When you think about what might be lurking under the bed?
Maybe not any more... As adults, we often build up fears around issues to do with our livelihood (job satisfaction, security, pay), relationships (does she love me? will he want to stay my friend?), our or others' health (will I always have good physical health? I wish he would stop smoking), or our finances (do I have enough money? what if I can't pay the rent/mortgage?).
And these feelings of fear can fall anywhere on the spectrum: from subtle feelings of anxiety that can be hard to even notice, to full-blown panic attacks where we become paralysed by the intensity of emotion.
Almost universally, we're in denial about the amount of fear we carry around. Some fears can be very deep seated, like our in-built human fear of death, or separation from our loved-ones. Sometimes we can get afraid of fear itself!
In our yoga sadhana practice with Jonathan Monks, we've been working on a movement where we roll our head all the way forwards, to the side, all the way back, and to the other side (motivating the movement from the spine). For quite some months we've been concentrating on just the forward movement, allowing the head to fall forwards and the muscles along the back of the neck to lengthen and relax. In this month's workshop we re-visited the rolling movement, and particularly that falling back part.
It's surprising – the simple movement of letting your head fall backwards has an incredible way of bringing you up against fear. Why are my muscles tensing? I know it's safe but I'm scared. What of?
The structure of the neck is incredibly complicated, with muscles, veins, arteries, your throat, larynx, spine, nerves, glands and lymph nodes all neatly arranged in that very small tube. Then there's the weight of your head sitting on top of it. So it's no wonder that you get protective over that area!
For me, that act of letting the head fall back brought up feelings of lack of control, lack of trust, and a protectiveness over my physical body.
So how do we deal with fears like this? We use our skills of mindfulness. We remain present with it, not suppressing it nor acting on it. As Jonathan says, we "listen, feel, and allow". By noticing it and allowing it to be, it's power over us diminishes. By becoming aware of the fear, we have, in effect, stepped back, and with this perspective we can see the fear for what it is – just another emotion. We face it with a friendly, gentle, curious attitude and allow it to soften in its own time. The most important thing is to acknowledge it, and allow it to be there – our unwillingness to see these difficult things causes half the problems!
And this is why this head rolling exercise is so enlightening. We can feel the effects of our fear very physically. The head rolls back and there's the tension in the neck and shoulders, holding, over-protecting. We can be as present as we can with these sensations, noticing and exploring how they feel, and we can literally let the tensions soften when they're ready.
So we don't have to be particularly bendy or strong to experience what yoga practice truly is. It's simply a way of finding out more about ourselves – a practice of learning how to listen, feel, and allow, then learning how to put what we find into action in our daily lives (what Jonathan would call embody and actualise).
 | I teach Zen yoga and mindfulness at the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell, London. See my website for my class schedule and more details. |
No comments:
Post a Comment