Navigating the Unknown

"Worry is a way to pretend you have knowledge or control over what you don't - and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown."
~Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

When faced with the unknown we can choose to give in to worry and fear; stories of not good enough, not strong enough, and so forth, or we can choose to keep pulling ourselves upward through the broken parts until we reach a new ledge of understanding; pause, regroup and try again. In life, we are presented with (often painful or scary) experiences, or lessons, to help us move through from one point to the next on our path. What makes these moments painful is not so much the circumstance itself, but the way we frame it; and ourselves around it, in our minds.

When we are unsure of what comes next and feel we have no control over it ( which, let me break it to you- ultimately, we don’t) we tend to go straight to that place of worry and self-doubt or shame. In such states our nervous system and brain revert to old ways of dealing with situations in order to try and protect us and our vulnerability. We look behind us at all of the steps we took to get where we are and wonder why we are not further along, or if we have what it takes to keep going. If we find ourselves in a place we’ve been before, or a place we don’t how how to navigate and think we should, we think we’ve failed somehow. Truth is, most people have to work through many layers of the same lesson repeatedly throughout life until that lesson is fully learned.

So often we judge and shame ourselves for finding ourselves “back” in the same place we once were, or not having progressed “enough” according to the arbitrary timeline in our minds. We view movement, or progress in life as linear (and we want it quickly). However, the points on our path are almost never linear. The greatest growth tends to come from falling back on the path and then realizing that we truly are no longer where we once were and have no desire to go back; this propels us into new momentum. In substance abuse programs we tell clients that it is normal, expected even, for them to have a relapse within the first year of treatment. This relapse, step back, is often the turning point where with the right support they find that next level of determination and recommit themselves to their path forward.

What I’m coming to realize is that I am at a peak,

where everything I've learned and worked on I can choose to trust, or I can fill in the cracks with worry and doubt. If I fill those cracks then I have nowhere to move through, no footing to hold me, and I am stuck on the cliffside of fear. If I stay open, it will move through me and I will climb once more.

When faced with uncertainty instead of filling that space with worry and doubt, we can remain open to the possibility for something new to emerge by approaching our experience with a compassionate curiosity, asking, “What can I discover here?” or “ What still wants my attention and care?” rather than putting ourselves down for feeling stuck, or seeing a pattern repeat that we thought we’d already done the work on. The practice of compassionate curiosity will help us to move through life’s lessons with more grace and understanding, and actually be able to move through them instead of kicking ourselves when we’re down, and thus actually remaining stuck in the pattern, or stuck in worry and fear.

Remember friends, what comes slowly lasts.
We can choose to see our struggle as plummeting to the bottom, or as a new peak of awareness.

No matter how much of the work we do, no matter how many practices we commit ourselves to, we ALL will go through this process. That is why the “work” is called a practice.

—————

Here are some questions I’ve adapted from Jack Kornfield’s book, A Path with Heart to help with the practice of compassionate curiosity. When feeling stuck in an old pattern, or full of worry with the uncertainty of a situation, PAUSE and ask yourself these questions. Journal or simply meditate on the answers as they arise naturally, without force:

1. How have I treated this circumstance and my response to it?

2. How have I suffered by my reaction?

3. What is this current situation asking me to let go of?

4. What part of my suffering is unavoidable and can I learn to sit with and accept?

5. What is the lesson I can take from all of this? What more can I learn here that I didn’t see before?

6. What is the hidden value of my circumstance?

FINDING STEADINESS & EASE (PT. 2)

We are rhythmic beings. Cyclical beings. We move in rhythms and cycles just like all things in nature. In yoga we see all life and energy as having Prakriti, a true nature; a true creative movement and balance within our rhythmic cycles. This true nature is composed of three qualities, which we call the three gunas: rajas, sattvas, and tamas. The three gunas can be broken down as such:

rajas - creation; activity, change, development, movement, agitation, passion, aggression

sattvas - preservation; balance, harmony, equanimity, openness, awareness, clarity

tamas - destruction; inertia, inactivity, lacking life, heaviness, steadiness, rest and recovery

Again, we need all three of these qualities within our internal and external natures to have balance in life. All of nature consists of a delicate balance of these three qualities. Sometimes, often, these three qualities get thrown off balance for a variety of reasons that we will simply call life; life happens; shit happens. When life happens we need to cultivate (create) from a place of steadiness (sthira) and ease (sukha). See pt. 1 of this blog post for more on sthira and sukha and some practices to cultivate it.

Currently in our world we are in a huge state of imbalance. When this happens nature moves. Well, it is always moving, but we are seeing and feeling this movement much more now as she tries to come back into her natural rhythm, her prakriti. And so we too are feeling unstable and unbalanced. Our natural rhythms and routines that we are accustomed to are being put on hold, changed altogether, or maybe, just maybe we are being nudged to look within and come back to our original state of being. Maybe some of you don’t even know what that is, and that is okay. This time that we are being given to slow down, be inside or be alone in nature when you can, can be seen as a beautiful gift to find what really nourishes you, supports, you, and drives you in this life.

Likely many of us are feeling more rajas (movement and change; mental or physical, anxious) or more tamas (detached, unclear, down, depressed) right now as our world is rapidly moving and we are being asked to stand still in a sense. To bring more sattva (calm, balance, steadiness and ease) back into our lives, I offer the following practices during this time. I will be leading some online classes over the next few weeks that will explore these themes in our yoga practice in different ways. You can follow me on Instagram @RachelJennine for the latest in live classes while we re-calibrate our true nature.

~Finding our true rhythm: practices to create balance, steadiness and ease~

Walking Meditation - (can be done indoors or outdoors). Walk slowly and mindfully with a steady breath. You may even take one step as you inhale, one step as you exhale to really slow you down and pay attention to the moment and sensations of breathing and walking. Focus on the sensations of your feet as they place themselves on the ground (from the heel rolling to the arch to the ball of the foot) and as they leave the ground.

Tap into your root chakra (mulhadhara) which is our center of stability, home, safety and security.

-Through meditation :come into a tall, comfortable seated position on the ground or in a chair. Focus on the sensation of your root; your sit bones on the firm support beneath them. Notice their solidness and heaviness here. Imagine a sense of warmth and red light emanating from this area in your body, rooting you to the ground and earth below you. Stay present with your natural rhythm of breath and feel your shoulders lengthen down away from your ears, releasing towards the earth below. Feel the solidness of your body here.

-Through color: surround yourself with the color red. Red flowers, create red artwork, wear red clothing. Red is the color of our root chakra.

-Through food: eat foods that are grown in the earth; root vegetables such as potatoes, radish, carrot, beet, parsnip, onion, garlic, etc.

- Through yoga asana: Focus in your postures on the places where your body connects with the ground. Really bring your awareness into pressing into the ground and feeling strong. Asanas for grounding include: tadasana (mountain pose), padmasana (lotus pose/meditation pose), savasana (corpse pose) balasana (child’s pose), virabhadrasana I (warrior I).

Explore what you are taking in to your system through your 5 senses

-reflect or journal on what you eat, touch (what are you interacting with), watch, listen to, smell, and how you direct your energy and attention. Note how different thoughts you spend your time on/pay attention to, actions, and the ways in which you move your body and how these things make you feel. Do they make you feel light, energized, and motivated (rajas)? Do they make you feel tired, low energy, hopeless (tamas)? Do they make you feel calm and at ease, blissful, in harmony with yourself and with life (sattvas)?

~Most of all remember to be kind, compassionate, and patient with yourself and with others. We are all going through a transformation right now, which will include waves of destruction, creation, and preservation that will look and feel different for all of us.

Be well, be compassionate, be patient, be kind.

Sending you all love and health.

Finding Steadiness & Ease (pt. 1)

It has been nearly one year since I’ve sat down here to write to you all. I had intentions of keeping up a regular blog post, but what do you know - that thing called life got in the way. This past year has been a huge pivoting point in my life, one where I have done a lot of letting go, shifting of habits, relationships, and the ways in which I cope and utilize self-care (as opposed to self-indulgence) to navigate the ups and downs. In my practice I have really learned to find steadiness and ease, within myself as well as in my outer world.

The essence of yoga is finding that balance point between Sthira (steadiness) and Sukha (ease). This applies to asana as well as to our mental and emotional worlds.

Sthira~ strong, steady, stable, effort.
Sukha~comfortable, happy, relaxed, ease.

When we can move/think/feel steady and intentionally, and in flow with our breath/life/universe we find an ease, and often even joy, in some of our most challenging times. Specializing in trauma, a lot of the people with whom I work with are coming to me from very unsteady situations in which they’ve often lost all sense of feeling strong and stable. Some can’t even define what those words mean to them. So how do we move through life with a sense of ease if we can not first create/establish a sense of stability and strength?

PRACTICE.

For myself, this is what brought yoga into my life as an every day, every moment way of being, needing to find my own stability amidst all of the movement; needing to teach my body and my brain a new way of sensing, being, and responding. When people ask me how often I practice yoga, my answer surprises them. I reply, “every second of every day.” You see, the practice of yoga is not purely asana. Asana is simply a means to get our conditioned mind and nervous system online with the real program. What is the real program, you ask? Everyday life. Reality.

Reality is not often what we think it is. Reality is quite simple if we allow it to be. The “reality” that most of us operate on most of the time is more of a feedback loop that plays through our internal body systems and our brain. Instead of responding to the present experiences in our lives, we more often respond to conditioned presumptions based on past experiences (we can think of this as a trigger response).

In order to create a steady and stable ground (physical, mental, emotional) we need to override our quick trigger response and let our internal systems know that the present experience is new and that we have the chance to experience, see, and feel differently. We actually have (we can) control over this. But again, it takes PRACTICE.

This practice is on-going, life-long. It is a daily moment-to-moment occurrence if you’re willing. Because life experiences, triggers, never end. But, this is not a bad thing. The practice is not here to bring us happiness in every moment. To truly feel happiness we also need to be able to feel other things. There will be days when the practice is so easy, so natural — you are just in the flow with all of it, and blissfully so. Then there will be other days when the practice is quite challenging, and at times you may feel that you’ve gotten nowhere, except that just having that awareness of your challenges in and of itself is a mountain you have just climbed. Honor yourself in the moments you fall back down. You will climb back up again. Because the thing about awareness is, that once it’s there it doesn’t go away. We all climb and fall at different paces. Your ever-growing awareness to be present with what is, and find steadiness and ease there, will always get you climbing again when you are ready.

Here are some steps to take your practice on the mat, and more importantly your practice in life, into a state of balance between sthira and sukha.

Sthira:

1) Ground (physically, literally) - feel yourself on the ground, your two feet pressing firmly down. Sense the connection of you here now, rooted and strong; supported from underneath.

2) Breathe (intentionally, mindfully) - take slow and complete inhales and exhales, even in their length of time. Allow your belly to become completely full with each inhale, and to release completely with each exhale. Listen to the sound of your breath. Notice the temperature of your breath in through the nostrils and the temperature of your breath out through the back of the throat. Notice the movement of breath within your body, the expansion and release.

3) Focus (steady eyes, steady mind) - allow your eyes to softly focus on one point. When a thought comes in to distract, focus the mind back to the breath. It is normal to have to continue to redirect yourself. Stick with it. If you have a hard time focusing your eyes to one point, and closing your eyes helps you to keep a steady focus, try that when feeling distracted.

Sukha:

1) Bring your attention to what in the body feels open and soft; relaxed. If you need to work to relax a part of the body, imagine you are breathing your exhale out into that part you want to relax and allow your muscles to soften a bit, let the stretch become more passive.

2) Give yourself permission to take up space (physically and emotionally). Notice the feeling of expansion, opening, and upward lightness through parts of the body that are reaching, stretching, and opening up. Allow your feelings to be, give awareness and name to them, but then let them continue to move - out (just like your breath).

3) Relax your face. Smiling, loud sighing exhales and lip flutters are not just for fun and to be silly, they actually send messages to your brain to relax, as well as loosen up the muscles in the jaw and brow.

4) Think of something in your life you are grateful for in this moment (can be as simple as the fact you made it to class, the flower on the sidewalk, the puppy-dog on the corner).

Take the practice of sthira and sukha into your day-to-day moments. When life feels like it is moving faster than you are, pause. Give yourself some steadiness and then relax into ease. The mountain will always be there. Give yourself permission to take a break and rest, begin your climb again the next day.

Intentions

It is very easy to get swept up in a state of “go” and lose sight of intentions. Even before my trip began, this was a challenge. One of my intentions for this trip was to slow down and allow myself the space to just be, instead of focusing on doing. This is a struggle that many people face in this day and age, engaging in the fine art of not doing (more on this in a bit).

So what exactly is an intention? If you are a practitioner of yoga you have likely been asked to set one many times. An intention is a thing you intend: to act upon or focus your thoughts towards. Intentions can be deeply personal, specific, and emotional or more broad, cerebral, and pragmatic. Intentions help to guide us into the lives we want to live. They can be extremely powerful tools for reflection and growth, but note that they require your due diligence. For intentions without actions behind them are useless. It is important to regularly check-in with yourself; your heart, your gut, and see if the actions in your day-to-day living are aligning with your intentions. It is also important to note that intentions can change, at any time. Intentions are for you; for you to live the best version of you in a life that fulfills and nourishes you. This is where the art of not doing comes in handy.

You may be saying to yourself, “I thought she just said that actions (doing) are key in intentions working, but now she wants me to not do?” Yes, exactly. I want you to slow way down. Or at least I know that this is key for myself and many whom I have worked with. When we are always going, and doing – trying to accomplish – we sometimes forget to do that heart/gut check to see if our actions are aligning with what we want from life, or are they deceiving us, tricking us into feeling accomplished and aligning with the status quo instead of our true self.

My intentions for my 3 month trip away from life as I knew it, were:

1) My aim or plan: engage in not doing. As I mentioned in my previous post, (The Journey Home) I have a habit of always being on the go, doing a million things at a time. Ironically, to not do was actually a very active process for me.

2) Heal old wounds: let go. Let go of wanting things to be a certain way, of attachments, of blame and judgment.

3) Develop a clear image of the life I want to create by being fully present in the one right in front of me: experience life in the moment. Less thinking, more being. Creating more joy and playfulness in my life, by living it instead of worrying about it.

In reflecting back on these intentions and what came up for me in my travels, I would say that everything circled back to the fine art of not doing. When I was truly able to just sit and not have a need to do something, I was also better able to let go and to be present in the moment. I was in a state of flow. This proved much more challenging than I presumed it would. I presumed that my being in a far off land, surrounded by the beauty of nature that it would be natural and easy to just soak it in and not get swept up in go mode. I was wrong. If you allow the mind to, it will always have a need for more. Do more, think more, consume more. In a world of endless possibilities and choices, the choice for less is often the hardest (and therefore arguably the most important).

As I sat on the rocky coastline in Taghazout, Morocco, the sun warming my shoulders and waves crashing at my feet, watching the various shades of turquoise, emerald, and brown from the earth being swept up in their pull, I thought to myself, “How could I want for anything more right now?” And yet, my mind wandered:

“Am I sitting here doing nothing correctly? Should I be meditating, eyes closed or fixed on one place instead of this slow horizontal gaze taking in the sights to my left and right? Should I be out there surfing with the others; am I being lazy?” And on and on it went. Until I stopped, took a deep breath from my root to my crown and let it all go. My brow softened, the corners of my lips turned up and I sat, allowing my eyes to be where they chose, and allowing the moment to consume me the way the waves consumed the shore. Rolling in and out, softly and swiftly, leaving a more brilliant, polished, smooth and soft land from which to stand on.

As we close out this year and move into another chapter, I invite you to stop for a minute (or 5, or 30), take a good long breath in and out, and then check-in with yourself. What are your intentions moving forward? How will you act on them? Here are a few reflections to help guide you in this practice:

Honor the work you have done thus far.

Notice what things you have neglected, or haven’t nourished.

Ask yourself:

Where and how can I balance my efforts with my outcomes?

Am I creating and living in true accordance with my beliefs and intentions?

What have I learned this past year?

What am I ready to leave behind; to release?

What am I ready to move into; to grow?

What needs to end so that something new may begin?

What can I release, or let go of, to give me peace?

I hope these reflections help you to slow down a bit, tap into your heart, and have a blessed new year ❤

The Journey Home

(Written November 14, 2018)

The point of practice, the essence, is the heart. (Love. Acceptance. Compassion). If we only create flexibility in the body then we have missed the point entirely (Richard Freeman, 2008)

“I am traveling to open my heart,” I told her.

Five weeks ago I left on this journey. Not so much a journey to see historical ruins, or drink the best caffès and wine, or visit museums, but a journey back home to myself. This journey will continue for another five to six weeks. Nearly everyday feels like the start. Nearly everyday has a revelation, some painful while most fill me with joy and gratitude.

You may be asking why does one need to leave their home, their routine of life, to find “home?” I have asked myself this same question several times while on this trip. As I sit with other families, barely able to communicate with a shared verbal language, and engage in their daily life routines there is a moment of ironic laughter: “Silly American girl, paying money to go and be with another family in order to find connection, to find simplicity, to find peace, to feel ‘at home.’ All the way out here, away from the comforts which give her those very qualities.” I laugh, I question my decision to go for so long (mostly in the moments of frustration or loneliness that come when trying to navigate a land I am unfamiliar with – “easy and efficient” train systems are not so easy and efficient when you don’t understand the language or have a working knowledge of the geography), and then I smile. I smile because yes, sometimes we need to step far outside of what makes us comfortable in order to explore what is working and what is keeping the wheel of *samskara turning.

Many that know me would be quick to say my heart is always open; I have no issues diving into something passionately and quickly, in fact it is what I do often. But, in my *svadhyaya, I have come to notice that while on the surface I am open and willing, deep down rooted in both my nervous system and subconscious there is apart of me that is closed. A part of me that is filled with fear, doubt, and mistrust. Being on your own in a foreign land will bring you up close and personal with these truths, and this journey of mine is helping me to unlearn the conditioning of my past.

I have learned not to trust, to always be waiting for something to go wrong; for someone to hurt me. But it is not just others that I don’t trust. I have learned not to trust myself. I listen to others, I don’t tune-in to my intuition, I live “on guard,” my nervous system (and heart) in a constant state of fight or flight. I had really begun to feel this deeply inside of myself. I was running out of my fire, my light, my passion. I was depleted. Always moving fast: practicing, working, thinking, pushing myself to become…what? The more I pushed and worked, keeping myself in a constant state of busy, the farther away from myself I was moving. Because when I stopped moving I had to feel. I had to look at the ways in which I was hurting myself. I had to accept responsibility for my thought patterns and reactions (conscious and subconscious) and understand that all of my suffering was self-induced. I was not a victim of others doing me wrong. I was a victim of my own mind; my ego and my attachments.

In yoga we attribute suffering to raga (attachment) and dvesa (aversion), and an inability to let go. This has to do with fear. Fear of feeling. Feeling alone, lost, unloved, and unworthy. Clinging/attaching to what feels good and pushing away/averting what feels bad. Oddly enough, sometimes what our nervous system and brain think feels “good” is actually the pain and the suffering. If we have experienced deep hurt or loss, it is a protective response to stay in such mental states as to safe guard against being hurt again. If we stay in a place of being on guard; always looking for proof of wrong-doing (which is a very painful state to live in); then we can not get hurt or lose again. When we do this we experience life from afar. I had become so attached to “my” pain story that I was disconnected inside; I did not know how to let myself experience love, joy, and ease in life. My travels have given me the opportunity to slow down. To see the ways I protect and hide myself. To come out from under my crab shell and swim in the depths of this beautiful, wondrous, painful and joyful life. In my writings to come I will share with you pieces of my journey. The inner and outer. The beautiful places I have walked upon, the nature that has filled me up, the people I have met who opened my heart, and the connection I have found within myself. And yes, there will also be accounts of delicious caffès, wine, and amazing architecture and histories of the lands that I have visited, because after all, that too is a part of the journey (allowing yourself to enjoy).

With much love and gratitude,

Rachel

*samskara: habitual patterns of thinking and behaving; mental and emotional grooves; pscyhological imprints.

*svadhyaya: Self-study; reflection. The fourth of the Niyamas, which are the second limb of yoga.