I was raised in the U.S. With that comes a gift basket of cultural norms we adhere to as we walk our own path. One of these standards is the Westerners mind-set of go…go…GO. As with most Americans I did not stop to think much of it. We work five to seven days a week, 8 plus hours a day, and when the weekend rolls around, if it ever does, we use this time to catch up with family, friends, and the laundry list of house hold chores. Our culture has taught us to work hard, to not give up easily, and put the hours in until we make it to the top of this shiny castle in the sky. I appreciate that about our culture and I admire this quality I bring to the table of a good work ethic. America, here’s the thing, it’s killing us.
According to the American Psychological Association, generation by generation, Americans have been reporting higher stress levels. This means us Millennial’s! We have reported much higher stress levels than our mature predecessors. Stress has followed our culture closely; starting with our more mature generations, weaving through the Baby Boomers, making its way into the Gen Xers life, and finally leaving its mark on our generation. With each generation comes a whirlwind of different stressors, but the common indicators across the board are money and work. Let that sink in, for decades our greatest stressors have been what our country has taught us to always pursue.
In no way am I saying that we should all become complacent couch potatoes, leaving our jobs, and burning our cash to end stress. Maybe for us, the pioneers of the future, we should become aware of it and make slow changes to correct the error of our ways. The key word here is aware. Jon Kabat-Zin, in his book, “Wherever you go, there you are” defines this idea of being aware within each moment as a state of being mindful. He describes that having this awareness within each moment directly impacts the next moment, “If what happens now does influence what happens next, then doesn’t it make sense to look around a bit from time to time so that you can take your inner and outer bearings and perceive with clarity the path that you are actually on and the direction in which you are going?”. That seems like a sound idea to me. You may think OK we all know money and work stresses us out, we understand that stress is no good, and leaving it unchecked will continue to build this paradigm of unhappy robots, well then what do we do?
Breathe. Sounds easy right? Well, here is where the work comes in. If we learn to use our breath as the tool to move us into a more aware state we literally can start to make a change within ourselves immediately. We do not need to go out and buy some new gadget that will help, we do not need one more candle or crystal on the alter, we do not have to change our schedule, we just need to add some time in to breathe.
Before I became a yoga teacher, I approached my yoga practice from a physical place. Yoga was my work out. I loved the hard work that came with a successful flow. I was a Bikram junkie, a Vinyasa seeker, and one who always pushed their body physically to twist and hold no matter how difficult. While this is fine and quite normal for Westerners, I had completely, unknowingly, placed aside the actual hard work of letting the body and mind just be. Shavasana came and went as a mere break, or more truthfully an annoyance, I never knew I should pause and take a breath, a real long breath, like ten of them. I feel like many of us work through life not even knowing we can pause, we can take a break, we can allow for our breath to calm us, and if we do this we actually enrich our life, making the present moment something we become fully engulfed in.
I guess my ah-ha moment came when I was in a restorative yoga class and I couldn’t lie still. My mind was bouncing around listing all the things I had to accomplish by the end of the day. I was holding the poses thinking, “OK this yoga is totally not for me”. I wanted what I was used to, physical work. I had walked into this realm of mental work and breath work and I was totally lost, frazzled. So what did I do? I went again and again and again and so on. I found that Restorative Yoga was the hardest form of yoga to practice. I had to learn how to calm my body, my mind, and engage with just breathing, do you know how hard it is to just breathe? It is really flipping hard. Once I made the connection that this yoga style wasn’t boring but instead it was challenging, my perspective made a shift. I needed a space where I could let my body open on its own timeline, where I could focus on the beat of my heart and my breath, where my mind could let go of everything that needed to be done.
So now, Restorative Yoga, is my absolute favorite class to teach and practice. I offer you this idea of taking time out of your day to just breathe. Whether it is 2 minutes before you go into work, 10 seconds during your work day, or a 60 minute restorative yoga class. Each moment you become more aware within will lead you to the next, and into a richer happier existence. As Buddha said, “Be the light unto yourself.”
-Namaste
