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On time and mindful living

Published on by VanessaLeave a comment

I have been trying to simplify my approach to life with the intention to create slience and thus peace of mind. I realize I have been exposed to many different concepts within the Yoga and Buddhist traditions that resonate with me, but I haven’t been able to internalize them in such a way that they really make a difference in my state of mind. Even worse, I suspect I have been using them to put more pressure on myself as I wrote in my previous post resulting in more overthinking.

During the last three weeks, every time I start stressing about something, I have reminded myself of the power of silence, and since I am not able to create complete silence in my mind yet, I do my japa (repetition of a chosen/given mantra with focus on my breath). It has sometimes helped by slowing down the constant stream of thoughts that tend to just go in circles. Following this intention, I started reflecting on where my thoughts usually go, and not surprisingly, they are either in the past like regretting something I did or didn’t do, trying to understand why someone said or did something, longing for something I enjoyed that no longer is, and repeating a situation that brought stress or distress- what we call ruminating; or in the future like planning for whatever is coming, but not only that, also imagining the worst case scenarios and dreading them. My fear is mostly not being able to cope with them. But when am I in the present? And what would bring to be in the present? Well, if you’re reading this blog post, you are most probably familiar with the concepts of “mindfulness” and “mindful living”. It’s power lies in letting go of the past to be completely present in the moment with a fresh mind free from judgement and prejudice. It allows us to better notice our role in the now, and to save energy from dreading what might come. So, why do we keep traveling with the mind back and forward? I honestly don’t know. Personally, I think it is connected to fear and lack of trust in myself. How do I build that trust? I think it goes back to silencing my mind, and repeating my japa. I have tried to use “reason” against my anxious thoughts. To list the moments I have been challenged and managed to get through. It doesn’t help. The best I can do with my own mind is to not engage in the stream of overthinking.

I am also learning to better be with my emotions without trying to change them but without elaborating on them either. So, if I suddenly feel fear for the challenges I might meet tomorrow, I allow myself to feel the fear. I do not push it away, but I do not try to make explanations or even find solutions for it either. When I manage to do that, it seems to fade away faster. I go back to my japa, and remind myself that the only thing I can do now is to do what I need to do now.

If you are a seeker like me, you have most probably understood that we don’t reach conclusions. We just keep walking, keep trying, and we have to constantly remind ourselves of the tools we have in hand to go inwards.

Like the Gita tells us, the world “out there” is so vast and varied, it is constantly changing. It is good to engage in it, but we do better to fix our peace of mind inwards, in this silence that I still haven’t found, instead of in any given situation, person or object.My inner peace needs to be build inside out. Why do I keep forgetting this? Because I keep forgetting.

So, my advice here is, find what it is that you want to cultivate in you and stick to simple principles and techniques. You will have to keep reminding yourself to go back to them because the mind is like a restless bee, it will keep flying from one flower to another if you let it.

I leave you with a quote that kind of relates to this and it kind of doesn’t but I really liked it. It is from a book called The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak:

” Rule 28
The past is an interpretation. The future is on illusion. The world does not more through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.”

On Yoga or another way to put pressure on myself

Published on by Vanessa3 Comments

You might have noticed that I haven’t been writing much on my blog lately. This Spring, I noticed more than ever that my mind keeps going in circles, and it wasn’t a very nice feeling to begin with. I came to a point where I felt I was driving myself crazy with my thoughts. I felt that my way to approach challenges that kept coming back both at work and in my personal life was the same over and over again without helping me or the situation.

How can my “knowledge”in Yoga help me? I kept going back to the same principles, especially “non-attachment” (vairagya), but no matter how much I tried to let go of the feeling, I still felt frustrated, sad and even angry. What’s the use? I thought. Maybe Yoga is not for me. Maybe I’m not “spiritually mature enough” for this. What can “really” help? I asked myself. I felt so tired of my doubts, my struggles, and my seeming inability to help myself. I felt that I needed a more systematic approach to myself. Yoga has many good tools, but I felt I was unable to use them most of the time in a way that helped me “move forward”.

I wrote in a post earlier this Spring that I read Marshall Rosenberg’s book about non-violent communication. I did this prior to a meeting I was going to have with one of my leaders to try to formulate my thoughts in a constructive way because I have a tendency to get lost in my emotions with the unfortunate outcome of either saying things that I regret afterward or staying passive and accepting that my emotions are “wrong” to avoid making a big fuss. The principles in this book were a game-changer for me. It started the process of me accepting that my emotions are not “wrong”, and that I get so scared by them, that I put all my energy into trying to suppress them forgetting the most important thing to do which is to figure out why I am feeling like I do. Without judgment. What is the need behind the emotion, and how can I communicate it or what do I have to do in order to meet that need?

I had been using my understanding of the Yoga teachings to suppress myself, to judge my emotions, my needs, and my thoughts. In my quest to be a “good” person, I have been using Yoga to put more pressure on myself. We tend to think that people that have a big ego are selfish and self-absorbed and that people with a big ego do things that harm others, I believe that having a big ego can also harm yourself. My ego is built in the idea of being good to everyone, of making everyone feel well, of not creating problems for others, and of being perceived as helpful, compassionate, kind, and a problem solver. The problem is that I am human. I am limited. I have needs and wishes, and no matter how much I try to suppress them, they often resurface in shapes that I don’t like such as frustration, anger, and sadness. The more I try to push away these feelings, the less I see my needs and wishes, the more confused I become, and the more mixed messages I send. And this keeps repeating itself. So the idea I want to build of myself, even though it is in theory “better” than being what I see as a selfish person, is not helping me and is not helping anyone around me.

Knowing this, and observing other people I know that could be described as “spiritual,” I can’t help but ask myself if not this idea of spirituality attracts people that tend to put too much pressure on themselves. Are we misunderstanding spirituality? What is spirituality, really?

Yoga tells us that we are all at the core the same. We are love, freedom, and bliss. This is a beautiful idea, but I think that my limited understanding of love, freedom, and bliss represents another layer that stops me from seeing precisely this purity in me. The more I fight against myself, trying to be this ideal person, the less I can see who I really am.

I am no better or worse than anyone else. I don’t deserve more or less, but I do owe myself to listen with compassion. Why do I put my needs under others? Why do I keep believing that I am wrong?

I don’t think I am rejecting Yoga and its teachings, but I am doubting my understanding and the way I have been applying some of it in my life. I wonder what the purpose of it all is. I feel confused, and I think this is a good thing. I think I need to think less and live more. I think I need to take myself more seriously at the same time that I need to let go of the overwhelming spin of my thoughts. I think I need to listen more carefully to what my heart is trying to tell me.

One thing that I keep going back to is silence. I need more silence. Not more principles. No more techniques. Just the courage to be still and listen to me and take it from there.

No conclusions, and no resolutions, just keep walking but with less judgment towards myself, more self-compassion, and a willingness to meet my own needs.

Digging deeper into the layers

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For long, I have been interested in understanding emotions. Their source and how to better deal with them. My interest comes from observing myself acting in unskillful ways when taken over by emotions such as frustration, deception, hurt and fear.

I have used Yoga teachings to try to better deal with my emotions, with some good results, but I am still hunted by them and I still lose control over my actions because of them. It is not because Yoga teachings are ineffective, it is, I think, because of limited understanding so far. Maybe my inability to go deeper than just seeing their source.

During the last few months, however, I have had two intense experiences that have led me to reflect on how I work with these emotions and try to figure out a better way through.

The first was a big fight with my husband earlier this year where we both contemplated (again) the solution to separate. After further discussion, however, we decided to keep trying. I decided then that I wouldn’t go into the same cycle again. I needed to get to the root of my frustration. Through reflection, a therapy session, and some reading, I realized that I haven’t been a good communicator during all these years. I have always thought I was, but I wasn’t. Out of fear to be rejected or perceived as a problem, I have often chosen the “suck it up” path in everyday small frustrations that unfortunately didn’t disappear but just accumulate until, for some reason, I reach my limit and explode for the smallest thing. Then, the focus is all on that negative emotion and explosive reaction, and a lot of time and energy is then spent regretting my behavior, apologizing, and forgetting what got me there in the first place.

Maybe because of the culture I grew up in, I have had an unconscious negative relationship with my own needs, and I have used what I have learned through the study of Yoga to confirm this attitude believing that if I practice “non-attachment”, I would at some point not need anything. What I think now, is that at the level of spiritual development I am, I need to set myself more realistic goals that can allow me to better walk the path with a more peaceful mind. Befriending my mind, understanding my needs, reflecting on which ones only I can meet, and which ones I can communicate in a constructive way to people around me.

The second experience I had this Spring was at work. A couple of weeks ago, I felt frustration escalating again towards the leadership in the school. This has happened quite often towards the end of the school year. The problem is that when I experience frustration, anger, sadness, and/or fear, I struggle to go deeper than that. All I want to is to get rid of the emotion, so I either judge myself for feeling as I do and suppress the emotion, or I find someone or something to blame for how I feel. Luckily for me, started listening to the audiobook Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, and I think this is going to be a game changer for me, not only to better meet the needs of the people around me but to show more compassion and understanding towards my own instead of getting lost in the overwhelm of my feelings ignoring the need behind them.

Reflecting on my marriage, my frustration often comes from feeling lonely. It can be in everyday life or when planning for a family celebration, vacation, or project. The need is to be a team. To get help. To feel that we work together towards a common goal. I have, however, been unable to communicate this because asking for help felt like nagging. Heading toward our daughter’s confirmation this Spring, my husband was much more helpful than he usually is, and I was so thankful! This made the process less tiring for me, and it felt like we were sharing the joy of celebrating our daughter instead of me running like a headless chicken all the time. I expressed my gratitude towards my husband and explained that I have been needing to feel like a team, but was unable to express it in a constructive way because I hadn’t taken the time to formulate my need in my head. Now he knows, and if he forgets, I will be able to remind him.

At work, I realized that my frustration came from a feeling of uncertainty, insecurity, and unpredictability. Because we are a small school, and we have changed principals quite a lot in the past, changes have happened in a way that sometimes has felt ad hoc and without taking into consideration the professional development of teachers. There aren’t any bad intentions from our leaders, just circumstances making things difficult for some, including me. The insecurity comes from my own self-doubt, but the uncertainty and unpredictability come from not knowing what my tasks for the next year would be and whether I would have a say on what I am asked to do or not. I realized that I have come to a point in my professional life that I don’t want to continue being subject to circumstances to that level, and then decided to change jobs. I have been offered a position where it is clear which subjects I will be teaching, with an open possibility to develop in other areas. There isn’t necessarily something “wrong” with the school I’m leaving, but there isn’t anything “wrong” with me either seeking for more predictability. That is what I need, and thus, that is what I should seek. If the school I’ve been working in for years, is unable to offer that, why keep exposing myself to the frustration described above?

As silly as it might sound to some, for me this has been an eye-opening Spring. I am not wrong about having needs, I just need to listen to them and express them in a way that helps me and does not mess up with others. In light of Yoga, I would also argue that many of these needs can be met by myself if I continue working with myself. For example, insecurity. No amount of validation from people around me will heal my insecurity if I don’t work with it inwards. Other needs like closeness when I feel lonely, help when I have too much on my plate, and a pair of ears when I need to digest an experience, are absolutely possible to communicate to my husband, friends, family, and colleagues.

Discussing my “amazing” discoveries with my husband. He asked some critical questions about my inability to express my needs better. I confessed that it often feels that they go against my wish to be flexible, kind, and reasonable. He then reminded me that any idea I have created in my head of who I am or should be is nothing more than “ego”, and it obviously stands in the way for me.

More about supporting children and youth

Published on by VanessaLeave a comment

I think I have shared before that I believe one of the most important tasks I have as a mother and as a teacher is not to protect my children and students from unpleasant situations but to help them see that they are part of life. Instead of solving their problems for them, I should help them find strategies to get through them. This view has developed through the years in both parenting and teaching. Before, I was more anxious about my children experiencing conflict, or getting physically hurt, but this changed gradually when I realized that I cannot sweep away every single moment of distress and uncertainty for them. I also became more aware of the fact that one day, they will have to stand on their own feet.

In order to stand on their own feet, they need to learn strategies to overcome challenges. They can only do this by experience. On one side, this allows them to see their strengths and continue building on them, and on the other, after strugling finding a way through, they will learn where they need to develop new skills. If every time a difficult situation arises, I step in and solve it for them, the day they encounter one as adults, they will feel helpless. They will eventually learn like we all do, but why not allow for these moments when they have my support? When I can ask critical questions. When I can point out the good in themselves that they don’t see. When we can reflect together.

On this side of the world, life is filled with distractions that trigger our instinct of seeking pleasure: social media, unlimited access to sweets, fast food, entertainment, and the list continues. Our children can easily believe that a “good life” is a life filled with pleasant experiences and entertainment where there are no challenges, no problems, and no suffering, but I think that they will end up feeling empty if they are not encouraged to rather spend more time learning about themselves, experience life in its full range, and use these experiences to figure themselves out. This includes what we would define as good or pleasurable experience, but the challenging or difficult experiences too.

As a Yoga student, I am still finding the right balance between what I like to see as frolicking through life and the inner journey. In my understanding, Yoga teaches us that life experiences are here first and foremost to bring us closer to understand ourselves, and to grow spiritually. This means that we do not need to reject life’s ups and downs. We do not need to seek the downs either. We are encouraged to open up to life as it is and learn. We are warned of the danger of getting stuck (attachment) in a world of dualities: like/dislike, pleasure/pain, and rather treat them equally calmly. This is one aspect of Yoga that when I think about it, it makes me feel uplifted, until I get stuck in a difficult situation, and have to remind myself to allow, to move through it, and let go of my judgement and my fear. This is, what I would argue is step two in the context of my reflections in this post related to supporting children and youth.

Step one is to allow for challenging situations to happen to our young ones, and to help them nagivage through them, draw the teachings from them, and to remind them that life as we experience it is filled with ups and downs and it is how we deal with them that makes the difference.

Step two would be to put more attention in their inner life to better navigate through the world and avoid either indulging and thus risking of harming themselves (over eating, becoming an addict, not sleeping enough, over training, etc), or the world around them (overconsumption being an example), and to not fear when going through a difficult patch, because they have in them what they need to get up, brush the dust off and learn.

Living Yoga little by little

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I recently watched a Reel where a woman shows how she gets rid of stress by one by one taking out of her home her kids, her dog, her husband, and some objects representing house chores. Funny video, and relatable. I also sometimes wish to take everyone and everything out of the house, except for my cat, of course, or simply run away from it all.

Although meant to be funny in a very simple way, this Reel kept me thinking, mostly because I have been reflecting lately about how I keep going mentally to the same spaces that create stress related to my family life. We all want to run away from what creates stress in our lives at some point. Even the great warrior Arjuna before the battle of his life, as described in the Bhagavad Gita:

  1. “Sanjaya said: After speaking this way to Krishna, the Lord of the senses, Arjuna, who is the terror of his enemies, said: “I won’t fight” and became silent. “Satchidananda, Sri Swami. The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavad Gita: a Commentary for Modern Readers (Ch 2 p. 12). Integral Yoga Publications. Kindle Edition.

It is the Eater break and with it comes more time spent together in the house, and multiple expectations, many of them unmet. Some are my own expectations, and I have to “deal” with the emotions they bring, and some of them are my kids and my husband’s and for some reason, they feel like my responsibility too, so I also “deal” with the emotions they bring in me and in them. This has been the dynamic since I can remember every time we are on holiday.

The easiest would be to go on a holiday on my own, but I like to spend time with my family, so this time, I decided to be mindful of my frustrations and use my breath to let go of them or communicate in a positive way. When it comes to expectations and frustrations from others, I am working on not making them mine. Allow my kids to feel what they feel, ask critical questions if relevant, and let go as much as possible.

The Easter break has become in our family a time we spend at home, relaxing, the girls and I usually have some handcraft projects, our oldest son does his thing, and my husband does too. This, in reality, should be a very chill holiday, but I make a mental mess out of it having a bad conscience for not taking the kids anywhere, having a bad conscience for not doing something in the house like Spring cleaning or deep tidying up, or any other chore that requires more time that I have been procrastinating for long. The bad conscience is then mixed with annoyance because “only I see the work that needs to be done” while my husband “just sits there are does nothing”. The funny (or tragic) part is that no one knows about all these thoughts. I go through the holiday dealing with them myself. So, this Easter break, when I went into the shed to get something and I saw, again, the mess “nobody” takes the responsibility to clear, I took a deep breath and asked myself “Do I want to tidy up now?”, the answer was obviously no, so I made a mental note, I will do this at the beginning of the Summer break. No expectation of anyone else doing it, I see it, it bothers me, and I will do something about it, but not now.

  1. “You can rise up through the efforts of your own mind; or in the same manner, draw yourself down, for you are your own friend or enemy.” Satchidananda, Sri Swami. The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavad Gita: a Commentary for Modern Readers (Ch 6 p. 80). Integral Yoga Publications. Kindle Edition.

I am a strong believer that stress and distress are mostly a result of our thoughts, and although there are situations that do create immediate distress such as illnesses and accidents, it is how we deal with them that makes the difference. Life is full of surprises, and we owe to ourselves to live mindfully in the small moments (like my frustrations of everyday life), so we are equipped to deal with what I see as the “real” moments of distress.

I have now been studying Yoga for eight years, and most of what I study and learn makes sense, it is about time that I have a more conscious approach to its modalities and apply them more actively if I really want to see a change happen in my mindset. Little by little, step by step.

And in moments where I feel nothing else helps, I like to think of the Self, this deeper part of myself that is pure, at peace and unaffected by whatever happens in the palpable world.

  1. “Weapons do not affect the Self; fire does not burn it, water does not wet it and wind does not dry it.” Satchidananda, Sri Swami. The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavad Gita: a Commentary for Modern Readers (Ch2 p. 16). Integral Yoga Publications. Kindle Edition.