Health Benefits of Yoga
I came upon this article (below) on the website for National Yoga Month and had to share it in full! If you’re interested in Yoga’s benefits for the listed or other ailments/injuries, get in touch! We’ll talk about how Yoga can help you, and/or we’ll develop a routine that’s ideal for your body and situation. (The great thing about MergeYoga? You don’t even have to be local!)
Health Benefits of Yoga – Overview
Using Yoga to Relieve Stress
To combat stress, many people turn to meditation or other mental stress reduction tools. But stress also creates physical response in the body and, as such, can be managed with exercise — in particular, with yoga.
“Stress sends the entire physical system into overdrive,” says Garrett Sarley, president and CEO of the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, Mass. “The muscles tense, the heart beats faster, breathing patterns change, and if the cause of stress isn’t discontinued, the body secretes more hormones that increase blood sugar levels, raising blood pressure. Yoga is one of the few stress-relief tools that has a positive effect on all the body systems involved.”
Recognizing the detrimental effects of stress, especially in the area of heart disease, the preventive and rehabilitative cardiac center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles began offering yoga to their patients more than 10 years ago.
“Over the years, yoga has become one of our primary therapies for stress management,” says C. Noel Bairey Merz, M.D., director of the preventive and rehabilitative cardiac center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
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Injuries & (im)Patience (Part 2)
(Continued from Oct 1)
I often encourage beginning students to imagine that the breath is massaging their tight muscles. Perhaps they can’t stretch their muscles quite yet, but the breath can — at least on a subtle level.
I do this imagining in my own practice from time to time, when muscles are cold and stiff, and when the body seems to want to curl up under a blanket rather than open up to the wild world.
But I’ve never personally had to rely this much on the breath. Being in generally decent physical health I haven’t had to apply to myself what is, essentially, a faith in the practice of Yoga:
A faith that if you express an asana [pose] however your body can in the moment, and that if you then breathe – mindfully, purposefully, imaginatively even – then the breath, the pose, and the focused attention will create a healthy and productive change.
After a few days of gently exploring how my body could (and couldn’t) move with my new injury, my lower back began unfolding. But not without a lot of breath and patience. And not without a couple significant lessons:
1. The practice of Yoga is more than a sweaty fitness routine. (I knew this of course, but I needed a reminder!) Yoga is a way of coming home to one’s own body, of accepting it where it is and asking it, gently and compassionately, to strengthen, to unfold, and to support your life with grace.
2. Similarly, The Daily Mat isn’t about squeezing in a daily workout. It’s about showing up, every day– And finding an asana, breathing, paying attention. The length of practice time isn’t important, the chosen posture isn’t important, the location isn’t important. The attention and the breath– That’s Yoga.
Unearthing from the Difficult some kind of gift– That’s also Yoga. I’m thankful for the lesson.
Have you been knocked out of a healthy routine or commitment by unexpected circumstances? How did you maintain your commitment, or begin anew?
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Injuries & (im)Patience, Part 1
I’ve been so excited about re-upping my commitment to a daily Yoga practice… In fact, in the midst of a chaotic tour I began The Daily Mat blog and started tweeting pics every day on Twitter. (Join in!!)
So there’s a lovely bit of irony in the back injury that came to visit in September, right in the middle of our tour. We’d driven 13 hours to Minneapolis, played on the morning news there at 8am, then played a show in town that night. Then we woke at 5am the next day to drive to Wisconsin for a 9am radio show. While setting up my gear, I leaned over to move my keyboard just a bit to the left and– OMG.
A powerful shift in the muscles of my lower back, crazy pain, and then instantly: frozen. I couldn’t move my back at all- Couldn’t twist, bend over, reach out, couldn’t lift anything heavier than a big book.
I turned to what I know for muscle pain: Yoga. I locked myself in the venue bathroom and did a modified down dog against the sink. I worked timidly through cat and cow, but the muscles were frozen, knotted, and getting worse.
I played the radio show, blinking back tears and trying to hold myself stiff as a board; every small movement was painful. And besides the physical pain, I was growing more panicked with every passing minute.
Why the panic? This kind of thing is for… “other people.” I don’t “throw my back out” or sit down and stand up in painful jerks, as if my body is made of crumbling brick. At least, I didn’t, before…
When we finished I make frantic calls to local chiropractors and massage therapists, finally landing appointments with one of each.
Both men were apologetic. The chiropractor identified my injury as solely a muscle issue. He adjusted me as he was able, but he didn’t go near those knotted and frozen muscles. As for the therapist? ”There’s not much I can do,” he said. ”I can massage the rest of you, and hopefully that bit of relaxation will help the lower back heal more quickly.
“But you’re going to be down for the count for at least a couple days; those seized muscles have to ease up over time.”
So much for The Daily Mat?!
Their theory is that our long drives – with me stuck in ergonomically questionable seats – fatigued my lower back muscles in such a way that the smallest twist and lift was suddenly more than they could handle. I’m buying their theory, because the van seat is the one place where, 3 weeks later, it’s still unbelievably painful to sit.
So we snagged a couple ice packs, packed blankets around me in the van, played our show that night and then drove the next day to Madison, where I rolled out my mat in the hotel room.
I wanted to move, to do any bit of Yoga that I could. I was scared that if I lay still the muscles would just knot up more and more–
So I climbed off the bed, and noticed that if I was very gentle, and if I moved very, very slowly, I could work my way into Child’s pose. In that slow-motion movement, breathing & crying, the stretch through my lower back felt right. It was difficult, but it wasn’t painful. It was simply more (a lot more!) sensation than I’m accustomed to.
The weak, injured muscles in my back were the very ones being gently pulled in Child’s, willing themselves to unfold. And of course they couldn’t, not yet.
But I was breathing into them, imagining them loosening, imagining that I could breathe some peace and suppleness into them.
(continuing…)
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:: Continued from Tuesday September 8 ::
In mid-August, for no reason in particular, I began integrating Yoga more and more often into my routine. While this wasn’t a planned or even conscious decision, it took only a few days to notice the effects:
Yoga…was helping the depression.
This was not news; I’ve long practiced for this benefit. I’ve spent long days and nights poring over research involving Yoga and Depression; I’ve even taught students with depression.
But I also practice for stress relief, for physical fitness, for strength, for development as a teacher. In my long list of “reasons-to-practice-Yoga,” Depression had simply fallen toward the bottom. While my struggle with depression hadn’t lessened, the idea of Yoga as a source of healing had trailed off.
Its rediscovery, as one might expect, was rather uneventful. Yoga was helping, and that was that. Of course it was helping. At irregular intervals, it hadn’t had an effect. But as a daily practice, it was breathing something into me. One had to notice.
It wasn’t helping with flash or magic or mystical revelations. I didn’t – and don’t – leave my mat with some kind of deep self-love that suddenly makes the world more livable.
Rather, each pose simply feels mercifully familiar, a coming-home. Each pose offers an opportunity to truly sense my body, rather than ignoring it, pushing it, stressing it. Because I’ve practiced for a long time, I can trust myself to work to my physical edges and beyond; and self-trust, for the depressed, is no small treasure. In addition, I feel light, but strong. I feel kinder toward myself: the poses requesting rather than demanding exertion; my body gently acquiescing rather than desperately straining.
And you know, I do still strain. I often find myself clenching my jaw or furrowing my brow. I feel knots of frustration when I can’t successfully jump through from Downward Dog to Staff.
But the Practice itself, the principles and goals of Yoga, ask me to consider a different approach. Thus, when I strain, I hear the urging of various teachers: Relax where you can. Let go. Find where your body can go today; notice and appreciate it. See if you can go further. Do not demand. Do not harm.
Even when I can’t take this advice, I hear it; I know it. The repetition of this wisdom, even as I defy it, is itself a discipline — one that plants seeds that bear fruit after many days and months.
And so I write today from the throes of depression. The wild, whirling ache of Life, dreams, and vast Uncertainty is deafening.
But over the last few weeks, Yoga has offered a bit of a home. It’s a place where my feet touch the ground, both literally and figuratively. I feel a little more space around my heart, a little lifting of this furious weight, a bit of room for my soul.
I’m reminded that I can still feel: I can feel my body and breath, my lightness and length; I can feel kindness and gratitude, a sense of possibility; I can experience the fruits of a disciplined practice.
Thus my prescription for this aching, weighty, despairing season is – (surprise) – a daily practice. Not a wired, zealous commitment to a daily 90-minute practice, though such sessions are incomparably helpful. Rather, it can be a single pose, perhaps even Savasana.
The point is, regardless of the length of one’s practice, Yoga is a potent – and patient – teacher.
And even when I can’t sense it as such, a daily dose of Yoga is a gift, a seed, a small bit of faith, a small glimpse of home.
Filed under: Anxiety, Breath and Breathing, depression, gratitude, Holistic Health, Music, spirit, Spiritual-meets-Physical, stress, Yamas and Niyamas, Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Stress | 1 Comment
Tags: August, body, breath, depression, discipline, downward dog, fitness, gratitude, healing, July, kindness, pose, practice, principles, routine, staff, strain, teacher, trust, Yoga
:: Continued from Monday September 7 ::
There are few certainties in my life. A very, very, few. And I confess that it strikes me as odd that Yoga is one of them. (It’s had a nearly absurd longevity considering my background and random inclinations… But it keeps proving itself, so I keep listening.)
As I fought against weight gain this Spring (another symptom of Depression I failed to recognize as such), I traded in my regular Yoga practice for strength training and more cardio. I hustled and challenged and sweat. I caught up with Yoga once a week, and threw it in again here & there for a post-workout stretch.
But again, I have no regrets about this. In fact, such things help depression: The sweat, the half-wild release of energy, the fatiguing of muscles when lifting weights– All can soothe the spirit. And if not, they at least demand a great deal of exertion from someone who finds it difficult simply to wake up.
That exertion serves as a symbol of what’s possible; it’s a small bit of hope.
Exercise like running can even edge toward euphoric. If nothing else, it requires one to breathe, and breathe, and breathe. One remembers, if only for a few miles, that she has a heart that pumps, lungs that expand, legs that propel, skin that reddens and sweats. Vitality: that dear opposite of Depression.
(And of course there is something to be said for feeling badass, if only on one’s own small level in one’s own small world. Running and weight-lifting are great for this.)
But I caught a glimpse in July of the unique role that Yoga has come to play in my life:
In the midst of our recording, in the tumult of displacement and anxiety, I woke one morning and yawned my way into some Sun Salutations. The idea was simply to do a few before moving on to another workout. But the salutations were beautifully familiar – a sense of home – and so I continued into the Standing Sequence of the Astanga practice.
My body opened up as I went, and somewhere below the mess of Workaholism and Worry I began feeling a timid gratitude. Vague and quiet, impossibly small, it nevertheless made me want to continue.
I went through the entire Primary Series that morning, feeling more and more expansive, each pose grounding me with a sense of home and with a gratitude for my Yoga teacher (and her teachers before her).
The practice was reminding me that I did in fact know gratitude. It was reminding my body that it did in fact know how to let go.
As I left the mat that morning I felt long, strong, grateful, even easeful. It was the smallest taste of renewal; a patient foreshadowing.
–Continuing–
Filed under: Anxiety, Breath and Breathing, depression, Fatigue, gratitude, Holistic Health, spirit, Spiritual-meets-Physical, stress, weight loss, Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Musicians, Yoga for Stress | 1 Comment
Tags: Astanga, badass, certainty, depression, gratitude, homecoming, Primary Series, running, sun salutations, sweat, weight loss, weight-lifting, workout, Yoga, yoga teacher
The Daily Mat.
As a celebration of rediscovering a daily Yoga practice, I’m taking a daily picture of my Yoga mat – wherever my travels (and my practice) find it.
As a touring musician my practice is squeezed in wherever I can make it work: Someone’s living room, a hotel room, outdoors, in the van. Sometimes our schedule makes a traditional practice impossible… (Show ends at 11pm, in bed at 2am, waking at 5am to get to a 9am radio show four hours away)…
But the lesson for me is that a daily Yoga practice is simply that: a practice of doing Yoga daily– However it makes sense; however it can be worked in.
So here’s the first installment from Labor Day Weekend, with more to come.
And here’s to your daily practice; whatever it may be.
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The last many months have swelled by, demanding a return to the MergeYoga-sphere with a blog in three parts.
So here we are friends, and here we go:
This Spring we toured and wrote for a new Ellery record; in the Summer we recorded it. The month of August was then a strange gestation period: The recovery from long studio days and their accompanying emotional turmoil; the business talks with music industry personnel, the exploration of ‘alone-time’ after many weeks of couple-dom and strangers; and wrestling with a lengthened and deepened Depression.
In mid-August, Ragweed rears its beastly head throughout the Midwest – and for those who are severely allergic, depression is a common symptom. (Thanks, nature.) This is of course truly ill-timed, because in addition to the severe ragweed allergy, it’s been for us, as for many others, a difficult year.
Perhaps more accurately, it’s been a difficult many years… So that as more and more emotional crises piled atop one another this year, my weakened spirit took one too many tumbles. By the Spring, life was feeling like a swirl of fog and storm and unbearable Uncertainty.
Unfortunately, making a record is no place for recovery from such a feeling. It does, blessedly, give the tumbled spirit a place to call out and make itself heard. But the calling out – along with the pressures and anxieties of working with a Grammy-winning producer on a project that’s supposed to “launch one’s career” – serves mostly to intensify the sense of swirl and storm.
I have no regrets about this. In fact, in my best moments, I’m grateful to it, and grateful even to the month of August and its weighty, whirling ache. If nothing else, I’m paying attention now:
Hello, pain. Hello, Loss. Hello, mortality and the groan of Change.
Hello, body – worn and fragile. Hello, Lover – vulnerable and patient.
Hello, anger. Hello, despair. Hello, Longing: I hear you now.
Wresting myself from the tempting siren of Sleep (often the Depressive’s escape of choice), I began asking what path to choose at this point: What path of healing, spirituality, discipline, therapy, exercise… What path of livelihood, music, wages, validity. Most of this is a jumble to me; a disappointing mess of defeated experiences and leveled dreams.
“When we thought we lost the Way,” I wrote in April, “It woke us shaking, convulsing, sweating from our sleep. Leaves one hesitant to walk it–”
Indeed.
So I’m not writing today because I’ve come up with any answers. The closest I’ve come to an answer is waking up one August day with a vague, barely noticeable sense of determination:
“I am depressed,” I said.
Then, “I have Depression,” I offered alternatively, granting to no one but me the more politically correct version.
And then, ”So. What now?”
The answers that once worked for me have mainly served to create out of me a reluctant cynic. What I’m left with is experience: the sense of expansion and possibility I’ve seen, if only briefly and irregularly, in poetry, melody, laughter, family, story, song, and yoga.
–Continuing–
Filed under: allergies, Anxiety, Breath and Breathing, depression, Fatigue, Habits, Holistic Health, Music, Spiritual-meets-Physical, stress, Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Musicians, yoga for performers | Leave a Comment
Tags: ache, Anxiety, August, change, cynic, depression, melody, mortality, Music, poetry, record, therapy, Yoga
Critics, Trust, and Relief
Lately, this yogini has been wandering through the fog of an eventful season. The Spring has unfolded with the promise of a new record for Ellery (my singer/songwriter life), and that promise has brought with it an immense amount of excitement, anticipation, intimidation, and stress.
(This emotional cocktail is par for the course in our career, but we’re trying to drink it with a little more awareness; a little more ease and acceptance.)
And so I spent a few nauseating weeks feeling dreadfully stuck. 
I was enjoying(-ish) the ongoing process of planning, thinking and writing for our next record, but…
Well, equal to any positive emotion involved was the heavy negative weight of – (*sigh*) - the “neglect” of my blog, the inability to teach a yoga class in my hometown (which I’d been looking forward to!), and a perceived confusion about the intersection of Yoga with my songwriter life.
I felt as if I was juggling “what mattered,” and feeling lost as to how to reflect what I loved in the way I spent my time. What to do?
Fortunately, I don’t do my life alone.
(*Moment of thanks for my remaining sanity, as well as for the well-being of my immediate surroundings*)
It took a lot of convincing, but I eventually concluded that this mess of emotion was beneficial to no one. It was simply keeping me from enjoying this potentially-very-cool season of my life, and it was stripping the joy from my personal Yoga practice.
(Every time I got on the mat I’d think, “Wow, I still haven’t blogged,” or “man, I should really be teaching,” or “Ugh, I still haven’t designed that customized
routine for so-and-so.”) These thoughts were based not in a confusion about what matters in my life, but rather– in the assumption that I was up against unmeetable expectations.
In other words, I thought I was letting someone down. I thought I was letting myself down. And I thought that my current circumstances would determine my future in some way I couldn’t control. As if because I hadn’t blogged, I’d never blog again. Or because I hadn’t taught a class in a while, I’d never teach one.
Um, what?!
Note that these assumptions have no logic to them.
But this is how things unfold in our heads. (Yes, I said, “our.” I now know that I’m not the only one who’s absoLUTEly logic-less when it comes to my own self-talk. So um, let’s just say I’ve begun, mid-paragraph, a little club in which all of us logic-impaired can find comaraderie.) (Or ahem, end-paragraph.)
So anyway – The truth is, I wasn’t confused. I knew what mattered. I had simply come into a season in which one passion had to outweigh another in terms of time and attention.
And this simply happens. It’s good. In fact, it’s beautiful. Necessary. It’s Life.
Right about the time I came to terms with this new balance between Ellery and Yoga, my personal Yoga practice deepened. I was enjoying the daily experience of Astanga, incorporating it more and more into my overall fitness routine rather than filling it in around strength-training and running.
And the more I practiced (with an attention and consistency I was emotionally incapable of before), the more benefits I felt.
And I continue to feel them:
I’m more aware of my body. For instance – I knew I was coming down with a cold a few days ago because of a subtle difference in the nuance of my breath in sun salutations. 
There was just a bit less opening, and I was still enough to feel it. When the tell-tale pre-cold fatigue set in the next day, I felt it more intricately and with more certainty than usual… And so — I rested. I actually did. And the voice that usually criticizes me for resting (or even wanting to) was a bit more quiet. And Lo, the worst of “the common cold” was avoided.
Other powers, aside from noting colds in early stages? :)
I feel lighter and longer. I’ve enjoyed the way the torso can lift up and out of the pelvis: that elongation of the spine, the space between the ribs, the expanse of the intercostal muscles, the fulfilling sensation of a truly deep breath. I’m more careful with how I distribute my weight when sitting or standing. I move & stretch more often because I feel my body asking for it.
FYI, listing these things feels so, so silly.
I’m a yoga teacher. These effects-of-Yoga are ‘supposed’ to be obvious. Or at least, they ‘should’ have been present already.
Besides, I sense my mental habit of embarrassment calling out to me: “Omg Tasha, don’t talk about how your body feels. Especially with this stuff; it’s so obvious. Or cheesy. Or mundane. Bor-ing!”
But I’m talking about it anyway, because I feel inspired tonight by two significant (and very yogic) things:
1. When I let go of the “obligation” to practice Yoga, I practiced with more focus and enjoyment than I’d experienced in months. The guilt that I thought would drive me to be a “disciplined practitioner” had only derailed the love I already had for the practice.
2. When I let go of the “obligation” to write a blog (a duty imposed upon me only by myself), I wanted to write. It wasn’t immediate, but within a few days it felt natural to… share something. Not out of a sense of duty (to-whom?), but out of something real and personal. Something that reflects the original intent behind MergeYoga.
So: What’s all this teaching me?
That I can trust.
Life does unfold in unexpected ways, but when we allow ourselves to be who we are and to truly listen to what we deeply want, we may find that – *gasp* – we do make the wise choice! And we do it without the self-critic!
It’s like: We’re that teenager that actually can be trusted with her friends - 
without a parent’s overprotective, overlord presence. But the parent can’t know this without giving her a chance. It’s scary, but when the parent lets go and sees the results… What a relief.
So. I don’t think any of this means that my life will morph so that I can practice Yoga 3 hours a day and start a slew of classes. Or that I’ll be blogging daily with all kinds of interesting tips and tales.
What it does mean is that I’ll enjoy both activities much more deeply on the occasions when my life invites them.
And it means that I’ll come back around to both, with plenty of time, and without my nosy wrangling.
And certainly without my snotty berating.
What a relief.
Do you have an irritating self-critic?
What kinds of “complaints” does he/she bring up most often? For me, it’s guilt – There’s always something I “should” be doing, even if I’m already exhausting myself. What about you?
Do you have a similar story of finding your critic unnecessary? Or about discovering that you can trust yourself after all?
Filed under: Habits, Holistic Health, Spiritual-meets-Physical, stress, Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Musicians, Yoga for Stress | 2 Comments
Tags: body awareness, compassion, discipline, Holistic Health, negativity, noticing, practice, present moment, relaxation, rest, self-critic, self-talk, self-worth, stress, trust, Yoga
Go with Winter.
Last night, in the Astanga class I attend, we spent some extra time on backbends, which is fabulous. After all, in the Astanga Primary Series, there’s a lot of forward folding — which means that back-bending can provide a very welcome counterbalance.
But here’s the thing. My body clearly thinks I should be hibernating. Like many of you, I’ve felt closed in, sluggish, fatigued, depressed, heavy…
Winter-ish.
Winter-Ugh.
I’ve told a few students to try some mild backbends (Cobra, Upward-Facing Dog) in order to combat fatigue. I know from experience that backbends perform this function rather well.
So last night, I expected to feel invigorated. Open. Perhaps even (gasp!) energetic.
But when the body feels sluggish and closed-in, it often brings the emotions along with it.
And it’s kind of a chicken-egg deal, because when our hearts are broken, or when we’re stressed, worried, depressed… we bring our physical bodies along with that experience as well.
The mind and body are gloriously – and sometimes stubbornly – connected.
So last night I had this love/hate experience in which the backbends would feel open, exhilarating, freeing… But then immediately afterwards, I would feel deeply sad.
As always, Yoga is a laboratory for the rest of life. So what was this back and forth experience revealing to me about reality? I had sensed my desire for openness and energy, but in the process I encountered my need for retreat, rest, and compassion.
I wanted so badly to keep arcing up into that backbend. I wanted to keep practicing and release further. It felt amazing to open the heart area so broadly.
But that very opening also opened me to my own struggles. This sounds cheesy, but seriously. I’d been approaching life the way I was approaching this Yoga practice.
Maybe you can relate:
It feels so great to throw yourself into life.
You combat feelings of fatigue by pushing more, stretching more, maybe demanding more.
You feel like you need rest, but you also need to get things done.
Maybe the “need for rest” is just laziness. Just the Winter blues. Just a slump.
So you keep going, hoping that the next reach, stretch, accomplishment will miraculously eradicate all fatigue, depression, heaviness, whatever.
But it doesn’t. Maybe the next reach, stretch, accomplishment leaves you lower than before. Maybe something about it only serves to point out your deeper, unmet needs.
Like for rest. Real rest.
Or for compassion, patience, unconditional acceptance, wisdom, relationship, whatever it is for you.
So. What’s the point?
Winter does bring its heavy weight, its fatigue, slow pace, numbness, and/or depression.
And if you’re feeling it, it could just be the weather.
But probably not.
And if not, what would it be like to… go with it? To go with Winter?
What if the season is actually pointing out some of your very real physical and emotional needs; the ones you’ve been able to ignore in Spring-ier seasons? Would that not be a gift?
What if the slowness of the season is an indication of your real, human need to slow down? Can you? Just a little? What if the fatigue you feel is an actual request for true rest? 
What if the “depressing gray” of the season is pointing out the gray areas in your life, the areas that need attention, compassion, love, whatever? What if the heaviness is an indication of something you need to shed?
If any of these are possibilities, then Winter (and its “blues”) could be a kind gift… Even if it’s one that’s forced upon us.
So. Backbends are wonders for down days. Try a Cobra, an Upward-Facing Dog, or an Upward Bow if you’re an experienced student. And then listen. If the pose is opening you to the world, to possibility, to creativity, to energy, then wonderful. Go with it. Thank yourself for taking the time to invest in your own body/mind connection.
And if the pose opens you to yourself, so that afterwards you sense even more deeply your own needs, requests, aches, or dreams (a positive version of this is possible, after all!) — Then go with that, too! Listen to your body and direct your attention where it’s needed.
When you take care of yourself, you’ll have less conflict with the season. And you’ll be more available to connect yourself and your gifts with the needs of the world.
Is there anything you’ve been ignoring in your body or mind, chalking it up to S.A.D.? (It may truly be a seasonal issue, but spend some time with it anyway. Investigate; listen; make yourself available to it.)
The Winter really is a great time for hibernating, for true rest. Do you know how to rest deeply? If so, any hot tips for other readers?
Is your version of rest a couple hours on the couch, browsing online, chatting with a few different friends, updating your status, all while watching two different TV shows? These things do provide a very real source of pleasure, connection, and entertainment – all of which is legitimate. But it’s not rest. What keeps you from turning it all off? Do you feel like you need a routine to replace this one?
Any other Winter Tales? Do share. :)
Filed under: Fatigue, Habits, Holistic Health, Increase Energy, Spiritual-meets-Physical, stress, Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Stress | 1 Comment
Tags: backbends, blues, body awareness, breath, compassion, Fatigue, health, Holistic Health, improved health, noticing, present moment, relaxation, rest, stress, wheel pose, Winter, Yoga, Yoga for Stress, Yoga lab
Frustration & the Broken Record.
So. It’s been a difficult couple weeks, and as one might expect I’ve been seeing the hardship translate onto my Yoga mat.
Since I’m sure I’m not the only one who faces difficult and/or frustrating circumstances, I’m just going to go for the topic. Yoga + Frustration.
This season is a weird one for me, requiring some reluctant adapting. New things are coming into my life, older things need to go, and meanwhile my schedule as a singer/songwriter provides no hope for ritual, logical progression, or “normalcy.”
Plus, it’s February. ”Never make any major decisions 
during the month of February,” says a wise friend, and it’s great advice. It tends to be a cloudy, heavy, fatiguing time for all of us.
The result of all this is hopelessness mixed with frustration: With myself, with the work I can’t get done, with not knowing when to quit, and feeling like nothing is ever enough.
Ah.
The idea that ‘nothing is ever enough’ has defined my life in many ways.
It was the source of my overeating and obesity years ago. It’s the source of my self-questioning. It’s the reason I can’t quite celebrate successes. It’s the source of my workaholism.
It’s also the reason I have a hard time with Yoga, perhaps especially with Astanga, which is the form I practice most often. There’s no end in Yoga. No goal to reach, no finish line to cross and thus “arrive.” Therefore, as in life, satisfaction must come from the journey.
This is not something I’m used to.
This overarching mentality of scarcity permeates my worldview. I’m learning to see beyond this, but it’s buried down deep in my bones. It’s in my DNA. It’s going to take time.
In fact, my life is an ongoing excavation of this invasive falsehood.
Scarcity. Never enough. Not enough to go around.
No deserving. No relishing. Always working to feel validated. Always needing more.
Earlier this week, I felt my frustrations visit me on my mat, perhaps more powerfully than ever before.
I woke one morning to an email that made me feel defeated and stupid.
But I’d committed to doing the Primary Series that morning in our hotel before we left town. So I rolled out my mat.
I sighed.
I stared out the window & hesitated.
I turned on an encouraging podcast.
(I know; the shame of listening during Astanga!) (But not really. The best kind of Yoga is the kind you’ll do. And if that means watching or listening to God-knows-what while saluting the sun, we won’t tell.)
And then I began the Sun Salutations. The initial stretching was good: Arms overhead, opening up to the world. But while breathing in Down Dog, I noticed how shallow my breaths were.
My body wanted to cry. My mind wanted to do a great Down Dog.
I kept going.
My sides and hips are pretty tight from traveling, sitting, jogging. 
So postures like Revolved Triangle and Extended Side Angle can be challenging for me. Usually, however, I enjoy the challenge. It’s an opportunity to open up my side body, to align my hips, to feel long.
But on that morning, I hated it. My body was quivering with frustration:
I can’t do this pose. I’ll never do this pose. My body doesn’t do this. I’m so glad no one’s watching me right now. I hate this.
I could barely stay on my feet. I felt like I was breathing into my throat instead of my belly. I felt like I was heavy, moving in water – or something thicker.
I kept thinking that all I wanted was to get into Child’s Pose. Rest and weep, maybe.
But I couldn’t, because, well, I have to work out. Every day. I gain weight unbelievably easily, and on the day before this, I’d eaten way more food than I’d wanted to. Since there was no fitness center at this hotel, Astanga was my only hope of getting my heartrate up.
Aside from all that, I have a hard time distinguishing between Resting-As-Appropriate and Giving-Up. (Can I get an Amen on this? Anyone?)
For instance: If I’m really craving a Child’s Pose, is it because that’s what’s best for me? Or is it because my body (or even my mind) is being stubborn? Is it just because I don’t want to endure or be challenged by some difficult posture(s)?
Sometimes my body seems like a bratty child who sees the good in a nice, long jog only after it’s over. So how can I know whether, when my body says, “Curl up and rest,” if such a request is… trustworthy?
So I kept going.
The podcast (which was a Dhamma talk about Happiness, mind you; oh the embarrassment) kept playing.
I kept listening, willing myself to apply its truths to my current state.
To make a long story shorter, I willed my way through the Primary Series.
I didn’t have one moment that felt truly and powerfully good until I was in Shoulder Stand, 
a posture that’s often recommended for Depression. And then I later found Headstand, and relished the different perspective it offered.
My breath was still shallow. I shook more than usual. But I felt the pressing down of my elbows into the mat, the pressing up of my feet toward the ceiling. I felt long & strong.
And finally, Child’s Pose. I let its restfulness wash over me, the muscles of my back loosening and spreading across the rounded arch of my spine. It felt consoling.
My breath deepened for the first time all morning. I didn’t weep, but I didn’t want to anymore. This was the pose I’d been longing for the whole time, and now that my body had found it, I felt at home. It was exactly what I needed.
There are so many directions I could go with this experience, and I don’t know which one is right. I wish I knew, so that I could communicate some objective lesson for you to take to your own mat, to your own frustrations.
But things like this rarely follow hard and fast rules. In these matters, what’s ‘right’ vs what’s ‘wrong’ (or rather, what’s ‘skillful’ vs what’s ‘unskillful’) will change depending on your circumstances.
The best we can do is observe all the possibilities.
Option 1. Perhaps I should have found Child’s Pose right away. It would have given me an opportunity to feel my emotions and let them go. My body, which was overwhelmed with the tightness of frustration and disappointment, would have felt acknowledged. From there, perhaps I would have moved on into the rest of my practice. Or – perhaps that would have been it.
(Well, no, that wouldn’t have been it; at least not for me. If so, I’d have felt guilty all day for not getting my heartrate up in some way. I know; guilt sucks! But I do know this wouldn’t have worked for me. Maybe someday.)
Option 2. Perhaps the experience of going through my practice in spite of my frustration was a chance to see how life moves on. The world doesn’t stop when we’re sad, but we can at least notice how it feels to be alive in that state.
I noticed that my breaths were shallow. I noticed that I hated the feeling of Extended Side Angle pose. I noticed that my balance was almost nonexistent. None of these observations were pleasant, but they were real and truthful, and they were part of the experience of being in my body while feeling emotionally unstable.
Option 3. Maybe I should tour with a treadmill. (In case you’re wondering, this isn’t an actual option. Dangit.) But there’s nothing like hauling
your body forward in an all-out sprint for finally getting a deep, deep breath – and for reaching out and over the hump of depression, the lump in your throat.
(I may lose some yogic cred for saying so, but there it is.)
OK. I don’t really think I had only these three options,
or that these possibilities are even mutually exclusive. (Jogging after a child’s pose? Other way around? Both are lovely.)
But laying them out like this is informative. Again, the Laboratory of Yoga took 
something common & human (frustration, sadness) and made it visible, tangible, observable.
Regardless of whether my choice was the best one at the time, I’m grateful for the opportunity to see something true about myself.
I’m grateful for the chance to listen to my body as it incarnated that broken record of my mind: Scarcity, fear, questioning, repeat.
* * *
How about you? What broken records does your mind play?
Have you seen the affects of these messages played out in your physical body?
What great physical releases have you found for frustration, depression, anxiety?
Filed under: Fatigue, Habits, Holistic Health, Increase Energy, Spiritual-meets-Physical, stress, Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Stress | 2 Comments
Tags: balance, body awareness, compassion, Difficulties, Downward-Facing Dog, emotional eating, February, food-as-comfort, health, Holistic Health, noticing, posture, present moment, Questioning, rest, Scarcity, self-worth, stress, Yoga, Yoga for Stress
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