Self-expression is the practice of expressing our thoughts, feelings, and opinions in a safe and healthy way, in a way where we get to know ourselves better and gain a greater understanding of our individual identities. This helps us live more authentically and enhances our overall well-being.
Read MoreAfter the brute force of COVID runs a train through the body, many of us are on bed rest. We are fatigued from fighting, have no energy, and aren’t thinking clearly. It’s similar in some respects to post-surgical recovery in the hospital. Except in a hospital patients are given a device called an ‘incentive spirometer’ that expands the lungs, keeping them active throughout the recovery process, by helping patients breathe deeper and fuller. Thankfully (hopefully) you are not in a hospital, and luckily there is yoga.
Read MoreLife doesn’t move in a linear direction. Life follows the path of least resistance while maximizing potentiality. Ever notice how quickly we move through the 5 breaths X5 in Navasana, while staying in Janu A a little longer or practicing Bakasana an extra time? We are simply doing what is natural.
Read MoreThe holidays are an emotional rollercoaster. This year it was the first time my family has seen Mako because of restricted travel, safety, and Stephanie’s fears related to COVID.
Fear is sometimes referenced as an acronym for; False Expectations Appearing Real. It is dismissed on 90’s t-shirts (NO FEAR,) and in the Ashtanga community, ‘Why fearing, you?’ as someone takes control of your body and limbs pulling you into a deep back bend.
Traditional Chinese Medicine links the emotion fear to the Foot Shao Yin channel, the channel that maintains fluid balance. Think, Kidneys, which happen to reside near the lumbar spine, the low back. This channel also happens to have the strongest effect during the winter time.
Read MoreYour meditation practice, and your pranayama practice help to cool the fire in the head. Generally the body switches between nostrils every 2 to 2.5 hours and the left nostril corresponds to the parasympathetic (rest and digest) system and the right to the sympathetic (fight or flight) system (PMID: 24741554) which one ‘should’ you be breathing through during your asana practice?
When we have a sensory overload, like being inside Sephora (when it was safe to be inside) it can lead to heat being locked in the head. Eating super spicy Indian food is the same heat trapping scenario as the perfume overload for the olfactory nerve. Heat locked in the head can lead to headaches, and heat in the digestive system can lead to constipation, indigestion, diarrhea.
Read MoreYoga, Qi Gong, or Tai Chi, when taught as a connection between breath, movement and focus, can be a tool that the individual can use with their response to the variability between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Read about that (here)
That doesn’t mean that a yoga practice is itself ‘without pain.’ On the contrary, there are two types of physical injuries that are associated with a yoga practice. Acute injuries occur suddenly, such as a muscle strain. This often happens when learning a new asana or stubbing a toe on the refrigerator at 4am.
Using analgesics and OTC NSAID’s for a chronic pain without actually addressing the aggravating factor is like placing a band-aid on an arterial bleed without applying pressure. You can change the dressing all you want but that alone isn’t going to stop the bleeding and your patient will die. Habitual use of OTC medications or illegal drugs to alleviate the pain isn’t actually stopping the cause of the pain, nor is it teaching the patient how to cope with the situation. Unrelieved pain is a common symptom in methadone treatment programs and associated with mental distress and function as well as clinician frustration.***
You don’t have to listen to me as a teacher, as a nurse, or as an acupuncturist. In any and all of these professions, I am not responsible FOR you. I am responsible TO you.
Being responsible TO you in the medical field, we should be encouraging patients to seek a second opinion. Doctors are human too, sometimes they may be missing something, or not recognizing another option that is available. When I fractured my clavicle, the first surgeon wanted to operate that week, the second opinion said we can wait to see how it heals. He said that if it doesn’t heal correctly we can always go back in with surgery and straighten it out later. If I went and did surgery right away, there would be no going back. Which would you do?
There are times that we as students NEED to get a second opinion. We need another teacher to look at our practice. There are times when the teacher we study under is not seeing our potential, AND there are times when our current teacher may have pushed us too far.
So should a student only have one teacher?
Read MoreI woke up this AM and spilled coffee grounds all over the kitchen floor while trying to make a daily brew. I know it’s not spilled (expressed breast) milk and it shouldn’t cause me too many worries, but at 4 o’clock in the morning on a Monday, it started to go down an unpleasant path. With the coffee grounds spread all over the floor like termite droppings there was no other way around the mess. I had to walk through it to get to the broom which meant tracking little black crumbs all across the kitchen floor. And those little bits of caffeine seeds start poking into my feet, waking me up from the outside in rather than the inside out like they normally do.
After I had finished sweeping up the entire kitchen and cleaning my feet, the situation became real. All of the coffee grounds were in the dustpan, along with tangled strands of hair, sand from Venice Beach, a green twisty-tie thing, red and brown acupuncture needle tabs from my lab coat, and an unidentified black substance, possibly food related.
I’m usually composed, and I’d like to think that the yoga is working in relation to my ability to decide what to get stressed about, but that’s after yoga. You understand?
After the morning yoga practice it’s ok for the coffee to spill. It’s ok to be stuck in traffic. It’s ok for the toothpaste to vomit down my shirt. It’s ok because I’ve had my leg behind my head, or I pressed myself up in a back bend that felt like my ribs were separating and my heart was exploding with light. The ‘noise’ of honking cars is muted after twisting my arms around my knee. It all seems a bit more trivial.
Here’s why.
Read MoreAshtanga Yoga in Los Angeles, CA
