Category Archives: Meditation

November 27, 2011 · 4:13 pm

The Other Side of Gratitude

The past few days, in particular, have been alive with talk of gratitude.  There has been much intention around being thankful for what one has, with the “what” ranging from health to family and friends, a house, a job, food on the table, and objects that hold  significance for us.   Of underlying importance is the motivation to appreciate the people or things that  otherwise may be taken for granted as we move through our daily lives.   The moments of “counting our blessings” are valuable and help to shift  our view to the larger picture of what is important for us.   However, the caution to be offered is not to be content to stop at this point.  There is an even bigger perspective possible.

The question to pose is whether one can also feel gratitude for the events or relationships that are difficult, even devastating.  It’s not so easy to have warm, loving feelings when considering these situations, especially when they happen to us or someone we love.  Generally what shows up are emotions of anger and rage or the sense of being pommeled with waves of grief and despair.  How can one be with these sensations in a loving way?  How can one feel thankful?  Perhaps this seems beyond what should be asked or expected.

What is involved is not simply moving through anger and blame to be able to get to a place of forgiveness.  Such a shift already demands the letting go of one’s hold on intense thoughts and feelings surrounding the event or relationship.  How to even imagine getting to the point where one could identify “gratitude” as the sensation that is present?  If one could get to that point, how to explain being appreciative in an atmosphere where anger and grief can serve as important additives to fuel vengeful or retaliatory actions and events?

There cannot be one right way to open the door to gratitude for what tears us apart inside.  However, tools do exist that can support movement in that direction, toward a letting go of suffering.  Isn’t “suffering” the bigger name for what is happening when one is consumed by anger, rage, blame or grief?   In the midst of the storm of these emotions, there is also energy which can bring about change in moments of full, present awareness.   Being with one’s self in meditation, in movement or stillness, can bring one’s body/mind to a place of mindfulness.  In that place, one can make a choice to let go.  It may not happen right away; practice is needed.  The guidance of a trained practitioner or teacher may be helpful.    The next steps involve repeatedly going back to that place to keep the door to gratitude open.  A shift can happen from meeting life’s situations with reactivity to meeting them with receptivity.   What is truly most amazing about opening to gratitude in this way is that the reward is a taste of what it really means to be free.

To begin, one need only imagine and hold the intention that there is, in fact, a door to be opened…

 

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November 5, 2011 · 6:38 pm

Me and Mine on the Mat

The question is – When I show up on my yoga mat or my meditation cushion, in what way is this practice mine or all about me?  Not that it’s about someone else.  Of course not, but perhaps there is a way to be with this practice that can shift my attitude of possessiveness toward it.  My intention here is that it would be less about me.

One might believe that this is about playing with words, but consider the larger picture.  How might I show up for this practice so that the experience is more  “being” with than “doing?”   What comes to mind is that perhaps I can participate in the practice instead of directing it, and, in that way, I am less involved in the doing.  How would it be to step onto the mat with the intention of the practice unfolding as it needs to, in this moment and then the next?

Imagine that you don’t have to try hard or make something happen.  The perfect posture or pure meditation moments are not the ones where I’m driving the boat.  Instead, they are the ones where I get out of my own way.  And I trust that all of you know what I mean – when you show up with SERIOUS intention and, of course, expectation of what is to come of your intention.  And then, too often, it’s all about you – how balanced, how strong, how focused, how flexible!  That’s when the moment of self congratulation sneaks in and takes over, and, again, it’s all about you!  Or, perhaps, the situation goes in the other direction, and you identify how weak, how tight, how distracted, how uncomfortable.  Judgment or disappointment lands, and it’s still all about you!

What might it be like to simply BE with the practice, allowing the energy of what is unfolding to be the guiding force?  I have a very clear past memory of struggling to do a particular yoga posture,  aware of the difficulty in the moment and the focus on my breath, my muscles, my alignment, my attempts to create ease.  I was occupied with the sense of expending energy when it occurred to me that my experience could be re-framed in an opposite way.  In this new scenario (isn’t  it  always a story that we’re telling ourselves), I was  receiving energy by being in this posture.  I wasn’t doing the posture; I was being it.  At that moment, the struggle was gone.  Did the posture then look any different?  I don’t think so.  But my investment in the experience had shifted so that I wasn’t doing the pose; I was being it.

What works for you to get out of your own way?  Is it simply a shift to the present moment or a change in the story line?  Try interrupting your hold on what’s happening for you the next time you show up for yoga practice or meditation.  See how it is to allow “unfolding” to be the energy out of which your experience arises.  If it turns out to be less about you, there may be more room for being with the actual experience of practice.

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October 7, 2011 · 7:23 pm

Edge of Awareness

Suppose you are at an edge, standing at a point where moving forward feels like stepping off into the unknown yet staying where you are is increasingly uncomfortable, and, of course, moving backward isn’t even a choice.  What happens now?

Sounds like a big deal – yet we do this over and over again every day.   Mostly, however, moving forward happens within the context of what we know and what is familiar.  Driving the car, making a call, walking down the street – all these actions happen without us knowing exactly what will happen next.  We do, for the most part, have expectations based on past experiences that allow us to take up these activities with confidence or ease.  But if enough about the activity is outside our familiar set of past experiences, then the sense of the unknown surfaces.   How we meet this can range from anxious resistance to enthusiastic excitement.

Think of children for whom almost all experiences are unknown.  Would any of us have learned to walk or run if we chose staying with what is familiar?  Or if we had a lengthy internal conversation about what was about to happen next?  Unlikely!  So we all have the capacity to choose moving forward, taking the next step, even in the face of not knowing.

Consider how we meet these edges in our life situations – right now, today.  Could it be that what seems edgy to us does so because some aspect of it strikes us at our core?  How do we choose moving forward or staying when our perception of what is at stake is the sense of who we are or what our truth is?  It isn’t simply about “not knowing.”  What stirs us is the dissonance of the potential before us compared with what we think of ourselves, our idea of who we are, our self image.   Perhaps this is actually the edge of awareness.   And our choice is to explore and take the next step or hunker down and stay put.

So, what might make the difference in how we choose?  If you go back to the childhood reference, moving forward was possible then because we felt safe, accepted and had a sense that someone had our back if things didn’t go well.  Or else the motivation was that consequences of failing weren’t clear and/or the risk seemed worth it.   Or simply being curious.

How to bring some more of that curiosity into how we make choices to explore edges and step out into the unknown as who we are right now?  Can we use the tools we have and the gifts we’ve been offered?  Meditation, mindfulness techniques and yoga can support the sense of who we are and strengthen the ability to take the next step.  They can provide a safe home and make it easier to move forward.  Yoga therapy, in particular Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, offers a unique structure for supporting this kind of exploration of the edge – one in which you can explore with safety and acceptance, with the sense of someone having your back.  What matters most in the way you meet your edges is that you get to choose – how far, how fast, even whether to go at all…

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September 26, 2011 · 6:10 pm

Holding on/Letting Go

“Letting go” is a phrase much used in the teaching and support of practices like yoga, meditation and mindfulness.  In the experience of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, there is also support for letting go, however, there is no teaching offered that will instruct you in how to do that.   The reason being that only you, the individual “you,” can tap into what it is that keeps you from letting go.  No one else can know, but how would it be to accept a practitioner’s invitation to explore?

In order to let go, there must be some understanding of your own unique process of holding on.  You must first develop awareness of where in your body you feel the sensation of holding.  Whether the holding applies to a thought, an emotion,  a memory or a story about yourself, it is stored in the cells of your body and held there.  It is easy to believe that this holding is the way you are supposed to be – the real you.  And if the story, emotion, thought or memory is significant – in other words, if it carries a lot of weight or energy for you – then the effort of holding on will also contain much weight or energy.  It will seem that there is no foreseeable way of letting go.

We don’t as a rule hold on to something of little import or value to us, however, that doesn’t mean that we always know what the attachment really is.  Sometimes the holding comes out of a desire that our life situations or relationships be different than they are.  At those times, the energy may be more about holding back than holding on.  And still, the intention of letting go begins with asking where in your body is the locus of this holding.

You might stop where you are right now and pay attention to what’s happening with your breath.  If you notice holding, it’s not likely to be the kind of  “holding your breath til you turn blue”  – we know what that looks like.  For sure it will be much more subtle than that.  It could be that you take in less than a full breath, or you grasp at the breath and pull it out of the air as opposed to receiving it in a gentler way.  Suppose your awareness simply tells you that your breath could perhaps be different than it is.

How would it be to check in with the rest of your physical body to notice where and how holding might be happening?  Remember that it can show up in many different ways –  as a tightness in a muscle, an ache that may be felt deep inside a part of you,  a felt sense of some part not functioning the way it should, a heaviness, a weariness in your body.  You see, holding can be present in so many ways.  The discovery can happen in the naming of it.   Bringing awareness to it can then be the next step in the process of understanding whether this holding serves you anymore and then appreciating that you have a choice.

I imagine the next question you might have is how you can be certain that what you notice is “holding.”  The answer is that sometimes, in fact, you don’t know you’re holding on until you have the experience of letting go…

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September 22, 2011 · 9:37 pm

Core of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy

It begins with the body.  It’s the physical body that is the medium, providing fertile ground  for exploring.  And “exploration” is exactly what takes place by attending to the inner experience of what is happening – moment to moment – in the body as well as in emotions, thoughts  and in the connection to what feels greater than all these put together.

You might wonder how this happens.  Essentially, it is through an amazing process of noticing sensations, memories, feelings, words and phrases, colors and images that surface as the body is moved and supported in postures and patterns.  As this occurs, the Witness (the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner) allows the client to explore whatever is noticed, spoken or not.  While the focus of the client throughout the session is inward, the practitioner provides physical safety, active listening and an invitation to explore whatever shows up at the edge of awareness.

I want to say, “That’s all there is to it,” but one must appreciate that simplicity can only truly exist when there is a solid foundation beneath it.

At the core, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy is a process, not a protocol or a treatment.  It is a relational process guided and supported by the practitioner in which the client interacts with himself, navigating his inner body experiences.  This way of being with a client is based on a two-fold path: one that incorporates the eight limbs of yoga, anatomy, body mechanics and verbal skills and a second that develops the skills of mindfulness, compassion, intention and appreciation for whatever happens.  The core combines both; the practitioner combines both.

Simply put, the process facilitates the client staying in the present experience of his body as he explores what’s happening now, in that moment.  It all happens for the client from the inside out – enabled by the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner.  And while the therapy session moves forward from beginning to end, the take-away is created by the client, never prescribed or taught by the practitioner.

A Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner is so much more than a teacher or a healer, emerging out of a process that is based on the fact that human beings have the capacity to heal themselves.  They require only fertile ground and a climate that promotes healing and change to occur.   What can happen then is truly amazing…

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September 10, 2011 · 6:19 pm

The Weight of Loss

There has been some space since the last writing.  Weeks have gone by with life reflecting an unsettled, at times, refusing-to-be-named, inner experience.  It wasn’t until walking meditation this morning that the name surfaced and clarity ensued.  It’s the Weight of Loss.

How is it that changes in life that result in the loss of a person or place or familiar role, or an event that changes forever the idea we have of our world, can leave us carrying such a burden?  How is it that loss can be so heavy?  Isn’t there an oxymoron in there somewhere?  And even as the weight of loss shifts and becomes lighter over time, how is it that it can get so heavy again at the time of the anniversary of that life-changing event?

Perhaps, in part, because we unconsciously feed this loss and nurture it, thinking that we can go back to what was.  All the practices that support our awareness and acceptance of change, our experience in meditation, doing or being yoga, becoming mindful of the present moment again and again, don’t often shift the core of loss that we carry.  We walk around it, observe it, sometimes challenge it, rage at it, but almost never do we greet it with compassion and gratitude.

What would that even feel like?  Does it seem possible to be grateful for an experience of loss that we didn’t ask for or welcome?  Perhaps one needn’t appreciate what happened, but in order to take the next step, to move forward in life, there must be some letting go.  Otherwise, what happens is that weight accumulates, and with each loss, the burden becomes heavier.  Then, at some point, there is no going forward, and letting go is more and more difficult.

Consider that compassion and gratitude may be as light as loss is heavy.  Maybe instead of putting on the heavy overcoat of loss today, one could try (or even simply imagine) wearing a coat woven of compassion and gratitude.  It doesn’t have to be gratitude for the whole event or experience of loss.  It can be compassion around one small aspect of it.  A kinder, softer way of relating to that one piece.  It would be akin to having an intention of being kinder and softer towards oneself – toward the one who carries this burden.

That might be a beginning – a next step down the path of lessening the weight of loss…

This post is dedicated to all those who carry the weight of loss – especially from the events of 9-11-2001.

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July 1, 2011 · 8:02 pm

Becoming Yoga Therapy

How does one go from the experience of yoga to “yoga therapy?”  I’m sure for some it’s a big leap, and for others, more of an unfolding in the direction you have already been facing.  I realize there has been much focus of late on the benefits of yoga and, certainly, much is to be gained from practicing yoga.  Of course, it all depends on what it is you are looking for.

Consider in what ways your wanting and desires might direct your practice – is it losing weight or better sex, increased strength and flexibility, letting go of stress, lowering your blood pressure, perhaps a few moments to be with yourself.  Or are you going for the greater connection – to something greater than yourself?

How does this practice shift to “therapy?”  For some, there’s an evaluation of a person’s current status, then an application of elements of yoga to target whatever symptoms have been identified.  Valuable, it may be, as when I see a practitioner for my knee pain and am given postures to practice to help alleviate the pain and strengthen surrounding muscles.  The practitioner brings respect for my body and physical issues, and I bring a willingness to participate and follow direction.  Then I take the recommended postures home with me to practice.

I’m going to say that the operative word here is “practice.”  Imagine that there is another approach – where the client shows up and is guided in a process where he can access information in his body while being supported in yoga postures. Where he is assisted in real time exploration of what’s happening now for him – whatever may be showing up in the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual parts of himself.  Difficult to imagine – perhaps.  But completely possible and not dependent on “practice” but on living your yoga.

The essentials of living your yoga apply to the practitioner and create the path that leads to a fully launched yoga therapy practitioner.  The process of “becoming” means that you know yourself, you understand what triggers you and what gets in the way of you being present with unconditional acceptance of the client.  It means you can meet the client where he is and offer an invitation for him to explore whatever is happening for him during his session.  You appreciate what he’s ready to work on and accept that he goes the direction he chooses.  And the most real aspect of this experience is that it is anchored in his body, so, of course, he takes it with him when he walks out the door.

This is the way of the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner.  It’s not the only way, but it is the only way that offers such an extraordinary invitation from the perspective of “living your yoga,” not “practicing” it…

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June 1, 2011 · 10:09 pm

On Vacation

It’s right up there with Self Care, isn’t it?  But bigger, broader and fuller than merely taking care of oneself.  A vacation is where you get to be free from work, obligations, have to’s and should’s.   Where you can empty out and take in all at once, free from the daily details that consume.  Where you can be mindless and unfocused, yet allow for more mindfulness and a sharper focus than you might routinely have.

Interesting that often the destination or the doing becomes the measure of how successful a vacation is.  Yet, despite the careful deliberation of what to pack and what to leave, we always bring ourselves along.  Leave the bills, the assignments, the arrangements, the chores, the deadlines and schedules, but we take what’s inside.  Whatever the wanting is that prompts us to take the vacation in the first place sets an intention for that period, and that, more than anything else, determines how good, how restful, how rejuvenating the vacation turns out to be.  The intention answers the question, even before we leave, whether we will come back a clearer version of who we were when we left.

Does “vacation” also mean allowing indulgence?  Does it mean letting go what normally seems to serve us and being free to do whatever?  What do you give up to be on vacation?  Do you continue your yoga practice or meditation or is that part of the schedule that is set aside?

I suspect that, discounting guilt for stepping outside the bounds, vacations are meant to assist us in integrating what’s been happening to us in our lives up to that point.  Vacations create space for being with ourselves in a different way and open the door to the process of living that swirls around us on a daily basis.  They enable us to take a moment, another kind of moment, and appreciate it in a way that is unclouded by what is generally required of us.

So, showing up for “vacation” with an intention of clarity and openness, means that there may be room in the suitcase to bring back a new perspective, a change of heart, a clearer vision, a renewed commitment or, perhaps, just you being you in a simpler way…

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May 2, 2011 · 5:36 pm

Heart of Your Practice

Had some recent experience of  “heart” lately – not only mine but the heart of a community.  Seems so many words come to mind to describe heart and all of them are always rich with meaning and depth.  Whatever the descriptor, it’s meant to capture what is at the core of one’s being – albeit at that moment, not necessarily for all time.  The experience can feel so big or consuming that it’s as if that one word or two is all there is, and there is no room for anything else.  No matter what it is that grabs your heart, how important it is to allow for shifts and changes in what takes up space there.  Seems this allowing may be what keeps the heart alive, keeps it beating.

How vital it is to bring “heart” when showing up for your practice – whether yoga or meditation or meeting another on the mat in yoga therapy.   What this means to me is that you bring passion to what you do.  There you are with attachment in your heart because then you are living and breathing what you do.   The voice inside tells you that this is who you really are (or who you want to be), and the energy of your heart is maybe a bit too attached to what’s happening there for you.  But isn’t this attachment what enables you to bring all of you authentically to your practice?  Wouldn’t feel right to show up “half-hearted,”  would it?

So, my real question is how to put your “heart” into your practice and allow non-attachment to come in as well.  This is the moment when your heart is filled with passion – where it’s so full that you can ride that path of attachment all the way to where it lets go and sets you free.  Otherwise it becomes an encumbrance, holding you too tightly and gets in the way.   It may seem a bit contradictory at first, but a few breaths into it and perhaps you can feel how it’s like breathing in and breathing out.

How awkward it would be to try to walk about with lungs full all the time.  Seems like there has to be some letting go in order to keep us alive…

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April 15, 2011 · 5:43 pm

Grieving on the Mat

One doesn’t come to the yoga mat in order to grieve, but grieving is a whole body experience.  So, if grief is what’s happening now, then it’s going to be there in every breath, thought, emotion and movement of your practice.  Grief has a way of moving in with you, taking over your inner household in a more permanent way than most other experiences do.  As it sidles up next to you, it can be almost comforting while it takes the place of the one that is lost or dead or gone.

So, do not expect that you can show up for your yoga or meditation practice alone when grief is in abundance.  But know that you can share the experience.   Grief can be the cushion on which you sit or the partner that helps support you in tree pose.  Imagine that grief is what fills in the empty space left by the one who is gone; it’s what allows you to take the next step in appreciating and understanding the loss.  It’s there when you’re crying or cursing or focusing on your practice.

How would it be then to bring awareness to the changes you notice in your body and breath as you move through your practice?  Notice what’s different – where there is heaviness or perhaps unexpected lightness.  See how muscles hold on – where there’s grasping so tight that it seems as if there will never be letting go.  In the passing thoughts and waves of emotion that move to the foreground and then recede, bring attention to how being in the moment supports the whole of you in your practice .  Notice feelings of fullness and shifts into emptiness, and then, bring awareness to the fact that nothing remains the same.   Ever.

Know that grief may move through you.   Doesn’t it make sense to acknowledge that you bring it with you onto your mat?   Your body and your breath are the vehicles for moving grief through your cells,  and your practice can be what helps shape your experience of loss.  There is something wonderful in accepting that you have choices with grieving as you do in other aspects of life.  You may choose to sink under its weight or you may choose to welcome it as the partner it can be in supporting you to move forward.  You might even be able to do both at the same time – as in  those postures that require the balance of opposing energies…

This post is dedicated to Karen Hasskarl who left her family and friends on April 9, 2011.

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