Yoga as a Creative Act

Being creative is absolutely necessary to being well. It's in our nature to create. We have the opportunity to make something from whatever comes our way - whether it be music from an instrument, a meal from wholesome ingredients, or peace from chaos.

Sometimes I get caught up in my to-do list. I don't trust my inner child to be responsible, so I don't let her out. Who has time to cook when the sink is already full of dishes? Who has time to write a letter to an old friend when the bills need to be paid? But finding how to cope with the stresses of adult life, balancing what you want to do with what you need to do, is a creative process in itself.

I see yoga as a central creative act, a jumping-off place for all other endeavors, because a spacious quality of mind comes with regular practice. My thoughts refocus, setting all worrisome distractions aside in order to arrive in the present moment. To-do lists dissolve in the face of a challenging balance like Half Moon pose, because you generally can't balance on one foot with your limbs reaching in all directions and let your brain chatter away at the same time. Yoga cultivates control of the mind.

When you can focus your attention on the wisdom of the body, the physical sensations of the asanas (poses) become a joy to explore. I'm made aware of my aliveness. As I expand my body with breath, which is also called prana (life-energy), I create length, alignment, strength, and balance - a sound physical foundation to work from in all the other aspects of my life.

In this joyful, silent space where the mind is stilled and the body is nourished, creative solutions arise organically. It is a time to pause, go inward, and see where you are at.

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.

Breathing down the mountain

I went skiing for the second time in my life on New Year's Day.

Warmest thanks to my friend Colin, who has skied for almost as long as he's walked. Colin continually pushes me to try things that are new and challenging, and then maintains an almost inhuman level of patience while I cop a bad attitude about it. At the end of our adventures together - usually while I tend my wounds (road rash, aches and bruises, near-hypothermia, damaged ego) - I realize how much I'm actually capable of enduring. We should all be so lucky to have friends that make us meet our edges. I try not to sound sarcastic while extending this gratitude, though it is sometimes difficult.

Putting me on skis was Colin's idea. First I was excited to go. Then I saw the mountain and got nervous. Then I fell down the mountain and got frustrated. But by the end of the day I was genuinely enjoying myself.


Being bad at skiing taught me a few lessons.

Firstly, my lack of patience (which usually reveals itself when I'm doing something that I am not particularly good at) is laughably unhelpful. At the beginning of the day I actually accused Colin of not having any patience for me, but he politely pointed out that I was projecting. Then I noticed it again and again; when I felt I was about to fall, my mind would suddenly flood with self-damning babble: I should be better at this, that four-year-old on a leash is better at this, why is this mountain so big, why is no one else falling down, I'm probably going to break both my legs, I should have worn a helmet.

The good thing about practicing yoga and meditation almost daily is that I picked up on these thought patterns pretty quickly. I saw them, and allowed them to happen while I pulled my attention to more important matters: namely, my movement and balance.

Think of this shift of attention as being similar to the way a loving parent ignores her child's temper tantrum. The wisdom-mind, which is grounded in the breath and the body, is the loving parent. The ego, which flails around on the vehicle of your thoughts, is the irritating child. Don't hit the child, just let it do its thing. If we approach our thoughts with this attitude of acceptance, without indulging or repressing them, they settle on their own.

I got better at skiing when I remembered to breathe. When you practice yoga, the movement of the breath accompanies the movement of the body. As I cruised down the mountain at a faster and faster pace, I tried to align my breath with my movement, beginning each inhale and exhale with each turn of my hips. When I could do this, my mind was quiet and the motion came naturally. I felt a little more graceful. If I thought about how I felt graceful, my skis would cross and I would tumble forward like a drunken Superman.

That was a big one to take off the mountain: I saw clearly that the mind's natural tendency is to detract from your experience of the present moment by cluttering it with thoughts. I knew this already, but trying to ski made it slapstick comedy.

If you can come back to the breath again and again, you will see how your monkey-mind starts to take the back burner. In its absence, your awareness is heightened and your sensory experience becomes more vivid. Activity is experienced in a way that is whole and visceral, as if each action were complete in itself.

Whether you are skiing, doing dishes, paying the bills, or driving, coming back to the breath is like being born back into reality. Sometimes we only catch glimpses of the world around us before the chatter picks up and we fall on our asses again. But from what I've seen in those instances of clarity, each moment is new.

Merry New Year

Ah, the holidays. There is something so refreshing about seeing them end.

This year is the first that I’ve had my own place, so I took it upon myself to find my own meaningful ways of cozying up for the beginning of winter. I think a lot of Christmas traditions are empty ceremony, and I've definitely had my fair share of holiday cynicism, but being a Scrooge and shunning Christmas as a whole doesn’t really suit me. I believe there is value in ritual as long as it is carried out mindfully.

I decided to see how I could adopt Christmas in a way that nurtures my well-being, rather than decimating it by carrying on with all the commercially-mandated rigmarole. Here’s what I found enjoyable about the season this year:

+ Stringing cranberries and popcorn: This is a tradition I learned from my mum, and one I’ll definitely keep. It involves a certain measure of patience, and the result is a decorative garland that is pretty and simple. Not to mention biodegradable.

+ Hanging real pine garland over my windows and doors: It’s an inexpensive way of being able to enjoy that comforting pine smell without all the fuss of a tree, and they don’t look out-of-place or depressing if they are still up after New Years.

+ Putting mistletoe up over the bathroom mirror: If you want to put the moves on someone in a doorway, just do it. There shouldn’t have to be some little plant dangling up there for an excuse. It can, however, remind you to love yourself every morning while you’re brushing your teeth. Don't accept this as an act of vanity; 'tis is the season for spreading the love, and it starts at home.

+ Avoiding the mall: Just about everyone on my list this year either got books, or things I made. I enjoy the challenge of the creative process when it is met with the motivation to brighten someone’s day. My favorite gift to give this year was a portrait I painted of my father in a bear suit, which got a little laugh out of him – exactly what I wanted for Christmas. Mix CD's and knit goods are also very sincere.

There were also a couple of things I learned didn’t work for me:

- Mulled wine and roasted chestnuts: Maybe I did a poor job cooking them, but neither was very palatable. Next year I’m sticking to hot rum-and-cider and gingerbread.

- Tacky decorations: I hung the bright red stockings that my grandmother gave to my roommate and I. She also gave us place mats and pot holders with images of Santa Claus and a snowman holding hands. Very cute. While I enjoyed the daily reminder of how sweet my grandmother is, they became a bit of an eyesore. I took them down after a week. Sorry, Gram. (Though the pot holders stayed – they won their place in my kitchen by being practical).

- Sticking around on Christmas day: I enjoy celebrating Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve, and sharing gifts and breakfast on Christmas morning, but by the time the afternoon hits it seems like everyone’s energy level drops through the basement. Next year I’ll avoid sharing in the communal lethargy by driving north to Maine or Vermont to enjoy some solitude as my own Part Two to the holiday. I’m finally set on the fact that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be alone on Christmas.

At the end of all of it, a new decade begins. I am grateful for the fact that Christmas, a holiday so concerned with the past, is balanced each year by the immediate onslaught of a holiday that encourages us to look into the future.

Happy New Year! May your 2010 be full of blessings, and may you find the wisdom it takes to be aware of all of them.

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.

Ceremonious Oats

A little over a year ago I was on an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety med that wasn't working anymore. Faced with the choice of either staying on it and upping the dosage, or dropping it and figuring out a more holistic way of maintaining sanity, I chose the latter.

One of my closest friends at the time had a knack for keeping his heart light. I told him about my plan to come off of the anti-depressant and he advised me to eat well. He said, "Make yourself a good bowl of oatmeal every morning. Oatmeal is my zoloft."

At the time I rolled my eyes. I made the assumption that my friend didn't know what real emotional pain was like if he thought oatmeal could soothe my crazy brains. Of course, it was only one part of the equation. It goes without saying that oatmeal is not the same as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (like zoloft). With oatmeal, it's not a matter of chemistry but of simple process: there is value in the practice of preparing a good bowl of oats if you slow down and appreciate the ritual of it. This is true for just about any practice, but oatmeal is a good place to start.

Have you found that when you are stressed out, your eating habits change? Some people overeat and still feel sluggish. Others feel their stomachs become a bundle of nerves and can't eat at all. When we are in a state of stress, our body shuts down blood flow to the digestive system. If we eat anyways, the food tends to sit in our stomachs without being absorbed. We end up running on fumes, which makes the mind even more loopy.

So our mental state largely determines our ability to nourish ourselves, and our ability to nourish ourselves largely determines our mental state. Oatmeal simply taught me to start every day by getting my mind involved in the act of nourishment.

Have you ever experienced a flood of stress-thoughts as soon as you open your eyes in the morning? Sometimes it's a dream that leaves you unsettled before you're fully awake, or the long to-do list that's been running on a subconscious loop all night. Whatever the reason, take comfort in the fact that there is no one alive that has not woken up feeling like shit at some point. So you begrudgingly get your poor ass out of bed. You open the curtains. Some days are grey, and there isn't much sun to be let in, but you open the curtains anyways. This is an apt metaphor for the way life should be: open the damn curtains, and pay attention.

Go into the kitchen, put some water on to boil. Put the oats in your bowl. Are you paying attention? Or are you thinking about everything you have to get done today? Come back to the oatmeal: it is a blank canvas for whatever your body is craving. It is waiting to accommodate any combination of fruit, nuts, and yogurt.

Slice the fruit. Your mind wanders to something menial: how shitty your life is, or what you will wear to work today, to the job you don't really care for. Come back to slicing the fruit. Strawberries, mango, banana, apple? Your oatmeal is only limited by your imagination. Say to yourself "I am slicing fruit for my oatmeal. That is all." Because that IS all. Nothing else is happening right now. Focus on every gesture of the knife, how your hands work it. This focus not only calms your mind, but improves your knife skills. Smell the fruit, be aware of its lovely color. I like to use dried fruit - raisins or dried cranberries - in addition to the fresh stuff.

Add some nuts to your bowl. Now you are thinking about someone you have to call, or a mole you should get checked out. Come back to the oatmeal, to the nuts. Walnut halves, slivered almonds, toasted crushed pecans? It is good to start the day with some protein. I even go so far as to throw in a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt, though any kind of yogurt lends it more protein and calcium, not to mention creaminess and flavor. A little honey and sea salt also go a long way in relieving the oats of their blandness.

The kettle whistles. Did you notice its pitch before you shut the burner off, or the way the sound tapers off like a yawn as soon as the kettle starts to cool? Maybe you didn't, because you were thinking about the bicycle that someone stole, or the fact that your roommate has never once cleaned the tub. Gently remind yourself, again and again, to come back to what is happening right now. Laugh at yourself for having a monkey mind, and breathe.

I don't think nourishment is as simple as putting food in your mouth, even if it's good wholesome food. It starts with the preparation, which is not just preparation of food but preparation of mind. With patience and quiet attention we can learn to put ourselves in a mode of self-care first thing in the morning.

Your oatmeal is warm and filled with chunks of things you like to eat. It takes a little more time and effort than scarfing down a Dunkin Donuts bagel in the car on the way to work, but you get what you give: making this breakfast has been a kind of ceremony, and you haven't even started eating it yet.

Notes on the title

Yoga and oatmeal, because the two have sparked my interest in the mind-body connection.

It is unmistakable how the body absorbs the tension of the mind. I discover it again and again on the mat. One day I have an enjoyable practice - it stimulates my circulation as it stretches and strengthens me. I fully inhabit my body, filling it with the energy of the breath. Wisdom moves away from the chatter of busy-mind into the quiet, eager limbs. When I am done, I feel limber, open, and strong. I am taller, and calmer.

Two days later, I unroll my mat and discover that I have in me a re-occuring landscape of tightness. As it turns out, we don't live in a blissful vacuum between the times we practice; at some point the chatter picks up again. Reality is often lost beneath a static of distracting, self-generated noise: laundry lists, daydreams, attractions, and aversions. As the mind tells its stories about itself, unable to stop talking to itself, the body braces in reaction without our even being aware of it. As long as the stories repeat themselves (which they inevitably do - we are all subject to our own conditioning), tension collects in the same spots.

Continuing to practice is a great act of self-compassion. To set aside the chatter-mind for the sake of bringing attention back to your body, to kindly listen to its aches and open it again, restores a simple sense of clarity. We tend to forget: that our consciousness can inhabit this mass of energy, this body, is so mysterious as to be miraculous. Some would call this the divine. I think I would call this the divine.

Next time I'll talk about oatmeal.