by Lara Land | Jul 10, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
In long term relationships there is a way we balance each other out. If my partner worries a lot I may become the more free-spirited one. If they are always carefree, I take on the concerned role. Those role types tend to adjust to balance things, but they are not vibe. That’s different.
Vibe energy is the nervous system energy you bring into the room.
Most folks are generally unaware of this energetic presence unless they’ve been made conscious of it. After that, it’s something they can’t stop noticing!
The way our nervous system impacts others unless they are ultra conscious of it and can control it, is that we match energy.
If your stress response is even low grade activated, I can feel that. If you are super and genuinely calm no matter what I throw at you, I will eventually chill out too.
Being in the presence of someone who has their nervous system down regulated is something you may not until now have been able to note consciously, but if you’ve had the experience, you will never forget.
It is why folks wait in line to see Amma. It’s why I’m obsessed with Lama Rod. And it’s why I take my best photographs with Simon Keough. (Have you seen the new ones on my site?!)
It’s also the most important element to get right as a trauma informed yoga teacher.
It doesn’t matter what poses you instruct or breathing techniques you teach if there’s something in you that’s rushed or unsettled, it will be felt in the trauma informed yoga room and your students will not be able to truly calm down.
This is why I stress the importance to my trauma informed yoga teacher trainees of keeping up a regular yoga and/or meditation practice which sets our average nervous system at a more regulated place AND to do whatever practice works for them to regulate themselves in the moments before they walk in the yoga room.
Regulating practices include Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), self-touch like a hand on the heart and/or belly, shaking out, sun bathing and many more. Trauma sensitive yoga teachers should practice working with different techniques and testing what works for them before teaching others. Understanding our nervous systems is critical to becoming skilled teachers.
Free nervous system regulating meditations are available on my YouTube page. I also do this work one-on-one with my coaching clients and teach it as part of the Three and a Half Acres Yoga Trauma Sensitive Teacher Training.
by Lara Land | Jul 4, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
When you ask folks how they define resilience they will often describe a person who is able to bounce back. Devika Shankar, today’s guest on the Beyond Trauma podcast asks the question, “what are they bouncing back to?” a question which reframes the way we look at the whole picture, not just of the individual but of their surroundings and the systems they are embedded in.
It’s an important and profound question that has been popping up around yoga and mindfulness practices especially as they have moved into schools, prisons, and the workplace. It’s important for yoga teachers and especially trauma sensitive yoga teachers to ask ourselves if the work we are doing is being used to make people more comfortable in situations that they should be uncomfortable in and causing them to resist and push less for change.
This is one possible outcome folks suggest can come of calming practices. Whether it has resulted from yoga, or trauma sensitive yoga and meditation is up for debate. I haven’t seen it but I have seen other problematic behaviors arise from these practices which is why it is so important to have the right teachers and the right intentions when approaching any practice, sport, teaching, or even hobby.
When we look at resilience, what we want to focus on is our ability not necessarily to come back but to move forward into an active space in which we can collaborate with others to move the dial on the systems which are causing so many to experience harm. When your resilience is for a purpose it brings your life meaning and in a beautiful circle brings more resilience and capacity.
You might ask yourself not just what you need to survive and thrive, but what are you surviving and thriving for?
Concurrently, you’ll want to be looking at your stress reduction and nervous system regulation practices to honestly assess if they are working in pursuit of your purpose. This is the central question of trauma sensitive yoga and a question I see penetrating the general yoga population more and more since the pandemic. We are finally realizing we need support not competition!
Take a listen to Devika Shanka, transnational feminist, organizer, and advocate on iTunes or Spotify to learn more about this process and consider joining me for the Women’s Realignment Retreat October 7th-9th to delve deep into systems of support and emergence.
by Lara Land | Jun 27, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
We all feel at times that we are not enough, don’t have enough, maybe even that we will never be enough. These feelings can stop us in our tracks with overwhelm, or cause us to push ourselves to exhaustion trying to prove them wrong. They leave us hopeless and unsatisfied with life and stuck in comparison of the perceived life of others, a feeling heightened by social media and media in general, fueled by a capitalistic market that requires us to need more.
The perception that we don’t have enough is triggering to our nervous systems which have been programmed over our entire evolutionary history to look out for scarcity so we can eat, drink and survive through rough times. When the feeling is produced it launches us into the fight or flight response causing us to attack or run from others even though throughout time and especially in current times it may actually be more advantageous when in lack, to work with others and build communities with mutual aid.
We also have the problem of a triggered scarcity response which is not supported in reality for most of us by our actual situation in which most likely we have more than enough.
This causes us to collect, hoard, isolate, cheat, lie, gossip and act in many ways contrary to our values, as well as to unnecessarily fret and stress.
Understanding what one really has and what one really needs is a process that begins by slowing down the nervous system. It’s from this calm, open and present space that we can take stock of our qualities, assets, and resources in all their forms and consider the differences between what we need and what we desire. It doesn’t mean eradicating desire, however it does mean getting real about where each impulse lives in fact and asking ourselves hard questions about redistribution and our responsibility to others and to our planet.
This is a process which takes time and often separation from our regular environment. It is one of the reasons I put on the schedule a Women’s Realignment Retreat this fall. This three-day intensive yoga retreat is designed to switch us out of scarcity mode and realign to the abundance of nature and the resources we have when we sit in community. It’s in my most favorite place in the western Catskills, an area which has deepened my understanding of what I have and the little I need.
I hiked Bramley Mountain recently just minutes away from my home in the Catskills and was inspired to both write and to record a short talk and meditation for those working on issues of scarcity and not enoughness. Being in nature is one of the clearest ways to experience with all our senses what we have. You can enjoy my nature meditation for free here on my youtube channel.
I hope it helps you to settle in and see all you have and to better hold space for the natural feelings that are triggered by our current rapid environments while seeing those feelings for what they really are, just energy in motion.
by Lara Land | Jun 20, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
Do you have a boss, friend, partner or parent who is super controlling? Do they try to micro manage each situation, predict outcomes and control what you do?
This could be a sign they have survived a traumatic experience and are still processing that trauma.
One of the main predictors of a traumatic response to a situation is loss of agency. Whether it’s an accident, natural disaster, systemic events, racial injuries, or any other incident, they all have in common that the individual they are acted upon loses choice for themselves and their body. Finally in the most traumatic of incidents immobilization takes place and there is commonly a period of disassociation where the person experiences being out of or sometimes hidden deep in their body often watching the traumatic event as if it is happening to someone else.
That loss of control is devastating to the mind/body system especially in childhood trauma. It often seeks to compensate for it by taking control after the traumatic event of every possible thing it can. This comes from a common trauma response belief system that if everything is controlled and organized in detail by the survivor, they can avoid all upcoming traumatic events and remain in the future safe and free from harm.
Of course we know, that is impossible, but it can take a long time for the trauma survivor to feel that they can be safe without that habit.
This is where we can show up in grace.
The next time you’re confronted with a boss, friend, family member, or partner who seems super controlling, have some compassion, patience and sensitivity towards them. They may just be a trauma survivor.
Softening the controlling perfectionistic response can happen for them through our understanding and acceptance of their need to get things right. We can ask how it feels for them when things seem out of their control and what we might do in those times to help them work past that feeling and feel safe again without compromising our own level of safety and choice.
To learn more about the habits of trauma survivors, join the next trauma informed yoga teacher training at Three and a Half Acres Yoga or take a listen to the Beyond Trauma podcast on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Episode 4 with Samantha Lucas is all about this topic.
We all carry trauma. Check out Healing Trauma with Nature and join me on my upcoming Women’s Realignment Retreat to work on repatterning and healing from the impacts of traumatic events.
Highlight: trauma, traumatic experience, traumatic events, trauma informed yoga, trauma informed yoga teacher training,
by Lara Land | Jun 13, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
Most likely you’ve heard of power hour, right?
You take an hour or so to clean up and get the house or apartment you live in in a better state. You might even use the power hour concept to plow through a project, make a stab at your garden or get any good idea off the ground.
The point is you use a shortish, but clearly determined, focused set of time to put your full energy into an intended project. It’s that push we need to make something happen that may have been dragging. This kind of directed effort can yield quick and powerful results and is sometime in the business world called a sprint.
Can you think of something you’ve been wanting to accomplish but never seem to check off your checklist?
It’s likely and not unusual that at least a few things come to mind. There are often in life certain items that just don’t seem to make it to the top of the to do list on any day and drag and drag themselves to the bottom of the next day’s to do list again and again. They can sit there weighing on us and making us feel unaccomplished and annoyed. Those are the ones that need their own dedicated power hour once a week…
This accountability trick is a game changer and has worked for myself and many of my coaching clients:
Create a power hour for the things you just don’t seem to do and have it as a clear and running date in your schedule as you would any important meeting.
Aside from loose ends, I like to use this time or create one more power hour in my week for items specifically related to my values.
My husband has something he always says, which is that one’s opinions are the least interesting thing about them and I couldn’t agree more. Everyone has opinions and these days no one is shy to share them. Fewer, however, are doing something about them. It’s deeply important to me to be in alignment, doing the things that are indicative of my having the opinions I do.
I call this hour my value hour and I encourage you to give it a try.
It’s during this dedicated time that I put my money where my mouth is in regards to my beliefs and opinions. I volunteer to call voters. I write a penpal incarcerated for life in prison. I sign petitions. Write letters to and call my representatives. Educate myself on topics and make donations.
Because I don’t just want to be posting and because it’s not easy to make time for these type of items, having a value hour gives them a specific time and space. When my thoughts come up on topics I feel passionately about, I know I have a dedicated time to act on that passion. And now you can too!
Staying in alignment is not something that is easy. It takes regular self evaluation to stay on track and some yearly reboots to keep it going. That’s why I’ve put a Women’s Realignment Retreat for this fall, October 7th-9th. This 3-day intensive is designed to realign female identifying folks in purpose and values. It includes yoga, meditation, mindful outdoor nature experiences, journaling, and coaching. See more details on my site.
Please let me know how you incorporate and use your value hour in your comments below!
by Lara Land | Jun 6, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
I’ve always known that creating healthy, sustainable habits was of the utmost importance. It’s work I’ve been doing on myself for over twenty years, and it’s the process I most engage in with my life coaching clients who are often looking to start something new, get unstuck, or see greater results in their lives. Most people think too often of the “big stuff” in their lives and forget that it’s the repetitive day to day patterns of thought, word and action that are slowly ingrained in our very neuro pathways and literally become who we are.
The wonderful thing about understanding this is how science now shows us that in the same way unhealthy patterns can impact and change us, healthy ones can as well. They may even be able to rewire which parts of our DNA get expressed. This is great news for the world of trauma because it proves that the patterns of protection which follow a great trauma do not have to be permanent and the negative health outcomes from traumatic stress can be reversed.
It’s all about the slow and steady.
Small, sustainable healthy habits really are the most impactful and doable and that’s what we find with yoga and especially trauma sensitive yoga.
Yoga isn’t always getting on a mat for 60 or 90 minutes. It can be the break in the day when we take a breath, slow down or re-route a negative thinking pattern and begin again.
Taking that time to reset throughout the day ultimately changes us and eventually becomes second nature. It’s all about creating new loops!
This is the essence of what we discuss in the fourth episode of the Beyond Trauma podcast, Stress, Yoga & Epigenetics with Alexandra Seidenstein. You can listen to the full episode on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review!
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