It might be easier to look into what makes us unhappy…

According to eastern philosophies, unhappiness or suffering is an experience of the mind; craving things we cannot have and having aversion to the things we do not want, in a life which is constantly changing and will eventually end.

Modern life thrives on knowledge; we believe in science so much, that it has overtaken religion.  It has brought us great advances, and in the space of a few centuries the ways humans live, has changed profoundly; our lives involve more comfort and jobs involve more analytical thinking and less physical activity.  With the arrival of our virtual world through social media, we have started living in our minds even more. What have I observed of my own adaptation to working life?

It started with my posture slowly becoming more rounded, compressing my abdomen and chest, and I suffered from tension in my neck and shoulders and pain in my back. My body might have been deteriorating (even more so after I became ill and had surgeries) but my mind was great; it was fast and I loved that I could make quick decisions and judgement calls. I started to disconnect from my body; tuning out from sensations, as most were unpleasant anyway.

The brain is not just a neat analytical processor, it also helps us interact with the outside world using our senses, controls our bodies (to some extent), it has complex emotions intertwined with memories and an innate hard-wiring to detect danger and keep us safe. This danger-detection works quicker than our thinking part of the brain; on autopilot, the emotions, triggering memories, in turn triggering more emotions, can take over before we have a chance to rationalise it. When these reactions are repeatedly triggered they can create patterns which start to impact the body; a depressed or anxious person might instinctively hold a protective posture; rounding forward, compressing the chest and abdomen. A stressed person, perhaps feeling they are always on the go, with a sense of alertness in the body, might tense the back muscles causing the back to arch. Emotional patterns start to live in the body and as much as the mind impacts the body, the body impacts the mind.

So there I was, thriving on thinking, being ‘in my brain’, speeding up my judgments, lots of activity in my brain. Patterns getting stuck in my body, creating a feedback loop constantly triggering more emotional states. I started to dislike myself for being such a judgemental person. I became depressed by the thoughts that I wasn’t a very nice person. I became anxious people didn’t like me. Why would they; I didn’t like me. I had constant negative chatter in my mind and a body which (to my mind) was broken.

Fortunately my body started hurting so bad that I had to take action. After trying various things, I found Yoga and it slowly started to open up the contracted muscles at the front of my body, and strengthening the muscles at the back. I started to enjoy the feeling of my body opening up. The most surprising effect however, was my mind. Yoga had started to slow those negative thoughts in my mind. There was a bit more space there, offering a relief from all that mental activity.

Yoga (a Sanskrit word) means the union of body, mind, soul, and spirit. The Yoga Sutras, written by Patanjali over 2000 years ago, is a practical guide book for the spiritual journey of remembering who we are.  For a person who couldn’t even connect to her body, this whole spirit thing was a bit ‘out there’.  But since my mind had been given a little space, I was perhaps becoming a bit more open to new things. Yoga sutras 1.2 says that “Yoga is quieting the fluctuations of the mind”. I started to realise that the physical aspect, even though massively important as a tool for getting out of my mind and releasing some of those emotions stored in my body, was only minor in comparison with this understanding of the mind.

For a long time, I identified with my thoughts and feelings, I didn’t realise that I was not my thoughts and therefor I got caught up in the stories playing (over and over) in my mind. The feeling of dislike for myself was real, but yoga philosophy was teaching me about the ‘monkey mind’; the egoic part of the mind that can trick you, and wants to mull over past events, and worry about the future. That it wants to hold on to the things it likes and pushes away the things it doesn’t like, it wants to avoid pain at all costs. The stream of consciousness (the stories we tell ourselves), these critical voices can be so strong, that we believe we the stories are real….

“Someday we will realise that the study of our personalities is more important than reading, writing and arithmetic.”

— Dr. John E. Sarno

A big part of yoga is meditation and mindfulness. They are practices which help us to be present to the moment, to become aware of our thoughts and emotions, to be open and curious and not judge; they help us find that deeper part of us, the observer. We increase the gaps between thoughts and observe the thought patterns, we learn to let go and create more space between the thoughts. They also allow us to observe the sensations we feel in our bodies and release the patterns we store there (this is why the movement of yoga is so powerful as we actually get deeper into those spaces while we are being mindful). Modern brain scans have shown the increase in activity in our thinking brain and a decrease in activity of the old part of the brain that is responsible for fear, and there is an improvement in the communication between them. Through mindfulness and meditation we are able to physically improve structures in the brain which will take us out of our autopilot, fear-mode, and we can pause and think and respond in a wise manor, rather than react instinctively. Before I knew the philosophy, I had already felt the impact of the physical practice (this moving meditation) on the feelings of anxiety and depression in my body and mind.

We have little control over our outside world and most of our conceptions of the world are an illusion; a false sense of security which modern life has provided. Change is inevitable and so is death. This should be an incentive to truly live in the moment, as ‘this moment’ is the only certainty we have. We better find tools to deal with the uncomfortable truth of the inevitability that life will end. Instead fearing it, we need to live the moments we have.

Practicing mindfulness, meditation, yoga, any form of mind-body practice, to reconnect mind and body (and soul and spirit), will help you to become a more connected person; with an open mind, without judgement, and with curiosity to learn and grow. It creates compassion, it helps us see that we are all human and that we all have hardships to go through and that we are all, deep down looking for the same thing. Connection. Do not get stuck in autopilot. Do not let fear win as it leads to separation and hate (for oneself and or others). It is why the world is in turmoil and in desperate need of repair. Start connecting to yourself, so you can connect to others.

“Yoga is the progressive settling of the mind into silence.
When the mind is settled, we are established in our own essential state,
which is unbounded consciousness.
Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind”

— Patanjali, Yoga Sutras

Some 12 years ago, I was suffering from panic attacks; every time I would get on an underground train and the doors would close (accompanied with the little ‘ding-ding-ding’ sound), I would be overwhelmed by fear that I couldn’t reach a toilet in time and that I was going to have an accident whilst on the train. It was a very physical sensation, with heart palpitations and feeling hot and sweaty, and it would hit me like a wave. I would push my nails into my palms hard, so I could feel pain as distraction. When we would reach the next station I would run out and find a toilet.

I needed to take the train to and from work, so these attacks would happen most days and I knew all the public toilets along the train-lines. My psychologist said it was common in IBD-sufferers to have panic attacks, as physically there is a lot of abdominal discomfort and pain, which can trigger fear of accidents. So when there is a situation where a toilet isn’t available, there is a trigger (ding-ding-ding) and the fear will take over.

This continued for months, and nothing I tried seemed to help, until one day I read the PanicAway program, and it was like a switch had been flicked; I’ve not had a panic attack since. The program encouraged to not resist the fear, which is what we instinctively do when we panic; automatically we will try to push the fear away as we don’t want whatever the bad thing it is we fear, to happen. The thing is when we resist, the feeling gets stronger. So the program said something along the lines of, ‘the next time the fear comes, recognise the fear is here and try and make it stronger’. You say to the fear “is this the best you have, come on then, make it stronger”. For me, it was good to think about of the worst that could happen, embarrassment (people on the train would see me) and inconvenience (I would have to waddle home with soiled pants and wash my clothes and shower). Surely I could deal with embarrassment and the laundry and shower weren’t too bad either. So it was that fear of something that I knew I could deal with, that became bigger than the issue itself. That was a revelation. So I did it, the next time the fear came, I was ready for it, “come on then, bring it on, is that the worst you can do?”. And it stopped. Just as fast as it had begun, the fear went, and it never came back.

That is the power the mind has. It plays tricks that can feel so real that it has physical and emotional consequences. The beauty is that you can train the mind, become mindful and have real, lasting results. PanicAway was simple, yet for me, life-changing, and there are many other programs which focus on recognising the emotions in the body; Kripalu has BRFWA , Tara Brach has RAIN , the fabulous Jill Bolte-Taylor has a BRAIN huddle (in Whole Brain Living) and I’m sure there are many. I feel like I need to make a sidenote here as I realise there are perhaps people with a deep rooted fear, which might stem from a trauma and this perhaps goes beyond the ability to help yourself; I’m not trying to say that it’s always as easy reading a book and something clicking into place. But I do want to say that for me, seeing a psychologist and trying various other things didn’t work, whereas the program worked instantly. I am much more aware of my emotions and feelings in my body and I believe it is very important to allow feelings to move through you, rather than to push them away.

From a yogic perspective

This all happened before I was introduced to Yoga and I understand now that these techniques (awareness, feeling and allowing the sensations) are a big part of Yoga; recognising the tricks the mind plays, observing the body, mind and breath, and allowing whatever is to be and looking at yourself with compassion.

When yoga became popular in the West, the emphasis was very much on the physical part of the practice, but originally a large part of the yogic philosophy has to do with the mind. The original yoga posture is a seated meditation seat and in the Yoga sutras (1.2), Patanjali wrote: “Chitta vritti nirodha”  translated as “Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind.”

In yogic philosophy, the subconscious mind suffers due to our egos clinging to the world we have created; our attachment to the things we like, our aversion to the things we dislike, our ignorance of the bigger picture and a fear of the inevitability of death, all creates a lot of suffering.

Yoga provides tools that may help us relieve this suffering, so that we do not have to be slaves to our moods, being it anxious or depressed, but working towards equanimity and balance.  Yoga can help increase this space of equanimity and balance (our ‘window of tolerance’); it means we are able to deal with change and our general lack of control of external things, in a much healthier way.

Noticing how different postures can have a real impact on your mental state (eg. forward folds are calming, backbends are energising) and that breath practices have similar if not more profound effects (for instance try lengthening your exhale when you feel anxious) can help you tailor your practice to make a real change the way you are feeling physically, mentally and emotionally. Moving your awareness to sensations in the body, gets you out of your (overactive) mind.

After an hour of focussed movement and breath, the mind is focussed, the gaps between the thoughts lengthen, you feel more spacious in body and mind and maybe you start to realise what Patanjali meant with quieting the mind.

If you are suffering from an anxious mind, have a look at the material. Also try a mind-body practice like Yoga; it has made a profound difference in my life.

25-minute practice for Stress and Anxiety

This is a 25 minute mindfulness practice with progressive muscle relaxation and autogenics.

This practice starts with a bodyscan leading to progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), which is a deep relaxation technique. It is used to control stress and anxiety, relieve insomnia, and reduce symptoms of certain types of chronic pain.

This is followed by autogenic training is a desensitization-relaxation technique where we use visual imagery and body awareness to reduce stress.

Try it and see if you feel more relaxed and grounded.