Transforming trauma with a cat

Slash was dumped on a farm and spent a cold winter there. I chose him as my first SPCA foster cat because I didn’t want to get too attached. I wanted to end up fostering kittens eventually. So I moved my office into the spare room and created a cute little cat room. I had no idea at that time that he would be my first and last foster cat - and that I’d learn so much about what it takes to let trauma pass through.

Slash is male, aged about 12. He was so timid that I never thought he’d ever develop any kind of attachment to me, or me to him. He was called Slash because he has this Zoro type white slash across his mainly black face. I found that name quite harsh - almost setting him up to fail - so, we renamed him Goatee (cute white chin) Gary (name of his rescuer).

Goatee Gary spent the first five days under the bottom shelf of the bookcase, crammed into the corner, in the dark. He slept on the cold wooden floor and not the three-tiered fluffy, warm blankets I’d put there for him. He ate alone. For days I used trails of ham to get him to come out. After four days he slinked out, staying low to the ground. He’d work himself up to grab some ham from my thigh and then run back under the bookcase.

Goatee Gary’s nervous system was set on permanent extreme alert. This had become his norm and every aspect of his behaviour came from that place. Even when he was sleeping: I’d sneak a look in sometimes and see him snoozing, with both ears back. The slightest sound and he’d tense every muscle and cell in his body, ready to fight or flee.  Stress causes our nervous system to switch into fight or flight. Our heart rate increases. Our body produces extra cortisol and adrenalin - hormones that create extreme imbalances in our bodies if delivered for longer than their original design of short, sharp bursts for survival. If we live in even a moderate version of fight or flight, it can lead to disease.

One day I got a call from the SPCA to say that they found a heart condition on an x-ray. They didn’t think it was fair to put him up for adoption, unless I adopted him as his fosterer. It wasn’t an easy decision. I wanted to foster kittens and my partner was allergic to him. So I booked him in to be euthanised. On the day, I put him in his cage and packed up all his little toys. I’d just started spraying cat nip on this little yellow toy mouse and he loved it. It was soggy from him licking it and nuzzling it. I picked it up to put it in the cage with him. Up until that point I couldn’t look at Goatee Gary, but I caught the look on this face and broke down crying. I couldn’t do it. Goatee Gary - you’re stuck with me. I couldn’t bare to see all that progress dissolve in an instant. I was also totally in love with him.

Every day I would tell him how well he was doing and how amazing he was. I’d sit with him for hours. Gradually he would come out on his own and eat his cat biscuits in front of me, looking around all the time. His eating was frenzied as if it’s all he’d ever get. I was slow and quiet, matching his fearful energy with patient, loving energy.

One day, he walked out of the cat room and into the lounge. He nestled himself in the crook of my arm while I was lying on the couch. He looked away as if it was the most natural thing to be doing. Then my partner walked in from the bedroom (Goatee Gary hates moving legs, especially a man’s) and he bolted back to under the bookcase for the day.

The next day he tried again. This time he spent about an hour first slinking around the lounge, keeping low. He jumped up on my stomach and started head butting my face. Then came the V8 motor purring! This became his nightly routine. It was odd bonding as he shoved his head in my face.

I trust that we came into each other’s life at the perfect time. We lost our dog last year and I’m not ready to get another dog. I also know profound sadness and loss from other experiences of life. I know how trauma and grief can stick and harden inside your body. Being gentle can feel impossible because it means opening up and feeling what’s inside. Having a nervous system that can only scream is paralysing. We turn to all sorts of things to cover up. It takes something different to make a shift.

Goatee began to relax through trust over his surroundings. He was in a different physical space. Then he found warmth, soft things to lie on, sun to bask in so he could stretch out his body. His moments of deep relaxation grew.

Trauma sits within us until we can slowly trust and bring ourselves into a different shape. Many of the people who come through my studio are so incredibly brave. They go through the BeCalm Yourself 5-week series because a one-off doesn’t transform. They arrive with a past that they are ready to breathe with. We can’t change what has happened to us but we can change our relationship to life, from the inside out, one breath (or head-but!) at a time.

Goatee’s latest change is to sleep on the bed, on the very corner, not taking up too much space (yet). He doesn’t try to wake me up. Sometimes I wake up anyway to check on him and he’s sitting up staring at me. Safe. Settled. Grateful. Both of us.

This was the first time Goatee Gary came out from under the bookcase.

Give your mind a break with active relaxation

We have so many layers to us. Yet we focus usually just on shaping our lives with our mind. And we have a limited view of mind: we see mind as this overall word for everything that happens to us. But our mind is based on our past, and isn’t always right!

Our layers of bodies and experiences get kindly uncovered when you engage in any kind of yoga, meditation, or mindfulness practice. Some of the things you’ve told yourself, felt, or wanted are revealed to you. It sounds challenging, and it is hard at times. But it’s also gloriously easy because there’s a relief you feel when you realise that you don’t need to cover up anymore—that you don’t need to wait another decade to feel more content in life. You’re already the real you; you’ve just gotten a bit cluttered along the way.

At some point in any yoga pose, there’s a moment when you realise you’re thinking. It’s like you get the opportunity to peek at the ‘why.’ This awareness allows you to let go of everything. You stop searching for control, and you can breathe deeper and sink further into the pose. Your breath can guide this process too—relax the body to relax the mind. You start using your intelligence instead of just your intellect. It’s like going on holiday and spending a day preparing, a day travelling, and then you arrive at the edge of the lake and you make a massive sigh out. You’ve arrived in the moment.

In a yoga pose, you may realise you’ve been brooding over something that happened during the day that hurt, or something that suddenly appears extremely urgent on your unchecked to-do list. Perhaps images of past relationships will show up. It’s all good. Your clever mind is trying to support you; it’s just a bit of an overachiever!

It’s like your mind is going through a deep-soak cycle instead of a rinse cycle.

Alternating between feeling sensations in the body, anxious thoughts, inspiring ideas, or sounds and smells is very normal. In fact, if you can relax with that and let those things just pass by, rather than telling yourself you shouldn’t be feeling or thinking that, then you move to another state.

Your intellect’s (mind) sole job is to keep you safe. Through your limbic system, it looks for signals to determine if all is well. If it perceives a threat, it will act accordingly. It will scream for your attention. But there is so much more going on than this all-compassing view of mind. Yoga gives you change to focus on your other lowers: how breath affects your energy; giving space for wisdom and intuition to emerge; your ability to connect with nature and therefore outside yourself; and resting back into silence and stillness. This deep resting can be hard at first because we usually don’t have experience of doing no-thing. We often take pride in how busy we are because we feel value that way. We have to trust that this is the space of silence and stillness that will create our next moment. The present carries the future.

You may have heard yoga being called a practice. It’s called that for a reason: it takes time and evolves. Years ago, a meditation teacher told me that the most painful thing is to NOT be on your path. The only way to stay on your path is to keep walking on it.

The pathway to calm is to let your thoughts just hang out where they are.

By doing this, you will allow space to drop into your body and just rest. Of course, if you experience pain, you need to adjust. Stop striving. If you’re familiar with this pain or tension comes from, you can breathe into it and let it be there until it changes or adjust with kindness. A sweet stretch in the body is good; pain is not.

If you experience PTSD or past trauma, then you may need different kinds of support around you. Yoga is excellent to support the healing in these conditions, but you need to feel safe enough to let go. I can work alongside other health practitioners who support you and bring a yoga perspective and practice to your healing. Please reach out.

Back to that moment in a pose where you realise you’re still totally in your head: You can use the in-breath to gather this tension (physical and mental) and then use the out-breath to release whatever you observe or are holding on to. Feel tension and distraction leave through your nostrils with your breath. Eventually, you’ll learn to instantly soften and the shape you’re in starts to feel a bit like falling in love. Effortless. Gentle. .

If not, you can fake it: make your out-breath longer than your in-breath. Visualise muscles and thoughts softening or disappearing. You’ll have your unique way of doing this. Trust.

Send signals to your body and mind that it is okay to let go.

I do hatha or vinyasa flow yoga with my lovely partner most mornings. I can feel when he lets his mind and body go in a pose—it’s about halfway through. Up until then, there’s a bit of huffing and puffing, agitation, striving and commentary. And I know he sneaks in some tummy crunches at the end when we are meant to be totally letting go! Even though I’ve been doing yoga and meditation on and off for three decades, I still find myself going back to the beginning sometimes. Letting go in the moment is the hardest thing to do but it is the single most beneficial thing we can do for our physical and mental health. The changes are slow, but there’s no going back once you’ve made a shift.

Try a class with me or find a yoga class in your neighbourhood. Starting with restorative yoga or yoga nidra is a gentle way to begin. Forget the word “yoga” if it you think you can’t do yoga. Yoga just means means union of mind and body - being in another state. Just think about active relaxation, bringing ease. We are all messy and challenged and have to start somewhere. We are all also filled with beautiful layers just waiting to catch a breath and deeply rest.

Most outstanding smoothie recipe

Some of you have been asking for my famous smoothie recipe. It’s really a excuse to eat fresh turmeric often. You can put anything you want in, especially the fruit. So here it is:

1 cup water

1/2 cup chopped fruit

2 teaspoon chopped fresh turmeric

1/3 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon or more of yoghurt (I use Greek, no sugar)

1 tablespoon oats

2 cm of grated, chopping fresh ginger

2 cm finely chopped lemongrass (optional)

1/4 lemon, pips and tough white bits out (keep skin)

Blend!

I use frozen blueberries and raspberries, and sometimes a bit of feijoa (OMG that’s incredible). And I get fresh turmeric from a proper vegetable shop. I peel it (or just chop the skin off finely) and pop them in the freezer. They don’t last very long in the fridge. You can add some ice as well if your water isn’t cold. I put the oats in to make it like oat milk but you could replace the water and oats with any milk. It’s a good way to raw oats into your gut though. This is a meal for me.

Enjoy!

Image: Cocado

Restorative Yoga: Your little wisdom party

We are constantly on the move. Sure, sleep is restorative, but if you do not get enough good quality sleep then you may be going about your days in a permanent stressed state. Without intervention, this can lead to chronic stress and living half a life.

Restorative yoga is about moving into supported shapes and allowing our bodies and our minds to radically chill out. This allows the other aspects of ourselves to have a chance to be heard. One of the quietest but most profound voices we usually ignore is our in-built wisdom to know and heal ourselves.

Our body hears what our mind thinks

Our physical body and our mental body are the same thing. One influences the other. They are also fueled by the same fuel - our breath. Change the breath and you’ll change how relaxed you feel and the quality of your thoughts.

My beautiful doggie passed away last year. We knew it was coming and we hoped we will know when the right time to send her to sleep was. One morning she just couldn’t get up. I knew in that split second that today was the day. Five seconds later I got a nose bleed. I hadn’t had one since my 20s. From that day on, I have had absolutely no doubt in the connection between our mind and our body.

There is another aspect of ourselves that is influencing us too: Our wisdom body.

This is where perception, intuition and ‘gut feeling’ lies. Our wisdom body knows what we ignore. It has the knowledge of everything we’ve been and want to be. Our wisdom body knows every pathway, electrical field and organ in our body - and it knows how to heal itself. But only if we relax our bodies and mind. Our wisdom body appears when it has the room to rise and boogie. It’s always dressed and ready but never gets invited to the party!

Restorative yoga allows your wisdom body to surface.

Certain relaxed shapes using supportive cushions, blocks and blankets means your body and mind can turn the music down. Restorative shapes allow your body to return to where it came from before your over-achieving mind grabbed all the fuel in your body. Relax your body to relax your mind.

When you do a supported Restorative Yoga pose you allow your body to release what it is holding and masking. Your overactive mind will get out of the way because you are giving it less and less attention. You use deep breathing to release muscles, nerves and pathways to organs and regulatory systems like digestion, immunity and the nervous system. Your nervous system will switch to rest and digest because your muscles releasing and your conscious breathing tells your brain that all is well. Again, this happens when we are sleeping too. But stress and anxiety greatly effects the quality and amount of sleep we get.

Your body cannot heal when it is stressed. It is biologically impossible.

The mind’s sole job is to keep us safe. For most of us, our mind is a total over-achiever. Our mind plays tricks on us to make sure we avoid pain and lean towards pleasure. It’s very black and white in that way. Wisdom lives in neither pleasure or pain. Wisdom lives in between. Your body’s ability to heal itself is activated when both physical and mental tension is released.

Even if you have major medical or physical conditions you will still get relief from physically and mentally letting go. Your body is not only copying with a new shape or state that has been forced on it, but it is struggling to accept where you are right now. You can find lovely moments of ease in yoga practices. It changes your relationship with pain, discomfort and a general feeling that there must be more to life. That’s because there is!

You’ll have a little wisdom party each time you take a restorative shape.

Every week I hear people say, “I need to relax more”. We all know what we need to do. We are being told by doctors, partners or colleagues. But using the same strategy (the mind) that got you here in the first place, is just bonkers.

Experience Restorative Yoga with me or on You Tube or at another studio. Most yoga studios do their own version. I do a mix of restorative, breath work and the incredible Yoga Nidra which accelerates your wisdom body’s potential to make you feel so much better.

My BeCalm Yourself 5-classes series explores profound rest and relaxation so your body can do it’s thing - restore and heal itself. The difference over five weeks is life changing for some.

The side of relaxation you may not know (yet)

You are probably familiar with how the stress response affects your body: Your nervous system goes into fight or flight and increases your heart rate; your immunity and hormone regulation is largely shut down; you crave more fat and carbs because the mind is telling the body it needs to eat these kinds of foods to survive; and your brain function gets microscopic and cannot cope with more than surviving.

You are also probably familiar with the relaxation response in your body: Your nervous system switches to rest and digest: your heart rate lowers and blood pressure decreases; your immune system is activated to fight off harmful bugs; hormones that are terrible for you in longer-term doses like cortisol are no longer produced; your clever scrummy hormones like melatonin (for sleep) and dopamine (for feelin’ good) increase and flood your body; your weight is balanced and you feel pretty good.

There is a side to relaxation that you may not know (yet). You’ll have an inkling of it because you’ve been there at times. You’ve had an awesome, relaxing holiday and come up with a creative idea for your life. Or you’ve been for a bush walk, listened to a meditation track, or been to a yoga class. How do those things come about and how can you get more of them so that you feel calmer more of the time?

When your body is relaxed your mind chills and you become calmer, creative and more positive.

When your mind receives signals from your physical body that everything is okay, your body relaxes. The uber energy spent on the stress response via the nervous system is no longer needed. This energy can now be redirected to all the other crucial functions in your body. You switch into this state by calming down enough for the brain to enter calmer brain wave states. Think of the luscious time before you drop into sleep - you’ve disconnected from your thoughts and your body is physically relaxed. You are about to enter dreaming. You can reach this state while you are awake through calming practices (more on that later), signaling to your mind that it is no longer needed to just keep you alive. It now has energy and focus to direct the body to heal and other yummy things.

You become calmer. Your mind’s sole job is to keep you safe. It is always looking for signals from the outside world so it knows whether to put you in a stress response or a relaxation response. That’s where most of your energy goes - into fueling your mind and body for this basic function. Many people live in chronic stress - there are no tigers in the room to run from, but your mind thinks there is. They are on the go, go go and feel mentally and emotionally overwhelmed, all of their waking life. Their sleep is effected. Their digestion is poor. If this sounds like you, take a breath, give yourself a hug and please read on.

When you enter a calmer brain wave state from being physically and mentally relaxed, you are more creative. You enter more of a non-doing space. There are more gaps between your thoughts. These gaps give space for your creativity to fire. When you enter deep relaxation, or a meditative state, you mind slows into Theta brainwave states. Kamini Desai mentions in her book Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep (my bible) that artists, inventors and children can often have more Theta brainwave activity, even when they are awake. I’m at my most creative when I’ve just started to relax. It’s a bit annoying sometimes - I always have to have a pen and paper near by!

You become more positive. I don’t mean fake happy, I mean something more ordinary and unwaivering (no matter what life throws at you): A deep, rich doubtless feeling that life is going to be okay and not have so many manic ups and painful downs. In Sharon Salzberg’s book Faith she talks about a concept called Bright Faith. I’ve taken this as accepting where you are right now, but also knowing that the beautiful view in front of you is not only somewhere you are not only heading to, but also that you feel the essence of this beautiful new place from where you are right now. Practicing Bright Faith can only be done when you are in the relaxation response - when your body and mind are calmer. You cannot heal and realise new things for yourself when you are stressed. Your mind does not and will not do it for you. It’s just trying to survive.

How do I know this?

I’m not a flash scientist or medical expert. But I have transformed myself from chronic stress, overwhelm and pre-disease to someone who has a new lease on life. I am into recovery from Long Covid, digestive issues and heart palpitations. I’m healthier, happier and I can’t wait for the rest of my life. A few years ago, I was just trying to survive and I felt like shite every day. I also know about these lesser known effects of the relaxation response because I do practices every day to get me there. I have also ditched my super-stressful career and retrained as a yoga teacher. My little studio, BeCalmed Studio, at the back of my house in native bush, is a restorative haven. Now it’s here for you. I don’t make much money but I live each day being able to share what has worked for me. I’m in love with the practices I teach as are nearly everyone who comes through the studio.

What practices will help you enter this super-relaxation state?

Restorative yoga, yin yoga, breath work, and Mother of all Good Things - Yoga Nidra. Our version of Yoga Nidra is called BeCalmed: Mind Rest. Our method is the I AM Yoga Nidra method, from my teacher, the wonderful Kamini Desai. She has passed on teachings from her father and his lineage of yoga wisdom.

These active relaxation practices are gentle and easy, and switch your body over into the relaxation response, guaranteed. You don’t really do much except relax your body and listen to me! You take shapes and breath that promote tension release. And you listen to a lying-down guided meditation, Yoga Nidra, to have a super release of mental tension. You enter a meditative state that is similar to that space between awake and asleep.

The yoga where you put your foot behind your head works for many people. So does the more restorative sides of yoga. They all end up in similar place though - relaxing the body to relax the mind.

So if you want to feel better and do life better - with a little more calm - don’t use the same strategy that go you here in the first place. Try something different. Get some calm in your life, right now.

How can you practice?

BeCalmed: Mind Rest - Tuesdays 6.30pm - online via Zoom

BeCalmed: Mind Rest - Tuesdays 6.30pm - forest-studio, Titahi Bay, Porirua

First class free - use coupon - becalmed1

Let me know what’s going on with you and we can choose the right class for you. Aroha nui ki a koe.

Or do these free things, right now

Try this restorative yoga pose, Legs up the Wall or listen to my short guided meditation to bring about calm. Or listen regularly to this short breathing track. You can also find me on InsightTimer.

It may not be a cold but a Needed Rest

I’m not a doctor or a naturopath or a scientist or anything flash. I’m a recovering Long-Covider and Ex-chronic-stresser who has proven time and time again that what is going on mentally for me, shows up in my body. This showing up can be by way of fatigue, body inflammation pain, heart palpitations, a cold, headaches and tinnitus, grumpiness, or just a feeling of needing to go within.

Our minds are super clever: Their sole job is to keep us safe. They do such a good job that even when there are no tigers in the room to run from, they trick us into thinking there is a tiger in the room. Rehashing the past and neurotically rehearsing the future - sound familiar? Practices like social media scrolling, on the go go go go, unhappy or super stressed at work - these are our modern tigers.

So we have to trick our mind and get down into our bodies, before our minds make us sick.

A practice like restorative yoga does just that by:

• Letting your mind do its crazy thing as you bow down under it, to deeply rest. Your mind will get the message to chill out.

• Lowering your heart rate and blood pressure

• Letting you focus on how you are breathing (your breath is a reflection of how you feel)

• Giving you a chance to do nothing

• Resting in the present moment where you can experience calm

• Switching your nervous system (which controls everything) over to relax and digest.

Because you are not running from tigers while you are in a restorative yoga pose, your body is shifting all its survival energy and focus over to digestion, balancing hormones, immune system and regulating your nervous system.

And restorative yoga has really cool names! Waterfall, face plant, dead bug, twisted root, child’s and my favourite - leg’s up the wall.

Your body cannot heal when you are stressed. Your mind is too busy keeping you safe. It can’t and won’t do both.

Your body needs rest. It can be incredibly hard to just drop everything and go to a restorative yoga class, or watch a video, or even do the pose yourself. But if you want to feel different, you must do something different. You can’t use the same strategy that got you here in the first place.

I know. I’ve run around in circles my entire life, having an awesome time, making an impact. But the biggest impact was on myself - not in a good way.

I’m not a flash expert. But I know what it takes for me to destress, avoid a cold or at least the worst of a cold, and bring a whole bunch of beautiful calm into my life: stopping, dropping into some restful shapes, breathing and being present.

Yoga Nidra is also an excellent way to bring physical and mental tension release to your body and mind. It’s an easy lying down meditation and is especially good if you are anxious, need to change the things you tell yourself, and suspect you may be chronically stressed.

Rest Yin  Restorative Yoga classes

BeCalm Yourself 5-week series

Yoga Nidra - online and in forest-studio

Free audio track to bring about some instant calm

Contact me so I can support you to find more calm and ease in your life. Most of the people who come through my studio usually run at the word yoga. They don’t think it’s for them. They just haven’t experienced the restful side of yoga. Yet.

Yoga Nidra: The In-between

Last night our Deep Relaxation: Yoga Nidra class focused on The In-Between. The space between the outbreath and the inbreath; the state between; the present moment.

We are practiced at rushing from A to B. If we were more practiced in its opposite, or rest, we could feel differently in this life.

What is an alternative between A and B? How does it feel?

You could stop reading right now for a minute, to explore. Relax your body. Take a deep breath in. Slowly let breathe out, fully. And rest in the beautiful pause.

What was that like? What’s your own version of In-between? A word. Image. Quality. Go there often.

Over time, this in-between space can be deliciously spacious. Gentle. An absence of tension.

Between loss and hope.

We can choose what we find in this space. Let the in-between resonate into your next inbreath, outbreath. Life.

---

Deep Relaxation: Yoga Nidra. Every Tuesday 6.30pm-7.15pm. Forest-studio Titahi Bay or online via Zoom.

More about BeCalmed Studio’s Yoga Nidra here.

Book your forest-studio class.

Book your online class.

How can putting your legs up the wall be so amazing?

I used to open a bottle of wine to feel better. We tell ourselves that it relaxes us and makes us feel good. Well, it does on some levels - and it’s quite fun in moderation! But it increases your heart rate; weakens your immune system; and alters your brain to stop you feeling what you need to feel.

When I feel mentally stressed or out of sorts, mostly I put my legs up the wall, or over cushions on the couch. This is a restorative yoga pose - Viparita Karani - which brings about a wonderful feeling of calm, physically and mentally. If you don’t like the way you feel then try putting your legs up the wall. It’s free and always available. Just give it a go.

How does this pose work?

This pose is from the family of yoga inversion poses where your head is below or at roughly the same level as your heart. Your spine is elongated, allowing alignment to happen to release muscular and nerve tension; your chin is usually slightly tucked to send a message to your nervous system to calm down; and it takes some awkward effort to get into the pose so you’re more likely to stay awhile!

Effects of this beautiful, simple practice:

1. Instant calm by telling the nervous system it’s okay to chill out.

2. Alignment of the spine and release of spinal nerves.

3. More oxygen to the brain for more brain goodness.

4. Release of tension in the legs and feet.

5. Stimulates the lymphatic system which keeps fluids flowing in the body and also defends the body against infections.

6. Can help with digestion because your body shifts to rest and digest.

7. Brings about the relaxation response (lowers heart rate, encourages deep breaths, gives time to rest in a lovely pause).

Signs you may love the effects of restorative yoga pose Legs Up the Wall

1. You come home from work feeling frazzled, open a bottle of wine and turn the TV on. No pause. No reflection. No relief. Just one full-on state of mental tension to the next.

2. No matter how much physical exercise you do, you still feel mentally exhausted and uneasy.

3. You just can’t stay still: It’s boring and you don’t see the point. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

4. You know you need to lower your blood pressure or improve your immune function, but you don’t have the time or resources to begin an entirely new health approach right now. This pose won’t do everything, but it is a really great first step.

How to get into this pose

Getting there is not glamorous, but it is worth it:

1. Sit side on to the wall with your left hip against the wall and your knees bent with souls of feet on the floor.

2. Put your right hand to your right side on the floor and as you tip back to the left, try and get your left buttock slight up the wall.

3. Swivel your body to come down on your back as your legs go up the wall.

4. Have your arms above your head on the ground, to the side, or somewhere in between.

5. Try putting a bolster under the back of your hips if you’d like more elevation, but it’s not necessary.

6. Breathe slow and deep: Fill the abdomen first, then the chest; then on the outbreath; keep the abdomen extended and release air out from the chest as you breathe out. Lastly, completely empty air from the abdomen as those muscles gently fall to the spine.

7. Stay for at least 5 minutes. 10-15 is best, but anything creates a shift in how you feel.

8. When your mind wanders to what’s for dinner or rehashing an argument from the day, come back to your breath. Feel it come into your body. Pause. Feel it go out of your body. Again, and again. Keep it simple.

If you have heart issues or diagnosed hypertension, have major spine and neck issues, or are 3+ months pregnant, please talk to your medical practitioner before doing this pose. It’s okay to do this when you are menstruating but not if you have discomfort or conditions like endometriosis.

I’d love to know how you found this pose. Please contact me if that feels right.

Want more? Join my classes! Don’t wait another year to feel uncomfortable and disastisfied with where you are.

Thoughts on the word ‘calm’

Calm is the absence of tension

If you have ever done a yoga class, breath class, or the like, there is this beautiful moment at the end. The practice is over and you are still.  Time has elongated. You’ve left your agitated thinking and doing-body and are resting in your presence and being-body. You’ve calmed your mind by relaxing and releasing tension in your body. If you’ve ever done a Yoga Nidra session, you would also have released mental and emotion tension as well. The longer you practice and stay in this exquisite space, the longer it will last throughout your days and transform your approach and responses to life.

Calm body, calm mind

It’s fairly hard to have a calm mind if you are always distracted by tension in your body. Trying to meditate with a painful neck, heart palpitations, or any other kind of physical tension is extremely difficult:  But that’s not to say that we have to wait until we have a perfectly relaxed body to feel mentally calm. In this world, that’s just silly unless you are dedicated to a life of spiritual practice. We often think that if we can’t get to a perfect state (and give up habits and fun stuff on the way) then there’s no point. We are messy, complex, irrational, confusing and reactive beings who live in a world which we largely cannot control. But there is always something we can do to calm our physical body, so we can calm our mind - little, simple things - by a regular practice of what works for you and makes you feel good. After all, we are what we think.

Calm as self-soothing

As kids, some of us fell into the arms of a loving parent when we were upset; or grabbed a cuddly blanket; or hid under a bed; or developed physical coping mechanisms to get away from a traumatic environment. Whatever the experience, we all know that doing something is required to create experience. This experience is held in the body as well as our subconscious. Our bodies are energy charged memory museums that need calm to constantly rewire, recalibrate and relearn to feel good. Self-soothing doesn’t need to be complicated: A warm bath with lavender oils; massaging your own hands and feet; buzzy breath (put your fingers in your ears, take a deep breath in, and on the out breath buz like a bee on the outbreath - for three minutes); walk in nature, feeling your feet on the ground and saying ‘thinking’ when your unhelpful thoughts take over. These bring about the relaxation response by activating the vagus nerve – a stunning nerve that runs from your brain to your gut, sending messages to your nervous system that you are okay - or not.

Calm as a route to changing your life

Sounds dramatic I know. Every thing we think and feel has a consequence in our mind, body and life. But our bodies are very forgiving: they put up with a lot from us and are designed to do just that. I recently returned from six months in Asia. My body worked overtime for the first week I was back: I was hot and cold, couldn’t sleep, when to the loo at odd hours, wasn’t very hungry, and I felt these extraordinary internal processes going on. My body mirrored: what the hell am I doing here? Can I really be a good teacher? I hate my clothes. Things evened out. My body knew how to come back to homeostasis (by balancing, adjusting). But it needs love and care to do so. I’ve needed to take things easy and trust in my clever body.

Once back to balance (or a version of it) something else begins to kick in. There’s something beyond a calm body and a calm mind – a way to change your life. Once we are calm, then what? How can we use being calm in body and mind to live differently? Once we are calm, we can create affirmations, rewire our brain, attract positive encounters, allow our wisdom and intuition to arise, and ultimately curate a calmer and happier life. Living above survival and balance is where life changes. It starts with coming home, one breath at a time; one intentional release of one muscle. The only place and time to start is right now with every experience you’ve ever had. There’s no eraser of past things.

Your life is not going to unwind on its own.

Find out more about the beautiful practice of Yoga Nidra

Find out more how your body responds to stress and relaxation

Find out more about BeCalmed Studio classes and recordings including yoga nidra, restorative yoga, meditation and yin yoga.

Find out more about BeCalmed Studio’s unqiue BeCalmed Yourself five-week programme.

How BeCalmed Studio got its name

This is how BeCalmed Studio got it’s name - inspired by founder Janie Walker’s sailing adventures in the Pacific and Asia!

How Wellington yoga studio BeCalmed Studio got its name.

Yoga Nidra: the letting go

BeCalmed Studio’s Janie Walker has completed further Yoga Nidra teacher training at InDepth Yoga Academy.

I’m aware of the absence of things, just for a second. I’m lying on the floor in a cool roof-top yoga studio in Phuket. I know there’s chaotic traffic half a kilometre away. Dogs barking. The yells of fight from the boxing academy up the road. But I’m no longer conscious of that . I’ve reached a withdrawal of the senses and there’s a new experience happening. I’m loosing control of my thoughts. I can feel them slipping away and I’m trying to fight the natural desire to grasp them back. As I let go I fight too. What am I letting go into?

For the first time, I’m experiencing this fight and letting go as a duality: as anxiety as well as calm. I used to think I was one or the other at any given time. I thought the point of all this yoga and meditation practice was to spend more time in the calm space, blocking out the anxiety and worry. But after this new Yoga Nidra teacher training, I realise that both exist at the same time. There needs to be an awareness and acceptance of all our icky stuff instead of blocking it out in the hope that we will eventually be somewhere else. We have to find love for what we’re letting go of.

I think that’s what holidays and changing jobs or relationships do. They force us to leave ourselves instead of love ourselves. It’s easer to leave.

A brindle rescue cat and a black and white rescue dog have made their home here as they saunter and stretch in and out of our class. They’re both splayed out in front of me on their tummies. These animals had a hard start in life but they’re learning to rest here too. I like the addition of animals - easy compassion.

The lovely yoga teachers here are a mother and daughter team - Nathalie and Anastasia (Ana). Ana, the daughter, is my Yoga Nidra trainer. She’s much younger than me and fires between a wise sage and a youthful pocket-rocket. I love her quirkiness and absolute love of yoga. She explains complex yoga terms in easy ways. I also love the way she’s spent her young life questioning the teachings of the buddha and ancient wisdoms instead of blindly following them. She’s very smart and I can’t wait to meet her when her years catch up with her mind.

Ana reminds me that this letting go in Yoga Nidra leads to the heart of this practice - resting in wakeful awareness - the systematic letting go of physical, mental and emotion tensions during the different states of a Yoga Nidra session. Tension ceases to exist for a time. This brings a profound state of relaxation, rest and healing - well beyond the 30-40 minute practice.

Resting in awareness of the present moment is the whole point of, well, pretty much anything to do with yoga!

I think we can experience a brief, shallower state of this - a taster - in our daily lives. You’ve finished work and you rush home (because that’s just what you do). You do the essentials and instead of turning the TV on, you sit on the deck, garden or bed. Alone. There’s so much to do and achieve. But you’re overwhelmed. You listen to the wise part of yourself and decide to just stop for a minute. You get comfy, take a deep breath in (of fresh air) and sigh out (stale air). There are a few seconds before your brain kicks in and tells you to get a move on and you rest between the outbreath and the inbreath. Something else exists. A beautiful pause. It’s the resting place of our true nature. You don’t really know what that is, but you know it’s there. Intuitively you know it’s something you want/need more of. Awareness of your present moment without the shitty past or the anxious future. This resting in awareness decides how you live the rest of your life. The longer you stay - and the deeper you go with practices like Yoga Nidra - the more you naturally transform your life. Because there’s no reaction when there’s no tension. There’s just an awareness of things as they are. You get to experience the why of your conscious and subconscious.

So, what’s the point of resting in wakeful awareness? There’s the easier to grasp stuff - you relax, lower your heart rate, digest better, relax your nervous system to lower stress, manage pain and increase yummy neurotransmitters like dopamine.

Then there’s the energetic and personality stuff: Yoga Nidra, over time, changes your relationship to thoughts, emotions and how you interact with the world.

Only yesterday, I had another moment of realisation of this for myself. We were deciding whether to lock up or not before we went out. I’m more cautious than my partner and can get anxious about leaving. We were about to enter the familiar argument when I said, “Just do whatever you think is best”. I thought to myself, “Wow, who was that?” Way calmer. Less reactory. A much nicer person to be around.

Letting go can be scary but clutching makes us fight. And fishing spins us in mental circles. Letting go with practices like Yoga Nidra is what will ultimately transform our lives and the lives of others.

Ana from InDepth Yoga Academy. A wise and quirky soul.

Your free relaxation track for lifelong change

You really, really, really want to feel better. You want to know what to do to make a shift into the kind of life you imagine yourself having. But what will it take? You’ve tried a few things already - some have worked for a friend so why not you? You know you should be doing more relaxing and you should be doing this, that, and this….so maybe it’s time for a different approach. Something gentler and slower. It took you a lifetime to get here. Let’s help you make a shift, one subtle step at a time.

New Year's Resolutions often do not work. They are a quick fix that are hard to keep because only your conscious mind has changed, not your sub and unconscious mind. How about trying a more transformative way this year - a slower, deeper way - that of regular active relaxation. Try practices that work on changing your subconscious, not your hectic mind. Regular practice of being in a calmer state will lead you to not only more clarity about how you want your life to really be, but just be practicing, changes will happen.

For some, positive thinking and affirmations can feel a bit naf and fake. But when you choose your own intentions, and if they are done regularly when you have actively relaxed, they train your subconscious to believe in something else. You’ll create new habits - and your brain will then reinform your behaviour to achieve a new state. You are what you think.

I remember a meditation teacher saying to me years ago that the most painful thing is to be off your path. We flounder around in interesting places looking for fixes to bring about change. Let’s help you stop the looking. You already have everything you need because your best vehicle for change is yourself when you are relaxed. Allow change to happen from the inside out.

Here's your free relaxation audio track to start the process.

If you want to relearn to relax more to live life better, gain more insight and tools that you’ll have forever - come join me in my small forest-studio in Titahi Bay. Or online. Practices include gentle movement, breath work, Yoga Nidra, Restorative and Yin Yoga, discussion, one-on-one support, and online Yoga Nidra.

Your best vehicle for change is your relaxed self.

Brushing off the ants and moving on

I took a photo this morning at sunrise, of three sweet little birds resting on the side rail of the boat. I was doing some yoga, blissing out, thinking how cool life is. Then I started scratching. I had all these tiny flying ant type things crawling all over me - nose, back, arms - revolting. Well, that sure ruined the moment of tranquility. My reaction wasn’t pretty. I flicked them off and moved spots. Straight away I went into a “my morning is ruined, oh it’s so hard, why…” but managed to catch myself. I realised that calming practice is also about recovery. We practice calm not just for the feeling good of right now.

The BeCalmed method focuses on a systematic way of experiencing life without tension. This means we can respond to life in other ways than our destructive habitual patterns.

There’s no tension in the present moment. And life without tension feels better, is more useful and has the potential to transform our life and others. By dropping ourselves into the present, right now, we are open to things as they are: Not our shittiness, or insecurity, or reactiveness, or destructive storylines - but the subtler, wiser side of ourselves. We express vulnerability and compassion that connects us to others.

For me, Yoga Nidra is where the expression of this subtlety truly lies. This year I’ll be including new elements in Yoga Nidra sessions, while keeping its profound and ancient simplicity. My favourite one, thanks to Yoga Nidra teacher Kamini Desai, is…

Our source is our silent stillness.

Our goal isn’t to be in a state of calm all the time. Flying ants have a right to exist too! Life is *ucking hard sometimes and jolts us. Maybe the point is to be able to deal with life better by continuing to learn to come home to our calm, still source more - albeit briefly. It is a rich and boundaryless space.

“Our source is our silent stillness”. Kamini Desai

BeCalmed Studio is an active relaxation studio in Titahi Bay, Porirua. Small forest-studio classes for a maximum of four people include yoga nidra, yin yoga, stress release, breath work, meditation, discussion, online support and classes, one-on-one classes. Yoga Porirua can now be found in a gorgeous little forest in Titahi Bay. Book here or Contact Janie.

The calm between the fall…

I’ve been thinking about falling. It’s easy to fall back into past habits, past ways of feeling, regret, and past places of stuck comfort. It’s harder to fall forward, to something else unknown. So what do we need in order to fall forward?

Between falling backwards and falling forwards is a middle space. This point is full of possible calm.

I’ve had a virus the past week and are also feeling homesick. I’m trying to fall forward. The weight of family and the physical BeCalmed Studio space in the forest is causing me to fall back. I think of you - the people who have come through the studio - and how much you are with me here.

I think of you falling forward and lean with you.

I fall foward through legs up the wall, waterfall, child’s pose and feeling steady in tree pose. And always the outbreath.

In finding comfort, breath, release and flow.

I fall forward by resting in flow because it is not weighted by the past. It is lightness and potential.