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.