Proper Relaxation

Relaxation is a skill you can work on. Proper Relaxation isn't passive. You can relax your body by being aware of where you are carrying the tension. The most advanced Yoga pose is a relaxation pose. In Savasana, you follow a process of 'auto-suggestion'. Moving around the body, you tense and relax. You use your breath to reawaken your body through relaxation. Mental Relaxation requires conscious practice. Our minds need a moment not to do the heavy processing work of running through a gazillion real and imagined scenarios. The most important relaxation is learning not to worry about You so much. To relax the boundaries between what is you, and what isn't. To pause the worry, issues, and lack of quiet that comes from figuring out your place in the world.

Relax Your Body

Relax Your Mind

Relax Your Self

Mental Health and Empowerment

Mental Health is about Endurance and Resilience. Empowerment is about Creativity. Without a strong Mind-Body, we are caught in a spin of Ohrwurms, aches, pains and regret. We stop breathing. Without a strong Mind-Body, we are unable to cope with short-term bumps and batterings (Resilience), and can't hold a little bit back to stay in the game (Endurance). Without Mental Health, it becomes impossible to be Creative. Connections require Creativity. Through 'sensuality, movement, association, sexuality, humour, imagination, numbers, symbolism, colour, order, positivity and exaggeration' we create a web of meaning with our creativity. A web of connections. That starts with looking after ourselves. With looking after each other. It starts with Mental Health and Empowerment.

Mind Body

Beyond Comparison

We think in focused contrast. Vedanta, the yogic philosophy, argues that we are only able to have one thought in mind at a time. The issue is that we hop around. Worry becomes a spin cycle of concerns. The main concern is the contrast. What the thought is, and what we wish it was. How the world is, and how we wish it was. Spin. Chew. Spin. Chew. Spin. As humans, our thoughts are limited by our biology. Our senses. Our surroundings. Our understanding. The way we piece together the information we have received. The conversations we have had in order to put that information together. The emotions on which the information sits.

The way we have seen the world determines the way we see the world.

The whole method of yoga is 'chitta vritti nirodhah'. The stilling of these thought impulses. Thought fluctuations. Wobbles. Waves. Between expectations and our observed reality. Worry, dreams, desires and goals can be strong motivators. A little dissatisfaction keeping us moving. 

These all work rather well while we are getting to the point of 'enough'. While we are on a path that has a fixed end point. Getting a roof over our heads. Food in our bellies. A place to clean our bodies. A sense of safety. This dissatisfaction becomes an obstacle once we get beyond what we need. Then comparison fails us. Then the impulse that says - hungry, cold, scared - becomes a negative. The impulses become holes.

Enough is far less than we think it is. Not in a 'holier than thou' way that people should be self-sacrificial heroes. I don't believe in heroes. I believe in examples. I believe in relationships. One of the key tricks to stopping those mind-wobbles is stopping those comparisons when they are heroes rather than examples. Relative thinking is very human. We can train ourselves out of it in the same way as we can train our muscles to get stronger and faster. Where our muscles become tools we control, rather than them controlling us. A key to that mental fitness is gaining a strong sense of comfort in what enough is. What enough looks like. What it feels like. 

We are very resilient. We can cope with a lot. We can handle suffering and get back up. The extra should be a bonus we celebrate. Strengthening that resilience doesn't come from reaching up, it comes from looking inside. From learning about others. Not from stories of outliers to aspire to, but stories of real people doing real things. Talking to each other. Seeing each other. Walking with each other.

Comparison is often very focused. We don't look at someone's entire life. We look at their job, their skill, their art, or something where they edge ahead of us. I have often benchmarked myself against people. A friend who runs about the same speed. One who gets similar marks in a subject. A buddy at the same age. A colleague in a similar role. That then becomes a measure of whether I have 'done well'. This is dangerous, because in the lost perspective of all the things you aren't comparing, you lose the things that are most important. 

There are lots of things that can't be compared, but can be lost. Relationships. Stories. Meaning. These all exist beyond the measurable. Beyond the measurable is the stuff that really matters. Beyond Comparison.

Inhibiting by Prioritising

In saying 'I think, therefore I am', Descartes lifted our identity into the world of our heads. If you cut off your hand, are you still you? If you lose both legs? What makes you you? Is it our thoughts? Do we lose someone when their thoughts start to fade? A division in Eastern and Western philosophy is the role of the body in philosophy. There isn't a separation between the mental and physical. In Vedanta, the philosophical arm of Yoga, everything from exercise, breath, and food to relaxation is fair game. Existence wraps all the connection and relationships. Our identity is all inclusive.

By elevating thought, we can inhibit it. If we prioritise it to the neglect of other things. The broader practice of Yoga also focuses on thought. The stilling of the mind ('Yoga chitta vritti nirodha'). It all starts with being able to sit comfortably. To sit comfortably starts with having control of the body. Having control of the body starts with what you eat, how you move, and learning to relax.

The irony of only focusing on 'the most important thing',  is that you may never reach it. The simple things, the basic competencies of life, are the first step on the journey.

Starting with the Basics

Calming the Waves

My head is a pretty chaotic place. I know I am not alone in this. Patanjali, compiler of the 'Yoga Sutras' defines Yoga in the four words 'Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah'.

Chitta is 'Mind Stuff'. It is the mass of connections forming and breaking in our heads. It is the conversations we have with ourselves. It is the conversations we have with Avatars of people we know. Second guessing. Third guessing. Going down the garden paths of what might happen. Going down the garden paths of what could have happened. It is our hopes. Our dreams. Chitta is constrained only by our imagination and the world we are able to create, and it is a factory for emotional responses. It is a 'veil' through which we see the world.

Vritti is the 'Waves'. Our thoughts come and go. They are affected by our emotions, our health, the time of day, who we are with, whether we have eaten, how fit we are, and what we are doing. The same thing can cause a different reaction when repeated, because things are never really repeated. These waves can take us up and down. They can stop us in our tracks when they are flowing in the opposite direction of where we want to go. They can build momentum when we catch them.

Nirodhah is 'Tranquility'. Yoga effectively becomes the practice of freeing ourselves from the control of thoughts. Stilling the waves. The anxiety or unproductive difficulties we face are often embedded in quite simple things. Proper exercise, breathing, diet, relaxation and ways of processing thoughts can give a sense of calm to handle whatever life can throw at you.

Yoga is stilling the waves of the mind

Leviathan (1997)

I Am

One of the divisions between Western and Eastern thinking seems to be the way we view the mind and body as a separate things. 'I think therefore I am' and so the I is deeply connected to our thought. Vedantic thinking drops the first three words as redundant and leaves it as 'I am'. By 'elevating' our identity to be linked to consciousness and thought, the body becomes, well, an afterthought. Ken Robinson describes many western academics as viewing their bodies as a transportation system for their heads. A way of getting their head from meeting to meeting.

Sara, a family member I have met in person for the first time, is a dance instructor and so has done lots of thinking on the connection between the body and thought. She has given me a reading list to ponder. I have often thought a standard reading list would be a good thing for all of us to do. Share openly the books we think have affected our world view. Of course, most of us are so busy we don't have time to look at other world views, only time to apply our own, but wouldn't it be great if we did. Here are the books Sara has given me...

 

'Six Memos for the Next Millennium', 'Phenomenology of Perception', 'Self Comes To Mind'

'The Tell-Tale Brain', 'The Meaning of the Body', 'Action in Perception'

At some point we stop prioritising our physical well being, because we need to focus on work or 'more important' mental endeavours. I find it interesting that in Yoga, it is often the other way around. You have to exercise first. You have to be able to have control of the body so you can do something as simple as sit comfortably. It is only once you are freed from aches and pains that you are able to focus.

I move therefore I am?

Llandudnoitus

It helps to live in a city like Joburg or London before you live somewhere like Cape Town. Or at least find a way to form some of the immediacy habits of busy (and productive) people before you dive into awesomeness. I lived in Cape Town for about four years before the arrival of my brother lead to a visit to Llandudno beach. He has never let me live that or the over sized nature of my head down. When you live in Cape Town, a trip to the other side of the mountain is a very long way. Speaking of the mountain. Have you climbed it? I would love to see stats of the answer to that question from people who live in Cape Town vs. people who visit it. I suspect for many natives of the mother city it is 'I will one day'.

There is something about rarity or limited opportunity that makes us act. As soon as things are plentiful we seem less able to value them in the same way. Perhaps our fear of missing out is the incentive that drives us when we just have one chance. A more positive way of thinking of it may be that we just lack the triggers? We can build triggers.

I am visiting a friend in Whangarei, New Zealand. Last night we visited some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. My mate had come to the beach a few times but seemed as struck by Matapouri as I was, unsure why he didn't come more regularly. He does go to another beach every weekend so it is not quite my Llandudnoitus. It did remind me of what I call the 'Sitting on Memstone' dilemma. Memstone was a memorable place with incredible views on my university campus. Unless you were hungry and distracted. Then it was just a place you walked past on your way to meals.

Sometimes we need triggers of limited time or visits from friends to knock us into consciousness. We can do it ourselves by creating checklists. We value spontaneity though. Using checklists feels a little outsourcing our decision making.

But if it leads to more of the good stuff, perhaps admitting the need for a little help is worth it. Maybe simply writing a list of the things you would like to do and people you would like to see is enough. Write it each night and then throw it away. You are still the boss.

Matapouri Beach, New Zealand

Each Bite

The French know how to eat. I have learnt not to try rush my friend Arthur when he is armed with a fork. He will not stand and eat. He will not hurry up. Mindfulness sometimes gets thought of as a new age redressing of old age religion with a few new words. Maybe for some. Another way of thinking of mindfulness is of thinking of the French eating. They savour each bite. They are aware of the flavour, the texture, the smell and the way the food looks. They celebrate the story behind the food. How it was grown. Where it was grown. Who grew it. Why they grew it. They eat slowly. They chew. You can be the most hard core of rationalists and see the appeal in that. Mindfulness is just the process of savouring life. Of enjoying the story.

Arthur and I at the end of Movember 2012

My dream is to help create more 'third places' - not home, not work - where people can go to experience 'dining hall happiness' together. A place where learning can be more like Tapas. Instead of learning specifically for work purposes, we can also learn to savour life and all it has to offer. We can access the juice by doing new things. We can share those ideas with each other. Instead of treating life like a baby gulping down their milk, unsure of if they are ever going to get any more, we can learn a thing or two from the French. We can be less scared. We can pay attention to each bite.

Parthenon Perspective

After a holiday with a twist (a 4 day Yoga retreat), I headed to Athens for a U2 concert. The next day I spent wandering around the city. There is nothing quite like the Parthenon for a bit of perspective. Whatever your worries are, they seem a little less important. It doesn't have to be looking at really old buildings, or even hearing of the discovery of hundreds of earth-like planets, it can simply be taking your niece to the park, or a friend having their first child.

There are lots of things that let you take a deep breath, and refocus. The shortness of my life in the context of life on earth, or the size of my body relative to the vastness of space doesn't make me feel insignificant. Instead it should be like the French and their small portions of food... there is just a little, so savour it.

A combination of perspective, and not worrying too much with realising how incredible it is that you are right here, right now and the mindfulness to enjoy it.

Exciting times.

Being Present & Detachment

This morning I read 'Tuesdays with Morrie' by Mitch Albom, which chronicles the conversations between the writer and his dying mentor, Morrie Schwartz.

There are two concepts which stood out for me. One I have thought about for a while and one I never quite got, but that maybe sunk in a little more for me.

The one is 'Being Present' or what some call 'Mindfulness'. That when you are with someone or doing something, that you are completely present and focused. I find this very difficult. When something is worrying me, or I am trying to solve a problem, it tends to sit with me. You end up with hundreds of thoughts floating around your head, and sometimes when you are physically present with someone, you catch yourself half way through the conversation where you have 'lost your place' and don't know what they have been saying. You may even having been nodding your head, and robotically repeating bits of what they say. This kind of focus may be incredibly difficult, but I am sure that being able to get it right would make the world of difference both in the world of work, and in the world of play. Maybe you are lucky and those two worlds are the same for you.

The second stand out point was being detached. The Buddhist concept of not clinging to things because everything is impermanent. I have always thought that is a cop out. Aren't we supposed to experience life, both the good and the bad. It is the reason I allow myself to be completely irrational about Sport. Did it matter when Habana scored in the final minutes to deny the Sharks the Super 14? Did Allan Donald's crazy run and dropping of the bat matter? Probably not, but if I had not experienced the depths of disappointment then, would I have enjoyed the '95 and '07 Rugby World Cup victories as much. In case you think I am trivialising this, there are more personal examples I could share... but this blog is not the place.

So detaching doesn't seem right to me. Here is how Morrie explains it:

... detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That is how you are able to leave it. Take any emotion - love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You are afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ' All right. I have experience that emotion. I recognise that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'

That makes more sense to me.

A Witness Mentality

I venture into the open classes on some days in between my official introductory Yoga classes. They do some crazy stuff and I am way out of my league, but it is nice to see what is possible. And if you just close your eyes and get on with what you are doing, it doesn't matter what the other bendy bendy bendsters are doing.

But that isn't what made me really think tonight. Similar to something my brother often talks about, the concept of 'mindfulness', the person leading the class asked us to take note of the energy that had been released in us after some of the poses.

It might sound strange, but you could actually notice a change. He said you should develop a 'witness attitude'.

I really liked that concept. If I think back, I can think of times I was really happy and people who made me smile. I can think of occasions when I felt like I was really being challenged, and felt like I was rising to the challenge. Sometimes though, when you are in the moment, it is easy to not experience it. To be aware of it.

I read somewhere someone saying that if you are not uncomfortable in a task or at work, you are not adding value. You are not learning.

I like the idea of being able to simply take note every now and then of where you are, what is happening, and what you are learning. Whether pleasant or uncomfortable.

To develop a witness mentality.

Books as Art & Lindt Chocolate

The French do it right. Speak to any university student and they will moan when their residence decides to have a set menu for their formal. Why? Because you tend to get ridiculously small portions. They prefer buffets where you can fill your plate to the brim. Well, at least the guys' residences at the University of Cape Town felt that way in my time.

But, the french do it right. You have a whole bunch of courses, maybe you eat all day... but each course is small. And you savour every bite. You linger over every sip.

Firstly, this stops you from eating quickly. Secondly, you are 'present' with each bit. Since deciding that this is a good idea, I have stopped buying lots of chocolates. Instead, I occasionally treat myself to a small really fancy chocolate. When I do, I savour it... and its great. Lindt, mmmmm.

If you really like something, maybe it is best to only have a little bit. But have the best. Not necessarily the most expensive, but the kind you really enjoy. That way, you don't have to stop any of your delightful vices... coffee, pizza, fatty biltong... whatever.

The same goes for books. They do work from a decorative sense, but if we move to reading books in a digital form, it needn't replace your book shelf. But maybe, instead of shelves and shelves of low quality paper with cheap covers, each book you buy is a high quality, well designed, beautiful piece of art. Something you treasure and want to display.

Currently, even the hardback early release books seem to be really poor quality. Have your library in digital form, and then get really high quality prints of your favourites.

Win win.