Tag Archives: Yoga

September Writer Response: Amy Rothstein

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As predicted, sticking to the meditation practice was really challenging at first. For the first two weeks, I was grouchy, my body resisted and my mind ran like a noisy wild bronco. I did stick with it, kicking and screaming inside. Around mid-month, my thoughts during meditation started to lose potency. They became quieter; and while they still arose, they were easier to let go of. As a result of the meditation, I’ve become slightly more aware of my thoughts at times when I wouldn’t normally be. Meditating has also made it easier for me to moderate my consumption of (legal) substances and to be slight more disciplined in general. I have still been only meditating for 15 minutes.

I have tried to make a frequent practice of listing persistent, reoccurring thoughts, which tend to be subtle fears. I have found that proactively surfacing these ghosts helps me to prevent them from snowballing and allow them to exist if necessary. I plan to keep doing this.

As far as the one-year, five-year and lifetime-goals go, I created a list like this in January of 2012 and I took this opportunity to revisit it. Beth and I discussed her (and my) resistance to this assignment. While she resists planning; I resist commitment.  We agreed to only list what genuinely comes to mind.

I seem to be striking some sort of balance between being comfortable with where I am and also taking action about the future- perhaps that balance between what ET calls “Life” while working on my life situation. At this point it’s obvious that I tend to ask a lot of questions. Knowing which questions are best left unanswered is a skill I’m also honing these days.

So, where is my sense of humor? Do I take this stuff too seriously? This month hasn’t been any more serious than usual for me but I always do a fair amount of clowning around. Most importantly, having a disciplined routine to help address big questions (with or without answers) has actually made me feel a bit lighter this month.

So far we’ve covered “just being” and “doing” and for the last week I’d like us to cover “feeling”.

Just finding this blog today? Read more about the Living Chapters project here.

zentember

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Oh how I welcome September’s new challenges. As I transition into the theme of this next chapter, I will try to hold on to the acute mindfulness that I gained in the chapter three but bring it inward. The external environmental questions have naturally led me closer to the examination of internal questions that are laid out before me this month. I also feel that I will pull much from what I learned in chapter one’s Body/Kinesthetic challenge to help me achieve this month’s goals.

Being asked to turn inward for answers, peace and calm comes at a good time as I find myself transitioning again, not only into a new season, but into a new home. I bid goodbye to “Meridan Summer” (the sail boat I was living on) at the end of August and have just moved aboard and welcomed “Morning Star” to begin my existential chapter. I am hoping that this change of shelter will assist me as I try to shift into a new state of mind.

Changing environments can be rejuvenating, but I do still find uprooting myself to be a stressful experience. However, the timing of this move may quite possibly be the perfect time to be entering into a meditation practice. It can’t possibly hurt to bring stillness, focus, and quiet to my life during a time that often brings chaos, disorder and questions.

Unlike Amy, I have not read much on meditation or traditional Buddhist philosophies. I also have very little book knowledge or experience with the act of meditation itself. What I do know I  learned through doing yoga in which I practiced the art of focusing directly on controlling my breath and my physical body through different poses. I learned how controlled breath works to both calm my mind and enliven the muscles in my body. Yoga practice has helped me slow down and become more intentional and aware of both mind and body. When I first came to yoga, I started with the intention of wanting some kind of result from it. I wanted a form of physical exercise that would bring benefits to my body/mind and wanted a structure or practice that could help ground me when feeling particularly overwhelmed or stressed. I did not start yoga with a desire to develop spiritually or philosophically. However in the 9 years of experimenting with different forms of yoga, I have become more and more curious and open to learning about how to expand and grow spiritually.  Body, mind, our actions and the act of being with ourselves and with others? How does this all connect?

I do feel lucky that yoga has given me a bit of experience with the posture and the breathing needed to learn and practice meditation,  but what I really would like to learn more about at this point is “the attitude of mind”. When reading Amy’s suggested guidelines from the “American Zen Association”, this excerpt really resonated with me.

“Mushotoku is the attitude of non-profit, of not wanting to gain anything for yourself. It is essential to true Zen practice. Giving without expecting to receive, abandoning everything without fear of losing, observing oneself.”

“Abandoning everything without fear of losing, observing oneself”  WOW … how freeing would that be if I could truly adopt and practice that. “If you abandon all you will obtain all” hmmmm…. Definitely thoughts to mediate on in the next month.

It’s a long journey to reach these goals I am sure, but as always I need to start somewhere. So here I am. I will start by instituting 30 seconds of stillness breaks throughout each day in September with the goal of stretching these mid day breaks from 30 seconds to 30 minutes of stillness throughout the month. I will also begin a new mediation practice of 20 minutes before bed and 20 minutes after waking of traditional Zen meditation.

Sharing my first attempt at this mediation practice somehow feels even more personal and revealing than sharing my shower habits last month but here goes, we can’t learn anything if we don’t share anything right?  I am open to hearing your experiences, comments and suggestions so please chime in if you have helpful thoughts that may guide me forward.

Below are my steps in my self guided mediation practice: (note these are my personal instructions to myself not suggestions for how others should practice)

1. Deal with all external factors first that may distract me: Sound, temperature, bathroom break, spatial issues etc

2. Sit comfortably in folded leg position with hands palm face up open on knees, holding my posture as straight as I can – sometimes I sit on a few folded towels and let my knees fall forward to the ground.

3. Set my meditation timer and start it.

4. Find a spot in front of me to fix my eyes upon (not looking directly at something but rather resting my eyes lightly on something) I keep my eyes open for my morning mediation and am practicing with my eyes shut for evening mediation.

5. Start breathing in and out through my nose using a 3-part breath filling my belly, my chest and my esophagus and then releasing the breath in the same order. (Its audible and slow, taking maybe 4 full seconds to come in and 4 to fully go out)

6. Focus my breathing and connect it to a visual element. (for example: I imagine white light coming into my body with the inhale and then imagine the light leaving and radiating around the body with the exhale – sometimes I imagine floating on the ocean and the tide coming in with the inhale and the tide going out with the exhale – this one especially works for me when meditating on the boat!)

7. Set an intention. My intention is simply gaining a greater awareness of either my mind, body, or attitude. I will accept what does or does not happen. As I am just starting this practice, I am not really sure what mediation is or should be. I just will accept whatever happens in this 20 minutes of stillness and try to learn from it.

8. When the time is up. I take written notes on the process, how it changes from day-to-day and make lists of what I am calling the “mmm” thoughts (monkey mind moments – re-occurring thoughts that hang around bothering me, jumping from one thing to the next)

My initial assumption of meditation was that it would be a time to simply empty out the thoughts that fill my head on a daily basis – a time of peace and solitude. But in these initial stages, I realize that it’s a place that all thoughts will arise to the surface and live (positive or negative).  And now I feel that its ok to let them. I am grateful that Amy built writing the thoughts down into the week’s challenge. It is helping me to become aware of the issues and things in my life that are causing me anxiety or using my energy. Looking at them on paper has helped me separate myself from them and look at them for what they are. Just thoughts. As I said, I am not sure yet what this practice is or will bring but for now I will fall back on what the American Zen Association says,

“Zen students develop wisdom if they are vigilant in their Zen practice, in their effort to know themselves, to go beyond themselves, to give of themselves without expecting any personal gain. If you abandon all, you will obtain all.”

9/6/13

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tuning in to the senses

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I knew that Living Chapters would turn my life upside down, but I had no idea that I would be swinging so soon into such new heights, new hurts, and new habits in just two weeks.

Along with the request to add activity in my life, I have also been asked to become more aware of my senses and the affects they have on my body.  Doing both of these things seems to be providing a nice balance.  With all of this running around (literally), I first found it difficult to tune into my senses.  I thought the “awareness of the senses activity” could only be accomplished outside of, or separate from the physical activity in my life. I thought, I needed to stop moving, block out external distractions and focus directly on being aware to engage with my senses.   However I realized very quickly that physicality was about to throw some not so subtle sensations at me in an obvious and brutal way.

About three days into the new running and jumping routine, I became aware of some pretty intense feelings immediately.  First there was the huffing, puffing, and gasping for air that accompanied the first minutes of running.  That was followed by the occasional side ache in the gut or the prickly pin-points up and down my shins.  And then came the thudding of my heart racing into my temples and pounding throughout my head.  The sound reminded me that, yes there is a massive muscle within me working really hard to keep me alive and moving. And let’s not leave out my favorite new sensations since starting this chapter, soreness, stiffness and shin splints…. Yes!  I must be doing something right.   …Right?

So while my body is communicating to me in all these fun new ways, I am listening as closely as possible trying to decode them in order to keep some kind of balance.  How do you not over do it while still pushing hard enough to become healthier? I think somehow tuning into these sensations may be the only way to answer that question.  That along with doing what feels right to you.

What does feel right to me? Stretching! Stretching before activity, stretching after activity, stretching while driving, while working, during conversations. I love it, can’t get enough. (I have been doing backstage ballerina-moves when no one is looking. ) Because I love this so much, I have tried to integrate this into my day as much as possible.  In addition to the in-between activity stretching, I committed to at least 15 minutes of yoga before bed each night.  I have always loved practicing yoga, but have relied in the past on attending occasional organized classes to do it.  Now I have realized I can do this independently, taking the poses that I remember from my lessons and putting them into practice before sleeping. It helps me to relax and calms my mind at the end of the day.

Now, the current challenge to my “yoga before bed” new habit, is that I literally do not have enough room on the sail boat I live on to even lay out a yoga mat. I decided that outside on the dock next to the passing water taxis and kayakers was not going to work for my personal relaxation stretch time.  I did however luckily find a near by space.  I will say, without revealing too much, that the space is not technically open to the public but is empty and not being used currently.  I decided that stretching silently there for 15 – 30 minutes an evening wouldn’t harm anyone.

Desiring discreteness, I sneak into the space at night.  I lay the yoga mat down in the dark and although I can’t see, my feet easily find the edge of the mat and make their way into a downward dog pose.  In silence and darkness, all my awareness directly goes to each and every response that my body gives me through the stretches.  “Oh that feels good, push that pose a bit longer…” or “actually that cramp in my side says that trying to turn into a pretzel tonight isn’t going to happen”.  Deprived of light and external distraction I am left to focus on my muscles, my breathing and my thoughts. After the first 5 minutes, my muscles relax and my thoughts dissipate, leaving me with only the act of motion and breathing, which is really the essence of yoga isn’t it?  I may not be practicing all poses “correctly” (or necessarily “legally” in my secret studio) but it has been the best combination of physical and sensory exercises that I have experienced yet this month. It has led me to learn and listen a bit more intently to what my body is trying to communicate.

Another sensation that has newly arrived, is restlessness.  I have started to feel antsy after sitting too long.  Only after a few hours of sedentary work, I want to get up and do something. I’ve been combatting this by breaking up the day with quick active things (jump rope journal! or short jogs). I have also been motivated and inspired to try out new things.  Heck, if I am somehow running now (which I never thought possible) I could also pick up a few new skills like being a trapeze artist? It’s not that far fetched right? Well, I compromised and found something a little less extreme and much more suited to me…

Aerial yoga! Seriously, who wouldn’t want to feel like they were flying while getting a workout at the same time? I learned, just this week, that there is nothing quite like hanging upside down suspended by your muscles and silk fabric to cure a bout of restlessness….. I dare you to try it!

Post script: I want to give a big thank you and shout out to Chapter One writer Joe Gall, who I visited in Boston this past weekend.  He is taking on this new running routine with dedication and has inspired me to work harder at it! I also got to visit Chapter Three writer Andy Cook, who gave me guitar lessons and support with my beginner musical abilities.  The city of Boston itself simply gave me a great large landscape in which to walk for miles in keeping me active the whole weekend!

Speaking of the Senses… Living Chapter’s Maestro selected the song below to accompany me throughout Chapter one. I have used it to guide me through some of my new activities:

Listen in and tune in to your senses

Want to check in to see if I am keeping up my promises? Check out the Living Chapters Facebook page for updates on the jump rope journal, exercise documentation and my food photo gallery.

Just finding this blog today? Read the prologue for more details on what Living Chapters is all about.