Project U. Blog

After years of feeling unable to find my yoga “voice”, I recently began deepening my yoga practice and teaching. I owe that to the inspiration of Matt Sanford, a paraplegic yogi who teaches yoga to able bodied and disabled people and yoga teachers.  After attending a short workshop with him, I remembered that the power of yoga lies in deepening our awareness of the connection between our bodies and our minds, not in creating perfect poses, or in caloric reduction – (although both of those things may also occur as a result of rigorous practice).

My brief time with Matt helped me to touch the impact yoga made on me when I first began practicing.  I was a young married mother, working in corporate America, who began to find a connection to myself through my practice – not even being aware that I had become disconnected!

This is not uncommon for people who have experienced repetitive physical or emotional trauma in their lives.  And lets face it, there are way more of us who have experienced trauma than those who haven’t.  Consider caregivers and first-responders! They see trauma daily.

And here’s what I find most interesting: according to trauma research, trauma ”lives” in our bodies on a cellular level, such that certain sounds, movements, smells, sights, any number of things can act as “triggers” causing us to feel as though we are re-experiencing the event that caused our trauma.  A physical practice, like yoga or martial arts can help release the trauma on a somatic level. (You can read articles about trauma research at http://www.traumacenter.org/products/publications.php )

As human beings, we unconsciously try to protect ourselves from traumatic pain by creating a separation between our mind and our body.  We literally cut off the connection; we “dissociate”.   For example, I sometimes work with coaching clients who claim they cannot feel or cannot identify sensation in their bodies.

This is a handy device in some ways, and unfortunate in others.  When we disconnect ourselves from our somatic pain, we sometimes also disconnect ourselves from our joy – and a ton of other useful information that our bodies can provide to us.

Apparently, I unknowingly, employed this protective behavior.  There were times in my youth that I woke up on a Saturday morning and had no idea of what I wanted to do, or why. The good news is that after I started yoga in the early 90’s, I reestablished a relationship with my body.  I didn’t even realize the transformation in myself.  Looking back now at 15 years of practice, yoga has so integrated me with myself that I nearly always feel centered.  Most of the time, I can perceive what I want and what I need with ease, even under stress.

Yoga reeducated me that my body and my mind need to take care of each other – and helped me to learn how to do this.  In this way, I have developed a loving, caring friendship with myself.

In short, I feel at home in my body. I can relax there.  I no longer discern who is master and who is servant. Mind and body have become partners, cuing each other as to what the other needs and wants.  And I am grateful and joyous to return daily to my mat to calm my mind and to reaffirm its partnership with my body.

This week, as I mourned the horrendous loss of life in the Connecticut school shooting along with the rest of the country, I asked myself this question many times, “How do you stop a crazed gunman?” Sadly, the answer seems to be, you probably can’t.  By the time he is holding the gun, the time to stop him or her, has passed.  But that answer doesn’t satisfy my heart and so I continue to seek a response, a course of action so that I may begin to heal my grief with hope.

I believe that while we may not be able to stop a crazed gunman, we may be able to help the child that might otherwise become that gunman.  Inside all of us is a child, a child who may have been bullied, who may have had problems, been traumatized, or who may have been overlooked and passed over and passed along in our system.

Somehow, we have got to take better care of our children, and perhaps that starts by taking better care of ourselves.  Perhaps we need to take an extra moment out of our day to be kinder to ourselves, and then to others.  Perhaps we should stop and help, even when it would be much easier on us and on our hectic schedules to keep on going.

Perhaps I can take a moment to notice and acknowledge the challenges facing another human being.  I can smile.  I can say please and thank you.  I can greet another person with kindness and acknowledge our shared humanity, whether it is a homeless person, the cleaner at the gym or the assistant at my office.   I can take time to call and check on an elderly friend and lend an empathetic ear.

I think I’m a decent person, and yet, I know I can be better.  I can find ways to voice my opposition to injustice I can open my heart not just to my family, but also to the family of man.  I can stop asking, “What’s wrong with this world? And start asking, “What’s right with this world, and how can I be a part of it? “

I can question myself when I feel jealousy, resentment, fear or hatred.  I can get help to understand those feelings, and in turn, help others, especially our children, to understand their feelings – and to cope with them. I can find ways to heal myself, through prayer, yoga, meditation, nonviolent communication and community.  I can reach out.  I may not be able to save the world, but I can be more loving every day, to myself and to others.

I owe it to those innocent children in Connecticut to not just wonder how such horror can occur, but also to wonder what might we do collectively, and individually to change the things in our world that don’t support  the mentally ill, and the children who are suffering from trauma and other kinds of wounds.  Maybe that includes better gun control, maybe that includes locking down our schools, but I also believe it means helping people to love themselves – and each other more. How can we support each other so that we can be well in body, mind and spirit?  How do we work toward loving inclusion, embrace and assist those who are less fortunate or different from ourselves?

How do I become an instrument of good works and positive change?

We may not have all the answers, but I believe that if we keep asking the right questions and seek to live with love, respect, kindness and make wellness a priority over video games as babysitters, more possessions, climbing the corporate ladder and a million other distractions that keep us from putting our children and our souls first, then we can and will change the world.   It is my only hope.

This post originally appeared in my "personal blog" www.7layerliving.com on Monday, December  17, 2012.