Month: April 2020

I, along with everyone else on the planet, am dealing with how this pandemic affects me personally.  Each one of us has different coping styles and different ways of handling things from one day to the next, depending on what is going on in our lives.  I find it interesting to observe my personality at work due to my yoga training, self study and self reflective nature.   I have been performing some type of daily meditation practice, such as Yoga Nidra (guided meditation), chanting or yoga for over 25 years, which I  find useful to weather emotional storms. 

However, this week things finally got to me when I got the news that I might not be able to finish the final massage class I need to be able to sit for my licensing and state board exams.  I let myself vent a little about my dissatisfaction of how things are going, my feelings about how this crisis has been handled by our leader and the uncertainty I am feeling because of the unknown nature of how long it might take for things to regain some sense of normal.  Now to be clear, I have had feelings about this for some time now and I have been handling the isolation quite well, but I was anticipating that there will be an ending in sight and we should be able to return to some sense of a new normal.  I have been fine with the break from things, I have been  enjoying time to do what I want when I want, I am happy cooking my meals at home and being with my husband and our 4 cats, but…. I was expecting to someday get back to school and finish up my degree and I was expecting that to happen before the fall!

It was the expectation, that things were going to be different than they now are, that was making me unhappy, not the actual present moment. Being in the present and realizing there is nothing we can do to make it different or better is actually all that we have.  Thinking about how we could have done things different in the past or worrying about what the future holds and how things will look then does not help to make THIS moment any different.  It just takes us out of the present situation and reality.  Our body is made up of energy (along with a lot of other concrete materials) and we have a choice to either conserve and revitalize our energy or to waste it.  We have a choice over how we utilize our prana (life force); we can either increase it or we can deplete it.  Always, but especially in these times where the health of our immune systems is so critical, the decision to conserve and revitalize our life force is the correct choice.  Our habits, the food we eat, the thoughts we think, the company we keep, whether we exercise or we don’t, the practice of having a regular meditation and relaxation practice, are all vitally important.

Another very important point is that we need to let ourselves feel and express the feelings we have in a safe way.  This means to let ourselves vent in a way that doesn’t hurt others, so that we feel our feelings without “stuffing them down” which is not a good thing.  Energy needs to move through us so it does not get trapped in the body.   To go back to the earlier example of this would be,  I was very frustrated by my situation and could have let myself just keep quiet about it and not express my frustration  or I could have been ruminating over it and watching a lot of the news that would scare me and make me fearful that things will never change.  Either action would have kept that energy trapped in my body and actually get my mind to project further into the future and create elaborate scenarios (which I am very good at doing), which destroys even more prana. 

Try this instead!

 Focus on the physical sensation in your body that the thoughts are creating, and then direct your attention to your breath.  Direct the  breath to the place you feel the physical sensation and stay there with your attention.  Remain with the physical sensations and the breath until you notice something changing.  This will probably take several minutes to a half hour.  You need to stay present with the sensations and allow them to change.  Staying focused and centered with attention on the breath will ALWAYS create a change in how you feel.  It is okay if the feeling is not gone, but it will most certainly become lighter and different.  It is important not to TRY to make anything change or to make things be different but the result will certainly be a shift in the energy.

Till next time

Each day in my new routine is different:  some days are filled with home chores and tasks related to school and studying, but every day is spent doing some form of meditation and spiritual practice.  I had written down my goals for 2020, which included doing some form of exercise daily, doing a daily meditation practice and playing music and/ or singing daily.  Since the lockdown, the only thing I have not gotten to on a daily basis yet is playing music. I have been chanting almost daily, which is actually a spiritual practice, and it makes me feel so whole and uplifted. Each day, Deva Premal & Miten  go live on Facebook and chant the Gayatri Mantra, which has been such a great addition to my daily routine right in the middle of the day.  

Before this lockdown happened, I had been having such a hard time before getting to all the things that I wanted to get to around my home, between projects and chores, and it was because of a lack of time.  Now with all the time I could possibly want, I am still finding it hard to get to everything, since there is so much I want to accomplish. Almost every day, we cook a fresh meal for breakfast and dinner, so a few hours each day is spent with meal preparation.  This is such an important task now and always, as fresh, nutritious food prepared with love, is so healing to the body and mind.  Given the long list of “to do’s”,  I am remembering  to take things in stride, realize there is only so much time in a day and know that I cannot possibly get the list completed. The reality is that I would rather be relaxed and not stressed about what is or isn’t  getting done and be gentle with myself over the expectations of “what should or should not be happening”.   The pursuit of perfection is one that could drive me crazy and is absolutely pointless.  

I had a realization in yoga nidra  today, about my mind having expectations and being very busy with “deciding what is ok and what is not ok and that things ought to be different than they actually are”, that I was able to see that I am not ” being in the present moment”. I mentally stepped back from the reality that my room was colder than I anticipated and I was feeling cold.  I realized that it was ok that my feet were cold  and that I didn’t need to change anything to make this moment better. When I was able to accept this, I was able to get deeper into my experience and transcend my mind.  It is very interesting to be able to observe my mind’s activity and to see how it keeps me from being present. Presence is the ability for your body, mind and spirit to be in the same place. This is a skill that needs to be exercised regularly as our minds are overactive and keep us from truly “being here now.”    In life, there are always opportunities for us to experience this, but we often just don’t. Musicians, athletes and artists are often in this place when they are creating or performing, and this is called flow or peak experience. Our practice in everything we do can either help us to be centered and present and in the state of flow or its opposite, scattered and absent.  The law of facilitation says that what we practice we strengthen and the neural pathways in our brains get stronger and more deeply developed.

So the question is:  What do we want to strengthen?

Peace and ease and being in the present moment or it’s opposite, unhappiness and living in the past or in the future?

I have been working on creating  neural pathways to aid in my personal growth consciously for over 6 years since I took my Yoga Nidra Facilitator Training, and continue to practice these skills regularly.  I understand it from a scientific and intellectual place but realize the practice is so necessary, as the mind is tricky and keeps trying to keep me stuck and distracted. Every day that I recognize this and point it out to myself is another day I get closer to being awake and aware.  Choose freedom and stop being a slave to the mind which wants to keep you living in the past or dreaming about the future.  The mind when used consciously is a powerful machine and when used unconsciously can keep you a prisoner.  Choose being awake and aware and living in the NOW!

I am sharing a personal story today to help illuminate a universal experience and the importance of the practice of Self Study.   During a meditation practice today, I got a glimpse of the shadow side of fear that continues to live inside me without my awareness.  I believe we all experience fear on some level and choose to avoid facing it. We may not even be aware of our aversion to fear. During the Pandemic, I had been feeling like I was dealing with it as well as could be expected. I had created daily rituals to keep me grounded and connected to my spiritual side in this tremendously unnatural time. 

My day had been unusually busy trying to get things accomplished around the house, as I had noticed all the dirt and dust that had been accumulating, so my husband and I set out to tackle it. Things took longer than expected and I was rushing to a virtual Yoga Nidra group with my dear friend and teacher, Renu. We worked hard up until the minute I needed to get settled down.. At the beginning of the session, she asked us to bring up things which have been challenges for us, and I felt like things had been ok for me.  Others shared about their frustrations with life and fears of getting sick while being in the workplace. I felt like I had avoided that by choosing to stop working several weeks ago until things settled down here in Maryland. During the meditation, I did notice my mind getting much more active than usual and I started to notice physical aches and pains in my bad ankle and I had a hard time being present. I tried using all the tools I have learned: coming back to my body, feeling the sensations without avoiding them, coming back to what my teacher was saying, and listening with my full attention.  I made it through the experience and just chalked it up to my mind being a little more busy than normal because of having rushed to get there. I didn’t get too worked up over it. 

I returned to doing some more tasks on the computer and realized I wanted to try another friend’s meditation technique on releasing fear and anxiety before settling into my chanting routine.  I turned it on and settled in as I listened to her description of the exercise, we would be getting in touch with the specific fears that we are experiencing due to the Coronavirus. So here is the part that was surprising: if you had asked me if I have any fears over this, intellectually I would have said that” I am taking good care of myself and doing the whole social distancing thing and am fairly safe”. But, I followed her technique and asked myself what I am really fearful of, and waited… So what came to me is that I really am afraid that I or my family could get really sick.  She asked us to feel this in our body and I couldn’t identify any real place in my body where I felt this. She was probing and getting us to feel something, but still I felt nothing.

During the practice she said that maybe we are feeling numb to this and it hit me like a ton of bricks that my default coping mechanism as a trauma survivor is numbness.  I realized that I actually do have fear but that I have had a black hole of sensation when it comes to fear. Amrit Yoga practices have been good for me, as a trauma survivor, because they focus on feeling the physical sensations in the body during the practice and reducing the mind chatter. I realize now that, as a coping strategy since my trauma, I have compartmentalized bodily sensations, feeling them only when and where I think they are appropriate and safe.  I suspect other trauma survivors and most people in general do this as well. This entire lesson came as a total surprise to me. As I reflected back on the entire day,  I realized that the lady who expressed her fear of getting sick must have triggered my unconscious coping mechanism, getting my mind involved, which kept me from settling down into the safe space I normally access during Yoga Nidra. I am not sure that if I had not done the second meditation that I would have put these pieces together.

The other technique I worked on with the 2nd teacher was about accessing our shadow side but using very similar techniques of feeling the sensations present in our body during the fearful thoughts  and anchoring to the breath at the same time. She beautifully described it as “realizing the shadows in the room aren’t scary when we turn the lights on and realize there really aren’t any monsters in the room”.  Facing our greatest fears with consciousness can help us to get over them. It is not a practice to be done one time, but often, as we need to retrain our mind and our body about how to reprogram our nervous system and mind harmoniously.  

So my message for the day is: continue the practice of things that make you feel good so you can get through this situation as peacefully as possible, but know that you may also have real fears over what is happening, AND that it is important not to sweep the little monsters under the rug. Shine the light of awareness on those fears and confront them using breath and the feeling sensations in your body. Work with a good meditation teacher who can guide you safely as you tread these uncertain waters, especially if you have trauma in your past, as having the guidance of a skilled professional is critical.

A simple technique to try when you feel stressed is slow deep breathing.  It sounds too simple to actually do anything, right?  No, it really works and here’s how.  When we get stressed, our body gets tense and when that happens our body goes into fight or flight mode (our bodies response is Autonomic nervous system activation).  The heart rate increases, our breathing gets faster, digestion decreases, our pupils constrict and we become anxious.  If this were just a short term thing and we returned back to a relaxed state, it would be ok, but when we are living that way for long periods of time, it can wreak havoc on our body systems and make us feel terrible.  There is a connection between the body and mind and that is our breath.  When we are anxious the breathing is rapid conversely when we are calm the breathing is slow and controlled.  So to bridge the connection between the body and the mind, use the breath to slow them both down.  If we focus on our breathing and use simple techniques, then we can actually slow the mind down and relax the body as well.  Our body gets its other response system, called the Relaxation response or the Parasympathetic nervous system going and we feel the calming effects.  This is the system we think of as “rest and digest” and the name pretty much tells us what it is doing.  When it is active we feel relaxed,  our digestion increases and our pupils dilate  it is the opposite to the “fight or flight” system.   

So here’s a quick exercise to try this out:

Sit in a relaxed position where you won’t be disturbed for 5 or more minutes and close your eyes.  Bring all of your attention to your breath and see what it is doing without trying to make any changes to it.  After several repetitions, try to make your inhaling breath come through your nose (only if you can), and focus your attention to your belly and try to imagine that you could make it expand like a balloon with your inhalation.  On your exhaling breath,  imagine you are going to blow a candle out with your mouth slowly. and you will notice that your belly returns to normal.  If you notice your mind and thoughts coming in, bring your attention back to your breathing.   Repeat this for the 5 minutes trying  your best to keep your full attention on your breathing.  

After doing this exercise, notice how your mind and body feel in this present moment.  It is a quick way to bring yourself back into your body and out of your scattered mind.  Bringing ourselves into the Relaxation response as many times a day as you need to will enhance your wellness and make you feel happier. 

Remember we can’t control everything, but we can make ourselves more well in this moment and that will make the next moments even better.  Keep breathing!