Mind

Hamstrung

Posted on October 2, 2013October 2, 2013 by stilllearning2b

I have runner’s legs.

That’s not necessarily a good thing.

My hamstrings, hips and IT bands are perpetually tight, pulled taut from a combination of balled muscle and stuck fascia. Not only does it hinder my ability to touch my toes, it also leads to biomechanical issues and pain, especially as I get older.

Prior to this fall and its associated craziness, I was making good progress on my legs. I had committed to 30 minutes or more of yoga daily, with an emphasis on loosening the lower body. I was looser. Freer. My body learned to work together as the binds began to unravel.

And then the move happened.

And yoga didn’t.

So now I have runner’s legs.

And mover’s back.

The tension spread when I wasn’t watching, migrating up from the hips, along the spine to settle between the shoulder blades and around the neck.

It’s all connected. I turn my head to the side and I feel the pull all the way down to my hip.

So back to yoga I go.

Hamstring work has always been a challenge for me. They resist. They struggle. When we engage in a battle of wills, they always win.

The harder I push, the more they grip, the golgi bodies responding out of fear to protect the delicate tendons beneath.

There are tricks in hamstring work, techniques to encourage the muscle to relax and lengthen.

These same tricks work for our minds.

Much like the golgi bodies buried within our muscles send signals to protect the surrounding tissue from overstretching, our minds respond to too much pressure by sending out panic signals that encourage gripping. Holding on to whatever is causing the pain.

Constriction.

Status quo.

We can stay there or we can learn how to outsmart those signals and encourage letting go.

Breathe

Any effective hamstring work has to start with the breath. When your breath is restricted, tight, your body receives a signal to hold on. To everything. When the breath is full and complete, the body and mind relax and feel safe releasing a bit more with each exhale, trusting that the next inhale will come. Everything is connected. You can soften your hamstrings or calm your mind with nothing more than a few moments of mindful breath.

Face, But Don’t Force

When I first started doing yoga, I couldn’t find the right balance to use. I would either back off in difficult poses, afraid of facing the pain or I would meet it head on and engage in a game of chicken.

Neither works.

In order to let go of the pain, you have to face it. Acknowledge it. Greet it. But greet it gently. Just like you don’t respond well to a stranger running up to you, your discomfort won’t like a harsh welcome.

It will hide.

Instead, recognize it. Accept that it is there in whatever form it takes today. And then allow it to soften.

Be Patient

My hamstrings and I have a different perception of time. To me, a few seconds in a forward fold is plenty. To my legs, however, that’s just the first note of an entire concert. I’ve had to learn to operate on their schedule in order to see any progress.

Even when that means holding a single pose for 10+ minutes.

It’s amazing what the mind will kick up when I’m holding a pose.

It throws up excuses.

Reasons to hold onto the pain.

The trick is not to listen.

And breathe.

Releasing mental anguish is no different. We want it to be pulled from our lives in one great swoop, a magician drawing a scarf from a hat.

It takes time. Instead of the magician, picture playing Operation, a steady and careful hand patiently removing each offending piece, careful not to trigger the alarms.

It seems crazy that our minds and bodies want to hold on to what is causing us harm.

But they do.

You see, that’s a known pain. It becomes comfortable.

Whereas letting go risks the unknown.

And that is the scary part.

Consistency

This one hamstrung me this month. I stopped my daily practice and the pain crept back in. It’s subtle, so you don’t notice at first as you acclimate to the ever-increasing amplitude.

Until you do notice.

It’s so easy to think we’re done. Healed. All offending tissues have been softened and all issues resolved. But much as AA teaches that an addict is an addict for life, we are all healers for life.

It’s a daily process to remind ourselves to let go.

That it’s okay to feel suffering and it’s okay to release it.

It’s alright if you forget. Just acknowledge where you are today and breathe.

And begin again.

Flight, Fight or Breathe

Posted on July 5, 2013 by stilllearning2b

Our bodies lie to us.

They send out hormones announcing an imminent threat to our well being when we take the podium or when we get into an argument with a loved one. Our heart rate increases at the thought of taking a test and our immune system is compromised because of a noisy environment. We assume we are in danger because our body tells us so.

Our bodies lie to us.

They interpret so much stimuli (internal and external) as a threat and they respond with a cascade of physiological changes and adaptations that are referred to as the flight or fight response. It begins in the amygdala, a rather primal region of the brain that responds to perceived dangers. The hypothalamus taps the adrenal gland on the metaphorical shoulder to let it know to release adrenaline which leads to a release of cortisol, know familiarly as the stress hormone. Your brain doesn’t want to make you stressed; it wants to keep you alive. It has to assume that any perceived threat is valid and it responds by stimulating an increase in blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate and respiration. The blood flow is increased to your major muscle groups and diverted away from non-essentials, like digestion and immunity (after all, it doesn’t matter is you digest that steak or ward off that cold if you fall to the saber tooth in the next few minutes).

Our bodies lie to us.

And we so often listen. We may or may not be aware of the stressor, but we are certainly aware of our body’s response. We feel the agitation, the unease in the gut. We instinctively want to lash out, to attack the threat at its source. Or, we elect the other option and bury our heads, fleeing from the danger through action or addiction. If all threats were as simple as a saber tooth, this strategy would be effective. After all, a saber tooth and a human cannot peacefully coexist. The problem comes in that our modern lives possess endless saber toothed imposters, threats from every angle. Some of these dangers can be be effectively fought (a mistaken bill) or fled from (an obnoxious landlord). But, in many cases, we have to find a way to coexist with these imposters. They do not directly threaten our lives but, if we allow them, they can wear away at our defenses by overtaxing our adrenal system.

Our bodies lie to us.

They tell us that we must fight or flee. That we have only two choices. But there is a third option available. An option that will counteract the cascade started when the brain senses a threat. An option that teaches the body that the threats are not real and that you can be peaceful alongside of them. An option that uses the mind to teach the body.

Just breathe.

That’s it. It seems so simple, doesn’t it? But it’s not, especially when your body is screaming at you to move your fists or your feet. It’s not easy to trust, to let go of the impulse and to stay with the breath. It’s not easy to encourage the breath to slow and to allow to heart to follow suit.

Mindfulness meditation changes the body. It removes cortisol from the blood, essentially turning down the dial on the body’s alert system. Even more powerfully, meditation causes changes at the cellular level, counteracting the influence of flight or fight.

Our bodies lie to us.

They tell us that we do not have a choice. That if something is stressful, we have to be stressed.

Instead of moving your body, try moving your mind.

The mind knows the truth. We are only stressed if we allow ourselves to be. So, instead of fighting or fleeing,

just breathe.

Unless the saber tooth is real. Then, please run like the wind:)

Lose Your Illusion

Posted on January 18, 2013May 20, 2013 by stilllearning2b

(Any Guns ‘n Roses fans smiling at the title?)

Brock and I caught the second half of a show on Discovery last night about how easy it is to fool the brain. The first segment we saw had volunteers sitting at a table with their right arms hidden from sight behind a screen. A fake arm was then placed on the table in front of them. The researcher went through a few steps (I didn’t see the beginning, so I’m not sure what all this entailed) to make the participants connect with the fake arm. Then, the researcher slammed a hammer down on the plastic arm. Most of the volunteers jumped. Makes sense. Slam a hammer down in front of me and I’ll startle too. The interesting part, however, was that the majority of the participants claimed to feel pain in their fake hand. The brain was relying on the visual clues and was fooled into believing that the plastic substitute was indeed the real thing.

The brain’s fallibility goes well beyond parlor tricks. The brain is an expert at filling in the pieces, at seeing or hearing what it expects to see or hear and at creating a narrative to make sense of any input. We are not normally conscious of this effect; it happens quickly and automatically. In the case of the situations presented by the show, the illusions were inconsequential. It doesn’t really matter if your brain interprets wet rags on plywood as the sound of raining hamburgers in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I don’t think that misconception will impact your life one way or another. (I apologize if having this auditory trick revealed causes you any mental distress.)

That’s not always the case, however. When you take the brain’s innate tendencies to misinterpretation and to complete gaps with its own information and you add in all of the messy emotions of the human experience, you have a situation that can lead to trouble. We all live in a land of illusion to some extent. On a biological level, it is impossible to process every single piece of information that our senses are bombarded with every second. Our brain takes shortcuts. It makes sweeping generalizations. It has to. On an emotional level, we can try to be empathetic but we can never truly understand another’s perspective. We see the world through our own fallible filter.

The trouble comes when the illusions go too far. When we stubbornly act as though our fake-arm belief is the truth even when the screen hiding the reality is removed. It’s easy to believe our own narratives even when they are disproved. Manti Te’o held onto the belief that his girlfriend was real even though she never materialized in real life. Lance Armstrong refused to come clean about doping even when evidence to the contrary was produced. My ex husband failed to see his actions as wrong even when he was sitting in a jail cell.

To those of us on the outside, it seems so clear, so obvious. But that’s because it’s not our illusion. We are the bystanders who can see both the real arm behind the screen and the false one in front. It’s so difficult to see our own illusions. The mind puts up such strong defenses. It hates being wrong. Once it has decided on a narrative, it will work tirelessly to find and filter information that supports its conclusions.

My ex husband’s need to maintain the illusions was so strong that he attempted suicide soon after being released from jail. A couple of days later, he reached out to my mother via text. A brush with death had the effect of removing the screen for a brief period. One response of his really stands out:

I tried to create a world where I convinced myself that everything was somehow fine no matter how bad things looked. As crazy as it sounds I believed my own bullshit and just deluded myself into believing that everything could be ok.

Again, from the outside, it seems so clear. How could he believe that everything could be okay when he spent every penny he could find, lied to everyone around him and committed bigamy? It seems crazy. Yet there I was in my own illusion, believing that my husband was honest and loving. My mind also refused to see the truth behind the screen.

So, what do we do? Are we captive to these minds of ours that seem hell-bent on fabrication? Well, yes and no. It’s impossible not to fall sway to any illusions. Even by the end of show last night, I was still fooled by most of the tricks even though I knew they were there. We cannot stop our minds from filtering information selectively and reaching conclusions based on experience. What we can do is let go of the assumption that we are always correct. We can be open to the thought that maybe what we are experiencing isn’t reality. We can strive to see with our eyes rather than with our presumptions. And, we can summon the courage to remove the screen once we become aware of its existence. Just make sure you watch out for any hammers coming your way.