“When I sing for myself, I probably sing for anyone who has any kind of hurt, any kind of bad feelings, good feelings, ups and downs, highs and lows, that kind of thing.”
― Etta James
Yoga is not just a chill pill
After 20+ years of being on this journey with yoga, I’ve realized that yoga practice won’t always make you feel immediately good, but it should make you feel stronger, more self-aware, and more resilient. What I mean is that there have been many times that my yoga practice has made me notice just how weak or vulnerable or bad I felt in the moment, but of course, that is just the beginning not the result of consistent practice. Those things always shift, and learning to shift your state of mind is one of the gifts of a focused, intentional yoga practice.
Over the last few weeks I’ve posted on what you might call maps of ourselves that help us navigate the practice of yoga. If you haven’t read those posts, you can visit them here: on the koshas and the eight limbs of yoga. These posts take you beyond the postures into more of the philosophy and subtle anatomy of yoga. It can be confusing or even overwhelming trying to figure out how to approach all those layers of practice. The maps are tools for understanding yourself and for conceptualizing the various aspects of yoga and they guide us in choosing the practices that suit each of us as individuals.
Sometimes you need to chill and other times you need a little challenge and stimulation. That’s what riding the waves in yoga is all about — there are times of calm and times when the wave swells and crashes and we either ride it or go under. When it’s crashing, if you want to stay afloat, you gotta stand up and engage your balance and strength. We can’t always just go into chill mode because the tide is always shifting…
In my teens and early twenties, I used yoga practice to escape - I was always seeking that high that often comes with an intense practice on the yoga mat. But with some life experience and struggles, it offered itself less as an escape and more as a way to engage more fully with myself and the circumstances of my life. Sometimes that meant finding ways to find calm in stressful moments, but other times it meant lighting a fire under my ass, so to speak, so that I could take action.
So let’s debunk that popular notion that yoga is only for chilling you out, a.k.a. yoga is all about activating your parasympathetic nervous system. Think about it though: we have a sympathetic nervous system, too, so why should we always avoid it? It’s key to our survival, and just as there is healthy anger that isn’t (self) destructive, there is a healthy form of activation in the sympathetic nervous system.
I know you mamas are busy, so here’s a brief article written for kids on the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the nervous system and another one here written for adults.
Here’s a little visual that shows how the nervous system upregulates (sympathetic activation) and downregulates (parasympathetic activation). Yoga practice offers us both, but in the mainstream mindset, yoga is only about downregulating. Image courtesy of Jodi Dodd and Irene Lyon
The window of tolerance
“Happiness is the biggest window a house can ever have!”
-Mehmet Murat Ildan
One of the challenges of writing a newsletter on yoga for busy moms is not so much creating yoga practices that are brief and feasible for the lifestyle of modern moms. The bigger challenge is that motherhood is so dynamic; as our kids grow, or as we add more children to the family, our lives change. Finding that ‘perfect practice’ is a moving target and anyways, we’re all individuals with varying needs and preferences. There is no one-size-fits all yoga program for moms just as there is no one-size-fits all for anyone, really. We’re all individuals, so the maps I mentioned above are key in getting to know ourselves so that we understand what exactly we need from yoga.
The common ground, though, is that we all have nervous systems and there are ways of noticing what is going on in yours. In the past year, I participated in two 12-week group therapy courses called Trauma Resiliency, where we learned about something called the Window of Tolerance (WOT). Here is an article that explains clearly what WOT is, why it’s important, and how we expand it so that we cope with stress more easily.
Here are a couple other resources on the WOT:
https://www.mindmypeelings.com/blog/window-of-tolerance (has worksheets and clear explanations)
https://www.jeanetteconery.com/blog/the-window-of-tolerance-the-full-picture (quick, easy read with guidance on a simple practice)
Yoga and resilience
Last year I completed an online self-paced course called Restorative Yoga and Nervous System Regulation, by Jodi Dodd. I was so grateful to have the opportunity to complete this course at my own pace, even though it meant that it took me a couple of years to actually finish it! At one point, I thought, I might never get through it because life was so busy with the hundreds of little responsibilities and distractions of early motherhood…
And then, little by little, I finished it! I figured out that resilience is not just bouncing back from a huge setback, but just taking steps forward no matter what; or even, taking steps whether they are forward, to the side, or backward.
Resilience comes when we keep practicing, and not only that — we become more resilient when we really sense into what’s going on within ourselves (physically, mentally, emotionally) so that we can modify our practices as our needs and life circumstances change. We move from that initial challenge of finding small pockets of time to practice yoga to identifying which yoga practices we need in each moment.
For instance, last week I wrote a post on using simple, short yoga sequences to get up off the ground. My idea was to offer some easy, feasible practices for busy moms (and dads! And anyone else taking care of kids) that are often on the ground playing with their kids and cleaning up messes, but a parallel intention I had for those sequences was to add a little stimulation to the day. Why? Because, in the course of parenting small children, we inevitably have moments when we feel bored, numb, and maybe a little blue or depressed. Sometimes slowing down to the pace of a baby or toddler can have a dampening effect and we could use a little spark of mindful movement to keep our own fire lit.
On the flip side, parenting can also be incredibly stressful and overstimulating. Think of fussy babies crying, constant messes in the house, or siblings arguing every few minutes. Day in and day out, the stress of taking care of little ones can push us into hyperarousal — anxiety, frustration, and overwhelm — and we need regular ways of relieving that overstimulation. The way we practice yoga and the specific practices we choose can have a calming or stimulating effect. The only way to know which ones help bring us back to balance is to try them! I’ll share a very simple practice that can be adjusted to be stimulating or calming depending on how you practice.
Getting down - relaxing or stimulating?
I wish there was a formula for yoga sequences for calming, for stimulating, and for every little challenge of motherhood. A Google search will make you think there are prescribed approaches to these things, but honestly, we’re all individuals. I might find downward dog relaxing while you find it taxing. This is not to say that there aren’t general, identifiable benefits to the various postures and yoga practices, but we all experience these practices differently.
That said, I wanted to offer some simple yoga sequences for getting down on the ground to follow up last week’s post on getting up off the ground with yoga sequences. Depending on how you do these sequences — fast, slow, with long holds, or with many repetitions — you can add some stimulation or relaxation to your nervous system.
Here are the sequences and a video below them to demonstrate:
Tadasana - urdhva hastasana - uttanasana (knees bent) - bend knees to touch hands down and walk them forward to adho mukha svanasana - cat - cow - balasana or seated pose
Tadasana - round spine and roll down to uttanasana (knees bent) - hands to floor and walk them forward, adho mukha svanasana - cat - cow - balasana.
Tadasana - utkatasana - hands to thighs and step back, pivot to wide stance - hands to hips, open chest - hinge forward to prasarita paddotanasana with knees bent - hands flat to floor, step one leg in then the other to virasana or balasana
I admit, these aren’t the most striking or beautiful sequences, but if you know me by now, you know that the suggestions I offer are more about feeling good rather than looking good. So if you try these and they don’t feel awesome, tweak them a bit to your liking. Modify the sequences or invent your own!
What’s next?
I’ve touched really briefly on some complex issues in this post and I plan to unpack them more in upcoming posts. If you’d like to know more about the nervous system, the Window of Tolerance, the koshas, or the eight limbs of yoga, please check out the links I’ve embedded throughout the post. Many of you are already familiar with these concepts, so I didn’t want to bog everyone down here, but please comment here or DM me if there’s something in particular you’d like to know more about.
Until then, I hope this post gets you inspired to pay more attention to how you feel in the moment and whether you need more calming or stimulating. How can you use the many aspects of yoga (postures, breathing, meditation, and just general mindfulness) to bring your nervous system back to balance? This is a lifelong practice; let’s enjoy the ride!
There’s so much more to be said on this topic of riding the emotional waves of motherhood. Stay tuned as I weave these concepts through posts to come:)
Next week I’ll post on the pancha mahabutas, or the five elements and how they can guide our approach to yoga. The week after that, I plan to return to the previous weekly schedule post. As a reminder of the weekly offerings, you can view it at the end of this post.
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