Tag Archive for: Denver

Small Task, Big Insight – A New Discovery

This experiment hasn’t been very difficult.  I, again, have judged myself for picking something that isn’t challenging enough.  I am not agitated, anxious or nervous as I anticipated.  However, a discovery made that was completely unexpected happened one evening.  My boyfriend made comment that after getting dinner at the store he refrained from buying dessert because he knows I am trying to do this.  I immediately felt horrible and wanted to fix it by offering to let him do what he wants, not to suffer on my account, and that I would even join him in some dessert gluttony.

I simply stopped and let the feeling go through me before I reacted.  I have been known to people-please especially at the expense of my own happiness, success and pleasure.  The funny thing is that he was not at all upset about it.  On his behalf, I just made it up in my own mind that he was dying to have something sweet and that I would save the day.  Perhaps these “ideas” aren’t just made up.  Maybe I put them there for a way out of the situation — which is a completely separate, but important, topic/discovery too.

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Small Task, Big Insight – Observations

During this experiment, I noticed three underlying themes which often occur in my life that just happened to pop up in the course of this particular process:  1) I people-please, 2) I try to save people, most of the time without their consent and 3) I bail out of situations that are too difficult or cause me to have to work.  As stated above, the “ideas” might be presenting themselves to me as if to make me notice or stop and go, “Ooooh, I’m doing that again.”  The three things discovered were nothing new to me.  I had actually uncovered these habits about myself long ago.  The re-discovery may have been a sign that I had gotten lazy with connecting to myself lately.  The experiment more or less tapped me on the shoulder, “Hey, just because you have already learned these things about yourself doesn’t mean you’re entitled to just float about.  If you really want to change within, you need to be more insightful, genuinely committed, determined and more consistent in your effort.”  I like to think that my sugar consumption was a way to cover up my habit of pleasing everyone else but me.  And wanting to change something about myself kind of requires a little more work than I had put forth – it won’t go away just by the realization.  It’s possible that since this experiment wasn’t a struggle, it’s a sign that I may be on the right path to paying attention to what I really need, yet also a reminder to not lose myself either.

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Small Task, Big Insight – Moving Forward

I definitely believe practicing pranayama almost every morning grounded me greatly in becoming aware of my feelings and thoughts. Admittingly, I was skeptical that something so simple held so much worth.  Out of it all, I would really like to be nicer to myself.  The immediate judgment and uncertainty throughout didn’t serve me especially since I journeyed to a good place.  But it is like anything else that a person needs in order to see change – it takes practice, patience and perseverance – and the journey is far from over…

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Calming the Kids

Axis Yoga Teacher Training students are able to choose any topic for their final experiment. Through insightful observation, this student chose to focus on using Yoga to help calm the children at bedtime. The results were rewarding for the whole household. This account stands to be useful for any parent!

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Calming the Kids: Choosing the Experiment

So my finial experiment came to me through several different influences.  First was my boyfriends : daughter, a very spirited and rambunctious 6 year old who really didn’t like going to bed.  Second was my children who started having aliments (my son was having migraines, and my daughter had gone through a bought of being sick and missing school).  Third was my job.  I am a massage therapist and recently I have had a flood of teenage athletes coming in with some pretty severe body conditions that are going to give them major issues as they get older if not addressed.  Fourth was my own recent injury, that I am being told stemmed from my hyper flexibility and my constant participation in sports year round from a very young age.  So we see a theme emerging.  I need to focus on yoga for children.  If I had known what I do now through my massage, yoga, and Ayurveda training, or even just had someone who could guide me in these directions when I was a child, I wouldn’t have the issues in my body and mind that I now do.

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Calming the Kids: The Experiment

So I initially set out to do an asana practice with my children daily to try and work on their issues.  Well four children, school, homework, very different dosha’s, holiday, etc.  The daily asana sounded good, but wasn’t very practical right now.  So back to drawing board, which brought me back to bedtime.  It had become a very large ordeal at night, three of the kids went to bed fine but our spirited 6 year old not so much.  It reached a point to where it was keeping not only us up but the other children too.  I decided to use the Mahamrtanjaya Mantra with each child every night.  This mantra was simple, melodic, calming and healing.  Perfect! It fit what each child needed.  So my boyfriend and I set out to spend 5 to 10 min every night one on one with the kids individually. We started with our little one.  We had her lay down in a restorative yoga pose on her back with a blanket under her to help open up her chest.  Then we had to teach her how to breath slow and calmly.  That alone helped to slow down her energy.  Then we started the mantra on the Ipad ( i found a nice 5 min session of it on youtube ).  I held her feet and my boyfriend took her head and we just focused all of our energy and attention on her.  She lasted for about 3 min perfectly still, which for her was a tremendous feet! Then she just softly asked when she was done.  We told her in 2 min, and she quieted back down.  Her total energy was calm for the rest of the night.  We then proceeded to do this with each of the other children, giving them our full undivided attention for that 10 min.  The oldest finally started to take a full breath,  the 2 middle children fell asleep fully relaxed, and it helped to calm us down as well.  The little one still was awake when we finished with the other children but she was calm.

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Calming the Kids: The Results

Over all it has been a great success.  The kids now remind us if we got busy and forgot, and love the individual time with us.  It has totally changed our night time routine and has helped everyone’s attitude during the day as well.  My son has also started to see images in light while we are with him doing the mantra.  He is drawing them for me. His migraines have subsided when we are consistent with this routine.  My daughter is not sick anymore, and growing pains have started to subside.  And in my opinion, most importantly, it has brought a calmness and peace to our home, and a bonding experience one on one with each child.

I look forward to continuing this with my children and sharing my experience with other parents.  Once I have healed from my injury I will continue to expand in this practice and hope to work with children and their families.

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Healthy Routines

During the Aurveda portion of the Axis YTT program, many students make significant changes to their daily routine in order to experiment with the power of this ancient system of health. The student account below details a vata-pacifying routine that lead to very optimistic results.

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Healthy Routines: Looking for Help

My second kidney stone, this year, came to say hello or rather came to scream hello as we were beginning our Ayurvedic portion of the program. I called one of our teachers, Susan, crying in tremendous pain; and she came to bring me ayurvedic herbs that instant. I felt so grateful for level of care I received.

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Healthy Routines: Experimenting with a Routine

I already felt taken care of on deep level, deeper than physical. I felt ready to trust this ancient medicine. So, as we came up with our experiment I was willing and utterly excited to do a cleanse. My eagerness was tamed my Susan. She suggested that in my recovery I should do something more gentle, a self care practice. I decided to follow a vata-pacifying routine created through the resources provided for us: notes in our manual for asana, Susan’s suggestion of ingesting warm foods and liquids, and the structure of my morning from Vasant Lad’s book, The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies (1998). If I could not do a cleanse, I would do many little things (Note: some of these practices I had already started before the experiment, but the experiment helped me make the ritual more concrete and specific, which held me more accountable). My morning was structured as follows:

Bedtime between 10-11.

Rise between 7-7:30. Before the experiment, my sleeping patterns varied widely. I loved to be social and carefree which involved being available for people late at night. I generally went to bed between 10:30 and 1:30 with no consistency and would rise anywhere between 8 – 10. The worst part was I felt tired all day. After speaking with Beth about prakruti and vikruti, she came to the conclusion I am vata imbalanced. I agreed. A regular sleep schedule was a must. This seemed like a reasonable change. What I found was getting up at seven condensed my tiredness to the first ten minutes of the day (that part is still very difficult) but for the rest of the day I had more energy!

Prayer. I slowly and intently said the prayer in the book as if it were my own words. Some words I changed to make it be more of my own voice. This helped me to set a kind loving intention for the day.

Splash. I would splash my face with cold water, swish with cold water, massage my eyes, blink and look up, down, left, right, diagonally, and rotate my eyes clockwise and counter clockwise. This helped wash away sleepiness.

Water. I drank warm water instead of cool.

Squat. I sat on the toilet, Indian style and wiped with water. This is a bit of a challenge due to my tight calves.

Brushed. Flossed. Followed by tongue scraping. I used a spoon to perform this. I noticed a white film concentrated on the back of my tongue every morning. Also, there was scalloping more on the left edge of my tongue.

Swish with oil. I found that gargling would make me gag. I just stuck to swishing. Lots of white goo would came out with the oil.

Oiled my body. This was my favorite part, a practice I had started before the experiment. I warmed the sesame oil and lathered it on. This felt nourishing.

Oiled the nostrils. I did not notice anything significant about this exercise, but I have grown rather fond of the smell of sesame.

Bath. I would just let the water warm me up and not use soap. A yoga therapist suggested this. My skin felt very lubricated and ready to be stretched in asana.

Asana. I made up a routine for myself each morning which included the following poses in various orders: Tadasana (mountain), Uttanasana (standing forward fold), Dandasana (Staff), Paschimottanasana (seated forward fold/western stretch), Janu Sirsasana (head to knee), Upavista Konasana (open angle), Triang Mukhaikapada Paschimottanasana (three limb intense stretch), Vrikshasana (Tree), Navasana (boat), Sarvangasana (shoulder stand), Halasana (plow), Apanasana (knees to chest), and Savasana (corpse). And a few vinyasas. This practice felt calming and grounding.

Pranayama. I completed Nadi Shodhana. This felt balancing.

Meditation. This was the other practice I had started before the experiment. For meditation, usually I would concentrate on my breath, specifically the sensation of movement it created in my body in the nostrils and belly. Sometimes when I did not feel up for meditating I would chat OM or a mantra to get me into a more meditative space.

Breakfast. I ate warm foods mostly. Steel cut oats with apples cooked in. Eggs. Quinoa.

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