This is a picture of me attempting to meditate on a weekend in my house. Just kidding. Not really. When Tom and I saw this house for sale in 2019, it was a marvel. All hardwood floors! Floor to ceiling windows! Vaulted ceilings! How spacious and soothing! Where do we sign??? Then we moved in with two children, a geriatric cat, and eventually Covid Puppy. It turned out the features we loved promoted the near constant parental lament “Oh my God, why are you all so LOUD?!?!” So I should just go in a room and close the door, right? Yes, I agree! There was this extra room of no particular use on the second floor and the instant I saw it I was like, THAT is my yoga and art space! It was perfect. Small but comfortable. Giant closet for supply storage. Skylight for extra sun. And also a nonsensical 6 foot by 4 foot hole in the wall that overlooked the first floor sun room. As we were fixing up the place prior to moving in, multiple contractors looked at it dubiously and said “We can just sheetrock that right now while we’re here before you paint” and we were all “No, we love it! The openness! The space! The sun! It’s lovely.” And then it turned out that I could be sitting in meditation in that room and hear a mouse fart in the basement. Not so lovely. If you haven’t guessed, today’s post is about the senses and the role they play in enhancing or obstructing our jack shit practice. Sensory withdrawal is a major component of meditation, as the input we receive from our senses distracts us from our connection inward. Every phone notification beep, tv news report, and overheard conversation is a chance to pull us out of our practice and into our identities in the seen world where we are needed to do stuff. So what can be done about this? Observe your own sensory responses throughout that day and figure out what you find grounding and what you find triggering. Make a list and see what comes up the most. In my case, I find discordant sounds distracting, but phone beeps and sounds of unhappy conversation fully send me into the fixer mode where I have to go save the day. I love the smell of essential oils and incense. I don’t like looking at clutter, and I hate being too cold. That becomes my list of senses that need to be managed so I can properly set up for relaxation. On weekends, that pretty much means setting up in my perfectly arranged yoga room - after everyone has gone to bed!
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I’m shocked to even write the number 19 in that top line, and more than a little proud of myself. I’ve already learned so much through the experience and hope to keep learning more. Here are a few of the observations I’ve had so far.
Doing Jack Shit Takes Effort AND Sacrifice – I already wrote a post with that title on Day 5 discussing the experience of what happens when the “I don’t wanna”s kick in. But the overall effort for me was really about honoring the decision and making the time appear even when it was in short supply. That often had me staying up later than I wanted, and not having time for my favorite hobbies. That’s where the sacrifice comes into play. Doing Jack Shit Takes Support – A support network is important to any commitment made, even a commitment to oneself. In my case, I often leaned on Tom and our crew of home health aides so that I could disappear for an hour to practice, and another hour to write. Of course, I also get plenty of support from your likes, shares, comments, and feedback, so that you all for being in my support network! Doing Jack Shit Creates Ground – Making this commitment to practicing restorative yoga and writing about it meant that, no matter what else was going on that day, I knew at the minimum I was doing THIS THING. In that way, it was a framework for the day. Using the practice as an anchor meant everything flowed and reformed around it, and this created the comforting stability of a ritual. A ritual is a time honored practice of performing an external act to feed the internal sense of peace and meaning. You don't have to wait for a holiday season or cultural event for a ritual to take place. Make your own ritual, and find your ground. That’s all for now, but I know there are more lessons to come. Thank you for being with me on this journey. Day 18 of IDJSIJ Challenge – Doing Jack Shit In Person
Today’s post covers a few upcoming class offerings in the Frenchtown and Flemington area. Although the classes I am teaching aren’t restorative, they do include some meditation and visualization practices. However, read to the end to find about a great restorative yoga opportunity this weekend! Yoga Basics at Yoga Loka, 23 Race Street, Frenchtown This is a six week workshop that starts Monday the 23rd and will be held from 10:30 to 11:30 am with a virtual zoom option as well. Classes will be recorded and shared, so if you have to miss one, you can watch it on your own time. The cost is $108 for the series. This class is for both beginner and existing students. In Yoga Basics, we will go over standard yoga poses that you will find in most regular vinyasa flow or hatha classes. In each case, we will explore the pose and all its variations to find the version that will work the best for your body. We will figure out how props can enhance the pose or make them more accessible for different physical restrictions. For example, when covering cat and dog tilts, we will talk about:
This will be a fun chatty class where we exchange ideas and shout out what we’re feeling. Hope to see you there, live or on zoom! Go directly to Yoga Loka to register at https://www.yoga-loka.com/workshops.html. Chair Yoga For Seniors at Hunterdon County Main Library, Rt 12, Flemington This class will run Tuesdays in March at 11 am, and is free to attend for both members and non-members. More info to come about registration. Chair Yoga is an excellent practice to move the body in a safe supportive way for people of all ages and levels. When supported by a chair, we open up and move all the joints in the body, and focus on muscle strengthening and stretching. Each class will include basic standing poses using the chair for balance and support, as well as relaxing meditation and breathing practices. Handouts will be included so your can continue your practice in your own home. Restorative Yoga By Candlelight With Lianne , Yoga Loka, 23 Race Street, Frenchtown I am attending this class as a student and can’t wait! This one is exactly what it says it will be. Lianne will guide us through a series of restorative poses with lots of bolsters, blankets, and candlelight. This will take place THIS Saturday the 21st from 6 to 7:15 pm. $30 for the class and you register directly on Yoga Loka’s website https://www.yoga-loka.com/workshops.html. Afterward, you can walk next door to see Tom playing drums with the Rob Lanter Trio at the Rathskeller Bar in the National Hotel from 7-10. That’s what I’ll be doing! I’m sure nothing concludes a session of restorative yoga like a nice big martini and some jazz music. Tom was shocked that my restorative practice lengthened into an hour yesterday and declared that he could never do that because he was “too fidgety.” I told him he was wrong, because propping the body the right way would remove the discomfort, hence no fidgeting. After thinking about it, I realized that actually, I was wrong. Fidgety is a word that could describe the body, mind, or energy. Since all three affect each other, if one is out of balance, the rest are likely following. If you are feeling too fidgety to even attempt to rest, take a look inward and try to find the location of the imbalance. If you’re in physical pain from a tight muscle or an injury, you might need to stretch or do some massage prior to practice. When your thoughts are hopping from one topic to the next and you can’t stop the internal chatter, a short breathing or meditation practice could help you settle before first. Lastly, when you’re feeling too much of something (tired, awake, nervous, annoyed, whatever), it’s time for an energy balancing practice. Restorative yoga is an energy balancing practice itself, but I’m going to offer another one. Maybe you’re at work and don’t want to explain to your boss why you are laying on the floor with your legs up the wall, or you are driving and should be paying attention to the road, or you’re at Home Goods and you just can’t get comfortable lying on that shelf despite the multitude of discount bedding available to use as props. If you are in a situation like this and still need an energy balancing practice, try the “Cool Mist” visualization. Sit comfortably with a straight spine. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a calm comfortable environment. See, feel, or imagine your body is encased on a soft white mist that extends about three inches from the skin. On your inhale, breathe in through your nose and image the mist draws in and expands into the entire body. Pause and feel like it absorbs into and nourishes every muscle, organ, cell. Exhale and imagine it leaves the body through the skin and reforms again. Repeat this for as long as you like. Let’s say that you are in a place where you can set up your body for restorative yoga, but your body, mind, or energy are too unsettled to get started. Do this visualization for a few minutes before or after you set up. If there’s an area of physical discomfort that a prop can’t fix, imagine the mist goes directly to that area of the body that needs healing attention. The rhythmic breathing will soothe both the mind and energy. Hopefully at that point, you can finally lose those ants in your pants, and have a great session of relaxation. #yoga #restorativeyoga #yogachallenge #relax #yogapractice #meditation #energybalance #pranayama Whoa! After my very busy long weekend with the kids home, I must be completely wiped. I just accidentally did this pose for an hour! I set my alarm, as I normally do, for 20 minutes. After hitting snooze twice, I gave up and turned it off. Sometimes when you need to do jack shit, you REALLY need to do jack shit.
This pose requires a similar set up with blocks, bolster, and blankets that I talked about on Day 9, with in important addition. Set the block on the floor, lean the bolster against it, AND roll up a blanket to fill the space between the bolster and mat. When you lean back and don’t have the blanket there, your back could go into an uncomfortable arch in the lower spine. Once you lean back, the arms drape down on either side and the chest opens. If this bothers the muscles in the shoulders, then rolled blankets or blocks can go under the elbows. Cover up with a blanket, put on the lavender eye bag, and you are set! Another day in the never ending birthday weekend, and there was so much to do! Pick up the balloons and cake, organize the snacks, figure out the party game with goody bag rewards, and every other drama that goes with the roller skating rink birthday party. It all got done relatively well and a fine evening was had by all the little skaters, but I definitely experienced the undercurrent of stress about getting it all done right.
Meanwhile, I saw my friend on Facebook also in a too-much-to-do situation, but she was in a fight or flight response. In her case, she had her kids home from school and a work deadline missed. Due to a technology problem, she didn’t realize she had two dentist appointments for the kids on the calendar today to boot. With officially no time to make everything happen, her anxiety kicked in hard. This is not an unusual kind of post for my newsfeed considering my demographic, but there was an unusual part in the post. My friend observed her own anxiety response, knew it was over the top, and she asked the question – the world is not ending, so why is my body responding with this toxic flood of adrenaline? I would normally respond to a post like this with “I know how you feel, and it sucks. I’m sorry you’re going through that and I hope it all works out for you” because I think it's important to let people vent out the feelings and know they are valid. But she asked a smart introspective question, and I decided to try to answer it from my experience. “The yogis say the root fear of humanity is the fear of annihilation. Even though you are not physically in danger of death, your body responds that way because it responds to the mind. The ego/mind says ‘I have certain identities and traits, and they are fundamental to the way I wish to be seen in the world by myself and others. I am intelligent, competent, reliable, organized, and a good mother. I do not disappoint people. I get everything done that I need to get done and am an excellent employee. Some of those identities are in danger of being annihilated by the events of today and this is a GIANT FREAKING EMERGENCY.’ Hence the anxiety and fight or flight response in the body. When you are not fighting to stay alive identity-wise, and have time to look at the problem from a calm place, sometimes you can see the common fear floating underneath those identities. For me it is the ‘I am not good enough’ problem that fuels most of my personal panic in the same situation.” How in the world does that relate to my January challenge of doing nothing? Not in a very direct way, I admit. I really can’t imagine my friend in the middle of her work/mother/life crisis just flinging herself backwards onto the ground and throwing on a blanket for 20 minutes to solve her scheduling problems. But I do think it works like this – the more time we spend purposefully quieting and detaching from our busy ego/mind/thoughts, the more we unhook ourselves from the need to uphold the identities that reside there. In our practice, we move into a deeper level on consciousness where we are not attached to the changeable body and shifting thoughts. It’s a place of healing, intuition, and wisdom of the true Self. Returning to this place time and again becomes a habit, and making your way back to it becomes easier, even in times of stress. Find your sanctuary within, and you will never be without peace when you need it most. My very busy family weekend aggressively continues, thanks to a four day weekend from school and a sweet little gal turning double digits. On the weekend, I almost always have to practice at night between everyone’s bed times, and that gets dicey. It’s easy to just peace out and go to actual sleep. So far so good, but the longer the kids are home during the day, the more my personal restoration time disappears. I know I’m not the only one with this problem, so I will say it loud and proud for all our sakes. Doing jack shit takes effort, and the effort is worth it!
That reminds me of a nice topic for today – Yoga Nidra, roughly translated to “yogic sleep”. Yoga Nidra entails going into the restorative pose called Savasana (Day 3 post) which is demonstrated in the above picture by the birthday girl herself. We set the body comfortably lying on the ground on a mat, with a rolled up blanket under the knees if the lower back is not resting comfortably on the ground. Instead of sinking into relaxed awareness by letting the thoughts slow down on their own, in Yoga Nidra, we bring awareness into each part of the body slowly and in a specific pattern. Properly done, Yoga Nidra sends the body into a deeply relaxed sleep-like state while the mind is still conscious and aware. I’ve never done this practice without listening to a recording and I very often accidentally fall fully asleep. It really is wonderfully relaxing, and the yogis say that 30 minutes of Yoga Nidra is the equivalent of 2 or more hours of actual sleep. If you are following along with my challenge, and find your mind is too busy to drop into stillness when you go into your restorative pose, try listening to a guided practice. YouTube has many options, some as short as ten minutes, but a 20-30 minute practice would give you the full benefit. My plan is to get the kids to bed, do my seated meditation, and then end in Yoga Nidra. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz……… Day 13 of IDJSIJ Challenge – Yet Another Way To Do Jack Shit – Reclined Cobbler/Butterfly Pose
A busy family weekend calls for a quick post, and A LOT of effort when it comes to finding time and space to staying in practice. That will have to take place after the kids are in bed. In the meantime, I had Aria take the picture of the relaxation pose I plan to do as soon as she is off to sleep. This is another restorative pose that suits some people well, and others not at all. It just depends on what feels good in your body. The soles of the feet come together, and the knees open wide and rest on blocks or folded blankets. Unless you have super open hips and think sitting around in a full straddle is easy and fun, the knees should be propped for a 20 minute relaxation pose. Without the props, this pose makes for a nice stretch, but will be difficult to hold and relax into for a length of time. Test out how close the feet should be to your body for you to enjoy the pose. Then settle in and relax. That’s how I plan to end my night. #reclinedbutterfly #restorativeyoga #yogapractice #yogachallenge #yoga #relax Today I did my restorative practice as planned, despite a wayward malfunctioning tablet being handed directly to my face from my 9 year old while I was in Savasana. I looked at it for a minute, told my daughter I had no idea what was wrong but I would figure it out later, and sent her on her way. By the time I came downstairs 10 minutes later, she fixed it herself. A mother’s job is never done, even while pretending to be a corpse.
But I ALMOST didn’t do my writing practice, because I spent the last few hours celebrating with old and new yogi friends at my home studio’s 20th anniversary party! Catching up with fellow teachers and eating vegan chocolate cake at Yoga Loka was as much a restorative practice as a snuggling on the floor under a blanket. I turned to yoga a year after my daughter’s epilepsy brain surgery. After years of specialists, seizures, medications, tests, and the constant stress of parenting a developmentally disabled child, things were finally settling down. The surgery had ended her seizures and she was gaining physical and cognitive advances. Instead of finally relaxing into parenting as her health stabilized, I felt like my mind was fracturing into pieces and I was spiraling out of control. I knew the problem was in my thoughts and I knew I probably needed therapy or medication or something, but I had also heard that meditation could help. I googled around for a studio, and found Yoga Loka in September of 2010. Yoga saved my mental health, and has become the framework for the way I choose to live and find peace in the world. Yoga Loka will always be a second home for me, and Bonnie Pariser holds a special place in my heart as the first teacher who introduced me to this path. Happy Anniversary to Bonnie at Yoga Loka, and big love to all the wonderful people I’ve met and practiced with over the years. These pictures are of my 200 and 500 hour yoga graduating classes to honor my fellow yoga teacher trainees, and my yoga home. #yogapractice #yogalife #yogachallenge #yoga #restorativeyoga #yogateacher #yogateachertrainee I took a three hour art class this morning. I know that sounds romantic, as though I was sitting outside in the sun in my straw hat and easel overlooking a picturesque landscape with my hair flowing in the breeze. In actuality, I was sitting in a classroom squinting intently at a still life arrangement of a coffee cup, half eaten pumpkin pie (that I wasn’t even allowed to eat!), and a chrome teapot, trying to figure out what color I was seeing and how to replicate it on canvas. Interesting and enjoyable, but not relaxing. I picked up take out for lunch on the way home, ate too much antipasto, then crashed out on the couch to finish my book. I thought “I should do my practice before Aria gets home” but my book was at the end and got REALLY good. I decided to finish it, so I picked my book over my practice.
The kids got home, then it was time to cook, eat dinner, clean up, blah blah. There’s some downtime before bed when the kids have their ipads, so I should have done my restorative practice then. BUT me and my college roommates have a standing zoom call every other Wednesday and I’ve missed like the last six. Once again, I made a choice, and it was to reconnect with some of my favorite people on Earth. Suddenly an hour sweeps by and it’s time to get the kids to bed with their unique elaborate rituals. By the time all that is done, it’s my bedtime, and I have two things left to do for today. The meditation practice I’ve been doing since November which takes about 40 minutes, or my 20 minute restorative. Again, I could have chosen the restorative practice, but I didn’t want to lose the thread of the meditation practice that I’ve been cultivating so long. So I meditated and went straight to bed for actual sleep, which I really needed. Why am I writing this pointlessly long story? I wanted first to show that yes, we have busy lives and make choices all day long about how to spend our time. Today I chose reading, connecting, and meditation over my restorative practice. But I also chose to NOT: • go to bed full of guilt • call myself a lazy piece of shit • decide I’m worthless and can’t do anything right • remember all the other times I failed at a plan • blame someone else for my choices • quit because it doesn’t matter We are not always going to reach every one of our goals for various reasons. Maybe circumstances forbit it, or we just choose to do something else. But if you tend to pile on self-loathing when a plan goes awry, try instead to observe the feeling that prompts the negative chatter. Stay with the feeling and breathe. It will dissipate or change. Then let the next thing you tell yourself be the actual truth – tomorrow is a new day with new choices, and the chance to start again. |
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March 2024
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