Is Restorative Yoga For You?

For many years I had one speed...fast.  And one intensity...hard. So how has a girl like me become so deeply enamored with restorative yoga?   Restorative yoga, as I have been taught, is a deeply healing practice that utilizes props...lots of them (blankets, bolsters, sand bags, belts, chairs, eye covers etc).

It all began when a dear yogini friend of mine named Cheryl said, "I think you'd get a lot out of taking a course in restorative yoga with Judith Hanson Lasater". I've had many endless conversations with Cheryl around everything yoga as we studied yoga therapy together and as a result, a deep and lasting friendship emerged.  I trust her and her opinions as I have relatively few people with whom I can be such a yoga geek.  If restorative yoga is something that Cheryl valued then I thought I would probably find it valuable as well.  So I committed to a four day intensive with Judith.

During those four days Judith said one thing in particular that has stayed with me over the years - during the week between Christmas and New Year's, the only style of yoga she practices is restorative.  When the week is over, she said that everything seems more colorful, easier and the world, in general, more peaceful.  I quietly thought to myself, "Yeah, right...the world turns into rainbows and unicorns with a bit of restorative yoga."  A couple of days later, as I was driving back from San Diego to the desert and passed through some gentle rolling hills,  I noticed how lush they were and what a lovely shade of green.  I noticed the blue sky and the white puffy clouds.  And then I caught myself saying out loud, "It's true!  Everything DOES look more beautiful!".

Then the magic started to reveal itself the moment I began using a unique way of supporting the head and neck with a blanket during savasana (the final relaxation in every class). People actually moaned with pleasure as I tucked them in...and they still do after these many years of doing so.  What also revealed itself was how deeply healing the practice is and how desperately people need committed downtime to re-set the balance of their bodies, minds and spirits from an over-scheduled and full life.

And then there's the transformational moments that happen.  Just today, I asked a relatively new student to the practice how it was going for her coming to class twice a week.  She said that having been in constant pain for several months, falling out of shape and becoming more distanced from her body was a real concern.  She felt she was pointed in the direction of an electric wheel chair to cope with daily pain and discomfort.  Now, she's back to walking and doing a stationary bicycle, along with her restorative yoga. But, she said "It's been the yoga that has pointed me in the right direction.  I've completely turned around how I felt, I have hope and am managing my pain like I haven't for a long time.  It's enabled me to become more active with the walking and cycling. It's amazing."

I tried not to act too surprised in hearing her experience, but I couldn't help but feel my heart expand.  Some of us need restorative yoga because we've always had the default speed of hard and fast.  Others need it because they have crazy busy lives and must step out of it for a while and finally, others step into the practice because they've been in physical or emotional pain that at times seemed beyond a turning point.

I've always said if you can breathe, you can do yoga.  But if you want to alter your nervous system and create better balance in your lifestyle, then perhaps restorative yoga is for you.

Still not convinced?  Come give it a try and let your body, mind and soul do the talking.  You might just hear yourself say, "ahhhh"

Arms of Love

It's once again that time of year where we are prompted and incentivized from a retail perspective to declare our love (or like if it's early stages) to someone special around us.  Valentine's Day is upon us.  Cards, flowers and chocolate if you're following the usual route but perhaps this is the year you've colored outside the lines and done something different.  If so, please send me a reply as to what it was that you were inspired to do for your beloved.

Being a time of the year when we a drawn into thinking about love and heart shapes, I am compelled to share my thought of the week around the energy of the heart.  If you take a moment and center your awareness into your heart, notice what's present.  Do you connect with its beat?  Do you have a strong emotion such as love, grief or melancholy?  Do you sense that this is where your soul lives?  Do you feel your breath?

Simply notice what comes up when you focus your attention here. And recognize that what you sense in this moment is most likely to shift.  When I was falling in love with my beloved Ed, my heart felt like it was flying out of my chest.  A popping of excitement seemed obvious to me and perhaps to others as my new love felt radiant and expansive.  When our dog Yindi passed away, it felt as though an elephant had sat on my chest.  The feeling was one of such heavy grief, I wondered if I would ever be free of it.

My point is that our emotional heart changes with the ebb and flow of our dynamic lives.  Yet, there is something that is lying below the emotional sensibility of the heart and it's an energetic current.  I'm not referring to the electrical activity within the heart that can be detected on an EKG (although that alone is a nothing short of miraculous).  I'm referring to the energetic body, that esoteric aspect of our being that can be described as prana or chi energy.

The heart has major meridians that run from it out through our arms and to our hands.  You can close your eyes and draw your attention to the sensation of a buzz, heat, pulsation or tingling emanating from the heart center outwards.  When I do this I most definitely get a buzzing sensation that can amplify the more I focus on its energy.

And think of the many things we do to express love through the use of our arms and hands.  This expression is seen as we prepare food for ourselves and others; reach out to "lend a helping hand"; giving and receiving a hug; holding hands; writing a love letter; gently pushing a child on a swing; digging into the soil to plant a garden; playing patty-cake with a child; caressing someone's face or body; and blowing a kiss.

All of these acts involving our hands and arms are nothing but pure expressions of love.  Reach out and hug someone.  Squeeze them tightly so that the energy of your heart connects and melds with the energy or theirs.  We've all had the experience of that unspoken connection and this Valentine's Day is a great opportunity to launch yourself into doing more of it.

Your heart and soul will thank you!

Our Own Snow Globe

Bring the image of a snow globe into your mind and see the snowflakes swirling around in a flurry.  It might be an easy image for those folks living in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States as we sit in the deep snows of winter.  This past week I had this image as I came into contact with hundreds of tennis players who checked in for matches at our annual, ASICS World Tennis Classic event.  Some were calm but many were in this pre-match state of heightened nervousness, as if they each were their own snow globe that had been madly shaken.

All of us live in our own worlds which are often much like an agitated snow globe.  In our culture it's common to have constant motion with people being incredibly scheduled so much so that at times our own snow globes seem to generate their own scene of white out inside.  We can't see what's below the agitation because the activity spreads a layer over everything.  We become unconscious of what's driving us from a deeper level.  And you can sense the level of agitation by watching people's energy and movement.  It appears as though most of us have some type of movement nearly all of the time.  Our flakes are active, often softly floating about and at times, completely a-buzz.

I had this experience the first two days of the tennis tournament.  I felt a bit cranky and short on patience.  I was missing my desired state of Zen coolness, recognizing that small things seemed to be bothering me more than was warranted.  My snow globe had been shaken.

It wasn't until the next morning, when I finally sat quietly in stillness during my meditation did I realize WHY I was agitated. It dawned on me that although I had much happening, minor but constant earthquakes, it wasn't until I sat still did I have insight and clarity.  It was the sitting still, the settling of the snowflakes where I was able to uncover what had been triggering me and in doing so, I was able to shift from a state of being bothered into a state of looking at things from a more loving-kindness perspective.

When I got to the tournament desk that morning, I saw with fresh eyes and could recognize the generosity, noble intent and enthusiasm of the many faces surrounding me.  My snow globe offered a new landscape and although it had many moments of action and agitation throughout the week, insight and clarity were available when I let the snow settle.

If we expand this image, it's in moments of  being quiet where we have the greatest transformative realizations.  How often during your day do you pull your focus to your inner landscape away from the outward focus of daily living?  It' s in the regular practice of coming to our center that we can navigate the rocky and prickly moments with greater ease and grace.  Without my meditation practice I might have stayed with the cranky energy throughout the week which ultimately wouldn't have served me or those around me.  It basically made it a more enjoyable experience from many perspectives.

Let it snow...let it snow...let it snow.  And then enjoy the white pristine stillness of such inner and outer beauty.