Have you ever pondered what you’re actually thinking about? What do a majority of your thoughts consist of? Have you ever thought that mental multitasking may be decreasing your experience and comprehension of what’s in front of you? Let’s look at it this way. While you’re off on your morning run, prioritizing grocery list items based on your budget and sorting through upcoming assignment dates, you probably missed that five-dollar bill just lying on the ground. You also missed the puppy with two different colored eyes who was just begging to be pet. Last but not least, you missed the advertisement for your dream job that was taped to the lamppost two blocks back. Now that you’ve been informed of what you’ve missed, are you really that upset? Probably not. It seems that most of us have become so complacent with our routine-based lives that when opportunities present themselves we are not only not upset if we miss them but also not actively seeking them either. Now let’s take the same scenario and go through some other things that were missed. Thoughts of oatmeal, dish soap, calculus equations and project proposals veil our eyes from the little girl who can’t find her mom crying down the sidewalk. We don’t notice the couple arguing behind their used Toyota, faces red and tears inevitably to follow. Finally, we trample overtop an innocent, curious caterpillar. Maybe you would never miss a five-dollar bill lying on the ground. Maybe you don’t own a pair of tennis shoes, despise the idea of running and wouldn’t even know what to do with your arms. Maybe you don’t like petting puppies. Point is, maybe we are missing out on a whole lot of living in life. We may have created a bubbled reality where only what directly affects us, concerns us. Naivety and ignorance to the max.
Mindfulness is the answer. The Google definition of mindfulness is “a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment.” It’s more than a type of meditation, mindfulness is a lifestyle choice. If we actively participate in our surroundings, we will introduce exponential gratitude and all sorts of new experiences into our daily lives. According to the concept of neuroplasticity, life experiences cause our brains to change and adapt—for the better! In other words, our minds are malleable but only if we take action and introduce mindfulness into our lives. We can rewire the way our bodies react to stress, develop new brain cells, reverse the aging process, and so much more. The simplest way to bring mindful habits into your life is to focus on your breath. Without this action, none of us would be here. Focus on each inhale as you feel your diaphragm drop and your rib cage expand. Allow your shoulders to fall toward your hips, creating length in your neck as you fully exhale. Repeat. Make each breath deeper and perhaps pause breathless in between, becoming aware of the void and the actual difference between how your body responds to breath and the lack of breath. This can be done for thirty seconds, thirty minutes, thirty days… Let’s revisit the running scenario. Practice mindfulness by concentrating on the way your feet hit the sidewalk; feel the force of the impact and then the contrast as one foot is in briefly in free air. Try to actually feel the sun on your skin, or the humidity, the raindrops, gusts of wind. Observe your surroundings and take them in. You’ll start to notice those crawling caterpillars on the pavement and your dream job may be right around the corner. Allow mindfulness to take over your thoughts and be fully present in every moment. We need to break our bubbled realities, retrain our brains and stop merely going through the motions in life. Literally stop and smell the roses.
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Please pardon the enormous eyeroll.
"Namasté," is becoming part of everyday language, the highlight of puns and tossed around like baseballs at a little league pitching practice. People combine the word with an iconic peace-sign hand gesture to say hello, goodbye or even attach expletives on the end to make people laugh. Society has either never realized or become desensitized to the actual depth and significance of the word. Its overuse used to really bother me. I would hear people who had only done yoga once and never even heard of pranayama belt it out trying to fill a certain “image” they must have had in their heads. Sure, namasté can be used as an opener or a closer to a conversation or practice, but it means so much more than that. It’s difficult to say what namasté is not because it has such a unifying message that can be stretched and touches all things. Namasté is not something you say to just fit into a yoga class. It’s not interchangeable with “what’s up.” Namaste is recognition. Namaste is understanding. The official mantra meaning that goes along with the word is, “My soul honors your soul. I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honor the light, love, truth, beauty and peace within you because it is also within me. In sharing these things we are united, we are the same, we are one.” Namaste is acknowledging that we are all on this journey called life, and while collaboration and cooperation are treasured, ultimately we all have our own realities. We have different levels of understanding and different values, morals, mindsets that make us unique. In addition to that, we all have the resources to total unity. So when I say namaste, I mean that I see you—the individual you. I’m looking past the appearance of you and I see your energy, your light, your pain, frustration, but also your passion and bliss. I’m saying that I am with you, rooting for you. I am on the same wavelength because ultimately, we are all connected anyway. One way to start understanding the meaning of namasté is to turn inward and love all the things that make you YOU. A Rupi Kaur quote explains this perfectly: “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” So first, direct the namasté recognition to yourself. Honor your own soul, the place where all things reside. See your own light, your own love, your own truth, beauty and peace. Feel the connection. In a round about way of thinking, self-love is total love. How can we love others if we don’t know how to love ourselves first? If the light within you is also the light within me, shouldn’t we offer ourselves the same respect that we would give to others? And shouldn’t we respect others as we respect ourselves? There are times I may not even close my yoga classes with “Namasté.” If I honestly don’t cultivate the connection, or am caught in a shallow wave of distraction and pulled away from mindfulness (hey, it happens), I will not just throw the word out there to satisfy expectations. Namasté carries a message that can penetrate the barriers of depression and accelerate the collection of peace. I have to admit that yes, some of the namasté puns are funny. They’re clever. However, I can’t help but feeling guilty every time I laugh. Let’s not disgrace the denotation of the word, and let’s please not forget to pause and turn inward. Every time namasté is used, it should be a call to mindfulness, a reminder that none of us are on this journey alone. With that being said, Namasté Let's face it, college is one of the busiest times of our lives. We try to balance school work with relationships, family, jobs, housework, pets and things that just make us decent human beings (like helping someone else study or rushing to help a friend in the middle of the night). The door to sleepless nights, exponential jumps in anxiety, exhausted minds and bodies is definitely flung wide open. We prioritize every aspect of our lives and tend to put off sleep for papers, parties and peers. Think you're surviving? Well, technically, you are. However, the more we put off sleep the more we are feeding into an unhealthy habit. Sleep deprivation can lead to depression, obesity, mood swings, weakened immune system, decreased ability to concentrate and remember, slowed comprehension rates, insulin sensitivity and a whole lot of other not-so-pleasant effects. Your body will tell you if it needs more sleep. If you've noticed an increase in appetite, weight gain or slowed metabolism, it may be a signal to revisit the idea of bedtime. If your brain is being deprived of the energy it usually gets from rest, it will look to food as another source. Ghrelin, the hunger hormone, production will increase and cause all sorts of cravings. Leptin, the satiety hormone, is also affected, messing with your body's ability to recognize when it's actually full. Next time you think about binge eating cookies or your weights worth in fries, try taking a nap instead. Impulsive behavior and a slacking memory are also signs of sleep deprivation. Think about it, your energy levels are down so subconsciously, you're not paying much attention to what's going on in front of you. You are not actively participating, therefore no clear memory is attached to your experiences. This also leads to a veil over our judgment. We are more inclined to lash out or make regretful decision because we aren't thinking about possible consequences. Without enough sleep, cytokine production in within the body drops. These proteins help to fight off illnesses and inflammation, so frequent viral infections and cold after cold could definitely be a sign you need to make sleep a priority. Start tonight. Have a pillow party, snuggle up and get some rest. Put your phone in an entirely different room and don't even think about watching tv. Artificial lights can mess with your sleep patterns. This sounds strange, but rub some lavender essential oil on the bottoms of your feet. Whether it's placebo or not, the feet are great pathways for absorption and lavender has a calming effect. You can also rub the oil into your palms then cup your mouth and nose. Close your eyes and imagine you're drawing the scent directly into your brain. After about three minutes, you should feel a little more relaxed. Next, make your bed. Yes, actually unwrinkle the wad of sheets and blankets that probably haven't been organized in days, and make your bed look presentable. Fluff your pillows, light some candles, grab the lavender oil you used on your feet and dilute in water to spray on your pillows. On top of your freshly made bed, try these six yoga poses to lead you into a restful nights sleep. Begin in a seated, wide-legged forward fold. Don't worry about your flexibility--your pillows are your friends. Stack however many you need to let your cheat and forehead rest gently in the space in front of you. Take several deep breaths and focus on the space behind your eyelids. Transition into locust pose. Lie on your stomach, and keeping your legs straight with the big toes touching, aim to raise your upper and lower half as high as you can. Interlace your fingers behind you and open your chest. An open chest leads to deeper breaths. Hold this pose for as long as you'd like but remember, keep your eyes closed. We're getting the body ready to sleep. Lie with a pillow or two under your lower back with your head resting on the bed and both legs straight up a wall. Let's your arms rest on either side of you, palms facing up, and imagine you can feel the lactic acid draining out of your legs. Draw your knees to your chest, give yourself a little hug, and then guide your knees together to either side of you for a reclining spinal twist. Aim to keep both shoulder blades on the bed and turn your chin to face the opposite direction of your knees. Twists encourage cleansing and detoxification. Make sure you reach both sides. Move so that you are no longer near a wall and guide the body into reclining butterfly position. This time, place a pillow vertically under your head and upper back. Allow your lower half to make contact with the bed so your belly is lengthened. Place the souls of your feet together and allow your knees to fall apart. Again, let your arms rest on either side of your body with the palms facing up. Imagine the the corners of the eyes and your knees are being drawn down into the bed. Focus on your breath and remember, stay here as long as you like. If you didn't fall asleep in the last pose, it's now time to move into savasana. Your place of peace, your piece of home. Gently draw the knees back together and extend your legs long to find corpse pose. Keep the pillow where it was or move it until you're completely comfortable. Remember, arms long and palms up. Literally feel your body melt into your bed as your breath deepens. Feel the cheeks drawing away from the nose, the shoulders sinking away from the heart, the hips drowning into the bed. Goodnight. In the shallowest and simplest of scenarios, this can be seen as we call out one another’s indecisiveness. The everyday struggle can be seen when we allow a five-minute pause after the burrito master asks, “Guac’s extra. Is that okay?” Or when we are scratching our heads ferociously, blocking aisle traffic as we read and reread the labels differentiating organic honey roasted, non-GMO crunchy and natural no-stir peanut butter. Better yet, when we are playing Rummy around the coffee table with absolutely no play-worthy cards in hand, yet we feel an overpowering urge to stare blankly at our options until the infuriating impatience explodes from the person to our left and we close our eyes and discard. Take a minute and ask yourself, “What do I really want out of life?” It’s no secret that many people spend their entire lives trying to answer that question which can be a great thing. It breaks us out of going through the motions of life, drives us to new experiences—we make career changes, maybe seek new friend groups and establish varying daily habits all in an attempt to create meaning within our lives. This epic quest comes with its fair share of adversities. Side effects include but are not limited to extreme frustration, periods of confusion and the ever-destructive instance of settling. It’s so easy to say, “Man, I don’t know. You choose,” and place the burden on someone else. We become okay with following along—we prefer our friends to choose the restaurant or the movie or even our outfits so that we don’t have to face the consequences of the decision. We become puppets. We become sheep. Take a look at the two individuals who are running to lead our country. The political parties’ lines. The divide in our nation. We have difficult questions arising and no clear answers. We have people who are pro life and respect a woman’s right to choose. We have people who own guns and push for gun control. We have people who crave change and can’t explain what kind of change. The problem lies in the lack of dedication to self-inquiry. We don’t know ourselves. We haven’t searched the depths of our minds, our values or really tried to understand our actual thought processes. We are pushing away the difficult questions and settling with shallow, indirect answers across the board. We need to start grabbing the difficult questions by the roots and plant them within ourselves. Once we start searching inside, we can push ourselves further. We can advance our thought processes and challenge what we believe in either supporting or opening our eyes to something new. We can create clearer goals for ourselves—as individuals, communities, teams, nations…you name it. We can shape our own realities, but we first have to search inside and know what we want. These “wants” are by no means concrete. Our mindsets, moods and priorities change everyday but that’s why self-inquiry is so important. We have to listen to ourselves and stay in tune with the constantly evolving vibrations of consciousness. Want to avoid become a fluffy, sheep puppet? You can start while sipping your coffee tomorrow morning. Take five minutes and sit with yourself. Invite yourself to listen. Ignoring all outside distractions, literally keep your mind open. For two to five minutes, allow all thoughts to come to the surface but don’t focus on any one in particular. In other words, don’t try to think. Eventually, you will begin to recognize your unprompted thoughts—raw expressions from within. The answers to the difficult questions. For the next couple minutes, retrace your thoughts. Do any still stand out to you? Can you connect an emotion to those thoughts? Emotions? What thoughts are sparked by that thought? Again, sit with yourself. Sit with the idea. Explore your mind. Inquire within. The seasons are changing, we are in closer proximity to one another (if you're on a college campus or just working more in general), stress levels are high and let’s face it…we are probably drinking more. What does all of this mean? Lower immune systems. Aside from the typical solutions like staying hydrated, getting plenty of rest and incorporating more vitamin C into our diets, we should resort to one simple practice that has been around for thousands of years. Yoga. By moving your body into different shapes and poses, incorporating mindful breathing techniques, and giving a little love to your soul, yoga can heal the body from the inside out. Don’t know where to begin? Try a few poses from each category (twists, inversions, standing poses, openers, restoratives, etc.) by themselves, until you can link them into a sequence that’s most comfortable to you. Twists are probably the most important group to focus on if you don’t have much time to dedicate to your practice. Think of twists as a sort of internal massage. Twisting poses stimulate the organs, rid the body of toxins and promote a sense of balance with your systems. Great twisting poses include reclining spinal twist, revolved chair, revolved downward facing dog, and any variation on thread the needle. While inversions may be the last thing you want to do when you’re feeling a case of the stuffies, it’s definitely something you should try. Inversions stimulate the lymphatic system which, like twists, helps to flush out toxins as well as give you a little endorphin rush from the excitement of being upside down. Not quite up for a grand handstand or pinchurasana? Don’t worry, inversions can also be as passive as lying with your legs up a wall or a supported bridge pose; and, technically, downward dog is also an inversion. Some standing poses can help open your chest and lungs so that air flows more freely in and out of your body. Also, standing tall and strong in any shape is going to make you feel better than if you had spent all day curled up in bed. Crescent warrior, dancing warrior, and chair pose all incorporate opening as well as muscle engagement, reminding your body that its all working together as a team to get you well and healthy again. Restorative almost speak for themselves: rest, rest, rest. Really, you could take any position you adore and hold it passively for a good five to ten minutes and it would be a restorative pose. The purpose here is to bring mental awareness into the game. A little good energy goes a long way. Still, if you don’t know where to begin, reclining bound angle pose or corpse pose can never fail you. Think about letting your knees and shoulders sink into the mat while your heart and rib cage is being drawn up toward the sky, then let the rest of your body just be where it is. Relax, breathe, repeat. Get better soon, my friends. |
AuthorNature-loving, adventure-seeking, holistic and wellness advocate: Yoginiliv. Archives
May 2017
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