Road Rage: Taking Action

I initially thought that this new routine would be a piece of cake. I quickly learned how foolish that was! I considered myself to be a morning person until I was forcing myself to wake up early to do sun salutations and grease my body up with oil. The asana, pranayama and meditation was extremely difficult for me to do in the morning. My morning meditation went something like this:

Om. I’m hungry. And uncomfortable. Om. And still really tired. I should just go back to sleep for a couple of minutes. Om. I have so much to do today. In fact, I should be getting organized for the day right now. Om. I have to figure out how I’m going to make it to three different appointments on opposite sides of town. Om.

After week one, I decided to try this routine later in the evening. At night, I was already done with all of my tasks for the day so I wasn’t constantly creating to-do lists in my mind. It also helped me go to sleep better, which sometimes I struggle with. I found that I woke up feeling better rested and in a better mood on days that I did my full routine. I continued with my personal care routine in the morning. I loved the oil pulling and quickly made this into a new habit! I liked the idea of massaging myself with oil but quickly started to break out from the almond oil. I decided to only use the oil on my feet, arms and legs and that seemed okay. I wasn’t crazy about the tongue scrapping so I stopped doing that when this experiment was over.

I really enjoyed doing deep breathing exercises while driving. It totally calmed me down and gave me something else to focus on besides the other drivers on the road. I also found myself doing breathing exercises randomly throughout my day whenever I found myself in a stressful situation; it almost came automatically.

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Road Rage: Success!

If I were to summarize my experience, I can’t say that I believe the personal care routine reduced my pitta and helped my road rage or stress in any kind of direct way. I do think that it’s a nice way to practice self care as part of a daily routine. I have noticed a difference in my stress management abilities since I have been practicing more asana, pranayama and meditation. I’ve gotten to the point where I look forward to deep breathing and chanting, instead of viewing it as a chore. To summarize how my experiment has affected my road rage specifically, I want to tell a story:

I left class last Tuesday evening and was headed home down Colorado Blvd. I was about ten minutes into my drive when I saw a police car parked in the median monitoring speeds. I immediately panicked and prepared to slam on my breaks when I glanced at my speedometer and saw that I was going the speed limit. This may not sound all that interesting except for the fact that it was 9:30 PM on a Tuesday night and I was practically all alone on the road. Normally, I would be going a good 10-20 mph over the speed limit to rush home as quickly as possible. Instead, I was driving at the exact speed limit…not rushing, just enjoying the drive home!

Suffice it to say, I have no doubt that practicing deep breathing and incorporating meditation into my daily life has impacted my temperament in a huge way. I don’t know about the way that it has affected my dosha in particular, but I do know that I will carry this into my life beyond this experiment and beyond this training program. I’m grateful to have been given this opportunity to discover new healthy ways to relieve stress and become a more peaceful, patient person.

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Bringing Spirituality to Class

People find their way to Yoga through many avenues. Some through meditation. Some through breath work. Some through spiritual study. And many, like the student in this account, through a physical asana practice. The posts below describe an experiment to deepen a physical Yoga practice to include more of Pantajali’s eight limbs of Yoga.

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Bringing Spirituality to Class: Background and Hypothesis

In the West, most people equate “doing yoga” with asana practice.  However, yoga as a system encompasses much beyond this.   As Patanjali outlines in the Yoga Sutras, the Ashtanga-based system of yoga is comprised of eight limbs, with asana being one.   When combined together, these eight limbs are primarily designed not to enhance physical strength, flexibility and endurance, as many Westerners who “practice yoga” believe, but rather to provide a pathway to spiritual enlightenment by facilitating connection with the divine.

Prior to the teacher training, I like many in the West, experienced yoga primarily through studio-based asana classes.  Because such classes tend to focus on the physical aspects of yoga, and minimize, or many times completely ignore, yoga’s spiritual aspects, I was surprised to learn through the teacher training that “doing yoga” is actually mainly a spiritual venture.  You don’t even have to sweat!

As I have progressed through the Axis training, I have become more and more interested in the idea of teaching yoga to others.  I view the lack of emphasis on spirituality in studio-based classes a potential need in the local yoga community that would be satisfying as teacher to provide, and hopefully also useful to students.  Thus, one of my aspirations as a yoga teacher is find ways to bring the spiritual experience of yoga to people “doing yoga” in studio-type settings.  Similarly, as a yoga student I aspire to find ways to personally experience greater spiritual connectedness when participating in a studio-based yoga class, no matter how much or little the teacher emphasizes this aspect of yoga practice.

Given this, the goal of my experiment was to test the effect of introducing different actions, practices or thoughts during studio classes to see how they impacted my spiritual experience of yoga.

Hypothesis: Some actions, practices or thoughts will enhance my spiritual experience of yoga more than others during studio-based classes.

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Bringing Spirituality to Class: Methods

At the beginning of the experiment I brainstormed a list of different activities (see Table below) that I could try in order to enhance the spiritual connectedness I felt during a typical studio-based yoga class. My usual asana class schedule is three times a week (outside of Axis training times), split between Core Power Yoga and Advanced Asana classes at Samadhi. I systematically went through the activities listed in the Table during the asana classes I participated in throughout the weeks of the experiment (including both at Axis training and studio classes). Following each session I journaled about how the various activities affected me spiritually.

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Bringing Spirituality to Class: Results

The Table below lists the different activities that were tried during the experiment period and their results.  NE = not effective, SE = somewhat effective, VE = very effective.

 

Table.  Spiritual Activities Tried During the Experiment, and Their Impact

Activity

Where   Tried

Results
Bringing   “prayer hands” to third eye instead of heart

Samadhi

Axis

VE
Devotional   focused practice

Axis

VE
Prone   supplication during practice

Core Power

VE
Doing   asana practice with eyes closed

Core Power

Axis

VE
Using   Anjali mudra during practices as much as possible, even if not cued by   instructor

Samadhi

VE
Meditating   after asana practice

Core Power

SE
Setting an   intention to honor God during practice

Core Power

SE
Picture of   religious icon next to mat during practice

Samadhi

SE
Saying a short   prayer with each down dog hold

Samadhi

NE
Meditating   before asana practice

Core Power

NE

 

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Bringing Spirituality to Class: Discussion

Overall I found this to be a very useful experiment as I was able to identify some simple maneuvers that I can take with me into any studio-based class to enhance my spiritual experience.  This experiment also prompted me to think in depth about how I might, as a yoga teacher, incorporate some spiritual practices into my classes, being mindful of creating an environment that is not threatening, and meets people wherever they are spiritually.

Based on this experiment I plan to continue to use Anjali mudra, prayer hands at third eye, and prone supplication throughout asana classes I attend.  It is heartening to know that these three simple actions can increase my spiritual connection in any asana class environment, even during classes that are highly physical (my favorite type!)  In addition, the devotional practice that Brenna introduced was a lovely experience and one I plan to do periodically do on my own. I would love to share a devotional practice similar to what Brenna taught with others.  Thank you for introducing me to it!!!

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Pancha Karma Experience

Axis Yoga Teacher Training students have the opportunity to apply their Ayurvedic lessons to their own lives. Many students, like this one, decide to complete the Pancha Karma cleanse to experience its effects on the body, mind and consciousness. While it is not a simple cleanse, students generally have a positive report on their overall experience. This student describes many challenges as well as the benefits ultimately received.

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Pancha Karma Experience: Catalyst

My Ayurveda experiment was to go through a Pancha Karma.  I had decided that I needed to do some sort of cleanse to clear out the results of a stressful move and transition, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into with the Pancha Karma.  A very difficult cleanse for me, I went through a lot of ups and downs on a number of levels.  I came out feeling better, though with an awareness that I’m still just on the path and not at the destination.

I had gone through a lot of stress and change over the past year and my body had been craving a clean up from the abuses that stress had put on it.  I put my house on the market last spring and decided to move east to be closer to family.  Selling my house, downsizing, and preparing to move out of my community with a full Massage Therapy practice in two locations and a part time job coaching gymnastics was quite a bit to shove into a couple of months.  Looking back on it, I can’t even remember what I was regularly eating during that point in time as it was so hectic.  I wanted to cut out the junk intake and nourish my body so that it could recover.  I was also having some aches pains in my lower right abdominal area.  I had a major injury there several years ago and while I know that the psoas was certainly affected by it, I have been unsure if the ileocecal valve had been as well.  The dull ache has been an additional source of stress.  One of my instructors at the massage school I attended is a Naturopathic Doctor and Applied Kinesiologist, he had recommended doing a cleanse cutting out gluten, dairy, sugar, and any crunchy or sharp foods like seeds, nuts, etc. to allow the valve to fully heal up and see if that was really the source of the problem.  I had never done a cleanse before and I felt like being assigned one was probably the push that I needed to go ahead and get started with it.  I wanted to do a general cleanse, the way that translated was that I should do a full Pancha Karma.

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Pancha Karma Experience: Challenges

The Pancha Karma is a very regimented cleanse.  The first several days were spent eating to my dosha, which in my case meant eating a pitta pacifying diet.  Just coming off the heat of the summer, I felt like this was probably a good thing to tone down a bit.  Along with this, the following rules to keep the diet clean were given, saying no to: sugar, gluten, dairy, meat, and any processed foods (including anything in a package or can).  That alone was pretty difficult for me, not to mention that I really enjoy my morning coffee ritual.  As if this wasn’t already difficult, considering which grains, vegetables, and fruits were ok within the restrictive diet added a whole other element.

After the restricted pitta diet other practices came in such as the intake of ghee, self massage, sweating, and eating kitchari.  Every morning for 5 days the day started with a shot of warmed ghee.  This was so hard to choke down, and even harder to burp up throughout the day.  Learning that I should do asanas before I took the ghee helped me to feel a little better through the day, I learned this for the last couple of days and it would’ve been really helpful to know right away just to keep feelings of being sick down a bit and motivation up a bit.  The self massage was a beautiful way to nurture myself and give some love back to the body.  The sweating was difficult with the ghee trying to make its way back up.  The kitchari, ahhhh the kitchari, sometimes it tasted good but mainly I was so tired of eating it that I don’t think I was getting close to the amount of necessary calories.

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