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Breath as an anchor

Your breath is your barometer of being.
Whether you’re up-tight or chilled-out, tired or energised, just a minute of watching the breath will tell you all you need to know. We all have this ability but so often we’re looking out instead of in.

There’s an analogy of a boat being tossed about on the surface of the water – weathering storms and everything life’s got to throw at it. Look under the water, follow the boat’s chain down to the bottom of the ocean, and there’s the anchor – strong, unwavering and steady. Our breath is the anchor.

If you practice looking inward and watching the breath when the sea is calm, in challenging times you can call upon it to provide resilience.

How to build this practice? Come to yin…

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Jack Kornfield’s wisest dharma teaching…

If you can sit quietly after difficult news;

if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm;

if you can see your neighbours travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy;

if you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate;

if you can fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill;

if you can always find contentment just where you are:

you are probably a dog.

– Jack Kornfield

Thanks to Norman Blair for sharing this poem many years ago. xx

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The Sacred Pause

I shared these words from Jack Kornfield on Sunday in a workshop and I thought we can all do with a reminder…

Our life can take on a whirlwind quality of working, responding, answering, solving, building, caring, tending and enjoying. When we are busy, and conflicts or difficulties arise, we can easily find ourselves overwhelmed, or reacting to problems in ways that make things worse.

Because experience happens so quickly, unskillful habitual responses can come out of our mouth before we know it. It helps to practice skillful responses when things are easy. That way when things are tough, a healthy pattern is available, already set. It also helps to train ourselves to pause before we respond. This is called the sacred pause, a moment where we stop and release our identification with problems and reactions. Without a pause our actions are automatic.

In a moment of stopping, we break the spell between past result and automatic reaction. When we pause, we can notice the actual experience, the pain or pleasure, fear or excitement. In the stillness before our habits arise, we become free to act wisely.

In this pause, we can examine our intention. If we have set a long-term intention or dedication for our life, we can remember our vows. Or we can simply check our motivation. Are we caught up, upset, angry, trying to get even, win at any cost? Or with a pause, can we take the time to act out of respect for ourself and others, to sow seeds of understanding and courage? It is in our hands.

The power of intention is most easily visible in our speech. In conversation, we get immediate feedback, and often the response we get will reflect our intention. Before we speak, we can pause and sense our motivation. Is our motivation one of compassion and concern for everyone? Or do we want to be right? Clarifying our intention is critical in times of difficulty. When there is difference or conflict, do we genuinely want to hear about the concerns of the other? Are we open to learn, to see other perspectives?

Try this during your next argument or conflict: Take a pause. Hold everyone’s struggle in compassion. Reflect on your highest intention. Whenever things get difficult, pause before you speak and sense your wisest motivation. From there, it will all flow better.

This is the secret of wise speech. As the Buddha describes it: “Speak with kindly motivation. Speak what is true and helpful, speak in due season and to the benefit of all.” When we pause and connect with our highest intention, we learn to see with eyes of compassion and everything becomes more workable.

Excerpt from The Wise Heart

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Recognise, release and return

I’m having a really busy week. A big event on at work and two family birthdays at the weekend mean my mind is receiving a seriously hard workout.

Our minds have various tendencies and one of them is that we are a planner or a dweller.

We either plan future actual or imaginary events, or we ruminate over things from the past. We might replay conversations or events from yesterday or many years ago. 

I’m a planner. What’s your tendency?

Whichever place your mind goes, I use a handy way to bring my mind back to the present.

Martin Aylward’s 3Rs

Meditation teacher, Martin Aylward, says: 

We RECOGNISE when the mind has wandered;

We RELEASE from the thoughts;

And we RETURN to the breath (and the sensations of the body)

I believe it’s useful to add the sensations of body as an extra anchor for our practice and this is equally relevant for sitting meditation and yin practice.

Our monkey minds always want to wander so it’s likely you’ll need to use the 3Rs many times during a practice.

Let me know how it goes for you! If you’d like to hear me use this in a workshop, take a look at upcoming dates.

View upcoming workshop dates
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Making mistakes

Every morning I lay my son’s clothes out to help him get dressed. It was PE day so it was navy tracksuit trousers. Once dressed, he headed downstairs and was dancing to the radio. The bottoms of the trousers were above his ankles.

“Oh Jacob, I think you’ve got your sister’s tracksuit trousers on,” I said.

“But you laid them out for me,” he replied. I told him I’d made a mistake. I’d got them mixed up. 

This stopped him mid dance move. He spun around to look at me, eyes and mouth wide open. “But you’re a grown-up,” he exclaimed in shock. “Grown-ups don’t make mistakes!”

I was blowing this six-year-old’s mind.

His response really surprised me. I explained that we all make mistakes and that no one is perfect. 

It made me realise we need to show our imperfections more. The pressure we put on ourselves and, as a result, those around us isn’t realistic or attainable. It’s about being kind to ourselves.

In an entertaining podcast with Brene Brown, she talks about whether people are honestly doing the best they can. She carried out research and found that those who thought others weren’t, tended to be harder on themselves. They lacked self compassion.

Jacob now knows about my recent speeding ticket and that the police told me off. When he asked whether I was going to jail, I reassured him that probably wasn’t going to happen.

Let’s hope I’m not raising future criminals…

If you feel ‘off track’, remember that there is no ‘track’. This is your life. It ebbs and flows, twists and halts and speeds up. It all belongs. Stop trying to be a robot who is productive and perfect all of the time. You’re not a robot. You’re a human. Be alive to it all.

Jamie Varon

Yin yoga workshops in St Albans

My next yin yoga workshop will be on Sunday 14 May.

More info
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Gaia House: Insight and intentions

I’ve recently returned from a three-day silent retreat at Gaia House in Devon.

I was last there in 2015 for five days – a long time ago! Whenever I go there, I leave with some insight and intentions.

Insights

  • We have the answers inside us. We just have to spend time looking within and connecting to the breath and bodily sensations.
  • Surrounded by silence and 57 other retreatants, it’s possible to feel totally supported and loved.
  • When we speak, we craft how we come across. We perform, we construct our persona. When words are taken away from us, we are ourselves in our purest form. Our true nature shines through.
  • Spiritual practice nourishes and grounds me in a way that no other activity can.
  • My mind will seek written stimulation wherever possible – intently reading the small print on teabag boxes in the absence of phones, books or the ability to write notes.
  • So many of my thoughts are linked to words. Conversations had and imagined, paragraphs of text drafted before pen even hits the paper. These thoughts and plans take me away from the present.
  • Stillness allows me to notice the small things. During a standing meditation practice in the gardens, I had the honour of simply watching two mice going about their business collecting grass, ducking in and out through the grass paths and tunnels they’d created.
  • I could speak less. The rule of 50/50 in conversations: spend 50% of the time listening, 50% speaking.
  • Intense practice opens me up in such a strong way. Lots of emotional vulnerability and increased sensitivity on leaving the retreat.
  • Feelings of loving kindness or ‘metta’ towards strangers – compassion towards the farmer who shouted at me when I accidentally trespassed on her land. An opportunity to witness the impact of the exchange on my mind in subsequent meditation practices.

Intentions

  • Create silence where possible. Turn the radio off, enjoy silence in the car when I’m in it on my own
  • Awareness of the daily trance – put my phone down
  • Sitting or walking practice
  • More asana practice
  • Get back into the habit of listening to podcasts by Buddhist teachers
  • Be kinder to myself. We all make mistakes. Lessen the self criticisms and perceived shortcomings
  • Visit Gaia House every year
  • Start teaching yoga again…
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The curse of looking forward

I was talking recently in a workshop about how we all have tendencies. In Sanskrit these are called ‘vasanas’. It is how we tend to behave. We may be someone who tends to see the negative instead of the positive.

We may be the sort of person who dwells on the past (“I wish I’d said this instead of that” or “I really should have done x instead of y”)  – I do this. Likewise, we may tend to be always looking to the future.

We all like to have things to look forward to but if you know that this is your tendency, Lockdown will have been particularly difficult.

I was having a walk with my partner. We were walking through a beautiful meadow of wild flowers and he said how we’ll be able to do plenty of walks like this when we go on holiday in two months’ time. I pointed out that we were doing a beautiful walk right now and it was only a five minute drive from our home.

We all like things to look forward to and I think Lockdown has deprived us of this joy. But what if a second wave hits? How will we feel if all these holidays booked in haste are snatched away from us?* How do you deal with uncertainty?

I read a quote once – I can’t remember who said it – about how life isn’t those one-off experiences. It isn’t about the time we swam with dolphins. It’s about the everyday stuff – the brushing of our teeth and doing the washing up.

Lockdown is this and other simple things: watching plants grow in our gardens, enjoying local walks. So let’s keep up with that because you never know, that holiday might not happen.

‘Hameed Ali, author and contemporary spiritual teacher, reminds us that if we are not living with awareness of our body, we are not fully alive:

Sincerely explore for yourself, are you here or not? Are you in your body or oblivious, or only aware of parts of it? When I say, “Are you in your body?” I mean, “Are you completely filling your body?”

Are you really in your hands or do you move them from a distance? Are you present in your cells, inhabiting and filling your body? If you aren’t in your body, what significance is there in your experience this moment? Are you preparing, so that you can be here in the future? Are you setting up conditions by saying to yourself, “When such and such happens I’ll have time, I’ll be here.” If you are not here, what are you saving yourself for?’

Taken from Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance, p98.

*I’m very sorry if you were booked to go to Spain…

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For the love of art

I have spent the last few weeks under an unprecedented amount of stress. I appreciate that that’s not an opening statement you expect to find on a yoga blog but it’s the truth. The reason being that I’m working on the marketing for a new London art fair taking place next month.

Having difficult conversations and cursing to the heavens has unfortunately become the norm and I wake up at 2am composing emails in my head. My brain is full of artwork deadlines, red-flagged emails and often the computer says no.

Deva Premal’s soothing chants are permanently on repeat on iTunes and I’m having to run my fingers over my forehead to release my furrowed brow. After sitting hunched over my laptop day after day I can feel my right shoulder inching up towards my right ear after hours of mouse-clenching.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I look at myself and it makes me think about why I started doing yoga: to cope with a stressful job in London.

My sister reminded me that it was only a few months ago when she was in a similar situation and I was spouting yogic pearls of wisdom about letting go, not being so attached to the results and offering tips on dealing with perfectionist tendencies.

It’s so much easier to give advice than listen to it yourself.

The other day in a yoga class I mentioned that, as well as teaching, I did freelance marketing work. “Oh I can’t imagine you doing that” said a regular student.

But teaching yoga is just one part of me. Ok, it’s a big part of me, but just because I calmly tell people to “inhale deeply” and “feel yourself sinking deeper into the mat” doesn’t mean that I have all the answers.

Us ‘teachers’ may be just as likely to have our feathers ruffled. We’re certainly not all perfect.
Perhaps it’s just that we have awareness to know that getting on our mats or repeating our mantra can help try and deal with stress and banish these negative thoughts and emotions. And you don’t have to teach yoga to figure that one out.
Fortunately this art fair will be over in a few weeks and I can return to spending my days wafting about on a cloud of omms and namastaying people in the Post Office.
It’s certainly hammering home the point that I am very much still a student.
How do you deal with stress? Any tips?