by Lara Land | May 2, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
How to focus better and longer is the subject of many conversations in this era of smartphones and other devices stealing our attention every few seconds. We are cautioned, and rightfully so, that we need to turn off devices, silent notifications and learn to concentrate on the task we are engaged in, or problem we are attempting to solve. Many of us, especially folks with trauma, have trouble concentrating for very long.
It’s parents and teachers’ common concern about their kids, calling on children to “pay attention” when they stare out the window or fidget at their desk. However, as we can see examples of so many times even though we often ignore or override them, our bodies know first and often best what we need to succeed.
Plugging away at a problem may just be the opposite of what we need to solve it.
Every go to sleep with a problem in mind you need to solve and wake up with it all figured out? Turns out our brains love soft focus and often need us to relax and open up to do what they do best.
How do we do this?
Taking a thirty minute walk, going to a yoga class or stepping away to read something unrelated from a physical book are all good ways to relax our brains and let the answers flow to us but may sometimes feel too time consuming.
Here’s another option…Relax your eyes.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but they are probably more likened to the windows to the brain. When we are doing work at a computer or on our phones as so many of us spend most our days doing, they are focused tightly to one spot. This narrow focus has its place but is unnatural in our evolutionary history to hold for so long.
You can switch the state of your mind and body quickly by switching your visual focus to a softer, broader focus. Try it now. Look straight ahead. Now without moving your eyes, relax your gaze and take all of your scope of vision to the ends of your periphery with our moving the eyes or straining. Do this for a few minutes and you will reset your nervous system, engaging its calming parasympathetic branch.
This wide relaxed gaze is the opposite of tunnel vision. It takes in your whole environment and tells your body you are aware and safe, a perfect exercise for reducing stress and the impacts of trauma.
This is the place from which we can make better informed decisions and find creative answers to problems we most likely would not have discovered from zoning in. We are, quite literally, taking it all in.
This gaze happens naturally when we are relaxed, but the great thing is we can bring the relaxed state on by taking it purposefully, state shifting into a more open state. Anyone can do this.
If you are a trauma informed yoga teacher, you may want to use this at some points in your class. Where the eyes are looking in each pose is a central part to our teaching. Considering how you can cue for a softer and wider gaze may just be what’s missing in helping your yoga students to step into that chill, open minded state.
You might just be helping them to see the big picture and make a real transformation in their lives.
by Lara Land | Apr 25, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
Many of us have struggled with traumatic stress since the pandemic arrived in 2020 and even before that with our increasingly screen based, sedentary lives, so unnatural to our systems. I, myself, even though I had an over two decade long yoga practice found that I was often at capacity for what my nervous system could handle.
It was the incorporation of mindful nature immersion that allowed and continues to allow my body to regulate and thrive.
As a start, you can spend more time in nature, by moving your coffee break, a phone call, or any regular activity to the outside.
Learning how to be with and communicate with nature goes further and is a practice. It’s not just getting outside, but being there, in nature with purpose and practices which open you up to all the benefits it can offer.
On nature immersion yoga retreats, students are guided through awakening their senses and reconnecting with the earth. Talks and meditations which call us into the elements and heighten the experience of nature so it’s as technicolor as any screen out there and more so. We hold space and allow for the release of stress and calibration we all desire. You will find your sleep is deeper allowing for the healing your body desires.
The next retreat of this nature is this summer. You can check out the details here.
by Lara Land | Apr 18, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
One of the things we have to start learning as yoga teachers, trauma informed yoga teachers, and humans is that we don’t know everything. Specifically, we can’t know another’s experience, which means we have to trust them when they tell us how they feel.
If you are a yoga teacher and especially a trauma informed yoga teacher and a student tells you that something you did offended them it’s important to hear that and repair that even if it was not your intention to do harm.
There are many factors which cause us to explain away, dismiss, and take way too personally feedback from others. For me, it has always been my perfectionism that got in the way. Releasing that need and knowing that it is impossible to get things right all the time has allowed me to become more vulnerable and available to hear when I’ve harmed someone and get invested in how I can make it right. I don’t take it to mean I’m a bad person. I don’t take it to mean anything about me. I immediately look to how I can make things better for them.
Recently I had the opportunity to be on the other side. I was hurt by a friend who made reference to a murderer of my ancestors in a positive way. The incident made me red hot inside and a great wave came up through my body urging me to walk away. Because I’m familiar with my body’s stress response reactions, I was able to feel those sensations and hold enough space for them that I could stay. My ability to remain in the room allowed me to receive the support from other friends who surrounded me and to be present for my embarrassed friend’s apology.
It is not always the case that we should stay when our body is screaming “leave”. Sometimes getting out of a potentially dangerous situation is the absolute right move. I happened to be safe enough and have enough capacity to stay.
How to apologize… If you cause harm, here’s what you can do:
1. Listen carefully and hear what the harmed person is sharing with you. They are giving you an opportunity to understand something you may not have known about.
2. Make sure you get what they are saying. If you don’t, you may want to reflect on and educate yourself on what mistake you have made. Do not ask them to do that for you.
3. Apologize specifically for what you have done and without any excuses.
4. Commit to what you can do to repair the relationship and avoid the same mistake going forward.
Number 5 can be tricky…
5. Be open to the possibility that your apology may not be accepted.
Part of getting over our perfectionism is getting that that not everything gets resolved or gets forgiven and forgotten in our timeline. A true apology expects nothing in return. As hard as it is, we may need to be okay with open endings.
Practice working with feelings of being harmed with this meditation.
by Lara Land | Apr 7, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
Your inner critic does not have to win.
I can say that with confidence because mine was the worst. My insecurities got in my way big time. They stopped me from trying things. They caused me to second guess myself. And they but strain on my relationships.
But they don’t anymore!
If you have experienced trauma or high levels of stress, it is likely your inner critic is very loud. It can arise in thoughts that say, “You’ll never be good enough,” “You’re so lazy,” “You always self sabotage.” Your inner critic can even look like self improvement or self help. It may say things like “ You shouldn’t let your perfectionism get in the way,” which on first glance may seem helpful but is actually criticizing the part of you that wants to do well.
Sometimes the inner critic does not make itself known in thoughts but shows up in defeatist body language and bodily pain. Other times we may try to get ahead of it by defending ourselves before anyone has attacked us. We accuse folks of thinking a way of us that we are really projecting from the inside.
The most common misconceptions are that talking your inner critic out of its opinion will stop it or that we need a loud inner critic or we wouldn’t get things done.
Our inner critic has a role and that is to protect us.
The harm comes when we don’t give it its voice fully and in proportion with the other parts of us which want to take risks with our feelings and expressions. All these messages our body gives us are important and desire to be heard. It’s not about having a discussion between them and making some executive decision. It’s about giving each their time to express their needs.
The first step to quieting the critic to a volume which feels healthy and in your capacity to hold, is to acknowledge it.
The best way to do this is by sensing where it is showing up in your body or body’s periphery. When you call her into your awareness what do you feel, see, sense, hear? Stay with those sensations and see if you can gently say hello to them, sit next to them, or acknowledge them in a way which is non threatening. Don’t try to change anything. Instead let the feelings know you see them and you can be with them.
Once you’ve established that connection you may want to ask them to show you more about what they need, what they want or don’t want to happen and the ways and why they are protecting you. You will learn a lot.
This is deep work and a lot can arise. I suggest working, especially, if you have had trauma with a somatic coach or professional who can hold space for you in your process. Check out my guided meditation through this process here.
Other parts are likely to come to the surface to argue with your critic and you’ll need your time with them too.
In time, you will be able to hold more and more of what were seemingly warring parts inside of you in balance and in presence. This alone will lessen the impacts of stress and trauma present in the body and create a life of increased ease.
by Lara Land | Mar 18, 2022 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
Lots of folks when they start getting into yoga, meditation, and mindfulness are looking to ease stress AND many are also considering how they may improve themselves on a multitude of levels from their health to their moods and relationships.
Sometimes in all this desire to be better we can tend to hyperfocus on our problems, believing a deeper understanding of our issues will help us to “get rid of them.”
Fixation on a painful memory or part of the body is not uncommon for any of us, and is especially present in trauma survivors. It even has a name, the Medusa Complex, coined in 1948 by Gaston Bachelard, but reclaimed in this context by Dr. Peter Levine who warned us not to look at trauma directly which could trigger our freeze response, but instead to work with the many sensations in the body.
It is especially important when dedicating ourselves to trauma healing and personal growth that we first investigate and get to answer the often overlooked question of what feels good, at ease or neutral to us in our bodies.
Most folks want to jump right into the deep end of their “stuff” without figuring this important question out first. This can happen because we are programmed to look for what’s wrong, don’t think it’s important to discover places of ease and don’t believe we deserve to feel good without “doing the work”. All of these conceptions must be put aside because it’s exactly by knowing where we can go in the field of our bodily sensations to rest and feel ease that makes doing the hard work of trauma healing bearable. It can also give us a sense of where we are headed.
Go ahead and take some time now to check in with your body and see if you can find a place of comfort, even if it is very small. If that doesn’t feel possible or it is too triggering to go inside the body as can be the case for trauma survivors, see if you can find comfort in taking in something in your surroundings, a texture or color that is pleasing to you.
Knowing what pleases you is empowering and an important part of the healing journey!
It’s not that we want to ignore or bypass bad feelings. Opening and closing, contraction and expansion are natural and healthy rhythms in our body which benefit from our attention. You can work to regulate the body by moving between pleasant and unpleasant sensations as we practice in the guided meditation here.
by Lara Land | Oct 26, 2020 | LAND BLOG, LARA LAND
I write to you today to prove to you definitively that:
- your burnout serves no one and
- to suggest methods of self care which are specifically useful in building resilience.
I am hoping to make this case so strongly that you begin these nuriousing practices immediately and maintain them consistently ongoing. I start by sharing my story. Please bear with me.
When I arrived in Rwanda I could tell the team was already burnt out. Sarcasm, bitterness and tension were always felt. The thin smiles that covered them did nothing for me. It was a shock. Not Africa, not Rwanda, not the Rwandan people, the people there to help.
I’m asked often about my experience in Rwanda and it pains me that this is the first and most visceral memory which comes to mind. I know it’s not what people want to hear. It’s not the story that I want to tell, but it’s the one that lingers and it nags at me for a reason.
Since those three months in Rwanda over a decade ago I’ve thought hard and spoken at length about just how dangerous it is to have people in service who are burnt out. Attitudes of cynicism and resentment hang like clouds around this particular flavor of exhaustion and so adversely impact the recipients of our service, it is advisable to do nothing rather than work while harboring these feelings. It’s something I talk about for a long time in my Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher Trainings where I advise yoga teachers on how to teach marginalized communities and those who have been through trauma.
I hammer in the point both because we don’t want to harm the very people we are here to serve and because when we commit to ridding the world of harm that means harm to self as well. It’s documented and common knowledge in the nonprofit sector that some of the best in service and activism abandon their causes because of experiencing these feelings. We don’t want to lose them. We want them healthy spiritually, mentally, and physically, and filled with joy when they serve. This can only happen if they take proper measures to take care of themselves.
Self care that works is of a specific flavor.
It’s not really a bath or a glass of wine (although those are great). It’s filling oneself with self-love, self-compassion, inner joy, and equanimity. These four attitudes, the Brahmaviharas, or highest dwellings are the answer to a long life in service and activism and you can practice them in a variety of ways, the most common being Metta or Loving Kindness Meditation. I recently gave a talk on this at virtual yoga retreat and you can purchase the whole retreat (9 sessions) or that single talk here. It will guide you through how to think about and practice each of the four attitudes.
Being in nature is another way to “fill the cup”.
We are nature, and getting in touch with that and grounding in it is imperative for our health. Specific practices such as walking meditation, standing barefoot on the earth, sitting in a particular corner of nature and observing the life there, sun gazing, following the moon cycles, and others can all reconnect us to our true nature and give us the rich wholeness we need to pursue activism ongoing. As many of you know, my husband and I are currently residing in the Catskills and where we are practicing these methods and preparing programming to help you do the same.
Enriching yoga and movement practices can also fortify us mind, body and spirit.
Here we must make sure to choose those somatic experiences which are low or no impact, quiet, and meaningful and be sure to do them with an intention of soothing. The Yin/Restorative class at Land Yoga is a perfect example of this and one we want to deeply encourage at this time. Make it extra juicy with props from Manduka who gives a percentage of sales to Land Yoga when you write “landyoga” in their promotion box at check out.
These three practices are for everyone.
You may not identify as being actively engaged in activism or service but most of us actually are in positions of giving for many parts of our day. Whether it’s as a parent, teacher, friend, or colleague, it is of benefit to all of us to find ways to be in this world with an abundance of generosity and whole-heartedness that never gives out. It’s possible and it’s closer than you think.
Remember:
- Hurt people hurt people and therefore your wellness is of benefit to yourself and others.
- You are no good to anyone if you burn out and could unintentionally harm those you wish to help.
- There’s a special kind of “self-care” which is rooted in self-love and self-compassion. This type of self-care results in a boundless flow of care for others.
- You and the world are worth it.
- This way of being is closer than you think. Make the first steps and you will feel that.
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