yogawithleona

Book Review: The Places That Scare You

Taking another short break from our journey through the 8 limbs of yoga, let’s look at another fantastic read.

When I saw this title, I just knew I needed to read this book. For breast cancer survivors, myself included, fear is one of the biggest hurdles we face in learning how to thrive after treatment. Pema Chodron’s The Places That Scare You; A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times is a must read for anyone looking to learn how to navigate the ups and downs of life with more equanimity, a more open mind, and a more peaceful heart. Whether your challenge is breast cancer or any other normal life hurdle, like divorce, financial struggles, loss of a loved one, or natural disaster, this book will help you learn to overcome the habitual thought patterns and behaviors that feed our fears, anxieties, and suffering.

Fear is one of the things I talk about a lot with my cancer thriver friends. No matter how good we feel, how far out we are from diagnosis, or how great our prognosis is, fear of recurrence is just something that is always there, lurking in the back of our minds. And fear of recurrence has so many facets: fear of more treatment and its attendant toxicities, fear of disability or loss of vitalilty, fear of having to tell our families, fear of death, fear of how that will affect our loved ones, and on and on. And these fears can crop up at any time, sometimes prompted by some new pain or other unrelated illness, sometimes prompted by annual imaging or bloodwork, sometimes when we see someone else experience a cancer recurrence, and sometimes for no reason at all. But then, for whatever reason, our brains descend into this vicious cycle of worst case scenarios, visualizing all the awful possibilities, until we make ourselves physically ill and overcome with fear and dread.

While this is a common, completely natural, and normal reaction to traversing cancer survivorship, we would all probably love to learn some tools that might help us reduce the suffering that this cycle of fear causes. And this is where this book comes in. Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun, and a prominent Buddhist teacher, known for her kind, humble, humorous, and gentle wisdom. Drawing from a number of different Buddhist teachings, she offers the reader a number of different tools meant to help us navigate life’s ups and downs with more grace and ease, and less suffering and angst.

Importantly, this teaching reminds us that it is not ideal to try to squelch or forcefully suppress our negative emotions, nor to be harsh with ourselves when we lapse again into patterns that we know are not in our best interest. We learn to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves, sometimes just learning to sit with whatever the situation is and let it be, whether that is anger or irritability or fear or sadness. When we learn to really be present with ourselves in times of difficulty (instead of trying to escape using our old habits, be they alcohol, over-exercising, busy-ness, consumerism, or what have you), we develop an openness to all of life’s experiences, an understanding of the reality of life as ever-changing, a loving-kindness toward ourselves and all of our imperfections, and a compassion for others going through similar experiences that makes us feel more connected. We learn to let go of our fixed opinions, our judgements, our attachments, and our aversions, in favor of a more open mind and heart. Instead of letting the difficulties of our lives harden us and make us jaded and closed off, we learn to lean in to the experiences and come out instead more peaceful and tender-hearted. In all of these ways, then, we begin to transform. Things that used to scare us or make us angry no longer hold that power over us, as we naturally learn to respond in healthier ways. And as we do so, our daily experience becomes more tranquil, more relaxed, and more joyful, even on the difficult days.

Going through cancer is a serious challenge. Literally life-threatening and life-changing. So it isn’t easy to just learn a trick or two and all of a sudden be fine and perfect. It takes practice. But we really can learn to overcome many of its challenges more easily if we put in the effort and the time and just believe in ourselves. We have that power.

If any of this sounds good to you, pick up this book. I just finished reading it for the second time, and I know it will be one I’ll want to read over and over again on my journey.

Namaste

Going within

Continuing along in our discovery of Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga (we’re having fun, right?!), let’s explore the 5th limb, pratyahara. Although the 8 limbs don’t need to be practiced in any certain order, and it isn’t like you have to graduate from one limb to move on to the next, I do believe that developing some practice in the first 4 limbs definitely helps us as we move further along in our journey. And that is definitely true as we move into pratyahara.

Pratyahara is sometimes described as a withdrawal of the senses, or a withdrawal of our awareness away from the senses, a turning inward, or a focusing of our awareness inward, away from the outside world, away from our thinking mind, and toward our inner space, that place of peace, our true self, our higher self. We’ve mentioned the idea of yoga as an inner journey, or a work-in, and pratyahara is key to that exploration. Importantly, it isn’t a forceful stomping out of our thinking mind or our sense perceptions, but a gentle shift away from them and toward our inner space. I like to think of pratyahara as turning a bright spotlight from one direction to another, and as we develop the ability to consciously shift that light of awareness, we not only proceed along that path of inner exploration, but we also master the ability to shift our awareness at will. So that when old habitual behaviors or thought patterns begin to arise, we are able to quickly and easily pivot away from them and toward the healthier habits we are developing.

So why do we need pratyahara? Well, because it is so common, in modern culture, for us to be constantly fixated on the outside world, on our outer experience, driven by what we see in the news or on tv, what we hear on the radio, the things that we taste or smell, what is going on in social media, what the advertisers tell us we need, whatever activities we have to do with work or the other responsibilities that keep us busy. We are trained to constantly be thinking of and striving for that next experience, that next dinner out, that next career milestone, that next photo for instagram, that next pair of yoga pants (#attacked). And we spend very little time just being. Just sitting still with ourselves, exploring how we truly feel deep inside, considering what we truly want (not what our bosses, friends, or the media tell us we should want), taking in a beautiful sunset or really relishing that delicious cup of coffee. As you know, staying focused always on the outside world keeps us feeling anxious, worried, and inadequate. While turning our awareness inward and focusing more on our inner space cultivates peace, contentment, and joy.

As cancer survivors, not only do we have all of the normal things to be distracted by and worried about (will we get that next promotion, who went on a better vacation and posted it all over social media, whose kid is better at soccer or got a better scholarship than ours, what is happening to the economy, etc), but we also have a whole host of other pretty heavy concerns that can overwhelm our minds (will I live to see my kid get married, will my husband still be attracted to me, will I be able to get through this round of chemo, will I still be able to do my job so I can keep my health insurance, will the cancer come back?). So it is completely natural and expected that our minds can get swept away in a whirlwind of anxieties. Pratyahara can be a huge help, teaching us to bring our focus and attention away from all of those worries, and instead tuning in to our inner space, our inner peace, that sanctuary inside of us where everything actually is ok (even if it isn’t on the outside).

So back to the idea of how the first 4 limbs help us cultivate pratayahara. Practicing the yamas and the niyamas helps us to be better able to re-orient our minds, to notice those unhealthy thought patterns, and to see when we are getting swept away, or when we are focusing outside on things that truly aren’t important. Asana practice is a perfect training ground for focusing our awareness inward, on our bodies, our breath, and our inner energy. This is why I’m always saying thing like “stop and breathe a moment and just feel your body”. This is practice and training to be able to turn our awareness inward at will. When we practice it over and over on our mats, we get good at doing it, so it will happen more easily out in life when we are challenged. Pranayama, similarly, almost automatically leads us out of our thinking mind, by triggering that relaxation response deep in our nervous systems, setting us up to be able to easily slip into pratyahara.

So these 8 limbs of yoga truly are a masterful and methodical path that will lead us to a healthier, happier, more peaceful, and more joyful life. IF we just take the time to practice them. Do yourself a favor and give yourself the gift of yoga.

Namaste

Mastering our breath

Krishnamacharya (often referred to as the father of modern yoga) said “Master the breath, let the self be in bliss, and contemplate on the sublime within you”. Further, Dr Andrew Weil said “If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly”. These great teachers are just two who emphasize the importance of pranayama, or the 4th limb of Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga.

The sanskrit word “prana” means life force energy, or the very essence of the energy that animates us and the universe around us. “Prana” is also used to refer to the breath, through which we are believed to breathe that life force energy into and around our bodies. And so “pranayama” can be translated as breath control, or a way to master our breath, and thereby to master and optimize our life force energy. Pranayama is a key aspect of yoga, and the way by which many of the benefits of yoga are realized in the body and the mind.

We all know that the quality of our breath relates directly to the goings on inside of us. When we are anxious, stressed, or in pain, it is common for our breath to quicken and become shallow and irregular. On the other hand, when we are relaxed and at ease, the breath is slow, deep, and rhythmic. And importantly, this is a two way street, and can turn into a cycle. When we purposely slow and deepen our breath, our nervous system sends a signal to our brains that everything is ok, activating the relaxation response, and triggering a relaxing cascade of events in the body and in the mind, bringing us back from any stressor that might be occurring. Therefore you can see the massive benefits of learning to be able to control your breath.

Pranayama is an integral part of having an effective yoga asana practice, in that we must be able to maintain that calm, deep, diaphragmatic breath while we practice asana to translate all of the benefits into our bodies. We must maintain calm breath to balance, to hold postures for the prescribed time, to bring plenty of oxygen to our muscles and our brains, and to activate that relaxation response in the midst of effort, thereby training our bodies and minds in resilience and equanimity.

Pranayama is also a key aspect of meditation. We often use the breath as a tool to help us dive into meditation, to help maintain our focus and concentration, and to relax our bodies while we meditate. The breath can also help us be more effective in our practice of the yamas and niyamas, as taking a deep breath in the face of any stressor can give our minds the pause they need to stop habitual reactive patterns and instead engage with something healthier like non-attachment or contentment.

There are many different types of pranayama, from simple equal breathing (matching length of inhale and exhale, with focus on slow calm breath) to complex practices using alternate nostrils or forceful inhalations, or exhalations, or both, utilizing abdominal wall musculature. However, they are all easy to learn if you are interested and just take a little time. These practices increase lung capacity, improve gas exchange, strengthen your diaphragm and abdominal muscles, promote lymphatic fluid return, tone that parasympathetic nervous system, build focus and concentration, and so much more. If you want to learn more detail, check out my educational video on the topic.

I have used pranayama too many times to count in my dealings with breast cancer over the past 4 years. For example, when I am in panic mode awaiting scan results, I come back to my breath and practice any of the relaxing pranayamas, and the fear and anxiety melt away naturally. When I was in pain from mucositis related to chemotherapy, I used pranayama to minimize the sensation of pain. When I can’t sleep for whatever reason, I use pranayama to relax my body and mind. If I’m a little sluggish and need more energy before practice, I use an energizing pranayama and perk right up. When I am frustrated with insurance hassles, I come back to my breath and remember not to let these little things get me down. When I am working hard on my yoga mat, trying to continue to improve my post-mastectomy chest wall tightness, I breathe slowly and calmly to help me patiently stay in the positions. You can imagine endless scenarios in which having better mastery over your breath could come in handy and help you live a happier, more joyful, more stress-free life.

So I encourage you to pay some attention to your breath, recognize the true power it holds, and learn to make it work for you.

Namaste

Running is hard

Taking a short break from our journey through the 8 limbs today, let’s talk about embracing the totality of our experience, including both the delightful and the difficult parts, as Pema Chodron encourages us to do in today’s quote. This of course relates to several areas of yoga philosophy, such as non-attachment and contentment, or learning to find our happiness and joy even when things aren’t going exactly the way we would like them to. This is a hard pill to swallow, but such an important one, in that it trains us to not allow our life circumstances (which inevitably change and sometimes really suck) to direct our inner experience, our state of consciousness, our bliss. Too often we allow that outer experience, or the way we perceive that outer experience, to ruin our mood, to block our ability to see the beauty all around us, to obscure all the things for which we are grateful, to interfere with our happiness, and to cover up our true state, that deep inner sense of peace and bliss. Who wants to go around like that??!

I know at least that I do this, because I’ve been doing a quite a bit of it the past few days, and especially today. I’m writing this blog to help pull myself out of it. You all know that I am an avid yogi, and have been practicing yoga for many years. My practice is strong and full, and while I can’t do everything I’d like to be able to do, in general I am very happy and fulfilled by the state of my yoga practice. I feel like my body is strong and resilient, and perhaps in as good a shape as I have been in for many years. For some crazy reason, I decided that I would sign up to run a 5k through a cancer support group that I love, called SheStrong. I hadn’t gone on a run in over 5 years, though I do walk and hike a little bit here and there. In the past (like in my 20s and 30s), I used to run now and then, but whenever a breast cancer run came up (like the Komen or others that were annual things in Tucson), I would just go out and run them without any real preparation. This year, I gave myself a little over 2 weeks to prepare for this 5k, thinking that should be ample time. I started out slow, and ran 1 mile, and then a few days later 2 miles. Then on my third run, I decided to try a different pair of shoes (which I now realize wasn’t too smart), and overall felt a little stronger running, BUT I finished the run with some moderate pain in one ankle (I think it’s an Achilles tendon issue). At first, I thought it was just the shoe, and that it would resolve quickly. I did the usual, ice, ibuprofen, rest. The pain got a little better over the following few days, though never resolved completely. This morning I decided to go try to run again (in my original better shoes), knowing that I might have to go slow, or even stop a few times throughout the run. Sadly, I couldn’t run at all. Walking was ok, but every time I tried to run, or even jog at the slowest possible pace, the ankle pain really flared up. I wondered whether I ought to just keep going and push through the pain. But I decided that wasn’t smart, and that I might make the injury worse if I did that. But I felt pretty dejected, frustrated with my body, disappointed that I will probably have to walk, not run, the 5k (which is in just 1 week) if I can even finish it at all. My usually strong and resilient body doesn’t feel quite so. 🙁

However, as I was walking back from my failed run, I was lucky enough to be able to look out over the ocean, breathing in a nice warm ocean breeze. I took a few nice deep breaths and I realized how silly I was being. Is it really that big of a deal if I can’t run the 5k? I mean, my dear friend just started chemotherapy this week for recurrent ovarian cancer, and she is staying positive and strong. Surely I’m not going to whine over this ankle injury and let it ruin my attitude and my day. So I came back to everything I’ve learned through yoga philosophy AND through my own cancer experience. Here are a few of the important ones:

Patience. I know the ankle will heal and I’ll probably even be able to run again someday if I just give it the time it needs to recover. If you’ve read my prior blogs, you know patience is NOT my strong suit, but boy does having cancer give you a big dose of it. I guess I just needed another dose this week. Thanks Universe.
Ahimsa, or non-harming, in this sense toward myself. I must listen to my body and really hear what it needs, rather than force my will and desire to complete some task on myself and end up worsening my injury. I must not let my ego result in self-harm.
Contentment and gratitude: Even though I couldn’t run, I was able to go for a short walk and breathe a little ocean air. I am grateful that my body is as healthy as it is, and for all of the other things I am able to do, including my yoga asana practice, which isn’t really limited by the ankle injury. I recognize that so many others have more difficult problems than I do, and I am really fortunate in so many ways. A minor ankle injury really isn’t that big of a deal.
Non-attachment. What is the big deal about running this 5k anyway? It really isn’t important,except to my ego. Just let it go.
Self-study, what can I learn from this last week? I learned that, while I am very strong and capable on the yoga mat, other forms of exercise tax our bodies in different ways, and I need to be a little more cautious with my body. After all, I’m no spring chicken (as my mother recently told me LOL), and my body has been through a lot in the last 4 years. I learned lessons in patience, ahimsa, contentment, gratitude, and non-attachment as above. I learned that I have some control over how I respond to things that happen. I can choose to be upset and frustrated and feel dejected and weak. Or I can roll with the punches, brush off that negativity, remember how much progress I’ve made in my recovery in other areas, be kind to my body and allow it to heal, cultivate self-love and compassion, and find the joy in today, whatever that looks like.

So that’s my story today. I’m working on developing inner strength, inner peace, equanimity, and unwavering joy, by embracing both the delightful things and the difficult things in my life. But I’m not perfect by any means. That is why I continue to practice, continue to study, continue to learn, and continue to grow. So that I might be the best human being I can be. Yoga helps us do that. Running, I’m not so sure about (LOL, just kidding! I’ll try again once I am healed).

Namaste friends

Yoga asana in breast cancer

So let’s keep moving along in our discovery of the 8 limbs of yoga! We have discussed the yamas and the niyamas, and that brings us to the 3rd limb, asana. As you probably already know, asana refers to the physical practices, exercises, or postures, which are what most people think about when they hear the word “yoga”. So asana is often the first limb that people begin to practice, as was the case for me. When I started practicing yoga, I had no idea about the other 7 limbs, nor any idea of the depth of my inner space that I would reach through yoga. I had no idea about the idea of self-realization or inner exploration, nor how yoga would affect my mind and spirit, just as much as it would my body. And I think asana is an excellent place to start, because the body is such a perfect entryway to the deeper aspects of yoga. As Dr George Sheehan says “The mind’s first step to self-awareness must be through the body”.

So yoga asana refers to a wide variety of physical postures, which are practiced in many different sequences and many different styles of yoga. From chair yoga to restorative yoga, to yin yoga, ashtanga yoga, and vinyasa yoga, there are styles out there for every person and for every different stage of each individual’s life. As Krishnamacharya famously said “If you can breathe, you can do yoga”. Yoga asana can be very slow and gentle or extremely vigorous, depending on which style you practice. Yoga asana moves the body into different positions to strengthen the physical body, improve flexibility, and optimize the flow of energy, and therefore the physical health in the body. But yoga asana also strengthens and focuses the mind, training our bodies and nervous systems to maintain a state of relaxation, even under challenging conditions. Yoga develops self-awareness of both body and mind, such that we are much better at feeling and recognizing what is going on inside of us. Even without knowing it, yoga asana trains us to breathe better (we’ll get to pranayama in the next blog), and to develop focus, concentration, and a moving meditation (we’ll get to dharana and dhyana eventually as well). Importantly, yoga asana doesn’t just mean learning or mastering fancy postures such as handstand or one legged balancing poses that look pretty. The word asana actually translates to “seat” referring to a seat one would take for meditation practice. So asana, originally, was designed to prepare us in body and mind, for meditation.

So for us as cancer survivors, you can see how important asana practice is in terms of the benefits that yoga brings. For me personally, yoga asana is key in keeping my radiated chest (and adjacent shoulder) supple, open, and pain-free. Yoga asana helped return range of motion and strength to that shoulder. But maybe more importantly, yoga asana empowers me, reminding me of my inner strength and resilience. It has trained my body and mind to be able to quickly return to relaxation after any type of stressor, be it mental or physical. For example, when fears of recurrence creep in, as they occasionally do, I am now more aware of them, and so able to take a few deep breaths, and redirect my energy and attention to a healthier thought pattern. I am also much more in tune with my body and mind, so that I can better recognize when I need to rest or regroup, rather than just pushing myself to the max all the time. Yoga asana helps me get out of my head, and into a place of mental stillness and peace. Yoga asana, for me, is my favorite type of meditation, a moving meditation. And even if I get stressed out and emotional about some life situation, I can do my asana practice, and know that I will feel better, more relaxed, and have more clarity afterward.

I could go on and on. But I’ll stop here and encourage you to think of all the ways your yoga asana practice has affected or helped you along your journey. Just keep practicing and know that those benefits will just continue to deepen the further you go on this beautiful inner journey called yoga.

Thanks so much for following along with me

Namaste friends

Stoke up that inner fire

Before we move on from the niyamas, let’s discuss another one of them, called tapas, also known as self-discipline, or inner fire. Tapas refers to that fiery commitment inside of us that drives us to do the things we know are good for us, the things that we know will take us in the direction we want to go. Whether that means toward a healthier lifestyle, professional development, educational goals, simply a more joyful state of being, spiritual evolution, or whatever you are trying to cultivate in your life, tapas helps us get there. And of course we all know that in order to achieve anything, we have to put forth continued effort over a period of time. As Henry David Thoreau so eloquently put it “As a single footstep will not make a deep path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives”. So of course this refers to physical practices like yoga, but also to our thought patterns and behavioral habits. In order to make progress in any area of our lives, we must find and stoke that inner fire, that self-discipline that helps us remember why we are doing something. For example, why do you practice yoga? Is it because is helps calm your mind? Makes your body feel less stiff or inflexible? Maybe it helps with chronic pain of some kind? It helps you feel empowered, like you know you are doing something good for yourself? Or maybe you just feel that “yoga buzz” after you practice and you feel generally good all over? Tapas is that fiery voice inside of us that reminds us, when we are lapsing into laziness or old bad habits, that we know deep inside we will feel better when we do what we know is good for us. Tapas reminds us why we are doing what we are doing, and what we are working toward.

However, it is important, to stay really in touch with our inner voice, so that we don’t let our tapas turn into self-harm. We must not push too hard, and get into over-exercising, energy depletion, or injury. This is a great example of where one of the niyamas (tapas) and one of the yamas (bramacharya, or right use of energy) really complement each other beautifully. While tapas teaches us to stay committed and disciplined on our path, bramacharya reminds us to listen to our bodies and our spirits to really know what is the right use of our energy. And that pushing harder isn’t always the right answer. So as in my pic, “Discipline does not mean control. Discipline means having the sense to do exactly what is needed” (Sadhguru). On that particular day, my cat felt that what he really needed was a nap, while I was feeling strong for practice! 😉

I think this is important for everyone, but especially important for us cancer survivors. Our bodies and minds are going through extreme stresses and fluctuations as we go through treatment and into recovery, and we must really learn to be in tune with ourselves so we can do exactly what is needed. There will be days when what we need is a nap. And there will be days when we have the energy to push ourselves and challenge our bodies and minds to see where we can go. We will be best able to get in tune with our true selves when we learn to find some stillness, some peace, and some presence. Fortunately yoga, breathing, and meditation all help us here! So keep practicing, find your stillness, tune in to your inner space, and then you will know exactly what you need to do.

Namaste

The niyamas in breast cancer recovery

Continuing on our exploration of yoga philosophy and the 8 limbs of yoga, as originally outlined by Patanjali, let’s discuss the niyamas, or the 2nd limb. The niyamas can be described as duties, inner observances, or guidelines for the way we interact with ourselves. As with the yamas, there are 5 niyamas:

Saucha: cleanliness or purity (of body, mind, energy)
Santosha: contentment
Tapas: self-discipline, inner fire, dedication
Svadhyaya: Self-study
Isvara Pranidhana: Surrender, either to a higher power, or just to the present moment, letting go, releasing control

So, as with the yamas, I won’t expound on all of them here, or you’ll never finish reading this post! I’ll focus today on my favorite niyama, the 4th one, svadhyaya. As BKS Iyengar beautifully expresses, “Yoga is a mirror to look at ourselves from within”, and yoga indeed helps us to explore and understand ourselves. Practicing svadhyaya helps us become more self-aware, better able to observe the things that we do and think, and then to begin to understand why we do them, and how they affect us. This allows us to then work on avoiding thoughts and behaviors that are harmful to us, and to pursue more of the thoughts and behaviors that help us move in the direction we want, toward our higher selves, toward peace, truth, wellness, and joy.

In yoga asana, self-study is huge in helping us understand the physical part of our practice. Where are we resisting the pose? Where can we soften more to achieve more flexibility? Why do we love certain poses and avoid others? (You know they say the poses we hate the most are probably the ones our bodies need the most!) Can we translate any of that to our lives off the mat?

In relating svadhyaya to our breast cancer journeys, what have you learned about yourself through your cancer experience? Do you need to be more patient? To learn to accept help from others? To release anger or the need to control every detail? Do you need to work on releasing fear? Developing trust? Empowering yourself? Did having cancer make you more compassionate and understanding with others? Did you learn to take better care of yourself? In all of these ways (and probably many others you can think of), we can see how studying ourselves through our cancer experience can help us see the good things that can come from this crummy disease. We can turn it into an opportunity for growth and development, to make ourselves into our newer, better selves. This outlook will help us feel more at ease with the situation, more optimistic about the future, and more joyful in the moment.

Finally, spend a little time considering the other niyamas and how they might relate to your life. For example, saucha encourages us to keep our thoughts clean and pure, and avoid putting toxic ideas and energy into ourselves (via movies, fighting with people on the internet, obsessing over the news, or otherwise). Santosha encourages us to find contentment in the present moment, despite whatever difficulties we might be facing. Tapas encourages us to maintain our self-discipline in the things we know are good for us, such as taking our medicine, eating healthy, or exercising. And Isvara pranidhana can be so helpful in releasing our need for control, in trusting the universe or our higher power, in finding peace and grace in our situation.

So as for the yamas, I hope that reflecting a little on the niyamas will help you, as it has me, in traversing this crazy breast cancer journey. As always, be patient with yourself. And just keep practicing.

Namaste

The yamas in breast cancer recovery

So we wrote a little in the last blog post about the 8 limbs of yoga, and promised to discuss each of them a little more in coming posts. As I mentioned, yoga is so much more than just asana (physical postures), and while asana is huge in helping us recover from the physical effects of our cancer journey, I really feel like some of the other limbs are even more important in helping us heal from the mental and spiritual effects of having cancer. So let’s discuss them a bit.

The first limb of Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga is the yamas, or the guidelines for the way we interact with the world around us. The yamas help us develop a healthy mindset, honesty, contentment, and peace. There are 5 yamas:

Ahimsa: non-violence, non-harming in action and in thought
Satya: truthfulness, honesty
Asteya: non-stealing, avoiding a feeling of lack which might cause one to steal
Brahmacharya: right use of energy (historically referred to celibacy/sexual energy, now often considered more just related to energy in general)
Aparigraha: non-attachment (or its correlate, non-resistance)

I’m not going to expound on all of the yamas here (that would be too long of a read!), but will just focus in on one of them. My favorite yama is the 5th one, aparigraha, or non-attachment. As the Buddha said (and I believe Yoda repeated), “Attachment is the root of all suffering”, meaning we cause ourselves to suffer by allowing ourselves to be overly attached to things, events, people, or ideas. There are many ways to think about non-attachment, such as not attaching our happiness to material things, accomplishments, events, or things that we find pleasing. For example avoiding thinking “I’ll be happy when I get that new car, or when I finish that degree, or when I get that promotion”. You can see how attaching your happiness or contentment to such things really sets you up for unhappiness or suffering in the present moment, for feeling like your current situation is inadequate or somehow unsatisfying. Why would you want to do that to yourself?? Of course it is fine to strive for things that we want, or want to accomplish, but we mustn’t allow that to rob us of our happiness or joy in this moment, whatever it contains.

For us as cancer survivors, it is easy to allow ourselves to think “I’ll be ok when I’m 5 years out… or when I get my reconstruction finalized… or when my hair grows in…. or when I’m done with this treatment”. And while it is totally understandable that some of the things we go through are truly difficult and even unpleasant, we must learn to still be able to find our happiness, our peace, our contentment in the present moment, whatever it contains. If we hang our happiness on some future event, there will always be some other next thing that keeps us from feeling joyful. And why put off feeling joyful, if we can learn to feel joyful now and always?! Non-attachment can also mean not being so rigidly attached to our ideas of how things should be. For example, maybe you thought your chemotherapy should happen on some specific schedule that would allow you to make a holiday or some other engagement. And unfortunately, it didn’t happen exactly the way you wanted because of low blood counts or drug availability, or other causes for delay. Or maybe you thought your surgical outcome should look a certain way, but you had abnormal scarring or an infection, that made it look different. We musn’t allow these sorts of detours to wreck our emotions, causing us to suffer.

Non-resistance is sort of the flip side of non-attachment, and refers to dropping that feeling of aversion or dread of things that are unpleasant. Like those Sunday night doldrums, in anticipation of going back to work on Monday. Why do we let ourselves ruin perfectly good Sunday nights this way? Aparigraha teaches us to be adaptable, to be equanimous, to take each day as it comes, to be able to roll with the punches, and to be ok with whatever twists and turns our lives and our cancer journeys take.

Non-attachment doesn’t mean complacence or just not giving a shit about anything. We can look forward to certain things for the future, or work hard to get wherever we’d like to be. But we still find joy and happiness wherever we are along the way there. We recognize that wherever we are, whatever is happening in the now, is a necessary step in our journey. And thus, we find more acceptance and grace in this moment, even if it is a difficult one.

I’m not saying aparigraha is easy. I work at it constantly. But I truly believe that having some awareness of how your mindset and your attachment/resistance affects your emotions and your state of consciousness is so helpful in training yourself to develop healthier patterns and thus cultivating more peace and joy in your daily life. Just try it for a while and see if you find yourself noticing and then letting go of those excessive attachments or resistance. See if you feel a little lighter and freer as a result.

Take a little time also to think about how some of the other yamas might relate to your cancer recovery, and to developing a healthier mindset as you recover. For example, we discussed ahimsa and non-violence to ourselves in a prior blog post (https://yogawithleona.com/2020/09/09/be-kinder-to-yourself/), and have touched on brahmacharya as well (https://yogawithleona.com/2020/08/28/just-a-reminder/ , https://yogawithleona.com/2020/08/30/finding-strength-in-your-inner-light/). You might consider satya, or truthfulness, in being more honest with yourself or your loved ones about what you are going through or what you need. Or you might consider asteya, or non-stealing, not so much in terms of actual theft, but in terms of wanting something other than what you have.

I hope that study of the yamas will help you as much as it has me, in getting my mind right, and feeling much more peace, acceptance, and even gratitude for my life and all of my experiences, including the tough ones.

Namaste

The 8 limbs of yoga in cancer survivorship

By now you’ve heard me say 100 times “yoga is so much more than just asana (postures)”, and you’ve seen discussion about individual yamas or niyamas in some of my blogs, so you may be thinking “what in the world is she talking about?!”.

The original written text on yoga, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, written nearly 2000 years ago, outlined an 8-limbed path to freedom or enlightenment, a holistic guide for all parts of our lives. Yoga asana, or the physical postures/exercises, now commonly understood to equal “yoga” is really just one of these 8 limbs. So let’s learn, briefly, about the whole system.

1. Yamas: Moral guidelines, restraints, how we deal with the world

2. Niyamas: Duties, inner observances, how we deal with ourselves

3. Asana: physical postures

4. Pranayama: breathing practices

5. Pratyahara: withdrawal of/from the senses

6. Dharana: focus, concentration

7. Dhyana: meditation

8. Samadhi: Bliss, enlightenment

In a fabulous TED talk, I recently heard a woman (who is a psychotherapist and a yoga teacher) describe Patanjali’s 8 limbs as “the original cognitive behavioral therapy”! And it truly is! It is a comprehensive guide to practices that will positively affect every corner of our lives, making us kinder, happier, healthier, more peaceful, more patient, more understanding, more fulfilled human beings, more in line with our true selves and our purpose. And maybe, eventually, with enough practice, we reach that place of pure joy and bliss, completely free from suffering of any kind. I believe that we, as cancer survivors, can benefit from this path and these practices as much (or maybe more) as anyone!

So asana is just one part of the system. However, it can be a great starting point, and a springboard to developing our practice of all the other limbs. For example, asana practice clearly encourages pranayama, pratyahara, and dharana. And with time, your asana practice truly becomes a moving meditation, or dhyana. So as we grow our asana practice, we automatically develop in the other areas as well.

It is important to clarify that yoga is not a religion. This system of practices is compatible with whatever spiritual or religious tradition you already identify with. In fact, as you progress in yoga practice, you may become even more connected to whatever spiritual practice you currently have, because of the way yoga helps us become more in touch with ourselves, understanding our true natures, our higher selves, our inner wisdom, and our truth.
If you are interested in more, and how this relates to cancer recovery specifically, check out my educational video on the topic.

In any event, keep practicing and know that if you begin to feel better in general, more peaceful, physically healthier, more at ease in your own skin, more connected to those around you, more compassionate, and more joyful — those are sure signs that you are doing it right, and yoga is working for you, regardless of what your postures look like.

Namaste

Be kinder to yourself

The first of the yamas (from Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga) is ahimsa, most commonly translated as non-violence. As you may know, the yamas and niyamas of Patanjali’s 8 limbs are guidelines for the way we think, behave, and interact with ourselves and the world. For more detail on the 8 limbs, check out my educational video on the topic, and stay tuned for my next blog post, in which I’ll spend a little more time on the topic in general.

Today’s thoughts are on ahimsa, or non-violence, but really thinking about ahimsa as it relates to ourselves, as well as others. Ahimsa is traditionally thought of in terms of avoiding violence or harm to other humans or to animals. I think this interpretation is pretty obvious to most people. But perhaps more important is the idea of avoiding violence toward ourselves. There are many ways that we might unknowingly be expressing violence toward ourselves, from abusing our bodies though excessive diet or over-exercise, to over-working and stressing our bodies and minds to the point of exhaustion, to violent thoughts toward our bodies and ourselves (“I’m so angry that my body developed this cancer”, or “I hate the way my body is since my cancer treatment”, or “Why can’t I just be over this already?”). The Buddha famously said “You, as much as anyone in the universe, deserve your own love and affection” (there is some controversy as to whether he really said it, but I like it one way or the other). And it is true. It is easy to always focus our energy and efforts on those around us or our work, prioritizing the needs of others over our own, in fact maybe never even considering our own needs. But we must learn to really listen to our own bodies and spirits, to hear what they need, and to be kind, patient, and gentle with ourselves.

After all, consider what your body and mind have been through, and how amazing they are to have carried you through your life and all of its challenges to this point. Despite everything, our bodies are resilient and strong, persevering though toxic treatments, healing wounds, and recovering. Our minds are strong and adaptable, able to handle the stresses of regular life and those associated with cancer and cancer treatment on top of that! Just take a moment to recognize how amazing you really are. Direct some gratitude to your body and mind for carrying you through, and then allow yourself to feel kindness and compassion for yourself growing from the inside. As you begin to cultivate this love and understanding for yourself, you will naturally feel those same feelings begin to grow toward those around you. This is the beauty of ahimsa, for ourselves and for those around us. Just as Pema Chodron says, “Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world”.

Namaste