our-yoga

by Nina

Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens: A Detail by Joan Webster

On Tuesday I read a short little piece in the NY Times questioning the adage “Never go to bed angry” (see here). It was one of those bottom line pieces, and the bottom line was this:

“Going to sleep upset or disturbed preserves the emotion, research suggests.”

In the cited study in The Journal of Neuroscience, scientists exposed 106 men and women to images that elicited various emotions. In some cases the emotions were negative and in other cases the emotions were positive or neutral. The researchers then looked at what happened 12 hours later when the subjects were shown both new images and the previous ones, either in the morning after a night of sleep, or at the end of a full day of wakefulness. The conclusion was:

“The scientists found that staying awake blunted the emotional response to seeing the upsetting images again. But when the subjects were shown the disturbing images after a night of sleep, their response was just as strong as when they had first seen them—suggesting that sleep “protected” the emotional response.”

That doesn’t sound good, does it? Going to bed angry and waking up angry is not only an unpleasant experience for you, but it probably doesn’t enhance your relationships with the people around you. Besides, it's also not a good idea to go to bed angry if you are concerned about getting a good night's sleep. Your stress levels will be high and your sleep, if you can sleep, will be restless—maybe filled with upsetting dreams—and you won’t feel rested in the morning.

But very probably you—unlike the people in the study—can’t just put away an “upsetting image” when you are very angry. In fact, the chances are you’ll keep having one angry thought after another, and with each angry thought you’ll get another jolt of adrenaline (that’s why they call it the “fight or flight response,” people), keeping your stress levels as high as they were before.

The good news is that Baxter says it takes only about 90 seconds to clear the adrenaline released in your system by an angry thought if you switch to a more neutral topic. So to put away your anger, he recommends a structured breath practice, in which you measure your inhalations and exhalations, and count your breaths to engage your mind. If you combine this type of breath practice with a supported inversion (such as Legs Up the Wall pose) or a supported forward bend (if you find those soothing), both of which help switch your nervous system to relaxation mode, you’ll get a double dose of calm.

You could also use a guided relaxation (see here) as a way to engage your mind and relax your nervous system at the same time.

by Nina

Sand Dollar by Melina Meza

I don’t have a particularly exciting story about why I started practicing yoga. (It’s kind of humorous actually. When I was in my late twenties, I was working at a small software company and we wanted to start an on-site exercise class. One of our co-workers said that his wife could come and teach us, so we decided to give it a go. We had no idea she was a yoga teacher! So there we were, for our first class, and she asked us to stand in “Mountain pose,” with our big toes together and our heels slightly apart, which was the opposite of the foot position I was used to doing in ballet and modern dance, my previous forms of preferred exercise. And just standing that way felt so wonderful for my body, I thought, whatever this is, this is for me!). However, I do have a more dramatic story about why I decided to become a yoga teacher.

During the period when I was studying yoga with Rodney Yee and writing our first book together, Yoga: The Poetry of the Body, Rod helped me understand how my yoga practice was benefiting me in emotional and spiritual ways, as well as physical ones. It turned out that by practicing regularly at home—something I had taken up intuitively rather than with any specific goals in mind—I had been learning to manage my stress, balance my emotions and cultivate equanimity without even realizing it. (If you read the dialogues in the book Yoga: The Poetry of the Body, you can witness Rod helping me toward that realization.) And as someone who had suffered in the past from chronic stress (working full time at a software start-up while raising two children!), which had led to a bout of agitated depression, I began to see the tremendous power yoga had for helping people with emotional difficulties of all kinds, including stress, depression, anxiety, anger, and general dissatisfaction or unhappiness.

Then, one morning when I was practicing yoga with Rod and his best friend, Ian, Ian began talking about how he had just learned that a colleague of his had committed suicide.  (Yes, sorry to disillusion you, those guys chatted constantly while they were practicing.) And while I was in Shoulderstand, I kept thinking about about Ian’s story, and filled with compassion for his friend—for the suffering he must have experienced to lead him to take his life—I began to cry. I realized then that while I could not help Ian’s friend, I did have quite a lot of knowledge that I could use to help other people who were suffering. And while I had no particular ambition to become a yoga teacher per se, I understood at that moment that I really should look into finding a way to share what I knew. Yes, it was one of those actual epiphanies (and I had it while I was doing a yoga pose).

After that, I started doing two things. First, I began taking as many workshops as I could from teachers like Patricia Walden, who teaches workshops on Yoga for Depression (I took that more than once!) and Yoga for Emotional Healing, and Roger Cole, who teaches about the physiology of inversions. Then, I enrolled in a three-year teacher training program at The Yoga Room, in Berkeley. Clearly I believe in being thoroughly prepared! Finally, when I felt ready (and when I got the go-ahead from Patricia, who was informally mentoring me) I did begin teaching workshops on Yoga for Emotional Wellbeing, Yoga for Stress and Yoga for Better Sleep. Those were rewarding—there is nothing like having even just one person tell you that you made a difference in their lives by teaching them a simple practice, like breath awareness—and I still teach them occasionally. But I eventually realized that writing is still my forte and that I could reach a larger audience through my writing than by teaching local workshops.

When Baxter and I came up with the idea of starting a blog, I realized that a blog could be the perfect venue for me; having our own blog would allow me to give myself the power to write about what I wanted to write about, the way I wanted to write about it (frankly, the way some publications edit/rewrite you can be positively painful). And because the blog was free and accessible world wide, I could reach people who would never be able to study with me in person.

Because I not only write for the YFHA blog but I’m also the Editor in Chief, I work on the blog at least five days a week (and sometimes behind the scenes on the weekends). And that takes a lot of dedication. But that original epiphany I had in Shoulderstand and my ongoing passion for sharing what I know about the emotional and spiritual benefits of yoga—as well as the physical ones—are a wellspring that never runs dry.

Disclaimer: If you are easily offended by repeated and liberal use of the F-word (sounds like "duck"), and are also easily offended by grumpy Ashtangis who like blaming others for any interruptions to their daily practices, read no further! Consider yourself warned. 

"Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger."

David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature

I had a moment during practice this morning when I actually preferred the destruction of the whole world to the interruption of my practice. Yeah, crazy, right? How unyogic is that? I'm definitely not proud of it, but hey, it happened, and since this is supposed to be an Ashtanga blog in which I talk about things that come up in my practice as honestly as I can, I decided I'd share this here anyway. Maybe some of you out there will be able to relate to this, maybe not. Or maybe this means that Ashtanga is slowly turning me into a psychopath, and I seriously need help (like, maybe go to an Ashtanga-holics Anonymous (AA) meeting somewhere.) Anyway, you decide.

What exactly happened? Well, here's what happened. At the beginning of my practice this morning (I think I was at the fifth Surya A), my fiancee left the apartment to go down to the coffeeshop to get some coffee. A couple of minutes later, as I was completing my first Surya B, the door buzzer rang, startling myself out of my yogic blissed-out state and also startling the cockatiels whom, I was sure, were experiencing a "contact bliss" as a result of being in the proximity of my great yoga practice.

"FUCK!!! She must have forgotten her keys again. WHY DID SHE HAVE TO INTERRUPT MY YOGA PRACTICE?! FUCK!!!"

With this thought, I reluctantly got myself out of Utkatasana, walked over to the buzzer, pushed the intercom button, and murmured "Yes?" in a rather irritated tone. "Let me in. I forgot my keys." Came her voice over the intercom. Damn! Just as I thought! If I get a dollar for every time I have to buzz her in because she forgot her keys, I will be such a wealthy man by now. I buzzed her in anyway (like I have a choice), and stalked back to my Mysore rug in an angry state of mind. I don't know why, but there is something about that combination of the loud obnoxious sound of the buzzer ringing, my having to interrupt my practice, and (in my opinion) the very stupid reason for having to interrupt my practice that got me really, really mad. I got so mad that I almost wanted to pound the counter with my fist, but stopped myself at the last moment ("Don't waste energy! And besides, do you really want to get a yoga injury (if you can even call it that) from breaking your hand on the counter?" Said my more rational self.).

A couple of minutes later, as I was in downdog in my second Surya B, trying to anal-breathe away my angry state of mind, she came in the door. "You really should remember your keys before you leave the apartment." I couldn't resist murmuring from the depths of downdog. She said yes, she should, and then proceeded to look through her purse (which she had left the apartment with) again, just to be sure the keys weren't actually in there. And guess what? They were! In her own words, they were "in some other corner of the purse that I seldom look at."

DAMN!!! So I basically buzzed you in for nothing! If I had ignored the buzzer and just went right on practicing (like I could, anyway, with that loud obnoxious ring...), you would have found the keys and let yourself in! Damn! I thought to myself. And then I had this really, really nasty evil thought:

"WHY IS THE WORLD SO FULL OF STUPID PEOPLE, PEOPLE WHO DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THEIR FREAKING HOUSEKEYS ARE?! WHOEVER'S RUNNING THIS BIG COSMIC JOKE THAT WE CALL THIS WORLD NEEDS TO END THE WORLD RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT. YOU KNOW, BRING ON JUDGMENT DAY OR WHAT-HAVE-YOU, PUSH THE RESET BUTTON ON THE UNIVERSE, SO THAT A WHOLE NEW WORLD--A WORLD WITHOUT STUPID PEOPLE WHO DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THEIR FREAKING HOUSEKEYS ARE, AND WHO WON'T INTERRUPT OTHER PEOPLES' YOGA PRACTICES JUST BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WHERE THEIR FREAKING HOUSEKEYS ARE--CAN COME INTO BEING IN ALL ITS DIVINE GLORY, SANS THE ABOVE STUPID PEOPLE, OF COURSE."

Well, now you know that I am really not the enlightened sounding Ashtanga Fundamentalist that I have pretended to be thus far on this blog. Oh well, I guess it's still not too late to stop reading, or to "un-follow" yourself from this blog. As I said, I'm not proud of what I was thinking, but it really did happen. I'm even less proud of the fact that I remained in this angry state of mind for all of primary series (I did full primary this morning); the anger only started to subside when I got to the finishing backbends. Come to think of it, if even the heart-opening effects of backbending could not wash away the anger, I don't know what would; in which case, I would really be a serious whackjob who needs to go to an AA meeting right away.

But actually, from a purely physical point of view, the anger wasn't all bad, either. I think I actually had more upper-body strength and bandha control because of the anger. For instance, halfway through jumping through into Triangmukhaikapada Paschimottanasana, I suddenly remembered that I was jumping into the pose the wrong way: As you probably know, you're supposed to jump with your legs positioned so that they kind of slide conveniently into the pose rather than do the standard cross-legged jump-through. I remembered that in mid-jump-through, and actually managed to reverse my body in mid-jump all the way back to chaturanga, and then jump again. Not to brag or anything, but that mid-jump-through reversal back into chaturanga was simply priceless. I wish somebody had gotten it down on video; I'm not sure if I would have been able to pull that off if I didn't have all that extra angry energy to boost me. So yeah, I guess this shows two things: (1) It is possible to do primary series in an angry state of mind, (2) Sometimes, an angry primary series can be quite spectacular, asana-wise.

As I said, I'm not proud of all these angry destructive thoughts that went through my mind this morning. But here's something from an Elephant Journal article that Tim Feldmann wrote a few months ago that may be relevant to my experience here. Tim writes:

"Recently I have had several students approach me with a particular question about the presence of strong negative emotions in their practice and their lives. 

Sometimes the practice of yoga triggers deeply seeded behavioral patterns and brings them to the surface.

For example, you sometimes find that when you practice yoga you may actually feel increasingly more aggravated than before. When you leave yoga class you may even find yourself barking at the people closest to you, such as your children, co-workers and loved ones. 

When you practice you may even find that the irritation increases and you might be wondering what is wrong with you and your practice if it takes you to this “un-yogic” place."

Hmm... sound familiar? But there's hope. Tim continues:

"But have faith, this is exactly what the practice is meant to do...  

Yoga is here to bring us closer to reality, closer to what is really going on inside and outside of ourselves.

Yoga aims at bringing light towards what really is and to find the courage to see clearly and the peace to accept whatever arises without the necessity to remove or change it. If grief is there, if anger is there or if pride is there, our yoga practice is sure to slowly strip away the layers of subconscious veils in a timely fashion, appropriate to what we can handle.

Methodically, like a surgeon’s scalpel we uncover years of psychological armor, escapism and denial and by doing so we slowly reclaim a life beyond it all."

I think Tim's words here are very wise and insightful, and sheds much light on my experience this morning (and maybe, for some of you out there, yours too). And where does asana practice come in? Tim has this to say:

"The next step is finding a vessel to help us move through the darkness towards the light tower.

 And, this is where yoga’s asana practice comes into the picture because the practice is the vessel. Yoga’s asana practice gives us the opportunity to shed some of the layers which ‘protect’ us from feeling, seeing and perceiving what is really happening on the decks below, by cultivating awareness and sensitivity in body and mind, by submitting to a method grander than ourselves and by sticking to it.
  

It is often also at precisely this moment we begin to feel that the practice is not working as it sparks a sea of negative emotions to which we were, perhaps, previously not experiencing.



So we can say that the asana practice serves as a sort of safe space for us to confront, explore, and eventually "melt away" the ugly things within ourselves that we would otherwise rather not confront. But we need to confront these in order to see ourselves for what we are. And we need to see ourselves for what we are in order to get anywhere on the spiritual journey of yoga.

So yeah, maybe I'm not such a whack-job after all...

P.S. I hope my fiancee never reads this post.    

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