Are You Sleeping?

I adore my kids - they are my everything but…they have seriously ruined my good night’s sleep. Between the early years of nursing during the evening, their early rising & frequent night-time visits to my room - my days of 8 (or even 7 :) hours of uninterrupted sleep are long gone. It’s honestly a real struggle for me. And, when I don’t get good sleep - I am tired, cranky, impatient and definitely not able to show up in my best ways. And I know that am not alone with my sleep issues. Kids or no kids, more than 25% of us are having trouble getting good rest for a huge range of reasons from stress, anxiety, depression to technology affecting our circadian rhythms with all the extra doses of blue light, changing hormones, special conditions and even the blurry lines between work/home life balance.

The number of us getting poor sleep has increased over the past years. The National Institutes of Health predicts that America’s sleep debt is on the rise and that by the middle of the 21st century more than 100 million Americans will have difficulty falling asleep.

Sleep deprivation can noticeably affect people's performance, including their ability to think clearly, react quickly, and form memories. Sleep deprivation also affects mood, leading to irritability; problems with relationships, especially for children and teenagers; and depression.2 Sleep deprivation can also increase anxiety.3

Sleep is important for overall health, and inadequate sleep is associated with numerous health problems. Research shows that not getting enough sleep, or getting poor-quality sleep, increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.2,4,5,6

The good news is that there’s a lot of promising support if you need help getting a more restful nights sleep — including yoga. I’ve tried many of them on myself and my kids and have had great some great outcomes and I’m here to share my favorites.

My absolute best sleep tip is to practice Yoga Nidra. I’ll typically practice for 20 minutes in bed at night to help me get to sleep but have also found that doing it anytime in the day (including when I wake!!) will contribute to a sounder sleep. I love Rod Stryker’s guided meditations and there are also tons of practices you can find on youtube - including ones for kids.

Other things I swear by…..

1. I adjust my screens to a pm setting at sunset and use flux to help me cut down on blue light.

2. I try (try!!) to stop using any screen an hour before bed -even though I love watching Don Lemon ;).

3. I always use a weighted eye pillow - I have perfected keeping the lavender infused pressure on my eyes, even when I sleep on my side. I hear folks love using weighted blankets too!

4. Right now in the colder season, I keep my covers super warm but always leave the window open a bit - including when it’s really chilly outside.

5. You’ll always find me diffusing essential oils - I have a favorite blend I call “liquid sleep” near my bedside. I massage it on my feet too! I can make you a sample if you’d like!

6. I don’t pull the shades…I like waking up with the sun and read somewhere it is good for balance in your circadian rhythm. So is going to bed at sunset, but I haven’t gotten there yet ;).

7. My husband loves using a white noise app…the soft sounds of water or crickets are his faves. I really dislike the crickets….so he has to make it super low when it’s cricket night ;). My son loves listening to crystal bowls and a crackling fire - some white noise apps let you choose 2 at once!!

8. There are so many great yoga sequences out there help you relax before sleep. Many of our evening classes are designed to encourage a good night’s rest- including yoga nidra, lunar flow, deep stretch and yin! I’ll often do a short practice before bed to unwind, usually with the lights out or the soft glow of a candle to add to the chill factor mood.

9. My son loves doing an A-Z gratitude practice before bed. It’s super simple and let’s the mind release some anxiety and stress. You start with A…and think of an A word that you are grateful for, like sweet honeycrisp apples. Then B (usually this one goes to his friend Bodhi) and so on. X can be a challenge but he usually doses off before we get there and lately he has been doing it on his own!

10. Finally I try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time…this is aspirational for the bedtime but I get up at 6am no matter what!

I hope some of these are helpful to you! Let me know if you have any favorites - like warm drink concoctions, journaling prompts, a warm shower….. I’d love to hear from you!

warm regards,

Debra

ps. drop me a line - you can always reach me at debra@flowyogacenter.com or follow me on instagram!

Breath Over Poses

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am. ~Sylvia Plath

The promise of a daily practice does not have to be oriented to a future goal of health, wellness or fitness. In fact becoming better friends with who you are right now- body, mind and spirit -  is one of the most powerful and radical acts we can experience. 

I know it is not always easy to love the right now - but there are little steps we can take each day and each practice to bring us a bit closer, a bit more grateful and bit more at ease. And guess what? When we act, move and dream from a place of self respect & self love -we begin to access our inner power and will start to show up as our best selves— more clear, decisive, intuitive and strong!  

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. ~Thích Nhất Hạnh

Choose Breath Over Pose

One of my favorite tips to help cultivate present moment awareness and self compassion is to approach your practice allowing your breath to be front and center of your focus, even more than your poses!

This breath over pose focus will help us overcome our tendency is to hold our breath during a challenging  pose or sequence which can bring more stress and tension into the body. An easy & steady breath, even when things get hard will bring more grace and steadiness into our bodies, the poses, our hearts and our minds.

The Ritual of a Daily Practice

“……And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth…. a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life. I think ritual is terribly important.”  ― Joseph Campbell

Dedicate yourself to creating the shifts you desire by committing to a ritual of daily practice.

Living in a city like ours, it’s increasingly familiar to feel overwhelmed and hurried. A daily ritual of an embodied practice like yoga, especially within a supportive community offers a true refuge to recharge your spirits and renew & balance your energy and emotions.

Last year over 200 of you participated in our 30 Day Challenge and this year we begin on January 2nd. If you love the benefits you already notice from an occasional practice, imagine what consistency will bring.

We hope you will join us — and let us help you make that happen!

We’ll start the challenge with an optional in person kick off meeting where we’ll gather together set our intentions, create a plan, and envision the next 30 days and beyond. Challenge participants will get in studio and online support, a daily tracker, lots of gold stars to mark your progress and be part of a community of support & encouragement to hold you accountable so all you have to do is show up!

Inspired, Calm, Strong and Ready. Join us for 30 days of magic!

Here’s what this years challengers are saying when asked why they’re joining:

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I did the challenge last year and absolutely loved how my body and mind felt after the 30 days. I've been looking forward to rebooting my practice and this is the best way I know how to do it!

I love the flow challenge!

To decrease injury and fight gravity (and win!)

To get back into a habit of practicing and to set myself up for success in the new year!

At this point, it's a January tradition!

Looking to start 2019 off right with intention, purpose, and clarity.

To help re-commit to yoga in the new year!

For a good start to a new year!

Start the year on the right foot!

To rebuild with healthy techniques.

To stay connected with and support my community at Flow!

To hold myself accountable and refocus on self care in 2019!

I did it last year and had a lot of fun!

I try and do this every year, it helps to keep me on the right path of maintaining a regular practice.

I'm planning to participate in the yoga teacher training at Flow, and have several milestones to complete this coming year, so I'd love to set my intentions right from the beginning!

I want to dedicate myself more to my practice and this is a great way to start!

I want to focus on prioritizing on making time for myself by practicing yoga more frequently and becoming more mindful.

It really helps get through January which is otherwise pretty depressing.

To start the new year on the right and positive footing! :)

To restore balance

The Mind Body Connection

Flow asked Angela Cerkevich, a Doctor of Psychology and a long time yoga teacher at Flow some questions about the mind body connection and some self-care tips.  Check out her answers below!

What is something about the mind body connection that you find helpful to your student's experiences?

We can't do two things at one time. So when we are feeling into our bodies, thinking subsides. This means that the body is an infinite resource and a direct conduit to what IS. This is the great thing about the early stages of an asana practice: it feels great because we get a break from the bouncing around of the mind. Unfortunately, we become habituated to the asana and unless we are willing to dive into more subtle sensations and link the breath with the movement, we may eventually find ourselves disappointed in our asana practice because it doesn't feel as revolutionary as it first did. The trick is to return to feeling and sensation again and again and again. The sensation of the eyes, the feeling of the tongue, the sensation of the webbing of the toes. The mind is a time traveler, but the body exists only in the present. Eventually, we expand our capacity to experience thinking and sensing at the same time, but we are no longer engaging in the thinking as much because we are abiding in what IS. To sum: when in doubt, feel and feel and feel again. Feeling into the sensations of the body, changes patterns in the brain and results in greater ease, calm, and increased awareness of both the more subtle emotions and thought patterns and the more easily felt gross sensations of the body.  

What are some of your favorite self care tips?

Variety. I don't get to rigid about a particular routine or practice. Sometimes that means I go to a spin class, other times that means I go for a walk in the woods and other times that means laying on the couch with my cats. Having flexibility and variety in my self care means I'm more likely to be really present enough to enjoy it. 

What is your one piece of advice for folks for folks who are seeking a deeper connection to understand themselves?

There is nothing to fix. There is only recognizing what you already are. There is only recognizing what already IS. There is no need to "cultivate" more gratitude or to practice a particular niayama to purify. Gratitude is already present. Just like loving-kindness, peace, and open-ness, gratitude is what we already are made of. We just misperceive that something is wrong and that we need to be better, fix ourselves, or do something  different like have more gratitude to be happy. This is a great problem with practices: having a practice that we are attached to may cause us to forget that we are actually already complete and that there is nothing about us that needs fixing. Similarly, we don't need to purify to experience our perfection. Cleansing practices may assist in the process of recognizing our true nature,  but they are not a magic bullet; they are not guaranteed. All practices work sometimes and maybe they even work for years, but they don't work all the time and because the practices of niyamas or asana or japa don't work all the time it's even more important that we don't rely on them.  The only thing we can really know is our perfection in this moment and that particular form of  KNOWING is a felt sense rather than a thinking process. As for practices, if they bring you joy, enhance your life, give you hope, change your mood, then there is no reason not to do them either. Just remember the practices a have a purpose and once that purpose is met, there is no longer a need for them.

Meet Angela on the mat Mondays for Hatha Yoga at 6pm and Yoga Nidra at 715. 

Connection, Addiction, Worthiness, and Blur.

Congratulations on being alive everyone!

In all our life's experiences there is one underlying commonality that moves through everyone, whether we are at the beginning or end of our life. The undercurrent of life is connection. It is the vital fluid that keeps all relationships, regardless of their depth or duration, salient and purposeful. When we are able to experience connection in its positive expression it is joyful, rewarding, inclusive, nourishing and uplifting. When it is expressed in unhealthy ways it becomes obsession, violence, exclusion/isolation, abusive, and lacks dignity or respect. Both forms of connection are present in some way in everyone's lives, and it is our awareness of the necessity for positive connections that allows us to choose to engage in relationships that are meaningful and supportive and rest in the goodness and worthiness of our own being. 

In conversation I have heard myself and others say things that reflect a deeply held belief that in some way we are unworthy or not good enough to have positive and healthy relationships with others. This is a subtle form of self-deprecation and self-harm that can be tricky to identify in our behavior and leads us to making decisions that while appearing to fulfill our desires are ultimately in effect self-sabotage or at worse self-deception. Part of what makes relating to others challenging is the social context that creates the habit of believing that relationships need to fit into certain categories, or have certain characteristics. Every being we interact with is in a relationship with us, regardless of how they appear to look.

When we try to impose our ideas on reality we create a tremendous amount of suffering for ourselves and other people. One of the most intense and confusing ways we can disable ourselves is through addiction. This beautiful short video shows that there is old research showing addiction can be rooted in an unfulfilled need for connection rather than chemical dependency. Addiction, like depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts have been taboo in most cultures such that avoidance, judgement, ostracizing, and discarding people were the standard method of not meeting the issues. It is no wonder, then, that we find ourselves amidst a burgeoning movement of folks working toward opening the doors on family histories, cultural repression, and social transparency. There are no limits to theways we can start to heal ourselves from the burden of seeking connection in unhealthy ways, and the trauma that causes ourselves and each other.

To put us all on the right track, what if we made a pact with ourselves to cherish and invest in the relationships we do have?
What if we agreed that all people who we meet, regardless of the situation and how we perceive them, are delicate, sensitive, exquisitely intricate, and beautifully simple creates that occupy this life-giving planet that sustains us all equally? 
What if we made a commitment to our own dignity, and already complete worthiness, to choose those relationships that foster and blossom our own already present beauty, gentleness, strength, capability, and compassion?

Our lives are valuable and worth living because we are connected. Our worthiness and goodness is guaranteed by our birth and does not come as a result of our actions - it is always with us. Our "work" is to be clear with ourselves about all the ways we close ourselves off to the connections we already have, and do what we need to do in order to foster and invite those connections that firmly place us within the context of our life, whatever it looks like, in a healthy, wholesome, and genuine way. No one else can do this work for us, and we are not responsible for doing it for anyone else. We are here to support each other and together we are strong. The secret, like the name of this Blur song from 1998, is to be with the part of ourselves that is Tender.

"Come on get through it.
Love's the greatest thing that we have..."

Or you could live like this person:

May we remember that we live in a world full of people, just like us, doing their best to live as best as they can. May we stay warm and open to those connections that remind us how fabulous it is to be alive!

Om,

Aqeel