Well, another September has flown past.  Thank you to all those who participated in Self Care September in some way - those who came to the workshop of September 1, the wild flower walk on September 30, classes in between, or who followed along with the Self Care September face book group.  Your feedback and encouraged was very appreciated.

Through the month, I practised the suggestion from my e-book every day, and every few days, shared a video of my tips and thoughts on the various mindful activities.

So what were my key take away thoughts this year?

Firstly, I realised that definitions are vital.  In the workshop we talked a lot about how I define Self Care as an intentional act to nourish all the layers of our being.  The layers of our being were discussed in the workshop and I have also discussed them here, but briefly they are:

• Our environment
• Our physical body
• Our pranic body (energy)
• Our heart/mind (thoughts and emotions)
• Our wisdom or stillness layer
• Our essence, or core that pervades throughout all the layers.

The self care practices were designed to nourish us throughout all those layers, not just focus on one aspect of ourselves, such as our mental well being, or physical health. But part of the definition was about making self care intentional.

This year, I discovered that setting a strong intention was so important to maintain the momentum for practising.  For those who struggled with the practices, it may have been this step that requires more attention.  To hold an intention is to make self care a priority, even if days are busy, and things are tough and our body is sick.

My second take away was there needs to be a balance between planned activities and spontaneous moments.  Often it is the small snatches of time where we can activate our intention to practice self care.  I emphasised brief or micro meditations this year, over the longer practices.  However having a longer practice at least once a week makes it more likely that the smaller practices will be available and effective for us.  Things like pausing for a moment of breath, or feeling the wind on your face, or intentionally rolling the shoulders, are all micro practices of self care.

Thirdly, I was reminded that mindfulness is about being open and curious at all times.  During our final day's walk where some of us came together to be guided through Belair national park, we paused often.  We looked at the small details of the native wildflowers that are so easy to walk straight on past.  We learnt how to identify a range of plants, but looking closely, by being curious, and by staying open.  This was a great lesson in mindfulness for me, and a great reminder that we can apply mindfulness to every activity in life.

I would love to hear your thoughts, not only on how the month went, but how you are going to maintain self care as a priority moving forward.
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The Self Care September group will remain on facebook and has a number of resources, including my various video thoughts and micro practices.  You are welcome to head over and have a look at any time.  Please give Banksia Yoga a like while you are there!

Many of you who have attended my classes will know that I like to often theme classes around the seasons and the natural turnings of nature.

Often in our busyness, we become very distant from nature and its tempos.  We use artificial lighting and artificial stimulants so our natural internal cycles can be disrupted. 

By noticing, and acknowledging the seasons of nature in a yoga class, it also gives us a chance to notice and honour our own natural cycles.

Some people love winter and the freshness of the breeze outdoors makes them feel alive and energised, and yet as soon as it becomes hot they need to slow down and retreat.  Some people are the opposite.


In yoga we learn to tune in to both ourselves, and our environment.  If we go completely inward, we can loose touch with the unfolding of life.  Similarly, if we are too focused externally, too busy, we loose touch with ourselves.

My practice varies with the weather. I might do longer holds of strength building poses in winter to build heat in my body for example, as well as more restorative poses.  In spring, I like to start being a little more active, using pandiculation and somatics to ensure that all of my body start to get moving.  In Summer, I enjoy slow sequences, often with forward folds, and in autumn I like to prepare my body with practices that strengthen my immune system.

I like to honour the marking points of the turnings of the seasons, the Solstices and Equinox’s with special meditations as a way of re-attuning myself to my own rhythms. 

The Spring equinox marks the time where there is an equal amount of day and night time.  Soon, the days will be getting longer.  Plants will start to put out new growth, and flowers smile at us from trees, grasses and every where in between.

In the coming spring equinox class I hope to bring us to a point of balance through the use of symmetrical and asymmetrical poses, becoming more active in our bodies and starting to release any stagnation from winter slowness.  We will use a range of centring techniques to turn inwards, and end with a yoga nidra honouring opposites in nature and ourselves.

All welcome to join me. 
Thursday September 20 @7pm

Here are my top 5 tips for offering yourself Self care. We will discuss and practice techniques for all of these areas at the Slice of Self Care workshop Saturday September 1 from 1pm - 4.30pm st the Upper Sturt Soldiers Memorial Hall.

1. Plan and prioritise ….We are all busy. Self Care doesn’t happen by accident.

2. Build positive emotions. Cultivate attitudes of friendliness, compassion, gratitude and kindness.

3. Take care of your body/mind. Exercise, eat well, drink water, practice mindfulness, laugh often.

4. Develop healthy resilience. Notice how you bounce back after a bad day. Accept that there will be challenges and set backs. Acknowledge difficult emotions and thoughts without getting caught up in them.

5. Create meaning. What gives your life purpose? How can you contribute to the benefit of others? What can you share from your Self?

​As part of my day job, as well as speak to individuals about a range of things that are important to them in their life, I also give training on mental health.  One of the things that I am always reminded of is that mental health is a continuum.  

At one of the continuum we could be languishing, very mentally unwell.  In this place we may not be functioning to our full potential.  We may struggle to sleep well, eat, attend social functions, go to work, get out of bed.  Our ability to deal with crisis may be diminished, and the number of crisis we face may increase. 

Somewhere, in the middle of the spectrum, we are surviving.  This is where we might be going through the motions, but there is still a lot of struggle.  Things might be difficult.  We might use a lot of caffeine, alcohol or other coping strategies, that may be good for a short while, but may not work out too well over the long term.

On the other end of the spectrum, we are thriving. Things are good. Not because every thing is perfect, but because we have the physical, emotional and mental resources to meet any challenges that come up.  We have a sense of purpose and connection to life, and we are able to give back to others in a meaningful way.

Often, we move around this scale, and that is normal.  Often when we feel overwhelmed, depleted we are in the surviving range.  And it is exactly because we are too busy just keeping up with our to do lists, not sleeping well, putting out spot fires that we might stay in this range. Often in survival mode, we feel separated from others, we believe the various internal narratives in our own heads and get stuck in the stories of how we think life should be.  The last thing we can think of doing is some self care.  It feels indulgent, a luxury we don’t have time or energy for.

But here’s the thing.  Self care is what we know helps with good mental health and well-being.  We know its not rocket science.  And maybe it’s because the strategies are so simple that they seem so hard.  Many strategies involve planning to make time for things we enjoy, to appreciate the positive things in life and be grateful for the small things. 

So how can yoga and mindfulness help.  Often yoga and meditation just become another thing on the “Should” pile…But often that’s because our models for what yoga and mindfulness are a bit skewed in our modern life.  We often think of these practices are a thing we need to do, make time for, or add to our life.  Yoga in its broad sense however is a state of being.

The practices of yoga, and mindfulness can take the form of informal, as well as formal. 

When we think in this way, we can make little acts of self care a part of our everyday lives. And that will help us to thrive. 

​Since returning from my retreat I have fallen in love all over again with my meditation practice, and love spending 20-30 minutes a day in silent stillness.  I also include mindful movement as part of my practice, including walking and yoga asana, and on an ideal day will have a 20:20:20 ratio – 20 minutes of mindful movement, 20 minutes of seated stillness, and 20 minutes of mindful walking, so I aim for 60 minutes a day of formal mindfulness practice.  The practices may be sequential, or they may be broken up through the day. 

Meditation was explained by my teacher Mal Huxter as a way to cultivate a calm mind, and develop insight or wisdom.  Recently, my hairdresser asked if meditation could help him with the mental dramas he was experiencing.  So I explained how meditation helps develop the pre frontal cortex of the brain, that part of ourselves that can act rather than react.  It leads us to be able to act purposefully and in ways that reflect our values and the heart qualities: kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. 
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Starting a meditation practice can be daunting.  For starters, there is the perception of equipment – do I chose a special cushions, bolsters stools.  Guided or unguided practice? And how to listen if guided, setting up the equipment can take longer than you were planning to spend in meditation and can be off putting.

Meditation does take some effort.  There needs to be a clear intention.  Mindfulness, (a type of meditation) is remembering to pay attention to what is in the present, with openness and curiosity.  In this, we can be mindful at any time, and any where, and of any thing inside our ourselves such as body sensations or the breath, or outside ourselves such as sounds, smells and sights.

Mindfulness, my teacher emphasised, needs to be applied with an ethical quality for it to lead to insight and wisdom.  Cultivating the heart qualities is one way that these ethical qualities can be incorporated into practice.

While the practices can be informal, establishing a formal sitting meditation practice will help build mindfulness skills, and make it more likely that we can apply these skills more broadly to our everyday life.  Formal sitting meditation includes a range of practices, and just like in our physical yoga practice there is no one size fits all practice. 

There is a spectrum of meditation practices from those designed to calm the mind, to those designed to develop insight.  Calming or serenity practices emphasise developing concentration and invite us to become absorbed with a chosen object of focus.  Insight practices often are enquiry based, and include reflection, contemplation and curiosity as you explore into a question or into things that arise within our experience, such as a particular emotion.
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Often, it can be useful to start with the calming practices, to choose a focus to ‘remember’, and to gently bring yourself back to this chosen focus any time you notice that the mind has wandered. During the retreat, Mal highlighted three things needed to practice serenity style mindfulness meditation: 

Firstly, he emphasised letting go of tension.  We can do this by being content in the present moment with whatever arises, so letting go of struggling.  This is not the same as having no tension. 

Secondly, allow the mind to stabilise by continually bringing yourself back to where ever you have chosen to put it.  Initially, the mind will be wild, like a storm, blowing everywhere, but the more you practice, the quieter it will become, although there will always be some movement even for experienced mediators. 

​Thirdly, develop a sensitivity to your focus, so that it becomes more vivid and clear.  For example, if focusing on your breath, you might become aware of the touch of the air as it moves over the small hairs in the nostril.

Effort towards meditation can be approached by setting an intention, and then remembering your intention.  (This is having a mindful approach to the future).  For example, your intention may be “I meditate between 7am ad 7:10am each day, in the chair on the corner of my room, remembering to bring my attention back to the breath in each moment”.

​Here are my tips to develop your intention and start a daily practice:

• Choose a time and location and be consistent in your practice.  It might be helpful to get up at the same time every day. Be specific.
• Choose how you will sit.  Remember a chair is fine.  It is also ok to lie down, but extra care must be taken to stay alert and not allow sleep to drift in.  You may want to experiment with different ways.  You want to be comfortable and relaxed for the practice, but in a posture that conveys an alertness to your body and mind. 
• Choose what your practice will be.  You may like to start with external sounds, then body sensations, then breath awareness.  You could also choose a mantra (words that have meaning for you), or just words that link with the breath such as inhale and exhale.  You could also count the breath backwards from 24 (or any number you chose).
• Choose how long your practice will be and set a timer.  (Use your phone timer, or your oven timer.) Starting with 5 minutes is fine.  You may like to slowly increase over time.  Some traditions say 40-45 minutes of formal meditation practice is useful.  Any amount of time is helpful.  Start small.
• Remember your intention to start the practice.  Ie “for the next 5 minutes I will pay attention to the breath with curiosity and openness”.
• Practice.  While you practice, anytime you notice your mind has gone back to auto pilot, remember to bring it back to the present moment.  To your breath, your body, the sounds around you, your mantra, etc. It’s called a meditation practice, not a meditation perfect.  Stay until the timer goes.
• Honour the end of the practice with a moment of silent gratitude towards yourself for your efforts, even (especially!)  if it has been difficult and challenging to keep the mind directed towards your chosen focus.
• Repeat.  Don’t be discouraged if you miss a day.  Stay open and curious and return to the practice again and again, and maybe the length of time between practices will also start to get shorter, just like the length of time between thoughts may start to get longer.

 
Let me know how you go. 

Practising meditation in a group can also be a useful way of developing mindfulness skill.  You are every welcome to my weekly yoga classes, or my monthly home based meditations.  And while this post focuses on developing an unguided meditation practice, if you would like to practice with a guided meditations, I have a number on my sound cloud page, or you may like to visit Mal Huxter’s webpage.

​I have just returned from a silent retreat with my mindfulness teacher Malcom Huxter.  I met Mal last year when undertaking Mindful Self Compassion training and was delighted when I discovered he was coming to Adelaide to offer a 5 day silent retreat.  I was not disappointed.  It was an incredible experience. 6 days and 5 nights at the Lokanda retreat centre in Point Pass, to Adelaide’s north in the middle of an April heat wave. 

We practised meditation, sitting, lying walking.  We practised with guided meditations, but much was silent sitting.

Mal is an interesting Man.  He is currently a clinical psychologist, and in his youth he spent several years in Thailand and was ordained as a Buddhist Monk in the Theravada tradition.  The focus on our retreat was the Four Heart Qualities, or heart abodes, or Brahma Vihara’s.

These qualities are loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.  They are not unique qualities to Buddhism, and the yoga traditions of Tantra Shaivism also discuss similar ethics, as do all of the religious teachings from a variety of faiths. 

Mal stressed that mindfulness can not be divorced from ethics, and that these qualities are skills we can cultivate and develop, not just towards other people, but also towards ourselves.  Using mindful meditation is one of the ways to cultivate theses qualities.  He emphasised that mindfulness meditation is a spectrum of practices, from calming practices absorbing ourselves on a single point of focus or concentration, to enquiry practices to develop greater insight.  A range of practices can be used to connect with the heart qualities, and different meditation techniques will suit different people.

In evening dharma talks, Mal outlined the near and far enemies of these qualities.  I realised that some of my compassion for example can often “miss the mark” and really be a sense of wanting to rescue people based on my aversion to unpleasant experience.  He outlined ways to “kindle these qualities”, a bit like you use kindling to light a fire.  You can then focus on and nurture these qualities and allow them to grow and develop.  

For example, appreciative joy is the ability to feel genuine happiness for another’s successes.  Its far enemies (opposites) are things like professional jealousy, spitefulness etc.  Near enemies (things that look like the quality but aren’t quite; include what Mal described as nauseating positivism, and superficial celebration.  One way to kindle this feeling in yourself is to reflect on someone who you admire who is joyful and cheerful, such has a spiritual teacher, or a friend you know.
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The Yoga Sutra’s also give guidance on how to cultivate these heart qualities.  Through the next term of classes, I will weave ways to cultivate these qualities into your yoga and mindfulness practice.  I will post more detailed blog posts on each of the qualities over the next few months.  Mal has a website with a range of free guided meditations and resources, and can be found at ​www.malhuxter.com

It's hot.  I'm sure you have noticed.  It can be hard to maintain our practice on days where we may feel lethargic, dull, achy.  For those of you wanting to do some practices despite the hot weather, here are 5 practices that might be suitable.  You can do them individually, or you could put them together for a short hot weather practice at home.
 
1.  Body scan
This is a useful mindfulness practice.  Remember mindfulness is NON JUDGEMENTAL awareness of the present moment.  Pause and bring your attention into the body.  Notice what parts of your body might feel hot.  Is it your forehead? Your chest? Your organs?  Now notice any sensations of coolness present.  Maybe there is some airflow from a fan or air conditioner touching your hands, feet of face.  What else do you notice? Accept what is in this moment.

2. Sheetali breathing
This is a useful pranayama (breathing) practice for hot weather.  It is a bit like a dog panting, we draw air in through the mouth, either over the tongue curled in from the edges like a tube, or over the teeth. Either way looks silly, and its genetics that will determine if you can make the tongue tube.  We inhale through the mouth, gently moving the head upwards at the same time.  We then retain the inhale momentarily and exhale through the nose.  Try just a few rounds, perhaps a maximum of 9.
 
3. Hand massage and mudras
I find that I notice swelling and aching through my hands in this weather.  I like to do some gentle hand massage and wrist rolling movements to ease through the joints.  Mudras are also useful in this weather.  One of my favourite is the Hridaya Mudra for the heart centre.

From a comfortable seat, place the tips of your middle and ring fingers to your thumbs.  The index finger curls inwards towards the base of your thumb, and your little finger extends out straight.  Pause and breathe here.  This mudra is said to energise the heart centre, and is useful to release emotional energy.
 
Twists
I love practicing gentle twists in this weather.  Simple wringing movements feel good in my spine.  Either from a supine position on the floor, allowing the legs to gently roll from side to side, or a simple chair twist, held for a few breaths each side.
 
Legs up the wall (or chair) pose
Let's remember how useful this is for establishing a good sleep routine.  Perhaps before you go to bed, place your legs on a chair, or on the wall, making sure you feel completely comfortable and relaxed. I have been known to fall asleep, so perhaps it might be good to use a timer to tell you to come out after 5, 10 or 15 minutes.
 
I hope these suggestions are useful.  Take care and stay cool

Body Sensing Practices that I have been exploring in my personal practice are based on a number of principles.  Here are the five main principles that will guide us over the next few weeks of the Body Sensing yoga and mindfulness course. 

1.  Develop interoceptive awareness with slow mindful movements
Moving slowly helps to train the nervous system of the body.  Often our fast paced life impacts on our nervous system in a number of ways.  We push through even though we are tired, use stimulants like caffeine to keep going.  Moving slowly, and combining smooth even breathing with our movements helps us retrain the nervous system.  Its not enough to just rest in shavasana at the end of the practice.  When we move slowly, we get a chance to experience the movements from the inside, we can make adjustments if needed. 

2.  Soften and hydrate fascia in the body
Many of you who have been to my classes know that I love working with fascia.  Recent training I attended with Donna Fahri emphasised the need to soften and hydrate the body before doing more strenuous movements - sequencing is also important.  Many of the practices involve rolling, wobbling and gentle shaking.  At first, we might notice how stiff we are, these practices may not feel very normal or natural, however over time our bodies will respond and develop a more jelly like quality.

3.  Include compassionate touch
This is an addition from my mindful self compassion training.  When we offer ourselves soothing touch we offer ourselves kindness.  It also helps build interoception. When we touch the body it helps build our awareness by bringing our mind into the area of the body that is moving.  For example, sliding the hands down the legs while we come into a forward fold may give us a greater sense of our hamstrings, and how much bend we need in the knees on the way down. 

4.  Find the most ease-ful way of being in each moment
Work with where you are at.  Our yoga and our meditation should be enjoyable.  In each moment, find the place where you feel most at ease - you can then go deeper into sensation, if that is what your body sugests.  Similarly, be in a place of comfort with the mind.  We will be spending some time developing a safe space, so that our mind can rest in a place that generates feelings of ease at any time that might be useful during class, or in your everyday life.

5.  There is no such thing as a perfect practice
Life isn't perfect, and neither will your yoga and meditation practice.  It is important that you allow yourself to be  a beginner, no matter how long you have practised.  It is normal for our minds to wander when we meditate, even for experienced mediators.  There will be times when body sensing practices make sense, and there may be times where the mind is bored, tired and finds these practices difficult.  Use this as an opportunity to offer yourself compassion towards whatever shows up, whether you like it or not.

I went out of my comfort zone today and put up a short very unpolished 3 minute video of my practice, which demonstrates these principles.  You can find it  here

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This February I am offering something slightly different in place of my evening yoga classes - a course on Body Sensing.  But what is this?

Body Sensing is the art of living an embodied life, being aware of the innate intelligence of our inner world.  It includes our physical body, but also extends to our emotions, thoughts, feeling and spirit.

Body Sensing is all about increasing our Interoceptive awareness – or the ability to listen effectively to our bodies.  Just think about all the times you have ignored or failed to listen to your body.  Times where you might have pushed through tiredness with caffeine, drank or ate too much, stifled feelings of grief or anger.  These habits often create distance from our own bodies.

Through body sensing practices we aim to rebuild this relationship with our bodies, so that it can be based on trust and respect.  Body sensing practices include moving with slow awareness, while incorporating the principles of mindfulness – non-judgmental awareness of the present moment.

Bessel Van der Kolk has researched changes that happen in the brain and body with slow, interoceptive yoga and meditation practices. He found these practices make positive changes in the “Mohawk” brain structures which help regulate Self Identity, as well as the region of the forebrain that promotes  self-regulation, pro-social behavior, and positive affect (emotional states).  Other useful changes to brain structures include improved focus, attention, memory, as well as less loss of gray matter which naturally occurs with aging.

Body Sensing practices, include slow mindful movement, mindful attention to the breath, pranayama (breathing practices), and yoga nidra (deep relaxation). 

 These practices also assist tone the vagus nerve in the body.  This nerve is the connection between our gut and our brain.  Healthy vagal tone assists us to feel more comfortable in our own skins.  It helps build the ability to react appropriately to life, easily shifting states between resting and activity as we need to.  It also helps regulate the insula area of the brain.  This is the part that connects us to sensations and emotions, and can be agitated when we experience trauma or anxiety.  
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Body Sensing practices can help us understand our usual patterns of behavior, such as reacting or shutting down. The practices also have a significant role in helping us get in touch with our values and priorities in life.  When we have a healthy respectful relationship with our body we can then chose how we act with more freedom, and can make decisions that positively influence our health and wellbeing.

For more information, or to sign up, check out the events page.