Unplug

As technology has seeped into our lives over the past decade, it is not an unusual to have a conversation about the need to avoid too much screen time. The obvious times to begin unwinding and avoid looking at the blue screen are before we head off to sleep and when we awake in the morning. However, my theme of the week has looked deeper at what it means to unplug, beyond the obvious of having less connection to technology and trying to have more connection to ourselves.

This past week I've been talking about unplugging the energetic and somatic clots that we hold in our organism. This can relate to prana (read my blog on prana if you missed it by clicking here), the subtle life force flowing through us and all living things. Take a moment to close your eyes and see if you can feel tension anywhere in your body. Got it? That's an energetic clog where the tissues are tight and the energy doesn't flow easily through them. And we know that we want to remove the clogs whether they be in our kitchen drain, sinuses, muscles, arteries or in our subtle energy bodies. 

When traumatic or life changing events occur we have a physical sensation of the experience. The event lives in our tissues and if we have no skills by which to remove the clogs, they'll linger deep within until we find a way to release them. For me, I had an energetic clog that took 24 years before it was cleared. At the age of 46, my father passed away from cancer. I was 19 years old and we had a close and loving relationship. When he died, nobody in my family or circle of people had the skills to cope with such a life altering event. I was devastated by his passing and stumbled through the next several months in a haze of grief.

Then, during my yoga therapy studies, we were spending time working on yoga and cancer. I remember going through the practice thinking, "I wish I knew then, what I know now...perhaps it would have brought more peace into the process of Dad's death". And it was in that practice that I had this incredible experience. I went into a pose and much to my surprise, began to sob. Bone wracking sobs. It surprised me so much that I sat up out of the pose and just like that, I stopped crying. It was as though a switch had been thrown to shut it down.  I was so surprised with this reaction that Ient back into the pose and started sobbing all over again. This went back and forth a few times as I was stunned by how a position of my body could turn the water works on or off. Thankfully, I was in a safe environment with a compassionate teacher who just handed me a box of tissues, assured me she was there and let me be. At the end of the practice, with swollen eyes and a snotty nose, I felt compelled to tell my fellow trainees about what an amazing and intense experience I had just had. It was a turning point in how I perceived our mind-body-soul connection and how if we tamp emotions and trauma down into our bodies without letting them clear, it might just take some time for us to fully heal. I had managed to push grief into the deepest part of my being and it wasn't until I had undertaken years of practice and finding the tools that I was able to be free of the painful grip that grief held on me.

A second story to illustrate this happened recently with my younger brother, Ken, who had a car accident and his car was totalled. Thankfully, he wasn't injured and spent the morning following the crash dealing with the Highway Patrol, tow trucks, work, a visit to a medical practitioner and insurance companies. Ken is currently enrolled in my 200-hour yoga teacher training program and there was a point in the training where he was undertaking a 21-day meditation challenge. So when he arrived home, he hadn't yet meditated for the day but didn't really feel like he wanted to...he had been through a traumatic experience and was somewhat in a state of shock. Yet, he told me that something deep within him felt that he knew that whatever was within the practice would help him. So he sat. Then he cried. He cried through the many emotions of the morning-gratitude for being alive; thankful for helpful officers, insurance agents and tow truck drivers; anger at the guy who ran into him; fear over the whole experience and that he could have been badly injured; and sadness that a car he loved was crushed and he had to say goodbye to it. In withdrawing into his own space, he was able to unplug the trauma. He didn't allow himself to stuff the experience down but to face what he was feeling without judgment.

Challenging events happen to all of us and having skills by which to support ourselves and others through the difficult times can be practiced by anyone. The point though is, we need to do a couple of things to put them into action. The first is to make space for ourselves everyday. Even the most simple act of conscious breathing is an act of unplugging. The second is to avoid getting bogged down by distractions whether they be our cell phones, TV, online shopping, obsession with politics or world disasters. Clear the space for your own inquiry and learn how to be fully present with whatever it is that you might be feeling, without judgment.

I am grateful for my unplugging and the journey I've taken to awaken it. I sit and practice every day and will forever hold my Dad in my heart with gratitude for all that he taught me, both in life and through his death. 

May the power of my practice, be shared with you.