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.