For many years, I set New Year’s resolutions that fizzled out within two weeks. They were rooted in shame, aimed at “fixing” something I thought was wrong with me, or trying to prove my worth. Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t a recipe for meaningful change, but I didn’t know another way.
As I deepened my understanding of the nervous system, studied loving-kindness, and absorbed the teachings of Yoga, Vedanta, meditation, Tantra and wise teachers, I began to see things differently. If our nature is truly inherently divine and perfect, which is what the texts and my teachers tell me, how can I approach change from this perspective and understanding?
Over a decade ago, I started a new tradition. Instead of setting resolutions born out of lack, I began setting intentions born out of genuine desire.
At the time, I wanted to cook more. I craved a deeper connection with the food I ate, wanted to know where it came from, and desired to learn how to prepare it. This intention arose after trading a session with a farmer for a box of fresh veggies she had grown. I didn’t want to waste the fruits of her labor, yet I barely knew how to cook—and frankly, I didn’t enjoy it. That box of vegetables sparked something in me.
I cooked everything in that box and discovered I actually enjoyed the process. That New Year, I decided I would cook once a month. It might not sound like much, but for someone who rarely cooked, this was a significant step.
Had I resolved to cook three times a week—or even once a week—my nervous system would have gone into overdrive, fighting to meet an unsustainable goal. Eventually, I would have burned out, given up, and reinforced the false belief that I wasn’t capable of change.
Cooking once a month felt doable. My nervous system stayed calm, and I even looked forward to planning my monthly meal. By focusing on fun and desire rather than pressure, I began cooking more frequently. By the end of that year, I was cooking more often than not.
Now, over ten years later, I prefer my own cooking to most meals I eat out. When I travel, I look forward to returning home to my kitchen. Ten years ago, I would have thought this transformation was impossible.
This is the power of acting from a place of desire rather than lack, compassion rather than criticism, and honoring your nervous system rather than forcing it.
As we enter 2025, here are a few questions to reflect on:
What do you truly want, and why do you want it?
Where do you feel that desire in your body? Is it genuine, or does it come from a sense of obligation or “should”?
What fun and joyful steps can you take in 2025 to bring more of this desire into your life?
What is your intention for the new year? I encourage you to create a plan that is concrete, easy, and sustainable—one that keeps your nervous system calm. If your plan feels overwhelming, fight-or-flight may take over, leading to burnout. On the other hand, if it feels too daunting, a freeze response might prevent you from starting at all.
Even if your goal feels “small,” try it out as an experiment. The worst that can happen is you don’t follow through—something we’ve all experienced, but the best that can happen is real, joyful change.
If you’ve set an intention for 2025 and created a sustainable, fun plan, I’d love to hear about it. Share your story and I’m looking forward to being inspired by your desire.
If you would like to explore the practice of maitrī, or loving-kindness, as a tool to foster compassion and empathy towards yourself check out my newest self-study course.
In Befriending Your Brilliant Body Part 1 I shared how the body is the gateway to everything we experience in our lives: physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically, relationally and spiritually. I also shared some practices to become or return to a state of friendliness with the body.
In Befriending Your Brilliant Body Part 2 we will go a little deeper, especially for those who have embodiment practices, are physically active, feel connected to their bodies or are kinesthetic learners. As I fall into all of these categories I find that learning to befriend and fully inhabit the body is a lifelong journey.
If you are a mover why did you start a physical practice (whether it is yoga, running, swimming, tennis, etc.)? For myself I wanted something. I had insomnia and I thought yoga might help me sleep. Lucky for me it worked, and I became more and more dedicated to the practice through the years because I found it kept giving me what I wanted. I felt stronger, more capable, aware of my body and mind, and it was fun! Through feeling stronger in my body I took up running, which led to 5Ks, 10Ks, ½ marathons, a marathon and triathlons. I liked challenging my body and mind and enjoyed having a goal that I was striving for. Yet as I reflect on my experience with physical movement sometimes I was befriending the body and a lot of times I wasn’t.
When I first came to yoga there was a sense of innocence and curiosity. I had no idea what I was doing nor was I in a place to compare myself to anyone because I practiced by myself in my bedroom learning from a book. As I became more physically active and more engaged with active communities there creeped in a desire to manipulate the body. I strived for certain poses because I wanted my body to contort into shapes I thought were “advanced,” and I pushed myself to the point of injury. I lost some of the sheer awe of moving and being in my body to a place of trying to force it to an ascetic, pace or perceived ideal in comparison to other bodies.
Even though I could say I was “in my body” I wasn’t actually honoring the body. I have come full circle to only doing yoga by myself in my bedroom where there is no one else watching or no one to watch. Sometimes I lie on my mat and simply feel my body. Sometimes I do movements. They might look like yoga āsanas but many times they don’t. The Sanskrit word for “seat” is āsana, and it refers to the different poses, or “seats,” we do in yoga. Currently, walking and hiking are more appealing than running, biking or swimming and allowing the body to go through these phases of wanting different kinds of movement can be a way to respect the body’s desires. If I was training for a race I “had” to run a certain amount of miles each week. I was listening to a training plan more than my body. Now I train for treks in the Himalayas, but there is a different quality to the training. I do have some mileage goals each week, but there is also a looser grip to the goals. If I start my cycle I take a break from strenuous activity to honor the work my body is doing to shed the uterine lining. If I have a lot of energy I go a little faster and enjoy the hills. If I am feeling lower energy I might choose a flatter or shorter route. This is not about competition anymore (even with myself), but more of an opportunity to honor the body, which can and does include challenging it! Competition isn’t bad or wrong. It can fuel excitement, fun and doing things that seemed impossible, and I experienced all of these in my physical pursuits. However, I also noticed a marked increase in manipulation of the body to look and act in ways it may not want or even be capable of.
A more subtle way to contemplate the body is around emotions, which also live in the body. Emotional words like happy, sad, angry and afraid are just labels, and we have certain sensations (and typically thoughts) that arise giving us information that a particular emotion is present. When I feel happy I know I am happy because I am smiling, my chest is open and my belly is soft. I know I am angry when my mouth tightens, my shoulders contract inward and my breath gets faster. When I am experiencing an emotion I don’t like I have difficulty allowing that emotion and I try to control, fix or change it. The same way I have manipulated my body in running and yoga I also do in my emotional states. When I experience fear I try to soothe myself so I don’t feel it anymore, I rationalize there is nothing to be afraid of or I blame someone else and get angry (which can feel safer than being afraid). What I am learning with my teacher, Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan, in The Renegade Method is a radically empowering way to allow things to unfold in the body instead of trying to control them. What emotion are you noticing right now as you read this? We are typically feeling something, but it may be quiet. See if you can identify the word(s) you use to name that emotional state. Peaceful? Nervous? Lethargic? Disappointed? Joyful? Pissed off? Need more suggestions? Check out this emotions and sensations chart to help you identify the emotion and/or sensation in the body. Once you have named the emotion, see if you can determine what your body is saying. How do you know that emotion is present? If you say because of the thoughts can you bring curiosity to see if you can FEEL the experience of those thoughts? What do thoughts of anger FEEL like in your body and how do they differ from shameful or hopeful thoughts?
If you have identified the sensations of an emotion can you drop the stories about the emotions (i.e. this is a good emotion and should stay or this is a terrible emotion and I should figure out how to get rid of it, etc.) and describe the sensations? Do you feel tightness in your chest? Tingling in your stomach? Lightness in your shoulders? Tears welling up behind your eyes? Soft and relaxed belly? Instead of trying to control or manipulate the sensations can you allow them to be for a few moments? What happens when you allow the wave of sensations to move through the body? What happens when you try to control the waves?
Photo from Unsplash
Emotions can be looked at as waves that come and go. Sometimes they are big tsunamis and other times they are gently lapping. No matter what kind of wave I want from the ocean, the ocean will continue to create waves in relation to the wind, tides and underwater phenomena that are impacting the water. We are our own ocean where different information that comes into our senses will cause different kinds of waves. If we can learn how to ride the waves as they come and go we can move through them with a little more ease.
Finally, pausing is such a powerful tool for returning to the body. I find the mind is often moving at a much faster pace than the body and the mind can leave the body behind. Many times my mind is thinking about something 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days or 5 years from the moment I am in, which makes it hard to be present to the body. A practice my teacher gave me years ago is to pause in transitions. When I finish my meal I take five breaths to return to the present moment where the body lives. I feel the chair underneath me, my feet on the floor, the satiation in my belly and my breath moving in and out. I do this when I finish with a client or come home from an errand. Any and every transition can be a reminder to return home to the body and to the present moment. I have found this practice to be incredibly impactful and a transformative tool for slowing down my mind, being connected to my body more often, listening to what my body is telling me and being able to do more of what I want in my life because I move into the next activity with intention rather than an all too familiar state of rushing, lack presence and multi-tasking.
In summary, here are some additional practices to explore in continuing the lifelong adventure of befriending the brilliant body:
Innocence. Can you approach movement from a place of curiosity rather than an agenda of what your body should or shouldn’t do? Meet each practice fresh because your body is different every day.
Let the body lead. How would you move if your mind directed? How would you move if your body directed? Can the mind take a break to allow the body to lead?
Emotions are sensations. When you are having an emotion can you get under the label to understand the bodily sensations?
Ride the wave. Once you identify the sensations of an emotion can you allow the emotion to run its course without trying to change it? Here is a guided meditation on riding the waves of emotions. If the emotions become overwhelming some of the practice in Befriending the Brilliant Body Part 1 can be helpful.
Pause. Whenever you finish something (i.e. a meeting, an email, taking a shower, cleaning the kitchen, watching a show, etc.) pause for 5 breaths. Notice how your breath feels moving in and out of the body. Become aware of the sensations in your body. Notice what your mind is doing. Step back and observe the thoughts and emotions present. After 5 breaths, move with intention to your next activity.
These are just a few ways I explore befriending the body. How do you befriend your body? How has your befriending journey changed through the years? I’d love to be inspired by your own body kindness practices as we are all learning together!
What do you notice in your body right now? I notice a small urge to pee and then an immediate pushing away of the sensation because I’m “doing something.” How often do you do this in your daily life? I often ignore or push away the body’s signals prioritizing what the mind is doing instead.
Since this blog is about befriending the brilliant body I have taken care of my body’s needs and I am now sitting more comfortably and able to focus my attention on writing since my body doesn’t have to talk or yell at me.
When you look at your body what do you see? Something too big or too small? Something too hairy or not hairy enough? I generally notice what I don’t like about my body first and tend to take for granted the incredible resilience of it. My teacher, Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan, often reminds me to acknowledge the sheer amazement of having a body. Notice the body is being breathed without you thinking about it at all. Reflect on the digestive system that is dutifully processing your food into energy right now. Contemplate your pineal gland emitting melatonin tonight to help you go to sleep and the adrenals releasing cortisol to wake you up tomorrow morning. When I take a step back and look at the body in this way I am struck with awe.
As my yoga therapy teacher, Molly Lannon Kenny, taught me, “the body is the gateway.” The body is a vehicle we can see, move and manipulate in ways we don’t have access to other parts of ourselves. It is what holds our energy, minds, emotions, thoughts, spirit and consciousness. Everything comes from the body and it is how we experience life. What a gift it is to have a body!
At the same time bodies experience trauma, media that demonizes, fetishizes, creates unrealistic images of what bodies “should” like, and the head is oftentimes more valued than the feeling body. If the body has been hurt, terrorized by ableism, sizeism, racism, ignored and it is safer to be in the mind why befriend the body at all?
Since everything happens in the body I have found, personally and professionally, that the only way to heal is through the body. If there was a need to disconnect from the body the healing comes through reconnection. If you have learned to hate your body the healing comes from returning to the love you were born with. No one is born hating their bodies or being dissociated from it. It is learned through the pain and trauma of surviving things that may not have been survivable if they were truly felt at the time.
The tool of resorting to the mind and intellect is a wonderful survival skill, and can be effective in cultivating logic and practicality. This can also can come with the consequences of not knowing what the body is feeling, physically or emotionally, being caught off guard by the body’s needs or not being able to connect as easily to yourself or others. We can lose the opportunity to experience the full range of a human experience when we lose connection to the body, and it can feel like living in a monotone world rather than one with the full spectrum of colors.
Photo from Unsplash
Here are some ways to begin the process of befriending the brilliant body.
Start with gratitude: The intellect can be an easier doorway to begin with for some people. Contemplate how incredible it is that you can see the colors in front of you or hear the sounds in your environment. When you move from one room to the next have gratitude for the body’s ability to take you from one place to another. Start a daily gratitude practice for your body.
Explore the periphery: If the thought of moving towards and in the body is scary start at the periphery, which can be easier to connect with than the core. Bring your hands together and feel your palms touching each other. Are they warm or cool? Soft or calloused? Do the fingers feel different from the palms?
Discover pleasure: If you brought your hands together, notice how they want to be touched. Do you want to rub your hands together vigorously or have light touch exploring the surface? Do your hands want to be massaged or do they want to rest in stillness? If you haven’t explored pleasure through self touch, not knowing what you like is normal. You might find it easier to know what you don’t like. As you explore pleasure when you find something is a “no” stop and inquire why you didn’t like that, which will give you clues into what you do like.
Joyful movement: Do you run because you should? Do you dance because you want to? Do you walk because it is “good” for you? Do you go to the gym because it is fun? Reflect on the movement activities you do and how you approach them. There are movements your body may love and there are movements you might be forcing on the body in the name of “health.” What if you moved because there was desire vs. moving from a place of “should”?
Tune into the breath: Bring your awareness to your nostrils. Can you feel the breath moving in and out? Can you feel the breath moving the chest? Can you feel the sides of the torso moving with the breath? Is the belly moving with the breath? By bringing the breath into the abdomen you can invite more space for your experience, both physically and emotionally, while activating the rest and digest part of your parasympathetic nervous system. If you want to try a guided practice you can explore diaphragmatic breathing here.
Body scan. A body scan can support you become aware of your body from a compassionate and mindful perspective, where the purpose is to objectively notice what is happening in the body without trying to fix or change anything. There is nothing wrong with what you find. If you can’t feel some areas, notice that. If other areas are loud, notice that. If a body scan feels too intimidating you can always start with your hands, which are amazing parts of your body to bring into your awareness!
Befriending your body means going at the body’s pace. If something feels overwhelming or too intense back off and do a little at a time. Sometimes going slow is the fastest way to healing, and if we override the body’s pace it can make the process more painful for the body, mind and heart. The body is wise in its capacity to take care of you, just like the nervous system, and you can learn how to honor it, listen, give it what it needs and take care of it as a small gesture of gratitude for the ways it takes care of you everyday.
If you are looking for additional support in healing the body-mind sign up for a free 20-minute yoga therapy consultation to see if working together may be a useful addition for your healing journey. In yoga therapy the embodiment practices are tailored specifically to you while listening and honoring the pace of your unique body and nervous system so you can feel at home within yourself.
In the next blog I will share more resources for befriending the brilliant body for those who have established embodiment practices or are kinesthetic learners who take in information through the body because empowered embodiment is a lifelong process.
Trauma is something that happens to the body/mind/heart in which the nervous system can not process and digest. Trauma is unique and individual and two people can experience similar situations while one person will experience trauma symptoms and the other may not. Yet that same person may experience something else that will result in trauma. Trauma can be an isolated experience or something that happens chronically over an extended period of time. What I have learned through years of living, teaching, studying and practicing Yoga Therapy is that every single person has been traumatized, it is “just a matter of degree,” as my teacher says.
When a trauma occurs the body releases cortisol, among many other hormones. Cortisol is the natural hormonal response to regulating stress. When trauma gets stuck in the body there can be elevated levels of cortisol for extended periods of time because the body is continually responding to stress.
Ideally, around 6am the adrenals start to secrete cortisol, which helps us wake up in the morning, and cortisol continues to be active throughout the day. This hormone regulates the body so you can stay alert and energized, controls metabolism and digestion so you can easily and effectively digest your meals, suppresses inflammation, regulates blood pressure and blood sugar and supports the sleep-wake cycle.
After a trauma the body/mind/heart may continue to be stressed by triggers. These may include driving past an intersection where a collision happened or seeing a person who resembles someone who harmed you. With chronic trauma the triggers may be more pervasive. Cortisol may secrete before each meal if meal times were a place of trauma or someone knocking on the door to deliver a package may ignite a sense of danger. Depending on the trauma(s) and the individual responses the body can get stuck in a fight/flight or freeze response, which can keep the cortisol at moderately to extremely high levels because it is constantly trying to regulate the stress response that has gone into overdrive.
Why does this matter? When cortisol levels are high the body can lose some of its immunity protection, inflammation increases because the immune system is overtaxed, digestion can become impaired and sleep and menstrual cycles can be disrupted. There can be increased hypervigilance, or always being on alert, while blood pressure and blood sugar can also be high.
When cortisol is chronically elevated melatonin can also be impacted. In the evening, around 6pm, the pineal gland typically begins to secrete melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that has the opposite effect on the body than cortisol. It manages the sleep-wake cycle in preparing the body to wind down and rest, detoxifies and rejuvenates the body. It maintains the circadian rhythm of the body while also regulating menstrual cycles in female-bodied people.
Ideally cortisol is active during the day when we need those functions of energy, digestion and managing stress while melatonin is active during the night so the body can rejuvenate, replenish and detoxify. When the cortisol and melatonin cycles are in alignment we can wake up feeling refreshed, have energy, sleep soundly, easily digest our food and have symptom free menstrual cycles.
When cortisol levels are high this can lead to lower levels of melatonin, which has been researched in people diagnosed with PTSD. Low melatonin can cause some of the same challenges as high cortisol including: disrupted sleep and menstrual cycles as well as high blood pressure. As cortisol levels rise the adrenals go into overdrive to continue secreting cortisol to maintain the body and nervous system’s ability to run or fight off threats. This can lead to inflammation in the body and the buildup of free radicals, which are unstable molecules that damage cells and are associated with disease and aging. With low levels of melatonin the body can not adequately detoxify and fight these free radicals during sleep.
When the hormones are not in alignment with the body’s natural rhythms is there any hope? Absolutely!
If cortisol is overactive we can focus on supporting the body accessing the natural melatonin cycle. Cortisol is active during the day and when we eat. If we stay awake during the daytime hours and we eat only during daytime hours that in itself can support cortisol levels returning to their natural rhythm. Melatonin is active during the night when we are ideally resting or sleeping. If we sleep during the nighttime hours only and do not eat after 6pm that can shift our body/mind/heart into more alignment with the body’s natural healing processes and physiology.
As you move towards aligning with the body’s natural circadian rhythms many notice a decrease in PTSD symptoms. People have reported sleeping better, less pain, less anxiety and depression and more energy. When the body is functioning more optimally specific treatments that target PTSD symptoms can be more effective.
In this approach our life becomes our medicine and eating and sleeping become a form of trauma treatment. We start from the basics and work from the inside out. From the inside we address balancing our hormones and aligning ourselves with nature. Wild animals do not experience PTSD and there are many reasons for this. One of them may be because their hormones are firing optimally so the cortisol can support them effectively to run, fight or freeze in the face of predators and melatonin can help them detoxify and rejuvenate from any hardships in their day while getting sufficient and adequate rest. Animals generally follow a routine, and this routine can be one of the reasons they don’t experience PTSD symptoms as well, even after going through life-threatening events on a regular basis.
How does one begin to balance the cortisol and melatonin cycles?
Create a routine and stick with it at least 80% of the time.
Sleep at the same time every day. The ideal time to sleep for melatonin production is before 10pm.
Wake at the same time every day. The ideal time to wake for cortisol production is before 6am.
Do not sleep during the day as this will activate melatonin production during the ideal time cortisol is being released.
Eat at the same time every day.
Do not eat after 6:30pm as cortisol is activated in digestion and after 6 is when cortisol is ideally reducing while melatonin is beginning to be released.
Do not snack throughout the day as that leads to more cortisol production.
Remove or drastically reduce sugar from your diet as it is inflammatory in nature.
This is the inside out approach to balancing the internal landscape of the body, which will then support the work to address the specific triggers in PTSD. When the cortisol and melatonin are more balanced it is easier to work with the triggers that happen in daily life because your hormones are working with you instead of against you. Of course there are many ways to work with PTSD, and this is just one way. What I have found in my Yoga Therapy practice is when people can follow a routine the work and healing happen much faster and more efficiently.
When I bring this up to clients in my practice there is commonly a feeling of overwhelm or uncertainty if this is possible. How does one start this process if their lifestyle is far from the recommendations?
Ease in. Don’t try to do everything all at once because that will not be sustainable. I love the 10% rule. Try making a 10% change every couple weeks so it isn’t overwhelming to your system, which can backfire and cause even more cortisol to flood the system. This can also lead to a yo yo effect where you do it for a week or two and then give up, which is more stressful on the body than small, incremental changes that the body can integrate. What feels possible? Start there and add from there.
Begin with one thing. Focus on sleep first, and focus on one end of your sleep cycle. Go back to #1 and ease in. If you are currently sleeping from 12-8 go to bed at 11:45 for a few days to slowly acclimate your body to a different bed time. Do yoga nidra before bed as a way to settle your system and prepare for sleep instead of looking at screens.
Practice the recommendations fully for 3 months. Then you will be able to see the results of balancing your cycles, you will understand your baseline, and if you go through a bout of sleeping and eating irregularly you will know how to return to your baseline.
Find the balance of not beating yourself up but also not letting yourself off the hook. There will be times where you sleep in or you eat later than intended. Some of the common symptoms of trauma can be black and white thinking, impatience and being overly critical of the self. These are attempted survival skills that can be useful (through quick thinking or blaming ourselves because it was safer to internalize anger or rage than externalize it), but also can cause harm (through impulsivity, rebelliousness, self-sabotage and self-hatred). Ideally, if you follow this rhythm 80% of the time the melatonin and cortisol can bounce back because they aren’t chronically overtaxed.
Have an accountability partner. For many people it is easier to get to the gym if they have a friend waiting for them. Who is someone who will celebrate your wins and encourage you when it is hard?
Work with the triggers around eating and sleeping. For many people these times of the day came with traumatic experiences, which makes changing these patterns more difficult. Yoga Therapy or other forms of therapy can be beneficial to help you ease into the recommendations in a way that can feel more tolerable to your system.
The physiology of the body is incredible and is always working to support and protect you. Even when the cortisol is high it is reacting to a stimulus of danger so it keeps firing to keep us alive, alert and ready to fight, run or freeze. Even if our logical brain knows there is no inherent danger in going to the grocery store or seeing a dog in a fenced yard the emotional and reptilian brain may be wired to potentially see those things as threats. When we can work directly with our physiology we can become attuned to our natural cycles, the rhythms of nature and have the ability to rewire our brains and our nervous systems to become more resilient, adaptable and able to process the happenings of life (beautiful, painful and everything in between) with more ease.
How does one befriend their nervous system, and what exactly is the nervous system?
Let’s start by defining what the nervous system is and how it works. The central nervous system (CNS) includes your brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system (PNS) consists of two branches: the somatic nervous system (SNS) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The somatic nervous system facilitates our voluntary movements. When my fingers do the typing on the keyboard my brain is working with the somatic nervous system to facilitate that movement, and I am conscious and in control of it. The autonomic nervous system facilitates the aspects of ourselves that are out of our voluntary control.
Within the ANS are the sympathetic and parasympathetic functions. The sympathetic nervous system activates the fight and flight response. It also helps us wake up in the morning, motivates us to show up even when we don’t want to and brings excitement and passion to our lives. The parasympathetic has two different branches, according to the polyvagal theory. The ventral vagal state corresponds to experiences of connection, safety, peace, openness or receptivity. The dorsal vagal state corresponds to experiences of shutting down, numbing, dissociation or freezing. The vastly complex and incredible nervous system controls and regulates everything we do, from how we think, move, digest, feel, relate, sleep and so on. There is nothing we do that isn’t impacted by our nervous system.
How does one befriend this conscious and unconscious, powerful and subtle, adaptive and ancient system within ourselves? One way is to get to know it. When you meet someone you are attracted to you might find yourself wanting to know more about them. What is their history? What do they like? What are their challenges? As a stranger becomes a friend you get to know them and understand how to be in relationship with each other. The nervous system is a friend who has been within you, maintaining your bodily functions, sending you cues of safety and danger, helping you plan and problem solve, and reach out and withdraw as needed. You might just not have known you have this friend living inside of you who always has your back!
In the same way we might get to know someone new we can get to know our nervous system. Everyone’s system is wired differently due to our unique physiology and life experiences, and the more we get to know our system the more we can learn how to be in a kind and loving relationship with it. We can learn what settles it into ease or what triggers it into feelings of danger. We can learn what it needs in a state of threat and how to nourish it.
As you are reading this tune into your nervous system. What is your body feeling? Relaxed? Tense? Are your shoulders contracted? Is your belly moving with your breath? What are the thoughts and emotions you are aware of? Are you feeling at peace? Are you anxious? Is the mind active or quiet? Do you feel like you are in the ventral (connected, at peace or open), sympathetic (agitated, angry or jittery) or dorsal (shut down, numb or disconnected) state? Do you feel like you are experiencing a combination of states? This is the first step toward befriending the system through getting to know it. Through this connection we can work with it directly to resource it, understand the inherent resilience within it and build ways to become even better friends with it.
According to the dictionary resilience is defined as:
the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
Resilience is the aspect of ourselves that bounces back when something pushes us down, supports our buoyancy in the face of adversity, and gives us flexibility. If I only have one or two ways to approach a struggle (i.e. work harder or shut down) those will work some of the time, but not always. Resilience is a toolbox we can add to, yet we are all born with resilience because we wouldn’t be here without it. Even the things we may characterize as “maladaptive” or “problematic” have times they are helpful and even necessary. For example, sometimes people feel numb after experiencing a trauma. Numbness is the body’s protective mechanism when situations or experiences are too much for the body/mind/heart to handle. Numbness helps the body survive. If numbness is the only mechanism to deal with stress and trauma will this have consequences? Yes. Prolonged numbness can lead to disconnection in relationships, physical injuries (due to not being able to feel the body) and confusion or disorientation when an emotion arises, but numbness is still a form of resilience.
Resilience can also be looked at as a resourcing anchor that keeps one steady and centered in the middle of a storm. These resources can be what you do to soothe yourself, whether that is driving in your car, listening to music, petting your dog, going to a place in nature or talking to a friend. Generally anchors are people, places or beings (i.e. animals or spiritual figures) that invoke a sense of connection, security, ease, peace, or love.
Here are some questions to contemplate around your own resourcing and resilience:
What helps me bounce back when something pushes me down?
Where do I have flexibility in my responses to challenges?
What are my resourcing anchors?
Sometimes these are all the same thing. For example, going for a walk in your favorite park after something stressful happens can support you rebounding from a challenge, it may be a different response than a pattern of yelling at someone and it may feel safe being surrounded by trees as a resourcing anchor.
There are misperceptions about what resilience is as well.
Resilience is not:
Never struggling
Putting on a happy face
Gritting your teeth and powering through
Being emotionless
Denying problems
Being grateful for whatever happens
Never needing help
Being resilient does not mean there will not continue to be stress and trauma in life. Whether it is illness, racism, losing a loved one or arguments with your partner, challenges are inevitable. It is how we navigate those challenges that can increase our ability to thrive instead of just surviving.
We ALL have inherent resilience, even if it doesn’t always look or feel that way. Sometimes our strategies for surviving also cause us pain, yet at some point we needed, and may still need, those tools. Imagine working with a personal trainer who is supporting our body to be strong and flexible. In the same way we train our muscles we can also strengthen and bring adaptability to our resilience muscles. I may notice that I overuse my hamstrings but my quadriceps are underused. I can acknowledge my strong hamstrings while I might challenge myself to strengthen a part of my body that is underutilized. The same is true for resilience training. We acknowledge where we are already strong and we keep adding to the toolbox.
Gratitude Practice:
Take a moment to look at the resilience tools you have learned through your life and the resources you rely on. What would it feel like to offer gratitude for the ways you have supported yourself through the challenges and traumas you experienced? Acknowledge the ways those responses helped you navigate difficult experiences and survive. Acknowledge those people, places and/or beings where you can go for support. Resilience is not about struggling through something alone, but knowing where and who we can go to when we need help. Even if you have just one place or one person that can be enough. In this Harvard research study it shows that one strong adult relationship can be a contributing factor in a child’s resilience. We can also have strong relationships with pets, our faith, or a place in nature, and these can be just as powerful. What happens when you think about being grateful for the resilience and resources you already have? What happens when you offer gratitude to your anchor(s)? You might notice something in your body (i.e. a settling or warmth), your breath (i.e. deeper or more relaxed), and/or your mind (i.e. pleasant memories or happiness). It might feel tender and sweet to offer yourself gratitude for the ways you have learned to be resilient, and it also might feel hard or impossible. There is no right or wrong way to feel and if we can come to the practice with curiosity it opens us to the flexibility of resilience rather than expecting something to be a particular way. Your resilience and resourcing will be unique to you, and finding those ways to bolster and support your resilience is a powerful part of the journey.
Tapas is one of the aspects of the 8 Limbs of Yoga, which translates to austerities, heat and self-discipline. Tapas can be any discipline we commit to, whether it is doing art, going to bed at a certain time, journaling or taking a daily walk. I am a fairly disciplined person, but also I rebel against it in the name of being free to do what I want when I want. As I committed to a discipline offered to me by my teacher I am seeing how tapas can be a doorway to freedom. I have more energy and time. I feel less overwhelm and depletion, and I am less scattered. There is paradoxically more ease in my life with the addition of more structure.
As I think about starting a discipline, especially as we go into winter I am struck by the many things I have started and not finished. This can lead me down a path of believing I failed. A meditation teacher once shared with me that every time you meditate you put a little money in a piggybank, and that money accumulates each time you do it. It doesn’t come out the bottom on the days you forget or rebel or oversleep. Discipline is not about perfectionism or gritting your teeth to make sure you get something in. It can be done with sweetness and even surrender and ease. When you miss a day, can there be a discipline of forgiveness and trying again the next day? When you don’t get to your commitment can you not give up? I remember quitting smoking almost 20 years ago. I was a terrible quitter at first! I would quit for a week, then smoke again. I believed I failed so I would smoke regularly again until the fire for wanting to be free from cigarettes returned. Then when I inevitably slipped I would berate myself for not being strong enough. Each time I “quit” though I was showing myself that it was possible and each time my discipline and resolve got a little stronger, and on maybe the 110th attempt I finally quit for good. Can your discipline be strong and soft, focused and relaxed, steady and flexible, firm and kind?
What tapas do you want to commit to? What tapas are you all ready doing that is serving you?
Here are some ideas to stoke your discipline fire I have heard from friends, family and clients who are using these tools to move through the next few months and beyond.
Physical Discipline:
Get outside daily.
Massage your skin with scented oils or lotions. My current favorite blend is lavender and sandalwood.
Do intentional transitions, in particular if you are working from home:
Commute (i.e. walk around the block before and after work).
Change clothes after work.
Burn candles to make transitions from work to personal or vice versa.
Burn sage or other herbs at the beginning or end of your day.
Place a cloth over your computer at the end of the day.
Have designated work hours.
If you have a room you work from close the door at the end of your day.
Learn a dance routine. This summer I learned how to floss!
Take a bath.
Have an orgasm.
Pet an animal.
Hug yourself.
Do one yoga pose each hour. I like to do handstands or child’s pose between sessions depending on my energy.
If you are curious about an Ayurvedic discipline I can’t recommend Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan’s book, The Heart of Wellness, enough.
Something that has been invaluable to me in maintaining a discipline is community. If you are committing to a practice this fall and winter who can you share it with? Who can you be accountable to? Who might be interested in doing it with you? Also, never underestimate the power of a sticker chart! If you have a discipline you want to share with me let me know. I would love to hear.
My heart is with you. I am taking time to tend to my body and heart (2 weekends back to back of online retreats with my teachers) as well support the collective (dropping off gloves at Virginia Mason, keeping my social distance and checking in with loved ones). My hope is that this newsletter can bring you some peace and ease in this uncertain time, which is every moment, even though it has been particularly magnified for many right now.
Here are some very common and normal experiences you may be having: 1. Sadness and mourning 2. A sense of free falling 3. Happiness about the opportunity to slow down 4. Guilt 5. Despair 6. Anger 7. More easily frustrated 8. Overwhelm 9. Easily distracted 10. Not able to focus or retain information 11. Tight muscles 12. Gratitude 13. Difficulty sleeping or sleeping more than usual 14. Numbing out 15. Irritability 16. Awe 17. Trouble balancing (physically as well as mentally) 18. Lethargy 19. Rumination 20. Fear
All of these are normal and OK. And, of course, these may not be the only experiences you are having. Maybe you are experiencing something not on this list. That is OK too. We all have unique nervous systems that process uncertainty and crisis in different ways. The more we can allow our bodies and hearts to go through whatever we are experiencing without “shoulding” on ourselves (i.e. I should feel more clearheaded or I shouldn’t feel happy right now,) the more we can be fully present to ourselves and others.
Here is a guided practice for you around allowing the arisings of your experience:
Here are some other meditations I have recorded throughout the years that you can use if they are helpful.
Here are some other things I have been doing to support my nervous system as it moves through the waves of emotions, thoughts, feelings and sensations. If they sound like they may be useful to you, try them out: 1. Rocking back and forth. Find a rhythm that feels soothing to your system. 2. Orientation. What do you see? Hear? Smell? Taste? Feel? 3. Hugging trees. 4. Taking social media and news fasts. I try to take a minimum of 24 hours off social media and news/week. 5. Put a hand on your heart and breathe into that hand. 6. Put a hand on your belly and breathe into that hand. 7. Lay with your legs up the wall. 8. Put on a favorite song and dance. Yesterday I danced to Whitney Houston and Janelle Monae. 9. Gratitude practice. What are 10 things you are grateful for? 10. Be of service. If you are able, can you support your community through grocery shopping or picking up meds or dog walking? 11. Receive service. Can you ask for the support you need? Who can you reach out to for grocery shopping, med pick ups, dog walking or to simply connect? 12. Feel your feet on the ground. If you struggle to feel your feet, wiggle your toes. If you have tennis balls around the house roll your feet on them. 13. Lovingkindness practice: When inhaling, say: May I be well. When exhaling, say: May you be well. 14. Inhale to a count of 4 and exhale to a count of 4. Make this easy. If it is too long or too short for your breath change the number. 15. Do handstands. 16. Take a nap. 17. Watch the clouds and remember the impermanence of every moment. 18. Touch the earth. Put your hands in the grass or on the ground to feel the support beneath you. 19. Connect with your ancestors. Ask them for guidance and support. 20. Journal or draw your feelings.
What are you doing to resource yourself right now? We are all figuring this out as we go, and if you have practices that support you that is wonderful. Keep it up!
It feels impossible to put words to the experience I had when I traveled to India last month, but one word keep ringing in my ears: disintegration.
Before I left for this trip, I had questions about where and how I want to focus my energy – personally, professionally, in my relationships and spiritually. I felt a bit lost. Going to India, being in the jungle and studying with an amazing teacher, did not clarify or provide answers. In many ways, the experience brought more questions.
One of the translations for the word “yoga” is “integration.” I believe that one way we can find integration is to disintegrate. Disintegration means “the process of losing cohesion or strength” and “the process of coming to pieces,” according to Oxford Dictionary. Disintegration can feel like falling apart, losing a sense of wholeness or feeling like everything that did make sense doesn’t anymore. Wholeness is yet another translation of yoga. Although disintegration can be incredibly uncomfortable, unstable and confusing (at least for me) I trust it. It many ways it can catapult me into a sense of not knowing and drop me into beginner’s mind. I trust that it will lead to deeper layers and levels of knowing and integration.
I used to be afraid of disintegrating, and even now I am a bit impatient with it at times. I used to think I should have all the answers for myself, for clients, for folks who attend classes. Being with a teacher whose depth of knowledge and practice far exceeds anything I may even come close to in this lifetime, I am awed and inspired by how much I don’t know. I am excited after 17 years of practice (which frankly is still a baby practitioner in yoga) to find a teacher whose well is so deep that I get the opportunity to be a beginner and to disintegrate, integrate and disintegrate again and again with.
