Tuesday 22nd September 2009
To appease both my conscience and my self-critic I stepped onto the yoga mat as soon as I got home from work today, a routine that is starting to work for me.
I emerged from deep yoga space two and a half hours later.
Practice was the Ashtanga sequence, but not the Ashtanga practice.
To explain: I did all the primary series poses in order (missing only Marichy D and Bhuja through to the Garbha Pindasana rolls), but I spent 8 good, slow breaths in all the other poses so it was a more internalised, thoughtful, connected practice, not an aerodynamic flight upon the breath.
One of the distinguishing features of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is the vinyasas between the poses. There's an intelligent reasoning behind this because each vinyasa neutralises the effect of the previous pose.
Take the forward bends and twists for example: after doing one of these poses (or any asymmetrical pose) on one side, rising into the Upward Dog back bend opens the front and both sides of the body evenly bringing the energy on the left and right sides of the body back into balance, then the perfectly neutral Downward Dog counters the Upward Dog back bend: the whole combination setting up a clean slate on which to enter the next pose.
But today, still low on energy from the flu and with a tender back, I had to forego all the vinyasas. Instead of connecting all the seated poses with a vinyasa jump back/jump through, I did a mini seated backbend, a kind of turbo charged Dandasana with fingertips propped on the floor behind me to press a rippling arch up into my thoracic spine. As I stretched up and looked up, the lumbar tension that grips and protects my lower back in the seated forward bends gave way with a sigh of relief.
I spent 5 minutes in Shoulderstand (60 breaths) and 5 minutes in Headstand (40 breaths).
Doing some elementary maths, that means I breathe much slower in Headstand - its an easier balance to hold, almost effortless once I’ve fine tuned the balance. Shoulderstand takes more effort, energy and focus to hold vertical without slacking off.
A typical day in my Monday to Friday routine:
6.30am: My morning starts (I do miss those 5.30am Ashtanga practices, but a full morning yoga practice doesn’t work for me right now)
Walk Buffy
Do a few stretches on the mat followed by a 5 minute Headstand - the few stretches can often grow into a 30-45 minute yoga practice
Shower
Walk to work, stopping off at the café for an espresso on the way (this is breakfast, by the way) and to drop off a batch of muffins.
9am – 5pm work
(Lunch is usually a big apple, with a handful of walnuts and fresh dates)
Do the half hour walk home from work.
6pm: Yoga practice (could be anywhere from half an hour to 2 hours)
7.30 - 8pm Dinner: Carrot juice with a shot of fresh beetroot and fresh orange in it
Big bowl of fresh salad stuff with sunflower sprouts and balsamic dressing – often with some fetta cheese and olives thrown in, and sometimes with a side serve of my favourite lentil salad or some German rye bread
Walk Buffy again
8.30 – 9ish: Bake muffins for the local café and the art school students.
10pm: Sit for half an hour – sit is a better description than meditate for what occurs on the cushion at this time of night
Climb into bed some time between 10-11pm with an interesting book to read until my eyes fuzz over, sometimes with a cup of weak tea and a sweet friande.
This is a typical kind of day in my working week, and it's like this maybe three out of the five days.
It's nice. It's quiet. It's solitary. I've dreamed of this kind of life for half of my adult, child rearing years.
Some evenings are different of course: I might get caught up at work meetings that go into the evening, or I have to work night shift until 7.30pm, or I might visit my son, cook his dinner and do his shopping, or visit my daughter on a Friday night etc...etc... but mostly I keep it simple and orderly.
Weekends are unpredicatable, each a new page in the daily journal of a nobody...
29 September 2009
18 September 2009
Return to Nature
“When life is simple, pretences fall away; our essential nature shines through.
By not wanting, there is calm, and the world will straighten itself.
When there is silence, one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.”
Living The Wisdom Of The Tao
The Complete Tao Te Ching and Affirmations
by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
I am retreating more and more from the society I am supposed to be part of.
In one way it is a conscious choice based on my observation of the accelerated momentum towards things artificial and unnatural, but in another way I almost have NO choice: everything about western society makes me sick.
For most of my life, I’ve lived on the fringe of this society, one foot in and one foot out, but now I can barely participate in it or even pretend anymore.
Unfortunately working full time has been, and still is, necessary to pay bills, survive and support my son, so I can’t escape completely, not right now anyway.
The best I can do is pretend I’m one of THEM during work hours and outside of those hours, return to the simplicity of a natural life: no computers, no Internet, no TV, pure and natural food, fresh air and Nature, open spaces, slow motion, a spiritual focus, simplicity and solitude.
Eustace Conway hits the nail right on the head when he compares the circular motions that flow through a natural life and the square, box-like structures that surround and confine us in this artificial society:
“I live in nature, where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. I live in a circular tepee and I build my fire in a circle, and when my loved ones visit me, we sit in a circle and talk. The life cycles of plants and animals are circular. I live outside where I can see this. The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that. I don’t live inside buildings, because buildings are dead places where nothing grows, where water doesn’t flow, and where life stops. I don’t want to live in a dead place. People say that I don’t live in the real world, but its modern Americans who live in a fake world, because they’ve stepped outside the natural circle of life.
Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes.
They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house box and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they live their lives in a box! Does that sound like anybody you know?
BREAK OUT OF THE BOX!
You don’t have to live like this because people tell you it’s the only way. You’re not handcuffed to your culture! This is NOT the way humanity lived for thousands and thousands of years, and it’s NOT the only way you can live today!”
(Excerpt from 'The Last American Man' by Elizabeth Gilbert)
The seductive promises of escalating technology, fancy new gadgets, fast food and fast information have lured us away from Nature and hypnotised us into believing we are separate from and superior to Nature.
An affluent, super-intelligent society? I don’t think so.
Our spirits are starving.
What I see around me is mass somnambulism and mindless consumerism; even yoga has become tarted up and packaged as an attractive consumer item.
And most people I know are either over-stimulated or medicated with TVs and iPods and spending sprees and a continuous barrage of information that's irrelevant to their daily life.
Not to mention the advertising that is continuously drip fed direct into our bloodstreams.
Why don’t people see this?
Wake up everybody.
Open your inner eyes and look at everything you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how much and what you're buying, the culture that you’re perpetuating and supporting.
Pierce and penetrate with your laser vision into the centre of everything in your life.
Because everything we do and every small occurrence has meaning and significance and is shaping our rapidly evolving life in a whirlwind of changes; the final form we evolve into from this process will be evident only at the point of death…it will exist for one fleeting moment…then be extinguished with our last breath.
Wake up to what is REAL and ALIVE in your life right now, because it is truly beautiful, and every moment we spend unaware of this is a moment we’ve lost forever.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
By not wanting, there is calm, and the world will straighten itself.
When there is silence, one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.”
Living The Wisdom Of The Tao
The Complete Tao Te Ching and Affirmations
by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
I am retreating more and more from the society I am supposed to be part of.
In one way it is a conscious choice based on my observation of the accelerated momentum towards things artificial and unnatural, but in another way I almost have NO choice: everything about western society makes me sick.
For most of my life, I’ve lived on the fringe of this society, one foot in and one foot out, but now I can barely participate in it or even pretend anymore.
Unfortunately working full time has been, and still is, necessary to pay bills, survive and support my son, so I can’t escape completely, not right now anyway.
The best I can do is pretend I’m one of THEM during work hours and outside of those hours, return to the simplicity of a natural life: no computers, no Internet, no TV, pure and natural food, fresh air and Nature, open spaces, slow motion, a spiritual focus, simplicity and solitude.
Eustace Conway hits the nail right on the head when he compares the circular motions that flow through a natural life and the square, box-like structures that surround and confine us in this artificial society:
“I live in nature, where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. I live in a circular tepee and I build my fire in a circle, and when my loved ones visit me, we sit in a circle and talk. The life cycles of plants and animals are circular. I live outside where I can see this. The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that. I don’t live inside buildings, because buildings are dead places where nothing grows, where water doesn’t flow, and where life stops. I don’t want to live in a dead place. People say that I don’t live in the real world, but its modern Americans who live in a fake world, because they’ve stepped outside the natural circle of life.
Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes.
They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house box and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they live their lives in a box! Does that sound like anybody you know?
BREAK OUT OF THE BOX!
You don’t have to live like this because people tell you it’s the only way. You’re not handcuffed to your culture! This is NOT the way humanity lived for thousands and thousands of years, and it’s NOT the only way you can live today!”
(Excerpt from 'The Last American Man' by Elizabeth Gilbert)
The seductive promises of escalating technology, fancy new gadgets, fast food and fast information have lured us away from Nature and hypnotised us into believing we are separate from and superior to Nature.
An affluent, super-intelligent society? I don’t think so.
Our spirits are starving.
What I see around me is mass somnambulism and mindless consumerism; even yoga has become tarted up and packaged as an attractive consumer item.
And most people I know are either over-stimulated or medicated with TVs and iPods and spending sprees and a continuous barrage of information that's irrelevant to their daily life.
Not to mention the advertising that is continuously drip fed direct into our bloodstreams.
Why don’t people see this?
Wake up everybody.
Open your inner eyes and look at everything you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how much and what you're buying, the culture that you’re perpetuating and supporting.
Pierce and penetrate with your laser vision into the centre of everything in your life.
Because everything we do and every small occurrence has meaning and significance and is shaping our rapidly evolving life in a whirlwind of changes; the final form we evolve into from this process will be evident only at the point of death…it will exist for one fleeting moment…then be extinguished with our last breath.
Wake up to what is REAL and ALIVE in your life right now, because it is truly beautiful, and every moment we spend unaware of this is a moment we’ve lost forever.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Swine Flu?
It takes an occasional crisis to rip me out of a pathological mindset and fling me into the bright clear space of unknowing and renewal.
The word crisis actually means decision or turning-point.
So to me a crisis is not a negative event but a wonderful opportunity for change, a natural part of a cycle of death and rebirth.
My recent crisis wasn’t life-threatening, just a bout of flu (possibly swine-flu, but I wasn’t about to see any western doctor to get it diagnosed).
It hit me like a bus on Tuesday 1st September. I spent 4 days unable to move out of bed, then a few more days recuperating. I lost 3 kgs and detoxed all the caffeine and negativity out of my system.
I’d attempted to do a yoga practice that morning, not knowing that I was about to succumb to the flu. My journal entry describes the yoga practice as “a gentle and painful attempt to open up my body.” My muscles were achy and my joints so stiff that I felt 90 years old. My lungs and throat felt windy, my head heavy. The first sign of illness is a stiffening of the joints; I think it’s the body’s method of enforcing rest and shut-down so that maximum energy can be put to the immune system’s internal battle.
The most interesting observation of the flu week was my fluctuating lower back pain. For the first 2 days in bed the pain was excruciatingly agonising (I screamed every time I had to turn over in bed until I worked out how to override the urge).
Then it happened...at 2am on Day 3 I woke up to a wave of nausea and got out of bed to head for the toilet . Some time later I woke up again to find my head planted heavily on the floor. I’d passed out unconscious a few metres from the bed.
Later that morning I realised all my back pain had disappeared. “Praise the Lord…a healing miracle has occurred” (or so I thought at the time).
Although still very sick with the flu that day, my back was completely pain-free and super-mobile for the first time in 3 years.
Something had changed.
Four days spent gravely ill and confined to bed was as effective as a detox retreat.
This is what I wrote in my journal the following Tuesday, one week after the onset of flu:
“What a wonderful opportunity to start over with a clean slate. My body feels light and clean, apart from the respiratory infection that has clogged my upper plumbing.
After the first 2 days in bed my mind was still spinning work-stuff around in my head as fast as the final spin cycle in teh washing machine. Eventually my mind spun itself dry and stopped regurgitating the same old stuff. Day 3 was a revelation...I’d completely forgotten what a clear mind was like.
I really have to be vigilant to keep my head clean from now on.
Before the bout of flu I’d regularly try to meditate for half an hour before bed and end up giddy from the spinning whirl of thoughts. It was crazy in there, no space or opportunity to calm the mind at all – too out of control.
How did it get like that?
My mind has finally been purged of those obsessive thoughts about work that were playing over and over, compulsively, monotonously.
So I am grateful for the flu; this physical and mental spring clean was way overdue."
Apart from a residual thickness in my respiratory system, I’ve mostly recovered from the flu now but returning to a daily office environment has brought with it the return of lower back pain and stiffness - not half as bad as before the illness, but still it is a clear indication of where and how my body stores the accumulated poison of dis-ease.
The word crisis actually means decision or turning-point.
So to me a crisis is not a negative event but a wonderful opportunity for change, a natural part of a cycle of death and rebirth.
My recent crisis wasn’t life-threatening, just a bout of flu (possibly swine-flu, but I wasn’t about to see any western doctor to get it diagnosed).
It hit me like a bus on Tuesday 1st September. I spent 4 days unable to move out of bed, then a few more days recuperating. I lost 3 kgs and detoxed all the caffeine and negativity out of my system.
I’d attempted to do a yoga practice that morning, not knowing that I was about to succumb to the flu. My journal entry describes the yoga practice as “a gentle and painful attempt to open up my body.” My muscles were achy and my joints so stiff that I felt 90 years old. My lungs and throat felt windy, my head heavy. The first sign of illness is a stiffening of the joints; I think it’s the body’s method of enforcing rest and shut-down so that maximum energy can be put to the immune system’s internal battle.
The most interesting observation of the flu week was my fluctuating lower back pain. For the first 2 days in bed the pain was excruciatingly agonising (I screamed every time I had to turn over in bed until I worked out how to override the urge).
Then it happened...at 2am on Day 3 I woke up to a wave of nausea and got out of bed to head for the toilet . Some time later I woke up again to find my head planted heavily on the floor. I’d passed out unconscious a few metres from the bed.
Later that morning I realised all my back pain had disappeared. “Praise the Lord…a healing miracle has occurred” (or so I thought at the time).
Although still very sick with the flu that day, my back was completely pain-free and super-mobile for the first time in 3 years.
Something had changed.
Four days spent gravely ill and confined to bed was as effective as a detox retreat.
This is what I wrote in my journal the following Tuesday, one week after the onset of flu:
“What a wonderful opportunity to start over with a clean slate. My body feels light and clean, apart from the respiratory infection that has clogged my upper plumbing.
After the first 2 days in bed my mind was still spinning work-stuff around in my head as fast as the final spin cycle in teh washing machine. Eventually my mind spun itself dry and stopped regurgitating the same old stuff. Day 3 was a revelation...I’d completely forgotten what a clear mind was like.
I really have to be vigilant to keep my head clean from now on.
Before the bout of flu I’d regularly try to meditate for half an hour before bed and end up giddy from the spinning whirl of thoughts. It was crazy in there, no space or opportunity to calm the mind at all – too out of control.
How did it get like that?
My mind has finally been purged of those obsessive thoughts about work that were playing over and over, compulsively, monotonously.
So I am grateful for the flu; this physical and mental spring clean was way overdue."
Apart from a residual thickness in my respiratory system, I’ve mostly recovered from the flu now but returning to a daily office environment has brought with it the return of lower back pain and stiffness - not half as bad as before the illness, but still it is a clear indication of where and how my body stores the accumulated poison of dis-ease.
27 August 2009
The Evening Begins
Friday 28th August 2009
The walk home from work takes half an hour, a welcome incline as I head towards the foothills.
I breathe out the day.
The dull early-evening air has been polluted by exhaust fumes and the accumulated etheric waste from a million human beings: CO2 and stress, exhaled into the atmosphere, toxic by-products of natural processes and unnatural lives.
Morning air, on my morning walk, is filled with birdsong and clarity.
In the half hour to and from work my continual mental chatter muffles into every footstep; the obsessive compulsive mind torturing itself, resisting the day ahead or ruminating over the work day events just gone. I notice twinges of self-pity and urges to escape into solitude and oblivion. How easily I elope with these entrenched thought patterns...they carry me away from the present; how easily the comic-tragedy of daily worklife catches my unguarded mind in its sticky web of drama and ingrigue.
I forget to notice the birds, the scent of flowers overhanging a fence, the lofty trees, the hint of incoming weather on the breeze, the undulations of the path under my feet.
Arriving home around 6pm, I feed Buffy, change my clothes and step onto the yoga mat. Hanging forward in Uttanasana like a soft rag doll, my body sighs as it begins to release; my spine opens, my neck lengthens, and my muscles let go of tension as the reversal of gravity waterfalls through them.
I WILL my legs to life, activating the muscle groups out of auto-pilot and into old-fashioned manual.
I stop thinking.
And I begin to feel my body.
Hanging in Uttanasana, legs slightly parted, the weight of my torso falling down through my elbows, I feel the workday tension dissolving away as my mind lets go of its ruminations.
I step back into Dog Pose, breathing slowly, deliberately. Little areas begin to adjust themselves though the pose, stretching, lengthening, aligning, waking up.
Thoughts about work creep in like silent, stealthy intruders. I catch them and banish them immediately. BE GONE. Get out, out, out of my Dog Pose house.
I come back to the breath and my body – my home –the elusive ground of the present.
Stray thoughts and whispers keep luring me away. My mind escapes with them, the habit is strong.
Bringing it back over and over, I return to the present, each time, gratefully, to an INCREASED AWARENESS of the present. Awareness seems to grow stronger each time I exercise my will over my mind.
Finding myself still in Dog Pose I breathe deeply….I step forward…
Practice begins…
The walk home from work takes half an hour, a welcome incline as I head towards the foothills.
I breathe out the day.
The dull early-evening air has been polluted by exhaust fumes and the accumulated etheric waste from a million human beings: CO2 and stress, exhaled into the atmosphere, toxic by-products of natural processes and unnatural lives.
Morning air, on my morning walk, is filled with birdsong and clarity.
In the half hour to and from work my continual mental chatter muffles into every footstep; the obsessive compulsive mind torturing itself, resisting the day ahead or ruminating over the work day events just gone. I notice twinges of self-pity and urges to escape into solitude and oblivion. How easily I elope with these entrenched thought patterns...they carry me away from the present; how easily the comic-tragedy of daily worklife catches my unguarded mind in its sticky web of drama and ingrigue.
I forget to notice the birds, the scent of flowers overhanging a fence, the lofty trees, the hint of incoming weather on the breeze, the undulations of the path under my feet.
Arriving home around 6pm, I feed Buffy, change my clothes and step onto the yoga mat. Hanging forward in Uttanasana like a soft rag doll, my body sighs as it begins to release; my spine opens, my neck lengthens, and my muscles let go of tension as the reversal of gravity waterfalls through them.
I WILL my legs to life, activating the muscle groups out of auto-pilot and into old-fashioned manual.
I stop thinking.
And I begin to feel my body.
Hanging in Uttanasana, legs slightly parted, the weight of my torso falling down through my elbows, I feel the workday tension dissolving away as my mind lets go of its ruminations.
I step back into Dog Pose, breathing slowly, deliberately. Little areas begin to adjust themselves though the pose, stretching, lengthening, aligning, waking up.
Thoughts about work creep in like silent, stealthy intruders. I catch them and banish them immediately. BE GONE. Get out, out, out of my Dog Pose house.
I come back to the breath and my body – my home –the elusive ground of the present.
Stray thoughts and whispers keep luring me away. My mind escapes with them, the habit is strong.
Bringing it back over and over, I return to the present, each time, gratefully, to an INCREASED AWARENESS of the present. Awareness seems to grow stronger each time I exercise my will over my mind.
Finding myself still in Dog Pose I breathe deeply….I step forward…
Practice begins…
More Sprouts
Thursday 27th August 2009On the subject of sprouts, I snapped this photo of my gorgeous little sunflower sprouts this morning. They were planted about 4 days ago so in another 2-3 days they should be about 4 inches high and ready to snip off and eat.
Sprouts are nutritional powerhouses and there’s a huge variety to choose from – mung bean and alfalfa sprouts are the most popular but you can sprout almost any seed. Sunflower sprouts are my favourite. They have a sweet, nutty flavour, not unlike cashew nuts, and a lovely nutty texture too. I throw a big handful into my raw salad dinner most nights with lettuce, rocket, avocado, cucumber, capsicum, olives, a balsamic vinaigrette and sometimes some grated parmesan or fetta and cooked green beans….super healthy AND sooo delicious.
It must be nearly time to pack up work, walk home, do some yoga and eat dinner…
Yes, life is good, and I am most humbly grateful for all the wonderful (and delicious) things I have.
26 August 2009
Sprouts
Wednesday 26th August 2009
It wasn’t that long ago that I set myself some weekly goals….walking to work three times a week, an additional yoga practice each week (to make at least 4), regular meditation, and daily journaling…
Like little seedlings, they were carefully watered for a few weeks, they faltered for a while, then somehow I forgot about them. This week, while walking to work, I suddenly remembered them and realised that they’ve all taken root and become firmly established routines in my life.
- I love walking to work each day and do it most days now (weather permitting);
- Yoga practice has changed from an occasional morning struggle to a regular evening practice which is much more achievable
- daily journaling justifies my morning coffee habit so the day starts with reflection, not just caffeine
- and meditation serves as a regular debrief before bed.
Life’s not so bad.
It wasn’t that long ago that I set myself some weekly goals….walking to work three times a week, an additional yoga practice each week (to make at least 4), regular meditation, and daily journaling…
Like little seedlings, they were carefully watered for a few weeks, they faltered for a while, then somehow I forgot about them. This week, while walking to work, I suddenly remembered them and realised that they’ve all taken root and become firmly established routines in my life.
- I love walking to work each day and do it most days now (weather permitting);
- Yoga practice has changed from an occasional morning struggle to a regular evening practice which is much more achievable
- daily journaling justifies my morning coffee habit so the day starts with reflection, not just caffeine
- and meditation serves as a regular debrief before bed.
Life’s not so bad.
21 August 2009
Imbalances
Pre menopause…that’s the only explanation I can come up with for my moodiness over the last few months. We humans (especially we women) are at the mercy of our pesky hormonal chemicals. They have a mind all of their own and bombard our systems at will wreaking havoc on our moods and behaviour.
I’m thinking it’s peri-menopausal because
a) I’m 49 years old
b) My menstrual periods have been coming every two weeks for the past three months
c) The ups and downs FEEL hormonal and out of my control.
My heavy frown, my lack of motivation, my depressed state of mind, are all completely out of character. There’s no sense of Divine communion anywhere, no disciplined spiritual practice, no altruistic ideals, no love and compassion for all beings.
Just generally feeling very self-centred and demoralised.
As with all things I know this shall pass, but if it is peri-menopausal it won’t be passing quickly so I’ll need some new strategies other than the panic stricken, beat-myself-up ones that haven’t been helping me at all.
Yoga practice has waned to almost no yoga practice, especially with my yoga buddy Renate overseas for two months – an occasional evening restorative practice has been the yoga highlight of my week. What happened to the athletic 40-something who used to thrive on a daily, sweaty Ashtanga practice? I pondered whether lack of yoga is actually causing my blue state of mind (which led to the thought that feeling good each day may have been completely dependent on a morning Ashtanga yoga practice hit), but quite possibly the reverse is closer to the truth because a depressed mood destroys all motivation and a hormonal imbalance can drastically alter my physical/mental/emotional state.
Hmmm…what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
And can the mood and lack of motivation be overcome by WILL?
I don’t know if one kind of hormone is being overproduced or if another one drying up. Whatever it is = no motivation = no yoga = leave me alone.
The last good 2 hour practice I did was last Saturday, exactly one week ago, but I’ve done a couple of shorter evening practices since them.
Here are my notes from last Saturday:
It was a blissful Saturday morning because I had a day off – no work, no commitments to anyone, my precious time was my very own. I felt strong enough, and present enough to attempt a few moves that have dropped off my practice routine because they aggravate my sacroiliac injury, like the lift-up-jump-back move from seated position.Although I haven’t been able to ever do this properly, engaging the muscles to start it helps strengthen my core and, well, you gotta start somewhere…again.
PASCHIMOTTANASANA
Paschimottanasana, (the seated forward bend) for me starts the second third of the sequence. I tend to divide the whole sequence into three sections: standing, seated and inverted poses. Paschimottanasana is a fairly accurate barometer of my determination on the day – the gauge being how well my heels lift off the ground. If my mind is disengaged or resistant, my heels won’t be off the ground and it becomes a resting pose instead of an active one and the practice will slowly disintegrate from there.
Today I was right in this pose, actively grounding the thighbones, working the leg muscles enough to keep my heels off the ground and engaging mulabandha. Concaving my pubic abdomen (ie. drawing the top of the pubic bone inwards slightly) in all forward bends is something I learned from Glenn Ceresoli and that little adjustment causes wonderful things to happen in my sacroiliac joint and pelvic floor.
From Janu C I digressed to backbending: Supta Virasana to stretch the front of my thighs, Salabhasana to strengthen my spinal muscles, Dhanurasana to develop the upper back arch, Ustrasana to deepen it even further, then some repetitions of Urdhva Dhanurasana focussing on my new obsession with alignment. Add together sacroiliac injury, uneven leg lengths and lop-sided pelvis and you’ll understand why my body needs some serious retraining.
URDHVA DHANURASANA
So I approached Urdhva Dhanurasana with a slightly different intention today. I slid to the top end of the mat, made sure my feet were placed parallel and in a straight from mid-heel to middle toe. The side edges of the mat provided the frame in which I positioned my feet – they had to be an even distance from each side. Once in place I cemented them there, determined not to move them even one millimetre for the duration of the 3 backbends. This was a fascinating mental exercise because I was confronted with every little habit that my feet wanted to revert to, to make the lift up into the backbend easier - like slightly lifting a heel or turning one foot in more than the other. Catching the little urge to move the foot just before the foot responds to the urge gives a fascinating insight into how unconscious and prevalent are our habit patterns.
After pushing up into the first stiff backbend with feet cemented into the earth like tree trunks, I then had to adjust my hands to line them up as perfectly as my feet – each one had to be the same distance from the side edge of the mat, and as I’d placed myself at the end of the mat I could also place the tips of my middle fingers at the leading edge of the mat. Once my feet and hands were perfectly lined up both horizontally and vertically, the unevenness of my arched body was magnified to gigantic proportions in the full backbend. My pelvis felt crooked and I had to work hard to stretch up through the left side of my torso (this is my shorter side, as my left leg is 1.5cm shorter than the right). Need someone to spot me objectively…
So today it was Urdhva Dhanurasana that provided the context within which I could explore the extent of my body’s misalignment.
As my body ages, and as I become increasingly sensitised to the subtleties of my body and its habits, the imbalances built up over a lifetime are emerging in tandem with the imbalances of my peri-menopausal mindstates.
HEADSTAND
Lovely, lovely Headstand....12 minutes in Headstand: 100 breaths, it topped off a thorough practice. Counting to 100 provides a realistic but challenging goal and keeps me right there in the pose, watching how my body and mind change as the seconds tick away.
I’m thinking it’s peri-menopausal because
a) I’m 49 years old
b) My menstrual periods have been coming every two weeks for the past three months
c) The ups and downs FEEL hormonal and out of my control.
My heavy frown, my lack of motivation, my depressed state of mind, are all completely out of character. There’s no sense of Divine communion anywhere, no disciplined spiritual practice, no altruistic ideals, no love and compassion for all beings.
Just generally feeling very self-centred and demoralised.
As with all things I know this shall pass, but if it is peri-menopausal it won’t be passing quickly so I’ll need some new strategies other than the panic stricken, beat-myself-up ones that haven’t been helping me at all.
Yoga practice has waned to almost no yoga practice, especially with my yoga buddy Renate overseas for two months – an occasional evening restorative practice has been the yoga highlight of my week. What happened to the athletic 40-something who used to thrive on a daily, sweaty Ashtanga practice? I pondered whether lack of yoga is actually causing my blue state of mind (which led to the thought that feeling good each day may have been completely dependent on a morning Ashtanga yoga practice hit), but quite possibly the reverse is closer to the truth because a depressed mood destroys all motivation and a hormonal imbalance can drastically alter my physical/mental/emotional state.
Hmmm…what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
And can the mood and lack of motivation be overcome by WILL?
I don’t know if one kind of hormone is being overproduced or if another one drying up. Whatever it is = no motivation = no yoga = leave me alone.
The last good 2 hour practice I did was last Saturday, exactly one week ago, but I’ve done a couple of shorter evening practices since them.
Here are my notes from last Saturday:
It was a blissful Saturday morning because I had a day off – no work, no commitments to anyone, my precious time was my very own. I felt strong enough, and present enough to attempt a few moves that have dropped off my practice routine because they aggravate my sacroiliac injury, like the lift-up-jump-back move from seated position.Although I haven’t been able to ever do this properly, engaging the muscles to start it helps strengthen my core and, well, you gotta start somewhere…again.
PASCHIMOTTANASANA
Paschimottanasana, (the seated forward bend) for me starts the second third of the sequence. I tend to divide the whole sequence into three sections: standing, seated and inverted poses. Paschimottanasana is a fairly accurate barometer of my determination on the day – the gauge being how well my heels lift off the ground. If my mind is disengaged or resistant, my heels won’t be off the ground and it becomes a resting pose instead of an active one and the practice will slowly disintegrate from there.
Today I was right in this pose, actively grounding the thighbones, working the leg muscles enough to keep my heels off the ground and engaging mulabandha. Concaving my pubic abdomen (ie. drawing the top of the pubic bone inwards slightly) in all forward bends is something I learned from Glenn Ceresoli and that little adjustment causes wonderful things to happen in my sacroiliac joint and pelvic floor.
From Janu C I digressed to backbending: Supta Virasana to stretch the front of my thighs, Salabhasana to strengthen my spinal muscles, Dhanurasana to develop the upper back arch, Ustrasana to deepen it even further, then some repetitions of Urdhva Dhanurasana focussing on my new obsession with alignment. Add together sacroiliac injury, uneven leg lengths and lop-sided pelvis and you’ll understand why my body needs some serious retraining.
URDHVA DHANURASANA
So I approached Urdhva Dhanurasana with a slightly different intention today. I slid to the top end of the mat, made sure my feet were placed parallel and in a straight from mid-heel to middle toe. The side edges of the mat provided the frame in which I positioned my feet – they had to be an even distance from each side. Once in place I cemented them there, determined not to move them even one millimetre for the duration of the 3 backbends. This was a fascinating mental exercise because I was confronted with every little habit that my feet wanted to revert to, to make the lift up into the backbend easier - like slightly lifting a heel or turning one foot in more than the other. Catching the little urge to move the foot just before the foot responds to the urge gives a fascinating insight into how unconscious and prevalent are our habit patterns.
After pushing up into the first stiff backbend with feet cemented into the earth like tree trunks, I then had to adjust my hands to line them up as perfectly as my feet – each one had to be the same distance from the side edge of the mat, and as I’d placed myself at the end of the mat I could also place the tips of my middle fingers at the leading edge of the mat. Once my feet and hands were perfectly lined up both horizontally and vertically, the unevenness of my arched body was magnified to gigantic proportions in the full backbend. My pelvis felt crooked and I had to work hard to stretch up through the left side of my torso (this is my shorter side, as my left leg is 1.5cm shorter than the right). Need someone to spot me objectively…
So today it was Urdhva Dhanurasana that provided the context within which I could explore the extent of my body’s misalignment.
As my body ages, and as I become increasingly sensitised to the subtleties of my body and its habits, the imbalances built up over a lifetime are emerging in tandem with the imbalances of my peri-menopausal mindstates.
HEADSTAND
Lovely, lovely Headstand....12 minutes in Headstand: 100 breaths, it topped off a thorough practice. Counting to 100 provides a realistic but challenging goal and keeps me right there in the pose, watching how my body and mind change as the seconds tick away.
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