The Trend of Working Out for Stress Reduction

We hear it a lot that exercise is good for stress.  Which undoubtedly it feels good once you have sweated, worked hard, and pushed yourself past these limits that you thought you had.  I will not argue with that and this article is not designed to say that exercise is not good.  I just want to bring a new perspective to the table.  

Let's start with the word stress.  It has far more definitions that I thought it would, so I will list the ones that pertain to emotional and physical stress rather than from language and sound.

1. the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain.

2. to subject to stress or strain.

3. to experience stress or worry

These are things we experience on a daily basis whether it is instigated by family, friends, negative self talk, work, diet, driving, etc.  It comes in so many forms and many of us have been taught that we need to be working hard to be productive.  So that is what we do, we work long hours, we come home tired from those long hours and time spent in traffic and think about what we should eat and then choose something that is easy; and then over think our choice, feel guilty, and often watch tv to try to drown out all the noise; and then crawl into bed with out any real intention to rest because our mind has not had the space to process our days, and depending on how long we have been doing this routine, our lives.  

This is why yoga and meditation are important. 

Even though there are different types of stress, it is all still stress.  It is all something that shortens the breath and kicks the sympathetic nervous system into action, which is the flight or fight response.  And if it is true what they think, that the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) counteracts the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest), then we are mostly operating on fight or flight.  Which is true to some extent.  Our fight or flight has to be running all of the time to keep us alive, however over using it will lead to a deficiency in many other areas of the body.  

This is why yoga and meditation are important. 

I am repeating myself, I know, but I really want to drive this point home.  There has to be a balance.  We have to rest, I mean really rest. We have to breathe slow and deep, walk slower, act instead of react, savor our foods (chew and taste it), enjoy and be at peace within ourselves and know our boundaries for an improved quality of life.  So to work hard and sit in traffic and stew about it all then go do a work out that is more stress to your already stressful day may be counter productive.  So maybe 3 days a week you give your workouts a break and instead you go to yoga class, or you go home and you put on music that is calm and light, or you use silence, and you lay flat on your back legs a little wider than you are naturally inclined to place them, then you take your arms about 8 inches away from your body so that your rib cage can have space to move, and make sure that your palms face up to the ceiling so that your chest can open and relax, close your eyes and start to focus on the weight of your body against the floor.  Keeps your lips together, breathe through your nose and keep feeling the heaviness of your body, the body that you are in every minute of every day of every year until the day you leave this world behind.  And when your mind starts to wander, bring it back to how heavy you feel.  It is basic and simple. But it works wonders.  At the end of this post you will find a short audio to walk you through ths relaxation.  

More than relaxation, restoration is important.  It is supposed to be what we get when we sleep, but unfortunately our sleeping patterns can be interrupted when we are too stressed in our daily lives.  Placing ourselves before our jobs is important.  Having a regular exercise routine with a good understanding of what and why you are doing it, as well as a regular yoga, meditation, or simple relaxation routine is important to the quality of our lives.  For the record, yoga is more than just the religion it is based on and you can call it stretching if you feel more comfortable with that, but stretching helps to release the muscular tension that we hold from our posture, it helps to break up the acidity from over activity or not enough activity, and acidity creates disease... and more stress. 

Bottom line, move your body regularly, and put your body first because no one else, besides a trainer, will do that for you.  If you are waiting for your boss to say.. "Hey, why don't you take off early and go hit an exercise class" then you may be waiting forever, because the majority doesn't care about that, they care about the business.  No one can argue that the healthier and better you feel the more productive you will be in everything that you do, but you have to make that declaration first.

Love!  

My head is a fucking construction zone.  Not the 1^st world American type either, more like 3^rd world type, you know?  Rusty nails everywhere, no safety helmets or guard rails around giant pits of wet concrete and rock, rebar sticking out of the roof and people lazily asleep on the “beams”.  It’s a nightmare.  But the only thing is, I am the only one working on this building, I am alone.  And this state, well, it makes me not care so much about the “problems” of the world.  You know the ones that we dwell and simmer on for months and days and hours, wasting our time trying to protect our hearts and selves from pain. 

My mom died 7.5 months ago.  She was healthy, strong, ate “well” (organic, not a lot of meat, no gluten, etc), and then she was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.  And then 7 weeks later she was no longer here on this planet with us.  I had four weeks while I was in Thailand of listening to her say she was doing okay; and then I had 3 weeks of seeing her and subconsciously knowing she was not going to live, but racing around this disaster of a reality trying to keep her alive.  3 weeks to figure out what the fuck was happening.  And it still does not make sense what has occurred.   I am still tripping over the minutes from September 2013, still falling face first into conversations her and I had, things she said, and the rippling events that followed her death. 

To those of you who have both of your parents you do not know what I am talking about, your mind cannot fathom it and even to those of us who have lost a mom or a dad we feel it so individually that we know we cannot “know” how the other is truly feeling.  It is an initiation into the secrets of the world when you lose someone you love so much.  You belong to a secret society where a large part of your heart has just been destroyed… and what comes from that destruction is beauty and that is where the mind fuck begins.  Because all of the sudden you see this passing as a  blessing, but it shouldn’t feel like that because it cost someone else their life, not just ”someone”, a person you loved beyond imagining.  It took their loss for you to gain knowledge and awareness about the world.  That is where the construction zone enters the picture.  How do we cope, how do we clean up the shattered and scattered pieces of our psyche now that someone who rooted us to the earth is gone?  Drugs?  Alcohol?  Meditation?  Boundaries? Emotion?  Unless you are in it you cannot possibly know about it, and you can never been in another’s mind about such a loss.

It is not that we do not want help or support rebuilding our lives; we do, but it is a very lonely process to define your own personal boundaries, no one else can tell you what you want or need.  There is so much desperation in this loss, so much desire to have someone we can connect with the way we connected to the one we lost.  And it moves back and forth from teenage angst to terrible two tantrums to ecstatic belief in the human kind, over and over again.

So back to my head being a construction zone.  It began with the wrecking ball (cancer) realization that there is nothing secure in this world; from the diluted belief that humans are somewhat invincible, and  sugar plum fairy thoughts that if we eat right and exercise we evade disease.  It is a lie.  Because there is this sneaky little population controller waiting just around any corner it wants to.  When we watch disease destroy a body so ruthlessly we are humbled, we have to then change our lives.  But how do we integrate what we see into the life we want to live?  I don’t have any answer beside, we just do it.  But it takes time and it is a slow going process that we have to be patient with. 

It’s the patience with the rebuilding that I am struggling with.  As a yoga teacher I work with people’s bodies every day, and I love it.  However, every time I watch someone breath I remember the way my moms’ lungs slowly stopped working and what that looked like.  Or I see you use your left hand to spread the fingers in your downdog and I remember how her left hand stopped working a few days before she died, she couldn’t hold anything, it would just fall from the air to her chest and she would patiently and sometimes not so patiently try again.  I watch people walk as they practice a balanced posture and I am reminded that her left leg stopped working after the biopsy, or the way her ankles swelled, or how she quickly lost a lot of weight and thought it was because of the exercises she was doing, (this was before the cancer got to bad).  I stare at bodies in wonderment at how they operate and how they shut down, because now I have a better idea as to what the end process looks like.  I am reminded in everything that I do about my mom.  It drives me mad especially on days when I just want to forget that it happened and laugh like a normal person. 

The flip side to this sadness is the beautiful joy I feel knowing my mom is exactly where she wanted to be for so long.  Not in a morbid way of course, but my mom belonged to the world of the spirits and unfortunately being among people was difficult for her.  So she is where she wants to be and she is thrilled.  I feel her laugh and “yippeeeeeee” and “yahoo” and sing “happy happy joy joy” in my ear often.  When that happens I become so elated for her, I become so happy because now she can do everything she ever wanted with-out the limitations of being a human.  I know when she is helping me move forward and when she is telling me to chill the hell out, or when she is sitting back patiently waiting for me to get over myself.  It is bizarre to get to know her in this way, to know what a blessing it is that she left this world, to have the realizations that death brings. 

I have worked hard in my life to overcome being anxious and sleepless, and as soon as my mom was diagnosed, all of that uncertainty came back.  Because that is the way the world works, you progress to regress so that you can progress again.  It cannot be that we do not re-visit our old habits, we need to know where we stand with them and if our tools really work.  This process is necessary.

So here I am in the middle of a construction zone that I ignorantly thought I had overcome.  I am replacing brick by brick and trying to build it so that the next time something that feels like a disaster strikes, my walls do not come all the way down, so that my foundation is sturdier still.    I do not have time for the petty things, I do not have time to take the world so seriously because I am too busy trying to play.  Because the world will forever take us out, there is no way around the truth that the earth will outlive us, disease is our reminder that we are not in control of anything but our reactions.  We better start living by the beat of our own drum, enjoying the people and things around us, knowing we built the lives we wanted.

I think I just punched the accelerator button...

It is not really enough for me that 6 months ago my world begin to shift drastically and that the ground beneath my feet would soon be ripped open in a horrednous whirlwind of chaos.  Instead of letting that chaos settle in, it appears that I just want to take everything out from my life that is comfortable... besides the people I love of course.  But it has even happened that some of those relationships have become unsettled.

After returning back to Thailand, feeling and acting like a slightly crazy hormonal teenager, the security and love for my job seemed like the perfect fix for the turmoil my soul was in (see precious posts for explanation).  That is, until along came "the straw that broke the camels back".

No different than any other night I was messing around on my yoga mat pretending to meditate and shit when my guided meditation was interrupted by my whatsapp messages from my boss.... at 10pm about something that in my world is insignificant... the cancellation of a meeting time the next day.  And BOOM!!!!  That was it, suddenly I spun into a whirlwind of destruction...  my boyfriend calls me "hurricane adriane"...  I imagine that he is not far off.  When I decide to destroy and destruct and move on I do it.  And I wanted to destroy my so-called secure job.  Because it is not secure when you cannot trust that your boundaries are respected.

So it sounds a little dramatic but I am not really exaggerating when I say I started to spin.  My hands and arms and legs started to shake, I was so upset that my sacred time, my healing time was disrupted..  but mostly that my boundaries were not respected.  Boundary being that at 10pm you don't get shitty with me because of a meeting.  But this is way off the topic, even though it is the beginning of the acceleration... and now I am rambling.

Back to it...

As my moms life came to an end I remember watching her breathing, and watching the way her chest moved and feeling like there was something greater out there.  I still feel it in my own chest.  It is like an anticipation for what is coming.  And when I got that whatsapp message and I freaked out it was because I again knew there was something more to life than "security"..  because that is bullshit, there is no security in anything... unless it is in the fact that YOU know YOU can handle whatever comes your way.

So, here I am feeling groundless and rambling and likely making no sense, when what I am trying to tell you is that I just quit my job...  and I do not really have anything lined up.  I just know that there is something more to my world than set hours, contracts, whatsapp messages, and salary pay...  for no other reason than because I want there to be.  And like RalphWaldoEmerson says....

Make your decisions, because things will start to speed up once they are made, things will fall into place. And as cheesy and cliche as it might sound, trust the fucking world, it is not out to get you.  Leap on what you are hesitating on, because the only security in this world lies within yourself not the things that create your outside world.

Love!!!!!!

Take your contract and shove it

You read it right and I will say it again.

Take your contract and shove where I can never see it again.  That piece of paper with words typed on it that you think means the world and binds someone to your life for however long you claim worthy..  The one that says I must wear what you want me to wear, work the hours that you want me to work, be available on my personal phone time, take limited vacations, document the intimate details of the sessions that I share with clients... yep that one.  That declares that you are above me and I am below you.  Stick it.

Because life is fluid.  I am not contractable, or controllable for that matter.  Ask my family, they will tell.  And my boyfriend... he will tell you too.

It is not that I am reckless rebel with out a cause and I just want to fight back (at least not all the time) .  I am responsible, ask my clients and ask my friends.  I am respectful and confident and aware of my abilities. Aware enough to know when to stick with it and when to cut it free.

Life is fluid, humans are fluid... and the demands to stay one way for a whole year (for example, if I were referencing something specific here) is un-reasonable.  It sets you up for disappointment.  It is signing your name on a dotted line saying I know you will disappoint me, but at least this way I can blame it on you.

How bizarre that we stressed, dis-eased, overweight, sick, tired, and half freakin dead....  I wonder if it has any correlation with the fact that we have to sign our lives away to the people that we work for demanding that we do exactly as they wish for a specific period time, even though they hired us because of our specific skill set.  But now we get to be creative as long as it is within their bounds.  It is bull shit.
Humans are not numbers, we are not an equation that can be controlled.  We are creatures of connection, community, love (yep, it sounds hippy but show me a person who wants nothing to do with any sort of love), growth, conversation and challenge each other in the process.

Let's not treat one another as numbers and dollars.  Because when we are broken sad, and dis-heartened, craving a change, every person that we run across that treats us as though we are a robot simply adds to our dis-ease and sadness.  We are here to lift each other up, to support each others expansion rather than limit it with contracts.

So take your contract and rip it up, because it is a false sense of security for all parties.  They are breakable.  And we are changeable.  Our challenges should be to expand and learn new ways to be creative, rather than to contain ourselves within the bounds of others.

Love!

Get out of your head and into your body!

www.rechakayoga.com

Balance.

Hey Beautiful People!  

It is towards the end of the year and it has been quite a while since I have written a newsletter or a post.  Though I have sat down many times to do so, it appears that the words I want to form are not there, or are not ready to form themselves.  Yesterday, as I sat in the back of a car on the way home from a beautiful long, yet too short, weekend, it came to me.  

It is almost 2014, and I have no idea where the year 2013 has gone, I am sure many of us feel similar.  I was thinking about how I did not write out about the holidays and wish everyone a merry season, and I did not express my gratitude for everyone I have met over the past year.  I think of you all very often.  The way you have impacted my life, I am so thankful.  

The last year for me has been like a power vinyasa class with techno / rage music blasting through the room.  AKA in my book, a nightmare, though occassionally appropriate.  In this whirlwind of minutes, seconds, months, and weeks I have also been walking in slow motion through all the movements seeing the reprocussions of actions amplified.  It seems to me that we are all searching for balance, to become a better version of ourselves, heal what is wounded, and love life.  For us to feel these things, this desire to change shift and alter, it is first important for us to recognize what is the root cause of these feelings; what is lacking in our lives that causes us to feel like we need to improve.  Deficiency and excess go hand in hand with each other.

The most common example is when we have a relationship that ends it is more often than not that we choose that time to start going to the gym, setting goals, beginning a new project, etc.  Because suddenly there is a deficiency of love, an excess of space and to bring it to balance we need to put something there, whether physically or energetically.  

This balance of energy happens in so many different ways and areas of life.  The physical, emotional/mental, and spiritual all mix together to brings us to a whole.  Examples are as follows, of course they are not always the case, though I do run across them quite often in sessions.

Low back pain, lack in the area of support.

Tight hips, a stubborness of moving forward and not grabbing too much to life.

The loss of a loved one, an excess of sadness.

Atkins diet, lack of fruit grains and vegetables, an excess of acidity.

Raw food diet, a lack of grounding to the world as we know it.  

Addiction, a lack of fulfillment elsewhere.

Crash diet to a binge.

A weak left hip,  pain in the right side of the back.  

Extreme controlling behavior feels a lack of control in their own lives. 

This list could go on for day, months, and years, and all it does is show us, feed us the information as to how we are seeeking to be balanced.  It does not need to be used in an abusive way, rather a way that is explorative and acknowledging to what is going on and where there is a excess or a deficiency.  When an issue arises we ask ourselves "what is the opposing force for that specific issue?".  Physically speaking, we look at the opposite side of the body for the compensation.  The left hip can rarely muster enough strength to overpower for the a weak left knee.  But the right hip has the ability to gather the strength it needs to take over for the left knee.  Equally, if we are not feeling enough love in our relationship, it is us that needs to gather our strength and learn to love ourselves more instead of putting it on the other person.  

Sometimes these things are fixable, and sometimes they just take time and awareness, so that we can approach it with responsibility.  If we feel a sudden desire to change our diet and swing into a serious cleanse, it will not magically reverse all of the years that we ate like shit.  It becomes a process of recognition, appreciation and respect for the process.  If we truly do not respect the process or see that it is one then we will not be able to achieve it long term.  The root problem needs addressing.  

As we approach the beginning of a new year it seems like a good time to make some changes.  After all we have all the information from the past year to teach us what can change and shift.  We are full of knowledge.  So let us reflect what we want to change and what might be causing our desire to change, and then let us talk about it with others on a new level.  Rather than just saying I want to lose weight or I want a new job, put it out there with more detail and honesty about what it is really happening so that you can see the real issue.  "I want to lose weight because I am uncomofortable, and I am uncomfortable because I have not taken the time to appreciate myself, and I put too much energy into other people, and not enough into myself."  Or "I want a new job because I do not feel valued, my boss does little to recognize my skills and I deserve recognition, I recognize myself."  

We are all in this together.  To support, coach, listen, reflect those we come across.  And in times like these, where there is chaos and overwhelm with busy lives, it is when we need this honesty the most.  

Have a Happy New Year! Love!

Adriane

Stand up against standing on your head

Dear Yoga Instructor,

Why should I practice handstand or headstand?

Thank you for this very important information.

Sincerely,
Your trusting student

I will tell you that if the asnwer does not resemble something that includes this, or very similar information, you should not let this teacher guide you through the pose.

Dear Student,

The primary intention of this pose is "tonifying the vital organs, stimulating the endocrine glands, and promoting the balanced and efficient functioning of our entire physiology, known as active reversal."
(This is information that Gary Kraftsow wrote in his book Yoga for Wellness, very trustworthy and practical information).

However student if you have any of the following you will want very clear and concise guidance if you still choose to attempt such a pose.  
Contraindications:
Severe structural assymmetries or scoliosis
Weakness, strain, stiff neck, shoulders, upper back
Chronic forward thrust of the neck
Flattened cervical spine
Long neck, or weak upper back
Small upper torso and large lower torso
Severe lumbar lordosis
Any disc problems
High blood pressure
Glaucoma
Obesity
Head cold or sinus blockage
Menstruation or pregnancy.
(Also from Yoga For Wellness).

Let us try to forget the timless banter of yoga instructors that say "Let's do some headstands to change our perspective on the world."  Not that a little perspective change is not beneficial but who wants their perspective changed by compromising the cervical spine with 100lbs or more worth of pressure on it?  Not me... that shit equals a torn rotator or a slipped disc.... not awesome.  Buth then again on the flip side you can blame yoga and miss out on all the benefits a practical steady practice can give you.

I recently came across an article about a fellow yoga teacher, I do not know who it is because she remained nameless in the article, but I have my guesses.  This yoga teacher is well known for her instagram fame, her handstands and ability to get upside down.  She is of course stunning and inspiring.  She does endless workshops and classes revolving around these poses, and from what the article said her queing is shit and her alignment lacking.  I am using my own words there too for the record.
The writer of this article was amazing in her delivery, expressing her frustration towards the teacher but ending with the reality that we are all on our own path and that our time deserves to be honored.  And I agree.. to an extent.  We are on our own path, we will forever learn, explore, and discover new options and varieties of things.  But as a teacher the lives of many are in your hands and if your queing and understanding of the pose lacks, your delivery will lack as well.  These precious lives will be compromised because you love to ego banter and kick your legs in the air.  And though your words are inspiring.... they will not stop the physical damage that can happen with carelessness.

Your yoga instructor should not be necessarily teaching you how to spread your wings like a butterfly sucking the sweet nectar of the tree but rather how to raise your arms to stabilize the shoulders and prepare for weight bearing poses.  It is our responisbility to do this.  Unfortunately we pretty much have yoga mills producing teachers like rabbits produce bunnies.  All for the mighty dollar.  So, most likely your teacher is not well versed or understanding of the human body...  not all of course, I am generalizing because I have attended an excess of classes in which there was little direction but plenty of "look what I can do".

You do not deserve this.  And the teacher does deserve to be challenged and earn your trust.  This gives you the chance to discover the deep benefits of a deliberate and correct(for you) yoga practice.  If you think yoga is awesome now, and you are just attending classes that aerobically run you through 500 sun salutations until you lie in svasana in tears because you feel so much release please just imagine how amazing it would be to run through those sun salutations with the understanding of your needs and your responsibilty to honor those needs
Okay, that doesn't sound as awesome as those tears of great release many of us feel at the end of a class.  But I can promise you, it is blissful.  It is fulfilling to lie down and know that you did exactly what you needed, not what someone else neede you to do so that they could feel accomplished.  But YOU, YOU listened to YOU and YOU honored YOU and then you can get up and go out into the world and do it again.  And the tears they may stop because eventually you will feel like you honor yourself so much that there is very little tension in your body.  I could go on forever about this, but I won't because eventually you would want to tell me to shut the hell up.

All in all, do what you love and what feels good to you.  Please know that the trick in yoga, and in life, is to live presently with an awareness and understanding of how this presence will effect our future.

Love!

Monday, Thursday, September, November

Where am I?  And even more what day, week, month, and year is it?

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of, laugh, shock, devastation, heartbreak, and an un-definable amount of space.

On July 30th my mom was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (never even heard of this shit before her diagnosis).  Unfortunately this is the most rapid and aggressive form of cancer there is.  It is rarely diagnosed in early stages, and often by the time it is diagnosed it is terminal.  It can go from nothing to everything in a matter of weeks, and by weeks I mean 2 weeks.  

Like most, we are a family of warriors/warrioresses.  We chose to take it head on with a more natural approach, it is what she wanted and quite honestly it was nearly too late for the chemo option when she was diagnosed.  We stood by her, we fought with her (fought the cancer that is), we told her how much we loved her, and she told us how much she loved us, we shared things that generally only get shared when there is trauma or tragedy.

A couple weeks after I arrived there was a change, not one for the better, and not one I am really ready to talk about at this point.  But this change was the beginning of her leaving the planet; on Setpember 16th at 4am she did just that.  She left behind a wake of magic and love, a large group of people that are touched, loved, and lovers because of her.  She is the most amazing woman I will ever come in contact with, mainly because she was my mom.  I will miss her more than I can express because the expression of it will likely shatter my whole existence.

I resonate and remain in a state of unrest, doing my best not to let it all in at once for fear of what that acknowledgement could lead too.  I am learning to accept this way of living.  I do not think time heals all wounds, I think that we just learn how to deal with it and we become accustomed to such a sadness.  We accept that there will be this hole, this pain, this...... Life will never be the same.

Through the loss of my mom I have awakend to all of her amazing skills.  The skills that helped me be who I am, the ones that will excel me and my family forward into the world to carry out what she is no longer able to on this plane of existence.  In her passing onto a world that she loves more than this one, a world so closely connected to spirit, one in which her faith was stronger than anyone I had ever come in contact with; she has deepened many relationships in my life.  She has directed attentions to things and people that have been calling my name for a long time.

I wonder if she knew what would happen....

To tie this into yoga, I feel completely legless, like I have no ground.  I feel like I am disconnected from the whole of the universe, now that part of my connection to this world has left.  I have been told that this will last a while.  So, I try to practice yoga, and when I do it helps.  But at the same time it is the most difficult thing to do because it connects me to how I am really feeling about this whole thing.  It connects me to having a body, that my mom no longer has, movements my mom couldn't do in her final weeks, a health that she lost, and mostly to the fact that I have helped a lot of people, and I could not help her.  It connects me to the honesty of my current life.

A yoga practice is generally not all unicorns and rainbows with a heaping side of fairies and stars to dance in.
Instead yoga is a root into who we are and how we live.  It is our connection to our life; because it is our connection to how we move and breath in a controlled and present manner.

Like all tragedy, it is a wake up call for those of us who survive the pain and sadness.  It is a call to learn, expose, educate, and live better.  In this space that is what I will do.  And I will call all of you that know me or have experienced me to acknowledge that this magical woman that just passed had created me into what I am, and what I have given to you is part of her, and what you give to others from this is also part of her and so she spreads across the world like a golden web, to lighten the dark spots, to enhance existence, to believe in magic, to play like children.  Her spirit is within all of us.

The same is true with all of you.

The pieces of your spirit that you share with the world get passed from person to person to their people and beyond.

We spread ourselves thinly across the masses, with inspiration in all directions, whether they be heartache or joy.  Death is just a slap in the face realization of the impact one has made in the world.

Once again, like I so often remind, be honest with yourself and those around you, love, appreciate, be humble, listen (I mean listen like you will never hear that voice again, and simultaneously like you are hearing it for the first time, be open to the wisdom that resides in everyone), and move slowly so that you can indulge in the experiences of the world.

Love!