Unstuck

Do you ever notice when we are tired, stressed & busy, we fall into habits as ways of coping. We grab some food, watch TV, drink, surf the net.....there are a myriad of things that we fall back to when dealing with the overwhelm of life. This September I am encouraging everyone, including myself, to find ways to help get "unstuck". The first thing is to become mindful enough to notice that you are stuck in a habit in the first place. Once you are aware of the not so healthy patterns you are falling into, then you can start to do something about them.

That's where yoga comes in. Yoga is all about being present in your body, your thoughts & your emotional states. It's not just about going to a class & feeling good, it's about meeting yourself when you are, the good, bad & the ugly. So if you've gone to a class & left feeling less than euphoric, there is nothing wrong, you just allowed the practice to have you go deeper. When we are open to see ourselves for all of our parts we can make changes for the better.

None of us are perfect (as social media would have us believe), we are all trying our best to make it through the day to day struggles of life. I am passionate that the tools we learn in our yoga practice can be applied to our daily lives. That we can be with our discomforts & faults & still be ok. I can't stress enough that Yoga is not an end all be all. It is one part of a whole self care group. It is a place where you can gain the tools you need to live your life more authentically. It can be a place to fall back to when you need a pause to connect to yourself or community.

There may be times, however, we may sense that our yoga practice alone is not enough. We all need help sometimes & this is not a weakness, but a strength when you decide another person or group could be of help when alone we feel lost. A therapist, friend, family member, Dr, teacher....the list goes on. But I find yoga can help strengthen the ability to learn when we can make the changes in life we need on our own, or when it's time to ask for help.

Yoga should be a window into our own inner wisdom that can help guide us to another for support when our own inner work & what we discover there is becoming to much.

This week, as I transition back to my full teaching schedule, making yoga products, doing my "office work", getting the kids settle into school, etc.... just typing that all I have to take a breath... I noticed falling into my pattern of having much to do in a way that I didn't have a couple of weeks ago.

I say I am a recovering procrastinator, my habit is when I feel overwhelmed in a task, I go do something else. I say I'm giving myself space to figure out this task, but sometimes, I just feel overwhelmed to do it. So I would push it off until the last possible moment & then work intensely at the last hour to get it accomplished. This can be a rather exhausting way to do things, not to mention stressful.

I now know that I need a bit of space between the things I do, but just avoiding or distracting does not work, it makes it more difficult to get back to doing what I need to. Instead, I take the pause I want to take from the task & move my body or sit & breath or meditate for a bit. At the end of that practice I take a few minutes to just be & see what thoughts come into my mind.

If self doubt keeps coming back (which is usually the reason for the procrastination), I try & feel it in my body & figure a way to move through it. I may not always find the answers, but it usually clears the way for me to get back to work.

The conscious pause allows me, in the end, get more done with less effort. By stopping & doing something that gets me more present & focused, it helps to bring awareness on what is making me stuck & how to get back to the task at hand.

That my story, that I've discovered, worked on & am still dealing with. We all have our own stories that are unique to us, but by just being humans, we also have a connection to the struggles we all deal with. We are all a work in process, let's just keep practicing to make progress.

So what gets you stuck & what can you do about it?

Namaste,

Anne Cox E-RYT 500 acyoga.net 403-819-9790 hello@acyoga.net

If you would like to come together as a community & experience & learn more ways to self care, try my new Wed 7-8:15pm Restorative Yoga class at YogaMcc A lovely way to help you to get you through the week.

See www.acyoga.net/classes for my full teaching schedule.

or

Spend a for a few hours of exploring how yoga, sound & breath can help us unwind & heal.

www.yogamcc.com or 403-251-9642 to register.

Yoga & Sound Therapy for Deep Relaxation & Healing

Saturday, September 29, 2018

1-4 pm $50+gst

Come connect to your breath through yoga while bathing in sound to help support you release pain, stress, stuck emotions or continuous thought patterns. Connect to a deeper level of self and relaxation to the space where spontaneous healing can occur.

The body is energy and has a natural resonance when it is in balance. With the stresses of life, we can experience the space dis-ease that affects us mentally, physically and emotionally.

Sound affects the areas that are out of balance to allow the nervous system to be restored. Using props to help you rest in a restorative yoga poses, learn simple breath practices to help you become aware of the stress you may hold and how to manage it in your daily life. Then, through rest, allow yourself to experience sound and vibration with singing bowls, drums, OM tuning forks, rattles and voice to be taken on a journey to come back to your True Self, leaving rested and renewed.

Exploration of your own voice will be explored to empower yourself to the power of sound. No singing experience necessary, only the curiosity to allow your own voice to be heard and your truth to be expressed. It is not about “singing” it is about finding a sound to express what you are feeling to allow your own voice to be heard.

Anne will explain how healing sound and breath has been a benefit for herself and as a result shares her passion of sound with others to help them experience it’s healing properties. Past traumas are held in our tissues. Yoga, sound and breath can be a simple yet profound tools to help allow past experiences to be processed and to begin to facilitate healing within ourselves.

Anne Cox E-RYT 500 has been using sound her whole life. Singing and music have been part of her life since childhood where she performed in recitals, plays and performances using her voice & piano. Years later she came back to her voice while in Yoga Teacher Training and then becoming involved in chant circles and somatic practices involving sound. She is now training with the Institute for Traditional Medicine for her Sound Therapy Certification & also with Numa Somatics Conscious Breathwork that uses sound as part of its therapy.