Meditation has been been around as long as Buddhism. Are people making time for practices that nurture the spirit body? If so what keeps us showing up for the practice? In talking to people I hear most people say, “I have had this pain or that crisis and I would rather not create more stress”, or I see people showing up once a month to their “beloved yoga class” seeking temporary relief from a hard day, week, month?

These are my questions as I contemplate the path of yoga teacher, and studio owner, and healer. Most of my life my bodywork practice has had me questioning joint mobilization, chronic and karmic pain, helping clients change habits lodged deep in the sub conscious. But now at 53, attempting to walk my talk, and trying to seamlessly mingle spiritual practice with business, I have simplified my quest to one nagging question. Why show up on the pillow, at the studio, or meditation?

Life is complex enough, and adding the expectation of enlightenment or heighten consciousness might be another responsibility that most people “just do not have time for”. Yet in eastern cultures choosing a monastic path is thought to be the highest most esteemed career. Here is Silicon Valley, CA, for most people, it boils down to promotion in the corporate maze.

This morning as I drank my coffee I immersed myself into the latest Shambala Sun Magazine, and was intrigued with a 1971 teaching from Chogym Trungpa Rinpoche, on the instruction on meditation. In the Buddhists tradition it begins with the Sanskrit word, “Bhavana”. This word means spiritual exertion, or discipline. When we are disciplined the practice is a journey towards knowing yourself. “ Meditation is very simple and extremely down to earth, to the extent that it’s irritatingly down to earth. The down to earth practice of meditation, you can see the colors of your own existence. The earth begins to come back to you rather than that you are getting messages from heaven, so to speak.”

As I read the article I realized the practice of yoga, meditation or asana, mantra etc. is a main emotional, nutritional, spiritual component that lives at the ground floor of our subconscious. If we dip in and out of practice we are left with our jiggered nervous system dragging us from emotion to emotion or impulse to impulse.

When we build our yoga practice we have a soft calm, ocean like field that surrounds and weaves through our nervous system affecting the mind, body, and softens our ability to be mindful in our everyday existence. I want to believe as a member of the human race we are in the world to live fully and access our vitality. Maybe the key towards living with joy in our heart and inner peace in our mind begins with loving oneself enough to consistently showing up for inward discovery. That would certainly count as enlightenment to me.

Why should you take your “fun” time after work and come to a yoga studio to do a mind body practice like yoga when you could be hanging out with your friends sipping the latest and greatest Pinot, or you could be at home helping your kid with their homework, which is hard enough to follow, given the memory loss thing.

Yoga is a hidden jewel in the “modern day fitness smorgasbord of possibilities”. But why not just go to body pump or boot camp? The main reason is yoga offers strength as well as a deep stretch in all aspects of our being. Some styles of yoga offer an aerobic component as well.

The emphasis in a yoga class, taught by a seasoned teacher, is on the presence of breath. Engaging in each pose with the support of the breath allows the body to open more, and with greater flow of oxygen the mind tends to soften from the inner chatter and underlying anxiety.

Most importantly students find an inner calm from yoga that is often called “the yoga glow”! This state of peacefulness begins to settle our nervous system. It is much like walking through a beautiful forest. As we persevere through poses that are new to our body we focus on coordinating the breath with the body mechanics to achieve the fullness of the exercise. The training begins when we stay calm during a challenging moment on our mat.

Often we run or distract ourselves from difficult situations. Yoga builds our muscular strength as well as anchors our emotional body. Yoga trains us to maintain an open and peaceful mind in the midst of difficult situations. The ability to remember to pause and breathe carries us when challenges arise. Instead of running, getting aggressive or blaming we just pause, breathe, center, and feel.

The benefits of a regular yoga practice are in the inner calm, which slowly becomes part of our everyday mind body. Staying present in a moment is the real practice of yoga.

Oh and I forgot the most sellable part, not only do you feel great you look great too…… from the inside out!!!

Be The Change You Want to See!!

Straighten Up.
Breaking open the myth of “Good Posture”

Most people sitting at their desk all day understand the hardships of posture and
the dreaded downward slump occurring after long hours of sitting.
With years of attempting to stretch by straightening the back, throwing the shoulders back, ribs forward the tendency to slump in the chair is still with us. What does it mean to correct ones posture? Why is it so many of us are struggling to feel good in our body, and how do we age gracefully?

When it comes to posture the word straight does not exist. I am shocked at the number of clients that walk through my office and relay their chiropractors suggestions toward improved posture. Most directions sound like this, “lift the ribs, straighten the lumbar curve by pressing the sacrum forward and pull the chin in. It gets even more dangerous when Chiropractors send their patients to the wall and have them press their backs into the wall to straighten their spine! I have heard other cues that chiropractors suggest to tighten the gluteus (buttocks) muscles and raise the chin causing the face to tilt up and the head back.

Readers if you are doing any of these postural corrections you should know this is a red alert!!!! First and foremost if the spine was straight how could it balance the large bowl of the ribs with the open bowl of the pelvis, and the head?

There is not one straight line in the whole body, and there is a reason for that. We are round, oval, and curved in body shape.
Our body is elegantly designed to assist us in the upright vertical plane with the curves of the spine changing directions between ribs and pelvis and head. Each time the spine reverses its curve it is redistributing the weight front to back. If the spine were straight all the weight of ribs, head, and pelvis would cause us to fall forward.

If I had not been teaching the Alexander Technique for 25 years I still would have known something was seriously wrong with that concept of “good posture meaning a straight back”

This misconception is serious. First and foremost posture is dynamic! Our body is complex and all systems have an inherent impetus to work together. The muscular skeletal system is signaled by the nervous, system, which includes the brain, our everyday functional movement changes with our moods, our hormones, our diet, and our environment.

When we tighten our muscles to adopt a position, given to us by health professionals, we are stopping the energy from flowing. In a sense we are asking our body to move but we are tightening our Muscular Skeletal system to fulfill a mental concept and the static picture of a body with “good posture”.

As an Alexander Teacher,
Pilates, and yoga teacher the goal is to move effortless with less tension and more energy. Functional movement comes out of a free flow through the joints which is a supportive and integral part of posture.
How do we get there and why is it so important?

In the Alexander Technique we begin with undoing the act of tightening muscularly. We then send our body a clear message to free our neck, allowing the head to softly rock forward and up, as we tell the torso to lengthen and widen. The legs then are free to move towards the earth.
Then we breathe, and we let our body move organically in response to these directions.

When we reduce our downward tension pattern the body naturally lengthens creating space in the joints.
This is not possible if we are engaging the same muscular tightness as we put our shoulders back and reach the ribs forward in attempt to correct our posture.

We do tone the muscles to move but how much tone in the fibers is too much?
The ability to stop the sub conscious habit of tightening, (over efforting) causing downward pressure on the skeletal system, happens when we truly use awareness and the mental direction to inhibit the activity of tightening. You might be thinking it cannot be this easy. It is because our body has a natural desire to move towards ease and freedom. The stress of compensation, and pain, creates dis-ease throughout all the systems in the body, and mind. That is what it means to feel stressed out.

My recommendation is to start by lying on the floor with some support under the head and feel where you hold tension. When you notice the part of your body that you are tightening meet your whole self with love and compassion, and ask yourself gently to let go. Simple as it sounds it is profound how you will feel after 30 minutes of deep body awareness with the loving directions to release. Now try that walking. After you start to feel free offer a suggestion to release the neck and head, then allow yourself to lengthen out of the pelvic bowl. Allow the whole torso to easily move into width, front to back and side to side. Breathe.

The power of our mind creates a dramatic effect on the entire body. Watch how you think. Do you yell at people in your mind? Are you in a cycle of blame, projecting your frustrations outwardly? Are you continuously criticizing yourself? Your thoughts affect your posture as well as your immune system. We all have the freedom to choose, and the power, to change how we move, think, and feel in each and every moment.

In my mind aging gracefully means to feel free in my heart, and body, as well as peaceful in my mind. When my energy is flowing, and I feel in alignment, I have the energy to do what I love. Feeling ignited I stand tall and confident, my heart opens allowing my beauty to shine out. In this state it is easy to fall in love with life and I am all for that!

Tasting the sweetness in life might be equated to your first magical kiss, or stepping out of the studio after a great yoga class, or reaching the summit of a mountain you spent six months training for.  The question I get asked most is how can we create this euphoria in everyday life?

Stress is often a smothering force that keeps us in a cycle of anxiety producing excess mental and physical tightness, that brings down our immune system.

Most of us are handling our complex life, and trying to maintain some balance. On a good days feel we experience a quiet inner harmony and peacefulness.

I interviewed 20 people and most of them reported not feeling or noticing the outside world while they felt Distracted, Overwhelmed, and Rushed. I asked two questions. First; in the course of your day how often do you feel the experience of an awakened state? Two; How often, in your day, if at all, do you experience a heart felt moment?

Most of the people I Interviewed had 0-1 heart felt moments in a day. Less than half had 1-3 heartfelt moments. Several people did not experience an awakened state unless they worked out.

Before we can taste the sweetness in life we have to be present.

Being present means being in the moment and not distracted with past events or worrying about events in the future.  When we are in a state of  “being” as opposed to in a state of “doing” there is greater capacity feel our-self , and the world around us.

In Anusara Yoga we talk about practicing in the spirit of the “Rasa Lela” which means flavor of playfullness. When we feel playful and having fun we are more apt to let go of stress. Another way of saying it is, “Positive vibes attracts positive energy”.

Some of us have watched the Secret, and practice positive affirmations; others have a daily meditation practice that helps us with our stress, and most people have figured how to  include fitness in their life.  The question remains why do we mentally and emotionally contract? And can we move through  our day without isolating in our inner world. Is there a natural self-preserving side to humans that keeps us withdrawn and therefore unable to feel the sweetness of life?

Most of us never stop and consider how much of our behavior is rooted in the sub conscientious part of our brain.  If our isolated self is a product of our patternened sub conscientious how do we change that which we cannot access?

Scientist are saying we react to our life given the visual stimuli that produces an emotional response. For instance in a recent study at the University of London, psychologist studied aggressive behavior taking a group playing a video game. The first one to win was going home with a set amount of money. As the players held the hand tool the screen flashed a picture of a penny, in intervals, during their game. The grip on the hand tool, which was monitored, stayed the same. When a dollar sign flashed all participants tightened their grip. All of the participants seeing the dollar sign moved into a competitive state of behavior and made more aggressive noises. The study also noted that people looking at a brief case created a high level of tension in the participants body.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/psychology/31subl.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

If we are able to shift our subconscientous behavior through visual and sensual stimuli then we should be able to cut back on stress and in crease the feeling of calmness, peace, and  open hearted moments in the day.

There are numerous tapes and self-help courses to help you feel better.

How about yoga music in your car? Taking your yoga class more regularly, or placing pictures of healthy food to change your lifestyle.  How about wellness retreats? White water Rafting, or taking the trip you have been passionately thinking about?

When I think of all that I could do I hear this voice, saying do I have time to fit that into my day? After all I am a mom and hold together 2 body work practices, teach yoga and about to launch a series of retreats.

Bridging the conscientious to the sub conscientious should be workable into our everyday life.  Hum…

I look up from the computer time to take a break from writing. I walk outside take a breath in my garden. It is about to rain and the wind is rustling through the trees and the wind chimes are creating a peaceful and serene moment.

Just looking around and taking in the natural world might be enough to ignite the brain with the Sanskrit work Adikara. We are born with everything we need on to its own joy.

I feel the inner smile surfacing, close my eyes and join the roses, that are about to open, with anticipation of the rain that is ever so close to releasing from the puffy clouds in the afternoon sky.

Darcy Elman Spring, 2010