What differentiates humans from all the other creatures on this planet is our capacity to tell and believe in stories. Don’t we just love a good yarn? That’s why we have books, and films, and TV, and before that there were storytellers that our ancestors listened to whilst sat around a campfire.
We also have our own stories which we carry around in our heads – where we came from, what defines ‘me’, where I am going. These stories shape our lives.
This may sound a bit new age, but the Universe is also telling us stories. The world we live in, the people we meet, the experiences we have, are all part of our story and have the propensity to shape it by pointing towards something that is different to our current course.
That is if only we could just slow down, clear the head of busyness, watch and listen.
Last night a friend told me a great story written by Paulo Coelho in one of his books, ‘Light Warrior’.
We are all, ultimately, beings of light. Without the sun we would not exist. And without this body, the soul would not experience.
As an aside, one of my favourite quotes taken from a commentary of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali says ‘ The soul does not love, it is love itself. It does not exist, it is existence itself. It does not know, it is knowledge itself’. To paraphrase Eckhart Tolle, we are here to allow the universe to experience itself.
So as Light Warriors we are here to experience, and the story goes that at certain times during our lives we come to a choice of two doors. Through one door is everything we have experienced in the past – we have done it, seen it, been there, and got the T-shirt. We know EXACTLY what is going to happen.
And through the other door, everything is totally new. We don’t know what it is going to be, what kind of experience is waiting. And there is a sign on this door which reads ‘Courage’.
The only guarantee is that both doors will have challenges; neither are plain sailing.
So my question to you is ‘what is your story so far, which door would you choose, and why?’
Finding space is very tricky in a world which is so demanding of our attention. There is a constant pressure to fill our lives with the latest gadget; the driver being ‘you will feel more fulfilled and whole once this is in your possession’. And there probably is a fleeting sense of wholeness as the ‘Buy Now’ button is pressed; a small release of endorphin in the brain, but this soon passes.
All of the above describes a search for wholeness by connecting with the external. But there are vast riches within us if only we would care to look. The only problem is that the mind is conditioned to search outside of ourselves.
Mindfulness practices are designed to train the mind to look inwardly. Note the emphasis is to ‘train’, the mind.
When you first sit quietly and practice a ‘body scan’ or ‘breathing’ meditation, the first thing that most people notice is that the mind wanders. The initial reaction is ‘I can’t meditate because my mind is so busy’.
The point of the practice is to gently and kindly bring the awareness back. And over time people of all walks of life start to notice a little bit of space appearing between the thoughts and feelings.
Unfortunately it’s not an instant gratification like pressing the ’Buy Now’ button – it takes practice. But unlike the instant material reward which is fleeting, the rewards of mindfulness practice are long lasting and you will have started your journey back to wholeness and the greatest inner spiritual wealth.
Mindfulness is really hip right now. Or at least owning a book on mindfulness, maybe skim reading it, maybe trying out one or two of the practices, DEFINITELY speaking about it at dinner parties – is really hip right now. It’s soooo on trend.
But what is it exactly?
It’s probably easier to say what it isn’t:
Stopping thoughts
Trying to get calm
Easy
Thich Nhat Hanh said ‘it’s not a matter of faith, it’s a matter of practice’. It is a process which must be repeated over and over to get better at it (whatever ‘better’ means in this context), just as you would brush your teeth everyday, or lift weights to build muscle. It’s a case of little and often.
Find a quiet spot and a regular time (first thing in the morning helps to set me up for the day), and switch off the phone (there is something about putting the phone into flight mode which has an immediate positive effect on me). Sit either in a chair or on cushions with an upright spine and bring the awareness to the body and the breath….
…and I can guarantee your mind will wander.
And when it does (not if), gently bring the awareness back to the body and the breath. If it wanders a thousand times, bring it back a thousand times.
That is the practice: it is the bringing of awareness back which is the purpose of mindfulness. Not being controlled by the thoughts or the feelings.
And eventually you may feel calm and the mind may be clearer of thoughts – or at least there will be some distance between them.
At that stage I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it’s easy or not.
A year or so ago, on the advice of a book I was reading at the time, I stopped reading newspapers and listening to the news. There were various reasons to do this including (but not limited to) – it’s depressing, it’s a waste of time because I can’t influence any of it, just the shear volume of stuff out there, and ‘all of it seems to be created by the media to fill up the time slots on the TV and radio, and to fill column inches’.
So I did. And a felt better for it. But slowly, mainly because my wife likes to at least catch the headlines, I started to watch it again (but still no newspapers though).
But something has changed in me. Perhaps I had previously got accommodated to the terrible things happening in the world and got used to it. Now I watch from a different perspective.
When I hear the bad news – the various wars, famine, the stabbings, all of the darkness going on in the world – I notice the sadness in my heart, and know this is the beginning of a compassion. And in some way this light is making a difference to the world we live in.
Thank you Millie Sarin from Sister Talk ALL Fm 96.9 for inviting me onto your drive time show on 10th January. Laughter is the best medicine for the so-called January blues and I can honestly say I had a hoot! If anybody would like to hear the show get in touch and I can send you the recording! It may also be available soon through the Listen Again tab on their website.
When Millie asked me to do the show, two immediate things came to mind:
Sankalpa – a kind of yogic resolution, not just appropriate for the New Year
The Other Shore – a translation of the Buddhist Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh
So what is a Sankalpa?
According to Wikipedia it is ‘an intention formed from the heart and mind, a one-pointed resolve to focus on a specific goal’. For me, it is a positive statement of becoming, lead by the heart, acknowledging that all things can, and do, change. It is a letting go of unhelpful habits and thought patterns, and a welcoming of shiny new ones.
But why wait until the New Year to make a change? A Sankalpa, or any new resolution, can be made at any time. The way I do this is to clear the mind by lying down in Savasana (you could do a few preparatory yoga moves first if you like), and allow the new resolution to come from the heart. Don’t think too much, just allow the heart to lead for a change. And imagine what the new you looks like, how you feel, how you look, how you think. This gives tremendous energy to the transformation, whether BIG or small (a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and all that).
So…lead by the heart, and if you do happen to fail, brush yourself down and start again – after all failure is temporary, only giving up is permanent. I read this once so it must be true.
And what about The Other Shore?
To cut a long story short, I went to see the Dalai Lama quite a few years ago, (along with several thousand other people). He spoke for several days and the only bit I can remember is…meditate on emptiness. Hmm.
Fast forward fifteen years or so, and I found the Buddhist Heart Sutra (or it found me) as a result of being at a Yoga retreat at the Mandala Yoga Ashram in South Wales. This is a classic Buddhist text translated by Thich Nhat Hanh in a book ‘The Other Shore’ which explores and explains the concept of emptiness.
It is the acceptance that the body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness are impermanent. News flash – they all change, or as some bloke said a few thousand years ago ‘All Things Must Pass’.
The body changes as we grow and age – there is no stopping that, even Botox..
How we feel changes – without the bad, how can we appreciate the good? You are not going to believe this, but celebrities have bad days too. Yes it’s true!
How we perceive things changes – don’t policemen and teachers look younger these days?
Mental formations, or thought constructs, change over time. Practice mindfulness meditation and watch the mind, see if you notice any thought constructs telling you how things should be. Are they really being helpful or just trapping you in a box?
And finally, consciousness changes. This is the real message (in my humble opinion) of all the great religions…a transformation of consciousness, a moving from the small mind to the BIG mind. A moving to the Other Shore (just like Jesus did at the Sea of Galilee – me thinks this is a metaphor).
As David Bowie said: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
So like a river, flowing – it is impossible to jump into the same river twice and at the same time it is impossible for the river to have the same person jump into it twice.
So there you have it. This is wot I thunk about when Millie asked me to go onto her show. And if you want to dance along with me and Millie to Herb Alpert’s Spanish Flea, you’ll have to listen to the show.
About Bendyoga
David Glover has been practicing yoga for about 20 years and is still a complete beginner every time he gets on the mat. His first teacher was the wonderful Mary Freeman who set him off on his journey. He then did a BWY Foundation course with Yoga Ted in Stockport, and went on to train with Sarah Beck, qualifying as a teacher through the British Wheel of Yoga in 2012. More recently, David studied Synergistic Healing with Julie Guilliam in the Lake District, and finds that energy healing and yoga work well together.
David’s philosophy is simple – stretch and strengthen the body, and relax the mind.
Classes are run every Friday night from 6pm – for more information visit www.bendyoga.co.uk
Should we teach our children yoga?I was asked this question last week and it got me thinking….aren’t children natural yogi’s anyway? So many examples started to flirt around in my mind and here’s a few:
If you watch them, they breath beautifully, with soft bellies their diaphragms move up and down in tune with the breath. As adult yogi’s we often have to re-learn how to breath as it becomes shallow and stuck in the top of the chest. Pranayama is often described as controlling the breath, but I like to think of it as re-learning how to breath naturally just like children;
They get really absorbed in what they are doing, caught in the moment they can spend hours making mud pies, throwing stones into a lake, building sand castles on a beach. Totally immersed, and here we are as adults reading all these books on mindfulness. For the record, I once spent a family holiday listening to Eckhart Tolle on the Power of Now whilst my wife and kids played on the beach, until I realised that by learning how to be in the moment, I was actually missing out on being in the moment – how crazy is that!
Have you also noticed that they can get very upset one minute and then laughing and playing another minute – if you don’t believe me, trying taking away the toy that they are playing with! But there does seem to be a natural ability to be non-attached to the raging emotions, instead these just seem to flow through them and then they are shaken off. As adults, don’t we just love to bare a grudge?
And don’t they just drive you mad asking those incessant questions, why this? why that? If only we remained as inquisitive, having a hunger to learn new things as we get older. Asking the political elite ‘Why isn’t there more light in the world’ is a start…but don’t get me started… (If you do know the answer to this, please let me know – possibly the collective insanity of the human consciousness as my beach buddy Eckhart Tolle once said);
And of course, they are so naturally bendy! Whereas we as adults seem to be stiffening up both physically, mentally and emotionally by the second.
All in all, children are just natural and at some point we move away from this natural state and become conditioned one way or another. Stop right now and ponder on the habitual stuff in your life which could be addressed / got rid of.
So on analysis, I have decided that it is they who should be teaching US yoga and we should be encouraging THEM to maintain a child-like innocence about life and to avoid (what seems like) the inevitable conditioning that that we experience every single day.
So should we teach our children yoga? No – they should be teaching us and together we could ride our pretend horses on that journey back to Eden.
I am sat here on my 49th birthday, reflecting on life, the universe and everything and as always happens at these moments, have started to contemplate yoga. It’s kind of a passion, I guess, but these days everybody is passionate about something, especially if they want to sell it to you. More than that, for me it is a compassion. A means of spreading the love, if you like: firstly towards oneself and expanding from there. It’s not being selfish, but what is the point of being outwardly compassionate if you are screaming on the inside?
What yoga isn’t, is getting into those weird and wonderful positions that those horribly flexible people can get into – having a leg behind the head isn’t the point, nor is balancing on one hand with the legs in lotus position whilst holding a glass of beer in the other hand…
For me, yoga postures are an aid to exploring the physical body. Being still at first, stopping, then gentle movement, being interested in how the body feels today, whether good or bad. Each in-breath and stretch creates space, and the out-breath lets go.
‘Breath in, expand – breath out, let go’ is a lifetimes worth of practice. And then as space is created in the body, this expands into the mind and the emotions. From experience, the best time to practice is when it is the last thing you want to do.
Now, let me make a confession – I drink alcohol (mostly in moderation, but not always!) and I eat meat (okay, 80% veggie and occasionally tempted by a full English…). But don’t let that get in the way.
So last night when I got home, I really thought I needed a beer, and then I got barked at by one of my daughters who had just had enough – she was stressed and tired, and so was in her room with her lights out trying to sleep, and it was only 6 o’clock!
And then she asked me if I was teaching yoga that night, but I wasn’t. So here was the choice – crack open a can of beer, or help my daughter shake off the fatigue. So, I put the beer back in the fridge, and the glass back in the cupboard (very reluctantly, I am no angel), got out the yoga mats and, joined by another one of my offspring, we simply practiced together. All three of us had had enough, but through stopping, stretching and breathing, we all emerged after just one hour, feeling calm, refreshed and relaxed. And I no longer needed that beer. In helping others, I helped myself – perfect!
So, what is yoga, anyway? For me, it’s about taking a little bit of time out and being compassionate to one and all. Quite simply, it is a means of emerging into the present moment.
About Bendyoga..
Hi, I’m David and have been practicing yoga for about 20 years. My first teacher was the wonderful Mary Freeman who set me off on this journey. I then did a BWY Foundation course with Yoga Ted in Stockport, and went on to train with Sarah Beck, and qualified as a teacher through the British Wheel of Yoga in 2012. More recently, I have studied Synergistic Healing with Julie Guilliam in the Lake District, and find that energy healing and yoga are complimentary.
My philosophy is simple – stretch and strengthen the body, and relax the mind.
IF YOU are looking for a New Year’s resolution, then why not try yoga? Come to think of it, just try something, anything, that is a new experience. Try it once and see if it grabs you, if it doesn’t, try something else. Just do it…go on, have a go.
Next best thing – go buy some wellies and squelch in the mud. You’ll never look back.
Seriously though, I have been teaching yoga for long enough now to have heard all of the excuses…the main one is ‘I can’t even touch my toes’ (yawn). Well, my New Year’s Resolution is to buy a horn and honk it every time somebody says that to me.
Once we get past the excuses for not doing something different, the main reasons people want to do yoga are for the following reasons:
I want to help my bad back
I want to try yoga for stress reduction
I’ve heard that yoga helps to improve posture
Yoga can help relax and get better sleep
I need to do something to help my aching joints
New Year, new start. Give something a go. Switch off your television set, go out and do something less boring instead….why don’t you??
Hope to see you soon!?
David
About
David has been practicing yoga for about 20 years. My first teacher was the wonderful Mary Freeman who set me off on this journey. I then did a BWY Foundation course with Yoga Ted in Stockport, and went on to train with Sarah Beck, and qualified as a teacher through the British Wheel of Yoga in 2012. More recently, I have studied Synergistic Healing with Julie Guilliam in the Lake District, and find that energy healing and yoga are complimentary.
My philosophy is simple – stretch and strengthen the body, and relax the mind.
MANY THANKS to friends at the Cenacle Treatment Centre for dinner last night and some interesting, thought provoking conversation. As you would expect when your dinner companions are made up of a hypnotist, a herbalist, two massage therapists and a homeopathist, the conversation was varied and covered a whole bunch or weird and wonderful topics. I like evenings like that!
The conversation arrived at detoxification, cleansing of the liver, kidneys and colon, pasteurisation (and all its pitfalls), and helping to improve the proportion of good bacteria in the gut by eating natural Greek yoghurt, or failing that camel dung.
Before I go on, don’t do any of this at home (especially the camel dung bit) without seeking medical advise first. Or if you do then don’t blame me if any of the medications you are taking aren’t getting absorbed because you are drinking so much water that you are flushing them straight out. Okay, health and safety over, here goes….
It all started when I mentioned that I have cut down to one decent cup of fresh coffee every two or three days, otherwise I get the jitters and my eyes go dry. The same goes for tea – since I have cut down on the coffee, I find I am drinking more tea, and three or four cups a day has also started to make me jittery, or as I explained (with my tongue sticking out) – yuk.
Cutting down on tea and coffee is the obvious one, but isn’t addiction hard to overcome no matter how seemingly small? Drinking more water is always a good one – all the books say 8 glasses per day, or enough so that the urine is straw coloured. This is quite hard to do at first simply because we seem to have got used to living in a dehydrated state. From now on I am going to add a pinch of cayenne pepper to my pint of luke warm water and lemon which I have every morning, as this will further help to cleanse my liver.
Then there are all the sugars hidden in the foods we eat. We think we are doing well by eating low fat yoghurts for example, but check out the amount of sugar in them! Those little yoghurt drinks that contain so called ‘good’ bacteria can have several grams of sugar, and ironically it is the sugar which can stimulate the ‘bad’ bacteria in the gut. So the advice to me was to go for the normal ‘full fat’ (but low sugar) Greek yoghurt and be done with it.
And then (please do check this out for yourself), it got onto Louis Pasteur who caused us all to think that all bacteria are bad, whether he meant to or not. So instead of pickling things to preserve them, and then eating the vinegar which is beneficial to good bacteria, food stuffs are boiled to death. And these days everyone is obsessed with disinfecting everything around them, with the chances that this is doing more harm than good. Quite simply we need micro-organisms to help stimulate and strengthen our immune system.
The fact is that the human gut contains a myriad of symbiotic micro-organisms which help to maintain good health, and an imbalance of gut microbes can cause a reported wide variety of ailments from obesity and auto-immune disease to autism. Some medical professionals see the link between antibiotic treatment and poor microbial diversity in the gut leading to auto-immune disease, and this can be corrected by faecal transplant – taking the good bacteria from donor poo, and injecting it into the bowel of the patient.
A similar thing happened during the second World War when many German soldiers suffered from dysentry and noticed that the locals ate freshly laid camel poo as soon as the symptoms started. It cured dysentery due to the Bacillus subtilitis bacteria in camel dung, which crowded out the bad bacteria.
So the next time I go into the supermarket, I am going to do this in a mindful way, take my time and check the sugar and fat content of some of the so-called health foods that I consume, buy a few more lemons and apple or cranberry juice (natural, no added sugar), and think about what I do with unrefined foods such as white bread and pasta. The trouble is that these are the things I love to eat, so maybe not cut them out completely, but cut them down. After all, this is the middle path, isn’t it?
I am now off to make myself a cup of camomile tea….aaah.
About David Glover
David is a qualified yoga teacher with the British Wheel of Yoga, and has been teaching in and around Stockport, Cheshire for the past six years. For more information see www.bendyoga.co.uk
Yoga has been practiced for around 6,000 years and originated in the Indus Valley region situated in Northern India spanning from Afghanistan in the west to Lahore in Pakistan to the north, and down as far as the Arabian Sea in the south. This area is widely believed to be the cradle of civilisation.
Yoga is a science which helps to bring balance to the mind, body and spirit. This is achieved by practicing physical postures, meditation practices and leading a balanced lifestyle. Nothing is forced, but gradual and significant changes simply happen to one who practices yoga on a regular basis.
In early traditions the teachings of yoga were passed down orally; the earliest written references are found in Hindu scriptures dating back around 3,500 years. The Vedas describe yoga practices as a means of steadying the mind; other classical texts include the Upanishads which were written around 800-400 BCE, the Baghavad Gita (500 BCE) and the Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali which were compiled around 200 BCE.
The Sutras, or threads, attempt to apply a systematic principle to yoga practice and provide a structure known as the eight limbs which can be taken to take control over the mind. These eight limbs are referred to as Ashtanga Yoga, covering:
Yama – five social restraints and ethical values including non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, non-greed and abstinence
Niyama – five personal observances including purity, contentment, accepting pain without causing it, spiritual study and surrender
(try comparing these to the Ten Commandments, or Buddhist Precepts)
Asana – physical postures (This is where most people generally get into yoga)
Pranayama – breath control
Pratyahara – withdrawal of the senses
Dharana – concentration
Dhyana – meditation
Samadhi – superconsciousness
Finally, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written in medieval times in the fifteenth century, and focussed on the use of Asana, Kriya (purification practices), Pranayama, and Mudras and Bandhas which are subtle but powerful energy locks and seals which help to direct and contain Prana, the life force which is within us. Some would argue that this is the true alchemy, turning our worldly selves into spiritual gold.
Modern yoga focuses on the physical postures and indeed this is where most western yoga classes focus their attention. This is a result of Krishnamacharya who lived between 1888 and 1989 – 101 years! He was a great teacher who taught B. K. S. Iyengar (Iyengar Yoga), Patabi Jois (Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga) and his son T. K. V. Desikachar (Viniyoga). These are some of the great Hatha Yoga ‘brands’ which most people who practice yoga are aware of.
So what are the benefits of practicing yoga?
There are so many. It is great for curing bad backs, by helping to improve core strength around the abdomen, and in doing so it helps to improve posture. It also helps to stretch and strengthen muscles in a way which helps to heal injuries, or simply just stops muscles aching as a result of hard physical exercise, leading to greater flexibility.
Yoga helps to heal from within by helping to release physical and mental tensions, resulting in less anxiety. This leads to more energy and a stronger immune system, better sleep, better moods, more focus and vitality. It is interesting that people who practice yoga on a regular basis just don’t get ill as often. Even those who come to a class once a week always sleep really well on that night.
The physical postures help to stretch and strengthen the muscles, and open up the joints to allow circulation of synovial fluid which helps to lubricate and nourish these areas. By bending and stretching, the internal organs are massaged and the nerves are toned. The heart rate increases and the lungs are expanded which helps to develop greater lung capacity.
All of this helps to purify the body by releasing chemical and mental toxins which helps to relax the body and mind relating in less anxiety, more positive thoughts and greater self acceptance.
