I would like to offer you some tools to be resilient whether you have lost your job or feel stuck at where you are. This is the time that we can turn inward and build our own reserve.
The pandemic has been here longer than anyone has expected. You might think by now we are used to being isolated in our home, wearing masks, setting a routine with whatever we have adjusted our lives to. Right? Not really. In a way, we will never get used to this new “normal” because part of us is still longing for the old to come back. Another part of us is never going to settle for this kind of life. Why should we? The answer to this question can go in many different directions. For this blog and our Health and Wellness audience, let me take the answer in the direction of self-care and wellness. Hitting the reset button during the pandemic requires special discipline and determination because we can’t just pack our bags and book a flight to fly off to an exotic place for a weekend, or take a short trip out of town to stay at a rented cottage until we restore our inspiration. Anything that requires getting out of your house requires second thoughts and lots of caution during the pandemic, especially when the weather is getting cooler again and when staying indoors is becoming more suitable. So, “resetting our button” takes creativity and it is probably better to be done at home, where it is safest without a lot of sanitizing and cleaning and being cautious. Hitting the reset button can be learning a new skill to practice at home. For example: learning how to meditate is a skill that takes consciousness on our part. You have to spend some time concentrating before you can get to meditate. Often, when we just sit down and quiet our mind to get ready for meditation, we are not quite there yet. Very often, that’s when we notice certain aches, pain, or discomfort in our body when we are sitting down quietly. Perhaps you find it uncomfortable in a certain sitting position or can’t even get to a comfortable sitting position. That’s when it breaks your concentration. Take heart! I have a few tips for you. Personal tips on how to settle into a meditation position: Prepare a nook in your house where you could put a chair, a sitting mat, or a yoga mat for sitting. It will be ideal if you can easily find a nook that is free from noises (whether from the rest of your family or from your neighborhood if you live in a city). But if that is not accessible, make do with your internal focus and “block out” the noises as they come. Close your eyes and turn your focus internally. Perhaps start with your breath. Notice how you breathe. Put one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. Notice the rise and fall of your belly and chest as you inhale and exhale. This is how you “block out” the noises that come to you: If you hear a noise, let it pass you. Just come back to your breath and notice once again on the rise and fall of your belly and chest with each inhalation and exhalation. Don’t fight the noise. Accept it and notice how often you have to consciously turn your attention back to your breath as each sound of the noise comes to you. Let it go and let it pass. Use your breath to guide you back to your internal focus. You will develop a rhythm if repeated noises keep happening. Rise above the noise and develop an internal focus using your breath. After you settle into a comfortable position. Focus on the present moment. Let your thoughts go and accept what your mind wanders to without dwelling on one thought or thing in your thoughts. At first, it may take some discipline to control yourself from acting out your thoughts if you are a Type A or an action-prone individual. Let your thoughts go. Let them pass. Keep coming back to your breath no matter how many times. Playing Music in the Background helps to Create an Ambient Noise with your Environment It may be helpful if you can use music in the background to create an ambient for your meditation. The kind of music to play in the background depends on your preference and varies from individual to individual. For me, I like classical music or meditation music, or just the sound of waterfall to create the ambient. I also set a timer to give myself a start time and an end time. But I give myself an allowance of 5 to 7 more minutes to settle into my comfortable sitting position. If I wanted to meditate for 10 minutes, I would set my timer for 15 or 17 minutes. I suggest that you start with a shorter time duration when you first start to meditate. It will be more encouraging for you to see your progress over time. Even as a yoga teacher, meditation doesn’t come easily for me. It is something that I have to learn and consciously to practice. In the beginning, I started with moving meditations, and only gradually after I have learned from a teacher could I come to sitting meditation. As the weather is getting cooler in the fall now, I know winter will be here soon. I have mentally to prepare for the cold and snowy days ahead. My mind easily comes to a quote I used in my term paper during my school days. It’s the famous quote from Albert Camus. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.~Albert Camus~ It’s from my heart to yours. Happy Meditating! Namaste! About the Author: Jeannie is the Founding Director of Cultural Society. You can find meditation courses on CS Website here.
When it comes to self-care, most mothers don’t even want to think about it because the very word, self-care, conjures up an image of selfishness. “How could I put myself before my child? “Or my family?” These may be the thoughts that go through your head as you think of self-care. Let me say it outright and be very upfront: caring for yourself is not selfish because you have to put on your own mask before you can put on someone’s mask, as it is said on the airline safety procedure. Why is caring for oneself important? Caring for oneself is essential. If your own physical health or energy is lacking, you will not have the energy to care for others. Therefore, you cannot care for them, period! So, the next question you have to ask yourself is this: how should I care for those I love and care for myself at the same time? First, you have to debunk certain myths about self-care and get a healthy perspective of what self-care is. Second, ask yourself, does the word self-care make you feel guilty? If so, you definitely need to read on. Third, ask yourself, do you have a pre-conceived notion of motherhood? Or does being a good mother have certain pre-conceived notions to you? Do you know what these notions are? [If you are feeling fussy about these notions, try to write them down, or check off this list.] Let me demystify some of the myths about self-care. Self-care is selfish because I need to love my child before myself. – Yes, you are right about certain concepts. We, as human beings, are selfish by nature (As stated in the Bible). In any emergency situation, it will show people’s true color of what their priority is. The very fact that you struggle with this concept shows that you have an awareness of your selfishness. You are already ahead of the game. [Real selfish people do not even have an awareness that they are selfish. Do you know that?] Now, you just have to distinguish when you are selfish for yourself from when you are selfish for others? What “selfish for others” means is that you are doing things for others. If that is the case, are you still being selfish? Probably not because you are putting others’ interests ahead of yours. What is “selfish for yourself”? That’s when you have to do a close examination of these features. Ask yourself, are you doing these things to glorify yourself, or to fulfill your own needs? If you are glorifying yourself, then it’s real selfishness. If it’s fulfilling your own needs but it also brings benefit to others, then it’s not selfish; it may be leveraging one area of your self-interest to help others. Sometimes in complicated cases, it calls for our self-examination and calls for us to examine our motive. Let me demystify some of the myths of mothers Mothers make all the meals at home from scratch. Mothers have to know their child(ren) at all stages of their development. Mothers have to be happy all the time. Mothers put the needs of their babies (or children) and husbands before their own. Mothers are strong all the time. The list can go on… you get the drift? Somehow, our society has inadvertently come up with these unspoken expectations of mothers. No wonder it is so hard to be a mom these days. One news source cited women are more likely to die from a stroke than men. Why? Aside from the health condition differences between women and men, women are more likely to make sure their family is all well taken care of before dialing 911 when they discover they have the symptoms. Women will make sure there are meals ready for her children and her husband in the refrigerator before going to the Emergency room when they feel symptoms of a stroke. It is no wonder that women are more likely to die from a stroke than men for this reason. If you are a woman and a mom, please find time to care for yourself! Take up courses or exercise programs that nurture mind-body connection. Find time to nurture your interests no matter how much your family needs you. Find some “me time”. Learn how to meditate and use it to de-stress yourself. I found it in my personal practice of yoga. It gives me a chance to renew and restore my body and mind. I always come out feeling refreshed and energized after a yoga practice. If you are feeling anxious and alone because of COVID-19 lockdowns, click here to learn how to mitigate those feelings. About the author: Jeannie is a mom of two children and the wife of a busy husband. She is a certified yoga teacher at Cultural Society. You can find her bio here.
The first three links give you resources for beginner yogis. These pages show you how to set up a space at home for yoga practice, props you may want to invest in, poses that beginner yoga classes teach. It’s helpful for people who are beginning yoga, especially during this pandemic time, to know. Hope these pages give you the inspiration to start your home practice. To Set up a space at home for your home practice https://www.evernote.com/l/AobDtUOw2qZCpbAFUYS3Xg2YEmf7c6tJW8w This page has everything you need to know on how to begin practicing yoga: how to get started, props you need, beginner poses to know, the styles & benefits of yoga. https://www.evernote.com/l/AoZXjMF4d-xAvqK-CvwM6awzBWMpp-YFEQs This page gives you specific poses for beginners. It’s great to know their names and see what the poses look like in pictures. https://www.evernote.com/l/AoYfeCVb5bJEtZktu_Uqp3G-GvTUUqsxbr0
In her article, Kristin Diversi wrote: “When we think of yoga, we often think of a practice that is inherently relaxing: Lying on a mat and getting totally blissed out, feeling amazing from the first ‘Om’ to the final namaste.” “By and large, that is a very incomplete picture. The reason yoga works long-term is that the practice is designed to trigger our stress response. Think about it: what could be more stressful than holding a weird shape for an indeterminate amount of time, while your legs are burning and your arms feel like jelly? Even in restorative yoga you are being asked to hold a static shape—one that is probably not natural for your body—while you also release the thoughts you are holding.” “Yoga works because in the midst of these stressful situations, something else is happening: We are actively working to train our minds and bodies to relax, despite the stressful situation. We are reorienting our stress response from the innate (fast, heavy breathing, panicked thoughts, and tense muscles) to the learned (slow, deliberate breathing, calm thoughts, and engaged but not clenched muscles). By training our mental reactions, we are also modulating our physical reactions. ” Moreover, Kristin made reference to another article, “Yoga for Anxiety and Depression” by adding, “We are lowering our heart rates, blood pressure, and easing our breathing. We are letting our heart rates, blood pressure, and easing our breathing. We are letting the body become a secondary concern, rather than the primary driving force of our practice.” These articles gave me deep reflection on why I liked long distance running and why I had done it for so long even when it had brought me injuries from the repetitive movement. It’s because of the calm that it gave me. After realizing that yoga can give me the same result, I stopped running with gladness and not having to miss it because I found a substitute which give me the same calm if not more in yoga. Check out Cultural Society’s Health & Wellness courses and our Meditation courses to learn how to stay calm in the midst of life’s busyness.
If you have been going to yoga classes for some time and have done some of the yoga poses, you know there are ways to deepen your yoga practice. It’s not just physically but mentally as well. The depth that yoga gives you is numerous. I am the first one to admit that I am not flexible when I first wake up in the morning. I am also not the kind of person who uses loud music to psych myself up to make movement and get into exercise. Soft, gentle and meditation music works best for me. It’s through listening to gentle and meditative music that helps me to get in touch with my mind and thus, get to my “higher mind”, the Anandamaya kosha. It’s a sanskrit word that means the “wisdom” layer. Yoga is not like any other “exercise” as we think of in the western culture. Yoga means union. It brings your mind, body and awareness all together in union. Read Dr. Rolf’s article on “7 ways to Deepen Your Asana Practice” will give you a deeper perspective on what yoga is and what yoga can do for you. Our meditation & yoga courses give you a starting place to cultivate this practice that would last a lifetime.
Yoga means union. You may often hear a yoga teacher says “inhale your arms up” as a cue to remind you to coordinate your arms’ movement with your breath. “When we begin a yoga practice, one of the first lessons we learn is to breathe in and out through the nose. This is quite contrary to the way we breathe when we work out at the gym, which is often in through the nose and out through the mouth.” In yoga, we breathe through the nose for many reasons: 1) The nose has a smaller opening which means that less air can breathe in and out there. Often time, our breath is the gauge of how strenuous of our movement during a yoga practice. If you have to use our mouth to breathe during a yoga practice, that means you have pushed yourself too far. That’s a signal to you that you should pause and let your heart rate comes down a bit before moving on. 2) Yoga means “union”. If you have to push yourself beyond your exertion point during a practice and continue to do that during your practice, you are not achieving the “union” within yourself. 3) Our nose is lined up with hair. The air we breathe in through the nose is purified through the hair. Therefore we are breathing in cleaning air when we breathe through our nose. There are many more reasons why breath matters in yoga. Please check out this article: “Why Breath Matters – How to Breathe Well in Yoga Class If you haven’t found a place to begin your yoga practice, please check out our Course offering at Cultural Society where we teach yoga by addressing a different aspect of health that is related to you. Here’s our course offering. Email us if you have any questions.
As a yoga teacher, I constantly take courses for my professional development and further my knowledge in yoga. Recently, I took a webinar on pain and yoga. I was very surprised to learn from this workshop that most people (estimated 11% – 52% of US population) in America live with pain. This is just not temporary pain but pain that persists for more than 3 months. Furthermore, I learned that pain is only an output from our brain and it does not indicate that something is broken in us; it is merely a distressing experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, with sensory, emotional, cognitive, and social components.” (Shelly Prosko). I often hear my students tell me that they have pain in their body. When inquired further, I learned that there are different types of sensations they feel but they call them all “pain”. In this article, you will learn what pain really is and how many different types of pain there are…etc. Depending on our terminology used, it affects how we feel differently. If you want to put theory into practice and put yoga to work in your life, sign up for our course in starting in December and learn a few asana to help relieve your pain, whether it’s on your back or other parts of your body. Learn about how yoga can relieve pain and bring you comfort.
By Kelly Ravenscroft, LICSW, RYT What is meditation and yoga Meditation and yoga are both mind-body practices that can help you to relax and gain a deeper sense of wellbeing. Meditation tends to help the mind relax, while yoga tends to help the body relax. Meditation is usually a sitting practice, but it can also involve movement such as slow deliberate walking. On the other hand, yoga primarily involves movement but can also incorporate meditation, usually towards the end of the practice. Since yoga can include meditation and meditation can include movement, it seems only natural that the two practices would eventually find each other and merge together. What is mindfulness Mindfulness is a type of meditation that helps the mind to focus and become more aware of the present moment. Specifically, mindfulness is concerned with cultivating a nonjudgmental compassionate awareness with an emphasis on body sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Mindfulness is learning how to be present with whatever is happening in the moment without trying to avoid unpleasantness like fear, anger, sadness or trying to cling to pleasant sensations like happiness, joy, and excitement. Many people find that they mostly live in their heads and pay very little attention to what is happening in their bodies. Mindfulness teaches a person how to become attuned to the body and pay attention to what is happening in the present moment instead of becoming distracted and absorbed by thoughts. Understanding mindful yoga Typically, mindful yoga is a slower practice with an emphasis on noticing body sensations, habitual thinking patterns, and emotions. It is not about striving for perfection or trying to make your body look a certain way in a pose. There is more emphasis on accepting the body rather than getting frustrated that you cannot do the full expression of a posture. Its more about noticing how a pose feels rather than focusing on how it looks. The difference between yoga breathing and mindful breathing Yoga breathing techniques are breath control practices that involve a person breathing in a particular way e.g.: trying to breath deeper, quicker, slower, or in a particular rhythm. In Mindfulness you never control the breath, instead you simply observe its natural rhythms. Typically, an instructor might give a cue to notice qualities of the breath like, is the breath short or long, choppy or smooth. There may also be a prompt to notice breath sensations such as air passing in and out of the nostrils, or the rising and falling sensations of the breath in the torso. Learning to switch from breath control practices to observing the natural rhythms of the breath can be challenging and require patience. What happens in a mindful yoga class? The postures in Mindful Yoga are usually simple because there is an emphasis on noticing what you feel. There is also an emphasis of slowing down since it can be harder to notice sensations when you are moving at a faster pace. A teacher might ask you to notice if you are experiencing the posture as pleasant or unpleasant, or if the posture is generating warmth or coolness. If you are in a difficult posture like chair pose, the instructor might guide you to notice what is happening with your breath. Typically, if you are in a challenging posture you might notice that the breath will become constricted, shallow, rapid or you might stop breathing all together. If you are in a pose that is less challenging you might observe the breath to be smoother, longer, or more relaxed. In addition to sensations, there is an emphasis on recognizing habitual thinking patterns such as striving and comparing. For instance, if you are always striving in your personal life, then you might notice that striving is also showing up in your yoga practice, e.g.: are you trying to force yourself to go beyond your bodies limits rather than accepting how your body is in the moment, or are you comparing yourself to others. As you practice mindfulness you begin to recognize these habitual thought patterns and when they are noticed you can simply recognize them as thoughts and redirect your attention back to the present moment. Conclusion Mindfulness and yoga have a lot in common. They naturally complement one another, as one helps the mind to relax and the other helps the body to relax. Combining the two practices into one can really enhance and deepen their benefits. Mindful Yoga teaches you to slow down and be more present, aware, and compassionate in your life. If you are new to yoga or want to deepen your yoga or meditation practice, then mindful yoga is definitely worth exploring. About the author: Kelly is a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance. She teaches meditation at Cultural Society. You can find her meditation course offering here and her full bio here. At Cultural Society, we offer yoga classes by themes. We address a special aspect of your health each month. The Small Group Yoga offers continuous coaching based on the needs of the small group of participants. It is also available for the public to join. Check it out here.
By Aarti Gupta, PsyD Since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, many of us, even those who have not been infected by the virus, will choose to quarantine in our homes for the upcoming weeks. Capsized travel plans, indefinite isolation, panic over scarce re-sources and information overload could be a recipe for unchecked anxiety and feelings of isolation. Here are a few pointers that could help you survive spiraling negative thoughts about this uncertain time. 1.) Reframe “I am stuck inside” to “I can finally focus on my home and myself” As dismal as the world may feel right now, think of the mandated work-from-home policy as an opportunity to refocus your attention from the external to the internal. Doing one productive thing per day can lead to a more positive attitude. Set your sights on long-avoided tasks, reorganize, or create something you’ve always wanted to. Approaching this time with a mindset of feeling trapped or stuck will only stress you out more. This is your chance to slow down and focus on yourself. 2.) Stay close to your normal routine Try and maintain some semblance of structure from the pre-quarantine days. For those individuals with children, sticking to a routine might be easier; however as you work from home, it could be tempting to fall into a more lethargic lifestyle, which could lead to negative thinking. Wake up and go to bed around the same time, eat meals, shower, adapt your exercise regimen, and get out of your PJ’s. Do laundry on Sundays as usual. Not only will sticking to your normal routine keep you active and less likely to spiral, it will be easier to readjust to the outside world when it’s time to get back to work. 3.) Avoid obsessing over endless Coronavirus coverage Freeing up your day from work or social obligations gives you plenty of time to obsess, and if you have a tendency to consult Google for every itch and sneeze, you may be over-researching the pandemic as well. Choosing only certain credible websites (who.int or cdc.gov is a good start) for a limited amount of time each day (perhaps two chunks of 30 minutes each) will be in your best interest during this time. 4.) A chaotic home can lead to a chaotic mind With all the uncertainly happening outside your home, keep the inside organized, predictable and clean. Setting up mental zones for daily activities can be helpful to organize your day. For example, try not to eat in bed or work on the sofa- just as before, eat at the kitchen table and work at your desk. Loosening these boundaries just muddles your routine and can make the day feel very long. Additionally, a cluttered home can cause you to become uneasy and claustrophobic of your environment- so keep it tidy. 5.) Start a new quarantine ritual With this newfound time, why not do something special during these quarantined days? For ex-ample, perhaps you can start a daily journal to jot down thoughts and feelings to reflect on later. Or take a walk every day at 4 pm, connect with your sister over FaceTime every morning, or start a watercolor painting which you can add to everyday. Having something special during this time will help you look forward to each new day. 6.) Use telehealth as an option to talk to a professional if your anxiety becomes unmanageable Many licensed psychologists are offering telehealth options over HIPAA-compliant video chat platforms. Remember to reach out for help if your anxiety is reaching proportions that is unmanageable without professional help. Letting go of illusions of control and finding peace in the fact that you are doing your part to “flatten the curve” will certainly build mental strength to combat the stressful situation the whole globe is experiencing.