Soulful Healing

Each season brings with it a natural series of changes.  Spring.  Summer.  Fall.  Winter.  Birth. Growth. Aging. Death.  These are the systematic cycles that affect not just the weather and landscape, but also our body, mind, and emotions.   Even if you couldn’t tell by the 100° L.A. weather, Fall is officially upon us now.  In Ayurveda — the sister science of yoga — Fall is the season ruled by vata energy.  Vata is light, dry, cold, subtle, and mobile, like the wind.  People with dominant vata energy tend to be creative, energetic, and lively.  As such, however, they are often ruled by their emotions.  Depending on your own primary constitution or dosha (vata, pitta, kapha, or some combination of the three), you will have different responses to the increased vata energy that Fall brings.  Some find the cooler temperatures, falling leaves, and wind to be refreshing, while others find this light, dry, mobile energy to be unsettling or even aggravating.

The seasons aren’t the only cycles that affect our lives.  There are also cycles that span our days, months, and life-time.  Vata energy is most prominent during the hours of 2-6 each day, both in the early morning and in the afternoon.  Because vata is so energetic and creative, we must be careful not to exhaust ourselves during these times of day.  They are times that call for mental and physical rest.  As I write this, I am reminded of the many cultures around the world that call for an afternoon rest period.  It is so common for people to feel unfocused and tired during the early afternoon hours, U.S. workplaces would do well to establish a post-lunchtime rest.  When I am being mindful (which hasn’t been happening enough lately!), I will take 30 minutes sometime in the middle of the day to rest.  I might take a power-nap, engage in silent meditation, practice yoga nidra, or listen to a guided meditation.  And believe me when I say this is an ongoing process for me…  playfully dancing between the pull of opposite poles.  At any rate, honoring our natural cycles promotes better productivity by taking advantage of the best times for work, rest, and play.

Balanced vata energy is creative, vibrant, and full of life.  It is what gets us moving and doing things.  Out of balance, however, it can be forgetful, disorganized, anxious, emotionally overwhelmed, and eventually exhausted.  As we go through these daily, monthly, and annual cycles, it is important to note how we are affected.  How is your mood at this time of year?  Do you feel energized and full of ideas?  Or do you find yourself feeling annoyed and overwhelmed?  Are you forgetting things and starting too many projects?  Or are you accomplishing things and feeling good?  This is where practices like mindfulness and self-reflection come in handy, so that we can observe the effects of these cycles on the body, mind, and emotions.  When we quietly observe what is happening externally and internally, we can uncover what is balanced and imbalanced within us.  Then we can make conscious changes that will balance our energies so that we can be at our best in our relationships with ourselves, our families, and our work.

If you’re not so sure about the mindfulness/meditation thing and you live in the L.A. area, join me for my next FREE meditation class on Monday, November 7^th at 7:00pm, in North Hollywood.  We’ll be focusing on mindful practices to incorporate into daily activities, such as eating, working, and interacting with others, keeping in mind the increased vata energy of this season.  You can also give me a call for your own personalized dosha analysis and yoga plan to balance your energy.  If you’re outside of L.A. and would like to learn more about how to balance your energy, you can use these links to find a yoga therapist or Ayurvedic practitioner near you.  Enjoy the Fall season and until next time, be well!

“Sticks & stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”  This familiar children’s taunt may be a nice way to dismiss a bully, but you and I both know that it’s not altogether true.  In fact, I often think that social, emotional, and spiritual wounds are far more painful than anything a stick or stone can do.  In addition, there are often severe emotional wounds that come from living through violent experiences.  I see this as especially true for those who are living in areas that are currently at war.  While there are many people in many countries and communities living with violence of some type, I’d like to focus today on U.S. soldiers returning from active deployment.  Many of our soldiers are coming home with lots of thoughts, feelings, and actions that the rest of us civilians might have a hard time understanding.  Witnessing violence and death (an inherent part of war) has serious effects on the human mind.  In a military setting, one is essentially re-socialized to incorporate these experiences into one’s worldview to build up the capacity to cope, but those strategies don’t work so well when the soldier returns to her/his regular life.

What is Trauma?
For our purposes here, the term “trauma” refers to the serious physical or psychological harm of Self or someone else, whether actual or threatened.  The seriousness of the event is usually observed in the person’s  response of fear or terror.  Per the DSM-IV-TR, the diagnostic manual therapists use to categorize mental health diagnoses, the common emotional and behavioral reactions to trauma include:

• Re-experiencing the trauma
  • Flashbacks:  Feeling as though the trauma is happening again
  • Nightmares
  • Feeling very distressed when reminded of the trauma
• Avoiding reminders of the trauma or feeling numb
  • Avoiding people  or places that might trigger painful memories
  • Forgetfulness related to the event
  • Feeling detached from others
  • Difficulty experiencing a full range of emotions
  • Not wanting to talk about the event
• Increased arousal
  • Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
  • Feeling irritable, grumpy, or angry
  • Increased sensitivity to sound & movement – such as feeling jumpy or on edge
  • Difficulty concentrating

Trauma Responses as Helpful
These types of feelings and behaviors might serve a person well in a dangerous environment.  That might sound strange at first, but stay with me…  Feeling detached could be useful because a soldier, for example, needs to distance himself from what’s happening or he can’t do his job.  Difficulty sleeping is helpful when the enemy might attack during the night and a soldier needs to be fully awake & alert with little notice.  Developing an increased sensitivity to sound & movement is useful when a soldier needs to carefully observe everything going on around her in order to stay alive.  It is also not difficult to understand how irritability and anger develop under constant exposure to injury and death, especially since military units often function with the closeness of a family.

From Helpful to Unhelpful
So we see that certain trauma responses are useful in environments where danger is actively, and perhaps relentlessly, present.  But these challenges with sleeping, concentrating, irritability, and increased sensitivity are not useful when a person leaves that dangerous situation.  Nightmares and flashbacks cause the nervous system to be on high alert, which can lead to irritability and difficulty communicating.  Lack of sleep is physically exhausting and if insomnia is severe enough, it can  eventually lead to odd perceptual experiences and hallucinations.  Feeling numb and detached can lead to social isolation and failure to reach out for help when it is most needed.  Difficulty concentrating makes it hard to get work done and perhaps hard to hold on to a job.  Difficulty maintaining a job can create tension in one’s close relationships, leading to more social isolation, and self-blame.  Quite the vicious downward spiral.

Helping our Soldiers
If you or a loved one is struggling with the above feelings and behaviors, the good news is that there is help.  Taking that first step of asking for help can be really difficult and yet it the first step that is so important in the healing process.  It can also be such a relief to lay down the burden you’ve been carrying.  Here are some great resources for healing from the struggles of war and military conflict:

Give An Hour — Providing veterans of Iraq & Afghanistan, and their families, with free mental health assistance 
Heal My PTSD — A wonderful compilation of information and resources about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) –Providing support, education, advocacy, and research on mental illness.  Broswe around the site or click the “Find Your Local NAMI” to search for a chapter near you.   
NAMI’s Veterans Resource Center — A variety of resources compiled by NAMI to support troops, veterans, and their families.

Stay mindful and be well!

If you are just tuning in to this five part series on the different aspects of human experience, you can click accordingly to read Part One and Part Two.  We are slowly making our way from the physical realm to the spiritual realm, exploring how we bridge the disconnect between the two.

Manomayakosha

Manomayakosha (MAH-nuh-MAI-uh-KOH-shuh) is the mental or emotional body.  This layer governs consciousness, memory, ego, perception, and emotions.   It is distinct from intelligence and discernment, which is the next layer.  Have you ever observed your mind to be like a hamster running in a wheel?  Welcome to your manomayakosha.  In exploring this layer of experience, we might first look at some of its challenges.  The ego-mind is impulsive and desires immediate gratification.  It resists things that require time and effort to achieve.  This is also sometimes called the small “s” self.  By that I mean that we often identify very strongly with our thoughts and feelings.  Consider Descartes’ famous statement, “I think, therefore I am.”  Yet we are so much more than the incessant thoughts and fluctuating emotions that pass through our soul-body each day.  The self is different from the Self…  The former being more ego-driven, the latter being Spirit-driven.

Sure, our thoughts and feelings are very real to us.  Sometimes they are so real that it is hard to know what is true and what is simply the hamster running in its wheel.  Our ego-mind is frequently occupied with the pain from the past or worries about the future.  Despite our best efforts, these ramblings take us away from the present moment.  And it is in the present moment where true contentment can be found.  The beauty of this interplay between body, breath, mind, intellect, and spirit is that we get to decide which of our thoughts and feelings have merit, which to set aside, and which to act upon.  Granted, this is typically easier said than done!  In yoga, we emphasize how consistent asana practice and breathwork help us to better manage the fleeting emotions that swirl through us in each moment.  Have you ever noticed how you when you get a good workout, you breathe more fluidly and your thoughts/emotions settle down?  One of my colleagues notes that when she has particularly stressful days, she sets aside time to practice Muay Thai to help slough off the stress (momentary tanget — Interestingly enough, Wikipedia taught me that “muay thai” is called the “Art of Limbs”.  Yoga also has eight limbs, which I’ll review in future posts!).

Consider in the coming week what role your ego-mind plays in how you care for your energetic and physical body.  Are you taking good care of your body, breath/energy, and emotions?  Do you give too much of your Self?  Or perhaps too little?  And how do you know the difference?  Also, what messages is your ego-mind sending your Self?  Nurturing and gentle; or harsh and critical?  Yes, many questions and not so many clear answers.  But this is the process of personal growth and self-awareness.  One awakening, followed by trial and error with our new knowledge, then further consciousness.  One foot in front of the other…  Inhale…  Exhale…  Inhale…  Exhale…

Last week, I began a 5-part series discussing the koshas.   This is the yogic term for the layers of our being:  body, breath, mind/emotions, intellect, and spirit.  This week, let’s take a closer look at how our breath affects our ability to connect body and soul.

Pranamayakosha

Pranamayakosha (PRAH- nah-MAI-uh-KOH-shuh) is the breath or energetic body.  In yoga, prana means life energy.  Other familiar terms for this concept include chi or life force.  In Christian traditions, it is called the Holy Spirit.  To grasp this concept, consider how we don’t usually see electricity, but we know it is there; same thing with our life energy.  The yogis understand that we can increase or decrease or balance our energy levels through the use of various breathing practices called pranayama.  If you are a regular yoga practitioner, you may be familiar with one of form of pranayama called ujjayi (oo-jy-ee).  Translated as Victorious Breath, Conqueror Breath, or Ocean-Sounding Breath, it is a common staple in yoga classes because this breath technique helps us to steady our breathing and match the flow of breath to the movement of the body.

Breathing is something we usually do unconsciously and yet it is the most important life-sustaining activity we can do.  According to one article at eHow.com, “brain cells are destroyed after 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen”.  Beyond issues of life and death, mere shallow breathing contributes to anxiety, stress, and physical tension.  In my work in mental health, I have come to understand that attention to and mastery of the breath is the single most effective strategy we have for regulating our emotions.  Consider this:  when our emotions become worried or stressed, our breath becomes shallow and rapid, then the body develops physical tension.  Utilizing the breath, we can calm the nervous system, balance the emotions, and relieve our physical tension.  I frequently find myself watching others’ breathing patterns and wanting to reach out to them to share some deep breathing techniques.  Granted, I probably ought to stay focused on my own breath patterns, but we’re all works in progress right?

Initially, the practice of attending to our breath patterns can be disconcerting because when the body and breath become still, we must listen to the ridiculous chatter of our feelings and thoughts.  Yet with consistent practice, it becomes easier to recognize when our body or or thoughts have become constricted and how to use our breath to bring some ease back into our experience.  So the practice of breathwork, however you approach it, can bring you physical relaxation, mental clarity, emotional steadiness, and spiritual connectedness.  I can’t think of any other activity that can bring one a greater sense of true joy!  As you journey through the week ahead, try noticing how your breath connects your body, mind, and soul.  Consider trying some of the deep breathing strategies you may have heard about, whether in this blog, in your yoga class, or somewhere else out there in cyberspace.  In closing, I’ll leave you with a Bible verse that speaks to this concept of breath as life-giving energy:  “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”  – Job 33:4.  Thank you for reading and have a joyful week!

Please note: While I am most familiar with Christianity, I welcome you to share quotes or verses from your own religious, spiritual, or secular explorations by leaving a comment below.

During a recent discussion on yoga’s therapeutic benefits, one of my colleagues asked me, “What’s it like to have a stress-free life?”  I know this colleague was mostly joking, but it was a good conversation starter.  I laughed and said that I have anything but a stress-free life.   Mindfulness is not about eliminating stress from your life, it’s about changing the way you respond to that stress.  That may not be what any of us wants to hear…  I have certainly wished that mindfulness and meditation and yoga could get rid of the stressful things in my life.  But they don’t.  What they do, instead, is make it easier for us to separate ourselves from our stress.  That way, we stop being defined by our automatic reactions to events and begin to choose our thoughts/words/actions more carefully.

I know…  this may be disheartening news to some of you.  If you can’t make the stress go away, why bother practicing mindfulness at all?  Here’s the tricky thing, though:  separating your Self from your stress does make the stress go away in a manner of speaking.  For years, one of my mentors would describe to me how it was possible for me to watch the drama unfold around me without getting caught up in it.  I tried and tried and tried and had a pretty tough time of it.  I suppose it’s one of the hazards of being a professional empath, this soaking up of other people’s emotions as if they were my own.  But when I really started to delve into the breathwork and meditative practices of yoga, I started to understand what my mentor was saying.  I was slowly able to sit in the presence of people’s emotions and hold on to my sense of Self.  Sometimes it was only for a few moments, sometimes much longer, but there it was.

I won’t try to tell you that I’ve mastered this skill now.  I’m certainly better at it than I used to be and there are a variety of situations that cut through my equilibrium…  people who drive dangerously, stories about the darker sides of humanity, those that would play the shame & blame game with me…  These are just a few of my triggers.  I get flustered, I get tense, I get judgmental.  Not my best moments, by far!  Yet I imagine these triggers will always be there in one form or another, so there is always room for me to improve   I guess what I want you to know is that coping more effectively with your daily stresses is indeed possible.  Plus, it is never too late to start.  If you’ve been wanting to find some peacefulness in the chaos of your everyday experience, begin the practice today.  Know that it is not easy and takes commitment, but try to love what you find in the clutter of your thoughts.  If you would like some guidance in your journey, here are just a few of the many great resources for mindfulness, meditation, and yoga:

Yoga Therapist Finder
InsightLA
Mindful Valley
Yoga Alliance
Yoga Finder
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
Learning Meditation

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a mindful week!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on this three-part series on self-reflection.  In Self-Reflection, Part 1, I go over the various benefits of engaging in a self-reflective practice.  In Self-Reflection, Part 2, I share some ideas for bringing more reflective experiences into your life.  Here, in the third and final installment, I’d like to discuss some of the signs that one might be doing too much self-reflection.  It’s all about balance, as we are forever dancing between seemingly opposing concepts.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Like so many helpful practices we can use to further our personal growth, self-reflection has many benefits.  There does come a time, though, when it may be too much.  Remember the myth of Narcissus?  He fell in love with his own reflection and wasted away.  This kind of self-obsession is possible for us, with the symbolic shriveling of our other relationships.  Remember in all of this that your relationship with yourself is not the only relationship you have.  Relationships must be nurtured in order to thrive.  Be careful to balance your self-relationship with those social connections that help you to be a whole person, giving to each relationship what it needs to be sustained.

When utilizing self-reflection as a strategy for personal development, an important distinction to make is between the little “s” self and the big “S” Self.  By little “s” self, I mean the ego, while the big “S” Self represents the Soul. The ego is a tricky character.  Its voice can be whiny and entitled and demanding.  The ego wants what it wants and wants it NOW!  And when the ego’s demands on the rest of your psyche don’t work, it can resort subtle, insidious messages of maintaining the status quo.  It can be challenging to differentiate the voice of the ego from the other aspects of your Self.  Usually, the ego wants anything that is immediately pleasurable and rejects that which requires any effort to achieve.  So as you embark on your chosen self-reflective practices, watch out for a few ego reactions, such as tantrum-like thoughts & emotions, as well as prideful, entitled ones.  The ego may try to trick you into self-obsession, as well.  Anything to keep things exactly as they are!  But the whole idea of self-reflection is to grow and learn, not maintain the status quo, right?

Soulful Self-Reflection

Obsessing over your thoughts, feelings, and actions will not be helpful for you or anyone else in your life.  The idea behind soulful self-reflection is to set aside a specific time to make your observations, then let… them… go…  Release your judgments, worries, and plans over the things you have noticed and allow your Soul to do the rest.  There is so very much about your experience that your mind cannot figure out.  This is where the Soul/Source/God/Higher Power/Great Spirit/I AM comes in.  Trust that just engaging in the process of reflection has done what it is supposed to do:  slow you down, clear out the clutter, and make room in your psyche for your Soul to do its mysterious work.  There’s a reason why some of the best advice we can get is to “sleep on it”.

If you do the best work you can do on the conscious level to sort through the gobbledy-gook of your thoughts and feelings, well, that just needs to be good enough, doesn’t it?  The rest can be sorted out on deeper levels that take time and mystery and the willingness to embrace the unknowable.  And I am certain that there is a hefty part of all of us that is not fully knowable by anyone, at least not by the small percentage of our brains that we are typically using.  A good friend of mine once told me (and I have since shared this with many more friends and colleagues), “Some things you can’t know until you know them.”  Have faith, dear ones.  I believe you will one day have the answers you are looking for.  As for the questions that can’t be answered…  I hope you will learn to trust your Soul.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with a quote that gives me encouragement when my mind is working overtime to understand the magical mystery of this life.  Thanks for reading and enjoy…

“…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ~~ Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in Letters to a Young Poet

Last week, I started this three-part series on self-reflection.   I discussed some of the reasons taking the time to reflect on our thoughts, feelings, and actions can be helpful to our growth and development.   In today’s second installment on the reflective learning process, I’ll share my thoughts on strategies for turning your attention inward, as well as using that opportunity to strengthen your self-acceptance and reach your personal goals.

How to Self-Reflect
There are numerous ways to engage in self-reflection!  Potentially as many ways as there are people on this planet.  So when it comes to self-reflection, there really are no rules.  You can choose to reflect in a “stream of consciousness” approach, writing/drawing/recording whatever comes to mind.  You can also direct the process by answering questions about yourself.  Good questions to ask yourself when sitting down to self-reflect are:  What am I thinking?  What am I feeling? (yes, thoughts and feelings are different and I’ll be writing about that in a few weeks!)  What situations prompted these thoughts and feelings?  How did I respond?  Was my response consistent with who I want to be?  If the answer to that last question is a “yes”, great!  Give your yourself the credit you deserve.  If the answer is “no”, you may think of ways you might respond differently next time and decide when to implement that plan.  Remember through all of this that self-acceptance is key and sometimes it’s more important to rest than to do more self-improving.

Journaling
Writing in a journal is an excellent way of recording your thoughts, feelings, and actions throughout the day or week.  Why?  Because in order to write your thoughts in coherent sentences, you have to slow down and organize those thoughts.  This helps to get the mind out of its autopilot chatter and figure out exactly what you are thinking.  Recording your thoughts doesn’t have to be done in a traditional book of lined paper.  I have one journal for writing — well, several actually, as I’ve kept journals for years –and one that is more art and poetry oriented (more on that below!).  For the more techy types out there, there are numerous computer programs and websites that can help you keep an electronic journal.  I suggest doing a web search with the following keywords to get more info…  “free private online journal”  or “journal software”.

Artistic Expression
Engaging in something art-full is another way to express yourself and give some order to your thoughts and feelings.  As I mentioned above, I have a journal that I reserve for poetry and artwork (by “artwork”, I mean doodling!).  I have several half-formed poems that I’ve written in response to various life events, everything from restful winter holidays with my family to challenging career experiences.   Journals with unlined pages are available for these kinds of free-form artistic musings.  You can also use large pieces of paper, tiny little scraps, backs of receipts, sticky notes, crayons, markers, colored pencils, paints (tempera, watercolor, acrylic, oh my!), modeling clay, song-writing, singing, playing an instrument, dancing…  If the activity helps get your experiences out of the endless mind-chattering loop and brings you into a space where you can reflect, then it’s self-reflection.  Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy    I have also heard wonderful things about The Artist’s Way, a book and online community about the creative process.  While I’ve never read it myself, others have spoken highly of it.  And there are probably many more resources out there on this subject!

Therapy
You had to know this one was coming, right?  I mean, I am a mental health therapist, after all.  Participating in therapy is a great way to self-reflect and can get you past any stuck points you find in your thought process.  Sometimes our mind-chatter just won’t let things be, we beat ourselves up incessantly and can’t figure out how to stop, or we have self-destructive behavior patterns that don’t change despite our best efforts.  These are times when it may be good to seek out the guidance of a mental health clinician.  Unfortunately, there still exists a hefty amount of stigma around going to therapy.  I am on a personal and professional quest to let people know that going to therapy is not about being “crazy” and needing a “shrink”.  There is an ever-growing body of research on evidence-based practices that point to the effectiveness of goal-directed and structured therapy sessions that can help you overcome the barriers to your emotional and interpersonal goals.  For more information on my holistic mental health practice, visit my Specialties page.  To find a therapist in your area, visit my friend and colleague’s great search site, Therapy4Help.  You can also read more about questions to ask a potential therapist and therapy services in general at PsychCentral.

As with everything, balance is essential.  You don’t want to get too caught up in your own inner workings.  Next week, I’ll conclude this series with a discussion about when self-reflection becomes too much of a good thing.  Between now and then, have an inspired week!  Thanks for reading and be well!

Do you ever notice yourself mindlessly fidgeting with things during the day?  Maybe twirling your hair, running a finger along an object, tapping a pencil?  These are perfect opportunities to add some mindfulness to your day.  Here’s how to take advantage of the random fidgeting:

1)  First, notice that you are fidgeting with something.  Simply note this without judgment (if judgment arises, “Sheesh, there I go again…” work on releasing that thought)
2)  Exhale fully and inhale deeply, noticing the thoughts, feelings, and sensations accompanying your behavior and current situation
3)  Continue the whatever movement you just noticed yourself engaging in, but with your full attention and awareness.  If you are running your thumb on a shirt button, for example, describe to yourself everything you can notice about the button.  Is it hot or cold?  Does it have a texture?  Are there threads running through it? 
4)  Enjoy your now mindful moment!

Of course, this exercise is not beneficial in all situations.  I might not recommend this in the middle of an important meeting or while driving on the highway, as your attention will be on your pencil/button/necklace and not on the tasks at hand.  However, if you find a moment where it makes sense to practice this, feel free!  Thanks for reading and be well!

I’m not talking about the kind of self-reflection you see in the mirror every morning     Self-reflection is really just about taking the time to reflect on you…  your actions, your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences.  Our minds are always working as we sort through all the things we experience each day.  We tend to focus most on our interactions with others; thinking, feeling, and doing in reaction to something someone else has said or done.  It is equally, if not more, important to spend time reflecting on our interactions with our Self.  Here is my first entry in a three-part series on why self-reflecting is good for the soul and how to achieve the most from whatever self-reflective practice you choose.

Why Reflect?
I like to think of self-reflection as an exercise in “taking inventory” on oneself.   If we don’t examine our own thoughts, feelings, motivations, and subsequent actions, how do we really know what’s true and what isn’t?  We encounter so many people, events, tasks, noises, demands, and stuff in every moment that if we are not careful, we start to think we are defined by all that extraneous “junk”.  Reflecting on these things helps us to:

1)  Remember who we really are
2) Figure out our priorities
3) Determine next steps to take or actions to stop taking
4) Identify our feelings to figure out which ones have important information for us and which are just reactions to old baggage
5)  Sort through our thoughts to determine which ones are helpful to our greater purpose and which ones aren’t
6)  Clear our minds for another day full of “stuff”

These six benefits of self-reflection are important to us in that they allow us to re-connect  to our deepest sense of well-being.  We can be reminded that we are not defined by the stressors and obligations and worries and overwhelming tasks that fill our days.  I’m not saying it’s easy to remember our bright shiny undamaged soul in the midst of a stress storm, but self-reflection can make it a little easier on you the next time a storm like that hits.

Stay tuned next week for strategies for self-reflection, in Part 2 of this series.  Thanks for reading and, as always, be well!

No, really, I mean it…  You can use traffic to your benefit!  Whether you live in a large urban area or a town with a slower pace, it is possible to use mindfulness while dealing with traffic.  This idea is an expansion of one given to me by first yoga teacher, 12 years ago.  I wish I could remember her name, so that I could give her credit!  She was teaching a class at my college and she was fond of telling her students that when we encounter a stoplight, we had a choice:  1)  Use it as an opportunity to breathe and be mindful or 2) Get frustrated and anxious about the obstacle placed in front of us.  She would encourage us to choose the first option.

So next time you are faced with an inconvenient stoplight or massive amounts of traffic, try the following:
1)  Notice the automatic chain of thoughts and feelings about this traffic obstacle
2)  Draw your focus to your breath and begin to breath more fully and slowly
3)  Use your slower, mindful breathing to relax the muscles of your face, neck, shoulders, and belly.
4)  See if you can shift your thoughts…  For example, with a stoplight, perhaps say to yourself, “This is my reminder to slow down and pause today.”  Or on the crowded highway during your morning commute, “These people don’t want to be here any more than I do, I choose to have compassion for the other people on this highway today.”

As you practice, you may find yourself smiling at stoplights instead of grumbling.  Have a soulful day!