Soulful Healing

I was reminded recently of the importance of stepping back and doing a little self-reflection.  Having reaped many physical and emotional benefits from the practice of yoga, I was feeling stuck in regard to one particular challenge I’ve experienced for years:  chronic tension/pain in my right shoulder.  Fluctuating from mildly bothersome to headache-inducing, this shoulder pain situation has  frustrated me for probably the past decade.  In one of my early yoga therapy courses, I was excited to learn about various ways we can use a combination of movement and stillness to help the body heal itself.  Armed with my enthusiasm for studying anatomy and biomechanics, I started trying to figure out ways to make my shoulder feel better.  Over the next few years, I found that proper posture was generally helpful to my entire upper body and I started trying all kinds of different stretches to release the tension in the complex network of muscles inside the shoulder joint.  I would find relief anywhere from a few hours to a few days, but it would never leave completely.  I was in so much pain at one point a little over a year ago,  that one of my physical therapist friends gave me an excruciating massage to help liberate the bad juju hiding under my shoulder blade.  I won’t lie, there were tears!  Despite attempts to keep my shoulder at ease, the pain still came back.  Stress made it worse and the pain led to more stress, so it was a vicious downward cycle. 

At any rate, I really was perplexed as to why whatever I was doing was NOT working.  Over the holidays, I took a complete vacation from my asana practice.   This wasn’t specifically because of the shoulder, but because I’d had a pretty stressful year and figured that some complete relaxation was in order.  Between resting, meditating, and occasionally using the back of a chair to massage under my shoulder blade, my right shoulder started to feel better.  Then I returned to regular life and wouldn’t you know it…  There was my old friend the shoulder pain  So I decided to take a restorative yoga class at a local studio as a means of re-starting my asana practice.  It was wonderful and gentle and got me thinking that maybe what was unhelpful about all the stuff I had tried before was the way I had approached my yoga.  I have a rather driven personality and enjoy being active.  Being still isn’t easy for me!  But that’s why I’ve loved yoga…  I can move, move, move, and then enjoy the peaceful inner and outer stillness that comes from that.

My experience in that restorative class prompted me to get back to basics.  I figured if what I had been doing wasn’t working, I needed to start over again.  I needed to stop pushing myself so hard and getting frustrated over my own limitations.  In other words, I needed to take the recommendations I regularly give my clients and apply them to myself.  That whole thing about walking your talk isn’t always easy!  So I pulled out my yoga therapy books and created a basic series that addresses shoulder pain.  Then I actually practiced it.  And let me tell you…  My shoulder has never felt better!  For two weeks now, I’ve been focusing on a few specific movements for shoulder issues, focusing on strengthening & lengthening the right combo of muscles to create a healthier me.  I notice how my right shoulder is very reactive to stress; it tries to jump into my ear at the slightest hint of stress!  But what’s different now is that I can breathe and move and keep the tight ball of badness from coming back.

If you’re feeling stuck, take a step back.  Do a little self-inventory and see what you find.  What are you doing that isn’t working or isn’t helpful?  What are you doing that is helpful?  How can you decrease the unhelpful and increase the helpful?  Find your way back to your Self and let that put you back on your best path.  As one of my favorite authors, Dr. Clarissa P. Estes writes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, ‎”If you feel you have lost your mission, your oomph, if you feel confused, slightly off, then look for … the ambusher of the soul in your own psyche.”  Mine was an imbalanced approach to my life and yoga practice.  What’s yours?

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!

Hi all!  What’s that?  You’re surprised I’m posting a third blog this week?  I know, me too!  This one, though, is a guest blog for the Serenity Week over at Everyday Bliss, by Kathy Sprinkle.  Be sure to check out her other posts on the 13 virtues of Bliss.  Happy Friday!

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!

Mantras are a wonderful way to keep your mind focused on your goals, whether they be short-term or long-term in nature.  They can take the form of a sound, word, or phrase.   They can be repeated to yourself as thoughts, spoken, written down, or even expressed as a song.  This can be a word or phrase in one’s own language, something that speaks especially to you and your needs, or it could be drawn from the numerous languages & traditions from which the use of mantras originated.   Spiritually speaking, mantras are thought to bring the practitioner a greater connection to Soul/Self/Spirit/God/Truth.  Emotionally speaking, mantras are also a great way to keep your thoughts & feelings organized, as well as focus on what you want from a particular experience.

The field of Western mental health has long used mantras.  Just to give you an example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy* uses an intervention called thought replacement:  Identifying unhelpful thoughts and replacing them with helpful ones.  A mantra can help you do just that, take an ineffective thought pattern and replace it with something more effective.  Our minds are filled with so much chatter!  Identifying some of our most unhelpful thoughts and replacing those with a mantra can be soothing and uplifting.  Left to its own devices, the mind can race out of control…  To-do lists, rehearsing conversations that may never happen, replaying conversations of little import, thinking about what you’ll eat for lunch, remembering fun things, remembering painful things, gab, gab, gab.  Any of that sound familiar?!  I thought so.

When we use a mantra, we pull the mind back from its wandering and give it something useful to chew on.  It’s a reminder, “This is what I’d like to focus on right now.”  It’s kind of like correcting a wayward puppy…  “No no, don’t chew on that!  Have this fun squeaky toy instead!”  But in this case, the mantra (aka “fun squeaky toy”) is more than your garden variety distraction.  Things like TV, food, alcohol, gossip, and other forms of entertainment just cover over the mind-chatter.  A mantra replaces the chatter with something empowering.  Plus, chattering to yourself all day really takes a lot of energy.  Every time you try to focus on something, the mind sets in with the chatter and there goes another 15 minutes when you could have been checking an item off that to-do list.

At this point, you may be interested in identifying a mantra for yourself.  As I noted above, mantras come in many forms.  Prayer, poem, song, affirmation, intention, goal.  Is there a particular goal you have for yourself?  A poem that speaks to you?  Song lyrics that inspire you?  A verse from a spiritual book that brings you peace?  Comforting words you would like to tell yourself?  There are many ways to create your own personal mantra!  Create something simple for yourself, that you can either memorize or keep in written form in your home or workplace as a gentle reminder.  Then, the next time your mind wanders off into chatter mode, you can coax it back to your higher goals with your new mantra.  Enjoy!

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* This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any mental health condition.  Please contact a qualified mental health professional before starting, stopping, or changing any mental health treatment.

We often hear the phrase “time out” in reference to the well-known parenting technique.  But here, I’d like to explore the use of time out for ourselves.  In the midst of our busy lives, we go from task to thought to conversation to activity…  lather, rinse, repeat.  This leaves us with little time to reflect on our experiences.  And aren’t we grateful for that much of the time?  Keeping ourselves busy can in fact serve some short-term purposes, such as avoiding attending to the  constant chatter in our minds, dealing with unpleasant feelings, or even simply staying entertained.  Yet we humans are not the best judges of what will make us feel truly better in the long term (I confess that I had the TV on when I first started to write this, but had to turn it off because it was distracting me!).  Our first instinct is often to cover over the challenging stuff, hoping that it will go away if we ignore it long enough.  Not so.

We are so used to perpetual distraction that when we sit down and get quiet, the noise inside the mind is deafening and completely overwhelming.  It’s enough to scare you right back into the land of incessant movement!!  I often hear people say, “But I can’t sit still/meditate/do yoga because it makes me feel more anxious.”  That statement resonates with many people’s experiences in beginning a contemplative practice, including my own.  Taking time out for yourself can be challenging at first, especially if you are accustomed to the constant twirling & spinning of modern life.  Our culture says more is better and we often unwittingly buy in to that notion.  But as you gain skill and experience in tolerating, accepting, and letting go of your bustling and buzzing, it does get easier.  And at some point in that journey, you find the calm, quiet center of your Soul.  Like any skill, it takes time to develop.

Let me be clear, I am not recommending that you leave your life and responsibilities to go live in a hillside monastery (oh, but that idea is tempting sometimes, right?!).  Quite the opposite in fact, I believe there is so much for all of us to gain by taking some time out and then continuing with our daily tasks more in touch with our bright, shiny Soul.   This could be five minutes of stillness in the middle of a busy day, writing your intentions for the day or week in a journal, taking time to pray, or observing and mentally describing your thoughts and sensations during a typical daily task.  Anything that prompts you to reflect on your Self and your surroundings can be considered a contemplative practice and will guide you in knowing your Self more deeply.  Years ago, I participated in AmeriCorps and from that I have my first conscious memory of being taught how reflection is key to learning & growing.  When we do not take time to reflect, we risk doing things the way we’ve always done them, effective or not.

If you are just beginning your journey into self-contemplation and have been discouraged by the crushing chatter of your own mind, fear not.  Stick with it, as the only way to grow is to keep at it.  Our children are not the only ones that benefit from a time out now and then!  Give yourself a chance to turn your attention inside for a moment and reflect on what you find there.  You will no doubt wade into all kinds of wild and interesting things inside that mind of yours.  Shine a loving light among the darkness and the cobwebs.  You just might stumble upon a real treasure.

Today’s mindfulness tip covers one of the more subtle ways we hold tension:  gripping the muscles of the jaw and face. Without realizing it, many of us respond to stress by tightening the muscles of the jaw, mouth, cheeks, nose, and eyes.  No wonder our culture suffers from so many headaches…  All those pinched up faces!  Here are some strategies for facing your stress without stressing your face:

1)  The first aspect to any mindfulness activity is noticing that you are experiencing something.  Throughout your day, turn you attention to your face and jaw.  Simply notice the muscles of your face and take note of whether you have chronic tension there.

2)  When you find yourself gripping your jaw & cheek muscles, begin to relax them by slowly allowing your tongue to fall away from the roof of your mouth.  You may notice that your breath can flow more freely as you release your jaw.

3) When you experience tension around your eyes, nose, & mouth, first bring your conscious attention to these facial muscles.  Then use a slow, deep breath to relax them.

4)  You can now use conscious, rhythmic breathing to keep your face & jaw relaxed throughout the day.  When you notice the muscles unconsciously tightening, bring your attention & your breath back to these muscles to release them once again.

Enjoy facing your day and week with greater calm!

I went to sing kirtan with a friend recently at Yoga Desa in Topanga Canyon.  Led by teachers from the Art of Living Foundation, this experience of singing/chanting along with a few dozen other people reminded me how good it feels to connect with myself and a community of like-minded people.  Kirtan is something I’ve only experienced a few times, yet each time I have walked away feeling calm, joyful, and grounded.  Music in general is a wonderful way to get connected (whether kirtan, hymn, classical, pop, jazz, bluegrass…).  It brings us back from all the journeys our minds take every day.  Back to the present moment.  Back to our feelings.  Back to our deeper meaning.  Whether instrumental or lyrical, music can help to release emotions, create relaxation, inspire, rebuild, uplift.

This last time, I was particularly moved by our leaders’ reminder to “sing with the innocence of a child”.  We spend so much time thinking about how we are being perceived that we forget to just sing/speak/share from that shiny, unbroken part of our Self.  When all alone in the car or the shower, we might actually allow ourselves to sing out.  But the second we realize someone is watching…  slam!… we shut ourselves back down.  This literal description of how we silence ourselves and each other also carries figurative meaning.  Granted, some of our destructive characteristics may need silencing, but certainly we have many gifts we do not share with the world due to that ugliest of four-letter-words:  fear.

While fear is a subject for another blog, this did set me to thinking about other ways we might use Soul-connecting practices to counteract fear.  Musical experience (whether you prefer to sing or listen) is one way to remember who we really are underneath all the noise and confusion of our daily lives.  Physical exercise, knitting groups, walking clubs, sewing circles, prayer, meditation, laughing with your children, sharing a meal with friends…  I suppose the list really is endless!  Is it possible to take a moment each day to reconnect with either yourself, a friend, or family member? There are so many demands on our time each day, it’s easy to take ourselves and one another for granted.  I invite you this week to slow down and take a moment to reconnect.  You’ll be glad you did!