every practice has its rhythms, and for me, part of every practice is taking time to allow the body to absorb its experiences, for the mind to discover and recognize itself, and for the breath to carry awareness throughout my being. This is a continuous process, and sometimes I can practice within a rhythm where this is ongoing. Sometimes, though, my attention is drawn to an aspect of the practice, and I need to pause periodically to allow this process to become the foreground, rather than the background.

When I teach, I rely upon my own understandings of this while I watch my students carefully to absorb the layers of their experiences. Some of my students will break ranks with the flow of yoga asana to give themselves this time when they feel they need it, but the vast majority of students will only take time when they are physically overwhelmed. This is not the same thing, and I make every effort to provide a spacing of opportunities for students to integrate and internalize this pattern of allowing their awareness to catch up with them. Just like remaining in Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog) a few breaths after a flowing series of warrior postures, in order to allow the breath to catch up with the whole body, or practicing pranayama (breathing techniques) to bring awareness deeper into the breath itself, these moments of focusing upon integration can be quite intense and at the same time offer a profound release. For me these moments are often the gems of my yoga practice.

My students guide me with their breath, with their body attitudes, with their facial expressions. I try to give them the time they need to awaken the prana (life force), absorb the sensations and let go of the attachments of meanings and judgments that clutter the surface of their experience. Without these pauses, I believe the body stores stress and confusion along with the movement of the breath and the energy. In some classes I've taken there is no conscious integration until Savasana (corpse pose, relaxation) which is left to the student as an escape hatch from the exertion of the practice. This is not my interpretation of Savasana either. I feel Savasana is truly a practice of release, that death itself will feel familiar in its qualities of transformation when I arrive at that part of the path.

I suppose this explains why I feel consonance with the Kripalu yogic concept known as "BRFWA" signifying breath, relaxation, feeling, watching and awareness. This has really always been deeply embedded in my practice and my teaching practice and I feel honored to offer this experience to others.

Just a note: This weekend I led an intimate yoga retreat, hosting 4 remarkable students in my house in upstate New York, and sharing practice in a small former granary building. I gratefully acknowledge the courage, joy, open hearts, and depth of inquiry these four women brought to every moment of our shared experience. May the sweetness and peace of these moments rise in them whenever their hearts call them to it.

Freedom: Even When It's All Still There

I do love it when my students glow with joy and attribute this to their new yoga practice, but I am deeply aware that pain and sorrow do not evaporate when a person begins to feel better with asana practice. Asana and meditation draw the energies of the body and spirit into active engagement, and can bring feelings of well being, acceptance and strength that are quite rejuvenating. This is terrific indeed! But at the same time I find sometimes my students, and even myself, approach the mat with the hope that it will solve the problems, bring peace and in some way wash away the hard parts of life. We just want the troubles to go away if we practice enough.

Practice does make us feel better. The core of this soothing, deep peace that can be gradual or sudden as one effect of yoga and meditation practice is real. It is accessible and amazingly liberating for any one, regardless of how long they have practiced. I believe, though, that this impact is the result of accepting what actually is, and letting go of judgment and attachment to defining good and bad, to playing the past or projecting the future. Sometimes this process brings up the roughest stuff, and can shake a person up. It is at this same moment that we can realize we are actually sitting through this, shaking yet not falling, or even falling yet not suffering any the worse for tumbling out of the asana onto the mat.

When I meditate, or practice on the mat, I am still going to find that I am out of balance, or that my mind is circling the same defeat, or my heart is aching with fear of loss. The acknowledgment of this is in itself a relief. The view of the tangle, or the deep pit, or the aching desire, comes clear when there is nothing else attached to it. I don't have to avoid or deny the sources or the troubles, nor condemn or praise my own or anyone else's reactive nature. I do not have to solve the problem. I do not have to know everything that I do not seem to know in order to comfort myself. The comfort actually comes from seeing that I crave those things - solutions, knowledge - and I can tolerate my own human condition, to be craving or judging.

In acceptance and letting go I free myself to relax, sitting with the fear or the dissatisfaction. Through the practice, I learn the range of my emotional reactions. I can listen to the story without being the story. I can actually relax all the mechanisms that otherwise get in the way of being at peace and accessing the fullness of my energy. My troubles don't go away, but they no longer define me or run shotgun over what I feel and do.

DE-STRESSSING: Let Yoga Be a Way Out & a Way In

Last evening I was teaching a de-stress chair yoga for medical professionals and supporting staff members and one participant asked "How many times and how long can I do this to help relieve my anger and frustration?" It was a wonderful question, one rarely asked. It pointed to the deeper questions, of choices and reactivity, of mechanisms developed to support a series of patterns that might not be doing that person any good in daily life contexts. Even the de-stress yoga techniques I was teaching could be fitted into those patterns in a destructive reactive way, used to reinforce formulaic and judgmental responses.

The physical practices of yoga are not really a gym class. The linking of the breath to the movements in the body and the focus that this requires bring awareness to the moment in a way that is not about counting breaths or holding asana or mudra for a specific amounts of time. It might make sense to build strength by gradually adding in a number of chin-ups or time on the rowing machine, but with a yoga asana those challenges often come simply in returning attention to the breath again and again. In this way, doing a relaxation technique or routine of spinal movements may start out as a response to a provocative moment at work or in a relationship, but will open into something quite different than simple endurance or muscle strength (those these are also side benefits of practice!).

Directing attention to the breath and allowing this focus to clarify where there is unnecessary effort is a way of learning to allow the breath to release that effort. Every inhale can bring energy, oxygen, sustaining nourishment. Every exhale can release undue effort, let go of muscle tension, open the mind and body to possibilities. In this way, repeating a simple sequence of hand motions - folding fingers in on the inhale and exhaling, then opening the hand on the inhale and exhaling - acts as a reminder to remember the breath. More than the physical action itself, this is a practice in single-pointed focus, developing new muscles of attention that brings the practitioner into the present moment and releases the person from attachment to the tensions and reactivity that are clutching them. Part of the effect is giving the body time to have its reaction and release it, similar to the technique of counting to ten before reacting in anger; part of the effect is to draw the attention inward to the inherent stability of the breath rather than dispersing energy in reactivity.

Of course the movements of the body open energy channels as well - and provide tremendous benefits in joint health, spinal flexibility, circulation, mobility, organ cleansing, even moderating existing conditions that are the results of habits and emotions, imbalances and chronic behaviors. These net physical benefits also help to reduce stress responses on a physical level, but the key is a fundamental and simple matter. Even in the first experience with yoga a beginner follows the physical directions for body and breath and as the body attempts to follow the directions, the breath begins to support everything that is going on. Whether a student willfully remembers to breathe or not, the body will take the cues and inhale and exhale, extending and releasing, undulating and cleansing, flooding the body with oxygen and supporting effort and relaxation. Letting this sustain you can feel like understanding plate tectonics, gaining trust and understanding of the basic structures that support in being alive.

Of course yoga can be fitted into a judgmental or competitive pattern; an admonition to "practice every day" or to do "this sequence this way" can turn yoga into the same routine as a series of push ups and sit ups, with the same limited effects. And there are times when a yoga practice might become a targeted practice towards a particular challenge or process, like a "goal." Yet the open spaces in the joints are made of breath not will power. And the reduction of anger and stress on the job will not come from adding another reactive response to the sequence. The yoga techniques that help reduce that anger and stress do so because they are more than a reactive response, they quietly transform the reactive moment into a vivid, focused moment of being -- in fact the only moment in which you are actually living... and breathing. You can use them like editing pencils, but their effects will spread like water colors.