The Citadel

Settling down - the art of becoming relaxed

 

When I begin a relaxation in a class, we begin with a "settling time". This simple process is the most valuable skill I can impart to a student.

Why? Because it's the part of formal relaxation - lying down on the floor, breathing and visualizing - that is most transportable into daily life.

Everyone understands how a day can go from bad to worse. Simple everyday things insert themselves into something that began calmly. The phone rings, good or bad, it sets that calmness swirling. Outside demands are made on you and soon you're juggling three things at once. You fall behind, and the pressure builds. Soon it's a race just to keep your head above water. Along with this comes all the associated emotions; irritability, frustration and feeling overwhelmed. Your energy, that began quite centered, is swirling. You end your day feeling crazy and depleted, and is it any wonder.

Mastering that transition back to calmness from craziness, is mirrored in the first five minutes of a formal relaxation. In a formal relaxation we lie down comfortably, and then we wait for changes to take place inside us. It's amazing how few of us have the patience to wait (on our own behalf) for the body to calm. For most of us, it has to be a journey of trust. Very few of us have a concept of a deep reservoir of calmness inside ourselves. It's not the kind of thing we learned at our parents knee.

The reality is we do have calmness inside us, but we need to know how to find it. Much of what we experience as "stress" is to do with our body. Too much stimulus pushes up our heart rate, raises our blood pressure and engages our flight or fight nervous system. Even a small but continual assault of over-stimulus can bring about a stone age response in the body. It prepares for battle when none is needed. When we allow that response to continue unrelieved over time we burn out. We become like a candle burning too wildly, we devour the wax and too soon snuff out the flame of our own essence.

This is where training ourselves to settle down is helpful. We can learn how in formal relaxation, and we can practice it in daily life. Here are some things you can do to help yourself settle during the day. All of these things take 5 minutes and that's all it takes for your body chemistry to change enough to begin to relax.

- Take breaks. Take one every hour. Take these breaks as quietly as you can. If you can, go outside into fresh air, but indoors will do, even if it's at your desk. Just stop and release the activity.

- Breath deeply. One of the quickest ways to get the body to relax is to breathe. Practice a deep abdominal breath standing or seated.

- Shut off the noise. Turn off the radio, TV, etc. Close the door. Get small children to take a relaxation break by reading or listening to a story. Avoid office gossip. Bathe in quiet.

- Learn to recognize your own relaxation release point. Whilst you relax, observe your body. You'll feel the point when it begins to relax. For me it's a feeling of pleasant heaviness in the muscles and a feeling of coming down to earth. When you recognize your own point, it's easier to go back there again.

- Gaze at a beautiful picture, or listen to the sounds of nature. In this digital age, via wallpaper and apps, it's not hard to do. The beauty of nature both uplifts and calms us.

- Learn an uplifting or calming affirmation. "All is well" is one of my favourites. Close your eyes and repeat it slowly inside a few times. If that's too new agey for you then repeat a favourite prayer. One of my favourites is this prayer from St Theresa of Avila.

Let nothing upset you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing, only God is changeless. Patience attains the goal. He who has God lacks nothing. God alone fills every need. 

- Take time for lunch, a whole hour. Go for a walk, sit quietly and eat something delicious and healthy. Your productivity will soar later in the day.

And that's what I'm going to do right now, break for lunch. We can take comfort that in our busy lives, craziness is not necessarily inevitable. We can acquire new habits that support relaxation, but it takes application. May you have a joyously relaxed day!

Much love,

Wendy x.

 

                   

Present moments

As life is a journey so I am on a journey of a smaller kind. As there are bridges that carry us across a river or a chasm, so some Yoga practices are like bridges, they carry us from one part of life to another. Some chasms are huge, like relationship break up or an illness. Others are small like the holiday period we are in at this moment.

Like everyone I welcome the change of routine the holidays bring. But at this time when celebration of spirit seems to be the focus, the loss of my sadhana - my spiritual practice - is a loss I don't enjoy. An unplesant hole forms in my being, that space my regular sadhana nourishes, feels empty.

As the holidays is a time of feasting, so my holiday sadhana needs to be at least a mini feast or in my case a moveable one. I move through this holiday season from my family through airports, planes and time zones to more family in another country. All of that is a challenge to my soul and pysche.

I decided at first just to relax. At least 20 minutes of Yoga relaxation carried me through Xmas, 3 airports and 2 airflights kept me surprisingly calm and brought me a good sleep on a plane flight that is normally difficult. It has kept me happily connected to the centre of my awareness and a sense of soul nourishment.

Now I find I need movement to ground me in my new time zone, this present moment. On the phone (on which I write this blog as well) I list a morning practice. Sometimes I haven't time to do it all, but I do as much as travel will allow. It brings me to this moment, that the transience of travel underlines as the only moment we truely have.

So for your interest here's my present sadhana. It may serve you too.

Yoga relaxation focusing on Yoga breathing - 5 mins.
Pawanmuktasana (joint rotations) - 5 mins.
Danda kriyas, at least 3.
Standing forward bend - monkey paws rocking.
Trikonasana.
Downward dog drop to upward dog.
Simple seated spinal twist.
Lizard posture.
Rolling to shoulderstand.
Moola bandha.
Seated pranayama - Ujjayi breathing, then centreing awareness on the present moment.

A happy and wondrous New Year to all my friends,

Much love, Wendy.

The Sage views the straw dogs

I'm working through "Change your thoughts, change your life" by Dr Wayne Dyer at the pace of a very slow snail. That seems to be the right pace for me. The verse I am at describes the impartial nature of the Tao, its unconditional nature.

"The sage is not sentimental, he treats all his people as straw dogs." 

Often times things come to me when I give a Relaxation in class. Often times all my planning goes out the window, and the Relaxation becomes a creative flow. I experience it as do my students. Something that flows out of the unknown through my mind and weaves itself together all by itself. And it ties together all the questions that have been in my mind forming an answer.

Another thing takes over then. Something in the mind peaks. My consciousness blossoms and the answer grows into a knowing. When that happens I have learned to understand that that answer is then indelibly imprinted on my awareness. It has become, it is now part of me forever. Its hard to describe this kind of knowing as it has a heightened quality, like you touch a truth beyond reason. It fills you with a feeling and a sense of totality. I guess that's the union of Yoga, the moment when there's a deeper sense of connection with something much larger than your normal self.

So last weeks Relaxation was like that.

I began describing a star, gold and silver. Now a star is one of the very lofty images I sometimes use, very much beyond the symbols of sun and moon in Yoga. To me the star transcends all that, it's a symbol of where we come from and where we are returning. Its a lovely thought for me to contemplate the light of a star. Each star shines upon us and can be seen by everyone. Well not particular stars, but stars in general. It strikes me that the star is like the sage. It gives its light to all in an equal and "unsentimental" way. And from this there is a natural expansion of an idea...un-conditionality. The star is its exemplar.

The star shares its light equally and without stint on everyone. And if the star is the highest form of universal energy and light we can contemplate, then a (mystical) understanding unfolds from this. Its only our mind, with its narrower focus, that draws the conclusion of inequality, of more or less for us or others. It isn't the nature of the star. The star is unconditional in its giving. 

For anyone who contemplates this - not just intellectually - but meditatively, I believe there are some quite rich insights to be found. Contemplation of the star can unfold deeper recesses of our awareness of how the universe functions mystically.

Bring to your mind the image of a star in an indigo sky. Infuse the image with your breath, perhaps holding your awareness inside the space of the mind as you do. Contemplate the star and its nature and the journey of its light to you.

"He gives and gives, without condition, offering his treasures to everyone." - The Tao Te Ching

Much love,

Wendy.

   

 

Dr Dyer and the Tao Te Ching

Dr Wayne Dyer's book "Change your thoughts - CHANGE your life" is about his year long "meditation" on the work of Lao Tzu. Dr Dyer offers a way of changing your life experience to resolve the daily bugbears of stress, anxiety and mental distress via the ancient Chinese philosophy known as the Tao or Dao. I think Dr Dyer is nearly the king of Self Help, and I'm always excited to open one of his books.

Even the introduction of this book had some gems of wisdom, like "Within misfortune, great fortune hides." As I've been recently transiting through my own version of life's gravity, that thought shone like a supernova during dark moon. I only got to the end of the first chapter and I had to put the book down. My mind was reeling, even from the rich impact of those few words. 

But this is not the first brush I've had with Lao Tzu. I have studied the Tao Te Ching before in various ways, and the conundrum of "something arises from nothing" has been with me for years. Dr Dyer's commentary is the best kind, it's a living commentary - a slice of one mans life, dedicated to living the fullness of the Tao - in real time. For me, reading Dr Dyer is always a humbling experience, his perception and grasp of spirituality is always so rich and complete.

I now realise the paradox, that when I am am focused on one thing, I have always been multitasking. That not all things, are really distractions from one-pointedness. And I have Dr Dyer to thank for that.

* * *

"Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;
ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations.
And the mystery itself is the doorway
to all understanding."
1st Verse (part) - Tao Te Ching.

This section was the beginning of that journey.

Dr Dyer explains beautifully the dynamic between wanting and allowing, explaining that isn't a conflict in eastern philosophy, but more a contradiction or paradox; one is hidden in the other.

Dr Dyer invites his reader to experience contradiction in an exercise at the end of the chapter. First observing a moment of irritation and observing the wanting of that to stop, whilst allowing the irritation to be. It wasn't long before that moment came along! And I had the most curious experience from that!

I had some soup on the stove and I was reading at the same time, and I had such a weird perception that I was cooking and reading at the same time. Whilst reading I was actively cooking, and whilst stirring the soup with the book put down, I was still reading. Both activities were co-existing in both an active - wanting to cook - stage, or an - allowing the soup - to bubble state. Later whilst I ate the soup I realised, that its digestion would also be, eating, in its allowing phase. Even now whilst I write I am "eating/digesting" and "writing/reading" at the same time. Through the agency of the Tao I am doing all! I had a lovely sense of duality dissolving.

It was an overwhelming experience, with which I will continue to work. That was only chapter 1. This book has 81! I'm guessing his book is going to be an interesting read!

Much love, Wendy.

Stillness

Stillness

Stillness is a refuge I always love to visit. Buts it's an elusive destination belonging to the road less traveled.

It's not physical stillness I mean, but a still mind.

It's not easy to achieve, but it's not impossible. It takes focus and discipline and a great degree of self love, as it's a most loving gift you can give to yourself. 

I've been reading Dr Wayne Dyer's, The Power of Intention, and he writes about the power of being in connection with intention which he gives seven qualities - beauty, love, receptivity, kindness, expansion, creativity and abundance. Whenever I have visited "stillness" I have found these qualities in deep abundance. Dyer equates them to the ever-present face of the Divine, the essence of creation itself. I find that "stillness" is a place of deep nourishment.

Sometime however, I have a complacent relationship with stillness, though I know how to go there. I need a big prod delivered by life to remind me of my destination. Just like skating on thin ice brings a knife like focus, then I go back to find stillness the wonderful refuge in which resolution is meaningless. It reminds me sharply of who I truely am, and what I'm doing in this mystery called life.

I have little signposts all around me at the moment, and all of them are nudging me to get really still. Folded inside the stillness are potent answers, that I need to completely understand. I am feeling the urge to dissolve all my concerns inside it, to let them go inside its loving care.

I know that stillness has a special face. It's beautiful and kind, unlike this world sometimes is. I've forgotten that face a little. But it doesn't mean I can't see it again. It never turns away. 

Much love today, Wendy.

 

The Light of the world is for all

It's a couple of days to Christmas, and it's time to reflect on the year as we move into New Year as well. For me its been an eventful year, almost like three years in one.

This year my world grew larger. The more some things in my life seemed to contract, the more some expanded. Its also a year the meaning of Christmas deepened for me as I studied and embraced some mystical Christian ideas.

It brings me now to contemplate the status of Christianity today, and the rise of the Christian Right. Today fundamentalists are pushing their agenda into civil rights in many parts of the world. In leading free nations like the USA they have succeeded in having constitutional rights stripped from minorities, through ballot measures such as Proposition 8 in California. This measure has stripped the right of marriage from same sex couples, the ability to adoptchildren by unmarried (same sex) couples in other states like Arkansas.

But by what authority do these fundamentalists do these things. Most will say the inerrant
truth of every word of the Bible.

But I view sacred writings - such as the Bible - as initiators of meditation, that connect us to higher energies. The words inspire and uplift us to a higher consciousness, past limiting beliefs into liberation. So for me the reading the Bible is an intuitive process, not a literal one. To see it as a book of regulations alone seems a shallow interpretation of the incredible depth it offers. It's a book to be studied, ingested and tested in real life.

What I have divined from it is an ascending scale of ever refining ideas. I think this makes me a "supercessionist" Biblically. The idea is that the Bible presents themes, even archetypes which evolve and succeed each other. Jesus's life and teaching is considered the penultimate expression of these. And that his penultimate teaching of finding Grace and extending Unconditional Love to all is the fundamental of Christianity. An aim I know meditation supports utterly.

To be active in stripping GLBT's of their right to marry or adopt children is to be heading in a descending direction away from those penultimate teachings towards division and elitism. As a meditator, division and elitism are manifestations of the Ego we seek to subdue. And that's where I'd place the supporters of Prop 8, as creating an elite based on biology. That was an idea we had a world war over. Let's not go there again.

So this Christmas I'll be reflecting that Jesus spent his time amongst lepers, prostitutes, the destitute and the poor - minorities. He was not about marginalizing sections of humanity, but about including all in God's Kingdom, with equal love and dignity.

Much love, Wendy.  

     

Special Announcement!

Wendy will be teaching a special Extension Classes in November!

THE CHAKRAS - A journey in Relaxation, Yoga and Meditation.

For details on this special class click here.

Much love, Wendy.

The Cosmic iphone; already built in....

Imagine that Apple invented a brilliant new iphone. Imagine that this iphone
could receive messages directly from the mind and that these messages
could constantly guide you to a better place.

Consider you have already built in, a way to stream all kinds of info, like your
love horoscope, life coaching, future prediction, market indicators and basically
any kind of relevant stuff you want to know.

All you need to know is how to tune your device to receive that and more.

Revolutionize your thinking with the knowledge that the mind already has
that figured for you. Its already presented you with a tool you've always
had at your finger tips. Its called Svadhyaya, the art of Self- listening. The
minds answer to the cosmic iphone.

To use our cosmic iphone we need to rethink how we receive information.
We have been sold, lock, stock and barrel, that the only way to get any useful
info is from outside ourselves. We hand authority over to "outside" everyday.
In doing this, we seriously undervalue our Self.    

But Svadhyaya is going to hand back the joystick of your life. It will help
you navigate to your maximum potential.

To illustrate how the woo woo of Meditation meets something the world values
highly, namely scientific fact, listen to neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor explain
how she observed her brain function as she had a stroke. See how she explains
the All Knowing, All Connected function of the right side the of the brain. She is
describing something Meditation has always said - there is a part of our mind
outside time and space. We can experience All Knowing there.

Most of us are locked out of our All Knowing side, but meditation unlocks our
access. Inside, there are unopened messages with answers to the questions
we are asking. Often we need to hear our questions as much as the answers.
Just below the chatter of our mind all these things wait to be heard. As we
silence the chatter by meditating, we open our messages spontaneously.

This is Svadyaya the art of Self-listening; actively listening to our own inner
wisdom through Meditation. Even a little practice reaps huge rewards.   

Much love today, Wendy.

"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you:
For everyone that asketh receiveth;  and he that seeketh findeth; and to him
that knocketh it shall be opened.
Matthew 7; Chapters 7&8.  

The Attitude of the Allowing

Mountain stream - San Juan Mountains CO- W.Bradtke 2006

Why is it that loving and caring can bring us the most pain?   

It seems a contradiction, that the thing we may need most - a feeling of
loving and being loved - may end up being the root of our worst suffering.
How many of us know this?  A relationship that sours, a project that
becomes a monster, an illness that cripples our work; we begin in joy and
end in misery. Misery seems to follow our joy so consistently we might
conclude it's simply part of our human-ness and throw in the towel. How
many addictions begin with that? How much do we consume to numb our
pain? How many hours do we spend in stressful work and uncongenial
company to fill in that gnawing hole inside?

Its a rat race. Literally. A rat runs around its wheel unaware its own
movement is creating more of the same. Can we break that cycle and find
a true sense of peace? The good news is through Meditation we can begin
to break up that momentum with times of stillness. Plus we can undermine
our own habitual responses through Meditation and find fresh answers to old
problems.

But Meditation practice also offers some specific tools to help us out of our
suffering. To find them we need to go to a source book of Meditation - The
Yogasutras - written by Patanjali, an Indian sage and mystic from 200AD. The
Yogasutras are THE sacred text of Yoga, especially Raja Yoga -the Royal Path.
Patanjali begins his discourse on the path to Samadhi (Enlightenment) with ten
practices called Yama and Niyama, and the ones I am of thinking of here
are Aparigraha and Svadhyaya.

Aparigraha means non-attachment, non -grasping or non- hoarding. 
Maybe its better understood if we look at its opposite Parigraha, which means
"holding jealously". Aparigraha is a delicate practice that hinges on the
significance we give to things and the way we hold them (metaphorically). 
Over the years I have worked with various aspects of Aparigraha and it works
best for me if I keep an attitude of allowing, and of letting life flow, not trying
to overform it. Curiously, by letting the things I love and desire be, and allowing
them to go through their own cycles of ebb and flow without grasping at them
so hard, seems to keep the love flowing more.

But that "allowing things to flow" doesn't mean neglect. Things we neglect
dwindle in energy and dissolve away. This kind of allowing means a light
holding of things in a way that doesn't restrict energy. Its realizing that
over identifying with something often suffocates it completely. Aparigraha
allows spontaneity and creativity. It allows us to navigate change graciously.
It is in fact a great learning in understanding the transience of life. Through
that we remain open to the love and support of a Universe that seeks to
nourish and support us with its constancy and love.

For a simple example of how Aparigraha works, lets consider cream.
Yes, I mean the thing that floats on top of milk, that highly calorific substance
many of us adore. If you don't, then I'm sure you can find you own personal 
equivalent.

"Cream" is both a thing and an idea. The amount of it we eat is often conditioned
by our attachment to it. Many things come into play here, like our attachment to
thinness or health, or how we consider cream to be a luxurious food. If we look
we can see some of our attachments to cream stem from associations through
childhood, all the way to how we are "sold" the idea of cream in the media, things
that have no relation to its actual taste. Even in terms of taste, cream causes
feelings of satisfaction due to its fat content.

A lot of factors may cause us to have a mini addiction to cream. Then when we
can't have cream the lack of it causes us suffering.  An extreme case would be
when an excess of it has clogged our arteries and we can not eat it at all.

Aparigraha asks us to question our relationship to cream.

Its about understanding the power we give to cream, compared to what it
can really give us in return. To build a whole life based on the feeling we get
from cream is foolish, yet many of us do this all the time with other things,
like status, work and relationships.

But when we begin holding cream lightly, we can find a place that allows us to
enjoy it when appropriate and let it go when its not. Denial is not enough,
because denial is the other side of attachment. By considering cream as what
it is, a kind of food, we then allow cream to nourish us according to its true
nature which includes it being delicious, as well as the healthy amount for us.
This example can flow out into your whole life with many things or situations.

Aparigraha is allowing life to nourish us according to its true nature. When
we practice it, it begins to show us the true nature of life is very loving. We
open the door and let love in. Often part of that process involves Svadyaya or
self listening...but thats another practice I'll talk about in my next blog...

Much love today, Wendy.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:
they toil not, neither do they spin..." 
Matthew Ch. 8. 

The floating goldfish was me.

Its not a cheery topic, but I need to talk about death.

Not my maiden aunt kicking the bucket, nor my goldfish floating upside
down in its bowl, not even the cutting my credit card into lots of pieces kind
of death. None of those. Those would be easy to talk about. My own death is
the one I'm talking about, at least in a meditative way.

I'm guessing we all talk to people we know about how we wish to die and when.
I do. I want to drop dead at a ripe old age. I have no desire to linger with illness.
I want some handy illness like a massive stroke and plop, I hit the floor and move
on. Its one of my cherished illusions that I have a say in my mode of exit, so I was
surprised at the sickly feeling I experienced, when I turned the next page of my
Buddhist meditation book at my retreat and read,

"Now meditate on your own death, that maybe you could die today, that you
cannot prevent the eventual decay and death of your body."

In short, the meditation topic made me feel ill. Its not that I am in denial about
my own demise, however I suddenly knew I was carrying some baggage about the
idea. Meditation is a thing imbued with a kind of magic for me; what you visualize
in meditation becomes, I know that in my bones. I didn't want my death becoming.
Plus, I can thank my mother for numerous superstitions for even uttering the word
"death", along with other fate-tempters like the wearing of green (instant bad luck),
opening umbrella's inside (it will rain inside) and leaving shoes on tables (see dead
man's shoes).

So for the first 3 days on my retreat I engaged in a strategy of avoidance. I flipped
past those pages and contemplated other things. That strategy brought me to
my pit of suffering, and my pit of suffering brought me back to the meditation I
didn't want to know about; death and Impermanence, there was no getting around
it. It was in full fearful flight (of meditatively creating my own death) that I opened
the door and let death in. I was not prepared for what happened next, except I
can tell you it blew my mind out of my ears.

Because the meditation taught me death and dying aren't what they seem.

Dying it seems is total bliss.

Now getting this straight, using the word death and bliss in the same sentence
is not my way of advocating anyone take a Thelma and Louise type plunge into
a joyful death experience. Its just my death meditation began with fear, and
moved quickly into a feeling of stripping away all of life's burdens. I was amazed
at the ease at which I peeled my life away because the feeling of lightness was
so delicious I couldn't stop. The reason why the Buddhists want us to let go of
our attachments began to dawn full force. I experienced a lightness of being
so blissful I can't find the right words.

If I was poet and could suspend disbelief, I might also say I floated out of my
body and saw "the other side" for some moments. That's before I slipped back
into this body I call home for this lifetime. Or I could blink and blank out this
paragraph imagining I had a very weird dream. Either way, it changed me,
and I am loathe to use the word, but forever springs to mind.

I came away from the retreat with a completely new sense of self; a self that is
not as attached to my present life. I am able to see myself as a "self" in eternity
not so limited by my present circumstances. I now understand the decisions I make,
the allegiances I form, the way I craft myself NOW, has far reaching implications
beyond my death. Its destroyed for me is any sense I had of death being an ending.
It simply isnt. All that I carry inside, all that I think, will be with me always.
Death in short isn't the convenient "tidyer upper" I thought it was. The stuff I have
to deal with has to be dealt with now , because its not going away.

I have been taught this in theory. Now I know it real-ly. I feel reborn.

Death/Rebirth. Death/Rebirth. Death/Rebirth. Not a beginning, or ending.
A transformation! Its like that old Zen poem.

"Before Enlightenment. Chopping wood, carrying water.
After Enlightenment. Chopping wood, carrying water."

Much love today, Wendy.