The "Just Like Me" Mantra

In the wake of more tragedies in current events, I offer you this mantra. When you are frustrated with another person, or group of people, remember: they are just like you.

Just like you, each person wants to live. The same motivations drive us. We breathe the same breath, drink the same water, walk the same Earth. We are all connected, literally and figuratively.

This is how we practice Yoga off of our mat. We stop, observe, and choose our next action with integrity and compassion.

The “Just Like Me” Mantra[i]

(When saying the words, focus on the individual you are frustrated with.)

Just like me, you are seeking some happiness in your life.

Just like me, you are trying to avoid suffering in your life.

Just like me, you have known sadness.

Just like me, you want to be loved.

Just like me, you were once an innocent child.

Just like me, you are a spirit on a journey.

---

[i] Source: http://www.thesacredscience.com/blog1/an-ancient-prayer-for-compassion-in-any-situation

Universal Prayer

On this beautiful rainy morning, I felt compelled to share with you a mantra that was given to me by one of my favorite teachers, Gauri Johnson. This translation is from Valerie’dra Naiman. This is the Universal Prayer, a prayer for all beings. It is all-purpose and it lifts me up every single time I sing it.

If you'd like to learn this mantra, how the words are pronounced and how to sing it, come to class! My Tuesday 7:45p class, Meditative Yoga, includes mantra and chanting.

May it bring peace to your heart.

Many blessings,
Janara

Om

Sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ

May all the people of the world be in joy

Sarve santu nirāmayāḥ

May all be healthy and live in peace

Sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu

May we see all creatures as equals

Mā kashchit duḥkha bhāgbhavet

May all be free from sorrow

Oṁ Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ

Peace, peace, peace

Om, Om, Om

Happy New Year!

This morning we welcomed and blessed the New Year with a long, delicious Yoga practice. We began with a gentle asana (physical pose) practice to warm and stretch the body. Then I covered a bit of background about the practice of chanting and using mala (prayer beads) in the Yoga tradition.

Traditionally, japa mala is the practice of reciting a mantra (word or sound repeated to aid in meditation) with prayer beads. This can be done silently or out loud. Mala usually have 108 beads, so the mantra or prayer is recited 108 times. The symbolism of the number 108 in the Buddhist and Yogic traditions is complex and deep. Today, I spoke about the Sun and the Moon, both of which are an average distance away from the Earth that equals 108 times their respective diameters.

This seems especially meaningful to me as I practice and teach Hatha Yoga. Hatha means "sun and moon", and one goal of our practice is to balance the sun and moon energy within our bodies, as well as to be in harmony with the heavens. Balance and harmony…these are goals anyone can get behind.

Today, we chanted Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. This translates to "may all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may my life contribute to that goal". What better way to begin a new year than to raise the vibration of the entire world? All of the positive things that we desire for the new year - health, love, happiness, prosperity…all of these things can come to us if we become them.

I have found that the easiest way to become more positive is to serve others. Service shifts us away from the ego. It distracts us from our internal dialogue, that running commentary that so easily ensnares us in routine and old habits. Giving also allows us to receive more readily. It is by giving to others that we learn to let go and trust that we will be provided with all that we need.

But service has a final benefit that may trump all others - making others happy. Did you know that making other people happy can make you happier? And healthier? Yes, it's a thing. The intention and energy that goes into an invocational chant such as this one has its own power. It is a form of service.

As a group, we chanted this mantra the full 108 times. It was a thing of beauty, this group chant. Steady and strong, our voices filled the room. Afterwards, we took a few minutes of silent meditation. My head felt clear and utterly empty. It was filled with the buzzing of bees, a sensation of fullness and emptiness at the same time. The thoughts that generally fill my consciousness were absent. I experienced a state of bliss that is very difficult to put into words, but that I saw on the faces of the other participants.

Lastly, we practiced some restorative Yoga. I guided the participants through a meditation in which we released things we no longer need, envisioned our desires for 2015 and then soaked in a good long gratitude bath. It was powerful. We all emerged energized and relaxed. The tulips I'd put in water bloomed beautifully. I say they bloomed more than they should have in two hours. The combined power of determined yogis and yoginis is mighty!

This year, I choose to make my actions contribute to the happiness and freedom of all beings. Join me, maybe?

Alternative Medicine & the Military

Over the years, I have met and interacted with a lot of veterans and active military service people. I've met them in the training hall. I've met them as clients and as students. I've met them in my personal life. Though I am not a veteran myself, we seem to get along well and understand each other.

While this is not a blog about my personal life, I can share that my early life included a lot of tragedy. This gives me a different perspective on life than many people. While I am an artist and a dreamer in some ways, I'm also quite pragmatic. When the pressure is on, I know what I'm capable of and I do it. I also have an attitude of service to the larger community and make personal sacrifices to further that mission. I've often thought that this is why I relate well to veterans.

The military industrial complex has its place, and I in no way intend to denigrate or deny its importance in our history. Nor will I get political here. That being said, military service as it stands today takes a heavy toll on the mind, body and spirit. I believe that we can ameliorate that fact. As any veteran will tell you, being prepared to take the life of another human being is a heavy burden, and nothing can erase that fact.

Alternative medicine can help. I've seen it happen. A few years ago, I was honored to volunteer with an organization that helps veterans with a variety of alternative therapies. We went to a re-integration event for service people returning from Afghanistan. It was like a big expo where they received all sorts of support and information to ease their transition back to non-combat duty or civilian life. I was there offering my massage therapy work, while others offered chiropractic care, biofeedback therapy and HeartMath. I've also treated many, many veterans in my massage & yoga therapy practice.

Friends and patients know my strong empathic ability. That means that I am very sensitive to the feelings and energy of others. When I work with military folks, it breaks my heart. I feel their pain, their guilt, their numbness, their walls and compartmentalization. I feel the injuries that still ache. I feel the anxiety that keeps them awake. I feel the fears that they will fail, that they have failed, that they are not enough, that the ghosts will never leave.

Every now and then, I get to feel them relax, even if only by the tiniest of fractions. Sometimes, I win their trust. I have seen burly Marines cry. I have seen grizzled Rangers smile and tell me that their pain is eased. I have shared some beautiful moments with the most hard-boiled of sergeants and officers, grunts and sailors. A common theme in what they tell me is that they needed to feel safe. They needed to be heard. They needed to be recognized as a whole being, not merely as a serial number or a skill set. Nearly all had no idea they could feel differently, or better. They had no hope.

Recently I've been blessed to have a new student in my Yoga class who is a veteran. He showed up with no idea of what to expect, and had never practiced before. Despite this, he was game for everything and did very well. After class, he said that it was great and all the military should learn Yoga.

Scientists are also actively studying the effects of alternative modalities on members of the military. Yoga, for example, has gotten a lot of press in recent years for its positive effects. Yoga Nidra is helping veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yoga, meditation and mindfulness are also being studied. So far it's looking good. It works. The military is listening. Slowly, alternative therapies are being integrated with traditional therapies, at least for veterans. I hope that one day, active service people are trained in things like Yoga, mindfulness and meditation. These tools can help, and our military people need all the help they can get.

Help Spread the Word:

University of Connecticut researchers want to further their NIH-funded study for active duty and/or retired military members who have taken at least five yoga classes in the past two months. Participants will be asked about their experiences with yoga and will be compensated for their time. If you aren’t able to participate, please share this with your yoga community!

Link to the survey: http://ow.ly/BYlrN

The Spiritual Practice of Freecell

If you've never played it, Freecell is a form of solitaire, except all the cards are spread out, face up, in vertical columns. You have four open "cells" at the top, which are used to shift cards around. The goal is the same as solitaire - untangle all 52 cards and pile them up by suit and number, in order.

It’s also a pretty powerful spiritual practice.      

Freecell is teaching me to work with what I have in front of me. The game has many moves, some of which seem like progress, and some that seem like backtracking. It’s not linear. I cannot simply do what I’d like to do. The card I want is buried beneath three cards for which I have no use. I have to deal with a chaotic and seemingly arbitrary jumble. Each tiny step leading me further along my circuitous route…just like life.

Just like real life, there are no jokers, no get out of jail free cards. There’s just raw material and a little bit of wiggle room. You have to shift it around until the chaos is transformed into order. If you fail? That’s it…or you can hit retry. That too, might be like real life, but none of us really know that answer. But back to Freecell.

The game has a certain flow, yet it’s also balanced by longer termed strategy than simply putting a card anywhere it can fit. Looking ahead a few moves, that’s the key. But then, one can easily overbalance in this direction and take on too much. Unbridled ambition doesn’t work in Freecell. It tends to just eat up your free cells and leave you a crucial onemove away from perfection.

It’s also showing me how it doesn’t matter if I can see where my step will land. The most unlikely moves can sometimes lead to the most brilliant streak of flowing, easy scores. It seems like such a bad idea, but I have to do something. So I take a chance…and then, eureka!

Freecell reveals my blind spots. I never knew it, but sometimes I am dyslexic with numbers or colors. I think I'm seeing clearly, but the reality is different. How like life, how like Yoga!

Sidebar: a Yoga teacher I studied with recently told me that asana (yoga poses) reveals imbalance and asana corrects imbalance.

Koans everywhere!
 

Anyhoo. I find that I make a lot of mistakes. I think I’m on a roll, maybe I’m just a wee bit too excited about that fact and BOOM! Saw the color wrong, went too fast or overlooked one crucial thing. At other times, frustration will lead me to act recklessly. 

I also find that I’m capable of some brilliant flow. I get into a fugue state and it becomes effortless. One move leads to the next in a harmonious rhythm. It feels the same as when I'm in an altered state creating artwork, when my martial arts mojo is strong or when I'm paddling well on a river. Flow is a whole other topic…I'll write more about that later.

To sum up, it's helping me:

• Use what I have.
• Take one step at a time.
• Look a few moves ahead.
• Balance effort and non-effort.
• Learn from blind spots.
• Flow.
• Trust.

Give it a try, and as always, tell me about your experience! Are there any mundane seeming things you use as a spiritual practice?

Anatomic Yoga: Precision Asana

I attended a workshop this weekend with a gentleman who wrote one of the textbooks in my Yoga teacher training. Ray Long, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon who practices Yoga. He’s taken his in depth knowledge of the human body from his Western medical background, studied cutting-edge research and applied advanced computer animations to figure out how Yoga works in the body, and how we can use anatomic principles to do Yoga more effectively.

His basic premise is that we analyze each pose to see what muscles are involved in creating the form. We then stretch and engage the primary muscles and their opponents to create a precise, correct embodiment of the pose. He integrates modern scientific stretching techniques to enhance the efficacy. I myself got my torso on my leg in Janu Sirsasana (seated forward fold with one leg extended and one bent), which hasn’t happened since my full-time martial arts days.

This type of approach, interestingly enough, is a big part of how I was trained to be a Yoga teacher. Two of the three teachers who created the training program I attended have a detail-oriented, practical and anatomical bent to their teaching. The other instructor came out of a very holistic school of Yoga. She has much of the same knowledge, but different languaging.

Sunny Davis, especially, is skilled in combining anatomy and biomechanics to building good alignment in Yoga poses. But because of her background as a international level fitness educator and former competitive cyclist, her knowledge base is rich enough to inform any type of movement. Sunny has an amazing ability to analyze all the different embodiments of a pose in even a large class, and her corrections are subtle and powerful.

She and I have co-taught a series of therapeutic classes that focus on each functional area of the body, starting from the ground up with the feet and lower legs. In each workshop, we teach anatomy, common problems, options for treatment and then we practice stretching and strengthening approaches that come from her and my broad array of disciplines. Sunny brings in the perspective of an athlete, fitness trainer and long-time therapeutically-focused Yoga and Pilates teacher, and I bring in my martial arts, subtle energy expertise, lifetime Yoga practice and clinical massage background. Together, we make a pretty potent team.

I garnered some excellent asana cues and subtle anatomical insights from Mr. Long this weekend. It’s going to add to my ongoing process of combining disciplines to better help my students and patients. It was also lovely to meet an MD who believes that energetic blockages are the root of most illness. More than anything, it confirmed that I’m headed in the right direction – true integrative medicine. I love the ancient and mystical aspects of Yoga, but I’m quite sure I would not be so effective at using it if I didn’t have so much training in anatomy, physiology and kinesiology.

Here’s a little scrap I wrote in my notes near the end of the workshop:

“Our job as Yoga teachers is not only to help increase overall strength and flexibility, but to counteract the effects of modern sedentary life, which is rife with such problems as: kyphosis of the upper back, lower back pain, flat feet, weak core musculature, weak shoulder girdle musculature, tight hip flexors and hamstrings, sacro-iliac instability, living in a constant state of stress and lack of embodiment.”

A mouthful, I know. This is my life – I work with people every day who have a preponderance of the above conditions. People are stressed, tired, out of shape in crucial areas and not aware of their bodies. That’s what I do in my massage practice, yoga therapy practice and yoga classes. I strive to get people back in their bodies, to build awareness of the body’s sensations and wisdom, calm the nervous system and then get to work on strengthening and stretching safely.

The more trainings I attend, the more I can see that knowledge is knowledge, no matter what the source. Most disciplines and traditions of healing and personal development have similar insights, though they have distinct systems of symbolism and language. My sensei once said “the moves are the moves are the moves”.

Very true.

The Healing Power of Silence

I’ve been thinking for quite a while now about one of my superpowers: silence. Doesn’t sound too impressive, does it? Perhaps you’d rather be able to teleport, have x-ray vision or some other flashy power. Me? I’ll stick with silence.

Consider what happens when we are silent: introspection, listening, presence in the moment, rest, receptiveness, focus.

In our fast paced modern lives, how often do we stay silent to truly listen to our partners? Or are we really formulating our next sentence?

How often do we talk on the phone just to drown out the thoughts and feelings inside our minds?

How often do we turn on the TV, stream media over the internet, or zone out in front of a smartphone…attempting to “rest” by overstimulating our senses?

And how often do we actually stop talking, doing, running, consuming…just stop and be with our inner selves?

If you’re like most of us, one or more of the above questions will strike a chord.

As a Yoga Therapist and Instructor, I teach people techniques like asana (yoga poses), pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditation. Like many people, I was taught that these practices are valuable and healing.

Which they are. Each has a different effect on our bodymind, and those effects are wondrous.

But as it turns out, part of why they are effective is that many of them invite us into silence and bring us into calm, quiet environments.

I’m also an Environmental Educator, and today I led a hike into some lovely woods. One of my participants repeatedly remarked on how quiet it was, and I could see that it was having its subtle effect on her.

Modern science is catching up with the ancient wisdom of Yoga on this topic. Research published online in European's leading cardiology journal, European Heart Journal, links exposure to chronic noise with an increased risk of heart attack.

Just recently, I was reading an Ayurvedic text, and was struck by how it talks about meditation. Meditation is not just helpful because of the practice itself, but because it gives us a few minutes of complete silence every day.

Yoga teaches us that silence is healing because the reduced stimulation allows our nervous system to rest and regenerate. This is why a good Yoga teacher will tell you that savasana or corpse pose is the most important pose of the class.

Time in nature has the very same effect. In fact, the sounds of nature may be even more healing than just plain silence, but that's a topic for another blog post!

Why not add a few minutes of silence into your day? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Sit quietly in your backyard
• Take a walk outside
• Meditate
• Practice Yoga
• Journal
• Take a “silent fast” – set aside some time, from a few minutes up to a day or even a weekend, in which you turn off all electronics and remain in silence as you do whatever calming thing that you like, or nothing at all.

Remember, the goal is to reduce noise, become aware of the present moment, and be present with your Self.

I’d love to hear about your experiences; please leave a comment with the results of your experiment!