What it Means to Relax Part 2

Yesterday, we discussed why to relax and the healing power that comes with relaxation, but sometimes I think few of us know how to actually relax, so this post is dedicated to that specifically.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of techniques for relaxation. There are even apps for it. Some of the most popular are: meditation, walking in nature, restorative yoga, yoga nidra, yin yoga, somatic awareness, knitting, exercising, cooking, and vacations. There are even programs designed to change our brain waves to help us relax, including Holothink and Holosync. I could probably go on, but you get the idea. There are ways we have come up with to help us relax.

But how many of us are actually able to relax in these settings? How do you know if you have fully relaxed? Is that even possible in this modern world?

First, there are several reasons it is so incredibly difficult to actually relax. One of the main reasons is the one we all know – the world is moving incredibly fast, and we are inundated with information. We are expected to keep up with everyone all the time. That is a huge problem, but it is only a piece of the problem. The other might be genetic. I’m no scientist, and definitely no geneticist, but there is some new information coming out about epigenetics that helps explain our inability to calm.

Yogis and other mystics (and yes, the New Age folks) have always known that our ancestral lines play a huge part in our lives today. Shamanism has ways to clear and work with our ancestral lineage. Science is finally catching up and explaining how this happens through epigenetics. If you are really interested, here is a link to the Wikipedia article about epigenetics.  Basically, the idea is that our genes activate in different ways based upon what worked for our ancestors. It makes sense. If your ancestors lived in a place where there were lions everywhere, we had to become acutely aware of threats early in life, or we would die. Of course, what this means today is that we have generations upon generations of suffering, depression, fear, anxiety, etc. expressing itself in our genes, and on top of everything else we live in the most overwhelming cultural environment I can imagine.

Are you relaxed yet?

So, in some ways our bodies have become hard wired to not relaxing. This is a perfect week to point this out with Passover and Easter. Passover is about celebrating overcoming hardship . . . but the hardship came first. Easter is about rebirth . . . but the horrific death came first.  And that death and hardship live on in our cells and our gene expression. So, while yoga nidra is lovely, and yes it’s one of my favorite relaxation techniques, it has to overcome a lot of conditioning.

 As I mentioned before, I have been working a lot on somatic awareness. The goal is to begin to pay attention to the signals our bodies send to us. I have been doing this on some level for over a decade. It really has been my entire time practicing yoga. But these days, I am looking at it differently and really trying to understand it differently. I am also finally starting to notice where I hold tension. Everywhere would be an understatement, but it is useful to know.

What I have found over the past few months is just how intensely difficult it is to really, truly, let go and relax. I may be able to relax one part of my body, but then the rest of it tenses up. I have begun to notice what parts of my body tense when I go to move, and they are not the parts of my body needed to move in that moment. One of the relaxation techniques I left off above is biofeedback. The entire goal is to notice where you are tense, so you know to relax there.

Noticing is the first step. We simply cannot relax until we know where we are tense. Meditation helps us do the exact same thing with the mind. It helps us notice where our mind is tense or racing or confused or whatever, and then just let it go. While the body and mind are simply one entity, for some people it is easier to learn to relax the mind first, and for others it is easier to learn to relax the body.

But at the end of the day, relaxation is more difficult for us than it was 1,000 years ago. The techniques have not changed, but we have to learn to use them more effectively.

True relaxation begins with noticing where our tension patterns lie. As you read this, take a moment and stop. Scan your body. Where is there tension? Where is there no tension? For some of us, the only place without tension is the ear lobe. That is okay. I am starting to believe that is more normal than we would like to admit. Then begin to tell the body it is safe to let go. It is safe to relax the shoulders. It is safe to relax the thigh muscles when you are sitting and lying down. It is safe to relax the core muscles. We have ways to hold ourselves up without tension.

As we begin to allow ourselves to relax, relaxation can come. It may not come immediately, but it can begin to sneak in. It can begin to enter our being and our cells. Relaxation can happen when we notice what is stopping it and consciously let that go. But for that we have to stop. We have to notice. We have to take the time and turn inward. It is, at times, very difficult, but the rewards are endless. Eventually, we will begin to notice the tension and let it go even when we are stressed out at the grocery store or in traffic. When we learn to relax, we can live in this world with more ease and comfort. We can begin to heal, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Relaxation is key to everything. It is so, so simple and yet incredibly difficult.

How do you notice if relaxation is working? What techniques work better for you? Do you notice places you find it impossible to relax? What could you do to relax in those spots?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

The post, What it Means to Relax Part 2, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Proving Meditation Works?

Earlier this week, my uncle sent me the article, “The Morality of Meditation.” Similar to many articles these days, it is too short, and gives nothing but the briefest explanation of the topic, but it is an interesting idea.

The author, along with several colleagues, decided to test whether meditation actually makes people more compassionate towards others. The “test” they used was pretty clever. They had a group of people meditate for 8 weeks and a control group. Then they had people from both groups come back to the office where the waiting room had three chairs, two of which were already occupied. The subject always sat in the open chair, and then a fourth person came into the room on crutches and groaned in pain as he leaned against the wall. The question was whether the subject would give up his/her seat if the other two (who worked for the researchers) did not.

There have been many studies done that people are less likely to help others if they see other people are not offering assistance. Those studies, if you have never read them or heard about them, are actually quite frightening. Peer pressure is a powerful force, even when it is negative – not negative in the sense that you are doing something bad, but negative in the sense you are not acting. So others choosing not to act causes us to be less likely to act even to help someone in obvious distress.

This study found that people who had meditated were 3 times as likely to offer their seat to the guy on crutches. That is the “good” news. The not so good news is that it was still only about 50% of people. But their initial conclusion is that meditation does, or might, help people be more compassionate to others. (HUGE CAVEAT: I’m basing my understanding of this study on an article in the NY Times that was shorter than this post, and I have my own twists.) Also important, only 39 people participated in the study, and only 20 of them were asked to meditate. That is a very small sample.

All of those caveats aside, what does this tell us? First, I think it tells us that we as a society are obsessed with meditation as a fad. We want to know how it can help us. We want proof. I mean, what is the point of meditating if we do not get something out of it? I like science and studies as much as anyone, and I think I have even posted how excited I am about such studies in the past. But I’m getting tired of them. I do not want a scientist telling me meditation works. I just want to meditate. And I think that's my yoga side taking over my lawyer side. Lawyers like evidence. I really do like evidence, but I do not always need it.

But I see two other issues with this study, neither good nor bad, but just interesting. First, the guy who needed help walked into the room on crutches. That is an obvious injury. Of course, it does not appear he was really injured at all, just a research tool told to act in a certain way. I have been living for the past 6 months with the opposite issue. I look fine, but I hurt a lot. I feel terrible when I go to the grocery store and do not help bag my own groceries. I feel terrible when I choose not to sit because it is easier to stand, but then I am towering over people feeling like I am acting superior to them. I would have actually done the exact opposite of all the research subjects. I would not have sat in the empty chair. I would have stood up, and that’s probably true even before I was in pain. And so I wonder, how many of the research subjects had a reason not to get up for the guy on crutches? We do not all wear our lives on our sleeves. 

We all have hidden stories, and far more goes into those stories than whether we meditated that day. I would love to live in a world where we are all better at asking people their stories rather than making assumptions based on what we see only with our eyes.

And that brings me to my final point – what about compassion for self? This research study was conducted because the researchers were tired of all the studies about meditation being great for stress, memory, and intelligence. They wanted to show it helps people act more compassionately towards others. The article ends by saying, “The next time you meditate, know that you’re not just benefiting yourself, you’re also benefiting your neighbors, community members and as-yet-unknown strangers by increasing the odds that you’ll feel their pain when the time comes, and act to lessen it as well.”

But they were comparing this study to studies about performance, not about self compassion. I have never looked for such a study, but I would be surprised if one existed. How do we test that? How do we know if we are treating ourselves as kindly as we should? How do we know when we are offering ourselves the amount of love we all deserve?

There is no question in my mind that compassion for others is a great benefit of meditating. I have meditated specifically to cultivate such compassion. And certainly, it’s great to have a little less stress in life as a result of meditation. And perhaps these are all areas that researchers will continue to study. But we also have to learn to have self compassion. After all, the heart pumps blood to itself first.

So while all these tests and research are happening, I may or may not pay a lot of attention. Interesting to see the proof, but the real magic, no proof needed, happens on the mat/cushion and in how we conduct ourselves to ourselves and in the real world, not how 39 people conducted themselves in an office on one particular day.

What changes have you noticed in yourself if you meditate? What changes have you noticed when you stop? That’s always my big clue to the benefits of meditation, and that has nothing to do with research.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Proving Meditation Works?, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Back to basics . . . Again

"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Suzuki Roshi from, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

I found the above quote in an article about Steve Jobs’s connection to Buddhism. The point of that quote in the article was to illuminate how Steve Job's genius manifested. He never let what was already in existence deter him from finding something better. The article, of course, also discusses how a student of Buddhism treated his employees as Steve Jobs did, but that is not the point of this post.

As I have mentioned before, there is something special about the beginner’s mind. When we let go of the need to know everything and open our eyes to all the possibilities, what previously seemed impossible becomes possible. If we think we know everything, then there is no opportunity to learn more, and our world-view becomes limiting.

The last post discussed what the Easter/Passover season means, and along with those themes, it is spring -- the perfect opportunity to start anew. It is a time to let go of any of our preconceived notions about the world and see the possibilities that exist. To me, this is the interesting piece about where the Passover story ends. It ends with the escape from Egypt. It does not go on to talk about the 40 years wandering the desert.

But those 40 years are where the learning takes place. Those 40 years are the beginner’s mind and an absolute expanse of possibility. The Middle East desert is nothing if not an expanse of possibility. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been . . . and I lived in New Zealand for 10 months.

A view of the desert from the top of Masada at Sunrise.

 It is very easy for all of us to think we have the answers. It is easy for us to think we are experts, especially about our own lives. Being sure is safer than questioning and being open to possibilities. Choice can be paralyzing (link to a TED talk on the paradox of choice). But it also holds the key to that which we may never have deemed possible.

Yoga helps us remember that each moment is a chance to learn something new. There is always a new muscle to discover, a new technique to learn, or a new posture to practice. And it is called a practice for a reason. People have a meditation practice; they do not master meditation. Similarly, doctors and lawyers have practices. On some level, they understand that if they believe too strongly in their “expertise,” they will miss the full story.

I find that the most exciting part of being a lawyer. Every day is different, even if from the outside it looks like I am doing the same thing. It is easy to generalize and lump cases together, but the truth is that every individual client is just that . . . an individual. Their story is a clean slate, and I know nothing about it before walking through the door to meet them. Sometimes that is literally true, and while frustrating at times, in many ways it allows me to be completely open to possibilities. How can I be an expert on a person I know nothing about?

Thus, there is a story beyond the excitement and freedom of breaking free of slavery. To me, the story suggests something bigger. We are slaves to our “expertise.” It is when we let our minds be blank slates like the sun rising over the expansive desert that the greatest possibilities for our lives emerge. It is easy to lose track of that sense of emptiness in the modern world, and yoga provides the tools to bring us back. Meditation and asana are about calming the mind and coming back to the present moment, the moment when anything is possible.

Are you ready to break free and be open to the possibilities that await?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Finding Peace

September 21 is global peace day. This year, the organizers’ goal is for this year’s day “to be the largest reduction in global violence in recorded history, both domestically and internationally.” What an incredible vision. How amazing would it be if for one day, violence stopped . . . globally?

Many yoga studios take part in global peace day by getting together for an event called Global Mala. Started by Shiva Rhea, Global Mala events invite people to do 108 Sun Salutations or 108 chants. 108 is a sacred number, but I think there are 108, or more, reasons why that is. I participated in the 108 Sun Salutations in Tucson, Arizona two years ago, and this Saturday (yes, a few days late), I will participate in 108 here in Dunedin, New Zealand. As the world erupts in protests and suicide bombings and bigotry and hate, bringing a community together to celebrate and honor peace gives me hope.

So, September 21 is a wonderful opportunity to think about peace, to think about acting without violence, to think about ahimsa. It is a wonderful opportunity to imagine a peaceful world. It is a wonderful opportunity to imagine a world in which we honor and respect all people for who they are. It is a wonderful opportunity to look externally and imagine living among others peacefully. It is a beautiful vision, eh?

But are you willing to look inside? Are you willing to see peace within yourself? Are you willing to put aside that voice in your head that tells you every time you do something “wrong”?

Because there is absolutely no way to have external peace without internal peace.

For many of us, finding internal peace is much more difficult than imagining a peaceful world. We can look at the other side of the world and say “if only X happened,” the situation would get better. From the outside looking in, everyone seems to have their own answer for how to make the situation better. But when we turn that lens on ourselves, if we turn that lens on ourselves, we create every excuse in the book for how difficult it would be to find peace.

I do not have time. I am too tired. I tried X and it did not work. We believe external sources define our internal peace. I would have peace if I made more money, or if I worked fewer hours, or if my family stopped driving me crazy. Deep down we know these external factors do not define our peace. We know we could make the time if we wanted. So what stops us?

I wish I had an answer to that question. This week I began taking an Introduction to Meditation class. I have been introduced to meditation many, many times over the past ten years. I have tried numerous types and styles along the way. So what drew me to the class? Discipline. I wanted to be accountable to other people. I wanted to know others were there as well. I wanted to know I did not have to make the time and do the hard work on my own. Plus, I really like the teacher, and as someone once said to me, “you can never take too many introduction classes.”

And that is really the answer, isn’t it? We can never introduce ourselves to ourselves too many times. We can never work for internal peace too many different ways. The more we learn to find peace each day, the more we can share it with others. Sure, there will be days when it seems impossible. But those are the days you reach out for the support network, for your community. But over time it gets easier. Over time, you stop making excuses. Over time, if we all make time for our internal peace, our vision for global peace may just come true.

Will you take today to be peaceful to yourself? Can you stop your inner critic for just one day? Can you use today to begin a pattern?

May peace be with you!

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Lost Memories

I have trouble remembering things. I have very few solid memories of my childhood, and sometimes I forget conversations with friends last week. I have a feeling I am going to be one of those people who tells the same story several times to the same person because I can never remember if I told it before.

I have a friend, however, who remembers everything. She can remember what her family ate on a vacation 20 years ago. I know that when I need to remember an event in college, I can ask her. These past few years, I have thought about this a lot and wondered why some people have great memories and others do not. 

Moreover, it is not as simple as saying that I have a bad memory because that is not true. For some reason I can remember case law and case names, but I cannot remember the incredible adventures I have taken around the world. For that, I take photos. And I take a ton of photos – over 3000 since arriving in New Zealand in January. I want to remember. Traveling around the north island with new friends when I arrived, one of them did not take a lot of photos. Instead, he said, “I am remembering it.” I tried. Then I whipped out the camera. I did not want to forget. 

Of course, some photos were to share asana with the rainforest and prove that I was really doing Tree Pose Around the World.

But recently, especially through yoga, I have found my memories. They are not in my brain. They are in my muscles. When doing asana, I often have memories of these trips, memories of the past, even memories of my childhood. I remember things I thought I had forgotten. 

When you Google muscle memory, you get information about golf swings. After all, the best golfers use the memory of a previous game to play today. But that is not the muscle memory I mean. We actually store memories in our muscles. Emotions as well.  

At its simplest, pain is energy that is stuck in the body. Along with that stuck energy is the memory of what caused it to be stuck. When I started yoga teacher training, I was angry at the way yoga had become so body-centric in the United States. It was not until I began to truly understand the body and its knowledge that I learned to love asana for its ability to help us go deeper. When I learned about the koshas, I finally understood. Our bodies are the gateway to our inner selves.

But that means we have to deal with our bodies. We hold these memories in the body for any number of reasons. Often it is because we do not want to deal with them. Stress, something with which modern society is intimately associated, is our number one muscle memory. Headaches, lower back pain, and tight hips can all come from stress. With that pain, however, is the memory of that stress. Releasing the stress in the body can release those emotions and memories.

I hope it is obvious from the previous 100 posts that I think yoga is an amazing tool for handling our modern lives. It has so much to teach us from breathing techniques, to meditation techniques, to new ways to use and understand our bodies. But I also think that we need to be conscious of what it means to begin to tune in to these new ways of seeing the world. It means opening up memories we have stored. It means facing emotions we placed in our bodies, so our brains could forget them.

Western medicine and society are finally discussing the mind-body-spirit connection. What we hold in our bodies affects the mind and spirit, and around the triangle we can go. Recognizing this is an important step when integrating yoga into our daily lives. It is important because we must be aware that some days remembering is going to be difficult. Some days, yoga can make us more anxious.

The good news is that yoga also gives us the tools for handling those moments. When we notice a memory or emotion come up, breathe through it. There is nothing inherently good or bad about memories; they are just stored, and when we let them go, we can simply watch them and let the pain/tension dissipate. Several months ago, I posted a link to a story about how meditation can help decrease pain. I believe that our muscles as memory storage is the major reason why that is.

Of course, our memories are fallible, but that is a topic for the next post.

Do you notice memories arise during yoga? Do you ever notice a pattern to them?

Namaste.

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Styles and Practice Areas and Soapboxes!

When I started this blog, I was looking to see if there are ways that yoga and the legal profession overlap. It has, of course, grown into looking at the intersection of yoga and modern life, in all its varieties. One area I have missed, and where yoga and the law can teach us so much, is in our choice of what type we do; there is something for everyone, and we each have our own paths. Yoga has different styles while the legal profession has practice areas, and our choice of these is a great look at our paths in life.

I think the most common question I get asked when I tell people both that I practice and teach yoga is, “do you do that hot yoga, what’s it called?” The answer, my friends, is Bikram (there are other types of hot yoga, but that is usually where the question originates), and no, I do not. The reasons are plentiful, but most of them do not matter to this post (but if we have met in person, and you have asked me this question, you have seen me on my soap box). The easiest, and most PC answer, is that Bikram is not for me. It is simply not my path.

The types of yoga are plentiful, and I could write a book on all of them, as many people already have. Instead, here is a brief overview: Yoga can reference anything from ancient Hindu tradition / religion to modern asana-based mega classes. Asana practices can range from restorative, where you use lots of props, do not get off the floor, and hold poses for 3-5 minutes to Ashtanga, where there are set series, and you work with a teacher and do not move into learning the next posture until you have “mastered” the one you are currently doing. Some styles of yoga are strict about anatomy, e.g., Iyengar and Anusara, and some focus on the internal awareness, e.g., Anusara again. Then, of course, there is the rest of yoga, the yamas, the niyamas, pranayama (breath), and all forms of meditation. See what I mean? Books! And yet, so many people, including those who do yoga, think that yoga is limited to a few different types.

But of course, lawyers are no different. I cannot tell you how many times someone has asked me for help in areas of law with which I have no, and I mean no, experience. Tax law? Torts? New Zealand tenant’s rights? I am dreading the day someone asks me about criminal law, but at least with that, I have friends who work for the Public Defender and the County Attorney. People assume that because I can put esquire after my name, I must know everything there is to know about all law, everywhere. Any doctors have this problem? Accountants? You get the idea; we often think that one word can define someone when in reality that one word opens up a huge can of . . . possibility!

Once clearing up the fact that I do not have the answer to every type of legal question on the planet, I then must answer the dreaded question – well what kind of law do you practice? The answer, my friends, is family law. The other answer is juvenile dependency law, also known as welfare. In other words, I do that “emotional” law.

If I had 5 cents for every time someone reacted to my choice of profession with, “but how do you do that? It must be so difficult,” or “I could never do that kind of law!”, I would be able to pay off my loans. In other words, people assume all sorts of things about me based upon my choice of profession, and then within the profession, based upon my choice of field.

I used to be a percussionist, and I would joke that I could tell you someone’s personality based upon their gender and their instrument. But maybe that is not so crazy; different paths in music exist just like different paths in everything, and certain types work for some and not others. We choose particular paths because they work for us. Thus, my reaction to Bikram is just that, a guttural reaction; it is not a tempered response because it is so against my needs from yoga. But I know people who love it. For me, sometimes I need a restorative class, and sometimes I need a flow class. I happen to love family law and working with children. To others, that work is insane.

Law and yoga, therefore, offer something for everyone. They are great teachers by showing us that we all have our own paths in life, and someone needs to fill all of them. The Dalai Lama is the first person to say that not everyone could, or even should, follow his path. We all must find our own. And if it is not glaringly obvious by now, of course that means external to the law and yoga as well. That is why this blog is about so much more than just yoga and law, but they have informed my life in such wonderful ways, and I think they are great examples of the rest of life.

The law, yoga, and life are not one-size-fits-all. They are huge paths, full of opportunities to be rearranged and created into our own unique circumstances. So, I might think Bikram is crazy, but that’s because it does not work for me. You might think that family law is crazy, but that is because it does not work for you. That is not okay . . . It is wonderful, and it is what makes the world such a wonderful and interesting place.

We can choose to judge others for their choices, or we can be grateful that they are doing the work instead of us, allowing space for us to do our own work. That, my friends, is my new soap box!

And look, I found one in a small town in New Zealand. Who would have thought?

What is your path?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Breaking Free through Savasana

It is one of those years when Passover and Easter coincide. Together these holidays represent breaking free from our bonds of slavery and being reborn into something better. For many people, they represent far more than that, but I am going up the abstraction ladder on purpose and mean no disrespect to anyone who believes in the reality of these stories. 

Going up the abstraction ladder, Passover is about breaking free from the bonds of slavery in our lives, whether in Egypt or the ones we create for ourselves. The Last Supper was a Passover Seder, when Jews come together to tell the story of the Exodus. Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, finding new life. Taken together, the idea is that when we choose to break free of our bonds of slavery, we may lose our old selves, but we are reborn as free people.

This is not a blog dedicated to religion, so where is this going? Lawyers and yoga are perfect examples of how to integrate these ideas. Lawyers, as a whole, exemplify the slavery of modern life. Yoga, through savasana, reminds us how to let go of those bonds and find new life. 

There is no question that slavery in the traditional sense still exists in the world, but most people able to read a blog about yoga and lawyers probably do not encounter it on a daily basis (though we might take a moment to reflect on that fact and ask ourselves what we can do to counteract slavery around the world). So, what is modern slavery in the “free” world?

Individuals have many different aspects of their lives that enslave them: Family members who excel at guilt trips, relationships that spiral out of control, and beliefs entrenched since childhood that you are not good enough tend to dominate the list. On a macro level, however, there is another type of slavery, and one that keeps so many people miserably waking and going to jobs they hate. Student loans and families and wanting the BMW and iphone convince people that the only way to survive is to work at any job that pays them enough to have it all. Check out the comments on any post written by The People's Therapist, a BigLaw lawyer turned psychologist. We become slaves to blackberries and deadlines, forgetting the real reason we went into our profession – whatever that reason is. Our personal enslavements of fear and living up to expectations dominate our decisions in life. This is modern slavery in a world where we consider ourselves to be free.

Just like Passover and Easter, Yoga reminds us that there is a way out of this. Savasana means corpse pose in English. It is that moment at the end of yoga classes when the only instruction is “lie down and relax.” And yes, it is the hardest pose for many, many people. (For some people, it is physically difficult because of particular body types or injuries, but here I mean difficult in an emotional and psychological sense.) Savasana is literally where we lie down allowing our bodies and thoughts to “die,” and at the end of it, we are reborn full of the knowledge we gained throughout class and hopefully a little more relaxed.

Physically, savasana is where our bodies integrate the physical aspects of a yoga class or session. While we go through postures, we are teaching our muscles to work in new ways, and we are learning to stretch and grow. During savasana, the body integrates that information, so the next time you “do” yoga, you have the muscle memory to do it.

Psychologically, savasana is where we let go of our enslavements. For the 5-10 minutes we are in savasana, we need not worry about Outlook or the boss. We need not worry about dinner or the weather. We need not worry about whether we are doing the pose “right.” We get to just be. We get to let go of everything that enslaves us and breathe.

Thus, through savasana, those parts of us that hold us back and enslave us can die. Then we can begin to wiggle our fingers and toes (one of my favorite things to say as a yoga teacher) and awaken without all that baggage. Of course, it does not go away immediately, and we must come back to savasana each time we practice. But if we could learn these lessons immediately, we would not celebrate Passover and Easter every year either.

What holds you back? What do you do to enslave yourself? What do you do to break free? I hope this time of rebirth, in whatever form you choose to celebrate, help bring you peace. 

Namaste.

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Oh, the Pain!

This story begins with On Campus Interviews (“OCI”) during law school. Likened to speed dating, OCIs go from 8am until 4 or 5pm, and each interview lasts 20 minutes. Firms and organizations inform students who has gotten and interview, and the students sign up for a slot. Students wait in the waiting room and are called into the interview room where interviewers have sat all day asking the same questions and probably getting similar answers. Students get asked similar questions from everyone and give their canned answers. A long and tiring day for all.

I once had an interview with one of the big, international law firms. It was scheduled for close to the end of the day; we were exhausted. When I walked into the room, one of the interviewers apologized for having to stand up during the interview because his back hurt too much to sit down. Anyone who sits at a computer all day knows the pain it can cause.

The “normal” remedy in modern society is to take a pill, hope the pain goes away, but a “new” discovery has been found that works even better – meditation. The April 6 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience published the results of a study showing that meditation can lead to pain-relieving effects in the brain. How do you do this meditation?

Breathe.

Yes, it really is that simple. The study used a device that heated the participants’ skin to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and the results showed a greater reduction in pain than even morphine. And this was after only 4, 20-minute sessions focusing on the breath.

I am fascinated by all the neuroscience research that is happening these days, and I know that everyday it is “proving” what yogis and meditators have known for years, but I cannot explain what causes this to happen. I can only talk about my own experiences and what I have seen in those I know.

Pain, especially the pain caused by sitting hunched over a computer all day, is caused by stuck energy. The body was not designed to be static. It was not designed to sit in a chair. It was certainly not designed to sit at a computer (says the person who now spends 8-12 hours a day at a computer). The body is designed to move. When we sit and stare at a computer, the flow of the body ceases. It stagnates where we hunch up our shoulders, and when we sit, we tighten our hips increasing pain in the low back. Years and years of the same static placement, and you have chronic pain.

Breath is a tool to release that. First, consciously meditating and breathing usually means sitting differently. You attempt to sit with a straight back. You consciously try to relax. Your focus can turn away from the ding of the email, the RSS feed, the phone calls, etc., and you can focus on just one thing – breathing. That’s quite an uncommon practice in society, and it does wonders to allow the body to move and relax. All of a sudden, we take the body out of its habitual patterns and begin to release them.

But the study found more than that. The study found that the act of meditation actually changed the brain functioning and increased pain tolerance. Thus, meditation has a dual benefit. It allows the pain to release, allows you to relax in the moment, and it also allows you to feel the pain less the next time it comes. Is 5 or 10 minutes of meditation a day worth enough to you? Is it worth giving up the advil addiction? Is it worth not having to stand through an interview after a full day of them?

After all, can you get any work done when you are in so much pain? Five minutes to release the pain might just give you hours of pain-free time to work.

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved