Archive for December, 2009

Posted on December 10, 2009 - by Jennifer

30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 4

December 9, 2009: Since I had some difficulty focusing in martial arts when I did my meditation before class, I decided to wait until after class this time. ¬†Wednesday night is sparring class so, needless to say, it is always physically and mentally depleting and after last night’s class, I had some bumps and bruises. ¬†I came home, iced myself, showered, and then sat to meditate. ¬†I decided beforehand to use the same so ham/ham sa chakra meditation technique I had been using (guided by Paul Grilley’s chakra meditation DVD) but to do 2 rounds of each and to add a technique called nada mudra, in which you use your thumbs to lightly fold a flap of cartilage over your ears and then try to listen for an inner sound, sometimes described as a ringing. ¬†Either because of the sparring or the warm shower, or both, it was very easy to still my body and my mind followed suit. ¬†I noticed right away that, as in previous meditations, I could feel energy at each chakra, but it was a much more subtle and subdued pulse. ¬†Afterwards, I wondered if this was because so much energy had been expended during sparring? ¬†I found that my breathing was a little less restricted or forced on the second round of ham sa/so ham and on the second round of so ham as I brought the energy down towards the base of the spine, I could really feel it descending. ¬†Afterwards, I attempted nada mudra, sealing off my ears and trying to listen for the “inner sound”. ¬†As Grilley explains it, the idea behind this technique is that when we are trying to listen to a faint sound (like someone speaking in a whisper), we unconsciously cease to breathe. ¬†And one goal of meditation is to calm and quiet the body and mind to such a degree that we can actually breathe less, drawing instead from energies within our bodies. I had absolutely no luck in hearing a nada sound. ¬†But, the harder I tried to listen, I instead had a completely different sensory experience. ¬†Instead of hearing sounds, I began to see colors. ¬†At first, I saw yellow – first shapeless and then pulsing, moving geometric yellow shapes. ¬†After a while the yellow shapes began to have some blue. ¬†And eventually blue became the dominant color. ¬†The blue color persisted until I ended the meditation, which lasted a total of about 30-35 minutes. ¬† Since chakras are usually illustrated with particular colors I decided to investigate the chakras associated with the colors I saw during meditation to see if there was any possible meaning to the appearance of those colors. ¬†I learned that yellow is associated with the third chakra, located at the solar plexus, which is said to govern our will and determination. ¬†Blue is associated with the throat chakra and is said to govern our ability to communicate, including when to speak and when to keep silent. ¬†I have no idea whether these colors emerging as I tried to hear nada sounds means anything at all. ¬†If the colors do have meaning, do they indicate a strong energy at these particular chakras? ¬†I am certainly very focused on communication in my personal and professional life and I have often been described as stubborn and willful! ¬†Following the meditation, I again noticed a slight feeling of nausea but it was less pronounced than the previous meditations and passed quickly.

Posted on December 9, 2009 - by Jennifer

30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 3

December 8, 2009: ¬†Today I repeated the Ham-Sa/So-Ham meditation practice but changed the time of day. ¬†I sat for meditation in the evening, after all my activities were done for the day. ¬†Immediately prior to meditation, I had been out teaching yoga. ¬†I found that I brought that “teacher/observer” quality to my meditation. ¬†So, while I was physically quite relaxed and grounded, mentally I was unfocused.¬†¬†Instead of just feeling the flow of prana, I was observing it and making mental notes. ¬† I found myself thinking about how I would explain the sensation of the flow of prana to my students. ¬†Or whether this was a meditation practice I could use in class. ¬†My mind remained sort of distracted but, as my body felt calm, I continued to sit and just let the thoughts come and go. ¬†After about 20 minutes, my “observer mind” decided that I wasn’t going to get any deeper so I started to draw my awareness back to my surroundings. ¬†The meditation seemed semi-successful at best. ¬†But then, ¬†as I opened my eyes, ¬†my body seemed to be swaying. ¬†I started to pay close attention to my physical body to confirm that I was not actually moving. ¬†And I wasn’t. ¬†But, as ¬†I drew my attention to my hands and fingers, I felt a strange sensation. ¬†I recognized that they were hands and fingers but my mind couldn’t quite identify that these were “my” hands and fingers. ¬†Rather they seemed to belong to “a” body but not one that I specifically identified with or felt part of. ¬†Some meditators I know have described a sensation where they are actually hovering outside or above their own bodies and looking at them. ¬†I’m not sure that I felt myself outside my body but I also couldn’t identify the body I was seeing as mine. ¬†I have never felt this before and, while it is definitely a bit disconcerting, I tried to stay present with it for a few minutes and to just kind of go with the flow, looking at my hands, fingers, and legs as if they were just parts of the world around me rather than “me”. ¬†Eventually, in order to bring myself back into “my body”, I had to actually move my fingers and hands and rub my legs. ¬†So, physical contact snapped me back into a perception that these hands and legs were mine. ¬† ¬†Post-meditation, I noticed a slight nausea, similar to the previous day’s practice. ¬†But, it was not as intense and it passed more quickly.

Posted on December 8, 2009 - by Jennifer

30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 2

December 7, 2009: Today I did a Ham-Sa/So-Ham meditation, guided by Paul Grilley’s Chakra Meditation DVD. ¬†In this practice, you start at the lowest chakra at the base of the spine, repeating repeat “Ham” on the inhale and “Sa” on the exhale. ¬†As you move up through each successive chakra, you repeat the same mantra, eventually drawing the energy all the way from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. When you reach the crown of the head, you say “So” on the inhale and “Ham” on the exhale and move the energy back down, pausing at each chakra, until you return to the base of the spine. ¬†Then you sit quietly, feeling the flow of energy up and down the spine. ¬†Once again, I was very sensitive to the flow of prana and could feel it at each chakra and, after both mantras, could feel it flowing up and down my spine. ¬†But, following the So-Ham practice, I actually felt slightly nauseous. ¬†When I ended the meditation (it was probably a total of 18 minutes or so) I felt withdrawn and somewhat low energy. ¬†Shortly after the meditation, I had to leave for a martial arts class. ¬†The mild nausea had subsided but in class I found myself less focused and more easily irritated. ¬†My movements felt slower and they seemed to require more effort. ¬†Following martial arts, I had dinner with a few close friends. ¬†Physically I felt fine but emotionally I continued to feel slightly disconnected. ¬†It was harder to communicate. ¬†It was almost as if there was a thin veil between me and the world around me and I was having difficulty pushing it aside.

Posted on December 7, 2009 - by Jennifer

30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 1

Sunday December 6, 2009: Today I sat for a guided Ham-Sa meditation practice.  This involves starting at the lowest chakra at the base of the spine and moving the energy up the spine to the highest chakra at the crown of the head.   Basically, you direct your attention to each of the chakras in turn and mentally repeat “Ham” on the inhale and “Sa” on the exhale.  Once you have moved the energy to the crown of the head, you sit and experience the flow of energy up and down the spine. When you can pause and stay relaxed between breaths, it can be easier to sense that energy flow.  And I noticed that at the beginning of the meditation, it was more difficult to create that space between breaths.  Physically, I experienced a slight constriction or tightening in my upper chest and throat when I tried to pause after the exhale.  And emotionally, I experienced a slight sense of anxiety.  But, over time, I was able to remain more calm while allowing a short pause between breaths.  Interestingly, I find that if I practice a deliberate abdominal breath and consciously and fully expand my belly, I don’t experience the same physical tension or anxiety.  But, if I practice thoracic breathing, consciously expanding my chest, or just breathe naturally, that tension arises.  They say that each chakra houses its own karmas and samskaras so I wonder what I’m storing in the throat chakra?

I noticed that as I came out of the meditative state and began to open my eyes, the room and all the objects in it had a sort of surreal appearance.  It was like those summer days that are so hot that the air and everything around you seems to shimmer and almost undulate.  That’s what the objects before me seemed to do.  Sort of like, for a moment, my mind had difficulty perceiving the physical world as tangible.

Posted on December 7, 2009 - by Jennifer

Sit still? For how long?

I have practiced yoga for nearly a decade now (yikes!) and taught yoga for almost 6 years.   Initially, when I started practicing yoga, I simply wasn’t that interested in meditation.  Sweaty vinyasa flow was more my thing.  Later, my curiosity was piqued by meditation and its reported benefits but I couldn’t seem to get my “monkey mind” to settle down for 5 minutes, let alone the 20-30 that are often considered a baseline for deeper meditation practices.  At my first yoga teacher training at the Sivananda Institute in 2004, we had a required 30-minute meditation practice at 6am and 8pm daily.  These were not guided meditations.  For a month, twice-daily, we sat in silence, cross-legged, on the floor of the ashram’s temple and were instructed to mediate on our heart center or the point between our eyebrows and to perhaps use a mantra if we knew one.  We were instructed to acknowledge thoughts if they arose but not to “attach” to them.  I tried the point between my eyebrows, a mantra, breath sounds, and “non-attachment” to no avail.  In the morning, I could sit quietly but I never experienced any of the profound or magical experiences my fellow yogis described.  In the evening, meditation was like torture.  I hated sitting still and resented each and every minute.  I would become anxious, at times even panicked.  My mind raced.  Emotions washed over me.  On occasion, I had to use every ounce of discipline not to walk out of the temple.  As someone who prided myself on being a good and eager student, I was incredibly disheartened.  I felt like a failure at meditation and so it became something I dreaded.  Naturally, after I left the ashram, my practice fell away.  From time to time, I would meditate during class or teacher training.  A few summers ago, I vowed to start a consistent practice and started hiking to stream in Rock Creek Park and sitting on some rocks for a few minutes of meditation.  I managed to do it semi-regularly.  Perhaps because it was entirely by choice, it was a little easier to sit still and to appreciate the quality of that stillness.  But, I still did not feel like I was “getting anywhere”.  Once again, my practice lapsed.  This summer, I went to the Land of Medicine Buddha for two weeks of Yin Yoga teacher training with Paul and Suzee Grilley.  At the welcome session, Paul and Suzee invited us to come to morning meditation.  It wasn’t mandatory.  But, the “good student” in me felt compelled to go.  And, again, a little feeling of dread arose.  But, this time the experience was different.  Perhaps because of the long, static holds common to a Yin Yoga practice, I noticed that it was no longer so difficult for me to sit still.  I didn’t feel any of the anxiety I had previously experienced.  But I also couldn’t feel my chakras or sense the flow of prana or access the more authentic self that skilled meditators describe.  As a fellow student put it, I wasn’t shooting light beams out of my belly!  So, again, I was discouraged and felt alone in my struggle.  But, over those two weeks, after some guidance from Paul and Suzee, I learned some techniques that did begin to alter my meditation experience.  I did start to feel and sense energy and could begin to move it in my body.  I started to feel some of the things others had described, like a shifting of the boundaries between my physical body and the outside world.  I dove deep enough during some sessions that it took effort to pull myself back to the room I was in.  And, for the first time, I was actually reluctant for mediation sessions to end!  One of the tips that Suzee gave me that I found most helpful was to become less rigid in my approach.  In other words, she invited me to let my mind wander without scolding myself.  Sometimes, she counseled, the mind is wandering for a reason.  It has something to show you or somewhere to take you.  And, in the quiet of meditation, you can follow it.  After all, she pointed out, if you have a daily practice, every day’s meditation doesn’t have to be the “ultimate” meditation.  It is just one of many.  She also suggested I be more free with my breath, not trying to control it but simply breathing naturally and noticing not just the breath but the space between the breath.  Ironically, when I imposed fewer rules and restrictions on my meditation practice, I actually became more focused.

In the “real world”, it is difficult to meditate daily.  But, I recognize that a consistent practice has much more to offer than an occasional one.   And, in the holiday season, when our senses are constantly bombarded, it seems even more important to take refuge!  So, I’ve decided to challenge myself to 30 straight days of daily meditation and to blog about each day’s experience.  Perhaps it will offer some insight or encouragement to others like myself!

Posted on December 7, 2009 - by Jennifer

Move over, U2! Theo Red is here.

Fortunately or unfortunately, if you live in the United States and someone says, “Name a great Irish band”, chances are you will say “U2”.  And if they say, “Name another”, you will say “Umm…err”.  It’s tough for Irish bands to make a name for themselves outside of the UK or Europe and it’s even tougher when they don’t have the support of a major label behind them.  But, next time you’re in search of something different for your iPod, consider up and coming Irish artist Theo Red’s latest album “Get What You Came For”.  It’s a little hard to describe this album because it’s not quite like anything else out there.   The Irish Times calls it “whip smart rock” and the London Daily Telegraph calls it “ a heavyweight collection of dramatic art rock songs”.  I call it a perfect blend of a big, dramatic, occasionally even driving sound with candid, intimate lyrics. And that juxtaposition really works. So, songs like “This is Not an Emergency”, “Screw”, and “Ido’s Dog Fight” are all fixtures on my running playlists but they are also the soundtrack for quieter moments.    Another thing I appreciate about this album is that, in a sea of rock irony, songs like “Trust the Pilot” and “Hello Tokyo” are sort of islands of heart-on-your-sleeve.  Theo writes about love, sex, drugs, faith, and loss without emotional distance or ironic self-awareness.  There is some clever wordplay but Theo’s voice and his heartfelt musings draw you in rather than holding you at arm’s length.  Theo Red’s sound makes you want to move but the lyrics make you want to linger.  Either way, you get what you came for.

Check them out at http://www.theo.ie/ and download the album from iTunes