When Marius, Cosette, and Epipen are invited to an allergy-friendly party at the house of Jean Valjean, each must create a dish absent of all possible allergens.
I know how they feel sometimes.
I love this video about Arthur, a disabled Gulf war vet who felt hopeless and got fat, who was turned down by many yoga teachers. Then he met the manly yoga teacher Diamond Dallas Page, who asked himself:
How am I gonna help that guy?
That’s all it takes from the teacher. Arthur was willing to make an effort and fail:
Just because I can’t do it today doesn’t mean I can’t do it some day.
And that’s all it takes from the student.
I hope it inspires your practice, whether it’s yoga or commitment to any path toward health.
I found these blessings from Glenda Blessing on YouTube endearing and enchanting, inspiring and unique, and after watching them all, I feel very blessed. It’s like she is talking to me! She blesses from her heart and means every word of each blessing.
Watch them, and you will feel blessed too! The longest ones are only 15 seconds.
What a wonderful use of the Internet!
Long-time readers know I spent some time and energy on learning the trauma releasing exercises of David Berceli and practicing them. (If you’re a new reader, you can search this blog for TRE or trauma releasing exercises or Berceli to see my many posts on the topic.
If you want to learn them, I recommend Berceli’s book and video.)
I haven’t written much about them for a while. I still value them very much as a tool for releasing tension.
Sometimes at ecstatic dance, I allow my legs to shake. Nobody notices or comments, ever.
Some mornings I wake up and just know I need to do them. I may tremble for 30 seconds to a minute or two. It doesn’t have to last long to be effective.
I imagine that the more you do them and really surrender to them, the less you need to do them. Also, the more you do them, the more aware you become of tensions accumulating in your body, and you adjust sooner — taking a deep, cleansing breath to let it all out, stretching and moving the tense area.
This morning I did them for longer, because my body wanted to keep going. First my legs surrendered to the shaking, then left my arm flapped, then right my arm flapped, then my lower spine hammered, then my upper spine waved, then more legs, and so on. It’s entertaining to witness where the surrendering moves!
Then afterward, the fine buzz inhabiting my body. Mmm. Chi. Prana. Energy.
Walk to my yoga mat. Tadasana, feeling feet, upward energy. Stretching arms up into hastasana circling to anjali mudra several times to warm shoulders up, each with my gaze a little higher, a little more backbend to stretch the front fascial lines.
Then from hips, float down into uttanasana and just hang, stretching the back fascial lines. Feel my tight hamstrings. Hold. Breathe. They become like rubber bands, surrendering to the stretch. Then extend spine and re-bow.
Left leg back into lunge. Feeling the tight gastrocnemius and soleus. Push heel back and breathe. Right leg back to join it. Breathe length into calves.
Plank, with spread fingers, sturdy column arms under shoulders. Feel strength. Pressing palms and fingers evenly into mat, slowly lowering into chataranga, feeling creaks and twinges in shoulders and elbows.
Once flat, press pelvis and tops of feet into floor and lift up into bhujangasana, cobra. Imagine the fronts of my vertebrae, deep in the middle of my torso, fanning wide open to give and receive and expand my energy. This spine, this flexible column of bone, fluids, muscle, nerve, dura, this central channel, this backbone. Yes.
Turn toes under. Strongly lift my body up, elevating my pelvis as high as it will go. Push palms and fingers evenly into floor. Push heels back to stretch my soles (I’m hearing my teacher Eleanor Harris now). Lift sit bones to ceiling. Rise on tiptoes, then settle on feet, allowing spine to surrender to gravity between cranium and sacrum. Feel strong shoulders. Downward-facing dog, adho mukha svanasana.
“Enjoy your breath,” as my teacher Brigitte Edery is fond of saying. And I do.
Then bring right leg forward into lunge. Then today’s standing sequence, a vinyasa within a vinyasa: warrior two, extended side angle, reverse extended side angle, triangle, reverse triangle, ardha chandrasana, warrior one, warrior three. Nice standing vinyasa (with room for improvement in the sequencing, I notice), and I am aware of all the different stretches each pose brings where spine meets pelvis meets thighs.
I am pleased with my balance in ardha chandrasana, but I need to put my extended arms on the top of a stool to hold warrior three. There’s always an edge. Today, and probably for a few weeks (or months, who knows?), that’s mine — balancing in warrior three.
Then back to lunge, uttanasana (notice how much deeper my fold is), extending spine, and reverse swan dive up, arms circling back down into anjali mudra.
Repeat on other side.
I follow with pigeon, a deep twist (thrilling as my shoulders reached the floor), happy baby, and rock to standing.
I am in my body, ready for today, for ecstatic dance, for community, for work, for learning prenatal massage.
Feeling very grateful for my friends, and for my teacher Gabrielle Roth, whose work I knew better than I knew her personally, who was so influential in opening my awareness up to new movements, rhythms, and energies in life, who is in her own life now moving into stillness. She dedicated her life to healing the mind-body split. Amen to that.
Here’s my favorite Gabrielle quote:
After you jump, before you land is God.
I’m going to light a candle and open myself up to God.
In yoga, we learn that forward bends are calming (think fetal position, child’s pose), while backbends are stimulating. In a yoga class, after backbends, students usually start chattering!
Imagine holding your body upright in a relaxed manner, with the weight appropriately divided between front and back. Let your shoulders surrender to gravity. Imagine doing this with ease and breathing freely.
This is such a simple point that it’s easy to overlook how easy, and powerful, a tool this is to keep in mind. When you’re depressed, make an effort to sit up, and relax. When you’re excited, make an effort to breathe.
Buddhism: 50% of your State of Mind is dependent on your Posture. | elephant journal
For more on how body language influences experience, here’s a TED Talk on the subject. Amy Cuddy is a researcher at the Harvard Business School who shares some fascinating findings and her own story.
I particularly like “fake it ’til you become it” and “tiny tweaks —> BIG CHANGES.
Plus, two minutes. That’s all. Two minutes is all it takes to change your state.
Insomnia is a malady I have rarely had over the last few years. Only when I drink caffeine late in the day (I usually know better), and even more rarely, when I feel so disturbed about some issue in my life that my mind can’t let go of it do I lie awake at night unable to sleep and feel like a zombie the next day.
I have experienced months of insomnia every night in the past, however, and that experience has given me great compassion for those who suffer from it. A good night’s sleep is just essential for well-being.
I’ve posted about various remedies for insomnia occasionally. You can search my blog on “insomnia” to find those posts if you wish.
Cures or relief from insomnia is a topic of great interest. New information emerges. I’m interested in what works. Could it be that there is not a “one size fits all” cure for insomnia?
Today I stumbled across a video purportedly created by scientists to help you sleep. I listened to it (and did not fall asleep, but it’s morning and I am well rested already). I found it very peaceful. I can imagine that it would help me fall asleep.
Here’s the link if you want to give it a try:
http://www.wimp.com/scientistscreated/
The only other information I could find is that the video and music are by a band called Marconi Union. I don’t know if this is a band of scientists or what!
The best help I know of for insomnia (and the most expensive) is brainwave optimization. I wasn’t experiencing any insomnia when I did the five days of brain training in June 2011. But it has been known to help with insomnia, and a study is underway to learn more about its effects on insomnia.
Even more awesome, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is undertaking this study of insomnia, and other studies are planned for migraines, mild cognitive impairment, and traumatic brain injury/concussion later this year!
love how poetry feeds my soul. enjoy this sunday bonus.
Several readers have shared their experiences of doing the trauma releasing exercises of David Berceli here on this blog. Here’s a new report. David writes:
I ordered the video and it arrived yesterday. I tried the exercises for a second time today. I did the preparatory stretches and then did the wall position. Leaning against the wall I just tried to get deeper into my breathing, but for the longest time very little happened. I was having little tremors, but they still felt half-way forced.
Then gradually, after about seven minutes, some real trembling and shaking started. The more relaxed I became the more pronounced they were. I had no control over them at all. I almost felt like shouting down to my wife to come upstairs and see what was happening, because it was so strange. Just overall, rapid involuntary tremors in my legs, through my pelvis and along my torso. They went on and on for at least ten minutes.
Then I tried the lying position and it was less successful. Still, I’m grateful I tried and I’ll keep doing them.
Thank you, David, for writing.
Doing the exercises can generate the release of muscle tension in the form of shaking and trembling, but it doesn’t happen automatically.
It’s great that David kept at it. Tried the exercises a second time and continued to be willing for the trembling and shaking to start after having little “half-way forced” tremors.
There is a step in inducing tremors for the first time that no one can instruct you how to do. Between doing the exercises and involuntarily shaking and trembling, there’s a step that I think of as surrendering. It is a skill, but it’s a skill of “not doing” rather than doing. You have to be able to let go of your need to control your body.
That can be scary, but it can be done.
For some people, surrendering is easy and natural. For others, especially people who have been traumatized and who are carrying tension in their bodies, it isn’t easy or natural at all.
If you are one of these people, I urge you not to give up. Just keep at it and eventually you will surrender and shake.
Since I’ve posted before on how prolonged sitting is unhealthy and how to counteract it, and I’ve promoted standing desks, I want to bring this to your attention (and thanks, Shelley Seale, for bringing it to mine).
This is on the heel of news that sitting less could add two years to your life expectancy.
It is a stationary bicycle with a desktop attached to the front of it. You can pedal and keep your leg muscles active, improve circulation, burn calories, circulate lymph, move cerebrospinal fluid, and more, while working or playing video games!
The FitDesk X Compact Pedal Desk is for sale on Amazon for $249.99. Amazon will cross-sell you a comfy bicycle seat and a laptop/iPad holder to go with it.
The seller offers a full refund (plus shipping) within 30 days if you are not satisfied with it. (Hint: Save the carton.)
One thing I really love about Amazon is reading the customer reviews. This product gets an average of 4.5 stars from 111 reviewers (all gave it 3 to 5 stars). Here are what some said:
It sounds like it won’t compare to serious exercise bikes, but the whole point of it is not getting a strenuous workout but rather getting a light workout over time while getting computer work accomplished or playing video games.
Okay, okay! I want one! I’m drooling at the thought of cycling while writing blog posts! Would be awesome to have one at my next corporate stint.
The FitDesk weighs 33 lbs., holds users up to 250 pounds, and has a “seat extender” available for tall people. It is easy to fold up and move.
Also, there may (or may not, since the product is being continually improved) be issues with the electronic monitor, and I couldn’t get the straight dope on that.
The company has a video showing the product in use:
You can “like” FitDesk on Facebook (where they offer discount codes and giveaways) and follow @fitdesk on Twitter.
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Follow-up on 7.13.2012: The maker of the FitDesk has offered to send me one to try out! I love it! Will post on the experience, with photos!
I found more videos of Tao Porchon-Lynch, the world’s oldest living yoga teacher. I just can’t get enough of her! She’s my inspiration, my role model for wellness, because what she can do now is based on what she did when she was much younger: a lifetime of good habits.
She looks, sounds, and feels so healthy! She seems to be wonderfully sweet and so full of vitality! Seeing her living so well is very motivating.
In the first video, she talks about yoga, and you see her teaching a class:
In the second video, she displays amazing ballroom dancing skills. That was filmed in 2009, when she was “only” 91. Her partner looks to be about one-third her age, yet they are well matched on the dance floor.
If you didn’t know, would you ever have guessed she was even over 70?
She has her own website here: http://taoporchon-lynch.com/.
Also, if you missed them, see my earlier posts, The world’s oldest living yoga teacher and More from the world’s oldest living yoga teacher: she tangos!
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 