Personal Growth

Neuroplasticity, boundaries, and the body

Activism, Body agency, Body Awareness, Boundaries, Connective Tissue, Connective Tissue Self-Massage, Embodiment, Empaths, Interoception, Mind-Body, Neuroscience, Personal Growth, Relationships / By

In a multiple-slide post on my Instagram feed, I talked about neuroplasticity, the science of change (and, um, how things can stay the same) in a 10-frame post. But that doesn’t lend itself well to this format, so here’s the text for you. Neuroplasticity refers to the role of the brain and nervous system (which includes the autonomic + enteric nervous systems) in helping create change. In this post, I’d like to apply that very cool science to the art + practice of setting good interpersonal + intrapersonal boundaries. Emerging research suggests that we can target a behavior we’d like to strengthen (or extinguish) by focusing not just on the practice itself, but on the prelude and postlude that precede and follow it. This helps recruit our attentional centers to pay attention. It supercharges our motivational system. And it deepens the relationship we have with the behavior we want to …

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The Art of Inquiry: How to Create and Undo + Create Ourselves:

Activism, Body Awareness, Embodiment, Healing, Mindfulness, Neuroscience, Personal Growth, Psychology, Social Justice, Well-Being / By

  You know those rare moments when an idea, person, or experience moves you from a static place to a place of disorganization and discomfort, but ultimately, transformation? One of those occurred for me in March of 2017. I was in the middle of a strength training session in the gym, casually listening to an On Being podcast episode which featured the poet, theologian, and social healer Padraig O’Tuama. His words hit me mid-pullup, echoing in the special way that signals things will never be the same. The passage: “There’s a Buddhist concept,” says O’Tuama, “where if you’re asking a poor question—if a question is being asked, “Are you this or that?” Robert Pirsig says that you can answer, according to his telling of the Zen tradition, you can answer with the word mu, m-u, which means, “Un-ask the question, because there’s a better question to be asked.” The question …

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A Public Figure’s Guide to Messing up and Learning in Public

Activism, Boundaries, Embodiment, Gender Justice, Learning, MeToo, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Psychology, Relationships, Social Justice, Somatics, Trauma, Yoga / By

This week, several people asked me to listen to the intro of a yoga podcast in which the host, J. Brown, defends a blog he wrote refuting the firsthand account of Christie Roe about how yoga teacher Mark Whitwell sexually assaulted her.* [See below for a link and content warning.] The people who asked me to review this intro were understandably confused. They had many questions. What made them so viscerally uncomfortable? Was the host entitled to tell “his side of the story,” as he put it? If he apologizes for his actions and seems contrite, even tearful, should he be given a third, fourth, fifth chance at making things right? What comprises a full apology (as opposed to an emotional one)? Why are so many people defending his intentions? And what exactly is learning in public? There’s so much to unpack here, and others have already addressed several of …

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I Feel Your Pain: An Empath’s Guide to Staying Balanced

Boundaries, Embodiment, Empaths, Healing, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Somatics, Uncategorized, Well-Being, Yoga / By

Do you often wonder which emotions are yours, and which belong to someone else? When people you care about are hurting, do you feel their pain so deeply that it’s hard to separate—even after they’re out of crisis mode? In relationships, do you donate so much of your own natural resources that you suffer from a chronic energy shortage? And with those you’re close to, is it hard to figure out what your own needs are—or even what you want for dinner? If the answer is yes, it’s highly likely that you’re an empath. What does it mean to be an empath, and why is it fraught with these basic life challenges? Derived from the Greek “em” (in) and “pathos” (feeling), the term empathic means you’re able to “feel into” others’ feelings. But for empaths, this sensitivity is magnified to the nth degree. An empath is more tuned in, more …

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When Advance Requires a Retreat

Boundaries, Embodiment, Empaths, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Social Justice, Travel, Well-Being / By

At the close of 2016, I embarked on a 10-day silent retreat in western Massachusetts. It was necessary: chronic overwork, multi-tasking, and the political events of the year had fractured my attention and taxed my nervous system. Ten days might be hard, I thought to myself, but it was also necessary—like “attentional rehab.” It was hard. It was also nourishing. And it was full-on, life-changing extraordinary. Most of us have heard alluring tales of mystical experiences that arise during a retreat: unity with the Divine, a direct encounter with emptiness, and other such happenings. It’s tempting to think that mystical experiences are “the payoff” of a retreat. Yet most of us, myself included, have close encounters of a more pedestrian kind: intense, searing pain, for instance. Sleepiness (I much prefer the Buddhist terms “sloth” and “torpor,” which sound more dramatic and justified). Alien forms of thought that invade our mind: …

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Passport to Relaxation: Eye Pillows and Juicy Restorative Rest

Anxiety, Nervous System, Personal Growth, Vagal Tone, Well-Being, Yoga, Yoga Therapy / By

Have you ever wondered why even when you’re tired, your mind can resemble a light switch, permanently set to the “on” button and preventing you from falling or staying asleep? And have you ever rested for simply five minutes with an eye pillow over your eyes or browbone and found that it was just like hitting the “reset” button? There’s a reason why it’s hard to access your off switch—and it has a lot to do with eye pillows, your passport to relaxation. Eye pillows have an undeserved reputation for being the new age version of snake oil: a little bit of flax, and a whole lot of money. Yet they may be one of your most powerful healing tools, especially when it comes to your nervous system. Let’s get into the science for a moment. Your vagus nerve is one of twelve cranial nerves. It originates in the brain …

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Of Trauma and Emotional Freedom

Anxiety, Emotions, Healing, Nervous System, Personal Growth, Trauma, Well-Being, Yoga / By

When I was about sixteen, squirrels invaded our house. They came and went freely and inhabited the attic, where they could be heard running wind sprints across the eaves, usually late at night when we were trying to sleep. F—ing bastards, my Dad would growl. We tried several methods to lure them back into their natural habitat; the more dramatic of these I won’t describe. But the squirrels, of course, were smarter. They’d outwit the mechanism, chow down on $7.99 all-natural peanut butter, and clamber back into the rafters. They were well-fed, these squirrels—and that’s what led, finally, to their demise. One spring day, in response to the sound of panicked squealing, we climbed the attic stairs to find a young, chubby, grass-and-peanut-fed squirrel inside one of the traps. My Dad and I elected my brother to place the cage in the back seat of the family Volvo and we drove, squirrel …

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What’s up with the Chakras?

Embodiment, Emotional Balance, Emotions, Interoception, Mindfulness, Neuroscience, Personal Growth, Psychology, Well-Being, Wellness, Yoga / By

At first glance, it can be tempting to dismiss the chakra system as an esoteric, new age concept. During my last teacher-training course in Boston, a participant voiced her reservations. “In theory, the chakras are so compelling,” she said. “But out of all the things we study, they seem least connected to the actual practice of yoga.” The class agreed. “What, exactly, are we supposed to do with them?” they wondered. While the chakras offer a rich conceptual framework for growth, they give less direction for putting that framework into practice. Over the past year of reflection on my students’ queries, I’ve begun to wonder whether there’s more to the chakras than meets the eye. Could it be that when we view them through the lenses of psychology, mindfulness, neuroscience, and yoga, the chakras become more than elegant vessels for self-understanding? Could they in fact be touchstones for practice, showing …

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Israel, from Desert to Sea

Anxiety, Copenhagen, Emotions, Hong Kong, Israel, Learning, Paris, Personal Growth, Relationships, Soul, Trauma, Travel, Yoga / By

People often ask why I travel so much to teach yoga. The long plane rides push my body’s limits: 23 hours to Hong Kong, anyone? Nutritional challenges come up as well: why can’t I find cooked greens in Copenhagen in October? And luck can turn in a moment, bringing mishaps that make me want to go home: I still recall a bathroom flooding, foretold by me and ignored by the concierge, that had me perched for hours on the lumpy bed in a quaint Paris hotel). It’s difficult to explain why I travel. Yet something compels me to do so, as though I’m trying to learn a lesson that remains tantalizingly out of reach. Last November, I finished my travel year in Israel: first at the Moa Oasis just north of the southern port of Eilat, where the dry heat was intense. Dust infiltrated the filaments of my bronchial tubes, …

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Lose Your Momentum ~ Before It’s Too Late

Body Awareness, Embodiment, Emotional Balance, Emotions, Interoception, Learning, Mindfulness, Momentum, Nervous System, Personal Growth, Psychology, Soul, Therapeutic, Vinyasa, Well-Being, Yoga, Yoga Therapy / By

Recently, during a therapeutic vinyasa practice at The Yoga Conference in Toronto, the class and I encountered a pivotal learning moment. As we reviewed the transition from Downward Dog into Lunge,  a participant asked about speed. “Intuitively, I get that slow is good,” she said. “But how slow? And is it O.K., sometimes, to practice the old and fast flow?” Her question gave rise to a passionate dialogue about how we use momentum in yoga and in life, and what the consequences are of doing so. Momentum refers to the building up of forward movement that takes us from one well-defined place to the next. It turns out that we use momentum in times of discomfort. We use it in transitions, for instance, when we’re caught between an old place or way of being and a new one. And we do so when the pressure to perform well lends emphasis to …

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