(source)

This post started with some maggots.  I’m not even kidding.

“What is this dirt on the back window?” Himself asked at 10.30 on Saturday night as I was hauling myself to bed (Sunday is the first day of my working week so Saturday nights are decidedly unrock’n'roll in this house).

Bickering ensued.

Until I looked at the “dirt”.

And realised it was moving.

Maggots were crawling up my back window. **

Readers I am not going to lie to you.  I FREAKED OUT!!  I assumed the foetal position on the sofa crying tears of horror and disgust but also tears of rage at myself because I knew I was over-reacting and yet seemed unable to stop.  And me a Yoga Teacher and all…..!

It happens to us all at sometime or another.

The to-do list seems never-ending and life becomes overwhelming.  You feel your breath shorten and your shoulders hunch up around your ears.

Life throws you another curve-ball (in my case, maggots), and you allow yourself to react badly.  You cry, or feel your heart rate speeding up.  You don’t know what to do to slow everything back down again, bring it back on track.

And then there is the multi-spiralled path of the dreaded overthinking.  Much as I love the internet it does have a tendency to allow those of us prone to this particular blight to overthink.  Should we write a blog post on such and such?  Will people judge us and our opinions?  What do I know about it anyway? (continued spiralling for several minutes until…..) Everyone else in the world is better than me anyway! *dramatic gesture*.  And very often all of this really is in our minds, the only people we are doing battle with is ourselves.  For example I was inexplicably nervous about publishing Tuesday’s post, I honestly thought people would see it as some sort of marketing ploy.  And I have had nothing but amazing responses from it!

If any of that rings any kind of bell for you at all (and I’m betting most of you are nodding along to at least one of these ridiculous sentences – why do we do this to ourselves?!) then these five little lessons I’ve learned over the years might help you too.  The only way to slow ourselves back down to normality again, the only way to tug ourselves out of the spiral is to really make ourselves sit in the present moment and accept what is. Right now.

(source)

1.  Acknowledge – this has been one of the most important things for me.  Rather than being embarrassed or ashamed of feeling overwhelmed or bad about myself or overly anxious I have begun to acknowledge that this is how I feel.  I say hello to my anxiety, ask it what it wants, why it’s here.  The alternative is to stuff the anxiety down, ignore it, pretend it’s not there and this just causes the pressure cooker effect.  Eventually all of that suppressed anxiety will explode into a full blown panic attack/tantrum.  Ask Himself, he’s had the pleasure of witnessing it once or twice!  So just say “well hello anxious overthinking, how are you?  I haven’t really got time to hang out with you today so I’m just going to get on with this.”  It sounds a little mad but it’s a great first step!

2.  Move – we all have a favourite way of moving our bodies so get up and do it.  Go for a walk, notice each footstep, each breath.  Go for a run, without music, feel the vibration of your body every time your foot hits the earth, notice each breath.  Dance around your living room to your favourite tunes.  Do yoga.  Practice Pilates.  Stand on your head. Take five yoga poses at your desk.

3. Breathe – we’re breathing all the time.  But as I mentioned above, when the whole “fight or flight” thing kicks in, when we panic, when we doubt, when we fear then the sort of breathing we’re doing isn’t conducive to calm body, calm mind.  So close your eyes and listen to the breath.  This can be done sitting or lying.  It can even be done standing if you need a quick fix in a panicked situation.  Place one hand on the abdomen and another on the chest.  Notice each inhale and imagine it travelling from the upper hand to the lower hand.  Notice each exhale and imagine it travelling from the lower hand to the upper hand.  Start to notice the movement of the abdomen under your lower hand.  Notice the journey of each breath and how each breath becomes longer and longer.  Take at least ten breaths.

The breath is intrinsically linked to the mind.  When your breath slows your mind slows.  Everything slows.  And your to-do list becomes manageable again.

4. Write a Small Stone - long time readers of this blog will know that Small Stones are tiny little snippets of writing – five words or two sentences – that observe something as it is right now.  The weather, your headache, the spider in the corner of the room.  They are the brainchild of Fiona Robyn and the beauty of them is they make you focus on the now for just long enough to bring you back to your senses.  Give it a go.  You can see some of my small stones here.

5.  Rescue Remedy - there are times when none of these things work.  And that’s OK.  That’s when Bach Rescue Remedy comes in.  I don’t write much on the blog about my interest in Bach Flower Remedies, partly because I have no formal qualification in them and partly because, although I definitely believe they work, I can’t for the life of me explain how.  But everyone has Rescue Remedy so don’t be afraid to use it.  Two sprays on the tongue and you’re good to go.

We can’t control life, much as we want to.  We can’t control bad things happening.  But we can control our reactions to life.  It’s hard hard work and I’ve spent many years living with and working through various anxiety issues, but it is worth it.

Any tips to share readers?

~~~~

** the maggots, it turns out, were coming from the corpse of a dead frog that had become stuck in the drain.  I am terrified of both maggots (I’m scared of most things without legs -slugs, snails eeeuuurggh) and drains (I read Stephen King’s “It” when I was a little too young to read such things).  Himself valiantly went forth to deal with the issue, boiling the maggots with hot water until they popped (not very ahimsa I know but needs must) and disposing of the frog.  Oh the joys of living in the fens…..

(image source)

My friend Svasti and I were discussing Brainfog the other day*.  It is a symptom we are both plagued wuth due to different (yet symptomatically similar) chronic conditions.

Wikipedia describes Brainfog (or Cognitive Dysfunction, but that doesn’t sound as fun as Brainfog does it?) as poor mental function, associated with confusion, forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating. So synonymous with M.E. is it that one of the leading forums/chatrooms for people with M.E/C.F.S is called Brainfog.org.

Brainfog is, put simply, a pain in the ass.

Here’s what happens. You stop dead in the middle of teaching a yoga class, not quite sure where you were up to (always have a lesson plan my friends). You cycle home from work and you realise you can’t actually remember very much of that cycle ride.  You sigh and look for your keys and realise you’ve locked yourself out AGAIN.  Later that evening you realise that you have read at least a chapter of your book with absolutely no idea of what has happened.  Oh, and you’ve left the oven on.

You may recognise it, you may not.  It is incredibly difficult to describe Brainfog to somebody who has never had it.  It’s not quite like being tired.  It’s not quite like having flu. It’s different, other.  Almost ethereal.  Ethereal’s great and all if you’re a fairy, but in the real world, not so much.

It’s like trying to see through jam.  Like trying to walk through treacle.  Like Alice Through the Looking Glass, with added confusion.

People think I’m a scatterbrain.  A flaky yoga teacher.  And that’s OK, I don’t mind.  I try to be as endearingly scatterbrained as I can.  But it’s frustrating you see because the real me isn’t a scatterbrain.  The real me is a super-organised machine on fire!

But we all have bad days.  Even machines.

Over the years I’ve learned to cope with Brainfog and carry on regardless.  You don’t own me Brainfog, oh no!

One of the most effective helping hands for Brainfog that I’ve tried is a simple Pranayama (yoga breathing) practice which I thought I’d share.  A few minutes of this each day can help me feel grounded and stronger and also helps me slow down from the general frustrations of Brainfog.

(NB this pranayama involves breath retentions, ie holding the breath at the end of the inhale and the exhale.  It is important to have a long slow steady breath before you try the retentions and to stop at any time you feel breathless.  If you have never practiced pranayama before it is best learned from an experienced teacher. Inhale and exhale through the nostrils.  Use Ujjayi if you know it well.)

Breathe in for the count of 4.  Breathe out for the count of 4.  Repeat x4

Breathe in for the count of 4.  Hold for 2.  Breath out for the count of 4.  Hold for 2.  Repeat x4

Breathe in for the count of 4.  Breathe out for the count of 4.  Repeat x4

Repeat the whole sequence 3 times.

Do you suffer from Brainfog for any reason?  I’d love to hear any hints or tips you may have!

~~~~

Fascinating a subject as it is, we weren’t just discussing brainfog for the fun of it.  The lovely Svasti has a new interview series up on her blog called The Chronic Yogi – about yoga teachers living with chronic illness and yours truly was the first interviewee.  If you’d like to read it, click here!

Did I mention that my laptop has finally died? Well yes, it has. My entire life is now on a portable hard drive and several memory sticks. I battle on regardless, remembering four little words….

breathe in, breathe out

We have to keep doing it, regardless of what else is going on, so we may as well do it well.

So that’s your Friday flow for this week readers,

breathe in, breathe out

Sometimes I think we get so entangled in our asana practice that we forget the other 7 limbs – and dare I say it, we especially forget to breathe.  I see students sometimes (hell and teachers, I’m guilty of it myself), desperate to get more deeply into an asana, straining, gritting their teeth…..and holding their breath.  And there right then, the yoga has gone out of the window.

breathe in, breathe out

Lie down, bend the knees, feet flat on the floor and relax.

breathe in, breathe out

Place your hands on your upper abdomen, just below the bottom ribs.  Feel the movement of the breath, rising, falling.

breathe in, breathe out

After a few breaths move the hands up to the ribcage.  Feel the movement of the breath as the ribs expand and contract.

breathe in, breathe out

Finally place one hand on the floor beside you and the other on the upper chest, just below the collar bones.  Notice if there is any movement here, there shouldn’t be much!  Be aware of the breath passing through the throat and chest on it’s way to the lungs and on it’s way back out again.

breathe in, breathe out

There.  Don’t you feel better about everything now?

(image source)

~~~~

Lauren’s blanks today are all about Thanksgiving – this not being something we celebrate here in the UK (although isn’t every day a thanksgiving? ) I’ve gone back through the archives to nab an old one…. it’s music related, my favourite thing

1. One song that always takes me back to my youth is “Mad World” by Tears for Fears. That’s the original version folks, not that bloody awful dirge that was covered for Donny Darko. If, for whatever reason, you’ve never heard the original, listen to it now, it’s beyond awesome. It was one of the first records I bought for myself with my own money on 7″ vinyl (remember them?) from Woolworths (which also no longer exists). Sigh…

2. My first concert ever was … ever I’m not sure as I went to various things with my parents growing up, but the first concert I went to on my own was Fields of the Nephilim at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in September 1988. I was 14. I wore a lot of black eyeliner and over crimped my hair. There was a lot of dry ice. Everything smelt of Patchouli. It sticks in my memory like it was yesterday.

3. If I could create my dream music festival I’d want these bands to be there: Led Zepplin (c.1972), Aerosmith (c.1973), Motley Crue (c.1983), New Model Army (any and all eras), Mudhoney (c.1990), Scream (c.1988), Nirvana (c.1992),Foo Fighters (obv although clearly Grohl will be exhausted by now it being his third band in a row) … ah you get the idea…. my musical preferences kind of died out in the early 90s….

4. The best make-out song ever is Everlong – Foo Fighters

5. The best concert I’ve ever been to was probably in hindsight seeing Nirvana at Reading but not really realising the importance of it all at the time. Two more recent ones that spring to mind are the Foos at the Astoria in ‘05 (for many reasons) and NMA at Holmfirth Picturehouse in ‘06 (that was a really good one!).

6. A memorable musical moment for me was hearing “Penny Lane” for the first time aged about 4, with my dad.

7. The song on my iPod that’s getting the most play these days is …. I have no iPod. I have nothing whatsoever to do with Apple since an iPod wiped my hard drive 4 years ago. I have a Creative Zen but that is full of yoga and massage music. So I guess the answer to this is “Om Mani Padme Hum”! In my CD player TCATS gets very heavy rotation to this day!