by Stephanie F. Earls
Well, if you read the last post and have tried it at all, you've gotten some good information for yourself about how you feel in relation to the thoughts you choose. And depending on how in flux your thoughts have been, there is the possibility you could feel a little like a see-saw, bouncing back and forth between positive and negative thoughts, which brings me to this post.
A few nights ago as I was putting my four year old to bed I found myself saying the exact words to him that my dad used to say to me at bedtime when I was a kid: "turn off your brain". As a kid I did not have any idea how I could do that or even that it was an option, there was just thought and it was going all on it's own. And this very night my son looked at me after I said those words and asked, much to my surprise: "mom, how do I turn off my brain?" After I laughed at the sheer fact that 30 years later my son is asking the very question that plagued me, I found the words coming out of my mouth that I use in yoga everyday: "Just notice your breath. Follow your breath in and feel your belly rise then follow your breath out and feel your belly fall." In that moment my words and description suited a four year old a bit more than a room full of adults practicing yoga, but the message is the same: breathe here.
If the mind is busy, whether we "judge" it as positive or negative, we can bypass the endless cycle of thoughts by bringing our attention to the breath, especially in two places in our body at the same time. So, maybe notice the feeling of air at the nose as well as the rise and fall of the belly. Bring your hand to the belly for extra sensory input. Or bring one hand to the heart and the other to the belly and notice the expansion and contraction of your rib cage and the rise and fall of the belly. Engaging the senses this way helps short circuit the mind's hooking you into your thoughts and letting them run away with you...all of you: your body, breath, being, mind, health...your well being. Use yourself to your advantage, take the reigns and hold steady, using your body as a tool. Find balance regardless of thought.
Now I know it all sounds well and good on paper or hunky dory if you can get to a yoga class or sit quietly to meditate (which help you integrate your practice) but what we all ask is: is this for real? Can this be used in day to day life when your kids are screaming or the work you just finished got torn to shreds or your sick parents need constant care or someone you love just died or you are just bummed out about life? Well, if I had all the answers I might not be writing any of this but what I do have is my experience. I have the chance to learn, I have real life stuff (again, alternate s word) happen all the time, and most of all, I have PRACTICE. And I can say though it's not easy, it does work. Sometimes we start to practice and fight with ourselves about it but that is just part of the balance...getting through the fight to the place where we CHOOSE breath, which is choosing space. And once you choose breath you open up places to make other choices.
In my last entry I was advocating, if you are going to be in your mind, choosing "positive" thoughts, which is still a worthwhile tool and one which as humans we have available until we die. However, there will be days when even what we deem "positive" can not lift us out of the place we feel stuck in. It comes down to realizing that with thoughts we are driving the bus and have a choice, and taking the chance to link our thoughts to action. The breath is our most simple, free and powerful tool to help us "turn off our brains" at the appropriate time.
The breath is our source, it is our life and it will show us the way to peace when we choose it, and not just peace of mind but peace of being. What I love most about breath is it is centered in our body right at the heart, the true center of peace in our being. As we developed in our mothers' wombs, before there was a brain, before there was breath, there was heart. It is the place where heaven and earth meet. Our breath serves to direct us back to our center, to our heart, to balance.
Use your breath, come back to your source. Get out of your head and into your body. If you love being physical, run, play sports, do yoga, dance...notice your breath. If you are not so physical, rub your hands together, bring them together in prayer or rest them on your heart and belly. Either way bring it to the basics of noticing your inhale and your exhale. Let yourself get to the "heart" of balancing your thoughts, taking the mind down to the body and following, observing, feeling. No need to change anything. No judgement about whether the breath is right or wrong. It's just breath. It is. And then like magic you begin to transcend the positive and negative thoughts and find a balance that resides in your whole being. You come to the space where the divine in you shines from your center, balanced. All it takes is for you to breathe here.
25 January 2011
14 January 2011
Balancing Thoughts
by Stephanie F. Earls
Life is about balance. In yoga we balance ourselves physically by practicing postures on both sides of our body. In many postures we find balance by locating our center. Sometimes we fall. But it's not that we failed, we just got some information about where exactly our center, our balance, resides. Our body tells us "hey, you went to far there" or "oh, that feels perfect, hold this now".
And what about balancing the mind?
When things are tough do we resign ourselves to sad thinking? Do we "fall" into a black hole, feeling despair and making our lives an all or nothing based on a dark perspecitve? Or do we realize we are just getting information?
We've all been in the "fall"...going through stuff (I'd put another "s" word here but I promised my kids I'd stop using it...) and we start to spiral down thinking about all the things that have gone wrong and how there must be some big dark cloud around us attracting more of the same. It can get compounded by what we hear and see around us. This week I learned of a friend's son who lost half his body in Afghanistan and then the news of this crazy guy in Arizona. We all feel the collective weight of things out of our control.
This stuff, whether personal or global, gets in our face and sucks our attention away from the miracles and quiet sweetness that happen everyday. It's a trick of the ego, personal or collective, trying to get our attention and hold us back. We have to stay balanced.
Let's keep ourselves pliable and growing. If we fall a little into a dark spiral, we have to admit we're in it and it does not feel good. There is no benefit in denying that it broke our hearts to hear troubling news. But then remember that how we feel will change like all things do. And it does not own us.
Sometimes we easily jump into the "everything sucks" place but, how often, when things feel happy, calm (sometimes mistaken for mundane), joyful, or abundant do we do that exact same thing and jump into the "EVERYTHING IS FREAKIN' AWESOME" place? How often do we create an all or nothing out of a good day? If we are going to go to extremes with our thinking, why not do it on the happy end?
How often do we spend time watching people on tv talk about all the joy and kindness in the world? How much stop and listen do we do when things are good? I have a hunch we all listen and rejoice and celebrate the small triumphs in each other's lives quite a bit. It might not get news attention, but it gets our attention. We move through our days, honoring stories of the amazing midwife who helped a friend birth their baby... Or the doctor who stood by a patient through way more in life than one could ask... Or the grandparent who gave up a day at work to make cookies with their grandchild... Or the father whose brain tumor healed by his own strength and the power of prayer... Or the teacher who makes each student feel like part of her family. These are everyday miracles that go un-talked about in mass media but they are our everyday and they far outweigh the craziness in the world. These examples are what is.
Even if just in our own hearts and minds, let's make mountains out of these everyday beauties so that when crazy pops up we do not disintegrate our well being and our peace of mind.
Let's balance.
Try this if you notice yourself going to the "everything sucks" mode when you have a bad day... the next time something feels sweet, go to the "everything is freakin' awesome" mode. If you need to balance things off, do it big: OH MY GOD, THIS IS WONDERFUL, EVERYTHING IS HAPPY. HOW PERFECT LIFE IS. Do it as soon as, and any time something makes your heart leap or the corners on your mouth turn up, or even if you just have a moment of peace of mind...when you have something, anything happen that makes you feel good.
Let's see what happens. It's not about denying when things feel hard. We honor those falls because they show us the way to our joy. They give us information. They help us balance. We just do not let them own us. This is about acknowledging with the same enthusiasm and conviction when things feel good so that just like the falls, we get information and find our balance.
Life is about balance. In yoga we balance ourselves physically by practicing postures on both sides of our body. In many postures we find balance by locating our center. Sometimes we fall. But it's not that we failed, we just got some information about where exactly our center, our balance, resides. Our body tells us "hey, you went to far there" or "oh, that feels perfect, hold this now".
And what about balancing the mind?
When things are tough do we resign ourselves to sad thinking? Do we "fall" into a black hole, feeling despair and making our lives an all or nothing based on a dark perspecitve? Or do we realize we are just getting information?
We've all been in the "fall"...going through stuff (I'd put another "s" word here but I promised my kids I'd stop using it...) and we start to spiral down thinking about all the things that have gone wrong and how there must be some big dark cloud around us attracting more of the same. It can get compounded by what we hear and see around us. This week I learned of a friend's son who lost half his body in Afghanistan and then the news of this crazy guy in Arizona. We all feel the collective weight of things out of our control.
This stuff, whether personal or global, gets in our face and sucks our attention away from the miracles and quiet sweetness that happen everyday. It's a trick of the ego, personal or collective, trying to get our attention and hold us back. We have to stay balanced.
Let's keep ourselves pliable and growing. If we fall a little into a dark spiral, we have to admit we're in it and it does not feel good. There is no benefit in denying that it broke our hearts to hear troubling news. But then remember that how we feel will change like all things do. And it does not own us.
Sometimes we easily jump into the "everything sucks" place but, how often, when things feel happy, calm (sometimes mistaken for mundane), joyful, or abundant do we do that exact same thing and jump into the "EVERYTHING IS FREAKIN' AWESOME" place? How often do we create an all or nothing out of a good day? If we are going to go to extremes with our thinking, why not do it on the happy end?
How often do we spend time watching people on tv talk about all the joy and kindness in the world? How much stop and listen do we do when things are good? I have a hunch we all listen and rejoice and celebrate the small triumphs in each other's lives quite a bit. It might not get news attention, but it gets our attention. We move through our days, honoring stories of the amazing midwife who helped a friend birth their baby... Or the doctor who stood by a patient through way more in life than one could ask... Or the grandparent who gave up a day at work to make cookies with their grandchild... Or the father whose brain tumor healed by his own strength and the power of prayer... Or the teacher who makes each student feel like part of her family. These are everyday miracles that go un-talked about in mass media but they are our everyday and they far outweigh the craziness in the world. These examples are what is.
Even if just in our own hearts and minds, let's make mountains out of these everyday beauties so that when crazy pops up we do not disintegrate our well being and our peace of mind.
Let's balance.
Try this if you notice yourself going to the "everything sucks" mode when you have a bad day... the next time something feels sweet, go to the "everything is freakin' awesome" mode. If you need to balance things off, do it big: OH MY GOD, THIS IS WONDERFUL, EVERYTHING IS HAPPY. HOW PERFECT LIFE IS. Do it as soon as, and any time something makes your heart leap or the corners on your mouth turn up, or even if you just have a moment of peace of mind...when you have something, anything happen that makes you feel good.
Let's see what happens. It's not about denying when things feel hard. We honor those falls because they show us the way to our joy. They give us information. They help us balance. We just do not let them own us. This is about acknowledging with the same enthusiasm and conviction when things feel good so that just like the falls, we get information and find our balance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)