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stress response

Mindfulness & Self-Care Resources

April 30, 2021 //  by michele

Next week I’ll be visiting with the team at Angeline Schools & Industry to share about the importance of self-care and utilizing mindfulness as a means to practice it. I’ve presented to numerous groups on this topic and love to share resources.

Guided Meditation:

Traveling Breath

(Script from Zensational Kids Educate2Be Training Resources)

Alternate Nostril Breathing


Resources :

Podcasts to subscribe to:

  • Ten Percent Happier
  • On Being
  • How to be a better Human
  • Armchair Expert: Experts on Expert (*Language warning)
  • Brene Brown: Unlocking Us

Books:

  • Becoming Wise by Krista Tippett
  • How to Be Here by Rob Bell
  • An Alter in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
  • Inward by Yung Pueblo
  • Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty
  • When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

How to Thrive Under Stress a podcast on 10 Percent Happier.
Kristen Bell on Anxiety Part 1 (The Robcast) – great info on the physiology of anxiety, the nervous system, and tools for shifting responses.
Kristen Bell on Anxiety Part 2 (The Robcast) – a way of thinking about anxiety that doesn’t view it as a pathology.
On Being: Interview with Richard Davidson A Neuroscientist on Love & Learning
On Being: Interview with Ellen Langer Science of Mindfulness and Mindlessness
Hey, Sigmund: Articles and practices for working with anxiety in children and teens.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (Elizabeth Gilbert) – In the first section Liz deals with fearful living vs. allowing curiosity guide us in life.
Mind Body Health Associates – mental health practice approaching the mind/body connection with mindfulness in Findlay, Ohio. Specialties in trauma and addiction treatment.
Stop, Breath & Think app – a guided meditation app
Zensational Kids – classroom training and resources.

References:

Study: Writing about worries eases text anxiety (Chicago Tribune reports)
Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom (Gerardo Ramirez, Sian L. Beilock. Science 14 Jan 2011: Vol. 331, Issue 6014, pp. 211-213 DOI: 10.1126/science.1199427)
Teacher Stress & Health: an issue brief by Penn State & the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Category: meditation, Nervous system, stress response

While We Savasana

March 17, 2020 //  by michele

Sports cancelled. Restaurants closed. School on spring break. Even some work capabilities have been limited or overall released. In the words of our children, there’s nothing to do.

Now, I don’t know much about “social distancing” and have zero experience with epidemiology. But let me share for a moment something I do know something about: a resting pose.

For years I’ve watched folks enter Savasana, translated as corpse pose. Especially with those new to yoga, but even after years of practice, some people struggle with this mandated rest time. Fingers tap. Toes shake. Skin suddenly itches and clothes stop fitting comfortably.

Some of this is conditioned response, especially for individuals with a history of trauma. Our bodies are designed for a level of alertness to keep us safe and out of danger (thank you, sympathetic nervous system). This sense of ok-what’s-next-ness is part of the hardwiring.

AND.

And the undercurrent of our society has taken that hardwiring and hotwired it. We’re a culture that thrives on fear: fear of not being enough, doing enough, having enough. The millions of advertisements every day convince us that we have a whatever-sized-hole in our hearts that can only be filled by their product. Without the next, newest, nicest we will fail to find worthiness as a human.

What in the world does this have to do with pandemics and yoga poses?

Second to the concern of our citizens and our healthcare system is how this entire situation will affect our economy. As a local business owner, I feel this. Hard.

Here’s the tricky truth of our economic prosperity: we begin to believe that we’re only as valuable as what we can produce or consume. But we are worth far more than that.

In the weeks preceding this situation I found myself telling yogis this “doing nothing” rest pose is just as valuable – if not more so – to their overall practice as the most complicated balancing pose they attempted or mastered that day.

In the same way, as a human, you maintain the same worthiness while doing absolutely nothing as when you’re doing the most important work you do all day.

We’re being corralled into savasana – a really long, beautiful rest. Some of us cannot work fully or at all. (Some of us are working double-time and I vote we give you a break, too, when this blows over.) We’re going to find ways to wiggle around and avoid the rest: cleaning the kitchen, Kon Marie-ing our closets, creating governance over the children’s day. And while there’s nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves (it IS the perfect time for a good spring cleaning), please notice the thoughts and feelings that arise in your “uselessness” time.

You’ll hear the echoes of that other side of life: You’re not doing enough. You’re not making, consuming, contributing enough. You’re not enough.

The beauty of the Savasana is when you find that place where you can remember that you are enough. This is enough.

You’re not measured by your income, expenditures, hours logged, or GDP. There is a place deep within where you can remember this, when you quiet everything else to hear the soul whisper enough.

Category: relaxation, stress response

Sunrise

June 25, 2019 //  by michele

This morning I arose at 5:30, while it was still night. I sat on the deck and had to read by flashlight. Yet before I knew it, there was enough light to read. The shift from night to day didn’t happen suddenly, all at once. It was gradual, but distinct. 
*
The handle on the shower of our vacation house is broken. If you turn it to the left, you get scorching hot water. One temperature: burning. Take it to the right, and it’s icy cold. You say, “just put it in the middle” and I tell you this: that turns it off. I’ve spent my showers quickly jumping from hot to cold, trying to rinse in the amount of time the water switches. (This is not a pleasant way of bathing, BTW.) 
*
Our body is wired to to jump into stress mode like my broken shower knob. We go from fine to chaos with a quick switch, thanks to adrenaline, cortisol, and other helpful biochemical reactions. In our earliest habitats, this kept us alive. 
However, the switch doesn’t work the opposite direction. Getting into a mode of relaxation is much more like the sunrise, and happens with change over time. 
*
Our culture feels wired like the shower knob, bouncing from one thing to another, trying to find comfort in the brief in-between states. But we live in bodies that need gradual shifts. My yoga practice often offers this. I’ve found it in some church worship services. It happens for me with an evening with friends – a gradual shift toward restfulness and renewal. It takes time and some awareness, but those moments of restfulness are available when we show up with the expectations of a sunrise state of mind – and body!

Category: Nervous system, relaxation, stress response, yogaTag: nervous system, yoga

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