Why Yoga Matters

My life has been a bit of a roller coaster these past several weeks. I went to another AFCC conference and taught yoga there. It was my first time teaching a “regular” asana class in over 1.5 years. It was so fitting to be back there teaching again. As very long-time readers may remember, the AFCC conference in 2010 was the first class I taught after teacher training. It is such a special place for me.

And it reminded me, yet again, what I love about yoga, and why it is so important for professionals. It also reminded me some of the problems with the modern yoga culture. For example, there were several people in the class who thought they had to look a certain way to be in the “right” asana. Although I tried to say over and over again how important it is to do each pose with integrity for your own body, so many people just looked uncomfortable in what they were doing. And often, the adjustments fell on deaf ears. That was partly because I was out of practice, but I think it sadly said far more about our culture than my out of practiceness (though there is no doubt that was part of it).

What I see so often both in and outside of yoga classes are people who are completely disconnected from their bodies. I see this in how people sit, stand, and move. I see it in how people talk about breathing. I see it even in how people talk about pain. They push and push and push, take something to intercept the pain, and then they push some more. Then finally the pain or dis-ease is so intense they cannot take anything more. We are asked to ignore the pain and push through it, or there will be no gain. And if there is any sort of pain, for a long time before doing anything serious about it, we are told to just take a pill. We are told to just numb the pain, not heal it.

But yoga can bring us out of that place of numbing before the pain, whatever it is, hits us so hard. Yoga brings us into our bodies. It brings us into our emotions. It brings us into our souls. I was at a yoga class this morning, and at least three lawyers were there. I remember when I started this blog I had no idea how many lawyers actually do practice yoga. But what amazed me even more is that it was a Mindfulness Yoga class.

What I have noticed is that most of the lawyers I know who practice yoga practice styles like Bikram, Ashtanga, and the more intense varieties of asana-focused practice. Some are moving into a more meditative practice, but the truth is that is what so many of us need. We need to slow down. We need to learn to listen to our bodies and what they are telling us.

This need to constantly push ourselves and feel that we need to look a certain way is destroying so many people. We are asked to push and not listen and then to numb away whatever ails us. This is certainly not the only thing happening in the world, but I see it so often I wonder what the antidote can possibly be. I worry that yoga has become as much of the problem as the solution. Today in class, the teacher said he recently read a study where 70% of yoga injuries come from forward folds. This number would have shocked me before, but now that I know more about the body, more about the way people push, and more about the stress the modern world puts on the low back, this number actually now seems low to me.

And yet, as I look to other ways to find solace and peace, I always come back to yoga. I love yoga. It saved me once, and deep down I know it is the answer to my own and so many other peoples’ pain. But that means that we actually have to do yoga as it was intended to be done. The modern asana practice is nothing more than gymnastics. But yoga is an ancient system that heals on every level – physical, emotional, and spiritual. And for that reason, yoga matters. It matters that we learn from its teachings. As I look around and see how depleted society is, how tired everyone I know is, how pained they are (physically or otherwise), I know that yoga may be a path out of their misery.

These thoughts have been percolating for quite some time. As my own practice has ebbed and flowed, I feel this need right now to come back to it with full energy. But the irony, of course, is that full energy means less energy. It means slowing down and tuning in. It means finding the yoga that brought me here originally. And I want to offer that to others. I am finally going to have a regular class – two Sundays per month I will be teaching a Calming and Connecting yoga class. It will not be any specific type of class, but it will focus on breathing, meditation, restorative yoga, and mindful asana practice.

There is no doubt that yoga can heal us from so much. It still matters even when sometimes it feels it has been stolen by the fitness community. That can never diminish that yoga is something far older and something far more powerful. I am curious to know – how has yoga changed you? What has it brought to your life?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

The post, Why Yoga Matters, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

What it Means to Relax Part 1

The internet and blogs and books are full of information about the fight, flight, or freeze response and the sympathetic nervous system. My favorite personal writing about it was in response to getting chased by a sea lion in New Zealand. It was a perfect example of the fight, flight, or freeze response done right . . . and for the reason we have the response in the first place. I was being chased by a wild animal, and I had to get away. I got away. What happens, though, when that threat is gone? Can our body go back to its resting state?

The sympathetic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that activates when we are in fight, flight, or freeze. The parasympathetic nervous system is what allows us to relax and heal. It is the “rest and digest” part of the nervous system. It is what allows our body to go into its healing place. As I have mentioned before, the body is capable of healing itself, but in order to do that, it must be in a state of rest.

Chronic stress (of all varieties) has a tendency to keep our bodies in a constant state of the fight, flight, or freeze response without an opportunity to get into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” and heal mode. This, of course, can wreck havoc on our health. And look around at the world and notice how many people deal with chronic dis-ease. Many of us are not living in our parasympathetic state most of the time.

But what does it mean to truly rest? How many of us are able to get into that space? How many of us know what it really feels like to allow the body to release its tension patterns?

Most of us get so used to our tension patterns we do not even realize when we are holding them. Yoga is one of the ways we learn how to go into our bodies and learn to listen to them and find our patterns. The patterns in our body are similar to our mental patterns, called samskaras. Undoing a samskara is not an easy task. It requires knowing it and wanting it to change. But then it also requires unwinding the pattern itself, a task that can seem daunting when we have lived with the samskara longer than we have not. Imagine taking a hike and ask yourself which is easier – the pre-made path or the path never before taken? Imagine cutting down a path to hike, and that is what it takes to release a long-held samskara.

Releasing a tension pattern in the body is no different. We have to first feel the tension patterns and then be willing to release them. But then we have to understand what it takes to relax. We have to trust that when we release the tension, something else will continue to hold our body up.

Tension patterns exist for a reason. Some are there because of how we sit at a desk or in a car. Some are there, however, as a response to the traumas we have faced in our lives. Trauma can come in many forms – childhood abuse, relationship abuse, earthquakes, floods, and even vicarious trauma. When we experience trauma, we tense up to protect ourselves and never let go for fear of not having the strength to stay upright. But those patterns then begin to cause their own problems. Long after they have stopped protecting us from a trauma, they wreck havoc on our bodies and make it difficult to allow the body to relax.

And then we have a three-fold problem. The mental samskaras are the thoughts we hold as a result of our childhood and events in our lives, and they hold the body in tension. Together, they inhibit our parasympathetic nervous system from activating, and we end up with a downward spiral of tension and mental patterns that becomes more and more difficult to overcome, and at the end of the day it is our health (mental, physical, and spiritual) that suffers. Our ability to heal is diminished until we learn to bypass these tension patterns.

I want to be clear. We never lose the ability to heal. We inhibit our body’s access to its healing capabilities. And it is because we are literally stuck in a rut and trying to pull ourselves out. But this can be overcome, and deep within us we never lose the ability to heal ourselves. The parasympathetic nervous system is always there, and it is always able to function if we give it the time and quiet to do it.

But instead we hold our tension patterns. We live in a world with nearly constant overwhelm. There are more forms of pollution today than ever before. We have chemical pollutions, of course, but we also have noise, news, and phone pollution. We have stress of constantly being connected, and we have the stress of trying to keep up as the world moves faster and faster and faster.

But amidst it all, relaxation is still possible. We can find a way to release the tension in the body and allow our body to enter its natural healing state. But we have to be willing to surrender. We have to be willing to trust that when we let go, the body, and therefore ourselves, will be safe. We hear so often how the body and the mind are connected. I do not actually subscribe to that mentality. In my worldview, they are simply the same thing. The more I read in scientific, not new age, literature, the more true that statement is.

So tension is tension, whether mental or physical. They are one and the same. Our brains run our bodies, and together they create health or dis-ease. So, today I ask you to notice your mental patterns. Notice your physical tension patterns. Where are they? What do they mean? And then ask yourself the all-important question. In this world of constant overwhelm, are you willing to release these patterns to find calm and health? Part 2 will have some ideas for learning these techniques.

Namaste!

©Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved

The post, What it Means to Relax Part 1, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

The Shortest Day

Today in the northern hemisphere, it is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. That also translates to the darkest night of the year. There is so much written about the solstice that it is almost fruitless to add to it. But this year in particular I want to reach into the depths of what the winter solstice means.

The changing seasons are always a time to reflect on the circle of life, the ebb and flow of change, and the reminder that nothing stays the same – nothing. The only real guarantee we have in life is change.

The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere is a particularly interesting solstice every year. At a time when our bodies and minds want to curl up in front of a fire, eat some warming foods, and relax into stillness, we choose instead to participate in the most capitalistic of traditions. Even if you spend this time donating and sharing, you are still out in the world pushing hard. There is nothing inherently wrong with that; it is simply a recognition that our focus this time of year is radically different than what the season would ask of us.

It is no surprise, then, that this is also flu season. If we ask our bodies to use more energy than normal at a time when they have fewer reserves than normal, the outcome is going to be dis-ease. And I have thought about this a lot over the years, and I have asked myself how to do things differently. But this year I think I have realized there might be an underlying reason for this dichotomy this time of year.

We are running away.

The winter solstice is a time to remember what it means to live in the dark night of the soul. It brings us inward and wants us to let go of our attachment to this world. It reminds us of the struggles we face on our path to richness (not riches). And that can be a scary place to go. So instead we go to the mall.

But the winter solstice, with its darkness and cold, is simply a reminder to leave behind that which no longer serves us. It is a time to be introspective and quiet and leave everything in the darkness. The pagan tradition of Yule (upon which so many Christmas traditions are based) is a holiday celebrating the rebirth of the sun. Traditionally, a log is burned for 12 days. I do not know much about Yule, but that tradition seems like a great reminder to burn away the deadness within ourselves and to wake up to the rebirth of the sun and honor it.

The world is moving faster and faster. So few of us take the time to truly slow down. And I do not mean in one yoga class per week amidst a crazy schedule. I mean honestly stop and listen long enough to really hear what is happening. Instead we run from any opportunity to see ourselves as something other than productive. Lawyers love to talk about face time at work. Even if you work 30 hours per week at home, it does not count unless you are in the office. It means something to be there before the boss and to still be there when the boss leaves.

But at this time of year, are we really doing anyone, including our clients, any favors when we do that? How does it help anyone to ignore the pull of the season so strongly? Electricity was an amazing invention, and one for which I am personally grateful. But sometimes I wonder what we have lost as a result. It can be daytime anytime. It can be warm or cold any day of the year. The earth still ebbs and flows, but we are trying to reach a point of homeostasis where the ebb and flow of the seasons is more of an inconvenience than a reflection of how we should live our lives.

But as I watch the sun slowly come up this beautiful solstice morning, I wonder what would happen if we used today to simply be. Honestly, I know how hard that is. My plan for today was to take some work to the coffee shop. But today is the shortest day. It is a chance to say thank you to this darkening season and move into the lighter days. And not only do we know that our days our going to get lighter, but we can remember that our friends in the southern hemisphere are experiencing their longest day. No matter how dark it is, there is always light somewhere.

What do you do to reflect on the solstice?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, The Shortest Day, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

The Power to Heal

I just started reading a book called Mind Over Medicine by Dr. Lissa Rankin. It is yet another book about the mind/body power to heal against all scientific odds. Somehow I have always known this was possible. Even in my pre-yoga days, I knew there was a power within our bodies and minds greater than anything we talk about on a daily basis. When I was younger, I simply did not have the words to speak about it.

And I knew it was not true just for new age folks and those meditating on mountaintops. As a quote I saw on Facebook put it, “The placebo effect is scientific proof that we have the ability to heal ourselves. Our thoughts are powerful enough to bring this into existence – when will we begin to absorb this?” (emphasis mine). There is no person attributed the quote, but it is a true statement.

So why do so few of us believe this to be possible? Why do so many of us rely on the images, the blood tests, and the machines that measure various levels of things we don’t understand in our bodies? Why can we not turn inside to understand our true potential?

And yes, after all the years of knowing the power of the body, I am beholden to those images as well. For one, they’re really cool to see, but they also tell us a lot. They just do not tell us the entire story. They are just a small piece of information. What they do not tell us is how possible it is for the body to change.

The doctor who writes the book is pretty clear she wanted scientific proof the mind is a powerful healer. I have not yet finished the book, but I am well on my way. And it is clear from the book so far that what the research has found is the mind not only changes how we feel about certain situations, disease, etc. It can actually change our physiology. That is a really hard concept for so many of us to handle. I have wondered why for a really long time, and I think I am finally beginning to understand.

I think it is twofold. First, as Marianne Williamson reminds us, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." Why this is, I am not sure, but I see it around me all the time. People shy away from their power. We are told as children to be quiet and not speak until spoken to. We grow up feeling we are not adequate. And yet, the exact opposite is true. We are powerful beings on this Earth, and our greatest asset is to share our power with each other.

But this first issue leads to the second. In our society, we put a lot of faith in other people to fix things. If we do not believe in our power, we believe other people have power we do not, so we ask them to make our lives better. As a lawyer, my job is to fix legal situations for my clients as best I can. Doctors fix health issues. Mechanics fix our cars. We keep ourselves so busy we never have time to stop and ask ourselves what is really causing issues in our life. We just go to other people and hope they can make the issues disappear. 

But the truth is that we can do this ourselves. Certainly, if my arm falls off, I want a surgeon to sew it back on. But that is only the very first step in the healing process. The healing goes on after that first surgery. The healing must come from within. And the pieces that help us heal the most are the ones missing from our daily lives.

We need a supportive community, time to relax, and faith the healing will occur. But so much of our lives are spent in isolation from others, rushing from one thing to the next, and believing we are our illnesses rather than believing we are in a state of dis-ease that can become a state of ease.

Certainly there are people out there to help us find this within ourselves. Caring medical professionals, therapists, friends, pets, anyone really. But at the end of the day, it is our innate healing power that is being brought forth by those other people. It is our own power and light that brings the healing forth.

Once again, we are in a world of simple but not easy. It requires us to go against so much of what we are taught. But the scientific proof exists that it is possible. We all know “miracles” happen. Now we just have to believe it ourselves.

How have you noticed the power to heal in your own life? Do you believe you have that power?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, The Power to Heal, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Remembering the Tools

I remember the moment I decided I needed yoga and meditation in my life. I was 19 years old. It was the summer between my first and second years in university. I was having a rough summer, and I needed a way to relax. I had always been interested in yoga, but I had only tried it once myself. Yoga was becoming a big deal in America, but by no means was it yet the multi-billion dollar industry driving yogurt ads it is today. I just knew I needed something different in my life, and yoga seemed like the way to start.

Soon yoga just took over my life. It kept me sane, or at least saner than without it. Yoga became my refuge, both as a practice and as a way to connect to community. And I found a way to bring it into my world as a lawyer, not as a separate thing I did after work, but as a way to further create a professional community. My first teaching experience was at a family law conference, and for a brief time when I was "self-employed" I taught Stress Management Workshops focusing on yoga and meditation.

I attempted to fill my yoga bucket with practice and various tools, hoping to have a reserve for when the going got tough. And for awhile, I did. But then it got tougher.

For whatever reason, I am not recovering correctly from my surgery four months ago. No one seems to know why that is. But the words have begun to change from recovery to chronic pain. My life has gone from one of hiking the self-proclaimed most beautiful trail in the world to wondering whether I will be able to take a 10-minute walk home from Starbucks. And with the change in life circumstances has come the fear, the panic, etc.

I have said it before, and I will say it probably many more times. Something hit me during yoga teacher training. I was not necessarily destined to be a full-time yoga teacher, but somehow I had to bring yoga into some part of the legal profession, and perhaps to other professionals as well. The reason? Working a lot can be hazardous to your health, but it can also be rewarding. We just have to find the place where those two meet and remain healthy.

I made sure to make yoga a part of my life when I started my job in December 2011. Then there were weeks I did not go to classes, but I (usually) practiced in the mornings. Well, sometimes. And then began the nagging hip pain that eventually traveled down my leg and into my foot. That landed me on an operating table. And now I have an excuse - I cannot do yoga. But what does that mean exactly? I cannot do most asana. That is true. But everyone can do yoga. If you can breathe, you can do yoga. I often write about yoga and meditation, but there is no difference. They are one and the same.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a CD called Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief by Jon Kabat-Zinn. In it, he reminds us that mindfulness is not something that happens overnight. He reminds us that mindfulness is an ongoing process, a training system really. And something about that is difficult. All the tools in the world but somehow they feel beyond my grasp. I understand stress that comes from work. I have never done anything in my life except school and work. I can work with that stress. I do not understand the stress and fear that comes with a body that seems to be failing. I could always push through the pain before. But now I have to deal with it.

But we all reach these moments in life, these moments we are faced to deal with our lives and not run and hide. For some of us, many of the people I see, these moments happen as a result of work, especially in a stressful profession like law, but not only. For some it is the result of an illness, a divorce, the death of a loved one, but we all know these moments. They bring us to our edge. And if I have learned anything from yoga, it is that the edge can move. We can expand and grow. Sometimes it feels like it is impossible. Sometimes we push too far and cause ourselves more pain and suffering. But we learn to read it and understand it, and when we use the breath and mindfulness and awareness, we slowly begin to see we can handle more.

I would love to say I have had that moment of insight seeing my edge expand. But the truth is that there is not necessarily a moment. As Kabat-Zinn reminds us, it is a process. And no, it is not necessarily an easy one, even when you have all the tools. In that sense, it is sort of like practicing law - law school can only teach you so much, but then you have to practice to learn to really do it.

Practice. That's the word. Practice. No matter the endeavor, practice makes us better at it. And no matter the endeavor, there are days (or months, perhaps years) we do not want to practice. But the difference here is that practicing yoga makes all the other endeavors, including a body that does not work, easier. I am honestly not sure what has kept me off the proverbial mat/cushion. But I know that the only way to handle this is to utilize the tools I began learning when I was 19. Ironically, I'm back in the same location I was that summer, at least for another few days. Perhaps that is just the inspiration I need.

How have you gotten back into practice after a long stint away? How does your life change when you do not practice?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

"Remembering the Tools" first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Finding our Light

I have been a bit quiet recently, but there is a reason. And I have to say, Chanukah could not have come at a better time for me. These past few weeks have been intensely painful for me, and I have not been sure how to write about them. My hip pain became debilitating sciatica essentially overnight. A trip to Urgent Care, a failed MRI, medication, yoga, breathing, stretching, relaxing, chiropractic care, acupuncture, and massage all ensued. The pain just got worse.

And all I keep thinking is, “I’m a yoga teacher!!! How am I in this much pain?!”

But then this beautiful and deeply personal post arrived from Roseanne at It’s All Yoga Baby. In it she describes her own recent depression and writes:

Underneath it all, however, is a vague sense that I’m failing at my practice, that I’m as broken and f[‘]d up as I was before I committed to yoga (chronic and clinical depression was what drove me to practice in the first place), that the practice isn’t working. There’s also the vague sense that I’m not allowed to be feeling this way – there are many stories of miraculous healing from depression (and everything else) through yoga, but nobody talks about the relapses. I feel like I’m doing something wrong.

While my issue has been more physical (though I fully believe physical pain can and does stem from emotional pain), I fully understand her sentiment here. I have been feeling embarrassed about the pain on several fronts, but mostly because I’m 30 years old, and I’m a yoga teacher. How can I be in such debilitating pain, especially from what appears to be really, really tight muscles.

It is extremely easy to get caught up in the pain and ignore the lessons. I would say I sort of have been living in that space. But there are brief reprises, brief moments where I can take the time and not only cognitively, but energetically and emotionally, see the gifts and lessons the pain has to offer. And the Festival of Lights has helped me see that.

First, as discussed before, our darkest places bring us closer to compassion and connection with others. I never fully understood how debilitating physical pain can be until the past two weeks. As a yoga teacher and a lawyer, I deal with people suffering from all varieties of pain. Having had an experience to relate to that pain changes not only how I interact with the person, but how they respond to what I say. It is very easy to stand on the outside, look at someone, and give them all sorts of ideas of how to make their lives “better.” It is quite different to look at them and say, “I feel what you are experiencing. I experienced something similar myself, and you are right. It is debilitating.”

This pain has taught me a different level of compassion as well. I often get upset with people who turn everything into a story about themselves and their own experiences. But these past two weeks, it has been comforting to hear from people who understand how painful sciatica is. I get a bit overwhelmed with everyone offering different advice, but the sympathy and understanding has been greatly beneficial. As a result, I have learned the importance of connecting with others through our own stories. We can offer our stories less as a way to say, “Look at me and my suffering” and more of a way to say, “I understand, and I know you can get better.”

And of course, this pain has been the universe’s way of telling me to slow down. That is a lesson I am not heeding so well. But I have learned where I feel comfortable letting go and where I still need to work. I have said it before, and I believe it even more today, meditation and yoga are “easy” at an ashram. I put easy in quotes because they are never actually easy, but they fit a structure and their lessons come more quickly. But try meditating in Times Square. Try meditating when the pain is searing through your leg. Try just breathing when you feel like all hope is lost.

And amazingly, in those moments, sometimes the breath does come. And for a brief glimpse of relief, the breath softens whatever is currently hardening us. It may be one breath in a hundred, but that one breath can be what keeps us going. And that has been the greatest lesson so far. Even when I feel as divorced from my practice as ever, something (or someone) always manages to bring me back.

It may feel like it needs a miracle similar to the miracle of Chanukah, but the holiday can help remind us that we all have that light within, and even when it feels impossible to reach, we can turn to it, and it can offer us a little hope that things can get better.

What lessons have you learned from stress, pain, depression, etc.? Are you able to find those brief glimpses of coming back to yourself? What helps?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Power of Adrenaline

As I mentioned in the last post, I finally learned the toolbox lesson the universe has been trying to teach me when I thought I lost my friend on Pier 39 in San Francisco. I learned another lesson during that event as well – the power of adrenaline. I posted before about the benefits of stress and adrenaline for saving our lives, but this time the adrenaline served a different purpose.

It took away my pain. Literally.

Just over two weeks ago, I sprained my ankle. I have been fairly lucky in that I have been able to walk on it, but there is no question that it hurts. On Sunday, in San Francisco, I was walking a lot, and my foot was doing alright, but it was definitely hurting, and I was definitely not walking my typical speed. I was limping along and wondering why I was being stupid enough to walk miles at a time.

When I first lost my friend, the thought of adding extra steps to my day to look for her made my foot hurt. I limped back to where I had lost her, then limped back to where I thought I might find her. But then the minutes ticked by, and I had not seen her. The adrenaline started pumping, and I started walking faster. Then I started even running. I did not feel my foot again until I found her. Somewhere in the middle of that time, I even realized what I was doing. I realized I was moving faster, and I realized it was not hurting.

Adrenaline is powerful. Even bringing my thought process to the lack of pain did not bring it back.

But then the adrenaline began to dissipate, and about five minutes after I found my friend, my foot was throbbing. Luckily, we were getting on a boat to view the beautiful bay, and I was able to not only rest my foot for an hour, but I was able to reflect on adrenaline. And yes, I actually did reflect on adrenaline during that boat ride, even amidst viewing the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge on its 75^th birthday.

There is no question about why the adrenaline made me forget the pain. When we are faced with a truly mortal circumstance, the pain in our foot is far less important than the possibility of being eaten by a tiger. We are better off running away and dealing with a painful foot than being lunch. That makes sense.

But most of us, especially those of us in stressful life situations (all of us, probably), rarely come down from that adrenaline rush. Some people, especially the Kiwis, crave it, and jump out of airplanes or off bridges to feel the adrenaline. But most of us have a decent amount of adrenaline running through our systems on a daily basis we do not need to add any more.

But what happens to us when we live in that adrenaline phase? Adrenaline makes us unaware of the pain and the disease our body is experiencing. It literally turns off our sensors, so strongly that even when we realize we are ignoring the pain, we do not feel it. That might be okay for a moment (though I realize I could have made my foot a lot worse, and I am lucky I did not), but it can lead to serious difficulties over the long term.

If we notice disease or pain early, we can rest and recover with far less interruption to our lives. Our bodies are naturally good at healing, and when we notice we need to heal, and we take the time to do it, we can. But if the adrenaline we experience day in and day out blinds us to our own pain and disease, it gets worse and worse. Eventually it can get so bad, even the adrenaline can no longer hide it from our view. It hits us in the face, and we must face it.

That can be devastating. The pain and disease by that point may take a lot more than simple breathing, rest, and some extra exercise can remedy. Our hyped-up adrenaline lives often lead us into painful paths. In 2012, we rarely face the mortal dangers our stress-response adrenaline rush is designed to counteract. Instead, we face daily stressors from which we never fully release our adrenaline. It remains in our system potentially blinding us to all the pain and disease our body holds, and one day that might come back as a much bigger problem.

Ignoring a sprained ankle for 30 minutes may be stupid, but it probably will not result in a terminal disease. But what else are we ignoring in our daily lives? What are you ignoring? Is your adrenaline making you blind to your own pain and disease?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Body as Storage, or Confronting Trauma

My travels have finally stopped for a bit, and I have found a few yoga classes I like. It feels good to be getting back into the groove of a more “normal” life. By normal, I mostly mean that I stay at home on the weekends and can actually do some errands. It also means I can start attending yoga classes more regularly. My daily practice has, once again, become daily, and it feels wonderful. But there is something differently wonderful about attending a class. Sometimes they are not everything I hope they will be, but sometimes they hit me just where I need. This Sunday’s class was one such class.

The teacher started class by reminding us that we hold emotions in our bodies. She said, and I am paraphrasing to the best of my memory, “Each traumatic experience we have is stored in our body, and it can come back to us at any moment.” Think muscle memory and brain patterns. The body literally holds onto experiences until we let them go. Of course, this is just as true for joyful memories as it is for traumatic ones. People have been known to laugh or cry hysterically in yoga “for no reason.” The reason, however, is the body remembering the occasion and bringing it back to the surface.

This is something I think about all the time on my own (some would, perhaps, say too often). In the class, however, we went together into the pain we hold in our bodies. The teacher asked us to face the fear we hold in our bodies. Generally, the only classes I attend where we consciously go deep into long-held postures and really confront the body’s depths are restorative and yin classes. I love both those types of classes. In Sunday’s class, however, we held Warrior 1 and Triangle for long periods. We did not hold them for five minutes, but we definitely held them for longer than is generally typical.

While I certainly have my own hip / low-back issues to address, I found myself thinking throughout class about my clients. With the reminder that every traumatic experience we have is stored in our body’s muscle memory, my mind turned to my clients who, by definition, have experienced some sense of trauma, and many of them have experienced a significant amount of it. My clients range in age from 17 days to 17 years. All of them have trauma.

And then my mind turned to the lawyers with whom I work, and the rest of the people who work within the legal system generally, whether lawyers, staff, social workers, psychologists. More and more people recently have become aware of the concept known as Secondary Shock or Vicarious Trauma, in which people in helping professions experience the trauma of their clients vicariously through them. The only difference is that when trauma is experienced secondhand, we do not always recognize it for what it is. The body can tell no difference, but our minds, for whatever reason, think there is one.  

I asked myself what I can do to help these people who hold so much in their bodies and have no idea. My mind wandered to my infant clients born into this world in even more trauma than typical of birth (birth, of course, being a traumatic experience for everyone). It then wandered to my clients who have chosen life on the streets because, as they say in their own words, they don’t know any different.

Of course, this blog is the step I took to try to bring awareness to these issues. I do not see this being my only confrontation of this topic on this blog. It is not only important; it is vital that we learn about it and talk about it. But what about today? What about the people who have no internet access or the people who know nothing about yoga. I take my yoga-ness with me everywhere, on some level. I have talked to clients and others about breathing and walking away at times.

But then I remember the trauma. I remember all they have experienced. All I can do in those moments is hope, pray, and believe that the human spirit and consciousness is greater than the sum of its parts, and that everyone and anyone is capable of overcoming anything they have experienced in life.

I have said before that I believe yoga is for everyone. It does not take a particular level of fitness, calm, flexibility, or even time. It does, however, take a desire to start. Sometimes living life through a yoga lens means seeing all the people who have not yet seen its beauty. I do not think yoga is the answer for everyone, but I wish more people were able to find their answer.

Where do you notice the tension being stored? Have you ever experienced unannounced emotion in a yoga class?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Body as Teacher

I have mentioned before that I went into yoga teacher training hoping to go deeper into yoga teachings. I used to scoff, somewhat, at the role asana plays in yoga. Sure, I thought, postures are important, but the real yoga is meditation and the changes it brings to our spirits, not our bodies.

But yoga teacher training changed all that. Not only did I learn about the koshas, and how yogis have always described how our bodies are one pathway to learning about the deeper aspects of ourselves, but I also experienced it myself. Sure, I always had known that our hips hold our emotions, and working with hips will often bring people to tears of laughter or tears of sorrow, but I had never, somehow, equated this to acknowledging the deepest potential of asana, or the postures.

(Ok, a quick aside – the real reason is because I got caught up in the feeling that the 100% asana-focused practice of modern, American yoga is not real yoga, so I had to rebel against that. I have since softened my belief structure around that, and I know, and have always known, that we can never remove the body from the rest of our being, but yeah, I got caught in that American yoga vs. “real” yoga debate.)

In some ways, it is silly that I never acknowledged this deep connection. After all, I have always understood how the body is one of the first indicators of our deeper sanity and being. I still believe the breath is our greatest teacher, but the body is like its right-hand man. And if you want proof, look at your colleagues. Look at yourself. I would wager a fairly large bet you already know this.

I’m going to use myself as an example these past few weeks. Prior to the past two weeks, the last time I was sick for more than a day, maybe two, was two years ago, and that lasted about three days. It turns out it was a cold or allergies. I cannot remember the last time I got the flu, if ever, and I had not experienced stress-related stomach anxiety since the bar exam. (To be honest, I do not remember that, but someone else does, so knowing what I know about memory, I will go with hers.) Prior to that, the last time I felt it was in college. Growing up, my stomach was a pretty solid indicator of my stress levels. And I had a lot of stomach issues. I was, apparently, a stressed-out kid. I will spare you the details of my last two weeks, but let's just say, my body has informed me that I am a wee bit stressed.

So once again, yoga and the law have taught me the same lessons as two sides of the same coin. Yoga helped me move beyond the stress-response in my body, and I was rarely, if ever, sick, and the law brought me right back to what was always underneath it all. I have learned three things from this, and I think they are worth sharing with anyone out there who notices these issues.

First, I really do love my job. It is difficult, scary, and stressful, but I get to do work I hope is useful, and I work with some of the most amazing people I know. Not only do I like them, but I truly and deeply respect them. I work in a system that needs serious healing, but it is also a system in which everyone there is working to make it better. It may not be perfect yet, and probably never will be, but everyone cares, and that is a huge step in the right direction. Why does loving the work matter? Because I am willing to find ways to work within it rather than run away at 100 miles per hour and never looking back. 

Second, the body is a teacher. Yes, I knew this. Yes, I was listening. And yes, I was also ignoring the signs. I had work to do. And the downward spiral began. It ended in the same stomach anxiety I had not experienced in years. It resulted in headaches and a sore back. These are all the complaints of modern America. But these are complaints I had not been making myself for years. And that brings me to the third lesson.

Yoga works. Yep, it has been all over the news that yoga can cause physical pain. And guess what? I agree 100%!!! There is a reason I never teach headstands in my classes or even shoulderstands unless I know the students and know they are safe doing them. There are many, many days I do not do either because I know my body is not up for it. So, yes, yoga can cause harm . . . when done without care and attention. But when we tune in and listen, yoga works. We can use the body to calm the mind and the mind to ease the body. The back pain, headaches, and anxiety can begin to be calmed. Are they going to disappear forever? Probably not. When I was a camp counselor, our boss once said, we could easily prevent all the children from ever getting hurt by having them sit inside in a circle all day. But would that be camp? Nope. So we had to find a happy medium – keep the kids as safe as possible, but also let them be kids.

Our own lives are the same. We could do nothing and be safe, calm, and pain free. Or we can live life and learn to live it in a way that is as safe and calm and pain-free as possible each moment. The body is a great indicator, and one that yoga can help. When the body is in a state of pain, it is in a state of dis-ease. By learning to recognize the signs early, hopefully we can keep ourselves free of deeper disease.

How have you noticed this in your life?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.