Step Away from the Trap!

Patterns of behavior and reactions! We all have them. In my yoga practice, I've discovered that allowing myself to see these patterns and recognize a reaction as just that, let's me shift my attention and escape from the trap. Sometimes I have already stepped in it by the time I see it, but more and more often I can see it, and walk a different way, or at least put my foot some place else. This happens on an intellectual level, an emotional level, and sometimes physically in relation to an action connected to other people. It can often result in using different words, or not speaking, or perhaps doing something differently or feeling a new feeling in a similar situation that would have brought up pain or anger.

Sitting on the mat in a cross-legged position is a simple place to notice that we tend to put one leg under more often and the other over in a certain way. When we shift this, and cross the other way, even a "comfortable" seat can seem strange and awkward. Smile at this as you acknowledge that the first way, that other way, is your dominant tendency. With enough practice you might even get confused as to which was your "normal" way... and actually choose how you cross your legs and be actively aware of the approach you are taking in that moment of "sitting on the mat." A more developed consciousness is not all ethereal! It can be seen and felt just in the action of crossing your legs on the mat!

Tangling ourselves up is a common pattern, and it causes pain (suffering) as well as wastes energy and attention. I know that if I start projecting how something may or may not happen, I can spin wheel upon wheel of what-if constructions until that vehicle has spun out of control and takes me so far from where I am and what I'm doing that I hardly know what's going on. This is a deeply anxious procedure too, using up my attention and my energy on things that may well never even happen. I'm not saying there is no point in planning...When I need to get somewhere I look at the map, but if the road is blocked or the train is not running, well, I remain flexible to change my plan. I can check on some of those aspects first, but not all of them. Things happen. Things change. Especially when there are other people involved, lots of things change. The more rigidly I attach to my version of the plan, the more likely it is that plan will become a trap, with shunted and frustrated expectations, perhaps even judgments about my choices and fears about being judged for being late. It is also possible that I inflate my sense of ego with my success and brilliant thinking should my plan work out well, without realizing or recognizing that the trap has caught me after all. I may be left living in this illusion without acknowledging that it took all the other conditions and people and choices around me to make "my plan" work out. I now know that no one is a solitary operator, in control and fully to blame or to praise for any thing that happens. Step away from the trap!

So I suggest to my students that they acknowledge themselves as having all that they need right where they are, not letting their thoughts drag them too far off into the future or back to the past to tell or retell a story. Watching the way the thoughts spiral and move reveals many things about being human, as we share these attributes with everyone else. The traps raise emotions unrelated to the present, and severely limit a person's ability to experience what is happening in the moment where they do exist, living and breathing. One of my students confided in me that she often seems to put herself in traps like this that spin her off into anxious and frantic patterns, rarely of any use to anyone; exhausting her and causing fear and pain. This acknowledgment is the beginning of awareness that will help her see before she steps. She then shyly asked if that ever still happens to me. It sure does! More often than not, though, I now see the pattern or trap without stepping right into it, knowing that even if I do step there, I can acknowledge it, and turn my attention to be in the moment I am living, rather than giving over my life to the spiraling of my mind or tangling threads of anxiety and reaction.

These are parts of the practice of mindfulness, of being awake, of allowing yourself to be present without judging and without attaching to outcome. Seeing the patterns that have pushed you around can liberate you from them. Each time you notice a reaction rather than confusing your self with the reaction, you have taken a step away from the trap.

OP-ED: President Proposes Stress Reduction Plan

Yes, I firmly believe that the President's proposals will lead directly to stress reduction in America. Putting some of the bail-out money in the hands of community banks to encourage local enterprise and job creation is a direct way of reducing stress in local communities. Approaching big banks with rules that will protect people's invested pension funds and IRA's is another direct reduction in anxiety and fear for those closer and closer to retirement age. Taking our future heat, transportation, electricity, ability to move and store products, to do just about any kind of manufacturing in our own hands by developing new technologies that loosen the grip of OPEC managers on our future is a huge step towards reducing the stress reactions of our nation -- uncramping those tight muscles, stomach aches, headaches and knee-jerk defensive actions that are using up our human resources in this country.

I teach yoga and stress reduction in a hospital, a woman's shelter, an apartment building, a yoga studio, a private home. There is not one student who is not suffering from stress that will be directly relieved by the President's new plans and proposals... Oh, and did I mention HEALTH CARE REFORM? Well, to me that is critical to reducing stress in this nation, to see that our elected officials understand that human welfare and health, care and compassion are the core of our nation? Well, there is nothing more important than that in reducing stress.

Thank you Mr. President. Take a deep inhale, and exhale fully. Just feel how much better things are already.

Sent to various newspapers at the request of "Organizing America" at barackobama.com

Stress? What Stress?

Just this minute I notice my weight is not balanced in my sitting bones. My hunching, my feet slipping forward, my tense shoulders are all part of this imbalance. Taking a moment, I draw my hips back in my seat, establish my ribs and shoulders over them, readjust my feet under my knees, inhale fully and exhale deeply. Then I turn my attention back to the gnarly scheduling dilemma I have been trying to untangle. Already my body feels more relaxed as my weight shifts down into the chair, to the floor and the enormously strong beams and supports below me. They, themselves, rest their weight on the earth below me. It took literally a moment to reduce the effects of stress on my body, and this reduced physical expression actually releases my mind from some of its clenching and spiraling.

The source of stress for me sits firmly in the realm of fear and the unknown. Usually this is a combination of anxiety over not knowing how something will happen or what the results will be, and a mixture of judgmental fears about whether the results will be good or bad; whether I, or a situation, will be successful or effective. Sometimes the fear in uncertainty is a result of my life experiences that cast a certain dye on patterns or behaviors, risks or situations. What happened earlier in my life might have been unpleasant and my anticipation of similar results will stand in the way of my clarity and view of this moment. Disengaging from that becomes part of the process of learning to focus on the present. Readjusting my physical alignment in conjunction with my breath is a terrific, immediate, accessible, free measure I can take any time I remember it!

Potential for stress is a constant of any human life, even that of a yoga teacher. Consider medical conditions, financial situations, family and relational complexities, work environments, struggles of all kinds to provide food, shelter or any level of amenity or certainty. Raising children can raise anxiety levels over the unknown from the most tiny detail (did they find the other glove?) to the larger details (will the school accept their application?) to the global concept (how will our nation's involvement in waging war change our prospects and way of being?). For some, just trying to squeeze a moment for a yoga practice into a busy life can bring more stress! Missing a class leads to disappointment, skipping a day or missing a month might add layers of self judgment and develop hesitations about practice.

The most surprising experience I have had in teaching stress reduction is that my students are fundamentally and profoundly willing to let their stress go the minute they join me in practice. I do not take this personally, rather see that all it takes is my invitation to take a minute on their own behalf, and they are able to do just that. "Inhale looking up slightly," I say, "and exhale letting your chin drift towards your own heart. Breathe there a few cycles, allowing the back of your neck to feel your breath, to release with gravity, and as you are ready, on an inhale draw your head back to a neutral chin position." There ... see ... how willing you were to let go, to give yourself exactly what you need? Just imagine giving yourself this small thing every so often... not that the stress will stop, but you will come to recognize it as something separate from your self, something that you can release any time, any where.

This slight change in perspective can have vast implications. One student asked "how to prepare for reducing stress?" My answer, "just let your attention focus on your breath and you have prepared and reduced stress all in one inhale and exhale!" In fact, take a few breaths, find your foundation (standing, sitting, walking, lying down) and know that as your body undoes the straps of stress that tie you to fears and anxiety, you can live more fully in any moment. Why not this one? When you turn your attention back to the argument, the mistake, the pressure, the impossibility, the unknown, your attention will be clear and your emotions much less stacked against you.

Addressing stress starts with acknowledging that, in all probability, you are almost always operating under some stress conditions. Gradually, learning to release the tensions and stress will help you see your patterns that are creating this stress reaction. Do you really need to feel so possessive of the supplies at work? Must you take that person's suggestions as criticism? Can you offer this suggestion as an opinion without telling that child what to do? Can you use words to explain what felt good or not good rather than shut down and add to the resentments in a relationship? Can you imagine that whatever happens you will have the where-with-all to see the possibilities available? All these little moments add up to a very heavy load to carry around. Give yourself a moment to let it go and see how different you can be. Even though the difficult times might last a while, your awareness and the effects you feel can change.

Feeling the Connection

Many a day my practice is a solitary behavior in a specific place where I can find the physical space to lay myself out. Those whose idea of me is "the official yoga teacher" would laugh out loud to see me wedged between two beds in a handstand, or propped up against the cellar door exploring scorpion. My family might find me zoned out at the end of practice in a supine twist in the middle of the living room floor. There is no reason to resist warrior in the kitchen, where the floor is clear; where the view of my own heart is as good as it is anywhere. I lost my attachment to the mat early in my exploration of yoga, finding that waiting for the mat and the private quiet space would just leave me waiting rather than practicing.

Classes bring the body into a space with other bodies. There is a wonderful confluence of influence in this. Following the intention to do yoga brings you to the class, and the class structure provides you with the breath of others around you, as well as the guidance, encouragement and support of the teacher. There is a commitment to be present. Watching over all the varieties of student I see one yearning among them all, to be and to be fully. Even without knowing what that is, or how that might feel, there is this possibility palpable in the room. By the time we find savasana, the sense of being fills the space, however large, however small.

By myself, on a mat between this and that furniture with barely enough clearance to extend one leg fully sideways, I have this same connection to the breath of all living beings, to the open space of the moment. Making the connection is all it takes.

The first stage is exactly the same no matter where I am: allow myself to be present. I seek my foundation. Just noticing where my body touches the earth helps draw my attention inward and releases me -- surrenders my will -- to that which sustains me. (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya) Perhaps it is my sitting bones below me and the gentle pressure I feel on my ankle bones that enables me to let go of my earthly weight into the earthly support in Sukhasana (Easy Pose - crossed legs on the floor). My tailbone melts a bit, muladhara (root chakra) drawing energy like roots from the earth itself. This loosens the lower back and my spine rises in a natural curve that has evolved over thousands of years to find full expression right here in my own body. (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya)

This inhale draws the ocean up through me in a wave of oxygen and as I exhale my shoulders rest more lightly atop my ribcage, the weight of my arms gently moving out and away towards my hands resting on thighs (or perhaps fingers gently on either side of me on the floor -- or cupped in my lap), just as my knees gently drift away from my hips. By now I am in the room, I am on the mat, I am in the breath, I am in this moment fully. If the cat rubs against my knee, I smile or perhaps stroke the last inches of tail as it passes, and feel the lightness of being right here, right now. This is not a closed posture, one where the gates are all shut tight to protect the experience. This is a wide open space where everything can exist at the same moment. It has taken me years and barely a few moments to be here, now. (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya)

I find this is the same if I am flat on the floor, or with elevated knees, or in Tadasana (standing mountain pose) waiting for a light to turn green on the street. This connection to the present, this awakening of awareness, this being present with the breath itself is not bound up in yoga mats and classes, nor even in "yoga practice" per se. You can find this connection in a crowded subway, feeling the essential quality of presence among others there, (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya) or alone waiting for the bus by the side of the road. The breath and the being will connect you to all living beings, once you are here, there is no other moment, no other place. Just this. (Surrender to that which sustains me = Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya.)

When you feel you are lost or when you feel full of being, try inhaling "just" and exhaling "this." No pre-existing conditions are required to be present, just this - setting aside attachments and judgments, allowing yourself freedom. Oh sure, the yoga asanas make this easier in that they open awareness and energy channels, take the body into healthier and more supported ways of being, draw awareness to patterns that can then be more easily released... all good! Yet that connection to being is always there in this inhale, and this exhale. Just this.

Less is More - Make the Suggestion

It seems part of our human nature to push ourselves, to strive for things, to exert our energy and our influence in order to feel productive and even a little bit in control of the messy universe. I see my students over reaching, torquing joints in twists, yanking and pulling themselves inside and out. This is partly why they are in my class doing yoga, to have me reminding, cajoling, enticing, and surprising them as I gently suggest ways to let that go and find space of a different sort.

I have had some experiences with The Alexander Technique that had deep repercussions simply by suggesting that I think about something a different way. Just the suggestion evoked a new brain pattern, which in turn supported a new body pattern that brought ease where there had been tension, peace where there had been pain. Making the effort to put space in my painful shoulder did not work. There was no way I could muscularly pull that joint apart without tensing other muscles, and making more trouble for myself.

My yoga practice offers me the breath as the first tool, the first vehicle for change. Even though I practice often, teach often, and am living more and more in the framework of this practice, when I think of it I exhale and release my shoulders -- they are almost always carrying tension when I am not thinking about them. So I know that the vast majority of my students are also carrying their tensions, attitudes, anxieties in active ways throughout their bodies when they are not focused on releasing them.

Here is where the power of suggestion comes in. Doing less is certainly key when it comes to reducing the tendency to over-effort. But telling yourself to "do less" is like telling yourself "to relax" when you are tense. Yeah, sure, right, RELAX!! DO LESS!! (Can you tell I'm smiling?) We cannot effort our way into doing less or into relaxing, but we can make suggestions that often have quite wonderful effects.

Here are a few you can try with yourself.
Suggest that your skull is simply resting atop your spine. (It doesn't require any major effort to hold it there, it will not fall off!) Explore with tiny micro movements the way it can move by nodding ever so slightly, and turning as if saying no ever so subtly. Suggest that this connection can remain loose and spacious. (Just notice if this has any influence on the tension in your neck.)

Suggest that your shoulders, collar bones, and shoulder blades are floating above your ribcage. Let your inhale explore this feeling, rising throughout the ribs and allowing your shoulders to float like sticks atop the gentle waves of breath. Suggest that your exhale might leave bits of space between the bones of the shoulders, as the ribs gently rest on the receding breath. (See if your shoulders begin to relax as your heart opens, lungs filling the top of the rib cage, as the weight of the shoulders lightens.)

Suggest softness and space in your hip joints as you walk, imagining the bones of your thighs loosely wrapped by cushions of stretchy flexible bands. Allow this softness to permeate your movements, feeling the freedom of the swinging bones, the width of the motion, the range of your own stride. (Notice if your breath begins to follow your steps as you walk, taking pleasure in this new freedom!)

No one likes to be told what to do when they already know what to do. Perhaps we feel differently when we imagine that we do not know. I suggest that by opening an inquiry with suggestions rather than directions, you will discover all kinds of space and ease, and feel how much more there is in you when you do less! And of course, in every one of these suggestions you have shifted your focus, inward, to the breath, releasing the grip a little on the urge to control, to judge, to muscle. Through suggestion you offer yourself a moment -- this moment -- to be in the inquiry of who you are and how your body and mind work together in the present tense. That feeling is enough all by itself to help let go and breath a little easier!

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.

Accepting Wholeness

I love the title of Mark Epstein's book Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart. (1998: broadway books, ny) It speaks to my thoughts on wholeness, that we are already whole and somehow learn to segment, judge, discard, ignore and repress so that we feel ourselves (or others) to be incomplete.

If I accept my "faults" and "weaknesses" -- those attributes that are judged as less-than, and include them in the whole picture that represents me along with the open, loving, functional attributes, I see myself as an entirety. I make choices, I have had experiences, I have learned this and that -- including yogic ideas and practices -- and throughout these times that which is my being has been whole. Even in the worst of times or the best of times, that being is beyond the attributes.

Epstein reacts to the Dalai Lama's statement that "All beings are seeking happiness. It is the purpose of life." After a while he comes to see that, "Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection." He recognizes that this statement refers to the misplaced idea that we can seek completion and thus happiness through accumulation, either outside ourselves (from other people, relationships, or material goods) or inside ourselves (self-development, status).

A friend has been going through a great deal of trauma with her adolescent son. He is suffering as many teens do with self definitions; and the pressures to feel or look or act or accomplish in a specific way seem inextricable from "success" and thus "happiness." The happiness does not come, the judgments pile up, the soul retreats. I feel sad about this situation, and wonder if our society could shift away from what Epstein calls "psychological materialism."

Yoga practice really helps with bringing an open space in which to accept a self that includes the entirety of "strengths" and "weaknesses" and encourages a person to drop the judged quality there. What may seem "strong" may be a block to something else, what may seem "weak" may be where the deepest waters run.

Note: I also recommend Epstein's first book, thoughts without a thinker.