Returning home not an arduous journey
A ‘journey’ is forward facing; has forward momentum that involves going somewhere new. A journey means you start from one place and you move on to somewhere else. A journey infers a linear path where change happens from experiencing something new.
I don’t use the word journey much anymore. The word has always made me cringe slightly. Only certain people have the time and resources to go on journeys (at least that’s what I’ve told myself). It feels like an aspiration - kind of generic - and not one grounded in reality. Let’s all go on a beautiful journey together…mmm.
Over 25 houses, four different careers, many relationships, weight up and down like a yoyo - change is what I did when I was triggered. But at the same time I also had the sense that what I really needed to do is stay put, calm down and face what was already there.
My inspiration for this blog is a wonderful talk and practice: ‘Quantum Breath Meditation’ by Amrit Desai from The Amrit Yoga Institute. I did my yoga nidra teacher training with his wonderful daughter Kamini Desai. Amrit Desai talks about returning home to your self instead of going on a journey.
A journey takes you away from where you are.
And accepting where you are right now is so very important, even if staying is painful or confusing.
In our Advance Your BeCalm series of classes at BeCalmed Studio we talk about being in the present moment as a way to transform tension. How you are now in the present moment is who you will become. The future is made up of little and big present now-moments. So learning to transform tension right now is our jam.
It makes sense to me to deepen what I’ve been guiding by exploring the difference between a journey and a returning home. As always, I teach from my own experience. I’ve been exploring for myself how much of my reactions are to do with the past or a distracted mind.
Practices that lead you to calm make you aware of where tension is in the body and how many layers to that there are. A muscle may not be just a muscle - it may also be a response from the past. The path to transforming tension and therefore behaviour is to find a lovely kind of ease, no matter what is going on.
Accepting all that I have been so I can be all that I am.
Returning home to yourself first means accepting where you are right now, instead of trying something else new. There are millions of reasons not to start: don’t have time, money, responsible for too many things, not strong or well enough. It can also be an uncomfortable way to spend your time! Frustration half way through a restorative yoga shape is not because the shape is dumb or not right. The frustration can be because in restorative and yin yoga we stop long enough for other things to arise . We may recall a felt sense of not feeling safe. For me there’s a deep-seated sense that I don’t deserve to feel ease and free enough to be great. If I fidget or leave the pose early, I miss the opportunity to breathe into that experience and see it for what it is (and was).
Using the approach of observation I can view the experience differently. My breath softens it, lets it move, dissolve, pass on. Things come up to go. Often this kind of transformation happens without me doing a thing, especially after MindRest (Yoga Nidra) meditation. Peace arises from space not tension.
We face ourselves right now with a new found sense of care for ourselves - our gurgling stomach, tight neck, feeling of irritation, the things we tell ourselves, feeling shitty. The experience first arises as something we are familiar with. Then comes the opportunity for change, or at least to just feel good.
First we observe the sensation or energy in the place that calls our attention. Then we focus on our breath. We send breath to our place of attention and create space. We focus on release of the outbreath. Sometimes the experience shifts, morphs, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes a new thought will pop in a few days later.
There’s a shift.
If we don’t face ourselves as we are right now we may end up vacuum packing certain life experiences. We might shove them into storage and go on a journey somewhere else. We are this for a reason. But all that hard, stunning and painful stuff we put in storage - the tight muscle, lack of energy - it’s not going to change by locking it up. And who we are now is who we will become. Of course if we have complex PTSD or trauma, we may need more support than restorative yoga. Yoga can be a complimentary therapy in this way.
I’ve recently worked with a senior manager who is experiencing vertigo. She’s worked with doctors on the medical explanations like inner-ear imbalance. But from a yoga perspective it could be that her nervous system is out of balance from living a full life. Most people have some kind of imbalance especially if their new normal is chronic stress. Imbalance is fine as long as we know how to balance it! it’s created a new normal of chronic stress. We are doing a balancing breath together which involves breathing through alternate nostrils. It’s a mechanical experience that balances the two sides of the brain but it’s also about slowing down enough to see what presents itself.
Another teaching from Amrit Desai: “If you are in conflict with our symptoms, you cannot solve them”. I’ll add, “cannot solve them just with a medical approach.”
Another person I support had sudden heart surgery and is now experiencing ongoing and varied complications. It’s like her body just screamed, “That’s enough!” We’re working to hold both - the life-threatening disorder and the experience of being well. If her body and mind are constantly paralysed from danger then her body won’t be able to do what it does best - heal itself.
She is recognising that the life events and personality traits that got her here in the first place are not the ones to transform her experience of life, starting with her health. It’s really, really hard for her to do this work. I’m surprised she can even get out of bed some days. But she’s moving slowly and thoughtfully with care. She’s shifting everything she thought about herself and the world, one shape and breath at a time.
Restorative Yoga is a way to drop down into our bodies and to feel something other than our over-achieving mind.
In yoga we talk a lot about energy. It can be allusive at times. I think it’s just a way to go inward and release the grip our mind can have on us. On another level, energy is the feeling that something is going on inside our body. Heat, tingling, gut feeling, tension, something else. It’s like deep listening. Restorative yoga is the recognition that we are more than our mind and body. We are all the other subtle things going on.
Everything we think, see, feel and do effects our energy. I was talking to someone in the weekend about music festivals. He was going to one over New Year which meant three days of pumping, base music for 24 hours a day. It will be extremely fun but I wonder what happens if you don’t realise the affect that all that stimulus has on your body. And if you don’t realise this effect, then how do you know how to balance it? Pumping music, no down-time, alcohol and drugs all have a combining effect on our body’s internal (how we feel) and external (how we make others feel) energy, largely controlled by the nervous system. It also takes us away from the self that has been reacting and triggering for some time.
An aside… I studied Pacific climate change adaptation as my Master’s degree. I read this beautiful piece of research from a small village in Papua New Guinea. An international charity came into the village to tell people how to eat better (I mean, really). The first thing they did was sweep up all the rotting papaya and leaves that had fallen on the ground because they said this was leaving unhealthy bacteria. But that rotting material was fertiliser for the next crops of papaya. So those next crops were more susceptible to disease. Someone coming in and telling them what to do, dismissing their indigenous knowledge, worked for no- one.
Locals were blamed for the failure of that project. Locals said, “If people don’t know what’s important to us, how can they do what’s best for us”. It’s the same with our bodies. If we don’t know what’s going on inside, how can we know what to aim for on the outside? If only they’d started with what was really going on right in front of them.
Everything we see, think, feel and do has a response or a reaction in our body.
Sun on our skin. Food in our bellies. Being yelled at. Recalling a painful scenario again and again. Our subconscious guiding us to pull out of something because we’ve failed at something similar in the past. Telling ourselves, “I’m so stressed and there’s no way out of it” over and over. Energy is subtle. Our body hears everything we tell it.
Energy that does not create ease in the body builds up and creates blockages and sensitivities. Our cells change. They have to. They are influenced by our diet, our thoughts, exercise, emotions, trauma. If someone slams a door in your face, the door may not touch you, but you’re going to get a fright. Your heart rate will go up and your nervous system will go into fight or flight, releasing cortisol. It has to. Your limbic system’s job is to keep you safe so when it senses something is dangerous it triggers your nervous system and hormones to react. People who are highly empathetic just cannot watch horror movies or go on Roller Coaster rides. It makes us feel like shit.
The same, of course, goes with influences that calm us like calming music or doing a restorative yoga shape - your limbic system thinks all is well and it curates the relaxation response: your heart rate lowers and chemical goodies like serotonin are released in your body. Of course we can’t live in Relaxed Land all the time. Our bodies are designed to swing from stress to relaxation. It’s finding a balance and dealing with trapped tension that’s a key.
Excess stress shows us as excess tension in the body. It’s gotta go somewhere.
So, if your tight neck may not just be because your neck is tight. It may be because of how you hold yourself when you are threatened or stressed, ongoing. And your gut - well, that’s a whole blog on its own. I used to have irritable bowel syndrome which included shocking cramps and vomiting. Now that I’m less stressed and more aligned with who I really am, my irritable bowel is about 80% less.
I continue to face myself and often feel this beautiful sense of care for the pain I feel. But only because of regular meditation or other practices of yoga. It’s quite incredible how I can flip back to negative thought, doom and pain, when I don’t practice regularly.
Beyond stress release is this feeling of meeting yourself where you are, warts and all.
The pain of childhood, loosing someone, feeling oppressed, intergenerational trauma - it can sit in your body like a dormant firecracker. When lit, it explodes in all sorts of ways and wreaks havoc.
The potential for yoga (meditation and breathwork as well as the physical asana movements of yoga) to transform your life is more like a slow returning home than a journey to somewhere else. I’ve been taught that we have everything inside us already, we don’t need to go looking for it somewhere else or wait for it to emerge on its own. And for some, it can happen quite quickly. For others (like me) it took decades. But I always knew I had the potential.
We are already it - already whole. We just have a bit of nurturing housework to do!
I can’t explain how to do it except from my own experience. The more time I rest in stillness and silence and accept what presents itself, the more I am able to resolve my body’s quirks and experiences, the more I’m able to experience something other than anxiety, pain and stress. This includes the feeling of unhappiness even when life looks exceptional. I know when it’s working because I feel this effortless ease - this calmer energy - and I can trust in how I feel and what I do. It always amazing what opportunities arise from this space.