writings

Remapping Our Minds

Feb 19, 2012 (7) Comments

Love really is a state of equality consciousness; no speculation, no assumptions or opinions. Love is happening when we’re relating, directly, to what is happening. Lately I’ve been learning how to relate directly to my life rather than through my memories or expectations. I’m actively rooting out my expressions of anger by paying $1 for every doubting thought. My anger, I’ve realized, is just sad doubt, which, unchecked, morphs into aggression. I’m averaging about 4 bucks per day, down from about 8 a couple weeks ago. Not bad.

While at first it was annoying and mildly horrifying, it’s funny to label them now. There’s the doubt that I’m good enough at anything, or the one where my boyfriend might leave, or  that one about what a mediocre teacher I am, or what a shitty mama I’m being. [Note, those of you who know and love me, I know the doubts are untrue, but there they are, again and again]. I’m thrilled by the prospect of getting deeper into the process of seeing it all so clearly and plainly in order to ultimately clear them out of my world.

So presumably because of all this detailed work, these days I’m hearing myself angry in my dreams, calling people names out of  fear that they will leave me or wrong me. Strangest bit is that I always get the “do-over” in my dreams; I somehow get to literally pause, rewind and rewrite the scene now. [Note, I do this with my son aLOT, offer him the "do-over" so he can have a second chance to do the right thing, before I get that angry face going. What a revolution that has been for both of us.] It’s incredible. I awaken from those dreams refreshed, reset, rewired.

Which brings me to the potentiality with which we are playing now. Remapping our minds.

Firstly, with the assignment of seeing each doubting THOUGHT (bless you Beth Weissenberger), we can become true masters of our minds, and authors of our lives. In real time. Excruciating initially, this really does feel like a victory within myself when I open up that memo in my phone and note those thoughts each day. Beth says to go for 6 weeks in order to reboot the system. I’m nearing the end of week 2.

Secondly, that potential “reboot” is actually the exhilarating possibility of re-mapping our brains. Meditation is a key aspect of this, and with even short meditations plus assiduous observation of those debilitating thoughts, our brains literally re-map themselves. With this we really do find more space, clarity and consciousness. We really do have longer-term, more healing experiences of love. May we all stay in Love – in direct relationship to the crazy wisdom of this present moment.

Valentine’s Wish List: Study, Savor, Heal

Feb 13, 2012 (0) Comments

STUDY
*Darren’s YOGA RESOURCE book is the best there is, for anyone who practices or teaches yoga.
*Mid-March break at Kripalu; delicious yoga and flower essences.
*If you’re a yoga teacher in or around NYC, come study the method that has my family closer, my practice more real, and me more proud of my parenting and my ways of handling conflict in any context.
*If you’re a yoga student anywhere in the world, take this genius telecourse which will introduce you to the concepts of this brilliant method.

SAVOR
*Lisa’s Wei of Chocolate is the cleanest, yummiest. Get the assorted bag; you’ll be everyone’s hero.
*GIVE scent is my own project, alongside my forever-sister-in-law Alexandra Lyon Perelman, to benefit Women for Women International. Irresistible is the only word for it. All Goddesses LOVE it, and I am honoured to share this natural, super clean creation with the world.
*CONNECT mala bracelet also benefits Women for Women and is made of sandalwood and amethyst, and I cannot take mine off…

HEAL
*Leila’s Harmonyum treatments in NYC: invaluable for my own healing. Email elena@virayoga.com; I’ll connnect you.
*Shandoah’s Shiatsu, also NYC, the best.
*Katie’s Lotus Wei flower essences; for you, your love, especially your kids (Jonah’s daily faves: Joy elixir drops and Infinite Love mist).

 

 

 

Why to Meditate

Jan 21, 2012 (0) Comments

Parrot Cay

Citation - Database: PsycARTICLES [ Journal Article ]

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for individuals whose lives have been affected by cancer:
A randomized controlled trial.

Foley, Elizabeth; Baillie, Andrew; Huxter, Malcolm; Price, Melanie; Sinclair, Emma
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 78 (1), Feb 2010, 72-79. doi: 10.1037/a0017566

Abstract

Objective: This study evaluated the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for individuals with a diagnosis of cancer.

Method: Participants ( N = 115) diagnosed with cancer, across site and stage, were randomly allocated to either the treatment or the wait-list condition. Treatment was conducted at 1 site, by a single therapist, and involved participation in 8 weekly 2-hr sessions that focused on mindfulness.

Participants meditated for up to 1 hr daily and attended an additional full-day session during the course. Participants were assessed before treatment and 10 weeks later; this second assessment occurred immediately after completion of the program for the treatment condition. The treatment condition was also assessed at 3 months postintervention. All postinitial assessments were completed by assessors who were blind to treatment allocation.

Results: There were large and significant improvements:
in mindfulness (effect size [ES] = 0.55),
depression (ES = 0.83), anxiety (ES = 0.59),
and distress (ES = 0.53) as well as a trend for quality of life (ES = 0.30)
for MBCT participants as compared to those who had not received the training.

The wait-list group was assessed before and after receiving the intervention and demonstrated similar change.

Conclusions: These improvements represent clinically meaningful change and provide evidence for the provision of MBCT within oncology settings.

(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Where is Your Attention?

Dec 30, 2011 (4) Comments

[Posted on CrazySexyLife.com, 20 July 2011]

Do you ever feel that you deserve more love? Or that the people close to you should do a better job of showing you love? We expect everyone – our teachers, our partners, our parents, even our kids – to give us love, to help open our hearts. For me this expectation of love was debilitating, and I was making myself into a victim. To tap into real love – from my family, my beloved, my child, my friends – I needed (and still need) to take the drama out and just choose a course of action. Once I read this sentence it was clear.

“If you want to know about love, forget all about love, and look for direction.”
– G.I. Gurdjieff

Direction, in this phrasing, refers to your attention, your direction in your work, your behavior, your mind, your heart. Where there is direction, there is consistency, clarity and consciousness. And where there is consistency, clarity and consciousness, all forms of love (respect, caring, listening) emanate naturally. Direction can be the simplest boundary: a bedtime for yourself so you can stick to your plan of action the following day, a rule for yourself around being on time. Start small. All we need is a way to be proud of ourselves and all sorts of positivity follows.

We humans mostly see ourselves as having clear direction, yet in most of our biggest choices in life there is an egregious element of happenstance, and a concurrent lack of that feeling of love. So I have two seemingly opposing proposals for all humans: read poetry, and get a life coach. Here’s why.

As a public school student in high school, landing freshman year at Cornell University in a roundtable-style poetry section limited to 10 students was a major privilege. I was one of 10 instead of one of 30, and each voice was instrumental to the conversation. Ever since, poetry holds me tight and will never let me go.

When e.e. cummings asks “since feeling is first/ who pays any attention to the syntax of things,” my mind and heart open, every time. When A.R. Ammons says that “… everything is magnificent with glory/ nothing is diminished/ nothing is diminished for me,” I’m reminded of that level of magnificence in everything I’m doing. Pia Tafdrup reminds me to “… open my eyes/ and consider the world: Mysteriously near, and crystal sharp.” Agi Mishol speaks for our silence, “You won’t be able to escape me/ I am the quiet in the disquiet of your bodies … I am the attentiveness found everywhere/ I rise out of you/ now.” And so I begin listening and locating my silence – again.

Reading poetry that’s tuned to that universal resonance is magical. Regardless of time or space, those sentiments plow directly into your heart and are etched as pivotal sensations. So when I began teaching yoga around 1998 (and since I had little understanding or trust in my teaching voice), I incorporated poetry into my teaching. For a long time I could only offer the heart, the history and the height of the yoga via the poetry. Immersed in Anusara yoga since 2000, poetry initially helped me create sacred space and articulate the heart via the postures -which I couldn’t have done without the poetry – in ways that were relevant off the mat.

Recently when I was asked to teach a yoga class wherein I’d invite renowned poets to read to us at pivotal points during class, this circle was completed for me.

Poetry held me aloft in times of certain self-sabotage; it gave voice to my states of being and pointed me toward my heart again and again. Poetry granted me a sense of universally connective direction early in my teaching, and still lives in my heart and my voice. The words led me toward a friendship with myself that is only now coming truly to fruition, 10 years later. But what I needed to fully manifest that friendship, and find my voice as it is now, was an actual map. Poetry opened the door to my heart, but just behind that door was another one, the one that had me keeping all sorts of secrets that I thought were protecting myself and others, and I had no way in.

Finding the work of the Handel Group gave me the keys to that door, by holding up a mirror to the fears that led to the secrets. Those past secrets (from little ones like smoking to big ones like cheating and lying), once unraveled in the process of coaching, have taught me how to tell the truth directly through my most intense and impeding fears. Confessing what I’ve hidden has led to healing, magical conversations with family and friends that I’d never dreamed of having, and revealed a sensation of love that I’ve never known.

To have the privilege of truly designing my life, by writing out my dreams and then bravely living into them, detail by detail, requires a quality of heightened direction and practical momentum inherent to the coaching work. It’s simple direction, and once we have it, we are unstoppable. We have to practice having the craziest conversations, practice coming clean in situations, practice being simultaneously receptive and active with total elegance – it’s just a matter of direction. One thing at a time.

“To gain anything real, long practice is necessary. Try to accomplish very small things first.” – G.I. Gurdjieff

 

Photo credit: kiwikeith


Eleven Teachings

Dec 24, 2011 (6) Comments

 

 

there is nobody to blame

nothing to fear
nowhere to hide
no secret to keep.

there is one Love

one Light
one Heart
one Body
one Privilege
one Source
one Family.

Wanderlust Speakeasy Vermont 2011

Dec 02, 2011 (4) Comments

Elena Brower at the Wanderlust Festival Speakeasy Vermont 2011

Lead in your family, release your inner commentary, tell the truth and bring the LIGHT. Practicing telling the truth heightens our immunity, helps us lead in our families and reveals the LIGHT that lives in all of us.