Everyday Yogini

“Our bodies are brought to our attention usually under disagreeable circumstances.”

-Mabel Todd

Many of us come to Yoga to decrease our stress levels and relax our bodies and our minds.  I know that is certainly what inspired me to sign up for Yoga during my sophomore year of college.  I was tired and anxious, pretty much all the time.

The research is certainly proving that many illnesses and lots of our common, incurable, aches and pains are directly correlated to high-stress.  All illness is negatively impacted by stress - our body’s natural ability to heal is impaired when we are in a state of hyperarousal from tension.  And, frustrating as it may be, it is nearly impossible to live a stress-free existence.  Having children can be stressful, living in cities can be stressful, recessions can be stressful, hanging out with extended family members can be stressful, and on and on…

The best thing we can do for ourselves and the people we love is incorporate stress-reduction tools into our lives and work at reducing the main cause of stress, which is the way that we think about our circumstances. Mind-body coaching is a powerful, life-altering process for just that reason.  When our body starts talking to us, usually in the form of pain, exhaustion, or illness, we tend to resist it and want it to go away, right now!  However, if we can be patient and listen closely, we may come to see the pain that comes our way as a gift – the perfect springboard to heal our bodies and heal our lives.

As a yoga and meditation teacher, much of my coaching philosophy stems from my experience working with my own body and the bodies of my students.  Now, I apply much of that knowledge to coaching people one on one and incorporate the best coaching tools as well.  I use this method every day on myself, and teach it to my clients. People that commit to incorporating the tools into their lives see the following results: less pain and more energy, a sense of relaxed control, connection with innate happiness, and increased peace of mind.

If your interest is piqued, Bob Bessette of a a Totally Unique Life is running an interview today with myself and another coach - YAY!  Thanks Bob!  You can also go and take a look at (and subscribe to the RSS feed of) the final, final (I promise) home of my newly minted and re-designed coaching blog.  As a random aside, that has been one of the hardest aspects of becoming a coach - deciding what to focus on.  It seems silly, in retrospect.  I went back and looked at journals from up to 3 or 4 years ago, and when I was writing about what I hope to offer to the world, it was TOTALLY describing mind-body coaching.

In any case, as fellow Yoginis, you may know someone who is suffering from stress-based illness or pain.  If you do, feel free to refer them. Right now, I have two openings for new clients. Before getting started, I always have a 15 - 20 minute discussion with people to make sure we are a good fit for each other.  There is also no risk, as I have a 100% be satisfied guarantee.  If someone is unhappy or not getting what they want from coaching, all money is returned, no hassles.  That is just this Yogini’s way.

Got any other questions?  Let’s hear them!

I read, and synthesize, a lot of information about stress reduction, healing, pain, and working with the mind into my own life and into my coaching.  I was thinking the other day that it would be great to have a way to share this knowledge outside of one-on-one coaching, with a larger group who is interested, but may not have the time or inclination to get coached one-on-one, or read all the books and put everything to practice.  I would like you to benefit from my book obsession plus my experience as a coach, Yoga instructor, and someone who has tested the concepts in all of these books through my own dealing with stress-based illness and pain.

Would you like to put the healing concepts in these books (and more) to work in your life - with some support?  What about a mind-body mastery group? Sort of a book club - coaching hybrid, in my mind, however, I want to know what would be most beneficial to you.  Do you want to read the book, or, do you just want me to distill what I believe the most important concepts are and provide those for you?  Do you want a social networking site where you can connect with others who are working with the same ideas and types of issues?  Do you want an audio guide to the material for download that you can refer to again and again?  Would you like me to try and interview the author?

If you are interested, and this sounds like your kind of thing, please take the survey below.  And, if you are<em> really</em> interested, I would love to contact you when I have it ready to go.  Will you leave me your contact info in the survey?  No spam, ever.  Just me, contacting you, when I have more information about putting this together.  The poll is really short - less than 3 minutes.  I so appreciate your time and willingness to tell me more about what would be best for you!

You can visit the survey here.

I know I’ve mentioned Ode Magazine before.  A magazine for intelligent optimists.  I definitely consider myself among that group!  I get magazines on a bit of an odd schedule due to general mail wonkiness overseas, meaning I just received my August issue of Ode.  The entire issue is devoted to laughter: how it evolved, how it helps us, how it heals us.  The last one I’m particularly interested in… the benefits of laughter Yoga as part of healing our bodies.  It’s a short and sweet article, if you care to read up on the subject.

This week I had an epiphany about my coaching blog and how I want it to look and feel for the readers who come and hang out, I would love your input!  After all, it’s about you (if you read it), not about me.  I also wrote an entry about the purpose in pain, a topic close to my heart that I believe in passionately.  And, as always, some gratitude.  I was referring to my weekly gratitude practice as a well-loved life, but thought it would be more appropriately called Gratitude Junkies.  Gratitude has figured prominently in my own life as a vehicle to view challenges in a new light, so I often refer to myself as a gratitude junkie.  I love company in practicing gratitude - either on your own blog or, in the comments.

May your week be filled with laughter and happiness.  See you next week…

Seeing how much I love Squidoo, I decided to create another “lens” with links to some of my favorite books and Youtube clips related to healing, health, and happiness.  Do you have resources that you rely on or have found really helpful?  Tell me in the comments - I will absolutely check them out!

A full and rich life includes not only good times and happiness, but also low points and sadness.  We all know that, but many of us resist it, myself included.   

Over the past few months, while this blog has been relatively quiet (for me, anyway), things have been sort of not so great.  Not terrible, but, not great.  Being who I am, I am incapable of writing anything of real value without first being upfront about my own inner landscape.  This is probably a fault of epic proportion, but it is true.  

A few months ago, a neighbor from our home in the States was killed, tragically, in his home.  The details are gruesome and not worth repeating.  What is worth saying is that my neighbor was an amazing man, a pillar of the community, who was one of the first people outside of my family to hold my child.  He saw Clara take some of her first steps, and he and his wife helped to feed our family when we were trying to figure out how to be parents.  

I cannot even imagine the deep hole that has been left by his death - his family was so close, his children, always at their house with their children.   The feeling of utter helplessness in the face of such unthinkable circumstances has left me tired.  I cried on and off for days after I heard the news, but, after all, I am not family, I live thousands of miles away, and, in reality, am not terribly close to the family.  I want so much to reach out to my neighbor’s wife, but am struck by my insignificance and end up confused as to whether my efforts are more for my comfort or hers.  Hence, I do nothing but pray for her and the kids.

During all this, Clara was sick for, oh, five months.  After five months of quiet desperation (okay, not so quiet, really), finally, we were able to get a diagnosis, which is so simple, it’s silly.  The sweet girl is allergic to eggs and mold.  Finally, we are seeing improvement.  She’s sleeping, she’s going to the bathroom, her eyes are no longer swollen and runny, and her mood is improving.  My relief is huge, my gratitude for finding out relatively quickly is  immense. But it made for a hard winter.

Speaking of hard winter, last year, I thought my problem was simply being new to life in Rome. After this year, I now know, I cannot stand Rome in winter.  Thank goodness winter is not so long here, but it has seemed interminable.  I lived in the northwest most of my life, so I am okay with rain - it doesn’t bother me.  But this year, Rome saw more rain than I’ve ever seen in a short period of time.  It has been abysmal.  And I’m not exaggerating.  It’s finally sunny, and maybe that’s why I finally feel compelled to write again.

Added to all this, I have been unable to run.  And in my life, little exercise = little energy. Even with a consistent practice of Yoga and meditation, I need (NEED) serious aerobic exercise.  To maintain energy, to keep my perspective, to feel positive about life.  You might imagine, I really needed those things this winter, and they were unavailable to me.

With any luck, this doesn’t sound like whining.  I hope not, anyway.  For now, the sun has returned to Rome and it feels like Spring is on the way.  Clara is on the mend, and my heart is a softer, more tender place for losing my neighbor.  It’s the full experience, right?  How could I possibly feel the joy I feel when I see a blue sky had the rain not seemed endless?  How could I possibly see how lucky we are to have good medical care and a healthy child without the experience of her being ill for so long?  My list of gratitude could circle to world…

Ebb and flow, contraction and expansion, yin and yang- however we choose to refer to it, it is simply life in all it’s glory.  Our work is to lean in and be present to the full, rich and unedited, messy reality.  It can be difficult to sit with our strong emotions and our life challenges, to not try to wiggle away from the uncomfortable experiences and get back to the good stuff.

But, it IS worth it to try, if for nothing else than to stop fighting a good 50% of life experiences.      

I know I’ve mentioned Ode Magazine before. Definitely a personal favorite, their tag-line is, “the magazine for intelligent optimists” - who can’t get behind that?

Anyway, this month, I was delighted to find that one of their featured articles is “How to Help your Body Heal Itself”. So, if you are interested in reading what the experts have to say on the subject - not just me - check it out here.

Wondering why the mid-week blog post? Well, the British school system gives kids a one week break every 6 weeks, so Clara is home from school this week. She has spent a day with friends, a few days with me, a day with our house help, and tomorrow, she gets a special day with Daddy. I am so grateful that our lives are flexible enough to provide this kind of fun schedule for Clara.

As I convey my experience, I want to make it clear that I am acutely aware that my story is just one - and not a very serious case at that. There have been perhaps 7 days that I have been unable to function normally since this all began. I’ve still managed to show up for life and do what I need to do. Many people do not have that luxury when they are dealing with serious, life-threatening illness. However, I think there are universal lessons that I’ve learned that could be helpful for anyone dealing with emotional or physical pain.

But before I talk about what I think might be helpful for ANYONE dealing with pain, I need to complete the story, from then until now…

I have had at least five follow up gastroscopes. Three of them came in quick succession, because during a follow up that I insisted on (I was in a LOT of pain) they found a polyp growing out of the papilla and thought it might be cancerous. It wasn’t, but that was beyond stressful. After that episode, the doctors put me on proton pump inhibitors to decrease stomach acid, and I ended up being allergic to them. (I was having terrible kidney pain and the doctor’s were, really, blowing me off. Two days after I went off of the Prilosec, the pain was gone.)

I stopped eating gluten and dairy, after consulting with a nutritionist. Eventually, the doctors tested me for allergies and DID find the lactose intolerance - the gluten, well, I still hold out hope that I will be able to eat it again, but from my observations, I’m not there yet. I’ve taken a bunch of different supplements, but the ones I’ve stuck with have been anti-inflammatory in nature: fish oil, polyphenols, adaptogenic herbs, ginger, and acid neutralizers. I also started using “healing foods” like miso and kudzu. I tried QiGong as a healing therapy. Since arriving in Rome, I have not been to an acupuncturist - it’s so expensive here, but I wish I had access to one.

But really, the main theme that has been at work since this all began is me fighting with reality. To make the pain go away. Preferably yesterday. And of course, in the process of doing that, I learned a lot and discovered some very important things that have been critical in supporting my body. But in the end, healing wasn’t at all what I thought it was. Let me elaborate.

Body Care
Nutrition is a very important component of any healing program. Whether our pain is physical or emotional, it is so important to take care of our bodies with nourishing foods. It just so happened that I have some food intolerances that needed to be addressed, and it helped me, for sure, and I would encourage anyone having problems with fatigue, physical pain, or digestive issues to check it out.

Moving our bodies is another important part of supporting healing, and yet often, when we are in pain, we avoid exercise! Doing what you can, when you can, is, just like nutrition, a vital way to care for your body and your emotions. Think about how good you feel after you go for a walk or go to a Yoga class. This is even MORE important when we are physically or emotionally hurting.

In addition to eating well and exercising, being outside in the sunshine, in nature, is also so important and renews us is such important ways - not just physically.

I also incorporate little bits of serious self-care into my days: after showering, I massage my feet and ankles with lavender-scented oil, I drink MUCH less coffee, I rest with Clara in the afternoon, I also take baths a few times a week after Clara goes to sleep, and, finally, speaking of sleep, I make a point of getting enough.

Simple, important steps to support a healthy body and clear mind. Speaking of a clear mind…

Mind Management
Being informed is important, but is sort of a double edged sword. I tend to look at all the possible scenarios (online) and then end up freaking myself out (sound familiar to anyone?). That being said, knowing what I know has been invaluable in dealing with the medical system and asking for tests to rule things out. Everyone needs to be a partner with their health care providers and I don’t believe you can do that without being informed. Doctors are not infallible and they are not the experts on the bodies that we live in - we are.

I contend that an even more important use of your mind in the midst of crisis, physical pain, or emotional pain is using the power of your mind through visualization. I often visualize healing energy flowing through my body while using the mantra, “My mind is calm, my organs are healthy.” (I learned this through QiGong) I find this a very soothing practice that can be used anytime, anywhere.

If you have a regular meditation practice, now is a good time to use that training and become the witness to your own thoughts and be very conscientious of whether what they are telling you is actually true. That may sound a little weird, but more on that later.

Spirit Care
This, to me, is the most important part of the equation. And I have a story to tell before I talk more about this.

About two months ago, I just got tired of fighting with the pain. It was so apparent to me that every time I experienced pain, I was getting anxious and gyrating around, obsessing on what I could do to make it go away. At this particular time, I decided I just wanted to make friends with it. Tired of fighting, I increased my meditation practice in the hope it would help me co-habitate with the pain in my body. I also decided to alter my Yoga practice radically to be primarily mindfulness-based, so I would be spending a majority of my practice time focused on developing my ability to relax into the moment, into life as it presents itself in any given moment.

This was a very astute move.

Oddly enough, within a week or so of practicing in this way, my pain dropped off drastically. I have no explanation and it certainly wasn’t my goal, but, nonetheless, it’s true. Come to find out, this is not an entirely uncommon experience. Meditation has been shown to have dramatic effects on pain and mental states (like anxiety).

So, in the end, it all came back to the practices that I’ve been working with for 16 years - Yoga and meditation. There is also the work of Byron Katie, which is very complementary to meditation and Yoga, as it is completely focused on accepting what is happening in the moment. Byron Katie’s work should also go in the “Mind Management” category - although when used it definitely lightens the emotional load, it is very much a way to observe and question thoughts. I highly recommend it.

And, need I even mention the practice of gratitude?

_____________________

At the end of the day, today to be precise, I still have pain. Not every day, but it’s still there. However, I now consider myself definitely more healed than not. Because I don’t believe any longer that healing means “pain free”. Healing is an inherent quality of spirit, a sense of perspective. I love this quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn about what healing is, as opposed to curing:

“Healing implies the possibility for us to relate differently to illness, disability or even death as we learn to see with eyes of wholeness…. This comes from practicing such basic skills as going into and dwelling in states of deep physiological relaxation and seeing and transcending our fears and our boundaries of body and mind… Moments of experiencing wholeness, moments when you connect with the domain of your own being, often include a palpable sense of being larger than your illness or your problems and in a much better position to come to terms with them.”

Every day, when I sit to meditate, and often during the day, I turn my focus to the fact that I am breathing. As I write that, it literally gives me goosebumps and brings tears to my eyes. Just that simple awareness means so much - it means I am here to see my daughter grow up, I am here to share life with my husband, I am here to go to work, drink coffee, laugh with friends, walk the streets of Rome… the complete experience of life is mine to taste and touch.

And it is for you, too.

May you be well,
May you be happy,
May you be filled with peace.

How I wish it ended here.

After our arrival in Italy, I felt great physically. I had little, niggling pain now and again, but nothing that was of great concern. We were settling in to our new life- looking at schools for Clara, learning the neighborhood, getting a handle on our job here. I can’t say that I loved it- Rome is a very chaotic city and honestly, at first, I couldn’t be out in the city for more than a few hours without becoming cranky and overwhelmed. Rome is also not the cleanest city I’ve ever lived in and the idea of civic duty is lost on Romans. Everyone lets their dog poop on the sidewalks and garbage litters the streets. I was shocked by all of this, having travelled in the northern parts of Italy (think pristine and beautiful). So, I was not in love with being here when we arrived.

We finally moved in to our permanent apartment in mid-December. We celebrated Christmas and, as New Year’s approached, one evening I woke from a dead sleep, having the most intense pain I had ever felt. It felt as though I couldn’t breathe- the pain that radiated around my mid-section was incredible and I woke Erick immediately, telling him we needed to go to the hospital (seeing as I had been blown off in DC because I had never had blood work done during an acute episode of pain). Honestly, Erick was skeptical and we called an on-call nurse back in the States which proved to be useless. She told us to go to an Emergency Room. Of course. We then called the Embassy doctor and she called ahead to the hospital so someone would be expecting us. A sweet neighbor came to stay at our home with Clara, so we didn’t have to wake her.

I was scared - of what the doctors might find (or not find), of leaving Clara, of going to an Italian hospital, but mostly, I was scared of the pain. I felt like my body was failing me in the most basic of ways.

While we were driving out to the hospital, the intensity of the pain diminished greatly, which, in retrospect, indicated to the doctors that perhaps I had passed a leftover stone (from the gallbladder removal) through my bile ducts. In any case, I was admitted to the hospital and, to the credit of the Italian medical model, they took a thorough medical history, ran extensive blood tests and wouldn’t let me leave the hospital. Erick finally left to go home around 4:30 in the morning, and I tried to get some sleep, listening to Pema Chodron on my iPod for her soothing voice- knowing that my anxiety was not helping my body and wishing desperately that I could relax and be okay in the moment.

The next morning brought more tests. Unbelievably, here in Italy, doctors actually perform sonograms and CT scans. The GI doctor that was working my case took me personally to have the tests done and was given results on the spot (therefore, so was I).

Here is the rundown:
My liver enzymes were through the roof. This, combined with slightly dialated biliary ducts, indicated that I had passed a stone and/or the papillae between the bile ducts and the duodenum was dysfunctional. The CT scan showed nothing unusual. I ended up staying in the hospital another night, until my liver enzymes were coming down. The final morning, they finally gave me some weak tea and a piece of bread to eat. Food had never tasted so good, let me tell you!

My doctor insisted that I have an ERCP to rule out the possibility of any other stones in my bile ducts, and, they wanted to take a look at the papillae. This was scheduled for mid-January. Leaving the hospital on New Year’s Eve, I felt pretty good. I felt confident that I had passed a stone and that they would find nothing during the mid-January follow up. At least, that was my hope.

Mid-January came, and, to read my perspective in that moment you should read this. To hear about my hospital stay during the procedure, read this.

By the time I had the procedure, I had been dealing with the pain on and off for eight months and was thinking that the procedure would be the conclusion of this story. I was focusing heavily on nutrition and self-care in an effort to “be better”.

Little did I know that really, the path toward my healing had barely even begun.

Any good story should have a dramatic entrance. My story is ushered in by the birth of Clara. One of the happiest days of my life, to be sure. Shortly after she arrived, I began having terrible attacks of pain in the middle of the night. Radiating, sharp pain underneath my ribcage, to the right. I will blame sleep deprivation and nursing-brain on the fact that I did not seek medical care for this right away. In fact, I didn’t even think about it being a real problem until I had some blood work done four months post-partum and my liver enzymes were off a bit. My doctor was unconcerned about the enzymes, but I put the pieces together and told her I thought it might be my gallbladder (my Father had recently had his removed and I was familiar with his symptoms). One sonogram later, I was informed my gallbladder was full of stones. A few weeks after that, I was gallbladder-free and back to sleepless nights of nursing instead of sleepless nights of pain and nursing.

But of course, the story doesn’t end there.

Periodically, over the next two years, I would get similar shooting pains in the exact same place. Often when exercising, it would feel like a stitch in my side, but always right in that same spot. At the time, it was just a vague annoyance and would come and go rather quickly. I was too busy chasing after Clara to pay too much attention, frankly. I just chalked it up to a post-surgery quirk that would eventually fade into memory. But, I was “doing” all the right things: eating well, exercising, and practicing “small-child-in-the house-Yoga” which means five minutes of dedicated time on the Yoga mat is a miracle. And, along with doing all the right things, I was happy. Really, really, happy.

During this period, we were living in Colorado, in a co-housing community that I simply love (in fact, we still own our home there and plan, someday, to return). I made some wonderful friends in Colorado- more so than at any other time in my life. Really. Growing up in a military family, we moved a lot and well, we weren’t the highest of functioning families, so making friends and keeping them was a skill that I didn’t really learn. I was so happy to be living in community, but to be honest, I complained a lot (a terrible habit).  In any case, marrying a military man, I knew we would leave again, but I was dreading it. As in, deep-down, despairing kind of dread.

When the news came down that we were, in fact, moving, and it would be two quick moves in succession- first to D.C. for 7 months of training and then onto Rome for three years, outwardly, I was ecstatic. “Rome? Of course I can’t wait to move to Italy, everyone! This is the greatest thing EVER!!!” Inwardly, I was grief-stricken to be leaving the place Clara was born, and the community that I love so much. I didn’t WANT to go to D.C. or Rome. And I was scared… scared of what was coming and a more than a little pissed that my future seemed to be completely outside of my control.

The logistics of moving and getting settled in to our life in D.C. kept me occupied and busy enough to ignore all of this emotional darkness for a while. But the perfect storm was brewing in my body with the assistance of the tension, grief, fear, and anger that I was suppressing. In addition to all of this, I had completed the Portland Marathon (I walked it with my Mom) before moving, and had become inspired to become a runner. I began aggressively training for a marathon, doing long-distance running in which the pain in my side would be with me the entire run and after. 

But, I ignored it, just as I was ignoring the incredible swell of emotions that was barely below the surface.  

I have resisted writing about the ongoing, physical pain that I’ve dealt with (although I have, on occassion).  Let’s face it, in our culture, pain, illness, and old-age are all pushed away and ignored.  I know I have certainly been guilty of mentally and emotionally (even physically!) checking out from the reality of pain and suffering in those around me.  But, the fact is, no-one escapes this life without illness, pain of some kind, or, at the very least, death.  And, after a year and a half of learning to co-habitate with pain, I feel like I might be able to offer some hope, some practical ideas for living with chronic pain, or, at the least, someone might feel comfort in reading my story.  So,  however long it might take, I am going to share the full, unabridged story (as I remember it) and also the meandering path of healing that I have taken to arrive here, today. 

Because today, I feel good.  In fact, most days I feel good now.  I feel pain, but, it doesn’t consume my thoughts in a panicky, “What is wrong with me make it go away” sort of way.  To me, this is the essence of healing (quite different from “a cure”)- accepting life exactly as it is in the moment.  This doesn’t mean giving up, this doesn’t mean not researching, asking questions, and looking for alternatives.  This also doesn’t preclude hope and faith in a future that might be pain and illness-free.  However, what it does mean is a shift in perception- to acceptance, and also to treating this companion of pain as just that- a companion capable of teaching important lessons and offering great blessings to life.

So stay tuned, if you are so inclined.