Wandering Away, Wandering Back

by Rebecca Ingalls, posted in Yoga Healing

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If eyes can see, they can see yoga represented in online snapshots, in videos, in classes, in magazines. The eyes see bodies not our own doing yoga, and the mind may inspire the heart toward yoga. See the yoga, go to the yoga, sign up for the class, arrive. The rumor of yoga has been a blessing in many ways.

 

But the mind may also pressure the heart to do yoga so that a drive toward doing leads to a kind of physical or mental being. The pressure may push the heart out of the dynamic present and into a series of stills of the imagined body, a picture of a self. And, in so doing, we lose the inner sight of the yoga.

 

It’s a challenge to be among others in a room where yoga is being guided and not to be distracted outside of our insides. The job of the teacher is to gently help the body and the mind to find space, but the mind is busy. Very busy. It wants to know when this body will be able to do what that body does; it may also want other bodies to see what it does so beautifully. The mind may wonder what’s for dinner, or when this practice will be over so that other tasks can get done and be over. The mind yanks us out of the attention to the breath and the quivering presence of a posture, and we reach with the brain toward what we hope we will become, or to what we imagine or worry is next. Or to what we fear we will never become. Or, with pride, toward what we have become.

 

“Now,the teachings of yoga.”

 

The first of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of the guiding texts of yoga practice, is this: atha yoganuaasanam. “Now, the teachings of yoga.” I emphasize here in this quotation the word “now”; this first sutra anchors the attention to the present moment. The present moment—the now—is where we begin our practice, and it is where we aim to remain in our practice as we softly attend to the breath-led movement of asana. However, we know that the reaching back, around, and forward with a goal-oriented awareness takes us out of the now, out of the body, into an ethereal space that is disconnected from the process. In those long, distracted stretches of time we are not in the now. So, what to do?

 

Compassionate understanding: being out of the now is where the mind wants to be. It is essentially human to engage in surveillance of the environment, to future-think, to dwell on the past as experiential teaching and use it as a lens to perceive the present and future. It is fundamentally self-protective to respond to struggle with anxiety, to practice a vigilant comparison of ourselves to others. Indeed, negativity bias is what has helped us to survive in the wild for thousands of years.

 

And yet, can we ask ourselves whether surveillance is always necessary, and whether it may be causing unnecessary pain? There is suffering in the tension between what we expect and what reality is presenting to us; do we have to subject ourselves to such suffering? Can we believe that when we allow ourselves to bring the mind to the present moment—to the breath, to the nose, to the feet on the floor, to the bottom in the seat—we can actually let go of that struggle?

 

That inquiry is at the heart of yoga—are we willing to sit in that heartspace for a while or longer? Are we willing to come back to it again, and again, and again?

 

Because we are accustomed to mind-noise and mind-wandering and self-comparison, we bring those tendencies to yoga. Of course, we do. But the yoga becomes the mirror that shows us we are doing it. The teacher reminds us. And, in our developing self-practice, the Witness in our own minds reminds us. Sometimes it takes long stretches of postures before we realize that we have mentally wandered far from the now. And then we come back to the moment. We wander away, and we come back.

 

That is the essence: we come back. Release from goals, let go of being on the look-out for the past and future. Hear the breath, be steeped in the process of the practice. In turn, we are processed by the practice: wrung out, relieved, relocated in time to the only moment we can know. This one.

 

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Rebecca Ingalls, Ph.D., MSN, CNM, WHNP-BC, is a certified nurse-midwife, women’s health nurse practitioner, and yogi. She is a mother of two, and she has been practicing Ashtanga Yoga for 11 years. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.

This Goodbye is Different (A Story of Love)

by Anya Light, posted in Sacred Sexual Healing

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Part One:

 

It’s the middle of the night. My brain is a warzone. In just two short days, my Beloved will be on a plane yet again, heading back through the clouds to his home country—more than three thousand miles away from me. I groan, turning over in bed. Right now I wish so many things. I wish I could go back to sleep. I wish artificial and archaic things like borders didn’t exist. I wish we had more money. I wish we had conventional careers—like the ones that look good on immigration paperwork. I peek out from under my sleep mask to see if there’s daylight. No. I bring my hand to my chest and notice a slight wheeze. My asthma is flaring up again.

 

Since our instant connection four years ago, the intensity and razor-sharp lightning of our love has left us both confused. What to do with this these giant feelings? How to withstand the mirror of our love? Sometimes, we have buckled under the pressure and ran away. (The revelations too heavy.) Other times we’ve sworn undying devotion and spent last dollars on a plane ticket. Sometimes five hours will go by, speaking on Skype, and it will seem like five minutes. Sometimes we haven’t spoken for months.

 

The silver engagement ring I feel on my finger now does nothing to cheer me, as I toss and turn in bed this morning. I am pissed. What a relentless, heart-harrowing situation! Other couples don’t know how good they have it. To just live in the same city—let alone the same country—is a privilege we’ve never had. What terrible luck.

 

My back feels both cold and sweaty. My pale pink sheets twist around my limbs, as I struggle to find a comfortable position. My heart feels exhausted.

 

A few minutes before my alarm goes off, I suddenly hear a very clear message. The words seems to be my own voice, yet they’re not. It’s something else. There’s a tinge of the angelic to it, a certain flash of light. Wings. Shimmer.

 

Open your heart.

 

By the time my alarm goes off, I’m already doing much better, having breathed deeply into my heart. I feel less shaky now. As my eyes adjust to the soft morning light, I embrace the coming day. I smile and think of all the things I’m grateful for. I’m teaching yoga to a group of wonderful students today; I’ve got a refrigerator full of healthy, nourishing food; I have a circle of loving, supportive friends. So many things to be grateful for.

 

Open your heart, Anya, Open your heart…I shower and prepare my morning tea…Open your heart Anya, Open your heart.

 

Part Two

 

I climb into my pale gold, two-door Honda Civic. My yoga class just went beautifully. There was a distinct eye-shine for a few of them, as they rolled up their mat. What joy; what blessed work. I pull out onto the road and sigh. Just a half-hour drive and then I’ll be back in my Beloved’s arms again. I look forward to telling him about the class. Maybe later we’ll jog out in nature together, or maybe we’ll just spend the afternoon snuggling in bed. I’m both grateful and impatient to get home to him.

 

Normally, I turn left out of the studio parking lot. But today, for some odd reason, I’m curious about the other direction. There’s a highway not too far away…maybe there’s a different route? I love variety in my drives. I turn right and flip on my GPS, allowing the computer to guide me into unknown territory.

 

My plan seems to backfire, though. The monotone voice doesn’t lead me toward the highway but rather down some random-seeming side streets, into a quiet residential area. This is clearly not an expedient route! I notice some tightness in my shoulders now. Damn. Only mere hours left before the dreadful flight and I’m wasting it by driving around in circles. I feel a bit of my morning anxiety return.

 

Within a few minutes, though, I’m back out onto a main road. Oh, good. My body relaxes somewhat. I look up at the bright blue autumn sky. A few wispy white clouds here and there. Lovely. The autumn trees, boasting their red leaves. I’m driving on narrow, two-lane road. Barely any traffic. I settle back into my seat. I’m coming home to you, I’m coming home to you. I feel both grateful and impatient. If I could snap my fingers and be back there in his arms, I would.

 

I’m driving westbound, and a black car coming eastbound suddenly veers directly in front of my car. There’s no time to think—I slam on my brakes and scream. As our cars collide, a thought flashes through my mind: I’m about to die. After an unidentified space of time, I open my eyes. There are almonds scattered around my feet. Items that were in the back seat are now in my front seat: a purple folder, a bag of candles. Everything’s blurry. There’s a woman standing next to my car in a hooded sweatshirt. I roll down my window, fumbling with the buttons like a clumsy infant. “I’m so sorry” she says. “I swear, I didn’t even see your car.” I slowly unbuckle my safety belt and stand up, asphalt like jello under my feet. “My name is Michelle,” she says. I offer her a hug and hold her in my arms. There’s blood on her forehead and I am suddenly aware of pain in my neck and back.

 

Maybe three lifetimes pass before the police arrive. First one car, and then another. There seems to be confusion because our accident happened on the border between two cities: whose jurisdiction? I call my Beloved on the phone and he reminds me to exhale. Michelle’s friend (who must live nearby?) suddenly arrives. She holds Michelle’s hand and buys me some filtered water from a nearby shop. I slip off my socks and stand on a patch of green, praying to Gaia for help and trying to shake off the trauma like I’ve seen the birds do. I gaze at the damage to my car in total awe. Somehow, only my right headlight is busted and the hood’s a bit bent. How? I look up at the sky. I remember to exhale. Michelle comes to my side. “It’s just one bad thing after another,” she cries, anger in her voice. Her eyes stare at the ground. “My husband was shot and killed six weeks ago. It was all over the news. September fifth. I’ll never see him again.” Her hands are trembling as she smokes a cigarette. I gaze at her, heart-pounding. There’s an audible click. Something is happening here. Something important.

 

 

Part Three

 

Two days later, my Beloved Ben and I sit by the river, our favorite bench. A loving willow tree to our left, its dangling branches curl over our heads like a protective mother. A heron waits for her breakfast: she’s so still that she’s become the water. We notice that the leaves are falling down in the gentle wind: red, yellow, bursts of bright orange amidst the lingering green. “I love feeling the seasons with you,” he says, and my eyes blur with tears. Last moments before the plane…so precious, so precious.

 

I look inside my heart. I search. Where is the typical, pre-airplane panic? Where is the doom I felt two mornings ago, as I tossed and turned in bed? I search, but can find only a soft melancholy. It’s almost sweet. This moment is happening in slow motion and I am savoring all of it. The white in his beard. The creak of the swing under our bodies. The still-warm wind, dipping under my scarf and reminding me of love. His body will be gone soon, yes—but we still have prayer. We still have meditation and phone and Skype and song. What luck; what beauty. Michelle will never see her husband again. His face will never hover over the bed; his hands will never offer her steaming coffee.

 

I will see Ben again, in three months. Snow will be on the ground. Our story is not over, not even close. In fact, the miracle is this: at middle age, we have just found each other, have just begun our journey together. Some people call this a Soulmate or Twin Flame relationship. Others might call us Tantric Consorts or Abler Souls. There are many, many names for what we are. And yet, in this particular moment, all possible names dissolve. I know what we are and words aren’t needed.

 

I search my heart again, breathing deeply. In a little over an hour, his feet shall carry him from my body and toward an airplane. But…this time…it doesn’t feel like a tragedy. This goodbye is different. Something has been healed.

 

As we work together, deepening and strengthening our sacred bond, Ben and I prepare ourselves for the ultimate departure. The day when we release these faces…the way things have been…these blessed hands that have touched…these yearning, ecstatic lips that have kissed. We will move into the wild unknown. Who can say what it is, but death comes to us all. What good practice we are getting.

 

We kiss and kiss, smiling and tears. “See you soon! Have a safe flight!” My hands touch his cheeks and the skin is infinite.

How can we begin to heal the world?

by AWAKENING WITH Contributor, posted in Yoga Healing

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If we are to help heal the world, we need to remember that it is a sacred place.

Our actions need to be positive statements, reminders that even in the worst times there is a world worth struggling for. We need to find ways to keep the vision alive, to acknowledge but not get caught in the dark side. To remember that even the worst aspects of suffering are only part of the whole picture. We need to enter lightly.

Entering lightly means not ignoring suffering but treating it gently.

We don’t want to ignore another’s pain, but our becoming depressed or angry about it doesn’t relieve it and may increase it. The delicate balance is in allowing ourselves to feel the pain fully, to be sad or angry or hurt by it, but not be so weighted down by it that we are unable to act to relieve it. It is a matter of ends and means again: to create a caring, loving, peaceful world, we need to act with care and love and peace.

Easy to say, you may think, remembering your heavy hearts, tears, and anger when you first saw babies in Ethiopian refugee camps dying from malnutrition. But it is exactly at these times – in the presence of pain, injustice, and horror – that our equilibrium is most needed. How can we keep it? Meditation can help; singing or walking can help; talking with people we respect can help; simply being quiet with ourselves can help.

It is the continuing work of life: of learning to trust that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should, no matter how it looks to us. We learn to appreciate that each of us has a part in nurturing this interconnectedness whole and healing it where it is torn. Discovering what our individual contribution can be, then giving ourselves fully to it.

Demanding as that sounds, it is what, in the spiritual sense, we are all here for, and compassionate action gives us yet one more opportunity to live it. It is an opportunity to cooperate with the universe. To be part of what the Chinese call the great river of the Tao. It is not a coincidence that Hanuman, who in the Hindu cosmology is called the “embodiment of selfless service,” is the son of the wind god. When we give ourselves into becoming fully who we are by doing fully what we do, we experience lightness. We are like kites in wind, we are on the side of the angels, we are entering lightly.


This article was originally published on RamDass.Org

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Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher and author of many books such as Be Here Now and Walking Each Other Home.

6 Tips for Yoga Newbies

by Anya Light, posted in Yoga Healing

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Is this the year you’re getting into yoga? Congratulations! What a wonderful beginning!

 

So…being a newbie might mean that you sometimes feel a little confused, hesitant, or self-conscious about your practice. You might be asking yourself: “Am I doing this right?”

 

Working with yoga newbies is my passion. I love helping people find relaxation and confidence, as they step into the yoga world.

 

Here’s my list of 6 tips to help you get started on your unique yoga journey.

 

1. Breathing is the most important thing. 

If you’re confused about how to move or how to position your body, that’s okay. Understanding the poses will come in time. For now, simply set the goal of paying attention to your breathing throughout your yoga practice. Conscious breathing is the cornerstone of yoga. When we pay attention to our breath, there are innumerable benefits to body, mind, and spirit.

 

2. Yoga is pure love.

When we practice yoga, we say YES to a world that is full of more beauty, more love. When we practice yoga, we say yes to a world where people take care of themselves and each other. At the end of a yoga class, when we bow in namaste, we are saying “I see the goodness in you, which is the same goodness in me.” When we unite our intentions in this way, we usher in a new world—a world of love.

 

3. Five minutes is better than no minutes.

If you only have five minutes today, then why not roll out your mat and do some yoga? Getting into the regular habit of doing yoga is so amazing for our wellbeing. When I hear my students complain that their lives are too busy for yoga, I remind them that if they have five minutes, they can practice. I’d rather see someone doing five minutes every day than doing one long session per week. Each time you roll out your mat, you are building new neural pathways that reinforce the feeling that yes, you do indeed like yoga, that yoga is fun. And who knows? You just might develop a pleasant “addiction” to yoga—if we skip a day, it just feels incomplete!

 

4. Yoga is not a competition.

When you’re in a class, the aim is not to do “better” than the other students. The goal is not comparison. Rather, yoga is all about community and collaboration. When we see the woman on the mat beside us holding a beautiful, complex pose, we can compliment her after class (Instead of getting jealous that we can’t yet do that pose.) When we see the man in the back of the class struggling to attain a posture, we can mentally send him warm thoughts. After class, we can strike up conversations with our classmates. “It’s so great to see you today. How long have you been practicing yoga?” Through these simple gestures, we can actually assist our teacher in co-creating an environment where we are a supportive community, rather than merely individuals taking a class.

 

5. Yoga is not a race.

Ultimately, our practice teaches us that time is not important. In fact, we enjoy our practice most when we relax and let go of timelines. We are not trying to get somewhere by a certain date. There is no rush. Our yoga practice teaches us to breathe and surrender to the wisdom of the Now. We realize that everything we need is right here, in this moment.

 

6. Explore different classes.

There are many, many styles of yoga and many, many different teacher personalities. There are yoga classes that make you jump and sweat and there are yoga classes where you sit completely still for many minutes. There are yoga teachers that make you laugh hysterically or cry tears of relief. They are yoga teachers who are more like personal trainers and seriously kick your butt. Try different classes to get a sense of what’s out there. No need to rush the process. In time, your perfect teacher will appear. For me, when I discovered my teacher, it felt like coming home.

♥

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Hope you enjoyed these tips, dear friends! If you’d like more inspiration for your yoga journey, please feel free to drop me a line and I’ll add you to my FREE weekly newsletter. Namaste.

Healing Trauma with Rest

by Anya Light, posted in Healing our Trauma

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In our fast-paced modern culture, we have a need for speed. The collective psyche is a blur of BusyBusyBusy.
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To put it bluntly, this is insane behavior. It’s harmful for all of us. And, for trauma survivors in particular, the impulse to rush and push ourselves is incredibly destructive.
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In order to fully heal our trauma, we need plenty of rest.
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If you are a survivor of trauma, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, more important than rest on your to-do list. In fact, I invite you to make it your number one priority.

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After resigning from a promising academic career due to sheer exhaustion, I remember so many days of just sleeping. There was literally nothing else I could do. A blue couch became my home. My partner Robert cooked my meals and rubbed my sore, aching head. I had PTSD, migraines, depression, anxiety, candidiasis, adrenal fatigue, leaky gut syndrome, severe food/environmental allergies, eczema, and other chronic illnesses. However, somewhere inside, there was a gentle, loving voice. She was telling me that I could recover, with patience and time. She was telling me that rest was a crucial part of my healing journey.
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I’m so glad I listened.
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Learning the art of rest has been one of the most valuable lessons of my life. I cured myself of PTSD and most of my chronic conditions. (I’m still working on healing my lungs). I feel so much freedom and joy. With each year that passes, I seem to be getting younger! Each year brings more vitality and health. It’s incredible.
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And yes, I still do have difficult days on occasion. When that happens, I give myself full permission to stop what I’m doing and rest.
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I have learned the delicate art of cancelling appointments and saying “no” when I’m feeling overwhelmed.
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I wasn’t always so easygoing and relaxed, though. The healthy Anya who writes this article today is a very different person than the sick Heather who I was back then. (During my healing journey, I changed my name from Heather to Anya as a symbol of my spiritual awakening.) Back then, as Heather, I was a classic Type A personality: impatient, competitive, stressed, and constantly planning and micromanaging life. I was constantly seeking validation from the outside world. I felt little inherent worthiness inside myself. And, because of this, sleeping often felt like failure because I was judging myself by the standards of Western culture. In the West, we judge our worthiness not by our spiritual wisdom but by our ability to “get things done” in the world. Our success is judged by how productive we are. Unfortunately, in my recent travels to India, I discovered that this mindset is slowly seeping into the East as well, which is a true tragedy.
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Success means not how much money you make, but rather listening to your body. Success is not about how popular you are, but rather being brave enough to stop and sleep when you are tired. Success means not building an impressive resume, but rather being brave enough to step outside the box and learn the miracle of self-care.
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If you are on the path of healing trauma, I want you to know you can do it. I thought I would be an anxious mess forever, and now I am happy, with a thriving healing business and a circle of conscious friends who support each other. Life is good.
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As we heal from our past, we can question standard societal definitions of success. We can rewrite the standard scripts and reach for something more deeply fulfilling. We can tune into our own sense of self-worth, regardless of the opinions of others. We can find we love ourselves.
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And it is this love, this unconditional self-love, that is the core of healing trauma.

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My dear love, release the guilt and shame. That’s society’s bullshit—and you don’t need to carry that anymore!
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Please know that are not lazy if you need lots of rest right now. You are not lazy at all… in fact, you are one of the bravest people in the world. You are doing what so many do not yet have the courage to do. You are lighting the way. As you heal your trauma, you allow others to heal their trauma, too.
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Sleep is vital in the trauma healing journey. If what you need right now is 14 or 15 hours of sleep at night and lots of naps during the day, then I invite you to do so. Have compassion for yourself. Listen to your body and soul.
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I invite you to not only give yourself permission to rest but also to find a way to enjoy it. And who knows?…you just might find that rest is a delicious medicine.

This life is not the only life

by Anya Light, posted in Sacred Sexual Healing

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The air was July, thick with campfire smoke and dandelion. He came to my apartment. It was mid-afternoon.

His soft, long brown hair…these are now stormy waves upon my neck, face, chest. A pillow holds my thrashing head.

His lips find every…single…place. Gently yet commandingly he lowers his body, full, against mine. His form is heavy and solid. Masculine. His lips. Oh his sweet lips. Slowly, he raises his head. His face is parallel to mine, hovering.

The bedroom blinds are drawn. There’s just enough light to see the expression in his wide eyes.

I know it’s time to say something…something…because I feel a restless bubbling…a heart that is growing hotter, somehow, a flame that is rising to some strange end. Without knowing what the words mean and in one breathless exhale I say I’ve known you before! My voice sounds strange—deep and husky; it doesn’t sound like mine. His eyes melt a bit. His smile is tender. He pulls his torso upward, hips now straddling my hips. He inhales deeply and speaks. At least, this time, you don’t have to watch me die.

Everything goes black.

I have no choice at this moment but to allow his words. There is a stabbing sensation in my chest. I bring hands to my heart, twisting my torso to the side in a silent request for him to move. He does, and I curl like a fetus. There is nothing now but a black, swirling, empty hole—empty yet not empty, windy but not windy.

I am nothing.

I am a tree, blown over by the storm.

I begin to howl violently. I shake and cry, a heaping mess. A small insane child. He rests on his side, front facing my front, embracing. Thankfully, he has a thousand arms.

We hide in bed for hours. Tears, mouths, kisses. We whisper of the past, remembering details from that particular death, and others. I start to write poetry without paper. We unravel the knots by speaking them. Horseback, swords, rain. I begin to understand.

Unconditional love as the essence of yoga

by AWAKENING WITH Contributor, posted in Yoga Healing

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By Ram Dass

 

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not “I love you” for this or that reason, not “I love you if you love me.” It’s love for no reason, love without an object. It’s just sitting in love, a love that incorporates the chair and the room and permeates everything around. The thinking mind is extinguished in love.
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If I go into the place in myself that is love and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That’s the entrance to Oneness. That’s the space I entered when I met my guru.

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Years ago in India I was sitting in the courtyard of the little temple in the Himalayan foothills. Thirty or forty of us were there around my guru, Maharaji. This old man wrapped in a plaid blanket was sitting on a plank bed, and for a brief uncommon interval everyone had fallen silent. It was a meditative quiet, like an open field on a windless day or a deep clear lake without a ripple. Waves of love radiated toward me, washing over me like a gentle surf on a tropical shore, immersing me, rocking me, caressing my soul, infinitely accepting and open.
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I was nearly overcome, on the verge of tears, so grateful and so full of joy it was hard to believe it was happening. Opening my eyes, I looked around, and I could feel that everyone else around me was experiencing the same thing. I looked over at my guru. He was just sitting here, looking around, not doing anything. It was just his being, shining like the sun equally on everyone. It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. For him it was nothing special, just his own nature.
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This love is like sunshine, a natural force, a completion of what is, a bliss that permeates every particle of existence. In Sanskrit it’s called sat-cit-ananda, “truth-consciousness-bliss,” the bliss of consciousness of existence. That vibrational field of ananda love permeates everything; everything in that vibration is in love. It’s a different state of being beyond the mind. We were transported by Maharaj’s love from one vibrational level to another, from the ego to the soul level. When Maharaji brought me to my soul through that love, my mind just stopped working. Perhaps that’s why unconditional love is so hard to describe, and why the best descriptions come from mystic poets. Most of our descriptions are from the point of view of conditional love, from an interpersonal standpoint that just dissolves in that unconditioned place.
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When Maharaji was near me, I was bathed in that love.
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 This article, initially titled “How does unconditional love help us rediscover our souls?” was originally published on RamDass.Org

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Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher, yogi, and author of many books such as Be Here Now and Walking Each Other Home.

Healing Trauma by Listening to Your Body

by Leslie Blackburn, posted in Healing our Trauma

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This topic is important for everyone.  Chances are, we ALL have some layer of information that our body is carrying that doesn’t feel good.  

 

Trauma can manifest in the body in many different ways: tightness, discomfort, pain, and dis-ease to name a few.  

 

The word “trauma” may evoke immediate thoughts of abuse and molestation. However, trauma may also have been a time in sixth grade when a bully knocked your books out of your arms and laughed; it may have been when a parent yelled at you to stop singing because they had a headache; or maybe it was a time when you were told you were ugly or not good enough.  Any of these types of experiences, and many more, can cause your body to hold onto stuck energy.

 

Trauma is when we have stuck energy in the body. 

 

Trauma can be initiated by many circumstances, including:

  • Rape, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse
  • Experiences in war
  • Being bullied
  • Car accidents, falls, surgeries
  • Sports accidents
  • Being shamed, yelled at, teased
  • Having emotional or physical support withheld; parents not physically present;  parents present but not emotionally available

 

Having these events happen does not automatically mean your body will hang onto it as trauma. It’s all about how it is met in the moment and how the body and brain responds.  An event that has no long-term effect for one person can create trauma in another, or an event that causes one type of response in one person can cause a completely different type of response in another. (An excellent example of this is the car accident story with Ute and Stan in Chapter 14 of van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.)

 

The events that happen in our life intensely shape our bodies and our minds and drive our actions into adulthood.  Sometimes the events that are particularly mysterious or terrorizing are the ones that happen in the early stages of life as our brains and bodies are newly developing, often before we have a way to verbalize what’s happening. 

 

Peter A. Levine, PhD, pioneer in the field of trauma and developer of the Somatic Experiencing method, describes how we can heal trauma through simple awareness of body sensations:

 

“I learned that it was unnecessary to dredge up old memories and relive their emotional pain to heal trauma. In fact, severe emotional pain can be re-traumatizing. What we need to do to be freed from our symptoms and fears is to arouse our deep physiological resources and consciously utilize them. If we remain ignorant of our power to change the course of our instinctual responses in a proactive rather than reactive way, we will continue being imprisoned and in pain.” (from Waking the Tiger, page 31)

 

I have seen in my work with my own body, and in my work over the years in thousands of hours with clients, a new way of looking at trauma.  I’ve seen over and over that all it really comes down to is this:

 

  • Are you in your body?
  • Are you in the present moment? Is your body on-line? (Brain research by van Der Kolk has shown that certain areas of the brain shut down during trauma. These areas must remain on-line to be able to heal from trauma. Therapy won’t work if we keep being pulled back into the past.  We must be grounded in the present moment: this opens up the possibility of deeply knowing, at a body level, that the horrible events belong in the past.)
  • Are you listening to your body?  (Slowing down)
  • Would you like to make a change? (Honoring free will)
  • Are you willing to feel? (To balance the feeling-heart with the thinking-mind)

 

When all of those answers are a “Yes,” then we can release patterns and rewrite the old scripts that we have been reliving. It often initially helps to have some guidance from someone who can hold safe space for us; but, in time, much of the work can be done alone.

 

We can let ourselves go into the wisdom of our body. All the wisdom’s in there.

 

We also don’t need to feel like we’re stuck in the box of a diagnosis forever. Our body’s capacity to heal itself, to align with its original template of well-being, is immense.

 

It’s really about listening to the guidance and wisdom of the body, and the willingness to be in it.

 

So, no matter what name we give our past pain, I invite you to slow down and take note. When your body gives you a message, listen to it.

 

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Leslie Blackburn, MS, RCST® woke up from a lifetime of “holding on, numbing out and keeping people out” to reconnect with her body, her power and deepest authentic purpose in life.  In that journey from fifteen years in corporate engineering to now ten years as Sacred Sexual Healer & Transformational Guide, she birthed her own unique medicine informed by the wisdom of a wide array of teachers and experiences. Leslie has worked with and inspired thousands of people on the path of Sacred Sexuality, she’s honed ways to liberate others through her story, spiritual teachings and deeply embodied experiential practices. She now offers a path of connecting with your own deep clarity and soul purpose through sexual empowerment.  Leslie bridges the realms to bring deep mystery teachings back into our world from a place of clarity, joy, wisdom and giggles so that we create a culture of love and respect for honoring ourselves, our bodies, each other and the planet.  Love in Action!


 

Leslie offers private sessions to support you to connect with and listen to your body.  She also offers a 3 month leadership and sexual empowerment program supporting sexuality educators and somatic professionals to feel joy and clarity on their soul purpose, learn new tools and build their skills in supporting other’s sexual empowerment.

 

Also, for more about this topic and much more, stay tuned for her upcoming book “Sacred Sexuality: Listening to Your Body.” Subscribe at her website for notice of its release at http://www.LeslieBlackburn.com

 

A Brief History of My Spiritual Awakening

by Anya Light, posted in More Goodies!

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In childhood, I’d always had a sense that I was different. I didn’t quite fit. I remember the adults around me being obsessed with sports and money—but it all seemed so boring to me. I remember my friends desperately striving to get good grades at school—while I couldn’t care less. I slept through most classes. What I wanted, rather, was to hug people, to play, to explore, to laugh, and to learn about love and relationships… unfortunately, these were not on the curriculum.
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As a kid, I longed for creative expression. I remember dancing silly, even somewhat sexual dances in front of my bedroom mirror: I was utterly fascinated by how my body would move. I remember skipping school in favor of writing long, epic poems and randomly weird stories. I remember creating incredible, off-the-cuff songs that nobody heard but me.
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And I remember the mystical moments, too. Moments when there wasn’t any explanation. Like when my stuffed animals and dolls would move by themselves. Or when I would dream something and then it would come true. I particularly loved those lucid dreams on lazy Saturday mornings, where I’d float outside my body and be taught by angels.

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And, yet, despite all of theses amazing experiences, I suffered deep depression. As my childhood years passed into young adulthood, I began to slip more and more into a coma of forgetfulness. I entered the mass delusion, the Matrix. I believed the advertising and made sure my makeup was perfect. I hated my small breasts and wanted plastic surgery.

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And then comes a poignant afternoon. I am in my early twenties, smoking a very potent strain of cannabis. Leanne, a dear friend of mine, is playing guitar by my side. She is happy and carefree. I am watching the light dance on the wall from a nearby curtained window. All of a sudden, I erupt into a rush of giggles! I begin shaking and rocking with utter joy! As Leanne watches in amazement, my giggles soon turn into howls. I begin to slap the table like a madwoman, gasping for breath, delirious in bliss. I know my friend is confused, so I try to force my mouth to make the words, to try to somehow explain to her what’s going on, but I just can’t. There is no way I can explain it in words. Some kind of veil is being pierced. I have the thought: “Everything they told me about Jesus was a lie.”

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This is the moment that began my journey as a mystic. The moment when I moved from religion to spirituality. It was the first crack. And although I didn’t stay “high” (as in, higher consciousness) and soon resumed the normalcy of my depressed life, the shell of my ego was beginning to crack.
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The crack became a full-fledged break about five years later. On this particular afternoon, I am sick in bed (as usual). Browsing through documentaries on Netflix, I discover this offbeat documentary called The Workshop. It’s about a spiritual teacher named Paul Lowe. On the cover of the documentary are a bunch of naked people, smiling and making all sorts of quirky faces. Even though what initially attracts me to click on the documentary is an interest in the nude retreat he leads, where he teaches about the value of radical honesty, I cannot help but be captivated by his deeper mystical message. He keeps saying: “Be here now. Right now. Don’t be anywhere else—just now. In this moment.”

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Although my brain is accustomed to high logic (I am in graduate school at the time, fully absorbed in the “truth” of the scientific method), his simple words somehow penetrate me. A wave of palpable relief fills my body. I slowly let my head sink downward, finally resting my forehead against the softness of my palms. Inside this dark little cave, I smile to myself. I am aware of the feeling of breathing. I am aware of being alive. I distinctly realize that my thinking mind has stopped. I am present. I am in the here and now. Whoah.

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For the next two weeks, I am high without any form of drug. (This is what’s known as a temporary Kensho experience.) I wake in the morning in ecstatic bliss and my feet no longer seem to touch the pavement. All my friends and classmates ask “What happened to you???”, their eyes a twinkle of curiosity and amazement. But I cannot explain to them anything. I just know that I’m finally free and happy.

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Since those two precious moments—the first one with plant medicine and the second one with Paul—my life has been a whirlwind of revelations. I’ve befriended shamans, healers, and teachers of all kinds. I became a Reiki Master. I travelled to India and began teaching yoga. I became self-employed and wrote a book about how to create outside-the-box relationships. My life is amazing.

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I have the very clear sense that I’m being guided by a vast power. It’s not about “me.” It’s about something greater. I’ve surrendered to the Light, to the Divine Will. It’s not about the pleasure I can gain from life, rather it’s about how I can serve and how I can grow. It’s about waking up as fully as possible in this lifetime.

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In the end, our stories are not so different. We all wake up sleeping, and then we move—gradually or speedily—towards a sense of waking dreaming. Isn’t that amazing? Indeed, we learn (to our surprise!) that everything is a very lovely illusion. We learn that suffering and trauma might seem real, but our stories shape that “reality” and we can quite literally heal the past, the present, and the future with our thoughts. We learn how powerful we are.
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We learn other lessons, too. We learn that our bodies are beautiful and it’s good to take care of them, but we also learn that our bodies are a temporary manifestation that we must, eventually, leave behind. We learn non-attachment. We learn how to say goodbye. Hopefully, through all our spiritual training, we can do it with grace.

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Ultimately, we learn that we are a speck of consciousness floating in a sea of eternal mystery. We learn so many things… we gather up so much “information”… and, in the end, we laugh. We remember the cannabis, we remember the documentary (or whatever it was that woke us up), and we laugh. We bow our heads in gratitude, saying: Thank you for this life. Thank you for helping me remember. 

 

Finding Yoga in the Stillness of Loss

by Rebecca Ingalls, posted in Yoga Healing

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“A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself. That’s how I hold your voice.”
—Rumi

 

Even as I type these words, the fingers feel the fatigue of grief in them. They pause as my brain fades into silence and I freeze over the keyboard like a printing press coming to a halt. The mind wafts ghostly sensory memories over the memory’s eye, and I see his face and hear his voice merely days before his physical decline. In a nanosecond I remember the long train ride, the smell of his room in the dim New England afternoon light. His tears, the fear in his eyes, the softness of my hands as they reached to care for him. And then a swift frame-by-frame film of every memory of him that I have, captured in the mystery of his death. In this pause of remembering, the Witness—the Watcher—sees, and waits. And then, like running out of air after being under water, I surface, and the words flow once more over the stillness of this grief.

 

No universal description of how grief comes upon us, passes through us, or drags us along exists. Indeed, there is no good reason here in this message to create one, for in many ways the uniqueness of our attachments cannot—and perhaps should not—be generalized. There is good reason, however, to accept that we are not alone, and that acceptance is a spine that supports our humanness in this experience.

 

Amidst the unsettling haziness of this heartache, the muscle memory of daily yoga practice has brought me to the mat, and asana offers a seat upon which to safely grieve. In accepting that we are not alone we may find solace in this system of postures that invite human bodies to move with breath, experience the lifeforce that sustains us, and bond with a universal serenity that transcends the body. In finding this solace, we may come to understand how the practice of yoga can accompany and hold space for us in the midst of great loss.

 

If one is able to move to the mat, one may find that the physical and emotional manifestations of grief find themselves in conversation there. Breath, as always, is the thread. Inhale the weight of the arms up, then exhale to release the weight as the body folds in sun salutation. Inhale and exhale to chaturanga as the breath steadies the body in strength, maybe even all of the way down to the Earth. Inhale as the chest rises, and awaken for a moment in cobra or upward-facing dog, then exhale as the body reaches and lets go in downward dog. Pain, heaviness, lightheadedness, or stiffness entangle with sadness, anger, confusion, trauma, relief, fear. The ethereal and the grit of the body weave into one another, fight, separate, and melt in the movement from asana to asana.

 

We owe ourselves the simplicity and the challenge of listening to the breath in our grief—it is a gift of self-nurturing. We may be tempted to feel guilty for trying to settle our minds on something so essential, though lost in loss. We may worry that we’ve forgotten about the loss when we have a moment of pure focus on the breath, and we may rush back to the suffering. Remember, though, that in practice we can be infused by shared purpose, and that peace of mind is unselfish. We can remember that the body’s efforts to find balance with exertion and ease is a portal to stillness in the mind, and that in finding stillness we find a shared peace.

 

Requiring courage is the knowledge that we may not predict what accompanies the stillness, and so a quiet mind can be a scary place. Fears may think themselves more fearfully, and sadness may want to fill up all of the space that stillness has to offer. Thus, practice may seem like a horribly unpeaceful idea when we are held tightly in the arms of grief, and it may seem easier to numb the pain or to remain frozen in disbelief.

 

One foot, then another: roll mat, feel feet, listen. Let the breath take the weight of worry as you listen to it journeying through the body. Let tears come, let the thoughts present themselves and depart, let anger wrench its way in, and listen to the breath lead each movement of the body. Soften into the practice.

 

It’s okay to do that.

 

And when our practice concludes in Savasana, where we lie recumbent and exposed, what do we do then? What if stillness is a haunted space of regret, or of replaying how we lost what we lost? What if that surrender feels like fullness of pain and the grief overwhelms us in this vulnerable position, lying prostrate on the floor? Why will we not be swallowed into the Earth? How will we get up? Why would we bother?

 

Loss has its own stillness, and that is the sharpest edge of it—the stillness of loss is the foreverness of ending. It seems monstrous in its eeriness and insane in its ability to evade our understanding; it cuts through the noise of day-to-day and grips the heart and belly. And yet, again, we owe it to ourselves to find out whether we can tunnel through it to something deeper and different, something clarifying and undisturbed.

 

In grief, our practice proposes a simple question: can it be possible that the excruciating pain of loss lends to us its stillness so that we may learn how to be still?

 

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Rebecca Ingalls, Ph.D., MSN, CNM, WHNP-BC, is a certified nurse-midwife, women’s health nurse practitioner, and yogi. She is a mother of two, and she has been practicing Ashtanga Yoga for 11 years. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.