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!

Hi everyone!  It’s been waaaaay too long since my last post.  Needless to say, life has been really busy here.  Regardless, I’m thrilled to be back here at my keyboard!  I’d like to spend the next several weeks exploring the connection between body and soul.  Here in the West, it has become very popular to discuss any manner of “mind-body-spirit” topics.  It is good that we finally recognize there is more to life than our thoughts and our physical experience.  Yet, in yoga, there are five layers of being described:  Body, Energy/Breath, Mind/Emotions, Intellect, and Spirit.  The yogis call these layers koshas.  These five aspects of our experience must be in harmony with one another in order for us to be fully alive and healthy.  For example, if one is physically fit but an emotional wreck, that is not a balanced existence.  Or if one is intellectually astute but is physically unhealthy, they are not living in wholeness.  In other words, we cannot separate any one aspect of our Being from another.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll give you some food for thought on each of these koshas.

Annamayakosha

Yes, I know, these are long words with potentially unfamiliar pronunciations.  So here’s some help:  AHN-uh-MY-uh-KOH-shuh.  This is the  physical, anatomical body and represents the outermost layer of our being.  With it, we touch, taste, see, and hear the world around us.  This body is the container for the other four layers of our experience.  When our other aspects of being (energy, emotions, thoughts, spirit) are out of balance, they can negatively affect our bodies.  Think about how stress lowers your immune defenses, leaving you prone to illness.  Have you ever heard yourself saying, “But I can’t get sick right now, I have too much to do!!”  That “too much” just might be part of the problem…  Especially here in the U.S., we are obsessed with bigger, better, faster, more.  Yet the body has limitations and needs to be respected and soulfully cared for, especially as we get older.  Youth generally has physical energy to spare and we frequently miss that as we age.  But comparing ourselves now to some past version of the same means that we miss out on the NOW.

One thing I love about yoga is that many of us come to a yoga asana practice with the goal of becoming physically healthier, and then realize it is so much more.  I became interested in yoga therapy when I started to see the emotional benefits that yoga was having in my life.  Increased calm, less tension, steadier responses to stressful events.  So the connection between our bodies and our other layers of being goes both ways.  We care for our breath, emotions, thoughts, & spirit, and our bodies will thank us.  If we care for our bodies, it will be easier to manage the other aspects of our experience.  Even while we seek the guidance of our souls, we mustn’t forget that we are still living in a physical world that takes a toll on the body.  Caring for our bodies is done on many levels.  Do you get enough sleep each night?  Do you eat foods that nourish your body (versus just tantalizing your taste-buds)?  Do you drink enough water?

In his book Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar says, “To be spiritual, one must not deny or forget the body. Throughout the journey to the spiritual goal, the body must be kept active.”  I recently did a presentation on this topic in the context of Christianity.  It is the religious tradition with which I’m most familiar and I believe these concepts can be explored from the perspective of other religions or schools of thought.  In my research for that presentation, the Bible verse that struck me most was, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? … Therefore honor God with your body.” – Corinthians 6: 19-20 (New International Version).  Regardless of your faith background, I think it is helpful to consider whether we are treating our bodies in a sacred way.  It is a gift and its health enables us to do the work of our spirit in this world.  And so, as you go about your life tasks this week, consider how you might bring some soul back into the ways you treat your body.  As C.S. Lewis says, “You don’t have a soul.  You are a Soul.  You have a body.”  Have a blissful week!

Hi everyone!  I’m so glad to be back here at my computer, typing away on this blog.  I hadn’t intended to take two weeks off from blogging, but my health had other plans.  I’ve been fighting off a couple of bugs and needed time to rest and recuperate.  When I wasn’t sleeping or otherwise resting in the past two weeks, I spent a good amount of time with my plants.  Nurturing the growth of plants and flowers is a wonderful way to develop our own healthy habits.  Since I’m based in Los Angeles, many of my mindfulness and healing suggestions are centered around the challenges of urban living.

I grew up in a small town, where there is plenty of land and space and trees and other green stuff.  My parents still have an extensive garden with seasonal vegetables, fresh herbs, and shockingly colorful flowers.  So I grew up appreciating green spaces and that sticks with me today, even in the urban landscape around me (just last night, I saw wild clover growing around a tree near a favorite restaurant and got excited!).  Having a lush garden can be difficult in the high density housing most of us in urban places occupy.  Unless, that is, you happen to be lucky to have a house with a good chunk of land (and that’s hard to come by even in this low real estate market).

Regardless of how much land surrounds your current residence, you can still keep a few plants around to help lift your mood.  I have several potted plants, some for indoors and others for outdoors, including a small herb garden.  If you enjoy cooking, fresh herbs are really the bee’s knees.  They taste more vibrant than the dried kind you’ll find at the grocery stores and, with the right amounts of water & love &  sunshine, they are endlessly renewable.  You can stop spending $3 each for a plastic box with two sprigs of thyme in it, and either buy a few herb plants or grow your own from seed.  And think of how great it will be next time you need parsley to flavor a dish and don’t have to buy a huge bunch of it, most of which will go to waste.  Growing your own herbs is more affordable, better for your taste buds, and will add that spark of new life to your kitchen or patio.

If fresh herbs aren’t your thing and the idea of growing things is intimidating, you might try getting some succulent plants (think cactus) that don’t need a lot of water or hardy, tropical plants that are hard to kill even if you ignore them for weeks.  Go to your favorite nursery (not the baby’s room…  the place where they grow and sell green things) and ask what kinds of plants might be good for your lifestyle.  There are also lots of “kits” these days where you can get a pot, soil, starter plant, and instructions all in one.  There are also ingenious indoor gardening set-ups that can have you growing even things like tomatoes right in your own kitchen.

Lastly, if you want to hone your gardening skills but don’t have the space for it, you might check out a local community garden.  These gardens that are tended to by any group of people are a great way to develop new friendships, preserve open space in increasingly urban communities, and be able to grow your own food even when you live in a small apartment.  Community gardens also help educate children about where food really comes from and they often help low-income communities and food banks improve access to fresh, healthy, affordable fruits and vegetables.  To learn more about community gardens in your area, check out the following resources:
– Los Angeles Community Garden Council
— American Community Gardening Association
— Capital District Community Gardens (upstate New York)
— GardenWeb

Here’s to your health and wellness!  Happy gardening!