anxiety | Yoga for Everyday Life!

On Thursday May 15, 2014 I am starting yet another yoga/creativity/writing adventure and I would like you to join me!

First of all – what is this course about?

It is mostly about figuring out how we can live with less stress and more enjoyment. There are days, like today’s, when the sun is shining, birds are chirping, the sky is showing off its best blue colors, and I am working like the planet depends on me, forgetting to breathe, to get up or, God forbid, to smile.

There are days when things are not going right, when some serious problems happen, and I think that this is the end of the world, not really, but emotionally quite so. After a week or so, you can ask me about that problem and I will not even remember it. I will not remember it, but five days of my life will have been consumed by it.

This course is about learning to hold on life, on beauty, on joy and all good there is in it, despite everyday life stress.

“This course is about learning to hold your ground and not give in to depression and anxiety.”

Sounds complicated? Not really – we’ll meet every Thursday at 8.30 am till 10 am. We’ll spend time in meditation, breathing practice and soft yoga practice. We’ll write a little and observe a lot. Every week will have a new theme for writing – we’ll look for ways how to simplify our lives, how to weed out things and people who do not belong to our space.

Who is this course for? For people who want to enjoy life more AND who are willing to work some on it.

So yes, do join me! For registration, please visit Writers & Books web-site at http://www.wab.org/classes-workshops/yoga-and-personal-writing-into-a-joyful-life/

Turning Point Park Summer 2010.

At the end of the morning class, the volunteers asked us to leave the stuff in the room if we were staying for the next session and to make sure we save the spot. “There are 150 people signed up for the next session,” the woman explained. To put it in the perspective, most classes were filled with up to 40-50 people.

It was Sunday, the last day of the Yoga Conference in Toronto and the last session for me. I signed up for this session a while ago, and was happy that I saved the spot right up front, next to the teacher-presenter so I do not miss anything.

‘What was the session?” you wonder. Well, it was not Bikram yoga, a current rage in the mainstream yoga. It was a completely different topic, most likely something that is underneath high energy exercises like Bikram, Crossfit , or Zumba. The workshop was on Anxiety, Depression and Chronic Stress taught by Bo Forbes, a psychologist and a yoga teacher.

Most of the attendees were women -a surprisingly large number of young women and girls, the ones you would expect in Power Yoga classes, were sitting cramped on their mats in this class. As we started, Bo asked “How many of you suffer from anxiety?” Most hands went up. ‘How many suffer from depression?” Many hands went up.”How many suffer from chronic stress?” Again many hands up.

“Not a surprise” she continues, ” World Health Organization predicts that by 2020 (6 years from today) anxiety and depression will be #2 illness and by 2030 they will be number 1 health issues in the world.”

In the next two hours, we dived into the ocean of research and latest development in the neuro-plasticity (brain study); we heard about the currently studies to find the scientific proof for the connection (or lack of it) between exercise, yoga and meditation and depression… we followed a complex web of theoretical work and anecdotal evidence from Bo’s work as a psychologist and a yoga teacher.

“So what are the answers?” you wonder. Here are some of my take aways:

“Whenever they interview me” says Bo, “they ask me for 3 or 5 poses for depression or anxiety” She stops and adds “And it is always 3 or 5.″ No, there are no 3 or 5 or 10 poses that will cure depression and anxiety and stress. There are no “cure all” poses, but there is a way to be in the poses, transition into them and out of them.
Body is a powerful vehicle in balancing anxiety, lifting depression and strengthening resilience. Can we work through and with body vs. just with the head? To paraphrase Rumi: “Can we meet in the place beyond words?” Though this may sound complicated, it is not – we have 1,440 minutes in the day, and we can take 3-4 minutes to listen to the internal sounds.
We can and should create our own research – by observing our body, our reactions and by becoming experts in it.

These oversimplified three, yes, I know, three, take aways are just a tip of conversation that will continue through my upcoming “Yoga And Joyful Life “course at Writers & Books. Throughout the course we’ll explore the ways to reduce what prevents us from living a joyful life. The course is focused and practical. It will be a great challenge and adventure to add what I learned at the this conference to my teaching, and yes, I am up to it!

The yoga mayhem in the exhibit hall of the conference. Here you can spend the whole day doing yoga with various instructors for $15 a day.