by Deirdre | Nov 16, 2012 | Mindful living
Ajahn Brahm is one badass Buddhist monk. We went to see him speak at U of T a while back. One of my friends had seen him before and said he was wise and entertaining. He was in town on a retreat and lecturing at U of T to students about psychology, Buddhism and science.
At first it was a bit trippy to hear him parse Buddhist teachings in a London cockney accent. But that soon passed as he opened into his musings about how science should try to tear down Buddhism (and vice versa), his stories from Cambridge (he studied theoretical physics, and got drunk, with Nobel laureates in the late ‘60s), and his Buddhist jokes.
There was a ferocious noise one day just outside the spiritual centre that Ajahn Brahm runs in Australia. The monks ran out to see what was going on and found their beloved cat squished on the road. It lost its nine lives, one after another, when it was hit by the 10-wheeler.
Ajahn Brahm loves iconoclasts and was begging the students to question everything. Traditions, conventional thought, and mindless habits in particular. He asked them to hold everything to the same burden of proof, whether the ideas come from Buddhism or science.
He had three lessons for everyone that I thought I’d share with you.
Lesson #1
Don’t react to life with a canned response. You must react with your truth, no matter what others might expect of you. Something that’s difficult for most people may not be difficult for you. Or something that’s easy for most people may not be easy for you. He talked about the connection that was possible by approaching people he’s visited in hospitals and prisons in a lighthearted, joyful way. We all get tired of being treated as our outward circumstances and long for people to connect with us from our mind and heart.
Lesson #2
Mindfulness is great. But without compassion it is ineffective. Ajahn Brahm spent a little time “gloating” about how psychology is turning to Buddhism to look for answers to mental health. He noted the popularity of mindfulness these days – how it’s being touted as a cure for almost everything.
But mindfulness on its own is not really effective at working with our psychology. True mental health comes from welcoming difficult feelings with kindness, setting a place at the table for them and holding them closely with love.
Feelings show up in both our body and our mind. He talked about using mindfulness to see where the feeling was showing up in our body – your chest, solar plexus, or shoulders. Then soothe the area by rubbing or breathing into it with kindness and tenderness. When he’s used this with people they’ve found that the difficult feelings become much less frightening and easier to manage.
Lesson #3
You cannot know reality until the mind is as still as a lake, without the winds of anger and desire. I never understood why Buddhists were so keen on working with attachment. It seemed a bit dry to me. I’m very attached to the pleasure of a good meal, or a walk by the river, and I couldn’t understand why that would be discouraged. But what I saw through him is that if we run after things because we want them so badly, or we react with anger when they don’t come true then we’re not really experiencing real life. We’re just experiencing the winds of our mind.
Is there a place in your life to test some of these lessons for yourself?
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
by Deirdre | Oct 26, 2012 | Blog, Resilient Mindset
I tried a local hot yoga studio twice or so a couple of years ago. It was full of promise – young, hip owners, a reclaimed space with exposed brick and high ceilings, close to home. It all added up to a much funkier experience than we’re used to in our suburban ‘hood.
I knew that I was going to be struggling in the back for a while, but I had no idea what was in store for me. The class was filled with amazing devotees ready for some hard-core yoga. There was a small-time local celeb ready for the heat, wearing a tiny outfit that I will never be able to unsee. It was serious yoga for serious people.
Still, I was willing to be the neophyte in the back, ready to take the pity stares as part of the yogic lesson. That is, until one of the young, hip owners came over to adjust me and then informed the class, in a Valley-girl kind of nasally tone, that how we are on the mat is how we are in life. I had a sense of being nagged on the mat – not what I was going for. The peace and balance I was looking for evaporated and was replaced by irritation.
I wasn’t loving the delivery, but I knew she was saying something very important.
How we are is how we are
How we are on the mat is how we are at our jobs, is how we are with our friends, and on and on. The amount of mindfulness and care we bring to the things in our life is pretty consistent across the board. Sure, we can pull out some fresh energy and motivation when something is new or really important to us. But for the routine daily habits of our life, we almost always bring our own mix of attention or distraction, and frustration or patience, and self-compassion or inflated demands to our routines.
To bring peace and balance to our day we can start with just about any area of our life.
Peace and Balance Start with Mindfulness
A powerful way to begin is with mindfulness. Mindfulness is about using conscious effort to shift your thoughts towards what is going on from moment to moment. It moves us away from thinking about the past or the future and toward being present to what’s happening right now. It is closely aligned with meditation, but you do not have to meditate to be mindful. The saying “Stop and smell the roses” captures the idea of mindfulness very well.
There are four main parts of mindfulness:
- Being aware of your breathing
Eating is as good an entry way to balance as any other. It’s something we do every day and it’s also an activity that carries a lot of our emotional baggage for us. I’ve stopped being surprised by how engaged people by are by what they eat, when they’re eating, and who was with them. A mindful way to peace and balance in your eating is to focus your attention on gratitude. You can be grateful for the people that brought your food to the table. Or simply to the fact that you have the nourishment that you do. There are a hundred ways to bring mindfulness to your dining.
What brings a sense of gratitude to your meals?
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
Image: Adam Krowitz. Licensed under Creative Commons
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by Deirdre | Oct 19, 2012 | Mindful living
Why is it that when we need exercise the most – stress is everywhere and we’re craving more and more comfort – we pick that exact moment to have trouble finding time to fit it in? We drift so far away from regular exercise that we start seeing the lack show up in our health. Insomnia, digestive issues, pain, you know the drill.
Then the day comes when we want to rise up out of the hole of inertia and recommit to fitness. We see how much fun our fit friends are having and sign up for boot camp or hot ashtanga yoga or a half-marathon.
Bad idea.
I know, I know — all the people who love those hot, sweaty highs are thinking that I don’t know what I’m missing. I’ve been there and had those highs and loved them too. But if you’re coming off a long period of stress with little to no exercise it may not be an endorphin high that you’re getting.
It may a raging b*tch low.
Here’s why . . .
Your aerobic energy system is de-conditioned. It’s not up to the job of producing that much energy that fast. To pick up the slack, your body switches to your anaerobic energy system. That’s the slow twitch muscle fibres that fuel up with glycogen (sugar) and gives you power, speed and big muscles.
But your anaerobic system isn’t designed to power you through a boot camp class. Think more like 2 minutes of fast, strong activity. You know what you’re doing when you grit your teeth and muscle through?? You’re stressing out your poor, tired, stressed body.
When you don’t have the underlying aerobic conditioning to improve your stress resilience you’re doing yourself more harm than good. You’re taking a stressed system and stressing it further, all in the name of regaining fitness.
And it ain’t gonna work.
Phil Maffetone, athletic coach to many world-champion triathletes back in the day, has called this aerobic deficiency syndrome. Doesn’t that sound official? It’s caused by underuse of your aerobic muscles and overuse of your anaerobic muscles.
Here are the symptoms:
- Recurrent physical injuries
- Excess storage of fat (your body doesn’t burn fat so it stores it)
- Blood sugar stress (your body can’t pull fat from your system so it pulls it out of your blood stream, causing cravings and moodiness)
- Hormonal imbalance (the excess stress messes with your cortisol levels, throwing off all your hormones)
Seriously, if you’re splitting a gut, ready to escalate a minor disagreement into violence, and super important, STILL PUTTING ON WEIGHT, you need to rethink how hard you’re exercising.
Phil recommends building an aerobic base first, before you start making big plans for weight training or intense exercise. He’s a big believer in using a heart rate monitor and keeping in a moderate aerobic level. Here’s what he has to say in his book, The Big Book of Health and Fitness, about building your aerobic base:
For a workout to be truly aerobic, you should be able to exercise the same way for many weeks and months with continued benefits. And, when you’re finished each workout, you should feel great – not tired or sore, and certainly not ready to collapse on your couch. Nor should you have cravings for sugar or other carbohydrates – your workout should program your body to burn more fat, not sugar.
How long this takes depends on your aerobic fitness today. He suggests up to six months of slow, steady progress.
This may be new, but think joy and fun with exercise.
Posted by Deirdre Walsh, Image: iStockphoto
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by Deirdre | Oct 15, 2012 | Mindful living
During difficult periods of stress – when pain, unstable moods, poor memory and inability to cope rear their ugly heads – it can be very helpful to seek out the advice of a health practitioner. They can help you with the symptoms of stress as you find the time to bring your life back into balance.
But who to call?
Your doctor has a few goodies in her tool-kit, like anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs and counselling. Complementary health practitioners — like naturopaths, osteopaths, traditional Chinese medicine, massage therapists, etc. — all have methods to treat stress that may be more effective in the long run and work to rebalance your system. I’ve been to quite a few different practitioners and have found pros and cons to each of them. I’ll share my experience with you and add some great resources I’ve found on the Web.
Let’s talk about naturopaths
Naturopathic medicine is another form of primary care – the front line for health concerns. They’re looking for the root causes of illness or disease, not just the symptoms. They promote health and healing using therapies derived from the natural world.
Natural is a loose term here as many naturopaths rely on supplements. Sure, they can be derived from natural sources, but sometimes they pull one or more active ingredients from a natural product and then put it into pill form, much like pharmaceuticals. Some of the therapies that NDs draw from are:
- Clinical nutrition – food is medicine! NDs may suggest special diets or nutritional supplements such as vitamins, minerals, or enzymes.
- Botanical/Herbal medicine – using plant substances to stimulate healing and add nutritional value
- Homeopathy – using minute amounts of natural substances based on your personal profile to stimulate the self-healing abilities of the body.
- Physical therapies – like massage, hydrotherapy, use of light, heat and cold, or instruments like ultrasounds.
- Traditional Chinese Medicine – acupuncture and Oriental herbs
So how do you find a good ND?
Ask people you trust for a recommendation. Why, specifically, do they like working with them and what the are the ND’s best qualities? What they would change about the relationship? These questions will get to what they value in the relationship and you can tell whether it matches your values. You may be really into their knowledge of herbs and supplements while your friend may really value their empathy.
A typical story of working through stress with a naturopath can be found at Best Health Magazine.
Here are 5 things to insist on:
1 – You feel completely heard by your naturopath and feel they understand where you are.
Success comes from following the treatment plan your ND creates for you, so see if you feel a level of trust and teamwork between you. If you don’t feel that you’re able to discuss the treatment plan then you probably don’t have the right naturopath.
2 – You don’t walk away feeling like you’ve been talked into doing a lot of tests.
Yes, there are a lot of really cool tests you can do. You can test your hormone levels, your sensitivity to foods and a ton of other really interesting things. But they’re expensive and your ND should be able to give you a really good reason for you to invest in them.
3 – They make recommendations to food and exercise that you can implement yourself.
Your treatment plan should be easy to follow and implement yourself. You may choose to speak to a holistic nutritionist or exercise specialist, but it shouldn’t be required to follow the plan.
4 – They have a solid clinical education.
There are different levels of professional certification within naturopathic circles. In Ontario and British Columbia, naturopaths are licensed and have had four years of training with supervision and practicums. In Alberta they are regulated. In the United States the distinction between different types of naturopaths isn’t as clear. Some can train in distance programs for under 1000 hours and others require thousands of hours combined with practicums. If you’re in the States and interested in more information, you can find it here.
5 – They recommend good quality products.
There are a lots and lots of supplements and natural products on the market and few of them are tested for quality. In the U.S. when there’s no government-verified seal on the label then there’s only a 2 in 3 chance that the contents will match the label. I’ve written about the ins and outs of knowing what’s in the bottle here.
The bottom line is that you should feel like you have good communication with your ND, that the diagnostic and treatment plans fit within your budget and you’re getting good quality products. A good naturopath is an amazing ally to beating back stress.
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
by Deirdre | Sep 21, 2012 | Healthy Mind, Inspired Living, Mindful living
When do we know when we’re under stress? I’m way too familiar with the signs from my body that I’m burning through my energy reserves. I start getting really sensitive to sound and interruptions. I need the kids to turn down the music in the car. All of a sudden I can’t remember things. My head, back and hip start aching. My eyes get really, really tired – all the way back to my brain. I lose my sense of humor – big time.
Getting more under stress
That’s when I turn to the thing that comforts or energizes me now – and makes me feel bad later. All the women I work with have some kind of go-to when they get those signals from their body. For some, it’s hitting the kitchen after the kids go to bed. For others, it’s the glass of wine at the end of the day that goes to two, or sometimes three on a bad day. Some of them are queens of the meltdown – not meaning to fly off the handle, but powerless to stop themselves. Others are awake at night, believing if they keep obsessing about the details that the day will go better. Me, I usually head for sugary treats – either chocolate or wine.
All these things provide soothing short-term comfort, but really are small, relentless steps towards feeling crappy and ashamed.
Why do we do these things?
Because our bodies are looking for something to stabilize the effects of the stress hormone, cortisol. That’s the bad boy that your pituitary gland pumps into your bloodstream after your hypothalamus – the stress thermostat in your brain – senses you are not safe. Cortisol is an amazing biochemical when it gets in, does its job and gets out. It’s a master at protecting you from danger, either by fight, flight or freeze. It’s a powerful ally.
But if you call on it too often – with worry, or running late all the time, or adrenaline rushes – it starts running the show and your body pays the price. I’ve written about how uncontrolled cortisol plays havoc with your system here.
But the worst offense that uncontrolled cortisol commits against busy women is this:
Even though they love their life, they are tired and their body hurts.
Tired, tired tired
Tired in the morning instead of bouncing out of bed to greet the day. Tired in the afternoon, often looking for a pick me-up. Tired in the evening, often crashing in front of the tube for some House and Garden TV, or some trashy pleasure on a really tired night. Too tired to exercise, or eat right, or be present to the wonderfulness of their life.
I’ve written about the three-stage downward spiral of stress before:
- busy multitasker – where you feel wired and tired at the same time. Life is busy, but you’re proud of what you can accomplish.
- burned out – where you’re always behind and you wonder how you’re going to catch up. You doze off easily when you’re forced to sit down.
- flat-lining – when you can’t keep up anymore and have to cut back on work and activities
These wonderful, gorgeous women drift further and further from the warm, kind, generous person they used to be. They muscle through the day on nerves and steel. And, really, they know they’re not much fun to be around anymore. This is not who they thought they’d be at this point in their life.
Does this sound familiar?
When I’ve drifted to away from being the me I want to be I’ve learned the hard way that all the chocolate and sugar in the world (or supplements or self-talk) will not help – well not for more than an hour or so. I’ve learned that I need to manage how the cortisol is affecting my body, and for me that means water, guided imagery, light exercise or meditation.
Tell me, how about you? What have you learned to keep yourself well?
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
Image: Death to Stock
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