Chakra yoga: a mindful practice

If you know anything about chakras, you know how intriguing they are as tools for personal growth and change. These amazing energy centers are like little buttons you can press in order to make yourself feel a certain way, or un-make/release unpleasant feelings. Admit it - isn't there some part of you that thinks, when taking the chakra test or reading a great book about them, "maybe this is the way my problems will be solved"? 

I certainly felt that way about chakras when I first discovered them 10 years ago at a yoga training. At 24, I leaned slightly - OK, maybe excessively - toward things that I could quantify, things that helped me intellectually understand life. However, I hadn't yet discocvered the uncanny power of being present and just allowing things to be. And of course, this is really what yoga is all about.

Chakras aren't just buttons to press; tempting as it would be, especially as a yoga teaher, to market them as such. I could go there, and believe me, people have - with their bright colors and (seemingly) distinct psychological and physical traits, it's easy to present chakras as a way to systematically unravel all one's physical and emotional knots, whether it be through a special workshop, class, or one-on-one healing technique. Or, I suppose, through yoga poses. And, since I happen to be preparing to delve into a series of posts on yoga poses for the chakras, I guess it's time to get clear! Yes, I suppose it is.


When working with chakras, mindfulness and allowing are just as important as when stretching muscles. But working with chakras is a little more intellectual than stretching muscles. If you know enough about chakras to want to practice chakra yoga, you invariably know the aspects of each chakra such as colors, elements (earth, water, etc) emotions, and affirmations. With that knowledge, you begin to know exactly what you'd like to achieve when working with a specific chakra. But even with that knowledge, it's important to maintain an attitude of openness, especially when working with chakras that are closed down.

Next time you're working with a chakra, I want you to try something. First, calm your mind. You can do this through a regular asana practice. Or try this: Breathe deeply into your heart for several minutes and allow your thoughts to flow from your head into the peace of your heart. When you get the sense that your heart is energized, send some of that energy to the area that feels blocked. This should be more of a felt experience, like moving a muscle. Distracting thoughts usually indicate that you are unconsciously backing away from a feeling or sensation. See if you can be open to whatever is there. Similar to stretching, do this to your level of tolerance, which could be as little as 10 seconds, up to a few minutes. You'll know it's time to come out by one of two signals: either the feeling dissipates, or it transforms. Also, if you feel overwhelmed, it's OK to stop and maybe try again later. Thank your body and take a restful pose.

Moved to Wordpress... but still posting here

Just wanted to let anybody who's reading know that I've transplanted my blog to wordpress at: http://andreabussinger.wordpress.com.


The wordpress blog may have slightly different content, as it's designed as a way for therapy/yoga clients to find me. The posts may be a little more well-edited. And, if you're on wordpress more often, you may find it convenient. But otherwise, you won't get much new, since I still plan on staying with blogger as a home base where I'll draft, refine and publish things for the first time. I'll also have more poetry and personal stories to share here.

If you ever feel like referring a client to me, please give them the wordpress site, or of course my email address: andreabussingerpcc@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!

An attitude of willingness

Yoga, when practiced with an attitude of willingness, is bound to take you to places you have never been before.

But all sorts of things can get in the way of being willing, really willing to be changed, in yoga.

We think we want health, beauty, balance, self-realization, or whatever yoga has that we lack. But in focusing on wanting these, we are sometimes fighting against the lack of them. For me, this took the form of unconsciously believing the world was a shitty place. Yoga became both a refuge, and a way for me to somehow transcend or be separate from the world. This led to even more suffering, as the real power of yoga couldn't be accessed, and I still felt separate.


I stated attending yoga with an attitude of willingness when I was stressed out of my mind by working full-time at a women's shelter, and commuting 1 hour each way to the job. For a person with special dietary needs and poor stress tolerance, this wasn't a good combination. So, I turned to my only real resource: taking yoga from a fellow teacher at the studio where I taught. She taught the class before mine from 6-7pm, so it was easy, and I really had no reason not to try.

In her class, I discovered a much deeper level of calm in myself than I had ever experienced. And though she's a good teacher, I don't think that was the main factor. I think it was because I was ready. I was so deep into a hole of my own making, that I would use every bit of my strength to grab the rope that she was throwing down - a rope that consisted of physical strengthening, deep breathing, humor, and inspiring music - just the right combination to give me the confident energy and emotional balance I needed to get through that time. Those 6 months of regular practice left an indelible mark on me, as I was finally able to explore territory beyond my own ideas of a "proper" yoga class; I had a fuller appreciation of my body, a sense of unity with my fellow students, and a thirst to explore more unknown territory. It occurred ot me that the edge of the unknown is really where I most want to be.

Practicing with an attitude of willingness means taking responsibility for your own spiritual path; your focus isn't on what someone else can bestow on you, but on what you're willing to learn. It also means that you have to give up any pre-concieved ideas about "right ways" or "wrong ways". You have to be willing to really feel every option, really breathe into each approach, and go with the one that can teach you the most.

Practicing with an attitude of willingness is being willing to admit all that you don't know; over, and over, and over again. It also means being willing to admit when you do know something, such as a value you hold dear, or a sudden awareness that you need to leave something toxic behind. It means being open to all the signs along your path, whether they're in the language of the mind, body, or heart. All of these languages are valid, and yet none are your final destination. They're just markers along the way.

The Yoga of Psychological Limits

I’ve been thinking about limits lately. When we stretch in yoga, we feel our physical limits. When we attempt to grow and change our brains, we feel our psychological limits, and this can feel frustrating, but also inspiring. And finally, when we interact with others, we must decide how to approach their limits, as well as our own.

Limits in interpersonal relationships often take the form of boundaries, such as one’s boundaries around being touched, or flirted with, or topics that they wish not to discuss. Some people who have been abused may have triggers around things like sudden gestures or loud words, and these become boundaries when we ask others not to do those things near us. We all know it is polite to honor other people’s boundaries. Yet some of us, particularly those with an awareness of the potential for growth (and perhaps, a need to see this growth in others), find it difficult to refrain from challenging and testing others’ limits.
The purpose of a relationship (be it romantic, therapeutic, or friendship) is twofold: to support, and to challenge. Some people outright ask for challenge; they say, “if you see me doing such and such, I want you to TELL ME and I’ll fix it.” But there are others who ask for support by not being challenged; in other words, by respecting their limits. This can come by way of their avoidance of challenging topics, preference for light-hearted conversations, or cringing or even snapping back in response to challenge. Though it would be easy to tell ourselves that this person has “issues”, especially if we feel rejected by their response, we can also choose to cultivate respect around their limits. We never know what kind of pain this brings up for them. And while it is true that diving into pain can bring healing, it is also true that overwhelming ourselves with pain can cause our minds to ricochet back into self-protection, which is not an easy stance from which to grow.
When we honor our own limits in yoga, we give our muscles the chance to experience the delicate tension between shortening and lengthening. Eventually they will decide which way they want to go that day. It’s that simple; we have not much control over it. But eventually we hope our muscles will open, and usually they do. It’s the same with honoring the boundaries and limits of those we care about. Deep down, perhaps several layers down, everyone has a need to grow and expand. By honoring their limits, we give them the opportunity to choose when growth is right for them, just the way we do for our muscles in yoga. In this way we trust the part of them that seeks growth and expansion, whether or not we are fully ready to believe it is there. We are also willing to trust that person’s wisdom about what just isn’t right for them. Focusing on our own growth is, of course, helpful in this regard. Through honoring limits in yoga and life, we have an opportunity to develop compassion for others’ struggles, and our own.

How Mindful Relationships Change your Brain (no, really)

So I must be somewhat of a left-brained person, because whenever I learn a cool fact about neurobiology, it excites me like nothing else. So it was, in was reading The Mindful Therapist (2010) by Dan Siegel, leading expert in interpersonal neurobiology, that I came across his idea that certain types of social interaction have the power to transform our brains.

In the book, Siegel says that interacting with another person in a mindful state, such as counseling, can fast-track the growth of new neural pathways in the brain. From the counseling perspective, this is good news, since it means that engaging in a relationship with a non-judgmental, mindful therapist boosts your potential for brain change, or neuroplasticity, which we now know occurs throughout the life span. This means that whatever process of change you're working on, having a mindful therapist can be a big help. I can only imagine this would apply to a mindful yoga teacher or spiritual guide, as well.

I also like to think about the big-picture perspective - does this apply to all relationships? For the last 10 years, I've surrounded myself with healthy people, hoping this would support me in developing health and well-being in my own life. But I never thought that interacting with my friends in a mindful way - such as through highly attentive conversations, playing music or dancing together - could actually change the structure of my brain. Since reading The Mindful Therapist, I've paid attention to how I feel after socializing with people. And sure enough, people with active mindfulness practices tend to leave me feeling more energized, compassionate, and confident, which supports my personal growth goals. And as it turns out, Siegel has something to say about this.

"Integrative communication in a relationship stimulates the growth of integrative fibers in the brain. You're going to say, That's too weird -- how would a relationship shape the brain and why would it be that simple? Well, what they share in common is energy and information flow. So a relationship can be defined as the sharing of energy and information flow. And when we understand how that energy and information flow is happening -- it could be with words, with the body, with an attitude -- we can feel it, and we feel it with each other. It's not some weird unknown thing. It's fantastic and it's real. Energy is absolutely a part of this world, and energy can be shared between us."-cited in Huffington Post.

According to Siegel, having a mindfulness practice allows us to become more attentive to others. It also allows us to be more open to receiving mindful attention from other people, which we all need. When I look back on the groups of "healthy people" to which I've belonged, sure enough, they are mostly people who do yoga, meditate, or have an active spiritual or self-care routine. And I have witnessed tremendous acts of friendship and personal transformation within these communities. 

I envision a future where we're more aware of this capacity to transform each other at the cellular level. Forgive me if I'm getting a little "woo-woo" here. But it has really stunned me, the extent to which I feel more comfortable in my skin after a group yoga class, or playing music with a friend. And I can think of no better explanation than Dan Siegel's theory of interpersonal neurobiology. Siegel also defines the mind as: "a... process that regulates the flow of energy and information." While new-agey people tend to say we are all connected through Love, I like to borrow Siegel's concept here and think of us being connected through "energy and information" flow. Because in terms of the brain, knowing that you are loved is just a piece of information carried on a wire. And that's exciting to me, because wires can be repaired, and mindful relationship is one way to do that.

Healing the second chakra

From the perspective of Western religion in which many of us were raised, it can be hard to understand the second chakra without cultural baggage getting in the way.  The second chakra, one of 7 holistic energy centers which rests in the low abdomen, is (unsurprisingly) related to sexuality. But it's also related to all things watery and flowing, such as emotions, pleasure, and our ability to respond fully to the emotional and physical abundance in which we live. In other words, this chakra is all about pleasure, satisfaction, and feeling like we deserve to experience all that is good in life.

The Christian religion doesn't have a clear message about this. I've been to some churches where people were dancing in the aisles and hugs were given freely, but there's also that stereotype of the stiff church where "looking good" is more important than truly belonging and accepting others, despite the messages of Jesus. And where, as we know from the movie "Footloose", dancing and showing off the body are considered to be a threat to our immortal soul. As a very sensual and beauty-oriented young teen raised in a Protestant church, I never felt that I could fully explore my spirituality there.

It was my craving for a spirituality that encompassed the sensual world which brought me to yoga. Since Westernized yoga is pretty widely recognized as being more Tantric than Vedic, I won't try to speak for the Vedic philosophy that is the 5,000-year-old root of real yoga. But what we have today, is a Westernized hatha yoga that makes a ton of space for sensual explorations of the body. Yoga studios offer a place for people to move in ways that are receptive to the body, rather than dominating it like traditional fitness does, and this allows us to experience sensuality in a way that's safe and conscious, and usually accompanied by good tunes.

Although it can be said that this "feel-good yoga" distracts from the real goal of spirituality, and that can certainly be true, I also think it can heal the wounds of the 2nd chakra, which, in my opinion, run deep and wide in our culture. One only has to look at the high rates of addiction to substances, pornography/ dysfunctional sex, sexual frigidity, and body image problems to see that there is a problem here, and it runs right through our collective second chakra. But understanding this chakra can help us heal.

How? Well, by balancing the second chakra, we can reach a balance between compulsive pleasure and total denial of the body that is experienced by, let's say, chronic dieters, or any of us who strive to eat, shop, and live ethically. By balancing the 2nd chakra we allow ourselves to feel more deeply, both physically and emotionally, and this lets us find satisfaction more easily in life. By reclaiming the right to pleasure, we shed so many things: our guilt and shame for our desires which we all have; the need to compulsively consume food, sex, or material wealth; and the fear of feeling our vulnerable need for belonging and intimacy, which we all have. Healing the second chakra allows us to fully embrace our vulnerability, as interdependent beings who crave touch, pleasure, and the good things in life. Instead of becoming stuck in the pursuit of pleasure, we can free ourselves to feel, experience, and finally to transcend.

Being present... for the fun of it

We often forget to use our minds as allies. I find this odd considering just how thrilling it can be to harness our minds through mindfulness, meditation, and affirmations/positive thoughts. Whatever the reason, it has been surprising for me to see that mindfulness actually helps me enjoy life more, and create more positivity out of everyday life.

As a counselor in a community mental health setting, I noticed that most of my clients approached meditation as a serious task, almost as if it were a school assignment that they could pass or fail. I'd be willing to venture that many of us find it difficult to grasp the concept of meditation, feeling stuck inside this "pass" and "fail" mentality which is, after all, our most familiar M.O.. But the concept of meditation is that you neither pass nor fail; it's a practice of letting go of the whole construct of evaluating ourselves and others. For some, it's stepping into mental territory that they've never visited.

However, many of my clients were familiar with something I'd call accidental mindfulness - the kind of non-judgmental trance you get into when you're zoning out to the TV (or X-box), or cruising around a back country road with the windows down. Without any special training, they often created experiences that brought them into a state of non-judgmental relaxation, refreshing their minds and souls. Of course, there are also self-destructive ways of relaxing, like substance abuse, which more fully check you out of yourself. But many of us do have one or two activities we can use as a refuge, allowing us to relax the mind and integrate/process the things that are troubling us.

The cool part about mindfulness, in this respect, is that it broadens your ability to drop into accidental mindfulness in more situations. You may start out only being able to relax in front of a certain Rom-Com you enjoy, or playing a video game, and soon find yourself taking refuge in the painting on your doctor's waiting room wall, the sunset in rush-hour traffic, or your own breath as you deal with stress at work. (You may even find yourself being able to focus on the positive in others, instead of the things that trigger you!) You may find yourself enjoying a much broader range of things, since pleasure is one of the many feelings that mindfulness practice allows you to embrace.

Self-care and the importance of soothing

Therapy is not always the grueling process of deep self-excavation it’s portrayed to be in pop culture. Although it’s sometimes necessary to “excavate” ourselves – to dive through layers of the mind, childhood and all that – it’s equally necessary to know how to self-soothe and create positive experiences in our lives. And though this necessitates challenging our negative thought patterns and habits, it also be cultivated by acts of self-care that create positive experiences in our lives.

Self-care can include anything from having a bubble bath to hanging out with a friend, or even yoga and meditation. It really doesn’t matter what form it takes, as long as it feels relaxing. Engaging in something soothing on a daily basis can go a long way toward lowering your level of anxiety (which is often just another habit), because you’re taking a proactive step to stop thinking about your troubles, and start focusing on what you can do to improve your situation. It creates a new neural pattern in your brain that should allow you to relax more quickly, consider your own needs, and feel less pressured to over-work or over-stimulate yourself.

The habits of “busy-ness” often buffer us from our true emotional experience. Taking time for self-soothing may induce a vague sense of apprehension since doing so could potentially blow the lid off of any feelings you’ve been bottling up. Also, many of us simply haven’t been taught how to care for ourselves when this happens, instead reaching for distractions. If this is your fear, keep in mind that self-care need not be an intensely deep experience. Try watching movies, listening to dance music, reading a good book at a cafe, and then gradually move into more reflective activities if you feel up to it. It’s good to have a big toolbox of self-care tools, using the ones that feel right in each situation. Mental health is a journey of balancing the “excavation” of awareness with a nice deep breath of life. Because life, after all, is good.

Feeling Stuck? Mindfulness can help.

Do you ever feel like there's one aspect of your life that you keep getting stuck on? Maybe something in your marriage or relationship, your physical self-confidence, ability to receive, or a work issue like perfectionism? Something that influences you perhaps in just one sphere, or perhaps in many, but regardless, has that sense like, "if only I could resolve this, life would be so much better!"

In my own journey with mindfulness and yoga, I've found that even these core issues I'd come to take for granted can be altered. I informally call this integration, because I believe, like many other mental health people, that healing involves bringing to light aspects of ourselves that are broken, orphaned and abandoned, and re-uniting them with the more nurturing side of ourselves. (I also borrow the term integration from Daniel J. Siegel's book The Mindful Therapist (2010). According to Siegel, engaging with a mindful therapist, and/or having a mindfulness practice of your own, can help integrate neural synapses in the brain, helping with brain functioning and mental health.

The fact that parts of your life feel stuck, could mean that your brain is stuck - there may be aspects of your brain that function separately when they should function together. Research is beginning to show that mindfulness can help to integrate the disparate parts of the brain. This is another level at which emotional transformation is a process of brain change, and we can begin it anytime.

For me, this inspires yet more respect for the process of personal growth. When I think about my own and others' growth, I feel excited, in awe, and patient, trusting that the process has its own hidden timing. We are trained to think that it's possible to transform ourselves by sheer mental effort. But in reality, transformation belongs to the body, of which the brain is decidedly a part. The brain functions together with the entire nervous system, which controls your gut reactions to everything from stress to caffeine to sex.

Research is beginning to stand by that belief, long-held by many, that the brain can be changed by mindfulness. By training ourselves to notice things without reacting, we can learn to live from a less reactive, more responsive, and open-minded place. Mindfulness is a powerful tool. It may just help you move that mountain that's been in your way.

How to use Triggers as Growth Experiences

I wanted to respond to this meme I saw on facebook: "We will continue to be tested until we are no longer triggered".

It certainly seems true; as we become aware of our triggers, we start to notice how they manifest repeatedly, almost like we're being tested. This helps us make sense of why the triggers continue to happen, and implies a sense of responsibility over how we react. However, to call it a "test" implies that some higher power is throwing triggers our way, and the only way to make this painful process stop is to heal completely. But at times, thinking that only perfect healing will bring relief can feel overwhelming. After all, why should our experience of comfort and relief be tied to a standard of well-being that lies outside of present experience?

Fortunately, there is a way to find relief long before you achieve "complete healing". This involves becoming aware that you are creating your own triggers. This is not a statement of blame. It is simply true that once we have experienced a trauma, we often are drawn to situations that allow us to reenact that stress so we can come to understand: 1) why we did not respond fully in the first place, and 2) how we can respond fully in the present. Seen this way, triggers can be helpful, as they create learning experiences for us. But if they occur too often or too intensely, they are counterproductive, as the brain is not given a chance to turn off the stress response and process what has happened.

For example, in my 20's, I moved to the West Coast twice. The first time, it was to do an exchange study in California, and it was a great experience. When I returned to Ohio, I lived in 3 different places before moving back out, this time to Idaho. This time, the experience of being far from home with few resources was not an adventure - it was a trauma. When I came back home, I suddenly found it very difficult to stay in one place, and lived in 3 different places for the next few years. I came to realize that I was re-creating the trauma of moving so that I could understand my sense of uprootedness and become more grounded.

Once you become aware that you are unconsciously creating triggering situations, it is very important to take a stance of self-forgiveness and understanding. Once your brain has been traumatized, it is very normal to re-create situations as a way of learning. This can be a growth experience, especially when undertaken consciously. Consciousness of this process means knowing you can slow it down at any point. We all have an ideal level of stress at which we function best. This involves the right balance of comfort and challenge. For those who feel over-stimulated by life, it is really OK to follow your inner guidance and create comfort and stability. It is OK to avoid triggering situations. Just when you think you are not growing, you can think about creating a trigger and I assure you, it will happen! Another option is to create positive triggers, such as a spiritual practice, counseling, or therapeutic creative exercises. There is never a shortage of growth experiences. It's up to you to decide how often and intensely you want to experience them.

The Final Pieces

The final pieces fall into place: Presence. Soft allowing. Moving towards what's true and real, both within us and without.

No excuses this time.

We are willing to be changed. To go beyond what we said we were; beyond what it was once convenient for us to be. We give up those easy definitions, things which allowed us to think I'll be OK when.... No more excuses; we cannot be defined by what happened before, any more. 

The final pieces fall into place: Integrity, Responsibility. Knowing how to ask. Confidence in what we feel and know. Willingness to give, even when we're weary, for those we love. Moving into what is light and loving, both within and without.

We speak in light-splintering voices about our pain, about our growth. You could say it's a floating support group. You could say it's a bunch of narcissists. A sign of personal instability. You could say it's holy and shitty all at once.

Floating around, our hearts land on different people's shoulders like butterfly wings. We listen and let those wings flutter on when time has come. There is no need to become heavy in matters of the heart. Only better at listening.

What is the "goal" of mental health?

A misconception I've often heard about mental health is that our "goal" is to become totally self-aware, and by doing so, become the master of all that happens in the unconscious brain. This sort of amounts to a triumph of logic over feelings, which can, after all, feel like jack-in-the-boxes waiting to sabotage our best-laid plans. It can feel invigorating at first, but if not balanced with gentle allowing of the inner self, momentum can gets lost in a viscous cycle of of self-critique and backsliding.

This is one end of a spectrum, a belief held by people who tend to live more in their feelings and impulses. There is nothing inherently wrong with this way of being. The opposite belief, held by more logical people, is that mental health lies in "not over-thinking everything". But it's easy to see how the extreme of either one could be disastrous, as leading too much with the head can lead to repression of natural and valid feelings, and leading only with feelings can lead to carelessness.

The answer isn't in becoming fully, logically conscious of EVERYTHING. No matter how troublesome or sneaky feelings can be, they still serve a purpose. Any prolonged attempt to muzzle our feelings before they're out of the gate, will lead to them becoming even more insistent on bursting forth, this time heedless of warnings. The answer lies in letting our logical and feeling sides become friends. Letting that sneaky, often-selfish lower brain come out and have tea with the protective, logical side, and letting that logical side see that feelings aren't really as scruffy or incorrigible as once thought. Feelings actually have value that the thinking brain could never come up with on its own, but they are not the ultimate truth in life.

Mindfulness is a great way to introduce these sides to each other. Through things like meditation and yoga, you can develop a non-judgmental awareness of your "lower", reactive, intuitive self, and sense it as neither good nor bad, but simply there. Eventually, the higher brain can learn to trust feelings and allow them to shine, and the lower brain can learn to trust logic to balance raw energy with wise restraint. There is a way to be whole.

For information on therapy using mindfulness and yoga, email me at andreabussinger81@gmail.com.

Love Hormones: why find out why?

Recently I learned that when we fall in love, certain chemicals are released in the brain. You know that feeling you get when you meet somebody, feel elated when you see them, and think about them for days afterward? That's dopamine pumping up your reward circuits in the brain, making you want more. Oh yeah, and the feeling you get after the first date, then the second date, and the first time you sleep together: that feeling that you can do anything? More brain chemistry. Then after the first few months, when you start to get more interested in cuddling, declare your commitment to the person, and feel love growing in your heart? That's oxytocin, priming you to take the time-tested step of creating a lasting partnership.

This made a big impression on me, and I've wanted to write about, but wasn't sure what to say. It meant a lot to me because in my teens and 20's, I was addicted to love - not in the sense of going to extremes, but definitely in the sense that without the intrigue of a romantic relationship, I felt restless and bored. I now know that I was craving the hormone dopamine, which gave me a boost of concentration and energy whenever I met someone I liked. You see, without a love interest, life was... dull. (Fortunately, I've discovered that mindfulness practice makes my experience of life more shiny and energetic than it ever was, without the aid of romantic supplementation!)

So, yes, that's one angle from which to write about this. But for now, I'm with the question: why does it matter? I find it very interesting how we jump on scientific research about things that we already know intuitively. This applies for mindfulness and yoga, as well as love. We know it makes us happy, so does it really matter why?

The knowledge of how/why love makes us feel the way it does can be used for different purposes. For example, you could use it to make another person fall in love with you. Since we're all operating on a common set of hormones, which are triggered by the same things, it's entirely possible. Likewise, you can use it to manipulate yourself. For example, many articles suggest using this knowledge to "spice up" a long-term relationship with dopamine-enhancing activities, like exciting travel, eroticism, or new sex techniques. In essence, we can make ourselves "fall in love" all over again, with the same partner. This last suggestion, although it sounds good (and it is effective), makes me a little uncomfortable. After all, why is one form of emotional manipulation different from any other? We're still manipulating our hormones, and that seems a little strange to me.

But this is the era we live in. As we come to know more about the brain, we'll continue manipulating our emotional responses with that knowledge. To me, this is both exciting and frightening, since it represents tremendous power for personal growth, but also the temptation to control our experience, becoming even more removed from our raw reactions to life. After all, if you can make yourself fall in love with a good man, you can also make yourself fall in love with an abusive partner, or someone who isn't good for you. There is truth in our raw experience of life, and a time when those instincts should be honored. Similarly, it's possible that knowing too much about love chemistry could simply take the fun out of it! Perhaps the key lies in finding a balance between the two. There is power in self-knowledge, as it helps us make adjustments needed to get the most out of life. But there's also power in mindfully letting life (love) happen, and letting ourselves be part of it, feeling and responding to life (love) as we were born to do.

Navigating

Drop
that fear of breathing
let that net around your heart unfurl
Your body is trustworthy, see,
legs pumping to stay afloat.

Move through this blue-green
flowing substance
(God? Time? Love? All of the above -)
pumping through heart
lungs
belly
eyes and ears,
inside and out,
You belong here!

Legs swimming, confidently now,
the steady rhythm of waves
cleanses the mind
smooths the rough edges
and heals your skin
As you surrender
As you begin

Yoga: a quiet revolution

The other day, resting in child's pose after a busy week of meeting deadlines for paperwork, I had a memory of when I first started teaching people to listen to themselves. As a 26-year-old beginners' yoga teacher, I felt quite surprised that women in their 50's looked to me for a certain kind of authority. I took me awhile to figure out what it was - then I realized, they needed me to tell them two things: 1, to relax, or 2, to listen to their inner wisdom. They actually did not know how to do these things, or had forgotten.

It stunned me at the time, because I had never thought of these as valuable skills, or skills at all. But to these women - most of whom worked in higher education or administrative work - Monday night yoga was a precious time when they could "just let everything go". The rest of the time, they were meeting deadlines, fitting in, or simply performing. We all live in a culture where we're supposed to be told what to do - starting in elementary school, and into adulthood. These women viewed me as an authority figure, but I refused to be that. I knew I could teach them more by showing them how to teach themselves, even if that meant they might not need me anymore.

I love this about yoga. That when we do child's pose, we are actually subverting the dominant paradigm - when we put our heads to the earth and listen to our own heartbeat, we are overturning the teacher's authority in exchange for our own. In daily life, this can lead to subversive acts like... smiling at coworkers, breathing deeply at the desk, or no longer stealing paperclips because of a belief in asteya. It can lead to putting one's own well-being and sense of alive-ness over things like work and keeping up appearances - honoring the self as the core of all we do. 

Here's to yoga revolution - from the inside out!

Human creativity: what if

Human creativity is suffering from a collective un-groundedness that threatens us as it pushes beyond the limits of our resources. Our self-interested intelligence which has allowed us to control the external conditions and so grow the population, is the same thing that is going to destroy us. This won't be the first time humans have expanded into an advanced civilization, then collapsed. What if we are just part of a series of expansions and contractions of this human experiment? What if whatever guiding force is out there, be it God, or evolution, or life energy, is just running this experiment over and over to see what will happen?

Certainly as a human I want this experiment to be the successful one. We have, obviously, expanded beyond any other variation of humankind that we know. We have reached the moon and we are reaching out to the stars. We can control interior climate and treat cancer. We have a rich body of poetry, music, and artistic expressions that would delight any alien visitor or tourist from beyond. But will our tremendous expansion into new areas of our species creativity be enough to carry us into the future? Is our human experiment... good enough to last? I sure hope so.

In any case, I'm a firm believer that getting grounded is something we can all do for the planet. As we come into our bodies, we come to understand that life is an ecosystem - just as our bodies and souls need to survive, so every living thing does as well. We cannot disconnect from the earth. It is our own place.

Yoga and Creativity

When I practice mindful movement, I align with my creativity.

By aligning with the creative force, I heal myself and my world.

When I started doing yoga, I was 24 years old, a recent college grad waiting tables for a living. With my degree in English, I had trouble finding a better job in my small town. To make matters worse, I was having health issues related to celiac disease (undiagnosed at the time), so my physical and mental energy were at an all-time low. Yoga class was the first exercise I had ever enjoyed. It combined music and spirituality with an exercise style that was low-impact, calming, and intuitive. And, it helped me reconcile my need for a self-created life with the physical limitations of my illness.

As a young adult on the verge of creating a life, I was torn between two extremes: a high level of creativity, and on the other hand, my unconscious belief that life was hard and there was no room for the creative soul. As my celiac symptoms of fatigue and malnutrition started to develop, life kept feeling harder. Over the next 8 years, yoga gently helped me understand, once and for all, that... life is good. That it’s OK to want things, to create them, and then to feel satisfied. Life was not, as I worried, a struggle with my lower self, as it threatened to drag me into "dark cravings" for status, pleasure, and materialistic things. No... life was an invitation to tenderly embrace those needs, thereby arriving at compassion, freedom, and satisfaction. Look,  we live on the most pleasurable planet in our solar system, full of green plants and flowing rivers. It’s not all wonderful, of but it’s certainly OK to focus on the parts of it that are, because in doing so, we find our passion for living.

Yoga has not helped me transcend my lower chakras; rather, it’s helped me meet my lower-chakra needs gracefully. Contrary to myself at 24, inspired but stunted, I now feel empowered to reach for my needs, whether it’s a cuddle with my lover, an hour with my guitar, or a great job that pays well. And it’s not only self-serving things. My being also craves things like knowledge, self-respect, connection, and purpose. As “lower” needs are met, “higher” ones emerge. Yoga helps me identify them, and simultaneously to realize they are not me. Some degree of healthy detachment is necessary in order to achieve satisfaction in life.

According to chakra theory, the 2^nd chakra houses creativity. Its Sanskrit name translates to “One’s own place”, and it holds our desire, creativity, satisfaction, and pleasure. The 2^nd chakra represents the need to create a life tailored to our unique organism. Our own place. This place, which can include our partner, friends, home and career, becomes a jumping-off point for how we contribute to the world, and for our spiritual development. All of this relies on the creative force within us.

Because I had such a difficult time claiming this need for “my own place” in my 20’s, I have a good understanding of the part the 2^nd chakra plays in spiritual growth. When I got into yoga, I knew I wanted a spiritual life. But I didn’t understand that having a lifestyle was also important, and in its absence, my spirituality withered. From age 24 to 26, I worked for minimum wage and lived poor while studying yoga, reiki, and women’s health. While my friends were establishing their careers, I was distancing myself from the world, and becoming pretty unhappy in the process. After landing my first salaried job at 28, I allowed myself to explore my long-neglected interest in fashion, and decorated my home the way I wanted. It was there, in the little brick cottage I rented, that I found “my own place” – amongst the tigerlilies, wild strawberries, and long afternoons decorating the sun-dappled living room. It was there that I forgot my spirituality, and there I claimed it again, this time with my whole self. I made room for myself as a songwriter, fashionista, chocolate addict, and eventually, a wife to my husband. None of this made me any less interested in spiritual practice. As I fulfilled these yearnings, I felt free, alive, and satisfied.

Yoga also helped me stabilize my health. In a way, the body is also “one's own place”, since it is formed by the creative energy of prana. Yoga postures are designed to harmonize the energy body, which helps physical health as well. For me, this could not happen without mindfulness. Through realizing that my body is not me, I've awakened to my body as a creature: a needy creature, but still lovable! This makes me more willing to relax into my prana, bringing health and energy.

In Western culture, our relationship to the life force isn't ideal. We seem bent on taking in as much as we can in terms of material goods, calories, and stimulation, while neglecting the need to care for bodies. While healthcare professionals try to educate us about healthy habits, we struggle to maintain a desire to be healthy, constantly "falling off the wagon". I think this could all be rooted in our unhealthy attachment to the material world. Our obsession with the physical, external aspects of ourselves keeps our core insecurity at bay, but prevents us from really enjoying life. Yoga, like any mindful practice, helps us become aware of ourselves as creators. In the stillness that follows mindful movement, we find our being, which is a fountain of inner satisfaction. Then we can begin to create boldly. We can begin to consider, not how we can ask more of the world, but what can we give? What do we want to see on this big canvas?

~

This piece relies on ideas from Joseph LePage in the Integrative Yoga Therapy (2004) Teacher Training Manual.

Healthy Activities for the Heart Chakra

I've been wanting to post some of the chakra healing tips I compiled for Chakra Yoga last year. And since it happens to be Valentine's Day, I thought I'd focus on the heart!

When I teach Chakra Yoga classes, I always have fun with this one because the heart is just a huge part of our daily existence, and plays an important role in the chakra system as well.. Basically, it's the connection between the lower chakras and the upper chakras, the place where self-interest meets the more transcendent aspects of equanimity, compassion, insight, vision, and one-ness. Until the lower chakra's needs are met, it is difficult to open the heart. But when the heart is open, it feeds the entire system.

• Backbends! Oooh yeah, a little Camel, or Reclining Butterfly, and you'll be bathing in heart prana.
• Triangle Pose - although it engages the whole body, Triangle relies on having an open chest, and gives you the feeling of radiating outward from your heart. If you feel like taking your stability up to the next level, float on up to balancing Half Moon, with the shoulders relaxed.
• Selfless giving to others.
• Receiving without guilt
• Honest communication
• Delicious food, candles and soft music relax the brain, opening you up for connection.
• Self-appreciation. Thank yourself for something you've done today. 
• Express appreciation to loved ones; skip the complaints. 

Other therapeutic things

• Spices: cinnamon
• Essential oils: Rose, jasmine. 
• Metta meditation or gratitude practice.

Life is more colorful, soft, and energized when the heart is open. Wishing you a beautiful Valentine's Day!

Bessel van der Kolk is my hero - and yoga is my medicine

For all my therapy geek friends (you know who you are): have you heard of Bessel van der Kolk, a Dutch psychiatrist who's doing research on things like yoga and EMDR? If not, go look him up. You won't be disappointed.

I spend 8 hours on Tuesday with Dr. van der Kolk in a live webcast from Hawaii. The topic was "Trauma, Attachment and Neuroscience." Sounds interesting, huh? Basically, the seminar delved into how trauma  re-wires the brain and the way we relate to the world. It's not so much that trauma leaves an imprint of a certain memory in our minds; rather, it makes us less able to live happily in the present. It does this by changing our brain: everything from the brain stem (breathing, sleeping, eating), to the thalamus (interpretations of the body), amygdala (emotional arousal and motivation), and frontal cortex (thinking). Dr. van der Kolk explained that trauma treatment must ALWAYS address the body, because the lower brain and limbic system are ALWAYS affected. Too often, "Western European" therapies focuses only on the frontal cortex (ahem, "cognitive therapy"), and ignore the body. (Dr. van der Kolk made no effort to conceal his frustration that body therapies are not acknowledged for their mental health benefits.)

Dr. van der Kolk conducts research at the Trauma Center at JRI in Massachusetts. He's gotten good results wth using yoga, EMDR, and other body-based therapies, because these treatments teach people how to self-regulate, and promote integration of the upper and lower brain. He also recommends drama therapy, t'ai chi, drum circles, and anything that involves a rhythmic interaction between people. One of my favorite clips was of a 10-year-old boy who was throwing a ball around with an occupational therapist. His mother arrived, and started chatting about her own problems. The boy threw her the ball; she caught it, threw it back, but COMPLETELY missed the boy. This happened 3 or 4 times; each time she threw the ball to the same place, and each time it missed the boy's waiting arms. Suddenly he yelled, "STOP THROWING IT OVER THERE!" As the OT helped the mother and boy play catch with each other, Dr. van der Kolk explained how being "in tune" with people is one of the most basic joys of life, since we are hardwired for social interaction. This demonstration showed how a simple activity like playing catch could make a family feel cohesive again. Just imagine how doing yoga, dance, or making music together can help you feel more "in sync" with humanity!

Among other things, this seminar powerfully confirmed the effect of yoga on the brain. Since I re-started my daily yoga practice (only 4 weeks ago), I've noticed changes in how I perceive things. The other day I was napping on the couch, and suddenly I felt viscerally connected to the colors and shapes around me; I was transported back to a summer's day when I was very young, and the green grass and the taste of lemonade were fresh and new to my senses. I find it easier to relax, even when I don't feel well. I went to a meeting at my church, and noticed I was able to take in every detail of the conversation effortlessly. The next day, the committee chair asked me to proofread the minutes; I thought, wow, that's never happened! And last but not least, I laugh more. Something about yoga is helping me connect with my environment. I'm just waiting to see how this body-centered, mindfulness practice will continue to transform the way I live, breathe, and think. Do you have a story about how mindfulness practice has changed your life?

Reasons to avoid yoga today

1) I'd rather eat chocolate and watch The Princess Bride (/insert favorite movie_____) for the 1000th time.

2) I don't want to transcend my feelings, or undergo brain re-writes. I just wanna be.

3) My body hurts, and I don't feel like dealing with that, so I'm gonna lay around instead.

4) I don't feel like thinking about my alignment or core stability today. Maybe I'll dance instead.

5) I found this really good book (relationship/hobby/pursuit). I'ma do that instead.

I've been doing yoga for 10 years, and discipline has been my #1 obstacle. In fact, I'm sure I have more reasons not to, than reasons to do yoga. The reasons are simple: clarity, peace, strength, compassion. If you want these, do yoga. But there are a million reasons why you might not want these, not today, not right now. Your brain is capable of infinite excuses, oh yes, quite capable.

But are they excuses? Is it really "bad" to not do yoga every single day? It's a tricky question. In the last 4 weeks, I've done yoga every single day. It's not the first time I've had a disciplined streak, and I can't say how long it'll last. Growth happens in cycles, not lines, after all. Although I'm reaping the mental and physical benefits of my practice now, I think in some way the undisciplined times are important too.

When I think about change from the brain's perspective - the webs of neural synapses, the interaction between the amygdala and the cortex, all these biological aspects of self - I think, wow, of course it takes time. It doesn't happen overnight, and I also wonder which levels of my brain are talking to each other, how. For example, does my amygdala somehow say, "hey, smarty-pants, slow down, I've got stuff to process up in here"? When we "release emotions", it is important to respect that they don't always get processed on same-day express. Sometimes a break is needed, lest you become so sick of it that you give up entirely. If facing the mat, or meditation, or whatever you practice, seems like an insurmountable feat, try following your instincts. Maybe craving chocolate is your brain's way of pacing your race toward change. Maybe there is no "right" pace. 

Chakras and Personal Power: naming and claiming relational needs

Like most people, you've probably heard of the 7 chakras - energy centers that connect to our physical, mental, and emotional selves. If not, this Anodea Judith website is a good primer. I was introduced to chakras in 2005 when I took the IYT 200-hour yoga teacher training. At the time I was a waitress, so the 2-week yoga intensive in the Pennsylvania mountains felt refreshing, to say the least. Our teachers taught us about the 5 koshas, or layers of being, that are affected by yoga practice. They taught us the 8 paths of yoga and how hatha yoga is about balancing energy through physical movement. And they taught us how the chakras are directly affected by yoga postures and techniques.

After the intensive, I had to teach a class for my internship, and I decided to base it around the chakras. Then in 2008, after several months of researching the chakras, I presented a Chakra Yoga series which ran for about a year. After taking a few years off to focus on my counseling career, I ran the class again from 2012-2013 at Lifesource Yoga. I also incorporated chakras into my mental health counseling with a few clients, since I understood the relationship between childhood development, psychology, and the chakras. For example, for a client who tended to neglect his/her physical health, we would explore early childhood experiences through the lens of the first chakra in order to normalize and conceptualize the experience.

Today I'm going to focus on how to use chakras as a vehicle for personal power. The very act of understanding your energy system is a step toward personal power. This is because chakras are an expression of our capacity to give to, and receive from the world.

Western psychology, in its 120 years or so, has had a huge task, which is undoing the myth of the individual and replacing it with healthy modes of relating. Since we live in a patriarchal society, masculinity is held up as a superior mode of being, and is defined by self-reliance and independence from relationship. Therefore, men and women who have relational needs (which is basically everyone) have been historically shamed and prompted to "grow up", "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", or otherwise become independent from our need for external approval. While it is not a bad idea to be free from external approval - after all, this need can feel like a straitjacket - psychology has raised excellent questions, such as: "if one's developmental needs are not met, how can one become independent?" "How can a therapist, through transference, assist someone in meeting those developmental needs?" and "Should independence really be the gold standard of mental health?"

Furthermore, as a result of the emphasis on independence, there is a lack of knowledge of healthy interdependence, or relationship skills. What exactly is a healthy relationship? Psychology has been busy answering this question, especially since the 1970's, as seen in the huge explosion of self-help books on the topic. "Personal power", a concept from feminist psychology, is one way to answer the question. This kind of power has nothing to do with dominating/forcing your way through life, but rather, invites you to take full responsibility for your own feelings, needs and actions, as a path to success, fulfillment, and even social change.

The full implications of this are mind-boggling. Good thing for me, I'm just going to focus on its relationship aspect! Rather than expecting others to make us happy, which leads to fear, grasping, and control, with personal power we take responsibility for our needs and feelings. This doesn't mean we give up hope of others meeting our needs, it just means that we ask them to, rather than expect them to. And from this place of awareness without expectations, we feel more empowered, more whole.

Enter the chakras: your guide to your emotional, sexual, spiritual and physical needs. Each chakra is a center of both giving and receiving. The heart chakra is where we experience needing love; it is also where we experience feeling joyful and wanting to give. Sensations in the heart chakra of tightness or deadness may signify a need for love, since the need for love is one of the scariest things to feel (in our culture). Those who have the most satisfying relationships are often those who acknowledge their need for love just as well as they give it. In obvious ways, the same is true for the 1st chakra: when one's physical needs are met, one is more able to do physical work. As for the 2nd chakra, sexual energy flows in and out of it: by opening to pleasure, the energy increases, and we feel moved to give pleasure in return. Or, lower-chakra energy can be channeled into higher chakras, which is why we need holidays at the beach. :)

Core needs of each chakra
1st: safety, health.  Sign of imbalance: anxiety, fatigue
2nd: pleasure   Sign of imbalance: tension, anhedonia, addiction
3rd: mastery, challenge   Sign of imbalance: low self-confidence, boredom, apathy
4th: love, connection   Sign of imbalance: chest tightness, depression
5th: integration ("processing time"), purpose.  Sign of imbalance: sore throat, impatience, overwhelm
6th: knowledge   Sign of imbalance: assumptions, prejudices, pessimism
7th: spirituality   Sign of imbalance: inaccurate perceptions of self, lack of faith   

By understanding the needs associated with each chakra, you are essentially taking a giant first step toward personal power. You take responsibility for the fact that you have needs, rather than expecting others to read your mind, or give you permission to need. Unfortunately, because of the myth of the individual, the belief persists that having needs is somehow wrong, which makes it more difficult to claim personal power. I can't tell you how often this would come up in my counseling work with couples; and guys, I'm not blaming you for this, but it was often the men who lacked that sense of empowerment to get their needs met. Actually, I think this fact is largely responsible for the lack of emotional competency in men (which is evolving, of course): that men tend to be under a lot of pressure to not have needs. Whoever you are, and whatever your level of self-awareness, it is wonderful to remember that it's OK to have needs, and continue fine-tuning your ability to feel and name them. The more we grow in this capacity, the easier it will be to find a healthy interdependence between ourselves, the world, and the people we love.

How to Optimize your Hormone Cycle

So, yeah, this is for the ladies: Part 3 of a series on the female hormone cycle. 

Step 1. Notice changes in your cycle. Here are some suggestions:

1. Use your calendar. I’ve been charting my periods on my home calendar for years. I also chart ovulation, since that is a good indicator of when exactly my period will come (12-14 days later, for almost everyone). Also I feel like ovulation is kind of a special occasion, because it tells me I’m capable of creating life.

http://www.wikihow.com/Know-When-You-Are-Ovulating

2. Chart your cycles. Heard that one before, eh? Might be ‘cause it’s a good idea. But you don’t have to use it just to for fertility, as is commonly seen in the media. You can make a home-made calendar just for charting your moods, dreams, cravings, and other changes through your hormone cycle. Or, you can use an electronic calendar on gmail, phone/tablet, or computer.

3. Create a word processor document for each phase of the cycle: “Menstrual”, “follicular”, “ovulation” and “luteal/pre-menstrual” If you don't like the way these sound, you can use other names. I’ve heard the menstrual phase called “moontime”, “bleeding”, or you could try something more playful: “Aunt Flo’s visit- remember to make brownies!”. Use the word documents to keep track of changes in your mood, dreams, food cravings, or whatever you want in each phase. You can look back on these when you need inspiration, or use it to keep track of emotional and physical symptoms/changes.  

Step 2: Optimize your life based on what you notice. 

Once you start noticing how you’re feeling, what foods and activities you crave, during each phase, the next logical step is to optimize your life so you can do those things. As we know, life runs smoothly when we do the things our body/energy systems naturally ask of us. (The asking, of course, can be anything from a whisper to a furious kick!)

Physically, Dr. Christiane Northrup's Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom  (1998) has some marvelous tips for using diet and exercise to regulate hormones and alleviate cycle discomfort. (I highly recommend dropping the $18 for this book; it has been a resource to me for 12 years, and it clearly explains the mind-body connection for women.) Once you begin to learn what foods and herbs help alleviate cramps, PMS, or other imbalances for you, you can easily do an “elimination diet” type experiment. For example, in the book, Dr. Northrup recommends eliminating red meat and egg yolks for cramps, and supplementing with calcium-rich foods. For fatigue during menstruation, you can see if supplementing with iron-rich foods might help, or if your system just needs rest.

Emotionally, there are as many ways for the hormone system to interact with your neurobiology as there are fertile women in the world. This is why it is crucial for you to familiarize yourself with the language of your unique hormone cycle. When you begin to ask your body what it needs, instead of telling it what it should do for you, you will unlock your body's energy. You may find hidden talents that you never knew you had. Your relationships will almost certainly improve.

You may find this process brings up strong emotions of fear, anger, or sadness that you didn't know were there. As women, our relationship with our bodies may be tainted with cultural beliefs about weakness, "dirtiness", or shame. Lara Owen's (1993) book Her Blood is Gold: Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation is a powerful resource for looking at those beliefs, exploring healthier alternatives, and honoring your body's own wisdom. If you find this a difficult process, it is certainly OK to seek professional counseling, support groups, or simply reach out to female friends. The good news is that more and more of us are healing and our wisdom and support is popping up everywhere. Now is the time for women to heal; now is the time for us to blossom. 

I’ll be posting ideas for optimizing each phase of the cycle. As for now, reader, I’ll leave you to your wild and precious imagination.  :)

Energies of the Female Hormone Cycle

This is part 2 of a series of posts designed to help you, ladies, make the most of your cycle. We don’t hear much about this. Usually it’s in the context of fertility planning, or managing the “symptoms” of menstruation with various products. We use painkillers, caffeine, and clever self-trickery to pretend that we are always the same. But we’re not. We have an ever-changing palette of hormonal “colors”, which is a good thing, if we know how to use them.

A few posts back I mentioned Alisa Vitti’s (2011) video, “Loving your lady parts as a path to success, power, and global change.” This isn’t the only resource for understanding your hormone cycle. I also highly recommend Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (1998), which I rely on below for information on the hormonal aspects, as well as the concept of a creative cycle being expressed through ovulation, premenstrual processing, and menstrual renewal. Finding this true for me, I simply extended the metaphor to include the 4 seasons. Below, you'll find the energies and hormones present in each phase, with tips on how to maximize them. However, it’s your body’s wisdom that will be your best guide.

(Medical literature typically identifies the follicular phase (high-estrogen) as Week I. However, since menstruation correlates with winter/rebirth, I find it appropriate to begin with menstruation, so I'm taking the liberty to present it this way.This will be a change from earlier posts.)

I: Menstruation

Hormones: None. The left and right brain communicate well during this time.

Energy: Feminine.

Life cycle: Birth/Infancy, Winter.

Ideal activities: Rest, dreaming, prayer and meditation, nurturing activities (baths, cuddling), right-brain activities (brainstorming, improvisation).

II: Follicular Phase. Beginning on the 4^th-8^thday after your period starts, and lasting ~7 days, this is when your hormones rev up again. You may feel more energetic and more interested in socializing, work, and sex.

Reproductive hormones: Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteal hormone (LH), estrogen.

Energy: masculine, forward-moving, 3^rd chakra.

Life cycle: Adolescence (formation of identity and trying new things), spring (building and preparing for reproduction/creativity).

Ideal activities: Reminiscing about the past, bonding with partners and close friends, gathering information, planning.

III: Ovulatory Phase. The week in which you ovulate, this is a time of high energy and communication power. According to Alisa Vitti, “you are like a magnet” - can you relate?? 

Hormones: Having peaked just before the egg is released, your estrogen, FSH and LH start to decline. Progesterone starts to rise in their place.
Energy: Feminine, connecting, heart chakra.

Life cycle: Adult, Summer: Seeing multiple perspectives, having an instinct to produce, create, and nurture.

Ideal activities: Having difficult conversations, asking for things, being social, work that requires connecting the dots, creative projects.  

IV: Luteal Phase.

Hormones: Progesterone peaks about 7 days before menstruation, then begins to decline.

Energy: Masculine/feminine balance; 5^th and 6^th chakra.

Life cycle: Elderly, Winter: Possessing wisdom earned through experience; “composting” the past in order to aid the next cycle's growth. 

Ideal activities: Touching up/finishing projects; Presenting work/creative projects to others; Giving and receiving feedback; Processing areas for improvement in work or personal life; Expressing needs that have not been met, or gratitude if they have. 

See my next post for how to optimize your life based on your unique cycle.

"Why do I feel so...?" Your body may have the answer.

I've been trying to think of how to explain what this blog is about, to sort of lay it out for you. As I was writing my last post about PMS and girl-hormones, the phrase "Why do I feel so..." seemed to encapsulate my frustration regarding my cycle. As girls, we are basically told, "So, you're about to have this thing that's going to make you crabby, tired, and possibly in-pain for the next 35 years of your life. You won't be able to do much about it, and you won't really know why, but, er, welcome to womanhood!" In a way, this describes the experience of being human, too.

As a woman, my hormones have affected my life profoundly. But by understanding the different aspects of the cycle, and going with my body's messages, I found relief from what once were "symptoms". Anxiety became creativity; fatigue became deep rest and intuition. No longer a burden, my hormones are now an asset to me. I want to share with other women how I got here, as well as new research that explains what's going on with us, so we can become radiant and empowered in our bodies.

Other aspects of the brain-body connection apply to all, of course. Neurologists are starting to discover mechanisms that actually connect the brain to the body: deep breathing, mindfulness, gut flora, and sexual health are being revealed as superhighways to well-being. The question, "why do I feel so...?", is starting to be answered. Whether you're looking for answers to this question, or just practical ways to enhance your mind-body connection, you'll find some of those answers here (for starters, check the links section)!

Chakras are an interesting topic, too. My training at IYT taught me about the energy body and how to use yoga poses, breath, and visualizations to balance the chakras. Chakras are energy centers along the spine that connect the physical, emotional, and energetic aspects of us. You can think of them as transformers, which transfer energy between thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and physical form. Chakras are a powerful way to create health through any number of means, and once understood, provide another answer to the question, "why do I feel so....?"

The body has a language, and science is starting to corroborate what many of us know intuitively: that the body speaks to the mind, and the mind to the body. With this knowledge, the possibilities for attaining health are set to multiply. For example, most serotonin is stored in the gut, and therefore, deep breathing stimulates the release of serotonin, which makes you feel calm. Women are likely to feel more creative when they have a good sex life, according to Naomi Wolf (2012). These are just some of the ideas that inspire me to improve my my total well-being. I hope you'll join me!

Hormone Cycles: girls' guide to happy and powerful living

So this is a blog about the mind-body connection, about living well in a truly embodied way. If you're a woman, your hormone cycles can be a powerful gateway toward harmony between body and mind. Why? because the 4 phases - menstruation, follicular phase, ovulation, and the luteal phase - all have a distinct effect on how your brain works. And those effects can work for you or against you, depending on how well you know yourself and how willing you are to heed your body's wisdom.

As a woman, I've been waiting for science to clue into women's cyclical wisdom for years. In 2002, I was a junior in college, and had gotten my hands on Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, a big book by Dr. Christiane Northrup about women's health. Northrup (1998) explained how diet, lifestyle, and beliefs can affect female conditions like PMS, all the way on up to ovarian cancer. A PMS sufferer at the time, I grasped onto the idea that living more in harmony with my hormonal cycles could alleviate my moodiness. And you know what? It worked, like a charm. Since then I have been providing myself time to reflect, meditate, be creative, or whatever-I-feel-like (within reason) during the week before and the week of my period, and have come to experience these times as a resource, rather than a burden to me.

I am completely dumbfounded by the fact that the menstrual cycle (more accurately, and henceforth known as, the "hormone cycle"), continues to be an area of mystery, awkwardness, and taboo. That is, I find it dumb - dim-witted, nonsensical, and illogical - that this part of women's lives should be considered off-limits today. Which is why you never hear this:

"Hi yes Sally, I won't be coming in today, I'm not feeling well."
"Oh, that's too bad. What's wrong?"
"Got cramps, and feeling emotionally sensitive and in need of quiet. You know how it is, Sally!"
"Haha, yes of course dear. We'll see you in 3-4 days."

There's the 2nd-wave feminist approach that menstruation is merely a physical process, so women should gladly use pills and products to keep themselves in the game 24/7. But with science now showing variations in brain morphology and chemistry during the cycle, it's hard to deny that for many women, the menstrual cycle is a bio-psychological-spiritual phenomenon that truly affects their lives.

So it was with delight, but not much surprise, that I finally saw Alisa Vitti's (2011) Ted Talk, "Loving Your Lady Parts as a Path to Success, power & global change", in which she laid out the neurobiology the 4 phases of the hormone cycle. They are:
1) Follicular: with increased access to creative energy, a good time for starting projects;
2) Ovulatory: with hot communication skills;
3) Luteal: with an eye for detail; and
4) Menstrual: with increased connection between left and right brain, the best time for reflection.

I've been feelin' and writing about this for years. I will say that my own mental/emotional cycle doesn't exactly follow Vitti's model; for example, my follicular phase can feel more preparatory than all-out creative. All women have their unique version of this cycle. Vitti's point, with which I agree wholeheartedly, is that following the "blueprint" of your individual cycle can be a path to health, happiness and success. By listening to your body's regularly timed messages, women can discover a treasure trove of creative wisdom, power, and energy. Click next for tips on using the energy of each phase!

Try a Little Tenderness: protecting what's vulnerable

In my last post, I talked a good deal about how we handle our emotional vulnerabilities in public. It reminded me of this quote from Mahatma Gandhi:
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members."

This sentiment can be interpreted in many ways, but as a mental health professional, my mind immediately goes to those who are emotionally sensitive. After all, although emotions can give a lot of power when directed toward a clear purpose, they can also impair our functioning, the extreme of which would be mental illness. I find this a fascinating topic in a world which is still, in many ways, afraid of emotionality. As I mentioned last week, people see emotions as potentially destructive, and because they fear that, they clamp down on emotional expression. However, the avoidance of emotions can cause just as much damage as their careless expression. One of the ways it does this is by weakening the emotional self, to the extent that we may carry wounds we're not even aware of.

As a counselor, I learned about inner child work, which recognizes that even as adults, we carry parts of our younger selves with us. It's really not such a stretch; if you try to remember something from your childhood, you may feel yourself catapulted back into those same feelings, as if you were there all over again. Who we are today is a result of our brain building, layer by layer, over what we experienced as children, and the reinforced habits we learned as children, some of which are embedded more deeply than others. For my clients who had beliefs that they couldn't seem to change, I'd help them go back to when the beliefs were installed, and we would travel through childhood scenes, facing old wounds, adding reassurances to soothe and correct. The process was painful, and we didn't always see it through, but if nothing else, it helped them achieve an important feat: they understood and accepted their most vulnerable places.

It is, after all, the vulnerable places from which we lash out and hurt others. It's the vulnerable places which become too sensitized, get overwhelmed, and cause us to withdraw, missing out on opportunities to connect and be supported, missing opportunities to participate. As a songwriter, I'm all too familiar with this: having begun a campaign to put my music out to the world, I would suddenly feel overwhelmed with the idea of revealing my deepest feelings to strangers; I would withdraw completely, "take a break" from performing, and even stop playing my guitar for months at a time. I often think to myself that I should never give up music, because after all, it's a gift from God, and even if I'm not sharing it, I still have a right to enjoy it for myself. Even when the memories of perceived rejection and hyper-sensitivity get mixed up with playing, I should still play until I've gotten through it, let the music take me back to my soul. And yet, sometimes I don't.

I recently had an interaction with a musician who was putting together a song list for a musical program. As part of the organizing committee, I wrote an email to him that some changes were needed to the songs. He responded to my email saying artistic programming was a sensitive and personal topic and that he would prefer to talk to another committee member about it. Obviously he was offended, and I was offended too, though I wasn't sure why. Beyond all the judgments that spewed from my head, it came down to this: he didn't think I understand artistic sensitivity, when in fact I understood all too well.

Artists, writers, musicians, visionaries, emotional people... we all have a higher dose of emotional sensitivity than average, but it is only a liability as long as we treat it that way. In fact, emotional sensitivity is a kind of  power, almost like another sense. As Elaine Aron points out in The Highly Sensitive Person, sensitive people often pick up on things that other people don't. (1997, pp10-11.) But like any sense, it needs to be focused in order to be used. If we let our emotionality run rampant, we could find ourselves reacting to things unworthy of our attention, or neglecting some needs in favor of others; if we repress it, we miss out on the heart-wisdom and gut-wisdom that could bring real satisfaction to our lives. This may sound obvious, but it's occurring at infinite levels in the interaction between life and self, and the process of negotiating with our emotions is a never-ending journey. Everyone has a "weak link" in their personality, from an angry side to a tendency to withdraw or become selfish when challenged. Usually the weak link is what we're LEAST aware of, which overtakes us when we're feeling the worst.

The typical response to the inner weak link, in our society, is to eradicate it. Only completely removing the weak link will produce a feeling of security and confidence in oneself. The problem with this is that it's a negative strategy. By focusing on the problem not being there, you merely increase its power, because 1) you are ignorant of the way it works, and 2) by avoiding it, you increase the fear-based energy it already has. Consider the character "Gollum" in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. When treated with respect and kindness, Gollum's desire to be helpful increases. When treated with suspicion and held at arm's length, he becomes more deceptive and violent. Gollum is a wonderful metaphor for the "shadow side", that part of our inner child which is fear-based, because he never goes away (and neither does the inner child), he is fearful and selfish, and above all he wants to be accepted.

The inner child has positive aspects too, but it's this fearful, vulnerable side that can have the most power if left unattended. This is because the brain views protecting us from threats as more important than seeking positive experiences. Only when we feel safe from threat are we able to access the more positive, creative, forward-thinking, and unselfish sides of ourselves. In other words, by protecting what's vulnerable - being willing to know it, understand it, accept it, and focus it toward something positive - we become strong, supple, and more able to handle whatever life brings.

When I used to teach domestic violence offenders about how to handle conflicts with their wives, it was shocking how often they were totally unaware of what they were feeling during the last argument. It was as if, in times of stress, they became cut off from the feeling parts of themselves, and in retrospect could only recount what they thought about the situation. As they recounted the arguments, it was common that the wife had become more agitated as the argument went along, a fact which was told by the men in an incredulous tone, sort of like, "you see how unreasonable she is?" I helped them to understand that their unrelenting adherence to "logic", which they hoped would win the argument, was the very thing that spiraled it out of control. Then I would teach the basic skills of expressing feelings using "I" statements. Some of the men used these skills with success, but others struggled to put them into practice even after 10 to 15 weeks. Given the simplicity of the skills, it was clear to me there must be an underlying belief system getting in the way. One of those beliefs was: "You can't win an argument with feelings." Another one was, "Feelings make you weak." (Incidentally, these beliefs exist in popular culture aimed toward boys and men, which, according to Jackson Katz, is a major factor in male violence.) This led the men to not only be obsessed with "winning" the argument and appearing superior, but to be habitually unaware of their own feelings, and unable to empathize with their wives. When you think about how difficult life would be if taking these qualities to the extreme, it shows the importance of valuing the "vulnerable" in us as a path to true strength.

Conversation with a friend

I said, what sort of path is that to walk, up there?

Don’t you think it limits your vision, seeing only what you see, walking only how you go?

You said: what sort of way is that you walk? Don’t you know what I know?

Of course, friend – you don’t think so? Here’s a mere sprinkling of my vast knowledge...

If you did, you would understand me.

You think I know nothing. How wrong you are.

Let me try again.

I think I know what you know. But perhaps I am mistaken. Would you teach me?

Perhaps. Other people walk my way too. And I can tell the ones who don’t understand.   

I said, I’m from barren lands that made me old before my time. I had to learn to be young again. To speak in the voice of my body, my heart. I fear those who do not know my language. I fear the barren paths of abstention. I fear the loneliness of those who hold themselves apart.  

I want very much to be alive, and also wise.

I want the same, my friend. I can see those barren lands, and their desolation. I see how they lie close to overgrowth and poor attention. I only seek to clear the weeds. These weeds grow relentlessly, and it takes a sharp eye to discern.

I’ve heard of this, I said, this path. It’s just… I fear for you. That you’ll forget to take care of the good garden, while you’re clearing away what you think is overgrowth.

But I must eat as well, you said. And I do. I fear for those who take in whatever they see, without discernment.

I see the garden, and the junkyard, and the wasteland. I also see the sky, where you take refuge. You long to see clearly, I understand this. But I choose to stay in the garden, to make sure what we do and how we love becomes wholesome.

It’s good we each have own way. I can see you now, you know. We’re actually not so far apart.  

I know. I see you too.