Category: Depression, Anxiety, and Grief

The Election of Donald Trump: Anger, Divisiveness, Compassion and Healing

Since the election of Donald Trump I vacillate between anger, shut down, action and sadness. 

The day after the election I went in action mode and taught a post-election yoga nidra class that helped me get back into my body. Here is the recording if you would like to check it out. If you feel inclined to donate all proceeds raised go to Standing Rock. Plus for the month of December I will be collecting donations to send to camp. Here are the current needs:
Milk of Magnesia
Wool socks
Wool blankets
Space blankets
Hand warmers
Trauma kits (portable)
Suturing kits
Straw bales
Donations for legal defense

In the last year or so I experienced a lot of anger and divisiveness within my family, friends and community, and the election of Donald Trump magnified some of that divisiveness. I have fought hard for what I believe to be “right,” and my rightness has caused strain in my relationships and vulnerability hangovers within myself.

I sat with one of my teachers, Richard Miller, last week and he asked me to notice where I feel the fight in me. I got the image of my right arm holding a hammer and hitting people over the head with it. It was a violent image.

As I sat with the image my heart started to ache. I have been meeting hatred and injustice with aggression. Yet, I am also learning to allow my anger to be a part of me. In the last year I have come to love my anger. Anger does not equate aggression and violence though, and I am working towards integrating my anger with love and compassion. Sometimes anger and compassion feel at odds, but I believe and have seen them be amazing partners. 

I recently listened to a brilliant woman, Sandra Kim, from Compassionate Activism talk about one of the ways that toxic whiteness hurts white people is by white folks dehumanizing other white people. When I saw that 53% of white women and 63% of white men I was angry at white people. Anger does not fix the problems of white supremacy though, and it does not build bridges. Anger DOES mobilize and impassion people, and it has mobilized and impassioned me. 

Integration and healing are long, complicated and slow processes, and as I continue to commit to waking up, fighting for justice, loving everyone and allowing my anger to push me forward. I am moving towards loving the part of me that wants to aggressively change the challenges of our country because that aggression is driven from love and desire for justice. I also challenge myself to hold that aggression with love, but to act from a place of compassion for myself and for others. I know that I will fail and stumble along this path, and I also challenge myself to hold myself kindly when I act in an aggressive way, when I say something unskillfully and when I do not do it perfectly.

In the Rainier Beach Yoga newletter I created a list of self-care and community-care resources. Feel free to check it out here. 

The root of anger

Last month I went on my first 10-day silent meditation course. The word I use when people ask me about it is intense.

I am still integrating this experience, which entailed over 10 hours of sitting meditation/day, the cutest baby deer and rabbits, views of Mt. Rainier, losing my appetite for 4 days and so much more.

At the end, one of people whom I drove with asked me, “Did you have any breakthroughs?” In that moment I thought not really, I was just really scared for 4 days straight.

I have experienced several traumas in the last 2 years, and the last 9 months or so I have been angry. This has been a part of my healing process because I am conditioned and socialized to not feel or to ignore anger, and befriending my anger was a part of accessing the wholeness of me. In the mental health world anger is sometimes called a secondary emotion. Here is a description from Conflict Resolution Education: “Anger is often called a secondary emotion because we tend to resort to anger in order to protect ourselves from or cover up other vulnerable feelings. A primary feeling is what is felt immediately before we feel anger. We almost always feel something else first before we get angry.”

When we experience trauma anger can protect us, and I am grateful for my anger. In my time on the course I realized how much fear was underneath the anger. It took 7 days for this fear to emerge, but when it did the intensity was difficult to bear.

When I got home I still felt the fear, and it lives in the left side of my belly. It is still here now, only much quieter. Now, almost a month after being back in my daily life I reflect on that question asked of me, “Did you have any breakthroughs?” Yes, I found my fear under my anger. It was here the whole time, but I did not have conscious access to it until I was quiet and still for 7 days. Now I know it is here, and now I can tend to it. That is a huge breakthrough.

Love,
Laura

How do you accept something when you wish it never happened?

Last week while teaching class on lovingkindness we heard the chickens in the backyard getting louder and louder. When I finally looked out the window I saw a raccoon eating one of the chickens. I yelled and ran out of the room as the students were lying in legs up the wall.

We had spent some time at the beginning of class talking about our feelings about Orlando, and I was teaching to calm the nervous system. We were focusing on breathing in, “May I be well.” Breathing out, “May you be well.”

When I got back inside after corralling the other chickens to safety in their coop I still was holding space for students, but I was obviously rattled. Someone asked if there was anything they could do. I was grateful for the gesture, and I said I would take care of myself at 7:45, when class finished.

When we got to meditation I was able to spend a little time crying, which felt vulnerable and honest. I felt the need to apologize, even though I did not cause what happened. I tried my best to finish leading the movement portion of class, but I was distracted and worried. I was worried about the chickens. I was worried about the students. I was worried about myself. I chanted through tears at the end of class.

As I reflect on this challenge I am grateful for many things. I am grateful for the part of myself that can compartmentalize emotions and experiences so I can stay somewhat present. I am grateful for the incredible students who show up with honesty, resiliency, care and compassion. I am grateful for my anger that can motivate me to move forward and act. I am grateful for my nervous system that can make my muscles act quickly and my fight and flight response that can be put to good use. I appreciate my vulnerability and ability to show my softness and strength. I am grateful for my meditation practice which allows me to feel all my feelings with compassion and empathy.

Trauma is usually unexpected and not a welcomed experience, and it happens to all of us at some point and on some level. Our yoga practice of awareness, compassion and being with what is can help us navigate the traumas that we meet in our lives.

I wish this experience did not happen. I wish the students did not have to witness it. But the experience did happen, and students did witness it. The more I can accept that reality the more I can hold myself and the vulnerability, grief, anger, fear, worry and gratitude that are also realities.

With love and compassion,
Laura

Yoga Therapy for Anxiety

I consistently see people in my yoga therapy practice who feel more anxiety by talking about anxiety.

When we give anxiety voice it can go, and go and go and go. It can spin stories and worst case scenarios. It can cause folks to get lost in the details and the what if…scenarios.

I have spent time in this space. I have come up with some impressive worst case scenarios (which usually end up with me dying or losing everything I hold dear). Once the stories start they can grow and grow into an unbearable mountain of panic.

Yoga has taught me to use more than my mind to help when anxiety arises because my mind sometimes cannot get through the anxiety on its own. Last night I was on a plane heading to Florida and realized my mind was spinning some tales. I dropped the stories (which is a hard thing to do once anxiety is in full swing) and felt my feet. I wiggled my toes to bring more sensation and attention to them. For a moment I was not in my anxiety. Once I was out of the anxious thoughts I was able to offer my mind a tool, the phrases of lovingkindness: May I be safe. May my mind be at ease. May my body be healthy. May I be well. Soon enough I fell asleep and woke up a few hours later.

Does talking exacerbate anxiety for you? Does getting into your body help ease the anxious mind? On Friday, May 6 I am looking forward to offering the next monthly 2-hour workshop on yoga therapy for a particular challenge. This month’s focus will beanxiety.

Go here to learn more and register for the Friday, May 6 workshop, and if the workshop does not work for your schedule or you want support for your individual and unique experience contact me for a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation to see if yoga therapy may be a good fit for you.

Yoga Therapy for Grief

Dear yoga community,

Grief is commonly thought of when we lose someone to death, but death is just one way we can experience it.

Grief can come in any form of loss. We can grieve the loss of a relationship, the loss of an identity, the loss of a home or loss of a dream. Any change can bring loss and grief with it.

I remember when I was training for a marathon several years ago, and I became very attached to the identity of “runner.” I did not realize how attached I became to that identity until I injured my Achilles tendons. When my physical therapist told me I should not run, I fell into despair. At least temporarily my identity of runner and my dream of completing a marathon shifted. I felt depressed, sad and angry. I judged myself for training too much. I judged my body for not being strong enough. I continued to train, but I walked instead of ran. When I saw another person running I felt jealousy.

I had to grieve the experience I thought I was going to have, and that allowed me to create space to have the marathon experience that I was going to have. That year it meant that I was not going to finish a marathon.

Yoga was one of the things that helped me through this. With grief, I believe one of the hardest things to do and one of the most powerful things to do is allow it to be there and unfold in whatever way it needs to happen. When I walked past a runner I allowed myself to feel the sensations of jealousy. Under the jealousy was anger. Under the anger was sadness.

I also know through my yoga and meditation practice that no sensation or feeling will last forever. As I was feeling my grief I was also aware that this was an impermanent state of being, just like the injury to my Achilles. And yet some grief can last for the rest of our lives. The marathon example I shared is one of the smaller griefs I experienced in my life so far. The death of my grandmother happened 24 years ago, and there are still moments of loss I feel, and I believe there always will be. There are times that I am sad that she could not be present for an experience (like crossing the finish line of the marathon a year later), but even that grief has shifted immensely in 24 years. I will always miss my grandmother, and my grief now feels more like a tenderness than a piercing heartache.

bell hooks says, “Accepting death with love means we embrace the reality of the unexpected, of experiences over which we have no control. Love empowers us to surrender.”

My yoga practice teaches me over and over to surrender, and love, compassion and empathy are the tools of yoga that give me the courage and strength to allow myself to surrender.

On February 19 I am looking forward to offering the next monthly 2-hour workshop on yoga therapy for a particular challenge. This month’s focus will be grief.

If you feel the heaviness of grief in your chest and the weight of it is pulling you down consider coming to this workshop utilizing the tools of yoga to work with the body, mind and heart experience of grief. Go here to learn more and register for the Friday, February 19 workshop (or look ahead at other topics we will cover in the next few months). If the workshop does not work for you or you want support for your individual and unique experience contact me for a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation to see if yoga therapy may be a good fit for you.

With love and compassion,
Laura

Yoga Therapy for Depression

Dear yoga community,

I have experienced depression on and off since I was a teenager, and these last few months pulled me back into the darkness of depression, hopelessness, apathy and lethargy again.

I have been teaching on yoga and depression for several years now, and I remember telling students yoga has not made the experience of depression go away. Yoga has changed my relationship to depression though, and I am reminded of my words as I navigate this struggle again.

This time as I met the depression, which is very different than my old pattern of fighting it, I allowed myself to do less. I let myself sleep more and do less cooking. I took more naps and more baths. My yoga practice was more savasana (corpse pose) than any other asana. My meditation was about getting to know the sensations of depression instead of being caught up in the thoughts (i.e. when is this going to stop? Am I ever going to feel like myself again? I have to do more.). The sensations were heavy, foggy and curled up in a tight ball. I cried more and asked for support more.

As I emerge from this dark place, I am again reminded of the power of my practice. Yoga and meditation did not make the depression go away, but it did help me navigate it with kindness, acceptance and awareness. My practice helped me ride the wave until the wave changed. The wave is changing now. I am not sleeping as much. I am motivated to do things I love (i.e. movement, writing newsletters, creating workshops, playing with my dog, etc.), and the sensations in my body feel lighter, more expansive and energized.

As the lightness returns to my body and mind I am moved to share with others the power of yoga and meditation for depression and other challenges we face as human beings. I am looking forward to offering monthly 2-hour workshops on yoga therapy for a particular challenge. This month’s focus will be depression.

If you feel the darkness of depression is taking ahold in your life this might be the perfect way to spend a Friday evening.Go here to learn more and register for the Friday, January 22 workshop (or look ahead at other topics we will cover in the next few months). If the workshop does not work for you or you want support for your individual and unique experience contact me for a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation to see if yoga therapy may be a good fit for you.

I bow to the light and darkness that resides in all of us,
Laura

Amends & Forgiveness

I recently reconnected with an old friend I have not spoken to in over 10 years. When I accepted her friend request on Facebook, I almost immediately got a message. The message was an apology for something that happened during our friendship.

I had a vague recollection of something near the end of our friendship that did not sit right with me, but mostly when I saw this person pop up in my world I was happy to hear from her. I shared this with her, as well as thanking her for reaching out and accepting her apology.

This interaction inspired me to reach out to someone I hurt, make amends and ask for forgiveness for what I did many years ago. During my year of lovingkindness practice I faced things that I had done in the past that I was sorry for. During this internal process, I worked on forgiving myself for the wrongs I have consciously or unconsciously done to others. It was not until I received this message of amends that I reached out to the people I hurt in the past to ask for their forgiveness.

My first practice of writing to a person in my past was both liberating and vulnerable, and my hope is that it leads to more connection. Through my lovingkindness practice I have learned to forgive myself for mistakes I have made, but the step of stating them to another person, taking responsibility and asking for forgiveness feels like a whole new level of lovingkindness. I have taught about compassion being a fierce practice. I discovered that asking for forgiveness and taking responsibility in a loving and sweet way shows how fierce the practice can be.

I do not know if I would have reached out to this person if I had not worked on forgiving myself, just like I do not know if I can truly be compassionate towards someone else if I cannot be compassionate to myself. So these practices, compassion and forgiveness, start right here with us, and they can start in easy ways like forgiving ourselves for oversleeping or forgetting to meditate or eating more ice cream than we intended. When we can forgive ourselves and have compassion for the mistakes and follies we
have done, and will do in the future, it is easier to ask for forgiveness when we make mistakes with the other people in our lives.

Change Through Kindness

Photo by Unsplash

Last week I read an article about loving your body. One of the quotes I appreciated from the article was, “Let us honor and respect our bodies for what they do rather than despising them for how they appear.”

A wise person I know recently posed the question: how can we make change in our lives (whether it is eating differently, meditating, starting an exercise program, learning a new software program, etc.) and still accept ourselves just as we are?

For me, and the work I do with others, I feel it is important to start with kindness and compassion. I do not believe we can bully ourselves into change. Sure, bullying can make us change for a bit, but inevitably we fall back into old habits because bullying ourselves is exhausting and not sustainable. We also then create the habit of bullying ourselves, which is not how most of us want to interact with ourselves or others.

People typically come to Seed Yoga Therapy because they want change in their lives. So we start with acceptance and compassion, the building blocks for change.

For example: I wanted to ride my bike more this summer. I got my bike all tuned up and ready to go, and then it mostly just sat around. When I looked at my bike I felt some guilt and shame for telling myself I was going to ride and then not riding. Guilt and shame are terrible motivators! They just made me feel bad about myself.

Awareness of guilt and shame is important however, because when I am aware, I have choices. When guilt and shame reared their heads I knew I was suffering. So I paused, breathed, accepted that there was a part of me that wanted to ride and another part of me that was struggling to get on my bike. In the acceptance of all of me I felt less guilt and shame, and I even got on my bike. When I rode my bike I received the positive reinforcement of how wonderful riding feels on my body and mind. I would still like to ride my bike more, but I am noticing that I make more progress towards that goal when I am kind and accepting of myself as I am.

How do you practice compassionate change? How do you attempt to bully yourself into change? What is one small step you can take towards kindness for yourself while you attempt change in your life? For me it is taking a 5 second pause to just acknowledge what I am experiencing. Try it out and see what happens. 

Photo by Unsplash

Chronicles of Kindness

April brings me to 10 months of lovingkindness practice, and yesterday I signed up for my second meditation retreat!

10 months ago when I arrived at the Metta retreat at Cloud Mountain I vividly remember looking at the schedule and wondering if I should probably just go home. It seemed too intense and impossible to meditate for that many hours. I did it though, and I signed up to do it again. It was intense, and at times it seemed impossible. But it was also beautiful, sweet, informative and powerful. I recommend it highly!

This month I have been contemplating the “enemies” of lovingkindness. In my reading I have learned there is a near and a far enemy of lovingkindess. The near enemy is attachment, and the far enemy is hate.

The far enemy seemed obvious to me. The opposite of love is hate, but as I sat with this idea longer I realized that hate and love can and do co-exist. Sometimes I feel like I hate my loved ones because of anger or hurt, and I still feel love toward them. This also helps me during times of tragedy, like what happened at the Boston Marathon. I can feel compassion, anger, fear, sadness, hate and tenderness for what people are enduring. So if hate is the far enemy how do we work with it? When I feel hate arising I try to give that feeling lovingingkindness, rather than try to make it go away. I have found that when I try to make anything go away that feeling or thought pattern tends to get stronger and more persistent, rather than actually fading away.

Then we have the near enemy of attachment. I know I am very attached to my own safety, happiness, health and peace, and when I am not in those states of being I want to be. I can feel the desire and attachment to change when I am feeling despair or unsure.  I am also attached to other people feeling safe, happy, healthy and at peace. Yet I can not make anyone feel these states of being. When I get attached to needing someone else or myself to feel some certain way, I am setting myself up for suffering. So if attachment arises how do I work with it? I know I will feel attached to people, feelings, states of mind, animals and things. This is a part of being human, and frankly a beautiful part of being human. I love that I am attached to my partner, my dog, sunshine and yoga. Yet I also know that when I hold my attachments with need (i.e. I need you to be happy, I need it to be sunny, I need my body to look this way, etc.) I am gripping for a reality that may not be available at the moment, and I am moving away from lovingkindness.

In my classes this week I have been using the image of an open palm vs. a closed fist. Hate and attachment can feel like closed fists to me. In my body hate and attachment filled with need are tight, closed and contracted. If I can surround my hate and attachment with lovingkindness I may be able to breathe into the feelings or situations from a more spacious place. I do not believe that a lovingkindness practice will take away hate or attachment, as they are two human experiences we all have. I do believe a lovingkindness practice can give us tools to work with these feelings when they arise. Hate and attachment can be full of suffering, and what needs lovingkindness and compassion more than suffering?

I look forward to seeing you on or off the mat soon. I invite you to listen to my latest guided meditation. This month is a body scan.

Love,
Laura