“Sometimes the best thing for all that ails you has fur and four legs.” ~Mark Asher
Phin has come into the office with me on Friday for the past two weeks. His happy little swagger noticeably drops the stress level and ups the laugh factor. He climbs into the laps of my co-workers, gives them smooches, and is more than happy to take all of the affection they have to offer. Without saying a single word, he says everything. “I’m here for you.” Sometimes that’s really all we need—the knowledge that someone is going to keep showing up and putting his best paw forward.
I’m now on Flipboard as @christanyc and created 4 magazines to curate content in travel, product design, workspace design, and stress reduction. I hope you’ll stop by and check them out: Travel on Purpose – use your travels and vacations to build a better world
I’m thrilled to let you know that today I am guest hosting the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s Twitter Chat on stress reduction techniques for caregivers. We’ll get together for an hour from 2pm—3pm Eastern. Ask questions, get tips, share stories, or just follow along via this link: http://www.tchat.io/rooms/careadvchat or with the hashtag #careADvchat. Tweet you there!
Balance has been the hardest part of being a freelancer, and particularly a freelance writer. I regularly have to research, pitch, and complete work all in one day, every day, for different projects. I use an application called Remember the Milk to store all my to-do lists and one of those lists is entitled “Stop Freaking Out”. I created it to help me manage through the inevitable ups and downs of work.
On that list, I jot down all of the projects I’m currently working on and the ones that are possibilities in the pipeline. Whenever I feel panic begin to enter the fringes of my mind – “Will I have enough work to do? Am I on the right track? Is the risk worth the reward?” – I consult this list and it gives me enough comfort to put worry aside and keep working. It’s my source of calm in the storm.
It’s been a useful tool for me, especially since I decided to give my dream of being a full-time writer a shot at being a reality. I consult it, oh, about 3 times a day. Luckily it’s always close by as the app is on my phone and iPad, and the list is also accessible on my laptop through the Remember the Milk website. We all need support as we pursue a dream; we all need reassurance that somehow in the end everything is going to be okay. This list is one of the ways I provide that assurance to myself.
How do you reassure yourself when the going gets a little nerve-wracking?
Stress may be all around us, but it doesn’t need to consume us. Someone else’s drama, bitterness, and unhappiness doesn’t need to affect our mood and outlook. Arturo Peal, one of my yoga teachers, describes the need for a personal Teflon shield. My friend, Moya, imagines difficulties caused by others as water than can roll right off her back.
I love both of these images and used them recently in the midst of discomfort and disappointment. They worked like a charm. I hope they help you, too.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” ~ William James, American psychologist and philosopher
With Phin’s hospitalization, my preparation to leave New York City for two months, the move to my new apartment, and the winding down of some of my freelance work, I’ve felt pulled in many different directions, emotionally and physically. Sometimes, I felt completely off kilter (I’ll be giving more specifics on this in an upcoming post). As a meditation and yoga teacher, I have the tools to bring myself back to center. It takes time and patience (sometimes more of both than I would like), but it happens every single time. My practice has never failed me. It’s never failed anyone I know.
So if you’re under the dark clouds of stress and anxiety, sit down. Close your eyes. One hand on the heart, one hand on the belly. Take a deep breath and place your attention right between the eyebrows (the third eye). Your mind doesn’t control you. You control the mind. You are empowered to replace that stress with peace. You can will it to happen. It doesn’t cost you a dime. It doesn’t require any special equipment. And yet, it is the most valuable gift you can give to yourself. Teaching this simple fact is certainly the most valuable thing I give to the world.
Too much of the media circus around yoga leads people to believe that it is a practice exclusively for super models and contortionists. Nothing could be further from the truth. U.S. News & World Report ran a story about Sarah Shaffer, a high school student who practices yoga to relax and improve her running.
The full story is below but the last line is the one that got me choked up. It perfectly illustrates why we focus Compass Yoga‘s mission on getting yoga to people who wouldn’t otherwise practice it. The reporter asked her if she had any advice for people new to yoga. Sarah says, “Keep doing yoga, even if it’s hard. It gets better the more you work at it. And you will feel so good after you’re done.”
Have you ever tried yoga? It’s not just for the thin, fit and athletically-built. Just about anyone who can breathe can practice yoga to some extent and reap its many benefits. We’ll prove it. In this series, U.S. News talks with people who are changing the face of yoga.
Sarah Schaffer is a senior at Free State High School in Lawrence, Kan. When she’s not playing the cymbals and triangle in the concert band, she’s sprinting and shot-putting on the school’s green and silver Firebirds track team. Sarah is a fan of country music – especially songs by Blake Shelton – and she also has Down syndrome.
Sarah is one of more than 400,000 people in the United States living with Down syndrome, according to the National Down Syndrome Society. Individuals with the condition have an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21, which alters development and can result in mild to moderate cognitive delays. While every person with Down syndrome has unique traits and degrees of abilities, a few of the condition’s common physical characteristics include smaller stature, slightly upward-slanting eyes and low muscle tone, according to NDSS.
This low muscle tone is part of what prompted Sarah’s mom, Rose, a nurse with a degree in exercise science, to introduce her daughter to yoga. Rose felt yoga would help develop core strength, which would in turn boost Sarah’s coordination and ability to breathe deeply – a practice that would circulate more oxygen to her brain, Rose says. She soon discovered that yoga before bedtime also helped Sarah relax and sleep better.
Now, Sarah practices yoga regularly – even the “sculpting” variety with hand weights. She practices at after-school classes and at home with DVDs. (Her favorite DVDs are those hosted by fitness instructor Denise Austin because they’re fun, calm and relaxing, her mother says.) Sarah tells U.S. News more about her yoga practice. Her responses have been edited.
What’s your favorite part about yoga?
I like the music in the background, and I like the stretching because it’s fun, and it feels relaxing. The stretching helps with my running because I’m more stretched out.
Do you have a favorite stretch?
I like the bridge, and I like doing child’s pose at the end.
What’s been your biggest challenge with yoga?
I have a hard time balancing on one leg sometimes, but I’ve gotten better.
Do you have any advice for people new to yoga?
Do the same video every day until you get good at it. Keep doing yoga, even if it’s hard. It gets better the more you work at it. And you will feel so good after you’re done.
I am a trendsetter – I was having a quarter life crisis long before it was in fashion. 25 year olds, I hear you. I know exactly how it feels to be sitting at your desk that you busted your ass to get by working hard in school and plunging yourself deep into student loan debt, and be haunted by the thought, “Is this it?” (For the record, there are plenty of people of all ages in companies large and small who are thinking the exact same thing and they don’t have any answers wiser than yours.)
Now that you’re 3 years out of college, you may have officially established a fair amount of distance from a friend circle that is literally next door. People get busy. They change. And sometimes we don’t change with them. This is an awful truth about aging of any degree. Times change us.
Maybe you’re in a great relationship, a bad relationship, or no relationship at all. Unfortunately, we’re bombarded in our society by images of happy couples that have no problems and are eternally in love, expect of course in all of the tabloids that we can’t get away from that show love is miserable for everyone. Either way, we’re getting really ugly messages about love and they’re causing us to have unrealistic and harmful expectations, both good and bad, of ourselves and others. In 37 years, this is what I’ve learned about love: we can only expect to get what we give freely.
Add all of this up – the job, the friends, the relationship – and who wouldn’t have a quarter life crisis?
I’ve got one magic bullet for you and you’re not going to like it but it got me through my quarter life crisis (and my 1/3 life crisis, for that matter) and I hope it helps you, too. Stop everything. Put aside your work, friends, relationships, family, bills, responsibilities, worries, disappointments, and fears for 5 minutes every day. Close your eyes, one hand on the heart, one hand on the belly. Breathe so loud in and out through your nose that you drown out the noise of your brain. Get lost in your breath and the absolute f’ing miracle that is you.
Your parents, friends, teachers, the media, and even our President have told you can do anything you want to do. They told you that you can be anything you want to be. And you can, but here’s the part they didn’t tell you – no one is going to make it happen for you. You have to make it happen for you. Don’t bet on someone else to help you get the life you want. Betting on yourself is a much better bet. You can create it with your own two hands. And that process begins by slowing down.
I know this is not the answer you wanted. It’s certainly not the answer I wanted because it was going to take too long, be too hard, and no one seemed to be willing to guarantee results for me. But I tried everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else, and it didn’t work. Peace is a daily process; we must constantly tend to it and the only thing that makes that possible is to go in, slow down, and listen to our breath and the beat of our hearts. It’s still the only thing that works for me even today, many years post quarter life.
From one quarter life crisis survivor to another, just try it. Try it for a week. See how it feels. And if you’ve got questions, contact me. Seriously. I want to hear from you and I want to help.
I was at the dentist when I first saw the news yesterday about Newtown, Connecticut. I am heartbroken for everyone impacted by this horrific event. So much will be revealed in the coming days – motives, names, faces, details of the event, tears. A great deal of healing will be necessary.
For many months I have been thinking about how Compass Yoga can make a difference in the world in these kind of circumstances – tragedies that cause so much trauma, grief, and pain in their aftermath, even long after they’ve ceased to be front page news. I believe we have something to offer; that we have the ability to mobilize a great wave of healing, support, and compassion in the face of unspeakable events.
In the new year, I’m going to find a way to bring this mobilization of healing to life. I wish it weren’t needed but in 2012 alone so many people in our country have endured unprecedented amounts of pain and loss. We must do more to stand up for them, to stand beside them, to be Earthly angels that help light the way forward.
Last night I went to ISHTA Yoga for the first time since Hurricane Sandy hit. I deeply missed my yoga home and being away from it made me realize how important it is for me as a staple in my life. We are so lucky that the studio didn’t incur any damage other than loss of power.
On my way to the studio, I was conscious of how tight and uncomfortable I was. This week I had two interviews for new freelance work that went very well though the preparation days leading up to them left me surprisingly stressed. They are both wonderful jobs and I’m eager to work with these mission-driven organizations. The roles are highly creative and dovetail perfectly with my passion for education.
While I was preparing for these interviews, I also spent a fair amount of my energy getting my head around the difficulties being faced by so many of my fellow New Yorkers in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It’s as if we are living in two parallel worlds. One in which life is perfectly fine and proceeding as normal, and 5 miles away one that has descended into complete chaos with leveled homes, unbelievable loss of life and valuables, no power, no running water, and no heat. And all of this on the eve of another storm heading our way that may bring us our first dusting of snow and 60 mile per hour winds.
As I settled down onto my mat, I was considering how best to care for an open heart, how to be with people in times of distress without inheriting that stress. It is difficult but it can be done. And the trick is in our roots.
As my teacher, Douglass Stewart, walked into the room and began to talk us through our class. I felt myself release down into the mat, down into the Earth. What I’ve been missing in these past few days is the stability of grounding. Douglass, who always seem to know the perfect thing to say at every moment, asked us to firmly plant ourselves down, through our feet and hands, to feel that the Earth below us is stable and supportive. He asked us to recognize that the further we sink our roots, the higher we can fly. I felt that sentiment so strongly that my eyes began to fill up. That was my missing link.
When we feel like the wind is whipping us around, when we feel like everything around us is swirling at breakneck speed, it’s the ability to root down, to find that which gives us stability and strength, that helps us to rise. I am so grateful to ISHTA for being a part of that which helps me feel rooted so that I can be free and available to be of service, particularly in times of difficulty.
Keep breathing, New York. We’ll get through this together.
Christa Avampato 