Tag: stress

Sunrise, Sunset

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Day Three

I awake with a constant questioning of my existence here. I know this is productive and all good things are coming, but it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. My feeble mantra every time I’m accosted by a therapist is “thank you, this is good for me”.

Our days begin with pranayama, meditation and yoga. Today we made it through the first two then three of us had the sudden urge to… I know what you’re thinking, but no… go watch the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. I live here, in Florida, less than hour from the beach but my friends live in LaLaLand and perhaps have not seen a sunrise that was not produced on a green screen. So, we trotted to the shore and took selfies with the rising sun. It was magnificent and awe-inspiring as always and I think to myself, “If I could wake up to this view every morning I’d be a better person.” Maybe.

Today’s treatments are similar to Day one. I can manage this. Even the steam. I really don’t want to be THAT person, you know, the one telling everyone how to do their job better to suit my needs? But I have learned that expressing my concerns gets me either an explanation of why they are trying to melt my skin off or an adjustment to alleviate my concerns, and the heat, sometimes both. I have also learned that I can refuse treatment any time I want. There is some comfort in this I guess, but I think many years ago a tiny little directive snuck up on me, that whispered, “Just go with it, see where it leads.” And so mostly I try to lean into new experiences. But it has been helpful to both lean in and find my edges and my voice.

After treatments, my afternoon stretches out before me. I have three hours before my consultation with the doctor. I have a list of questions and recommendations. This is because I am a pitta I am told; one of the Ayurvedic constitutions known as doshas. All you need to know is that pitta’s know everything, they’re always right, and they have the best ideas.

I contemplate a shower, but we are told leaving the oil on our hair and skin as long as possible is beneficial. I feel like a giant piece of walking fly paper, but I wander around the big house anyway careful not to get too close to things that will adhere themselves to me. I find no one in the kitchen so I grab my laptop to write about not only this experience but a few memoir type chapter starters. One of my hopes coming here was to find the time and desire to write again. Although all the books I’ve read on writing (Is that ridiculous? Reading books on writing?) insist one must not wait for inspiration but instead put oneself in the path of inspiration. This is my attempt.

Time to meet with the doctor. Now, this is no ordinary MD, Dr. Jain was a surgeon in his previous life (well, this lifetime, not his previous incarnation – it can all get dicey with all the Indian and yoga stuff) and a couple of decades ago started studying Ayurveda, so he is now still an MD and an Ayurvedic physician. East meets west. It’s a lovely thing. We chat a little about bodily functions – which is becoming surprisingly comfortable now (sorry, not sorry) – and then we start talking about stress. There has been a bit of stress in my life lately – like every day for 365+ days – so this is the probable cause of most of my issues.

We chat about control and letting go of trying to control what others do and don’t do. We talk about yoga, meditation and deep breathing practices. And we talk a little about food, but mostly it is a counseling session and I immerse myself in what he is telling me. And much of what he is telling me is a reiteration of what some of my closest friends have also suggested. I am now just ready to hear it fully.

It feels like balm to my rattled brain, salve to my struggling soul, someone asking about and listening to my “problems” with concern, compassion and no judgment. This is what medicine should be.

The healing is in the listening.

Buoyed by my counseling session I head to the kitchen to find dinner and company. The topic of conversation: the super blood full moon. Tonight. And we want to watch it rise over the ocean. We are staying right across from the beach so this isn’t a big deal, but there is no direct beach access so we plan to drive ½ a mile up the road to find our dune.

The beach here has been hit hard by hurricanes the past few years. Repairs to the wooden steps leading down to the beach were damaged a couple of years ago, and only about half of them were repaired. Then another hurricane barreled through last fall undoing everything. Right where we are a giant slab of concrete has been upended and looks like it could fall at any moment. A sea wall perhaps? We stay high on the only beach access here, a dune divoted by the passage of many feet.

We sit patiently, maybe a little concerned that we got the time or location wrong. But there were a couple of people already here that seemed to have the same schedule and a few more showed up, so we relaxed and gazed out to sea. There was a bank of clouds on the horizon – Florida mountains, I like to call them – that the moon would have to rise above. Which she did, slowly and elegantly. It was beautiful. We are held still and silent.

There is a call to presence when experiencing nature’s power.

Back to the house for lecture number 4 on Ayurveda. Tonight we chat about prana in food. Prana is the Sanskrit word for life force or energy, as in pranayama – breath control, or literally life force cessation, suspending the breath. All living things contain prana, it is what animates us. When we eat a live plant we are getting prana, when we eat fruit just picked from the tree: prana. When we eat an egg, a steak or drink a glass of milk? No prana. There are still nutrients, protein, fat, etc. in animal products, and we are not discouraged from eating them, but they contain little to no prana. When you start to look at food as energy (and actually many countries use Energy Units rather than calories on their food labels) you may make different choices. I know I will.

As I prepare for bed I have the sweet realization that we began the day with the rising sun and put it to bed with the rising moon. Goodnight moon.

21 Day Challenge – Day 19 – Promises

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Grace 2 IMG_2131Every day has its own flavor. Monday has a sense of urgency mixed with a soupcon of resignation. On Wednesday, particularly after lunch, the mood begins to lift. And Fridays are naturally relaxed. This seems to be true if a traditional schedule is worked or not.

It has been many years since I have worked 9-5 Monday through Friday, but I still feel that physical sigh of relief at the end of every week.

It is a day that is both relaxing and dangerous. “No need to stress, don’t worry about it, you’ll pick right back up where you left off.” It’s easier to let go of promises I’ve made to myself. It’s Friday. Relax.

It takes a little extra effort to stay on track. It’s easy to phone it in, maybe skip something.

But I don’t. And it’s so important that I don’t.

Day 19 of 21. Don’t fall back on old habits. Don’t be happy with at least making it this far. This is not a goal, this is a lifestyle change. I could pass on the writing and drink wine tonight and the stars would not fall out of the sky. But one would flicker and burn out. And maybe I’m the only one would know. But I would know.

So I write, I photograph, I do yoga and I put water on for tea. Not because I have a problem, and not to reach a goal, but for me. For my enchanted life. And because I made a promise and it’s time I kept one to myself.

[Photo: Meet Gracie, aka Grace Louise, aka TT. She and her human came over to hang out.]

21 Day Challenge – Day 16 – Catch of the Day

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trees 2 IMG_1991This 21 Day Challenge is revealing to me my non-negotiables. Those things that I will not only fit in, but make a priority.

At the beginning of these 21 days I was consumed with my task list, at the expense of almost everything else. It was a good lesson. All the other priorities that previously took precedence over me – work, cleaning, grocery shopping – still got done. I managed to fit them in around the new non-negotiables.

It had to happen that way. I could not have reorganized my priorities with pen and paper, I had to live them. I had to take this concept from my head into my body. There was no other way.

While at the gym today I recognized that this challenge, the yoga and the gym especially, is for my mind and my spirit way more than it is for my body. My body is both the problem and the solution.

I have come to see the body as something like a net. Little things that may be annoying or wonderful pass through the net every day. We may notice them, but we can easily let them go and allow them to flow right through us. The bigger things get caught. The argument with a loved one, an illness in the family, a lost job or a job with which we are completely misaligned. The heavy things stick. We have to acknowledge them and break them down into little pieces that can pass through.

But that doesn’t always happen.

These bigger things are stressors, they pull on the ropes, dragging us down. They web up the net making it more and more difficult for even the little things to pass through, so now a hangnail or burnt toast is a stressor.

Some ice cream or wine will put a nice coat on it, softening it so momentarily it takes on a different shape, tricking us into believing we have freed the stress from the net. But we haven’t.

It is clogged, we are heavy – sometimes literally, sometimes energetically – but it feels the same. We drag, we sit too long, wonder too much at how to fix it or change it. We ignore it, maybe it’s not that bad.

If we’re really lucky, or maybe secretly smart, we take a yoga class. Or we go for a walk. Or we have to run to catch up to someone. And something shifts. We feel it now, the weight of the stress, every single molecule glomming up the net, hanging like seaweed and noodles, stuck like wet bread coated with grease.

We know now we did this. Simultaneously we know we can undo it. There’s another class, another walk and pieces of stress begin to dry up and drop off. We leave a trail of energetic waste behind us on each step we consciously take.

For a moment we consider what exactly all this is. What events or people caused this? Then we know it does not matter. Because we are the common denominator. We caused this. We allowed this. This was all accumulated with our permission.

So now we have choices. We can be the net clear of debris for all situations to pass through without reaction, without holding on, or we can continue to collect stories to prove our point and hold us back.

Because it is the mind that got us into this trouble, it is best to leave the mind out of the solution. Get into the body. Move. As we move deliberately with intention there is a lightness of spirit that returns. The net begins to clear.

More tension falls away. Maybe we cry in our yoga class. We don’t know why, nothing is sad. Stored emotions are the detritus that clings to our energy field bogging it down and as we begin to move, we release. It may happen during a run or during a commercial for coffee. It’s all okay. It’s all necessary. We cannot think our way out of this.

Take it to the body. The body is the tool to relax the mind and energize the spirit. What an amazing combination. Relaxed energy.

It is from here we can begin to see clearly.

[Photo: Can’t see the forest for the trees.]