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.