2 posts tagged “asana”

I've been avoiding writing this entry. I have been wondering if what I am about to write is, in its own fashion, a betrayal. I have wondered if writing will reawaken sleeping snakes, and shake me from my pivot point. I have decided to write anyway.

This week I am looking at the First ( aka: Root, Muladhara, Base Chakra). I have already spoken at some length about the Root Chakra: Muladhara, First or Root Chakra, so I will not reiterate. Today I am going start writing by referencing something called "Betrayal Trauma".

Essentially, betrayal trauma occurs when people or institutions that are depended on for survival violate human trust. An example of betrayal trauma is childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Because such betrayals resonate at the 'tribal' or 'family' level and very much impact our ability to experience the safety and security every child requires to grow up emotionally, physically, mentally and psychically/spiritually 'adjusted' - we may consider them Root Chakra issues.

I am not going to get into a discussion about my childhood - because the issues that reside there have been rehashed for me many, many times (healing can be imagined something like a spiral - we come round and round the issue time and again, each time revisiting it from a slightly different vantage point). What I am going to say is I experienced and internalized a profound sense of betrayal and insecurity as a result of experiences that have happened in my family. What interests me today is:

1. How I view the issues - it's no longer of interest to me that these things happened - of far greater interest is what I choose to do with my awareness.

2. How I have carried these issues forward with me, and how they continue to manifest and be mirrored in my current relationships and experiences.

3. How I can continue to work through and heal the issues to move forward.

First Chakra issues are intimately connected with capital N - NEED for security, safety - for relationships we can depend upon. As an adult it is very obvious that no relationship can be guaranteed to provide 100% safety, security - and no relationship is impervious to lesser and greater betrayals. As children however, we have to trust; our very survival depends upon it.

As children, when we are wounded, or betrayed we do not have the option of walking away. Even as we become older, adults in our own right - we recognize that in order to remain a part of our 'tribe' or family - may require that we do not remember, we do not speak - we must forgive, somehow transmute pain, grief, the stomach churning sense of betrayal - and continue to love and connect. We bury our trauma in order to purchase an often illusory sense of family.

I am making a leap here, extrapolating that there is a price tag here. We can choose to 'forgive', we can choose to be silent, we can choose to maintain relationship - but at some point, remaining in the situation may well be internalized as a continuation of betrayal -- this is especially the case where the betrayals and abuse continue. In such circumstances, not only do others perpetuate breeches of caring and trust - but we betray ourselves by maintaining relationships where a pattern of betrayal is in play.

We need to bring forward our 'issues' and we need to reconcile or heal them - lest we recreate them in relationships and situations, which mirror the original trauma. When we find ourselves caught in patterns that manifest over and again in relationships and situations - we need to stop, be still and address the 'lesson'.

Whilst reconciliation in families is generally considered the ideal - because our connection to tribe and family is such an integral part of our sense of  identity - it is not always possible or desirable. Sometimes we can not safely raise issues with family. Sometimes to attempt to raise issues further allows opportunities for shaming, blaming, abusing, harming. For some the family system cannot move through open healing. For some, key family members are absent through death, divorce or disconnection. Acknowledgment of hurts, apology and forgiveness lead to reconciliation - but they are not the only way forward.

I think very much of Ahimsa at this point. I wrote about Ahmisa a little bit ago; Don't Hurt. This yama is very powerful when considered in context to family betrayals and trauma. First we must find our way to Ahimsa for SELF. Ahimsa does not mean we allow others to wreck havoc on our lives and stand idly by. Ahimsa does not make doormats or victims of us. So for me - the first thing that must be done is to reduce harm to self. Until we can take ourselves out of harms way - it is unlikely we can effectively deal with others in our tribe or family situation.

Ahimsa in practice: Move with compassion, love, understanding, patience, self-love, and worthiness.

I consider the meaning of this in my own family - life. I begin by saying that forgiveness is a given - not for the family at large, but for myself. I forgive them for me. I find a point of compassion for each person in my family. I need to see that each of them have been searching for happiness and peace in their own way. What they do or have done is not personal - tho it be directed at me.

Whew.

Love. I can love them, each of them. I do not know them well. I don't understand their logic, reasoning or motivations - and I likely never will. This is ok. I can love them anyway. I can also love myself. I can love the little girl who has been damaged, hurt, abandoned and betrayed. I can love her with consistency. I can protect her from further harm. I can love the woman I have become, warts and all. I am the sum total of all that has happened to me. I will continue to transmute all those experiences and allow them to be part of what carries me forward.

Understanding. I cannot profess understanding for members of my family. I can stop asking "why". I can stop trying to make sense from non-sense. I can let go of the monkey brain that tries to sort out the why of other people's actions because the reality is I will never know, why. It is ironic that the estrangement of family is a sanction or a punishment - but one that misses the mark because I for one, have no idea what its really about! I can understand that it is not possible for me to get my need for tribal connection and family from the people who are my birth family.

Patience - patience to work through these issues as they arise and to do so with compassion with a view toward healing, forgiving, moving forward - so that I do not recreate the patterns over and again. Patience when I find myself having to wade through Root Chakra issues ... again. Patience with the people in my life who mirror these issues back to me - and allow me the opportunity to move through them in a different way. Patience for myself when I fail to see the issues for what they are. Patience for myself when I fall into patterns of behavior that do not create change or healing.

Self love - practicing compassion, gentleness, loving and caring for myself. Keeping myself out of the way of harm. Giving gentleness and caring to myself when I am gripped in the turbulence of another go round of First Chakra 'stuff'.

Worthiness - seeing myself worthy of relationships which are based in mutuality - of caring, of love, of Ahimsa. Seeing that all other people, my family too - are also worthy of Ahimsa.

It's a good deal to think on - and it certainly demands consciousness and effort. While I meditated after doing some yoga asanas (yes ones that activated First Chakra energy) today - I felt a sense of expansiveness in the vicinity of Root Chakra that I am not conscious of having ever experienced before. There is movement and that is a good thing.

I was in yoga class on Friday. The teacher was new to me, and his class was a bit more energetic than usual - in a good way. I was focused on the asana sequences, and when I get into that space, it's very 'zen' - an inward turning experience. I don't spend much, if anytime, looking at other people on their mats - I don't compare myself unduly to others. I am happy about this. There are far too many places in my life where I compare myself, generally unfavorably, to others. It's wonderful to have an hour and a half where I can sincerely say, this is not happening.

New man teacher, took us into a new twist posture. It was awkward the way any new posture can be, and I found myself having to study the teacher's form carefully. Suddenly I became aware I had an entire script running in my head.

"How on earth can he hold this pose AND get his forehead onto the mat?!" "I will never be able to do that." "I have so much work to do." "How could I have thought I was doing well?" "Look at my arms trembling and jiggling." "JIGGLING! OMG my arms are JIGGLING!" "Yoga only burns 300 calories an hour - that's not going to deal with JIGGLING ARMS now is it?"

This thought process makes me feel sad, as it is very mean [unkind and also rough, unrefined, crude]. It's a good enough example of where I fall grossly short of the yoga Yamas of Ahimsa(1) - not only in respect to other living beings, but also toward myself. Ahimsa , is the awareness and practice of non-violence in thought, speech and action. It advocates the practices of compassion, love, understanding, patience, self-love, and worthiness.  Ahimsa is not limited to how we treat other beings, we are included. It is also not just about behavior. Behavior springs from the internal - the things we think and feel, things we say. If I can not adopt an attitude of gentleness, of 'do no harm' with myself, how can I hope to practice it toward others?

Although the notion of Ahimsa is not a new one to me - working consciously with it ... is. Each day I am working to be mindful of what is going on in my head - in my thoughts. I want to be able to do more, and also recognize awareness is BIG work, and consciously monitoring my thoughts is akin to a full time job! I am certain I have runaway rabbits, hamsters and monkeys who have taken up residence in my brain, hopping, leaping, skittering here and there, depositing thoughts willy nilly :/  Noticing requires effort, releasing my judgment about what I notice takes even more effort.

So ... Ahimsa. For today, do no harm to myself, do no harm to you. Be gentle to me ... and be gentle to you too.




(1) Yoga : Ahimsa is imperative for practitioners of Patañjali’s "classical" Yoga (Raja Yoga). It is one of the five Yamas^[49] (restraints) which make up the code of conduct, the first of the eight limbs of which this path consists. In the schools of Bhakti Yoga the devotees who worship Vishnu or Krishna are particularly keen on ahimsa.^[50] Ahimsa is also an obligation in Hatha Yoga according to the classic manual Hatha Yoga Pradipika (1.1.17).