15 Jul Helena
Helena
‘One of the clearest lessons from contemporary neuroscience is that our sense of ourselves is anchored in a vital connection with our bodies. We do not truly know ourselves unless we can feel and interpret our physical sensations: we need to register and act on these sensations to navigate safely through life.’
The Body Keeps Score. Bessell Van Der Kolk
When I feel bad all I want is to feel better, in my body, my mind and in my heart. I want to feel good, I realise though that life is not quite that simple. Is the answer to life as simple (or as complex!) as always feeling good? Isn’t the universe always in a state of flux and wouldn’t it make sense that we are too?
Mmmm. I am not even going to profess to having answers but I will share some of what I have learned these past 20-30 years – as a yoga practitioner, teacher, having a nervous system and mental health that has see-sawed from time to time.
I would say I am a fairly normal average human being with a normal average family, a house in suburbia, 3 kids, a mortgage, 2 dogs, chooks and a fish pond with frogs and gold fish.
Not much different to my neighbour, Helena. We wave regularly, her kids go to the school mine went to. We have a nice connection – we chat from time to time. I have often thought over the past 22 years than Helena and I are mirrors of each other – active, married, 3 kids.
On the surface we have similarities. When I consider the ups and downs I go through in life (let’s be real here people) I often wonder if Helena goes through anything even remotely similar to what I go through. How is she today? How am I today? We both work, exercise, I do yoga, I am pretty sure she doesn’t. I wonder if she ever feels a bit down like I do, or anxious, disconnected to what is, nervous and/or fearful of what might be? She seems to be quite relaxed, to have things pretty much together. Maybe I appear that way too….
From the age of 11 I have written in a journal. Writing has been a form of therapy for me. My journal is my confidant but I do have another – my mum. I don’t know if Helena’s mum is around.
Anyhoo, I digress, my journal, my mum and movement have always been my go to. I realised I was a holder of chronic tension at the ripe on old of 24 when an acupuncturist announced to be during an appointment ‘I don’t think you have ever been relaxed Amanda’. Ha!
I felt the truth in his statement and set out on a zig zagging journey to find a ‘chronic tension reliever’.
Enter yoga. Mum showed me some poses – I disliked them intensely – I would practice and it felt distinctly uncomfortable most of the time – I did not like yoga but I also did not like being tense!
Over the years I delved into the philosophy, the practice and what got me most intrigued and hooked was the spirit. The spirit in which yoga was taught and practiced. It felt like a pray. I wonder does Helena pray?
Faith has always been of interest to me – who is God? Are there many? Do some of them really have 2 heads and a multitude of arms??? What does all of this meaning? So many big unanswerable questions has the ‘vrittis’ (ie. the whirlpool of thoughts) in this little mind working over time!
I notice when I practice yoga, I feel something – a faith in spirit! My human ‘mind challenges’ mostly fall away.… for a time. As I move through my practice I am enveloped in trust, faith that spirit has got my back, that my body and my mind are being strengthened and softened at the same time and that I need go no further than my mat to find a way of returning to who I truly am. I become one with you, Helena and all beings everywhere.
This timeless practice has an effect on my body and my mind that is often inexpressible. I become one with all that is. How is that so?
Questioning … Looking for answers, a firm ground my mind can work from and I find it in the form of The Yoga Sutras of Patajali – Chapter 1, I/12 ‘The vacillating waves of perceptions are stilled through consistent earnest practice.’
Ahhhhhhh an understandable meaning ….. for me. As I continue to search, ponder and journal about this yoga/life journey, I am now not so sure that life is about arriving in a place of absolute knowing, I wonder now if it might be more about the vacillations and the moments of pause in between. Learning as we go to cease identifying with all of the waves all of the time.
I consider that maybe most of us are vacillating much of the time, between the good, the bad, the light, the dark. Ultimately we each find our own way, our own light visiting the darkness in between.
Connecting with a practice that helps us to navigate this life can be helpful, not only for the physical nature of the body but mentally and emotionally as well. Research is showing how practices such as yoga can help us to explore sensations, emotions, awarenesses and feelings with safely.
Bessel Van Der Kolk’s quote that begins this little piece was definitely my motivation, to feel and understand my own inner and outer tensions, to gain meaning and then transcendence those feelings, so I could more fully experience joy and ease. And so here we are – full circle. Wanting to feel good. But that is not real life is it……. We are here for the whole kit and caboodle.
A practice of wellness though, that is holistic in nature, can give us hope, agency and peace, helping us along our pathway to recognising our true nature, that divine spark within, that lives in all beings.
May all beings, Helena included, experience wellness, happiness, safety and ease.
Namaste