A Yoga Apologist

    I'm not sure if this term is used anywhere outside of the Catholic Church, but, someone who explains the faith is called an apologist.  Google defines it as

Noun: A person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.
Synonyms: defender

    As a regular churchgoer and a yoga teacher in a church basement, I have often felt like an apologist.  Not that I am apologizing for yoga, rather that I am explaining it, making it more approachable.  I have often felt rather less than successful.  So far, not one person who has thought yoga might be a religion in disguise has ever come to a single class.
     Today I was rereading  Eat Right for Your Type by Dr. Peter D'Adamo and I realized, he is a great apologist for yoga.  Here it is:

...some patients have told me that they are concerned that adopting yoga practices may conflict with their religious beliefs.  They fear that the practice of yoga implies that they have adopted Eastern mysticism.  I respond, "If you eat Italian food, does that make you Italian?"  Meditation and yoga are what you make of them.  Visualize and meditate on those subjexts that are relevant to you.  The postures are neutral; they are just timeless and proven movements."

    Such a calm, rational, and coherent explanation.  Hope I remember it next time I am asked.   If not, I'm hiring his ghost writer to follow me around....  Be Blessed (and happy!)
 

Yoga for a Quiet Mind

      Today's yoga class was great!  It really crystallized some thoughts that have been running through my mind.  We always begin sitting and I ask for requests for a focus for the class.  One student asked for yoga to cool a "hot" brain.  Without thinking much, I was up and running.  What I realized about halfway through the class was that I was teaching my "Take the Sting out of Stress" class in yoga format.  Who knew?
     Here is a YouTube video of a highlights version of the class.

      Better yet, if you are looking for the yoga version, here is an outline of a home practice to accomplish the same steps.  For clarity I will use the common English terms for each yoga pose.  This is going to be a bit long, so here are two versions (the Readers Digest and the full length...)

Short Version

Breathe- Sit quietly, noticing your breath.  Encourage the exhale to become longer than the inhale.

Affirm- Give your mind something concrete to focus on, rather than running loops around whatever subject is currently driving you crazy.  In class we used 4 alignment points (feet, hips, shoulders and hands).  For our purposes, pick one and as you do your active practice, notice the alignment in each pose.  A few sun salutations would be a good choice.

Relax-  Come into a wide legged forward bend, resting your head on a block (or stack of blocks).  Let the mind begin to quiet.  Do a few standing poses like Warrior 2, side angle and triangle.  In each pose, place your back hand on the base of your skull and relax into it. If your toes are turned toward the right, use your left hand.
             Lay down in corpse pose (savasana) or sit for seated meditation.  Set a timer for 5 minutes and allow the body and mind to rest.  Enjoy.

Long Version

Being Me...

   Being me.  Isn't that what we all want?  Just to be the most perfect expression of the person we were divinely created to be.  Somehow we keep getting caught in "trying to..." the attempt to be whatever we perceive society wants us to be.  Today, life showed me the way that I am caught up in this crazy mission to be the perfect person.

 From the Center's Website

    A group of friends and I went to the Center for Respite Care to help a friend stuff an invitation mailing for a large social event.  The Center is in a beautiful old mansion in Avondale.  Here we are, five white women from the suburbs, you can just imagine.  There was some nervousness about being in the area and sadness over the gentle decline of a once great house (the entire hallway was paneled in quarter sawn oak!)
    Last Friday, when I was asked to help, my friend who works there told me that 'this place changes everyone who comes in the door.'  I listened politely (and again when she said it today), but completely dismissed it from my mind.  How could that possibly apply to me?
    During our visit, we learned about the Center's mission (click on the link above to learn more, they do great work!). We toured the facility, then got down to work. Stuffing envelopes is very necessary, but very tedious. There were all kinds of interesting discussions from why Medicare does not fund the Center to local produce to mission trips.  It was a good way to do a very boring task.  As the afternoon wound down, I went to the restroom.

The Grand hall, from the Center's website (check out the banisters!)

     It was like the rest of the mansion, a hard working room with whispers of a beautiful past.  All of the wiring is in metal conduits on the surface of the wall.  The shower was full of bagged laundry.  Everything was well used, but well maintained.  The minute I opened the door, I felt at home. I love something used and loved far better than something brand new. Though I love beauty, when I create a quilt, I expect people to sit on it, let the baby use it, and wrap themselves tightly enough to pop the stitches. Being useful is so important to me.

Me, (oh, my!)

    This was such a revelation.  From pre-K through high school, I attended one of the most expensive schools in the city as a teachers kid.  This means that we did not have to pay nearly as much tuition as the other families.  Somewhere deep in my heart, a place I never look, I wanted to be one of my classmates. Those girls who could go shopping whenever they wanted and carry the very expensive purses that it seemed like everyone had.
    As an adult, I have never become that person (the shopping girl), but it turns out deep in my soul there is a 13 year old who wants to look just like all of the other kids.  I have always had friends in the country club communities.  They are living the life that 13 year old wants, but they've always liked me just the way I am.  From the intense student, to the loud laugh, to the interest in alternative healing, they never asked me to change.  It is time I loved that young girl enough so she doesn't need a purse to make her feel acceptable.
     The next miracle in a long line from the Center for Respite Care.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Take the Sting Out of Stress

          Life seems to give us all more than our fair share of stressful moments. Over the years I have tried lots of techniques and remedies, but my favorites are the ones that need only a few moments to explain and can easily be taught to children.
         As always, when I was developing this class, life gave me ample opportunity to practice.  From dropping one son off at college, to fighting a body that was fighting back(yes, I knew as soon as the word fight entered the conversation I was in the wrong), to needing to confront someone about underpayment, I think I spent the whole week remembering to breathe, creating affirmations and reconnecting with the heart.  This is not for sissies!
         This video explains the easiest techniques to remember when you are stressed out.  Just remember BAM!

• Breathe
• Affirm
• HeartMath or Meditate

Please enjoy and take the sting out of stress.

Is There Such a Thing as To Much? (or anatomy of a healing crisis)

   Last week, life was really getting me down.  I hesitate to say "for no good reason," because we can always find a reason to be upset.  Lets leave it at, I was more down than was reasonable.  I felt like my nephew did when someone stole one of his potato chips....

       All this sorrow seems a bit extreme for one potato chip, but it was how he felt... and last week I felt the same.
        Well, I learned something very interesting today. There is more than one kind of healing crisis.  In the past I have dealt with physical issues.  When the body is getting rid of something, it can be a bit spectacular but I'll spare you the gory details.  We'll get together over coffee sometime and swap war stories.
      I've always known you can move too fast when healing, but had never experienced something quite like this.  (Now the funny thing is, as I typed those words, I realized that they aren't true at all.  For me emotional discomfort is kind of like childbirth, I forget the worst parts so I'm willing to go through it again.  Who knew?)  I was just so sad, over everything.  I can't imagine how people deal with depression every day of their lives.
       The good part about a rough time caused by too much of good thing (energy work, herbs, vibropathics) is that all you need to do is back off a little bit and find a happy place to let your mind rest. I spent Sunday recovering, probably listened to my relaxation meditation enough to wear out the tape (thank goodness it is on YouTube). By Monday I was gently (but inexorably) cleaning house.  I remember my father in law comparing the women who helped him set up his new home in the retirement community to battleships called dreadnoughts.  I didn't get it at the time, but now I understand. They just keep cleaning and it restores order to the world.
        I guess the lesson here is all things in good time.  In my hurry to be "fixed" and be done with it, I couldn't see the beauty of the world around me. What a shame it would have been to miss this sunset!

From Pain to Peace

       I had the most interesting experience last night.  I learned how to relax into pain.
       For the last few months (okay, longer than that...) I have  been having a rough time once a month.  Let's just say, my friends have been teasing me about The Change.  Not being ready for menopause, I have been denying it vigorously.  What I couldn't deny was the pain that each month brought.
       Since I have been preparing for a class on stress, I decided to treat pain as a stressor.  On Monday, I wrote a post about how I create affirmations.  Last night I put it to work.
       When I described the cause of my stress, it had the words hurt, afraid, whole body and descriptions of time (more than last month, less than two months ago).  I realized that a lot of the pain was caused by my reaction to the initial complaint.  So how to relax the body amidst distraction...

     I printed out Monday's post and wrote all over the back.  You can kind of see the bubble of the zebra's words in the top left corner. The affirmation I came up with you can see on the bottom.  " I am consciously aware of the calm silence of my spirit." (this sounds awfully good, bet I read it somewhere before, maybe from Louise Hay...) I like this because it also reminds me of the calm I have cultivated when things are not as stressful.  I love to meditate, why not access it now?
    It took about 2 hours of conscious inner relaxation.  The pain was still there, but by not tensing against it, I was not creating more.  Once I got to bed, I slept easily through the night.  I also found that this came in handy when I was running this morning.  Consciously relaxing the muscles that were protesting really works!  I hope this technique will benefit you as well.  Be Blessed!

Finger Tips 2: the Video

         Recently I've written a couple of blog posts about Jin Shin Jyutsu and have been using it in my yoga classes.  Here is a video with a simple explanation and a mnemonic to help you remember which finger is associated with each emotional state.

      

The Cosmic Baseball Bat Strikes Again

     Sometimes when I am being particularly thick-headed, God needs to hit me on the back of the head with the cosmic baseball bat to get some sense in.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I have spent the summer gathering ideas, making handouts and recording videos about different techniques to handle stress.  One would think that I am the expert.  Turns out I had a lesson to learn (or really, relearn for the millionth time!)
    It was time to take our oldest son back to college.  It was time and more than time.  We all thought we were ready; him for his freedom, us for ours. Somewhere deep in my heart I was so not ready.  In my last post, I talked about creating affirmations from negative feelings and his departure was one of my examples.  But I needed so much more than just affirmations.  I used every technique I am teaching on Saturday over and over and over.
     I went from breathing techniques to affirmations to heart math to Jin Shin Jyutsu to acupressure and then started all over again.  If you asked me none of it was working.  The day was horrible, I felt miserable and ended the day crying myself to sleep.  Pretty pathetic.
     Now comes the interesting part, the lesson in the sob story... This morning I woke up feeling great.  All that energy work that felt like pouring water onto sand (loads of work, but no lasting effect) actually worked.  My closest analogy is the dirty ring in a teenage boy's shower (are we beginning to see why I wanted him back in his apartment?)
      Each day, you go into the shower, clean yourself and leave.  Ideally all the soap and dirt go down the drain, but in real life, there is always the ring around the tub.  Think about the energy work like a microfiber towel.  If you clean up, even just a little bit, each time you go into the shower, the ring does not build up.  You still have the soap and dirt, but they don't stay and make you miserable.
     Energy work while you experience pain is just like that.  It is not surgery, cutting out the pain, or anesthetic, that numbs it.  Rather the energy helps to experience pain without leaving emotional scars.  Yes, I would like to have him around. I love him, but I'm eager to let him fly again.
      The funny thing about this experience is the timing.  I am going to be a much better teacher on Saturday because I really practiced yesterday.  Maybe that cosmic baseball bat was a gift after all.

Make Light of It: Creating Affirmations to Take the Sting out of Stress

What is stressing you out today? Though we try to stop, there is always the next thing.  Somehow it seems that even when things are going well, a stone is in your gym shoe.

At any time, any event can cause you stress, or not.  I have watched people deal with cancer better than I do taking my child back to college.  Surely the life threatening disease is more important, but that is the funny thing about the mind.  Deep in the lizard brain, I’m going to save him from the cold cruel world of hardship….

For me, more often than not rationality does not rule.  This means it is time to talk to the lizard brain in a way it understands, feelings.  Creating an affirmation from your stressor is not hard, just hard to remember under stress.

To develop your affirmation, first you need to figure out what is really getting under your skin.    For example, rather than saying, my son going back to school is stressful, we want to look at the root cause.  Freshman year it was the thought that my baby was leaving, but this summer it is different.  I have been relying on him for clever thoughts, using the fresh college way of looking at the world to break out of my preconceptions.  So really, hard as it is to admit, I’m afraid I’m not clever enough to blog without him (ouch!)

On to the affirmation.  My important words were afraid and clever.  So my affirmations would be something like “I am confident” or “Thoughts flow to me easily” or “I am a successful and confident blogger.”  It may change from day to day as I grow and change or it can stay the same for weeks.  I spent 8 months on “I am willing to change.”

How to use the affirmation?  Put it on your mirror and read it to yourself, looking in your own eyes, 10 times each morning and evening.  Put it on your dashboard, read it as you wait at stop lights.  Use it as a bookmark in your current book.  Find a way to make it part of your life.

Here are the steps, print this out. Feel free to use the back of the paper if you need more space.

  

What causes your stress?	Turn your words around, make an affirmation
(after you are finished, underline the Important words)	(only positive words!)

It's the Little Things

   I'll never forget waking up in October of 1984 to hear that the U.S. had invaded Grenada.  My first thought was "Where in the heck is Grenada?"  but the second was a renewal of my desire to join the Navy.  I wanted to make the world safe for democracy and  President Reagan was paving the way.
   As that day faded into obscurity, becoming a footnote of Reagan's presidency, periodically I wondered if it had been a good idea.  There were 34 people killed and 175 people wounded.  As a mom, it just seems wrong.
      Then I saw something wonderful in the Olympics coverage.  There was a "get to know" piece on Kirani James, who went on to win gold in the 400m.  Did you know, in Grenada, they celebrate the invasion as Thanksgiving Day. As I watched the piece I couldn't stop crying. Are those deaths justified, I don't know.  Are they honored, absolutely.  I had no idea there was any inner conflict, but there you are.
     It is one of the seldom mentioned side effects of taking an energy healing class like I described yesterday. Not only do you learn to heal others, you are healed yourself.  In the midst, I'm still trying to finish all the case studies. My husband calls it drinking through a fire hose.
    So back to this invasion, how is it a little thing?  Well, in the big sweep of history, it is.  Neither of my teenage sons (one in college and one a senior in high school) had even heard of it.  The big sweep of history is like the whirlwind of work and learning I created by taking this class.
     This picture is one more of those little things.  It is my one of my favorites from our Chicago trip.  We were in Millennium Park.  Home of many beautiful public spaces.  This weed, randomly planted by the wind, was the best part of the park to me.  The effervescent, explosive shape and way that it caught the light was visible from the other side of the park even though it was only 7 inches tall.  Is the midst of life's swirl, it is important to notice the beautiful little things.
     Today one of my sons and I were taking a long walk, each of us needing to clear our heads from our studies, and we found a new path in the woods!  Okay, new to us.  But we have lived here for 18 years and the path is within 100 yards of our house.  We had both walked by it many times over the years.  When the woods wrapped around us we slowed down and stopped talking.  We were just present to the moment, living in now.  Now felt pretty good. Today truly became our Thanksgiving Day.
   

Free Energy Work!

        My Dear Friends (and hopefully many new friends),  I am taking a very unique energy healing class and I need case studies.  The class only requires 10, but I would like more. This healing is by distance, so if you live in Germany, Russia or China, I would love to have you as a case study.
       If you would like a little free healing, I need your place and date of birth.  Also several things that you would like to work on.  I'll let you know what are a few recommendations for some homework.  Please email me at peacefulspirit2@gmail.com.
    This is not to diagnose or treat, it adds energy to the body.  The body heals itself.  What a glorious  thing!

Play to Your Strengths

      One of the things I like the best about the Olympics is the opportunity to meet a large group of people who do something very well.  If you listen to or read their stories, most have tried a variety of sports before settling on the sport they went to the Olympics for.

“If you play to your strengths, you'll turn in a superior performance. Just be yourself.” 
― Yuki Kure, La Corda d'Oro, Volume 9

    This quote is from an anime adaptation of a role-playing game.  I couldn't believe I found a quote for this feeling I woke up with.  When you are looking for your strengths, where do you lose time?  What makes you so happy, or satisfied you didn't even know time was passing, or what was going on around you.  What a great way to focus my week.  Hope you enjoy it as well.

Never, Never, Never Give Up

     Today Oscar Pistorious did it!  Talk about believing in yourself.  Here is a young man who had both legs amputated before he turned one.  Now competing in the Olympics.

this image is from ESPN

       And I think I have it tough some times.  Pistorius has a very large tatoo on his left shoulder of 1 Corinthians 9:26-27. Here it is from the New International Version (NIV)

Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

   I just love it. The idea of purpose and discipline.  That no action of his own will disqualify.  He didn't quit when he was not allowed to compete in the Beijing Olympics.  Instead, he gave up his motorcycle and everything else that could injure him, and got down to training. Here is is quote from the Message translation.  It is a little gentler, but still good advice for us.

I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me! I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

Laughter in the Dark

     We energy healers take ourselves way too seriously.  In our quest to be accepted by everybody (and some days, any body), it is easy to lose sight of the lighter side of life.  In our quest to keep healing and improving, we can look way too deeply into the dark and dissatisfying and forget that is balanced by the light.  Don't get me wrong, there are many lessons in the dark side, but there is loads of fun and fulfillment in the light.
     I first was attracted to my husband by his sense of humor. Witty, indulgent and sometimes abrasive, he is my perfect match (too sweet makes my teeth hurt).  He and our teenage sons keep life lively. This week has been a whirlwind both good and bad, so this morning I went looking for a little energy healing humor.  It is pretty thin on the ground.  In the first row of images was a picture of George Carlin (who knew he was an energy healer?)  This was also in the first row.

Many thanks to Alice Langholt from http://reikiawakening.blogspot.com

     In case you are looking at this on a small screen, the white box is a pill that says placebo.  The whole thing just made me laugh.  Also on the page were many cat pictures.  I successfully resisted, but some were pretty good.  If you'd like to see them, go to the image search on google and type in funny reiki.  We'll get back to the serious side later, enjoy your weekend.

When Life is a Pain in the Neck

    All this work on changing beliefs can really be a pain in the neck.  If you fee that way as well, here is a great energetic release for neck and shoulders.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to figure out how to get the image onto blogger, but if you click here, it will take you to Google Docs.
     My husband and I had a head on collision with a bus in 1989.  He had a 40% compression fracture of  the lowest vertebra in the neck, C7.  Needless to say, I have had a lot of practice working on his neck.  Each time I find something new, he is willing to try it out.  This one from Capacitar International works!
     In yesterday's yoga class, we all lined up and did this release to one another.  It was great to make a community doing energy work on one another.  Take it for a spin yourself.

A Step in the Right Direction

  (A few weeks ago, I decided I was going to learn to love Facebook and other social media.  Though I have had lots of help from friends and family,  I just can't seem to make it work for me or my business.  I needed to dig a little deeper to find the cause of my dis- ease. I began the process of changing a belief.  The work sheet is here.)

    Starting Small, step 3, defines where to work and the small steps to take. When I look over the Day 1 list, I see the word afraid four times in only 7 sentences.    This needs to be the first place to work.  Darn it! Learning something physical is always so much easier...  Maybe I'll approach me like a client who I am working with.  What would I recommend for someone else to begin with?

     My first thought is always reiki.  It's so easy, always at hand, and feels good while you do it.  So my list begins with- Send reiki to the relationship between myself and strangers.  I love sending reiki to relationships because then I don't have do define any further.  If I send it to my marriage, my husband and I communicate better.  What more could a girl ask for?
     Then I move on to the Nu|vision program.  Using name and date and place of birth, it creates an energetic hologram.  This is then run against over 30,000 conditions, causes and remedies.  The affirmations suggested are "The more I love, the more that love is returned to me." and "I know that the world is prosperous.  I notice prosperity all around me."  Interesting, not only did it catch my fear of people judging or being mean, the second affirmation deals with all of the negative information people put online.

      My third stop is Help One Another: An Anthology of the Teachings and Remedies of Hanna Kroeger.  The remedy I checked for is calendula tea, prescribed to treat ulcers and prevent muscle spasms, among other conditions.  This one is interesting.  I didn't even know I was afraid until I looked a few days ago, now all of these physical results.  It is a very clear example of our feelings creating physical symptoms.  I have had tight muscles and an uneasy stomach for years.

This photo is from Spiral Way Jin Shin Jyutsu, with gratitude.

     My final recommendation to help with fear is Jin Shin Jyutsu.  Part of the practice of Jin Shin Jyutsu is finger holds.  Each finger has a channel of energy that is related to a series of emotions.  Holding onto the finger restores the energetic pathway and begins to heal the emotions.  I first learned about the finger holds while teaching my oldest son to drive.  Since I have no depth perception, it was very hard to trust that he was not going to bang into "that pole right there!"  I asked my reiki master for help and this was her recommendation.  The index finger is related to fear and panic, that sounds just up my alley right now.
     Rather than do it all, step 3 is start small. I'll start with the reiki and finger hold.  These I can do at any time.   So I resolve to give 10 minutes of reiki a day to my relationship with strangers and do the index finger hold 3 times per day.  Tomorrow it is on to Step 4: Describe.

Step 1 Beginner's Mind
Step 2 Focus


(An interesting dowsing side note:  When I was dowsing Help One Another, the Hanna Kroeger compendium, and asked the three initial questions, I got some funny answers that may shed a bit of light on the troubles of learning to ask a question.
        The three questions I always begin with- May I? Can I? Should I?  When I asked May I?  The answer was a clear yes.  Can I? was a no.  My first thought was, what do you mean no.  Then I asked "Is the answer in this book?" the answer was no.  When I asked "Will it be beneficial for the post?" the answer was yes.   So I knew before I began that the remedies in Hanna's book were not my first step for the solution to this problem.)