Support Your Fish, Open Your Heart

In my practice (life + attention), I've found that the heart is more than an organ pumping blood. It is an energetic storehouse for personal truths.

It amazes me how vividly the mind manifests in that mushy spot beneath the sternum. When the mind is excited, the heart races. When the mind is at peace, the heart feels warm and expansive. When the mind experiences a sense of loss, the term "heartache" becomes irritatingly true to form.

If we tune into what's going on in our bodies, we often get clues about the things in our life that need to be addressed. It behooves us to pay closer attention to the heart, this poignant center of the mind-body connection.

Lately I've discovered that I hunch my shoulders forward in times of emotional upheaval, as though to protect my heart by literally closing my body around it. This creates a lot of tension in the upper back and chest. Some people live with this kind of tension for years, hunching their shoulders to subconsciously delay the healing process. I urge you to be compassionate with yourself, and try the following pose to keep your heart open.

This is a supported version of Matsyasana or Fish Pose. It opens the chest and releases tension in the upper back. This pose can be used for emotional healing, or just to correct bad posture (though I would argue that the two are usually related).

Position a support of some kind under your back, below your heart.

If you are pretty new to this kind of thing (like my friend Paul, pictured below) use a rolled blanket. Another folded blanket or cushion under your head is recommended to prevent compression in the back of the neck. Keep your knees bent to support your lower back.

If you are a little more advanced in a yoga practice, try using a rolled mat (as I am pictured) or a block. If you are a regular practitioner, you may not need a support under your head to keep the back of your neck long, and you may also be able to lengthen your legs away from you without putting strain on your lower back. Just do what is comfortable.Whatever variation of this pose suits you, breathe deeply. With each inhalation, imagine your heart opens wide. On the exhale, fully let go. As your chest opens, your back melts over the support. Stay with this - breathing, opening, and relaxing - for at least five minutes. Sometimes I do it for 20. In my experience with this pose, the more tension you release, the more you will see where you are still holding on.

At the end of this practice, carefully remove the support from under you and hug your knees to your chest. If it is comfortable, bring your head to your knees to round out your back.

If you want to share your experiences with this pose or if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me at jadetweston (at) gmail (dot) com. I honor your intention to do something kind for yourself.

Namaste.

Pain is a hot potato, and I'm hungry

The past month or so has presented some exciting new challenges. My bike was stolen from out of my house. My email account was broken into by an anonymous gem-of-a-person who did some nasty things to violate my privacy. A person I loved and confided in fled the scene and started a new life somewhere else without informing me first.

Ouch. Life. I have felt not-a-little heartbroken and not-a-little bewildered by these occurrences, and yet somehow I'm grateful, too.

The winds of change (which often smell like farts and garbage) have a way of giving you an opportunity to grow even as they stink up your life. I've been led to a deeper inquiry on how to deal with difficult emotions: sadness, anger, abandonment, and paranoia, to name a few.

In one instance of suffering, a dear friend of mine sent me this Sufi saying, which I keep coming back to:

"Overcome any bitterness that may have come to you because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you.

"Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain. You are sharing the totality of that pain.

"You are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity. The secret is to offer your heart as a vehicle to transform cosmic suffering into joy."

To put it in a simpler, less mystical way, for those of you who can't dig on religion and have never dropped acid: Life hurts. We all hurt. The challenge is to learn to react from awareness, rather than ego-driven habit, so that we don't keep hurting ourselves and others.

In my experience, there are habitual ways that we react to pain as unconscious means of seeking refuge from it. We say "if only things were different than the way they are..." as though we occupied a seat at the top of some mental control tower.

We get urges to have, to do, to improve. We make war, point blame, or try to get rid of the way we are feeling altogether.

We try to prove ourselves to others. We put on masks and craft story lines about what has been done to us.

We do things to hurt other people; it's easier to pass pain onto someone else than to find the patience, courage, and guidance we need to pause and experience our sorrows in a way that is healthy.

Here's a start. Take a sheet of paper, and write the following phrase 20 times or more:

I deserve love.

There's a good chance that many of you reading this just chortled, scoffed, cringed, or shook your heads at such a touchy-feely suggestion (ugh, gross, affirmations!). But I can assure you that if you reacted in any of the above ways, you are probably among those who need it most. Check in: What do you have to lose? What are you afraid of?

In my experience, hesitation is a pretty clear sign that you are hiding something from yourself. Don't you want to know what it is?

Be courageous, or just prove me wrong: get out your pen and paper (and possibly a box of tissues) and see what comes up. No one has to know, so there is no reason to feel silly or ashamed. Write it, as many times as you can:

I deserve love.