HOW I MANAGE STRESS AND ANXIETY THROUGH YOGA.

I was in Yoga class doing Ustrasana (Camel pose), a heart opening pose. I started to feel my heart beating more quickly, my stomach was tied up in knots. I easily could have thrown up. The panic forced me out of the pose and onto my heels. I shrugged it off thinking that maybe I just needed some water. After a quick drink, I continued. Class ended with Savasana (Corpse pose). Again, in Savasana, I started to feel my heart racing, my stomach tightening, and this time, tears welling up in my eyes. What was going on? Whatever it was, it was powerful; the tears kept coming, and I had no explanation for them. 

I later realized that I was experiencing the release of trapped emotions in my body.  This is a common phenomen in yoga. Corpse pose is deceptively simple. You lay on your back in a relaxed state for several minutes. The intent is to let go of worries and almost be meditative. In the midst of busy lives, it can be difficult to allow that level of relaxation. In that moment, I needed to purge myself of emotional stressors, and my body had a physical response to that release, something I've experienced multiple times since then.

No one is immune to emotional baggage. We carry around pain, sadness, rejection, contempt, etc. Have you ever thought about where you store all of these emotions? Yoga teaches that we carry them in our body. That mind, body, and spirit connection is incredibly interwoven and immeasurably powerful.

So many of us are on medication to control our emotional responses. Medication can be an important jumping off point for healing, but there's something to be said for allowing ourselves to feel. It's important to sometimes sit with our emotions, to observe them. Heartbreak, love, joy, sadness, grief, failure, and accomplishment all have places in everyone's lives. Giving our attention to the sensations accompanying those emotions and letting ourselves sit with them is part of processing our lives. It's how we build coping skills, so that we can push on in the face of emotional obstacles. It seems that some people are robbed of the opportunity to do so by the emotional numbness that can occur with medication. We can't be expected to feel everything intensely, we have to be functional in our lives, but we do need to achieve some level of balance. 

My yoga practice continues to bring me to this place of balance; a place where I can feel my emotions in my body and not judge them. As you go through your day, I urge you to observe what you're feeling without getting overly drawn in to the emotional response. Here are some things that have helped me on and off my mat. 

1.    Be present- I know, easier said than done. I so get the struggle in this. I have been trying to be present ever since I heard what being present was all about! It’s a continual battle in an overwhelming world with constant stimuli. We play so many roles, we take on so much, we go and go and go. Living mindfully all the time isn't realistic but reminding myself in the moments that it really counts is possible, like when I'm with my husband or children. There are times when it's far more difficult, such as the morning rush to drop off the kids, or when my mother calls me to find out where I am (for the third time in three hours), love you, Mom! When does it count for you? Aim to be present, to just be in the moment, to not judge, to not fix. JUST BE. Being present allows you to feel your surroundings and observe your own feelings towards them without judgement. 

2.    Breathe- How many times do we forget to do that in a day? I am constantly reminded in Yoga class “don’t forget to breath!” Breathing, and more importantly, being aware of your breath, is one of the most fundamental things we can do to feel and then let go. It is a tool to help us to experience our emotions and simultaneously work us through them. I often find myself not breathing when I am upset or nervous, holding all of my emotions in. Again, our powerful mind, body, spirit connection at work. 

3.    Feel it all and cry it out- Yes, men too! We have a tendency to only want to feel the good stuff, naturally, because who wants to feel sadness, grief, loneliness, etc.? Yet, as a therapist, I know how important it is to allow yourself to feel the array of emotions we were born with. All of our feelings play a part in our lives. We wouldn’t know what happiness was if we didn’t have sadness. It is ok to feel sad, it is ok to cry, it is normal, it is right. If you deny yourself the negative emotions, it is hard, if not impossible, to genuinely feel the positive ones. Furthermore, guess where all of those negative emotions go? You guessed it, your body. If it isn’t in your body, it will be in your relationships, your choices, and your destiny. Those emotions have to manifest. Yoga and breath awareness are two tools that I invite you to try, to increase the quality of your emotional life!

-Nayantara

HOW I SAVED MY MARRIAGE AND FOUND MYSELF.

When I met my husband, I was just coming off of a ten year relationship, four of which were spent married. And, when I say just coming off of, I mean the month after. I absolutely wasn't looking for anything serious, and wasn't sure I ever wanted to be married again, but was still fresh in the headspace of operating as a committed, married person. Being in something resembling that felt natural. I made it clear to my now husband, from the onset, that this wasn't going to turn into anything permanent and internally resolved the same. 

He was easy to talk to, understanding, we communicated similarly. Our conversations had depth. He was patient, and he really wanted our relationship to have a legitimate future. This left me with the upper hand, and that's not ever an optimal start. I was selfish, and I felt completely entitled to be so. I was in the process of healing and self discovery, trying to figure out where my blame lay in the dissolution of my marriage, and on a mission to reclaim my confidence and self worth. I couldn't risk failing again. It's easy to get lost in the minutiae when you're in the midst of an emotional battlefield. It's convoluted, and at the end, no one really wants to take the blame or sit around dissecting the ins and outs of something on the verge of being lost. 

I was fragile, but it presented as a lack of empathy and self involvement. Call it self preservation and protection. My now husband was compassionate enough to allow that and maybe a touch naive at the time. He was four years younger than me, idealistic, and inexperienced enough to accept my transgressions in the name of potential love. Pure good. 

It's incredibly difficult to start off on one side and then switch teams, especially when you were your team's biggest fan and greatest advocate. I fought hard to stay on that team. The dynamic of our relationship felt concreted, as did my mindset. I wasn't going to let him in, I couldn't allow myself to be vulnerable. It was too soon, and it didn't feel safe. Little did I know what was to come of our future and how damaging this subconscious choice, for lack of a better word, would become.

Seven months later, I was pregnant. One would think that may have shifted things, but it didn't. How to drop your emotional stance when you'd spent the entire relationship defending and honing it. 

Then there's the issue of believing your own bullshit. 

Don't think that things were ugly. I'm a nurterer by nature. I play the part of wife well. I'm not sure that my now husband even really knew that anything was amiss. I'd been going the motions for years prior, in a dysfunctional marriage, I was pretty adept at it. We married when our son was a year and a half. I knew, in my heart, that something was missing. I would tell myself that he wasn't right for me, we just weren't meant to be, arcane excuses from an ambiguous mind. In reality, he was doing everything right, and by all standards, I should've been madly in love. It took a long while before I was able to acknowledge that the only person who was lacking was me. 

I wasn't checked in. This manifested in a multitude of ways. It's still difficult for me to believe that he allowed it, but his desire to spare the loss of our family trumped his own needs, and if I'm being honest, my position in the relationship had slowly whittled away at him. I was hard on him, often quick to be dismissive of his needs and opinions. I tried to take charge of things I had no business being a part of, creating a mother/child dynamic around certain issues. I was feisty, always ready with a snide come back. I'd call it a subtle form of depracating, subdued and inconsistent enough to just toe the line, to keep from being completely found out, to keep from having to concede to myself what was happening. All this for the sake of maintaining my upper hand, insulating myself from the pain that true attachment can bring. I didn't want to have to leave someone that I loved again, because we just couldn't work. It was the most difficult, gut wrenching thing I'd ever done. So, in my disjointed emotional brain, the best protection was to not allow that level of attachment. Nonsensical and stupid, at best, and a devastating waste of time, years of potentially meaningful connection squandered. But, as Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, you do better," and I just didn't know any better, yet. 

I can't berate myself for the human action of avoiding pain. I wasn't consciously making the decision to act out these behaviors. That's how powerful the mind is, how immense the influence that fear has on the words coming out of our mouths, fooling us into believing false assumptions. I really didn't see any of it with clarity, and it's hard to share that I didn't begin to until much later. 

I don't want to be dismissive of my responsibility, cavalier about the pain that my husband endured while I meandered through the relationship with blinders on and mercurial emotions. I was aware, on an intuitive level, that I was an asshole, but I didn't know why, and I wasn't sure how to change it, because if I did, I knew, on a deeper level, that I might WANT to check in. I'm not even sure exactly when the realization occurred that I was manifesting the very thing I was most afraid of, a marriage destined to fail. 

The epiphany was the easy part. How to change something that was years in the making, how to turn an entire relational dynamic on its head, now that felt incredibly daunting. The task at hand involved retraining my brain, changing ME. The only tactic that seemed appropriate was deceptively basic;  "fake it til you make it". This was hard because it required, what felt like, a condition of inauthenticity. It also required me to know what the hell a healthy, madly in love wife looked like. From my husband's end, it called for him to endure what resembled a newfangled wife pretending. It all felt, somewhat, like a giant joke, but he's an outstanding human, and we have built an incredible little family, well worth every ounce of effort and temporary make believe. And, let's face it, the prize, unencumbered love... yeah, we're in. 

A metamorphosis of this caliber, demanded acting in extremes, in an attempt to find a reasonable middle, but it was still easier than I thought it would be. I owe most of that to Sean, for never making me feel like a fool, and for always indulging my unremitting need to talk about it, to beat the damn dead horse to smithereens. 

The hard part, as in breaking any habit, is sticking with it. I fell off the wagon any time a stressor entered the picture, a sick kid, a sleepless night, a disagreement. It didn't take much, and I never got back in the saddle as fast as I should have, but I did get back on the horse, and I still get back on that horse. Each time I stay on a little longer. Let me tell you, riding this horse feels pretty damn good, too. Being vulnerable with Sean doesn't scare me. I trust him implicitly. It's more about retraining my brain, breaking that habit of self protection. It has nothing to do with the context of our relationship or my faith in my husband, it never has. It was always me and my stuff, my fears. I can honestly say that I fall in love with him more each day. 

Sharing this isn't just about a fear of vulnerability. We all have ineffective ways of relating to others. Maybe they started in childhood. My vulnerability issues didn't exist solely because of a faulty first marriage. They were there for the duration of the first marriage, and we couldn't work through them. We both struggled with the same fears and personal feelings of inadequacy, and it was just too much for us to recognize and ultimately mend, at that time in our lives. Choosing to acknowledge where you're selling yourself short is daunting, but it's also incredibly liberating and reaps powerful rewards. Retraining the brain is a slow and difficult process that requires constant motivation, awareness, and accountability, over and over again, until the job is done. 

We've got this one life, and we owe it to ourselves to give all that we have to the pursuit of love and connection, because that's what it's all about. Taking a long hard look at our relationships, with a critical eye, and owning our own flawed processes, that prevent true and continued connection, is a journey well worth embarking upon. It's the journey your soul exists for. 

-Angi

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME. NO REALLY, IT'S ME.

This probably won't come as a surprise, but I love hosting parties and dinners, the prep work, the cleaning, the staging, the whole enchilada. I, more or less, exited the womb as a retiree. I wanted to be a grown up as soon as I could comprehend what the hell that meant. No slight to my parents, but I couldn't wait to move out and take care of a house. As a little girl, I had them remove my bed and put the pull out sofa in my room, so it felt like an "apartment." I never connected with cartoons, instead preferring the likes of Mork and Mindy and Laverne and Shirley. I played games like "teacher", and "librarian", and "waitress." A real hoot and holler of a kid. You can imagine all the raging fun that goes on in our house now that I actually am an adult. My poor husband and children. I'm not that bad, it just has to be "clean" fun, as in literally clean. Reading books, favorite activity. 

I digress from my original point. Hosting shit. There's an element of planning, always a win in my book, and then you have the execution which, without a doubt, floats my boat. I'm a bit of a raging bitch in the final moments, because of the self induced pressure to perform, but it's nothing that Sean can't handle with a swift removal of the children for a long drive in the car until I've wrapped up. He's learned that one can find something pleasurable and want to continue doing it, even while appearing to not be enjoying the process. Most of all, he's learned it's best not to point that part out. Just take the kids and get in the car. Don't come back until the floor is washed and my hair is dry. Then I pour myself a little glass of wine, and I'm a pleasure to be around. I'm in it for the build up and the slow unfolding. Love. It. 

So, this retiree by nature wasn't something I was aware of until the last few years. Obviously, the older I've gotten, the older I've become, as in at 20, I was probably akin to a 35 year old. Now, at 40, I'm like 60. That math doesn't work, but it's an accelerated process as you age, says me. Anyway, I assumed everyone was like me, as I think most of us do until we realize differently. 

This caused internal struggle for me, because I was going above and beyond, on the regular, and not noticing much, if any reciprocation. My first assumption was that people didn't like me. We're not just talking about cooking dinners, this is friendships, boyfriends, husbands, you name it. If I was going to all this trouble for them, and they weren't responding in kind, they must not care much about me one way or the other. I think I spent a good decade rolling around in that assumption. 

It took a long while for me to realize a couple pretty imperative things. 

Everyone is not like me. And, praise be for them, because it's a hell of a lot of work. Beyond that, they aren't really even giving me much thought. We're all pretty damn wrapped up in our own existences. Sure, we talk a lil' shit here and there about each other, but the amount of energy put in pretty much ends there, and if it doesn't, whatever your hang up is about someone else, it probably has more to do with you than them. Time for you to do some uncomfortable soul searching.

The other crucial realization I had was that I wasn't doing shit for anyone else, making elaborate dinners from scratch wasn't an ode to my guests. Bringing my husband breakfast in his office and reorganizing his closet wasn't for him. It was for me. I was doing it because I wanted to and enjoyed the process. Whether it's appreciated or reciprocated is neither here nor there. The minute I took that bit out of the equation was the moment I upped my enjoyment factor even more. It removed pressure and the possibility of resentment. 

A book that really moved me along in this process was "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. I can't stress enough what an important read this is if you are a human. No one is immune from the lessons within. I read it a couple times per year, because I require constant reminders of how to operate without resentment. If you're a giver, this is a must do for you as well. 

Taking a long hard look at yourself hurts sometimes, most times, but the growth that you stand to gain makes every ounce of pain worth it. It's so easy to point the finger at the other. I've done plenty of it. Ultimately, how we respond to our experiences is what shapes our world. Taking responsibility for our perspective is empowering and it is, hands down, one of the best gifts we can give to ourselves.

-Angi 

THE UNEXPECTED GIFTS THAT AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE BROUGHT TO ME.

The other day I cried while loading the dishwasher.

You are probably thinking, I cry when I have to clean the toilets. It’s called housework, and we all have to do it, so get over your little pitty party and put on your big girl underpants.

Fair enough. But there was a reason I was crying, and it had nothing to do with the actual task at hand and everything to do with what my life had become at that moment. Bent over on a knee scooter, recovering from a second reconstructive foot surgery in four months, unable to walk and losing strength in my arms and hands, I was stuck. The wheel of the scooter was jammed between the dirty tile floor and the open door to the dishwasher, while the bottom rack held a heavy ceramic crock pot which made the rack impossible to slide back into the dishwasher. I couldn’t even close the damn dishwasher without my eight-year-old’s help.

At thirty-nine years old, I felt totally helpless and old and…guilty.

My family didn’t ask for this.

My husband didn’t ask to be the sole provider while driving kids to school, giving them baths, cleaning the house and picking up groceries. He’s like a single parent except he has to pay my medical bills, which we all know aren’t cheap. He didn’t ask to give up vacations because I can’t hike in Oregon and can’t wear flip flops in Carlsbad. He didn’t ask to forego fancy anniversary dinners because I have severe food sensitivities and can only wear sneakers, anyway. No, he didn’t ask for this life, and he couldn’t have imagined it fifteen years ago when he said his vows.

My kids don’t deserve a mom who can’t kick a soccer ball or camp out on the living room floor. They shouldn’t have to hear all the reasons why I can’t take them to the museum or the trampoline park. They deserve better than a mom who screams in agony and frustration when they accidentally hit her elbow with a book. Yeah, a book.

So what does one do when faced with this guilt? I’ve found a few things that help.

1.     Remember it’s not your fault. I repeat, it’s not your fault. You didn’t intentionally make yourself sick. In fact I’d bet a million bucks (or maybe a year’s worth of medical bills) that there isn’t much you wouldn’t do to make yourself well again.

2.     Know that you are deserving of love regardless of your physical condition. Do you love your parents or grandparents any less when they need help opening a jar of sugar-free jam, get cataracts or need a hip replacement? (Note that you are allowed to dislike the sugar-free jam. Artificial sweeteners are crap.)

3.     Put yourself in their shoes. I’ll be honest, I struggle with this one. The kids are easy. I grew up with a mother afflicted by RA. I never resented her or felt slighted. But my husband…well, I never thought of him as having a caretaker’s mentality, and that’s what he has become. Most men are physical by nature, and my man is no exception. They are drawn to the physicality of their mate, and some days my physicality looks like I just walked off the set of The Walking Dead. All I can do is try to fulfill his needs as much as possible and show my appreciation for his loyalty and care of our family.

4.     Think of everything your loved ones have gained. Say what??!! Sounds crazy but it’s true, there are things to be gained. I believe my children are learning empathy and compassion. When my son has to refill my glass of water and my daughter has to retrieve ice packs, they learn to put others’ needs before theirs. Anyone with small children can agree that is not instinctual for most kids.

5.     Embrace the times when you must slow down. My limitations have forced the family to slow down at times. Maybe we didn’t travel the way we had planned this past summer, but we rented a cabin a couple of hours away and were able to unwind. The kids got to play in the creek and get muddy. We went fishing and listened to Pearl Jam. (Typical fishing music, right?) We read books and swung on wooden swings. I’m pretty sure we made a few good memories along the way.

It’s not an easy journey for any of us, but with the right perspective, we can live enjoyable and fulfilling lives with our loved ones.

-Suzy

AUTOIMMUNITY AND THE MAGIC BEANS.

Autoimmunity. It’s the (often) invisible disease that will turn your life upside down and is sure to spark more debate at a dinner party than any presidential election or bathroom segregation. Everyone seems to have an opinion these days.

Chronic fatigue syndrome? Poor diet. Adrenal fatigue? You need to exercise more. No, don’t exercise. Sleep with a grounding pillow. Fibromyalgia? Try yoga. Acupuncture. Arthritis? Cut out gluten and dairy. Go Paleo. Go alkaline. Try some CBD oil. Hypothyroid? You need more iodine. Less iodine. No, you need to remove that root canal. Did I mention I have some magic beans to sell you?

Surely there must be a reason why we’ve seen such a spike in autoimmunity. It’s all caused by leaky gut. No, it’s parasites. Epstein Barr Virus. Vaccines. Heavy metals. Nope, it’s just mental.

Feel free to roll your eyes now if you haven’t already. Ugh, I’ve heard it all. And I’ve said it all at some point in my sixteen years since I was first diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

I’m not here to tell you why we suffer. I don’t know the root cause, and I don’t know the cure, although I’m working to find mine.

I do know what it feels like to suffer, though. At the age of 23 I was diagnosed with RA. I have since been diagnosed with hypothyroid and adrenal insufficiency. I’ve had high uric acid (no, I don’t drink beer or alcohol of any sort, thanks for asking). I’ve suffered through fibromyalgia pain and all sorts of other weird symptoms that would probably have an autoimmune diagnosis if I felt like going to a doctor. And it sucks.

But I’m not looking for sympathy.

You see, before I was diagnosed with RA, I never thought I would get it, despite the family history on my mother’s side. I was my father’s daughter in so many ways: athletic, always on the go, a busy body. RA just didn’t fit in with my lifestyle.

And then I was diagnosed and figured there must be a reason. Everything happens for a reason, right? Right?

Days when the air outside is damp, the bags under my eyes are more pronounced courtesy of a 2:00am wakeup call from my daughter, my knees hurt too much for a bath but my feet are too sore for a shower, and the dog is eating the sofa …it’s not always easy to appreciate my suffering. But maybe tomorrow I’ll feel better and find someone who is living my yesterday. And I’ll be able to empathize, lend an ear or a helping, albeit slightly swollen and tender, hand. Because you never know who else is suffering silently.

And that is what it is all about: making the best of this journey, bringing awareness, picking up friends- and strangers- along the way. I hope you’ll join me as I share my not-so-invisible autoimmune life.

-Suzy