I have been doing yoga for decades. At first it was just exercise, then it was exercise that felt good, and then I noticed that it did something good to my mind. It slowed it down, calmed it. It could even bring me out of full-blown panic attack if I remembered in those moments to do it. I remember wondering what the heck was going on ... How could stretching slow down my mind?
My understanding of the process of yoga has grown considerably since then. In a weekend long intensive study of the Yoga Sutras with Edwin Bryant, I learned, in fact, that I was experiencing what yoga was supposed to be doing and had been designed to do thousands of years ago. Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah. Yoga stills the fluctuations of the mind. Yoga was designed to get the body out of the way so that the mind could be brought into stillness.
I'm reading and thoroughly enjoying the book It's So Easy by Duff McKagan. I thought it would be light reading for distraction, but it turned out that Duff has a pretty compelling story to tell. He went through dark times in GNR and turned his life around. He drank heavily during his GNR days to deal with panic attacks. Avoiding panic became a big factor in his life, and he only began to be able to deal with panic in a more healthy way after he started doing these really intense workouts. He found that his mind could still and he could come to a safe room he had designed for himself in his mind but only after he had worked himself to true physical exhaustion. Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah. He didn't practice yoga, but he could have. He was experiencing the same stilling of the mind that comes when you get the body out of the way with yoga.
Duff's story pre-enlightenment is very sad and all too familiar. He drank to quiet his mind. It took more and more booze to get to the quiet place until eventually he exploded his pancreas. Yes. Exploded his pancreas. In his book, he quotes Hemingway, "of all men, the drunkard is the foulest. The thief when he is not stealing is like another. The extortioner does not practice in the home. The murderer when he is at home can wash his hands. But the drunkard stinks and vomits in his own bed and dissolves his organs in alcohol."
My teacher, Bo Forbes, has written an excellent book called Yoga for Emotional Balance, where she talks about different poses for anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. And in her classes, she discusses something even more relevant - it is not what you practice - specific poses or exercises - but how you practice that matters. For people with panic and anxiety issues, practicing slowly and mindfully is the key. You slow the body, the nervous system, the emotional responses down by going through slow motions, and the quality of your mind follows. With practice, your body can slow itself without a full yoga practice, and you can achieve stillness just by tuning in. For those who are interested, a good first practice, a great start, is to listen to your breathing. Practice breathing through the nose. Practice making the in breath and the out breath the same length. Then, to calm an anxious mind, make the exhale longer than the inhale. This little trick, which Bo calls 1:2 breathing, has saved me from many a panic.
Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah.
During the yoga sutra training, Edwin made us repeat that phrase over and over again until it was really in our heads. At the time, it felt odd and unnecessary and annoying. It sinks in there, though, and the sounds of the words bring a stillness all by themselves. I think I understand what he was up to now.
No comments:
Post a Comment