Surfing the edges in cancer recovery

Have you ever heard the phrase “surfing the edges”? I just finished an incredible book called Yoga Beyond Belief, by Ganga White, and I learned about this phrase there. I was using it as a theme in my community vinyasa class yesterday morning, and then was thinking about how relevant it is to other aspects of our lives off the mat. And maybe even especially for those of us in cancer treatment or recovery.

So surfing the edges has to do with navigating different levels, or “edges”, of intensity or engagement in yoga postures and practice. For example, working at our edge refers to our maximum edge, or that place of effort at which we could not go any further without exhaustion, pain, or potential injury. Our minimum edge, on the other hand, refers to that place on the continuum of effort at which we very first start to feel some resistance or exertion. And the intermediate edge is midway between those points, and there are all variations of edges in between.

In another level of complexity, White describes various types of edges that we might explore, including edges of strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, fear, and pain. I found this list particularly interesting for cancer survivors, as we face our own sorts of challenges in all of these realms on most days.

Back to the general idea, the point is that yoga is a practice in which we don’t always need to operate at our maximum edge, unlike some other forms of exercise or sport. In fact there is much growth and benefit to be had by operating somewhere between our minimum and maximum edges. While there are advantages to sometimes pushing ourselves to our max edge to see where we can go, there is also much to be discovered at an 80% edge or a 50% edge, where we can use more energy exploring alignment or endurance or focusing on the INNER EXPERIENCE of the practice. As White mentions, working at a lesser edge can also increase the level of enjoyment and ease we feel in our practice, which is another important type of edge.

I capitalized inner experience in the last paragraph, as I think this is a huge key to unlocking some of the gifts of yoga. Becoming aware of our inner experience on the mat is an amazing mindfulness practice that trains us to be more aware of our inner experience off the mat. And becoming aware of our inner experience is the first step in cultivating true balance in our bodies and our lives. If we don’t even realize we are off balance, how would we right ourselves? Once we learn to tune in, and we observe how our bodies and minds feel as we play with these various edges, we can learn so much and really feel our way into balance.

We live in such a fast paced, achievement-focused world, that it is easy to tend to operate at our max edge, or sometimes even beyond it, always trying to do more. AND we judge ourselves harshly if we can’t keep up this pace. Sadly this mindset often results in burnout and exhaustion. Learning to explore our other edges and really see, on each new day, what edge feels best and most nourishing is a deep practice in self-compassion. Some days we may feel energetic and amazing, and on those days maybe we do explore that max edge, to see if we can push ourselves to become stronger or more flexible. But on other days, we need to learn to be content with and committed to working near those other edges, not judging ourselves for not being at max capacity 24/7, and loving and respecting ourselves no matter what level we find ourselves in each day.

As I was thinking about this practice of surfing the edges, I realized that it translates beautifully into a new area of exercise I recently picked up, called hill walking. I have found myself really having to adjust my walks day to day depending on how I’m feeling. Some days I feel amazing and can push for a little more speed or a little longer distance. Some days my legs feel heavy or my breath less efficient, so I feel myself needing to back off. And honestly, I think I learn more on those challenging days, when I really have to cut myself some slack, slow down, and bring my focus back to my breath and to finding balance.

And we can bring this theory into so many aspects of our lives. This is especially important as we are going through cancer treatment or healing from treatment, which places so many new stressors on our bodies and our minds. We can surf the edges of productivity in our jobs. Some days we rock and get all sorts of things done, and some days we need to just look out the window. We can surf the edges of how we use our mental and emotional energy with others. Some days we feel social and engaged and want to do all the activities, and some days we need to just veg out by ourselves and not talk to anyone. You get the idea.

So, both on your mat, and off, I invite you to explore this idea of surfing the edges. Notice when you feel yourself pushing to the max, or when you’re not even feeling like the min, and consider that much of the time, there may be much to learn somewhere in between. If you just tune in and listen, your own body and mind will teach you how to most effectively ride the waves with balance and joy.

(Incredible paddleboarding pic of my friend Lori, a 3 time cancer thriver, at my very first yoga for breast cancer retreat in Puerto Vallarta almost 5 years ago! I love the strength and joy in her body language.)

Namaste

Going within – a simple yet powerful practice for finding presence in cancer recovery

Just another brilliant piece of eloquence from Eckhart Tolle. This quote struck me recently as I’ve been focusing more on mindfulness in my teaching, both in my community yoga classes and in the context of the Mindfulness in Cancer Recovery Program I’m co-facilitating with my friend and colleague Ginny Stasinski.

Several key practices in mindfulness involve using the body or the breath as a point of focused awareness (a doorway if you will), to help us drop into presence, instead of being off in the stratosphere of our swirling thoughts… or as we’ve been calling it, the thought tornado. You know the feeling, right? When you suddenly realize that you’ve been lost in some complicated story or series of worries, thoughts, or judgements that just take on a life of their own and sweep you away from yourself? You really have no idea how long you’ve been off in this daydream (or nightmare as it might be), and how all of this tension came to arise in your body (maybe in your shoulders, your jaw, your low back, or even as knots in your stomach). Sadly many people just exist like this all the time, never even really realizing that it isn’t our natural state of being. Or that it isn’t the healthiest way to walk around.

Those of us with cancer know this thought tornado, or maybe more aptly named – this fear tornado, all too well. It is so common, no matter where you are on the survivor continuum, even if you are many years from your cancer diagnosis. Our minds can fly off into an orbit of fear or other emotions for so many reasons. Sometimes it’s because we develop some new pain or symptom that we fear might be a sign of recurrence. Sometimes someone we know, or even a celebrity, has a recurrence of their cancer or passes away. Sometimes it’s the smell of a hospital environment, an insurance snafu, or any other little experience that reminds us of our cancer or cancer treatment.

But mindfulness can help us stay anchored and balanced, allowing all that mental noise to settle. Once we begin to be able to notice ourselves getting swept away, we can use our mindfulness tools to come back to ourselves, to our peaceful, calm, rational selves, “to that deeper sense of aliveness underneath the fluctuating emotions and underneath the thinking”. And the simple practice of tuning in and feeling the energy of our inner body is a fabulous tool. Whether you like to practice this while sitting in stillness, or you prefer to practice it while in some kind of mindful movement like yoga or walking, it is easy to do and it works wonders. The way Eckhart describes the tuning in, “feel it in your hands, your feet, your abdomen, your chest. Feel the life that you are”, it’s very much like the body scan that we practice in mindfulness (click HERE for a short sample body scan), or in savasana after the active part of a yoga practice. And the simplicity of the practice is part of its magic! Our bodies are always here, so at any time, we can just turn our awareness inward, and focus on that inner energy.

In yoga philosophy, this practice of turning our awareness inward is called pratyahara, and it is one of the 8 limbs of yoga, as described in the original written text by Patanjali. So it is clearly considered an important skill, and is an integral part of the true path of yoga. (If you want to read more about the 8 limbs, I did a series of blogs on all of them between September 2020 and December 2020, which you can find in the blog archive. HERE is the one on pratyahara).

So whether you call it body scan meditation, pratyahara, body awareness, or just going within, this simple practice of shifting our awareness inward can have profound benefits in helping us drop below the fluctuations of our minds, into our true center, where we are present, at ease, free from excessive worry, and most alive.

Keep practicing. Namaste.

Yoga and cancer: 2 unusual companion guides in my life’s learning

I’m so fascinated by the parallels I see all the time between the things I learn on my yoga mat and the things I learn through my cancer journey. There are so many things on this list, but a few that are prominent for me include patience, balance, equanimity, acceptance, and surrender. Both my yoga practice and my cancer experience have taught me deep lessons in these areas, which I think have really made me a happier, more joyful, more easy-going human. I think they’ve greatly helped me to “not sweat the small stuff”, to be more content in the present- whatever it holds, to be more compassionate with myself and others, and to find real joy in the simple pleasures of daily life instead of always striving for some more exciting or more perfect moment, or straining to try to control my environment and bend it to fit into my vision for how things should be. How interesting that two things as different as yoga and cancer could transmit similar types of wisdom and insight!

So this quote really struck me. Of course I totally agree that, as Ganga White says “Yoga is the art of transforming struggle into grace, challenge into growth, and fear into love”, and I love the beauty of this description. But then it occurred to me that this quote might just as easily read “Navigating a cancer journey is the art of transforming struggle into grace, challenge into growth, and fear into love”.

Don’t you think??

Lotus power again

Why do you practice yoga? 💕🧘🏽‍♀️💕 Me? How much time do you have? Lol. 😉

🪷 The biggest reason, though, is for the resilience it builds, in body and mind. For the way it trains me to be able to sit with some discomfort, in true acceptance of whatever each moment brings. And to not feel the need to run away, or disconnect, or deny the truth of the experience. To be able to truly be present, and at ease, in every moment, no matter how difficult.

🪷 Just like the lotus flower, that must grow through dark, muddy waters, gaining nourishment and strength along the way to blooming into its most beautiful expression, we too, are sure to encounter all sort of challenges, pains, and heartaches along our path. But if we can build resilience and remain calm and clear even in our darkest moments, a quiet confidence will arise, reassuring us that we are still growing, no matter how hard it may be to see it in that moment. And eventually the light will shine through, again illuminating our path. ✨

🪷 I’m forever grateful for the gift of this practice, and the way it has impacted my life. I’m going to keep practicing.

#yogaforbreastcancer #mindfulness #lotusflower #resilientAF

Why I keep up my yoga practice

Are you new to Yoga with Leona? Wondering what the big deal is about yoga in breast cancer recovery? Why am I so obsessed with this practice? Let me count the ways…

I came to yoga practice about 12 or so years ago, originally to try to help with some chronic back pain. Thus began my journey into this amazing practice that continues to bring new benefits to me with each passing year; from even before my cancer when I was a hot mess of stress and over-worked exhaustion, to my cancer diagnosis full of fear and anxiety, through chemo and all of its attendant side effects, to recovery from surgery and radiation and the local effects on my chest and shoulder (which continue to some degree even 5 years out), and into the long term recovery and rebuilding my inner strength, my confidence in myself and my body, cultivating a place of peace, gratitude, and contentment that helps me feel joyful every day, in spite of life’s ups and downs. One of the amazing things about yoga is that it is a lifelong practice. It isn’t like some skill that you master and then you are done. With yoga, you continue to find new layers of depth and new types of growth, both in the physical body, but also deeper in the mind and in the spirit, with each passing year. And THIS is why I continue to practice. Let’s make a list.

First and foremost, yoga is a practice in awareness, in mindfulness. We use mindful movement, conscious breathing, and practices in focus and concentration to make us better able to stay present. Instead of being swept away by the torrent of crazy thoughts, fears, and emotions (all of which are expected and totally normal in this situation), our minds become calm and peaceful. We learn to disengage from those unhelpful thoughts when they arise, and to choose something healthier. The increased awareness of our body is so helpful too, as we become better attuned to what our bodies need.

Yoga practice keeps me feeling flexible in body and mind. Let’s face it, cancer, early menopause, and just age alone leave us feeling a little stiff sometimes. For me, especially in my radiated chest. But if I keep up my practice, that stiffness is only a minor annoyance (as opposed to truly painful and physically limiting if I don’t). For those of you with stiffness from estrogen blocking medications, there is a lot of data that physical activity, including yoga specifically, can help. AND yoga keeps me flexible in my mind. It is easy to get stuck in patterns of rigid thought and opinions about how we think the world should be. But this just brings frustration. Yoga philosophy helps us stay open and flexible, so that we can enjoy each moment as it comes.

Yoga practice helped me feel strong again after my cancer treatment. I’ve said before that I was really afraid that after treatment, I would have to accept some “new me” that was not able to do the things I used to do. That maybe I wouldn’t be able to lift certain things, or do vigorous yard work, or do a handstand again. Yoga practice helped me gain back all of the strength I had before, and MORE! I’m honestly much stronger now, both in my body and my mind. And the mental strength is even more important than the physical. Yoga practice teaches us that we are far more powerful than we know, that we can be confident in ourselves and trust that we can handle any obstacle before us.

But that leads me to the next point. This takes patience. Sometimes we want to just jump over that obstacle straight away. But many things require time. Including cancer recovery. While we are strong beyond measure, we have to build back to activities slowly, mindfully, patiently waiting until our bodies heal and catch up to where we need them to be. In this way we safely regain all of that strength and flexibility, without worrying that we are going to hurt or derail ourselves along the way. Just having cancer alone teaches us patience, but adding yoga in to our recovery adds this quality of empowerment to the patience. So it isn’t like we just have to lie around helpless and wait to be better. We are empowered to be actively doing something about it, but with control and the understanding that it takes some time.

Yoga practice also trains us in equanimity and acceptance. We learn to be ok with whatever life is bringing us on any given day, and not to get all flustered or hysterical if things aren’t ideal. We learn to breathe, just as we would in a challenging asana, and find some ease in the midst of the situation. We accept that the moment is what it is, but with our growing skills in patience, inner strength, confidence, and flexibility, we know that we will get through whatever challenges arise. So why get ourselves all upset and freaked out? Instead, we continue to breathe, and we calmly await a clear mind that can see the way forward.

These are all of my personal experiences and observations about how yoga has impacted me over the years. But it isn’t just me. There is an extensive scientific literature growing each year with new evidence that yoga practice does, in fact, carry significant benefits to cancer survivors, and how exactly these benefits arise in the body. For example, yoga practice is clearly associated with less cancer-related fatigue and improved energy. Yoga and meditation both clearly reduce markers of inflammation, which correlate to immune system function. Yoga and breathing practices tone and strengthen the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that brings us into rest and relaxation, to a place where healing can take place. Away from the stress response and chronic inflammation that result from the sympathetic nervous system being in overdrive from the threats of illness and the tension and anxiety that accompany it. This list of scientific studies on the benefits of yoga goes on and on, and is growing with each passing year.

I’m just like anybody, and I go through periods where I miss practice for a few days when I get busy with life or I’m traveling. But I generally regret it when I do, and I quickly come back to my mat. Back to this simple but profound practice that has completely transformed my life. It has taught me so much about myself, about how I move through the world, and helped me to cultivate those qualities that make me feel my best: a calm awareness, a peaceful presence, a compassion and understanding for myself and others (except in traffic, lol I’m working on that), a flexibility and openness to whatever arises, and a true joy for each day.

So whether you are new to yoga and just trying to figure out what it is all about, or you’ve been practicing for many years, my advice is to keep practicing. It doesn’t have to be a full 60-90 minute sweat-fest. Sometimes some gentle stretching in bed, or 15 minutes of mindful breathing is just right. Listen to your body and Just. Keep. Practicing! Maybe you’ll find similar benefits to mine. Maybe yours will be completely different. Maybe they’ll be mostly in the body, or mostly in the mind, or maybe a mix of both. But I really believe in this practice, and I trust you won’t regret it.

Namaste

Do you feel at home in your own skin?

“The journey of yoga isn’t about mastering the poses. It’s about finding the feeling of being at home in your own skin” – Kino MacGregor

I don’t usually post these progress over time collages, but I thought this one might be helpful in illustrating a few important points as we all continue to progress in our yoga journeys.

First, this might not look like much progress at all! It is pretty darn subtle. And it is 3 years of slow continuous effort in scorpion forearm stand (aka vriskikasana in pincha mayurasana). What you might notice is that my back is bending ever so slightly more over these 3 years, and my feet are coming slightly closer to my head, due in part to the deeper backbend, but also due to more opening of the hip flexors (front side of hips) and quadriceps, which allows the legs to stretch further back and down. Eventually, the feet are supposed to reach down and touch the top of the head. Obviously I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll reach that point. Maybe 3 more years? Maybe 10!

So the first point is that the practice of yoga is a journey that requires slow, continuous effort over long periods of time. We can’t expect our bodies to just pick up these abilities with one or a few months of half ass effort. We really have to commit some time and earnest energy to give our bodies and minds time to adjust and develop. This brings us to my second point, which is that in order to be able to commit to slow steady progress, we must learn to practice non-attachment. This means that we aren’t so attached to the specific goal of touching our feet to our heads (or whatever other specific pose-related outcome we might be striving for). If we were, we would give up after we weren’t able to check off that box in some period of time. I sure wouldn’t still be working on touching my feet to my head. I might just say, “well I don’t think my body can do that one”. And the truth is, maybe my body never will do that one. And that is ok. But I am certain that I am gaining strength, resilience, patience, and love for myself each time I try. As Kino says above, yoga isn’t about mastering certain poses. It isn’t about collecting certain accomplishments, or checking off the boxes after each pose we learn to do. It is about so much more. It is about everything we learn along the way. It is about realizing our strength and our tenacity and our capacity to continue to try again and again, even when we fall. Even when things are hard. Of course, it is ok to have some goals in mind, so that we have something that we are working toward. But we must recognize that whether or not we ever arrive at that goal isn’t the measure of the success of our practice.

As the rest of Kino’s quote reads, the journey of yoga “is about finding the feeling of being at home in your own skin”. And THIS is what I really thought about when I put together this photo collage of me practicing my scorpion in forearm stand. As I was looking at the pictures, I realized that you really can’t see the biggest difference in this posture over these 3 years. And this is often the case in yoga. There may not be big changes happening on the outside, but profound changes are happening on the inside, and they are actually the more important ones. You can’t see it, but I can FEEL it. The biggest difference in this posture is that I now feel so much more comfortable in the pose. Several years ago I could get up into a forearm stand, partly just out of brute force and stubbornness, but now I feel truly at ease in this position. I can breathe easily, and spend some time here, working slowly on the shape, feeling each part of my spine, my neck, my hips, and my legs. I can actually tune in to what my body is doing, where I need to engage and where I need to relax, and what happens when I explore those movements. Instead of feeling strained and uncomfortable, I feel at ease, graceful, and at home in my own skin. Even though my feet don’t touch my head. Of course I’ll keep working on it and maybe one day they will. Or maybe they won’t. But in the meantime, I’m so grateful that I finally realized it just doesn’t matter.

So next time you step onto your mat, remember that the practice of yoga is a long and gentle journey, that it isn’t about “perfecting” any specific shape or pose, but instead about how you feel as you are practicing, and what you learn along the way. Challenging ourselves on the mat teaches us to truly tune in to ourselves, to our bodies and our minds, as we practice. And as we tune in more and more, we learn to embrace and work with what we have, rather than fighting or struggling against ourselves or trying to be something that we are not (like flexible in the spine for me LOL). In this way, this practice teaches us to be at home in our own skin. This is the true measure of the success of this practice. And AHHHHHHH, what a feeling!

Interestingly, navigating a cancer experience can teach us similar lessons. We learn that we can’t force that year of herceptin to go any faster, or that we can’t expect everything to be perfect once we get that “final” surgery, or that we’ll be done and feel back to normal once we finish xyz treatment. Often things are delayed, complications arise, or plans have to be adapted and adjusted to best take care of our health. Maybe we have to re-evaluate our priorities and bow out of some obligations that we no longer have the energy for, or some friendships fade away as our needs change. So we have to learn to be patient, to let go of our expectations and not torture ourselves if things don’t go just as we had planned. Instead, we can try to take the opportunity to tune in to ourselves, to listen to what we really need, to be loving and understanding with ourselves and know that we are learning and healing as best we can. When we do this, just as in yoga, we can feel the struggle release a little, we can find some grace and ease in the midst of this truly challenging time, and we are at home again in our own skin. And AHHHHHH, what a feeling!

If you want some help developing your yoga practice or need any guidance, please let me know. I’d love to see if the practice of yoga can help you find your own AHHHHHH moments.

Namaste

Tune in to your inner light and intuitive wisdom

Being diagnosed with cancer and traversing the frightening landscape of testing, waiting, chemo, surgery, radiation, more waiting (all of which are often darkened with the shadow of the unknown) can really knock the wind out of us. It can leave us feeling unsteady, unsure of ourselves, doubtful, fearful, weak, and alone. It might even feel like trying to walk in quicksand, unable to get solid footing or grasp onto anything stable, secure, or reliable. At these times, of course it is so important to have supportive people in our lives, such as family or partners who can offer a shoulder to cry on, and ear for listening, or a strong arm to lean on for stability. Also our sisters and brothers in the cancer journey can often lend some helpful advice from their own experiences. These are invaluable.

But my thought for the day has to do with the value of really tuning in and finding that light within ourselves that represents our own personal true north. The story goes that the Buddha, just before he died said to his disciples, “Be a light unto yourself”. Even though he had been their trusted teacher and spiritual leader, he encouraged them not to rely on the wisdom of others, but to learn to see it, each within himself. We can read a million books and listen to innumerable stories, but no one else’s experience is exactly the same as our own, and nobody else is in exactly the same place in their life when cancer hits as we are. Nobody else’s cancer is exactly the same as ours, nor is the complicated milieu of the rest of their body (immune system, hormones, metabolism, etc) or mind (emotions, mood, spiritual well-being, etc) exactly the same as our own. It is also sadly true that there may come a time when certain support systems are unavailable or they have their own issues and so can’t be such a help to us. So while it is important to have support from those around us, it is even more important to find the wisdom, clarity, peace, faith, and light that come from within us. We must find the light of our own spirit, no matter how dulled it might appear from the trauma of our experience, no matter how obscured it seems by our scars and the other changes in our bodies. Once we find that light and remember that it is always there, and will always be there, we can become comfortable with it, comforted by it. We can learn to trust our own light, our intuition, our true selves. And once we do, we’ll find our footing again, even in the quicksand, we’ll find a well of strength and adaptability that can handle any obstacle and figure out any challenge. That doubt and fear will give way and we will know that we are ok, even if the worst possible things are happening around us. Whenever hardship or grief arise, we’ll be able to tune in, to dig deep and channel our own inner resources for wisdom, strength, resilience, and peace.

The true practice of yoga, including all 8 limbs as originally described by Patanjali and as practiced by millions over the centuries, is the perfect training ground for developing this ability to tune in to our inner light. Yoga teaches us to cultivate attitudes and behaviors that are aligned with our highest selves, to practice breath awareness and breath control which work to settle the mind and the nervous system, to connect deeply with, understand, and appreciate our bodies in asana, to learn to center and focus the mind, and to really actualize that union of body, mind, and spirit. In all of these ways, yoga grounds us, helps us recognize the light in ourselves, fans the flames to keep that light strong, and keeps us connected to it, so that we don’t lose sight of it and lose our footing again. Or if we do, it won’t be for long, and we’ll be able to quickly right ourselves and regain that sense of peace and composure, confident that we can weather any storm. I know that this practice of yoga has done so for me, and that it has made an enormous difference in how I travel on this cancer journey. I hope that you will find the same.

Namaste

Enlightenment is not as far away as you might think

Today we’ll discuss the final, or 8th limb, of Patanjali’s 8 Limbs of Yoga, Samadhi! What a journey we’ve been on. And thank you for sticking with it! Again, as a recap, we’ve looked at the yamas and niyamas, as guidelines for healthy thought patterns, habits, and behaviors, relating both to how we interact with the world around us and with ourselves. We then traveled through the physical practice of asana, which gets our bodies in good health, trains our bodies and minds to be resilient and adaptable, and reinforces many of the things that we learned in the yamas and niyamas. We then explored pranayama, or breath control practices, which also heal and then maintain the health of the body, trigger the relaxation response, and give us tools to calm ourselves easily when we are challenged. Pratyahara helps us begin to be able to focus our awareness inward, rather than on the people and things going on around us. Dharana trains us to focus and concentrate, giving us the ability to shift our awareness to the object of our choice (and we can choose healthier objects of focus rather than those old dysfunctional things we might have focused on before). And in Dhyana, the effort to focus and meditate falls away, and instead we ease into meditative awareness as a state of being. This brings us to the 8th limb, samadhi.

Like many things in yoga philosophy, samadhi can be variably explained. It is often described as meaning “bliss” or “enlightenment”. But these words themselves can carry different meanings, from one person to the next. So I love this quote from Eckhart Tolle, “The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being”. Eckhart commonly uses the word “Being”, with a capital B, referring to an alert state of presence, of complete immersion in the present moment, where we are free of thought and the burdens of the thinking mind, emotions, and judgements, where we are at one with the very power of life itself. He describes this state of Being as our true essence, our true nature, which is always there, but is just often buried by a thousand thoughts and our obsession with the past or the future. But when we are able to go deeper than (or transcend, however you like to look at it) this distracting activity of our minds, we can truly realize this underlying state of alert presence, of divine consciousness, of Being. And this feels peaceful, blissful, relaxed, and free.

Another quote that I love on the topic is from Thich Nhat Hanh, who says “Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not”, meaning a letting go of all of the things that are not a part of our true selves and our deeper essence, allowing us to drop everything that clouds us from full self-realization. There are so many things that we think of as part of us: our careers, our experiences, our families, our beliefs, and our traumas. But those things do not truly define us in this deeper sense. I may be a doctor, or a yoga teacher, a daughter, a wife, an American, or a cancer survivor, and those are important parts of my lived experience. But do those things really define me?! As cancer survivors, this is one that we really struggle with sometimes, because we can allow this particular experience to really take over our consciousness and our lives if we aren’t careful. Of course it is an important, life-changing, and extremely challenging part of our experience, and it may affect us deeply and teach us things that no other experience can. However, underneath all of that, lies our true essence, our Being. And getting in tune with this place is what samadhi is about.

Importantly, samadhi isn’t a concrete finish line, like once you reach it you are done and there in a blissful paradise forever. This is something that we must continue our practice for, because it is easy to fall back into old patterns of destructive thinking, maladaptive habits, and routines that can again obscure our connection with ourselves. The thinking mind, with all of its regrets for the past or worries about the future, is sneaky, and without ongoing practice, can knock us off of our path to enlightenment, or bliss, or true self-realization. We continue to practice the 8 Limbs of Yoga to stay on the path.

Just as importantly, we must remember that getting in tune with samadhi does not mean there will be no more challenges in life, nor that every single moment will be perfect and without suffering. Samadhi means that we are in touch with a place where we are able to traverse life’s ups and downs without attaching or averting, without the judgements of our minds and our likes and dislikes, maintaining a state of equanimity from which we can remain blissful regardless of our surroundings.

It is easy to see how the 8 Limbs of yoga, and glimpses of samadhi, might be of particular use to us as cancer survivors. As I’ve discussed in other posts, cancer imposes many challenges that make normal life and everyday experiences a little more difficult. Cancer adds just another layer of clouds that can cast an obscuring shadow over our blissful Being. But with a little practice, we can uncover our true selves and see them shine with clarity again.

The most important thing to remember about samadhi, or bliss, or enlightenment, or self-realization, or whatever you want to call it, is that is isn’t as far away as you might think. You don’t have to run off to the Himalayas or to a year long meditation retreat. It is truly right here, in our everyday lives, if we can just learn to tune in to it. And it doesn’t have to be super complicated, or fancy, or sophisticated. Probably fireworks will not go off, nor will you see light emerging from the crown of your head. But if you notice that you are having more and more moments when you feel truly present, peaceful, at ease, blissfully and richly experiencing the simplest joys in your day, if you navigate a stressor with more grace, you know you are having success on the path, and you are in tune with your true self. Just keep practicing, and you will feel it.

Namaste

The mind is a beautiful servant, but a dangerous master

Osho had it right on this topic. The mind, indeed, is a beautiful servant, but a dangerous master. This brings us back to our journey through the 8 limbs of yoga, today arriving at the 6th limb, dharana, or focused concentration. By way of a quick review, we’ve been through the 1st limb, the yamas, or the external observances or guidelines for how we interact with the world around us. The 2nd limb is the niyamas, or internal observances, guidelines for how we interact with and conduct ourselves. The 3rd limb is asana, or physical practices, the 4th is pranayama, or breathing practices, and the 5th is pratyahara, or withdrawal of focus from the external to the internal.

So now, in the 6th limb, or dharana, we learn to focus our awareness on one point, which can be our breath, a mantra, or any item of our choice. We learn to consciously direct our awareness to this single point, and then maintain it there for some period of time. As you know, this is not easy. Most of us are all too familiar with the monkey mind, or a mind that rapidly darts from one thought to the next, seemingly without any reason. In yoga these disturbances of consciousness are often referred to as the vrittis, or the fluctuations of the mind. One minute I’m thinking about my grocery list, and then all of a sudden I’m rehashing some grievance from 10 years, ago, and the next minute thinking about what I’m doing this week, maybe a doctor’s appointment, and then maybe back to the grocery list, or maybe onto something like the meaning of life or what is there beyond our universe. Our minds are naturally busy, and this is what they do if we don’t learn to direct them a little better. And this is where that “dangerous master” idea comes in. If we do not learn to direct our thought patterns in a way that is good for us and supports us on our chosen path (whether that is just happiness, or growth, self-realization, or enlightenment), this monkey mind can easily turn into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts which stir up negative emotions and then result in us behaving in ways that aren’t our best. For example, we’re all familiar with that rabbit hole of fear and negativity that we sometimes find ourselves in when we have some routine cancer follow up scheduled. I have bloodwork and a PET scan coming up, and I know from experience that one way I could allow my mind to go is this: what if the labs show my tumor marker is up, and the PET scan shows a recurrence, because I do have that weird pain sometimes, maybe that is a bone metastasis, if I have a recurrence can I really tolerate more treatment, shit I don’t know how I’ll tell my family, maybe it’d be better if I just didn’t treat it, I’ll just run away so nobody has to see me die…. and OMG, where did all of that come from?! Nothing is even wrong. I feel great, and that funny pain I mentioned is obviously just a soreness related to my exercise regimen, and I know that if I just think clearly and rationally. There is NO reason for me to be thinking any of this bad stuff. But our minds can be tricky, and get us into some really ugly places if we allow them to. I’ve mentioned before this phenomenon called negativity bias, where it is our brain’s natural tendency to focus on negative things, because evolutionarily that protected us from threats. But for most of us, we don’t really need that to be our predominant state. Obviously our minds are not a bad thing, and we need them to help us function in the world, but we must not let them become our master. We must learn to allow them to function as the beautiful servants that they are, without them taking over and wrecking our peace. We must train them to bring us back from these negative spirals, and instead remind us of all the good going on inside of us and around us.

Sooooooo, dharana, or one-pointed focused concentration, is training us to bring our awareness to one object, and to then maintain it there. Naturally, our minds will wander, and this is where the practice comes in. We just patiently practice, over and over again, gently bringing our awareness back to that point. And eventually, over time, we are able to stay focused, our minds learn to wander less, we are less fidgety, and more relaxed. Those fluctuations of the mind begin to settle, like the waves on a stormy sea settling down, until the mind becomes a vast body of tranquility and peace. Of course, those stormy seas with come again from time to time, but if we practice dharana, we will be able to calm them easily and return to our natural place of bliss and serenity.

So how do we do it? Well yoga asana is a great place to begin, as it takes much focus and concentration to be able to hold our bodies in certain positions for the prescribed time during our practice. Simple meditation practices, such as focusing on the sensations of the breath, or counting the breaths back from 10 are also great places to start. Just know that your mind will wander at first, and don’t get frustrated. Just as if you were training a frisky puppy, gently and lovingly redirect your awareness back to your point of focus each time it wanders. There are innumerable other meditation practices you can try as well, from candle gazing to mantra recitation, mindfulness practices, and more. There are even a number of phone apps these days that can get you started in your practice.

Yoga and all of the yogic practices are so good for us, in training our minds to work for us, not against us. Keep practicing friends. And I will too, so I can get through this upcoming testing without a meltdown. 😉

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