Feeling anxious or stressed? I’m posting this in the week before the 2016 election and there’s a lot of fear and anxiety going around.
Left nostril breathing is a simple practice to help you lower anxiety by activating the right hemisphere of the brain.
If you are feeling anxious or having trouble sleeping, often the left nostril is less clear than the right. This practice opens up the left nostril so you can breathe more easily. It can help mellow you out or induce sleep at night.
Try it as part of your meditation practice, in the bathtub or in bed, in the doctor’s office or anywhere! Let me know your experience. Sat nam.
Learn a simple practice for bringing in PRANA (life force energy) and releasing tension and fatigue. Breathe IN with 3 sniffs as you extend the arms forward, to the sides, and up over the head.
Exhale through the mouth in a sigh as you come into a forward bend. Keep the knees bent to protect the lower back. If you prefer, do not come all the way forward, simply curl forward extending your hands toward your knees.
Go absolutely at your own pace. Go at the pace that feels right, even pleasurable to you, in synch with your body.
You can do this practice 3 times to start or for as long as feels right to you.
What if I lie down Right Now? What if I trust that giving myself permission to rest is part of my healing, part of my commitment to nurturing body and mind?
This week has been a very busy one for me. I’m already tired.
October is a full month with my daughter. There is a national holiday and at least 4 half days for teacher inservice and parent conferences. Halloween looms large and costume planning begins early. There’s the sock hop, book fair and school carnival.
In my home, there’s another event in October that rises far above national holidays. My daughter’s birthday.
Last Thursday, she turned 9. Yesterday marked the end of a week of festivities for my little extrovert, who loves big parties and plans events to the last detail.
Diva Party
October is quite an anniversary month for me. It holds memories of excited anticipation about her upcoming birth. I remember getting her little onesies ready, diapers arranged, and the changing table set up.
Because of what followed, it also holds the memory of having a painful lump in my breast that wouldn’t go away.
Two weeks before my scheduled due date, I went to see a doctor about the lump. After examining it, he recommended that I get an immediate biopsy. I was so surprised. I remember nodding that I understood this strange suggestion. Really?
“What exactly is a biopsy?” I asked myself a few minutes later in the car. How bizarre. What would be the need for that?
I was in my best health ever and preparing for a beautiful home birth. I felt strong and full of faith in my body’s natural capacities and strength, as well as my faith in God. Things were working out exactly as they were supposed to.
I put aside the idea of a biopsy, and went to my appointment at the midwife’s office. I was planning to pick up an inflatable birthing tub so we would be ready.
After visiting a few minutes in her office and telling her of the suggested biopsy, I started labor, 2 weeks early, without getting the tub into the car!
In retrospect, I believe my body had a deeper wisdom.
Thanks to my body’s knowing, it was my daughter’s good fortune to be born in hope and joy, free of the parental fear that would soon envelop us.
In my Yoga and Talk® Groups and classes, I hear a common desire from cancer survivors to make every moment count, and to get back to “normal” as soon as possible.
But we need rest in order to heal. After surgery, chemo, radiation, ongoing medications, and adjusting to side effects, we need lots of sleep and self care.
Instead of treating tiredness and fatigue with caffeine and sugar, we must give ourselves permission to take a break.
These days I am listening for the answers to these questions:
What foods will be truly nurturing and energizing to my body?
How can I schedule my life so there is room for mistakes, forgetting, traffic, running late?
Can I schedule in some fun and play?
Can I arrange to be present for my kid when she’s sick or sad?
Can I give myself permission to lie down and rest? Even when I’m no longer ill?
Meditation for improving “chemobrain” using Kirtan Kriya.
Kirtan Kriya is a simple meditation from Kundalini Yoga that has been studied at UCLA by Dr. Dharma Singh, author of Meditation as Medicine, and has been shown to improve memory and cognition and decrease inflammation, two areas of interest for cancer survivors.
There are multiple tasks in this meditation: movement of the fingers, speaking the sounds, moving through the voices, and observing your experience in a kindly way without judging yourself.
Eyes are closed. In a more advanced practice to be described later, there is an additional mental focus.
