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This past week I have been reminded of the power of community. Often during our peak season I will decline invitations to socialize during the week as I find my energy quota gets emptied rather rapidly if I say "yes" too often and over-commit. However, this past week we were invited to two consecutive evenings of socializing which were both quite different from one another but both driven by passion. One was a passionate quest to support the conservation of cheetahs and the other to acknowledge and quietly celebrate friendship. Although part of me was hesitant to make the commitments, intuitively it simply felt right to be part of it all. Trusting that inner voice that says yes is a powerful thing, particularly when it's all over and you say "thank goodness, I wanted to be part of that!"
Community is what holds us all together in a multitude of ways. When we gather, especially with people who are like-minded, we have an opportunity to see the best of ourselves. As we sit together, we reflect back to each other what we hear, feel and sense. When we feel comfortable, we allow our vulnerability to be more visible and when it's held softly in the hands of others it's as though we are reminded of the gentle touch of a mother. People see who we are and love us anyway.
Some of you reading this may know that my husband, Ed, had hip replacement surgery just over a month ago. And just this week, he wanted to come back into one of his regular yoga classes that I teach for the simple act of being with his fellow practitioners. Although he was physically limited during parts of the practice, he felt driven to be with a familiar and supportive community. It wasn't about doing poses, it was about being in a supported environment. To sit and practice in the energy of others can not only be uplifting but quite healing. This happened on another occasion with one of my yoga students who had a lumpectomy for breast cancer. She told her doctor that she wanted to go back to yoga within a relatively short time following her procedure. He said he didn't think it was a good idea as he didn't want her to pull her stitches. She said she looked at him realizing he didn't understand her need to be back in a group of people who cared about her and supported her healing process. Again, it wasn't about the poses but about the loving vibration of being in a space that held the intention of balanced health and healing. She allowed herself to be in the presence of others who understood the desire to connect (and she didn't pull her stitches!).
The lesson and thought for the week is to allow ourselves to be held by others. The strength of our like-minded networks goes beyond the obvious and into the sublime energy that we exchange with each other. Add into that groups such as a regular yoga class, people who move, breath and share a transformational practice, it seems like a wise choice to hang out with them.
If you want to be inspired, hang out with people who inspire you. And to add to it this week...hang out with people who hold you softly, with compassion and love.
Yoga is a practice where the balance between the mind-body-soul is integral to all that is undertaken. When these three elements are in harmony with each other the experience is a feeling of ease, attentiveness to the present moment and an overall sense of wellness and calm. We know that the mind-body connection is real and although they can be thought of as separate they are actually never divided.
When we are anxious about something, public speaking for example, we simply have to think about what is about to happen and our body has a physical reaction. We get cotton-mouthed, butterflies in the stomach, our faces turn red, we perspire and hold tension in our shoulders and face. We haven't even stepped one foot onto the podium and we're a physical mess before anything has actually happened. It works in the opposite direction as well. If we've are recovering from a surgery or illness, it seems nearly impossible to have creative or focused thoughts. It seems like the worst time to be problem solving or creating a new project. We simply don't have the mental capacity to sit down and get productive, so, instead, we veg out in front of the TV, sleep or listen to music. Our minds know that the body is unable to support us in a demanding way, so it chills out until the healing happens.
When the physical or emotional part of ourselves is compromised, it's as though the brakes get thrown onto our spiritual growth. When life is out of balance, the connection to the deeper sense of self is put on hold. It's as though it's been put just out of reach and the idea of finding stillness on the meditation cushion seems nearly impossible. How can we center ourselves when the tasks of daily living are challenging and painful?
In a yoga practice we often begin by going through the channel of the physical body. That's not always the case with such practices as Bhakti yoga (the yoga of devotion) or Jnana yoga (the yoga of knowledge) where meditation, study and chanting mantra are a mainstay. Yet in our culture, we're more likely to step onto a yoga mat for some exercise and a side effect is that we begin to notice the inter-relatedness of the body with the thoughts. It's been said, "you can't step onto a yoga mat and not undergo some form of transformation...that's just part of the process".
I've seen it happen time and time again. Someone comes to a class wanting a good workout. They see it as one of the many movement options in their day...yoga, pilates, zumba, spinning...what's on the menu to get my heart-rate elevated, my lungs moving and to burn off some calories? If they're fortunate to have a positive first time experience, they're likely to return to the mat and, over time, it seems as though their motivation for being there has changed. They realize that they feel more relaxed, they're less reactive and begin to honor the need of self-care. The longer they practice, the more their curiosity grows, the more they seek to learn and explore. This to me is a beautiful unfolding of the unexpected benefits of all that yoga has to offer and bearing witness to that process is one of the things that keeps me hooked into sharing the practice with others.
This process is also the recognition of the complete inter-connectedness of the mind and the body. As we practice, they become a complete reflection of each other and this leads us to dive deeper into understanding our own soulful selves. As we get to know our physical, mental and emotional selves, we realize that we carry and hold beliefs and thoughts that don't actually serve us. We recognize the held beliefs and patterns that have embedded themselves over time and that we can actually change them. As we practice, we begin to recognize the multiple layers of who we are and who we aren't. It becomes a practice of seeing who we truly are and that is a reflection of Universal spirit that permeates all living beings.
Although we express as individual souls, we are each projecting our unique interpretation of Divine energy that is everywhere. My thought for this week is to dig deeper into how our mind-body-soul are intertwined...get to know yourself on a whole different level and let your light shine!
I often talk about moving from the sympathetic part of our nervous system (flight, fight, freeze) to the calmer part of our parasympathetic nervous (relax, renew, restore) because as a society we tend to spend way too much time in over-stimulated states which can wreak havoc on our health. This past week I had a first hand experience of being fully present on the sympathetic end of the spectrum.
It was during my morning commute and I was driving along the local freeway. I was in the #3 lane and noticed two cars to my right, in the #4 lane, with one of the cars seemingly too close the other. I just noticed it for a moment and continued on. In the next moment, I notice that the tailgating car began to drift to their right. I'm thinking, "uh oh" as they move onto the shoulder and I think, "holy cow, they're going off the freeway into the ditch!" But instead of dropping into the sand pit they realize in a moment of panic they've drifted and over-correct making a dramatic hard turn to the left and slam on their brakes. This causes them to skid back into the #4 lane and come to a complete stop at a 45 degree angle, straight in the line of on-coming traffic. Thankfully, no other vehicles were close behind and no accident occurred.
I was lucky to have seen this unfolding and moved further to my left, hence avoiding the potential for a major accident. Within seconds I was past the scene only to see in my rear view mirror that the car stayed stopped in the lane. Now I'm thinking, "GET OFF THE FREEWAY! GET OFF THE FREEWAY!" As I get off the freeway at the next exit, I notice that my heart is pounding in my chest and continues to pound for the next 10 minutes until my arrival at the yoga studio.
Fortunately, I was able to off-load the story to someone, take a deep breath, thank the forces that helped guide me and keep my cool. The interesting thing was nothing happened to me yet I still had a physical reaction as though something had happened to me. I knew I had a surge of adrenalin and that my heart rate elevated and pounded in my chest. And I knew that I had the tools to calm myself down and offer a restorative class within minutes of the incident.
This happens to all of us every day. We perceive threats from our world through thoughts, interactions and watching the news. Deadlines, financial obligations and difficult relationships are mini incidents that fire off throughout the day and guess what? We still have the same stress reaction on a physical level even though something doesn't actually happen to us. We perceive a threat and want to either run away, fight it or freeze in our tracks.
My thought of the week is how are you managing these daily alarms that fire off in your body? Do you give yourself dedicated space and time to shift from that sympathetic response into the healing end of the nervous system? Do you release tension from your body? Find your breath? Disengage?
We wonder how stress in our lives has become so prevalent that it becomes our new normal insofar as we no longer recognize the cues of when we are out of balance and stressed. Did you know that being relaxed is a natural state? Did you know that it's part of our survival instinct as much as having the need to flee?
One way to spend more time in the healing aspect of your nervous system is to do so intentionally. One of the main reasons I always offer a long savasana (final relaxation) in all classes that I teach is to give some dedicated time to support people in chilling out.
Thankfully, I was lucky on the freeway this past week and thankfully, I have been able to drop the immediate stress of the event and turn it into a teachable moment. What lesson is your nervous system teaching you? Are you listening?
