Banks on the River  4/7/08

      

Letting Go-9/26/7

When I was about 5, we were moving yet again (military life) and I was in temporary housing. My parents woke up to a bumping sound in the middle of the night and found me sleepwalking. I was at the sliding glass door, trying to walk out. As I walked into it I  said - whoops! Sorry Dad... Whoops! Sorry Dad...repeatedly trying to walk through this door (& apparently in my dream kept   bumping into my Dad!).

This reminds me of times in life where we are bumping into a wall (or sliding glass door), in a sleepwalking state. Sometimes we just keep going even though life might be trying to guide us a different way. An old teacher of mine likes to say, "God answers every prayer - sometimes the answer is no!"

Sometimes when we want something so badly, we cannot see all of the roadblocks that are in front of us. We become determined to get this thing, no matter what. It can become such an obsession that we cannot see any other    possibilities. The Buddhists call this "grasping attachment."

When I first learned this concept 9 years ago, I  put it to work for me at my job. I used it as a tool for letting go. I would tell my boss - "here is my project, let me know if you have any changes. I am not attached to this particular direction." It helped just to say the words - "I am not attached".

This works great for me in reducing perfectionistic tendencies, and helps me get out of stuck ways of thinking. Other areas are much more challenging.

The grasping attachment gets hidden and sometimes I can't see it until I've bumped up against the sliding glass door a few hundred times.

Addictions are a minefield of grasping attachments- not just drugs/alcohol, but food, caffeine, people/relationships, etc. The first step in letting go of these attachments is noticing. Try applying the 7 attitudinal factors of mindfulness below. If it becomes overwhelming, find a qualified counselor to help you navigate the process of detaching.

Remember the saying: "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were. " Richard Bach

Attachment-good, grasping-not so much.

Until next time :)

Brandy

From Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness for Beginners (audio) 

1. Non-judging

2. Patience

3. Beginner's mind

4. Trust

5. Non-striving

6. Acceptance

7. Letting go

Try this - think about an area of suffering in your life and see if you can discover which of these attitudes you are embodying and which you are not. Focus on one or more of the attitudes that you can apply to your situation and see if it changes. 

Smell the Coffee -9/19/7

My vacation in Mexico gave me a lot of time to step outside of my regular routine and think about the benefits mindfulness. I have gained so much personally from this  practice. I learned how to notice my repetitive thoughts and behaviors, and quickly found that many of them were not serving me or my relationships. I saw that I was on auto pilot - not fully living my life.

Sometimes this awareness can be very painful - I grew up with a strong desire to acheive, please and be perfect (a common attitude in this culture). My mindfulness practice shines the light on the parts of myself  I'd rather keep in the dark.

But keeping them in the dark means they will stay there, poking up their gruesome heads, showing up when I'd least expect them, always at the most inopportune times. Looking at my thoughts and behaviors helps me decide what I want to support and where I'd like to do something different.

A key part of mindfulness practice is non-judging. In order to stick to my quest for self-understanding, I have to have compassion for myself. I have to forgive myself for not being perfect.

Yogis, meditators, and spiritual practitioners all over the world believe that spreading mindfulness will take it  from an individual practice to a global vision. We start to care more deeply about our impact on others and on our planet.

In some ways, mindfulness is the most basic tool for peace and sustainable life on earth. And it's something all of us can do - for free - every day to make a lasting impact for our future.

Are you ready for a totally new perspective on life?

Thanks for reading

Brandy

Autumn Equinox

Autumn Equinox is September 22 - it is the day in which the dark and light are equal. As it gets darker and colder, we spend more time indoors. Our focus also turns inward.

This is a great opportunity to set an intention for this new season. Here are some ideas:

     *Jounal or write down your dreams

     *Start a meditation practice

     *Read a book you've been wanting to read

Autumn Equinox is also a time of gratitude for the harvest. What did you reap this year? Which intentions & prayers did you set and see manifest in your life? Send more gratitude out and see that abundance grow even more.

Honoring the seasons is a way of honoring the flow of life. When we flow with life, things feel easier, more natural. When we go against the natural flow, it feels like we are flowing up a river - tiring and challenging!

Mindfulness part II -  9/12/7 

This is part 3 of my 4 part series on using yoga to manage mood. Let's dive into the breath. This week we will talk about ways of calming our energy. If you recall, I told you in the first installment that we can use breath to lift or calm our energy or mood.

3 months ago, I met Lorraine*. She stopped me after class one day and told me that she had been suffering from panic attacks for over 10 years. She was in a car accident and her younger sister was killed. Ever since the flashbacks and panic got progressively worse. We decided to do some private work together.

On our first day, I read Lorraine an excerpt from Amy Weintraub's book, Yoga for Depression in which she describes a client with almost identical symptoms as Lorraine. Amy used simple breathing techniques to help her client get rid of her panic forever. Lorraine was ready.

Here it is - the magical secret: breathe in for 4, breathe out for 8. Yes, that's it. The trick is that Lorraine was committed to practicing it several times a day. Whenever she could find a quiet moment - even in business meetings!

I saw Lorraine about 8 times, and over the course of our work, we continued to practice various breathing techniques, as well as begin to work on the core of her posttraumatic stress from the accident. Amazing benefits began to unfold. Lorraine told me weeks later that her panic had been so bad that her work was suffering. However, since she started the breathing practice, not only had her panic started to dissipate, but she was staying more present during stressful situations at work that would have made her fall apart before. Then Lorraine told me they had a re-org at work, and (I swear I'm not making this up) she was given a promotion.

As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, if you work the program, the program works. True for yoga, true for meditation, and true for breath work.

See you next week,

Brandy

Mindfulness-The Way In-9/5/07

 

Tools for mood, part 1  - 8/30/07

When I first came to yoga, I really had no idea what it was about- stretching? Strange poses? Now 9 years later I am still amazed by all of the benefits I have gained from yoga.

One unexpected benefit was helping to manage my mood. Coming to a yoga class will often times improve the mood just because of its physical impact on the systems of the body. It increases circulation, provides more oxygen-rich blood to the brain, tones the nervous system, and calms the adrenals - all important factors in mood.

Other yogic practices that are less often done in a class are even more powerful for mood management. Pranayama, or breath control, can heat or cool the body, reduce anxiety, increase energy, balance the right & left hemispheres of the brain and help improve our overall sense of well-being.

Meditation helps increase our self awareness, gives us tools to identify the source of uncomfortable emotions, to sit with them, and allow them to flow through us. Yoga teaches that meditation is the gateway to remembering the source of that divine energy that flows through us - that is us. Remembering our true nature and gaining new perspective on our lives can be very healing and stress relieving.

Over the next 3 weeks, I will tell you more about how to manage your mood with yoga, including real examples of people who have used these techniques and changed their lives. Please don't take my word on it - the proof really  is in the practice.

Try this now:  Sitting up tall, but comfortably, breathe in through the nose for a slow, even count of 4. Hold full lungs for a count of 4, exhale slowly for 4 & repeat 4, 8 or 16 times. If it feels too easy, increase from 4 to a higher number, but keep it even on all 3 parts.

Extra challenge: try to do this twice a day - say, right after you brush your teeth. See what happens! Try it when you're in a stressful situation - no one will know!

Have a great week

Brandy

 Science

 

We can feel that yoga reduces stress, but here's some of the science behind it. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is the reaction we have to perceived threat - say you spot a poisonous snake on your trail. Your heart rate increases, you sweat, your digestion slows - your production of adrenaline and cortisol increase.

 Then you look again and - oh! It's not a snake at all. That's when the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) takes over and helps reverse what the SNS did. Only in our high stress culture, our SNS is on overdrive and our PNS cannot compensate for all that activity.

Here's where yoga comes in. Slow postures, breathing, meditation & chanting help support the PNS to restore calm. Sun salutations and rigorous poses actually increase the SNS, but studies have shown that practicing rigorous poses followed by quieting ones actually leads to deeper relaxation than quiet poses alone.

Read more on Yoga Journal.com

Yoga of the heart-8/22/07

 

Last week was an auspicious week for Anusara Yoga - its 10 year anniversary! This style, founded by John Friend, has a very passionate following. John describes Anusara as "a powerful hatha yoga system that unifies a Tantric philosophy of intrinsic Goodness with Universal Principles of Alignment^(TM)."

About 3 years ago, I was having a lot of difficulty in my personal practice. I had a lot of injuries and life was so busy that yoga began to take a back burner. I started my Master's program at JFK and struggled to keep up my practice. Then I met my teacher Kenny Graham. Two things stood out in Kenny's classes - first his depth of knowledge and experience with alignment, which helped me and many of my students immediately. Second was his openness and kindness to everyone.

Those two qualities are what Anusara is all about. We look for the good in things. We align with our true divine nature. We celebrate the gift of life that we have been given and share in a community that uplifts us all.

Not that we don't acknowledge that life is hard sometimes, or pretend it's happy when it's not. We honor the fact that in our human experience, we taste a variety of flavors (rasas) - some bitter, some sweet.

We recognize that, thank goodness, all things pass, evolve, or shift. Through our practice and supporting each other we get through the hard times.

May we all feel supported in our communities, families May we learn to see our own inner strength and capacity to meet our own needs.

May we find connection, love and hope, as we open our hearts to an even more brilliant expression of who we are.

Namaste,

Brandy