Open Your Heart

    Yesterday was amazing- both informative and transformative.  It all began in the church basement.  I have taught the yoga class there for over 9 years.  One would think that by now it would be routine.  This Tuesday was anything but routine.
      Upstairs in church there was a 6 year old girl's funeral.  Our church has been praying for her for months.  I gave it a lot of thought; how to reconcile the two, death and healing.  I had thoughts, but no coherent plans.  On the way over I received a call from a student who had arrived very early. Some of the people who were preparing for the reception after the funeral had expressed concern at the lack of respect holding a yoga class would have for the funeral above.  This balance, however, is one of the great skills of living.  How to be present and have life in the middle of awful things.  The world is always with us; how to be of the world, yet not in it.
       Before we began class, we set a few guidelines for the length of class (it would be shorter) and the least conspicuous way to exit the building (so a bunch of ladies in workout clothes carrying yoga mats would not disrupt the reception).  All of these things worked out well. We left the building just as the service was ending, but this was not the important part.  What was amazing was the powerful impact this shortened class had.
        Recently I have been experimenting with using the breath to let me know which aspects of my body are holding tension, where should I target my practice.  Let's begin.  Stand comfortably with your eyes closed.  Take a deep breath.  Without exhaling, breathe in some more and if possible a little more.  Notice where your feel tension in your body, then let all that air out in one long slow exhale. The part of the body where you are holding the most tension feels all jammed up as you try to bring more air into a full body.  This exercise feels different every time it is done.  Watching a class full of people perform it, give the teacher a strong idea of how to structure the upcoming class.
        Tuesday morning the tension was in everyone's upper chest.  Given the stress of the funeral and shorter time span, I put together a very different class.  If you'd like to try it out, here is a link to a 20 minute version.  Let's just say, the class was unique enough  that I wasn't sure how effective it was.  Did the heart openers work, and would they hold over after the students left?
        My question was answered on my way home.  Now, a class is much less physically powerful for the teacher than the student, because the teacher is focused outward on demonstration and her students, but I found a huge change had taken place in myself.  On my way home I had to stop at the grocery store because I was completely out of produce.  As I walked around the store, I noticed something strange. People kept staring at me in the face,  like they knew me and expected me to talk with them.
        Now I'm not talking about the produce manager or all of the people who work the checkout lanes; those are people I know well and we talk all the time.  These were people I had never met before.  a Japanese man, an Indian woman, a mother with small kids, the man picking up salt for his driveway (in anticipation of the "white death").  They all seemed to expect me to address them.  I had never realized how "in my own world" I was when I shopped.  Turns out when my heart is open and I am looking around, everyone I met wanted in on the joy.
       This phenomena was well described in How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.  "As many studies have shown, the more compassionate we become, the more generous those around us become... Thus, when we treat others with kindness and respect (in my case, just noticing that they were there), even those who hold different beliefs will respond in kind.  An upward spiral is created that stimulates the anterior cingulate, a crucial part of the true heart ans soul of the brain."  He calls it "reciprocal altruism."  Noticing my neighbor allowed them to notice me as well.  It was a great shopping trip.

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.

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.

Entrainment- or How to Make Others Happy Just By Being

                Why is it that when the teacher explains that math technique in class it is so easy, and then when you get home, it is so difficult?  When the yoga instructor makes one subtle adjustment and everything works, but it is so hard to find at home?  When being with someone you love makes you happy, but being alone is morose?  The answer is entrainment.

                Here is Van Morrison’s musical take on entrainment.

  He describes how another, in their happiness and joy of life entrains him into a trance.  The physical expression of this was described by physicist Christian Huygens in 1666, after he noticed that two pendulum clocks had moved from out of sync into the same swinging rhythm.  One clock “taught” the other into rhythm.

                As a scientist at heart, I love finding evidence that validates what I “know.” Right now there is some interesting research proving that entrainment exists between people, even at a distance.  My personal favorite is from IHM Director of Research Dr. Rollin McCraty. He measured the connection between his son Josh and the boy’s dog, Mabel.  When Josh loved Mabel, it changed both of their electrocardiogram readings. They became similar in a very good way, becoming more coherent.  Here is the full article http://www.heartmath.org/templates/ihm/e-newsletter/article/2010/spring/pets-making-a-connection.php.

                In my practice I see so many people who feel underutilized, like they are not making a difference in the world.  They have not cured cancer, or started a charitable organization, or have a high-powered job.  It turns out to change the world, you don’t have to do any of these things.  The Beatles got it right, all you need is love. 

Expand Your Heart

                As I was ruminating on this post today, I was given such an opportunity to practice what I preach.  I was driving a “new to me” car and was unsure just how much gas might be left in my tank when the gas light goes on.  So I pulled into the nearest gas station.  The station has 18 pumps and 25 cars jockeying to get in first.  I’m not sure if I have the gas to go anywhere else, so I resolve to wait (with patience).  As I sat there in line, giving plenty of room for cars to pull out, a little car zooms in and cuts us all off.

                Now there are several possible reactions to this and much as I hate to admit it, I took the least attractive option.  I gave the car the evil eye and proceeded to get a good, righteous anger on.  In the midst of this revving up to ramming speed, I remembered my blog post and changed my attitude. At first I just released caring, but then moved on to loving all of the people at the gas station.  They weren’t any different from me.  We all just wanted to get gas quickly and get out of there.  As I pulled away with a happy heart I realized the whole maneuver had taken just over 11 minutes.  Definitely not worth losing your inner harmony over.

                In yoga we do heart openers, in BioGenesis creating we feel the warmth of the heart, in HeartMath we focus on heart coherence, but where to begin to find this feeling place?  How to find ease and harmony with any situation?  Though I had heard all the words before, tried meditation, practiced yoga, read the books, the first technique that ever worked for me came from Dr. Amen’s HeartMath.  What follows is a summary of his Quick Coherence Technique and this is a link to the webpage  http://www.heartmath.org/free-services/tools-for-well-being/quick-coherence-adult.html.

1. Heart Focus. Focus your attention on the area around your heart, the area in the center of your chest. If you prefer, the first couple of times you try it, place your hand over the center of your chest to help keep your attention in the heart area.

2. Heart Breathing. Breathe deeply but normally and feel as if your breath is coming in and going out through your heart area. As you inhale, feel as if your breath is flowing in through the heart, and as you exhale, feel it leaving through this area. Breathe slowly and casually, a little deeper than normal. Continue breathing with ease until you find a natural inner rhythm that feels good to you.

3. Heart Feeling. As you maintain your heart focus and heart breathing, activate a positive feeling. Recall a positive feeling, a time when you felt good inside, and try to re-experience the feeling. One of the easiest ways to generate a positive, heart-based feeling is to remember a special place you’ve been to or the love you feel for a close friend or family member or treasured pet. This is the most important step.

I am a scientist at heart so I have included a small explanation of why this works below, copied directly from the HeartMath store website http://store.heartmath.org/.  Please feel free to skip it if this is not your thing, but give this wonderful method a chance.  It can change your life.  The least that can happen is restore your peace of mind and that is no small thing.

                 

The heart is a primary generator of rhythmic patterns in the human body, and possesses a far more extensive communication system with the brain than do other major organs. In addition, the heart plays a particularly important role in the generation of emotion. With every heart beat, the heart transmits complex patterns of neurological, hormonal, pressure, and electromagnetic information to the brain and throughout the body. As a critical nodal point in many interacting systems - physiological, cognitive and emotional - the heart is uniquely positioned as a powerful entry point into the communication network that connects body, mind, emotions and spirit.

Doc Childre and the research team at the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) have shown that techniques which combine intentional heart focus with the generation of sustained positive feelings lead to a beneficial mode of physiological function they have termed psychophysiological coherence. Correlates of psychophysiological coherence include a sine wave-like pattern in the heart rhythms, increased heart-brain synchronization (alpha rhythms become more synchronized to the heart) and entrainment between heart rhythm patterns, respiration, blood pressure rhythms and other physiological systems. Although psychophysiological coherence is a natural state that can occur spontaneously while people are feeling genuine positive emotions and during sleep, sustained periods are generally rare.

 As an interesting side note, my husband had a great example of the difference between our "normal" state and coherence.  I love some of the songs from The Pogues, a celtic punk band.  One day my husband played me some of their other music...
Here are The Pogues

Here are The Pogues on HeartMath. Reach inside and expand your heart.