Category Archives: body

Shifting from alpha to theta waves in meditation

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I sat this morning, and toward the end of the 30 minutes, I felt a definite shift. You regular readers know I’m interested in brain waves. I think this was a shift from alpha to theta!

(One of my desires for 2011 is that between selling my house soon and starting at AOMA in July, I can acquaint myself with my brain wave states using a neurofeedback machine. I’d like to be able to relate my subjective experience to objective feedback and write about it.)

It’s important to be clear that even though I’m writing about shifting brain wave states, a shift is not just mental (i.e., experienced inside my brain). Shifts occur in my energetic body-mind. Brain wave biofeedback uses electrodes on one’s head, and perhaps that is the best place on the body to place electrodes to get a good reading, but shifts affect the entire body-mind-energy system.

It was like this: I began sitting. Immediately I gave my physical body more attention. (Before, monkey mind — and my feet — were wandering through the house with the loose intention of sitting before breakfast, and my feet found their way to my meditation corner.)

The attention to my physical body began to trigger little blossomings in my energy body. (Over the course of this year, I’ve become habituated to sitting. Like Pavlov’s dog, sit me down on a zafu, and certain things happen.)

I check in with my whole body, noticing stiffness in part of my back. It begins to relax. I breath prana into it for deeper relaxation.

I tell myself:

Let my whole body embrace my breath. Let me make it welcome. Let me receive it fully and let it go fully.

Pause, then big spontaneous inhalation, with my breath being fully and completely welcomed and embraced. Ah.

I think:

Hmm, maybe I should blog about this sometime.

Then for a while, I focus my attention on the energy field around my head. Just noticing my halo! Crown chakra, third eye chakra, throat chakra all open and clear.

I direct my attention to my heart center. This morning it feels quiet and open.

I begin remembering bits of Peg Syverson’s dharma talk at Appamada Zendo yesterday about the nature of wanting.

Our energy field expands to include that which we desire. We become attached; the attachment becomes part of who we are.

From wanting, suffering may (or may not) arise.

There is nothing wrong or bad about wanting!

I evaluate my own thoughts and think:

Hmm. Wanting and attachment. Mental note to self: explore this in a future blog post! But first, listen to Peg’s dharma talk again online.

That Peg is so brilliant.

And then:

Oh, thinking mind! Come back to the present, to my body.

Now where was I? Ah, yes, my belly.

Attention moves to belly. Mmm. Feel pleasant sensations between ribs and pelvis. Feel nice round heavy juicy energy in second chakra. Mmmm. Feel my tailbone, sitz bones, flesh, the root chakra area open and expand, heavy against the zafu.

I think:

I used to not experience much root chakra energy. It has returned in full force. I feel happy about this.

Now I merge awareness of my head, chest, and belly centers together to experience whole body awareness.

Ah. There it is. Deep inhale, deep exhale. I’m there.

Attention moves within the field of my whole body. News of difference moves it. A pain (contraction) here, a blossoming (expansion) there, neutral awareness of my wholeness.

This goes on for some time. I feel pleasantly relaxed and alert and centered.

Then I notice the shift.

It’s as if my body and mind have become heavier. My mind has definitely calmed. My body feels more still as well. It’s as if my vibrations are oscillating more slowly and congruently.

I feel more passive, more surrendered to the moment. I experience less of a need to be on top of things, to be in control, to do anything, really. It’s as if my ego has stepped away.

I don’t feel tired, but this is similar to feeling pleasantly fatigued. No effort. Quiet heavy bliss.

Then the timer chimes and I come out of it. I think:

Hmm. Maybe it takes 25 minutes to reach this state. I’m going to set my timer for longer and find out.

How to lose and find something with equanimity

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This past Saturday morning, I prepared to go to a weekend workshop, Harmonics of Healing, with Tom Best and Steve Daniel. (Tom is my long-time NLP trainer, whom I now assist at trainings, and Steve is a didgeridoo player and sound healer extraordinaire.) Held at the Tree of Life Sanctuary in Radiance south of Austin, I was planning to sleep over and packing my sleeping bag, ice chest, and the various items I’d need over the weekend.

I got everything loaded in my car. Ready to leave, I reached in my shoulder bag for my keys — and they weren’t there.

Searched bag. Searched front seat, floor, sides of passenger seat, all around driver’s seat. Checked ground between front door and car.

No keys.

Thought maybe I’d left them inside the house, now locked. Climbed in through a window and searched. No keys.

Perhaps because I was on my way to a workshop/retreat, I began observing myself. I realized that every time I lose something, it’s as if I’ve never lost anything before. I seethe with impatience and frustration and arrogance.

How dare those keys go missing right when I’m ready to leave?

Just that bit of self-awareness helped me slow down and realize that I’ve lost things many times before. This is not a new experience.  There is something familiar about this. The Native American tradition gave us Trickster. When items go missing, it’s Trickster, playing games.

My keys are hiding from me! How cute! How precocious of them! What a surprise!

From this perspective, losing my keys became very, very funny! I called Katie and told her my keys were hiding from me, and that I didn’t know when I’d be there. I was smiling as I called.

I also noticed that I had switched from mainland time to island time. Trickster feeds off pomposity and arrogance and loves to make people look like buffoons. Getting present instead of racing ahead mentally to the next thing is one of the best things to do.

I remembered a technique for lessening anxiety called Mind Juggling, and that is to toss a ball from hand to hand with my eyes gazing up. The activity and eye direction change one’s state. I got out a tennis ball and began tossing it from hand to hand, gazing up to where the wall meets the ceiling.

After a bit, I got an impulse to bring in some yoga props from the back seat of my car. I’d been intending to do that for a while. Why not now?

As I was removing yoga blocks, from the corner of my eye, I saw my keys on the ledge behind the seat. Just where I’d set them when I had loaded the car, cramming the ice chest in.

I had completely filtered that out from my memory.

Ahhhh. Game over. I win. Thank you, Trickster, for your lessons and the stretching I develop to meet the moment.

Keys in hand, I locked the house and went to my workshop/retreat, which was lovely.

When I got home Sunday evening, I unloaded the car and put things away. I made myself a cup of tea and was ready to sit down and check email.

Guess what? No laptop. And no keyboard, mouse, carrying case, DVD/VCR player, antique flute.

My house had been burglarized.

Stay tuned for more about loss.

The three centers of intelligence: working with my gut, heart, and head

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Have you ever noticed that sometimes life seems fairly uneventful, day after day being more of the same?

And then there are those times when a lot of shifts, planned and unplanned, occur?

It’s as if you aren’t even consciously looking for new doors to open. (The unconscious is something else, always working for you, always aware, and it will get your attention when necessary.)

Then you decide to open a new door, and other new doors open unexpectedly.

Yesterday I got a voice mail from my realtor that a buyer may make an offer on my house today and a cable TV show, Sell This House, is interested in the possibility of staging my house, which could increase the value and definitely help the house sell.

Rich choices, huh?

I have never seen this show! I’m looking for someone with cable TV so I can watch it on Saturday morning before agreeing to anything.

And then there’s this: For a long time (actually for most of my adult life), I had a job, and it was my source of income.

Then I became a yoga teacher, which added another source of income.

Here lately, I’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist, stuff that I don’t want to take with me into my downsized, radically simplified life. There’s another (temporary) source of income.

I also recently studied with a Reiki master. I would love to do Reiki treatments on others when I’m ready, and that could also bring in income — although an inner voice tells me to offer Reiki on a donation basis until I hear otherwise, and to do Reiki on myself for 21 days before offering it to others.

In my first week of not being employed (having had a clear NO response to continuing to work where I worked), I’ve felt insecure and looked at classified ads for jobs.

I learned that I have a strong NO response to doing anything technical or long-term and a strong YES response to working with healing, health, food, and writing. Healthy grocery stores, garden centers, supplements, and so on. Even if part-time, temporary, seasonal!

It has been said that we humans have three centers of intelligence in our bodies: our heads, hearts, and guts.

These YES and NO responses come from my gut and not my brain.

NO is a definite contraction, a feeling/sensation close to fear, in my gut/second chakra/hara/dan tien.

YES is an expansion in my heart center.

My head center questions, witnesses, records, informs, integrates. It’s the least powerful center at this time in my life, which is strange.

I have mostly been a head- and heart-oriented person. Having my gut tell me what to do — and override my head — is new. Sometimes my head and heart disagree with my gut, and I experience inner conflict.

Gut feelings are strong and not to be overridden, I have learned.

Sometimes it feels as if I am being steered in a certain direction, and that I don’t have a lot of choice about it. I can just “let go and let God.” I can fight and struggle with it, or I can surrender.

I can only have faith that whatever is steering me is the Universe leading me to my highest purpose. I don’t know right now. That’s the kind of clarity that’s much easier to find in hindsight!

I need a true break from work, even though it is good to learn about the job market. All my centers are okay with this.

And I realized yesterday that instead of one, I may have several income streams all helping to support me financially, all doing things I love to do anyway.

How sweet is that!

I’d love to hear from you about using your head, heart, and gut centers. Which one predominates, and how has this changed?

Grounding, facing fear, Reiki with cats

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Fear

I woke up today and decided to give myself Reiki before I even got out of bed.

This transition from a full-time serious stressful but secure job to a state of limbo — and eventual return to school to study integrative medicine — has included some moments of feeling fear in my gut.

So much is uncertain — when will my house sell? Will I get what I’m asking? Should I go back to work, and if so, when, doing what, working full-time or part-time, or cobbling together several different income streams? Will my plans to buy a vintage trailer to make my new home come to fruition?

That feeling of fear in my gut is old conditioning. I am aware of the situation. There is no emergency. I don’t enjoy the feeling, and I don’t get that it’s helping me in any way.

I intend to explore my fear. Instead of tapping it away, I can inquire within:

  • What am I thinking when it arises?
  • What unconscious beliefs am I holding that I can bring to light, review, and consciously decide to keep, modify, or put up on the dusty shelf in the Museum of Old Beliefs?
  • Can I sponsor a dialog to build empathy, communication, and congruency between my head, heart, and gut?
  • Can I dive into the fear with awareness?
  • Can I breathe into it?
  • Can I go beneath it to discover the essence?

Reiki

Back to doing Reiki in bed. My cat kept wanting to lie on me, like he just couldn’t get close enough. I did Reiki on him first.

My preparation for the session (see yesterday’s post) really energized my feet. I did my session, noticing that my body received energy from my hands strongly at my second chakra, the location of fear, the center of gut intelligence.

Being Grounded

Then I got up, made tea, sat down at the computer, and read an email from Bill Hornback:

Please tell me what “grounded” means to you – I’m doing a little research project for work, where they don’t understand this concept. Thanks!

I emailed Bill this:

Bill–

Grounding used to be a more intellectual concept for me that meant someone was practical, i.e., grounded in reality instead of head up in the clouds.
Now I get that those are metaphors for an actual state of existence.
My acupuncturist gave me some foot exercises to open up the meridians in my feet (so many start or end in the feet), and after a few days, I felt like I was walking around with big balls of light/energy on my feet, like huge houseshoes! I FEEL the energetic connection between my feet and the earth. It’s like magnetism. It’s like every step I take, I’m dancing with the planet.
Hope this helps. I’m blogging about this today!
Mary Ann Reynolds
Yoga Teacher and NLP Coach
512-507-4184
blog: zafureport.wordpress.com
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

My current wisdom is that I need to take some precious, precious time to work on myself. Doing Reiki self-treatments at this time is pure genius, if I do say so myself.

The work will come, and I will clearly recognize the work that’s right for me, and I will be truly ready to greet it when it does.

The house will sell to loving new owners at good value for us both.

I will land on my feet in a new smaller abode to make my home.

And all will be well, and all will be well, and all will be well.

Just Breathe: Body Has A Built-In Stress Reliever : NPR

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Here’s a link to a short article on how breathing facilitates stress release.

This article says that rapid shallow breathing, as in fire breath, stimulates the energizing sympathetic nervous system, while slow deep breathing stimulates the calming parasympathetic nervous system.

I’d heard previously that emphasizing inhalations stimulates the SNS, while emphasizing exhalations stimulates the PNS.

I do know that long, slow exhalations are very calming.

Just Breathe: Body Has A Built-In Stress Reliever : NPR.

The gift of Reiki self-treatments

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I recently was fortunate enough to receive Reiki attunements from a Reiki master.

I’ve long been aware of energy flowing through my body, of chakras, nadis, and meridians. I’ve studied various cultures’ knowledge and ways of working with the energy body.

For instance, for several years I’ve practiced the Q’ero way of bringing energy in from the center of the cosmos through the crown and sending it out the feet to the center of the earth, then bringing clean earth energy up through the feet and out the crown. The downward direction releases hucha, and the upward direction connects your authentic being to the cosmos.

Learning Reiki is a natural extension. I’ve long been giving Reiki to my cat without knowing it was Reiki!

Now to put what I learned into practice. As part of the detox process after leaving my job, I commit to giving myself a Reiki self-treatment every day for 21 days.

I’ll sit in a chair, spine erect, visualizing energy descending from my tailbone, anchoring it to the center of the earth.

Then let earth-colored energy come up through my feet and circulate in my lower body until it feels heavier.

Let white light from the center of the cosmos enter my crown chakra and fill my upper body until it feels lighter.

Then begin the Reiki hand positions, holding each as long as needed.

I want to start channeling this prana-ki-qi-life force-healing energy to others, and this is how I prepare.

Experiencing my armor, and learning to disarm myself…

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A quick post. This morning when I sat, I noticed clearly that when I am thinking thoughts or telling myself a story with negative emotions like anger, blame, fear, and worry attached, I go completely into the story.

Then I realize that I have been sucked out of the present moment into the story. Rather, the story I tell myself has sucked me out of the present moment into suffering.

Then I come back to the present moment.

Then I feel it in my body. Somewhere in my body, I feel holding, stiffness, tightness, a grinding sensation, emotional distress. This is armor.

When I let go of the story and just be present with what is, I feel relaxed and pleasantly centered in my body.

It’s very clear. I do this to myself with my mind by telling myself stories. It’s not that the stories themselves are bad. There are real injustices in this world, and people make real mistakes, including myself.

But I see how I create my own suffering at times when I don’t need to suffer! Hashing over past events, imagining future events, arguing, trying to win, trying to control others…

I see how addictive drama can be.

Today, I practiced letting go of my stories when I realized they were hurting me.

Leaving a job, embracing the unknown

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How much change do you need or seek?

I need a certain amount of change in my life, and I’ve worked in an environment for the last six years where people often stay in the same job for decades.

I gave two weeks’ notice at my job on Monday.

I once worked at the same place for eight years, although that job involved promotions, various managers, and several reorganizations. In my current job, I have done the same thing for the same manager for six years. I’ve liked working with her. She hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve felt comfortable with her supervising my work. She’s a literate technologist, and I appreciate her. Now she’s retiring, and I’ve come to see it is also the best time for me to leave.

Even though giving up a secure job brings insecurity, I feel strongly that I did the right thing anyway! I feel exhilarated and insecure, free and scared and adventurous.

I’m excited about the new opportunities I have — to work in a health food store, to work in a garden center, to spend more time with my granddaughter, to catch up on my reading, to devote more time to improving my blogging, maybe travel a bit, take some workshops that intrigue me.

To rediscover my own biorhythms instead of those artificially imposed by an employer’s needs — yippee!

And of course as I’ve mentioned before here, I’m selling my house, planning to downsize into a vintage trailer, and have been accepted into the Academy of Oriental Medicine of Austin with a summer start date.

I am witnessing doors open — like being asked if I’d be interested in teaching an “old men’s” yoga class!

I notice a kind of shedding that accompanies leaving this job. My mind feels sharper and more resourceful. I feel more alive.

I am not who I was six years ago. Dang, but I have done a lot of yoga since then, substituted for my teacher, and finally trained as a teacher.

I’ve taken two levels of NLP training and presented on NLP topics, with plans to do more and some coaching again.

I finally read all the Carlos Castaneda books and discovered some great poets and took up the pennywhistle.

I’ve traveled to Maui twice and discovered West Texas.

I’ve been in and out of relationship a couple of times.

I’ve been a support for my daughter while she’s gone to nursing school.

I’ve been an integral part of my granddaughter’s life.

I’ve worked hard on several health issues with a lot of success.

I’ve made some friends at work and gotten kudos for my work.

And of course, I started meditating and started this blog.

Really, I cannot count all the changes I’ve made while working in this same steady job. The job has made it possible for me to grow and change, and now it seems I’ve outgrown the job.

I’ve come to accept that truly, life is change, that change is the key characteristic of life. I walk towards it now.

Would you like some theta brain waves with that?

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According to the book I’m reading, What Really Matters: The Search for Wisdom in America, many of the biofeedback pioneers viewed the early focus on training people to experience the alpha range of brain waves as a mistake. Elmer Green, biofeedback pioneer said,

Alpha is finally only an idling state. It’s ten times better than beta when you’re tense, but beyond a certain level of relaxation, it doesn’t have that much to offer by itself. If you want to truly grow, the only way you’re going to do that is through the deeper state of theta. That’s where you can interrogate the unconscious and even gain the ability to reprogram it. The true value of alpha is that it’s a necessary bridge between beta and theta.

Green did research on theta in the early 1970s. Neurofeedback studies of yogis and monks showed that as they moved into deep levels of meditation, alpha eventually gave way to long trains of theta waves. Zen masters have described this deep state as having access to some deeper level of truth or knowing.

The challenge is to learn how to experience theta without falling asleep. Our most common experience of a pure theta state is in those moments when we are falling asleep or awakening, when our minds let go of rational thought and often spontaneously form images.

We found theta to be associated with a deeply internalized state. The state of deep quietness of body, emotions, and mind…achieved in theta training seems to build a bridge between conscious and unconscious processes and allows usually “unheard” things to come to consciousness. It’s as if you have two radio signals. One is loud, the other is very soft and faint. To hear the faint one, you have to turn the loud one down. We go into theta to get this loud noise of normal waking consciousness turned off, so we can hear the softer voice underneath. And we do that because the breadth of our consciousness turns out to extend far beyond what we’re usually conscious of.

The book goes on to relate studies done by Green and associates where they trained themselves and others to relax the body, quiet the mind, let go of emotional tension, and increase theta while remaining awake enough to be aware of the imagery that arose.

College students so trained were able to recall rich imagery, including long-forgotten childhood events. After the studies, a significant percentage of students reported positive changes, including greater clarity, more energy, improved relationships, and better concentration and recall.

Green went to India to study brain wave patterns of advanced yogis and tested Ram Sharma, who could produce nearly pure theta waves on command while remaining fully conscious, unheard of in the West.

Green later said the value of theta training…

…is the relatively rapid development of a skill in shifting, without years of trial-and-error meditation, into a state of consciousness in which one comes face to face with one’s Self…. You can feel all the mental, physical, and emotional things going on around you and in you and yet not be identified with the individual pieces.

So how can you experience theta without a neurofeedback machine? I’ve experienced it when receiving cranio-sacral therapy, esoteric acupuncture, regular acupuncture, and massage, and also through meditation.

Once experienced, it becomes easier to re-experience.

Suffering more effectively

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Every Wednesday, I get an email from Nipun Mehta called InnerNet Weekly, also viewable in a browser. Here’s the link to view this week’s message on how to suffer more effectively, written by Shinzen Young.

Therefore, there is nothing whatsoever to be said in favor of pain per se for meditators. It can just as much create new blockages as it can break up old ones. Everything depends on one’s degree of skill in experiencing it. Very little depends on the intensity of the discomfort itself. A small discomfort greeted with a large amount of skill will break up old knots. A small discomfort greeted with a large lack of skill will create new knots. The same is true with respect to big discomforts. The trick is not so much to endure massive doses of pain, but to develop that skill which will allow you to get the maximum growth out of whatever happens to come up.

Click the link above to learn more about the skills needed.

Here’s more from Thomas Merton on suffering:

Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture. This is another of the great perversions by which the devil uses our philosophies to turn our whole nature inside out, and eviscerate all our capacities for good, turning them against ourselves.