​Let the sun set and welcome a new day!  Sometimes, we are so ingrained in the way things have been that we forget that each day is new, and so are the possibilities that go with it.  We become rigid and shut down to the newness around us.  Think about it.  What shuts you down?  Are you rushed?  Have you felt inadequate, judged or blamed?  Are we controlled by our habits? All these things undermine our ability to trust ourselves and our ability to use new information or see new ways of doing and being.  
 
One of the books I’ve referenced for years is Move into Life by Anat Baniel.  The book explores how the brain works and offers ways to wake it up so that we stay vital and resilient.  In yoga we call it “beginner’s mind,” approaching everything without preconceptions and with a joyful enthusiasm to learn—as if our experience was entirely new.  The author's methodology turns to the science of neuroplasticity and what she calls the “learning switch” to help us continue creating new neurons and connections.  This approach helps us break out of stagnation to increase our physical comfort and functioning, as well as to enhance our clarity, creativity and joy. 
 
Whether through injury, trauma or the inertia of routines and habits, our brains become less resilient.  Research shows that in middle age brain cells start to die off at a fast pace.  But the production of brain cells continues and can be enhanced.  For instance, we know that even with moderate exercise, new brain cells begin branching out to other brain cells and form new connections.  Our habits, beliefs and attitudes can form limitations in thoughts and movements, but stimulating our brains creates vitality and ease.  These come about when we move beyond what we “know” into flexibility, creativity and possibility.
 
I hadn’t reached for this book in awhile but recently pulled it out—and laughed at how parallel it’s messages are to the things we’ve been working on over the last year.  Here’s a quick sum-up of the “Nine Essentials of NeuroMovement,” the system that Baniel practices:

1. Movement with attention-mindfulness in action!
2. Engage the learning switch—notice the small differences even in rote things.  Noticing newness wakes the brain.
3. Subtlety-find new zest by noticing the littlest shifts and nuances.
4. Variation-awaken the senses and open new doors to playfulness and growth.
5. Slow-this gets the brain’s attention and gives it time to integrate.
6. Enthusiasm-this is our amplifier that helps us really focus and transform our experiences.
7. Flexible goals-"holding our goals loosely" gives the brain opportunities to discover new ways of achieving our dreams.
8. Imagination and dreams-they allow us to move beyond our limits to create new possibilities.
9. Awareness-blows apart expectation by bringing us into the present moment.

 
I find it inspiring and empowering to realize that we have unlimited capacity because of the miracle of the ever-changing, evolving richness and texture to our lives.   As we embrace and notice this cornucopia of experience, we awaken and expand along with it.  We are made new in every moment!

Lately the energy and self-study work I've been doing has very much brought to mind the idea that we need to feed what we want to grow.  That can come off as a cheesy "positive psychology" that can leave us feeling like a failure if we fail to achieve the life we'd like to have.
 
But modern science supports the idea that we CAN affect our reality through our inputs.  In his book, The Brain: The Story of You, David Eagleman writes:
‘Here’s the key: the brain has no access to the world outside. Sealed within the dark, silent chamber of your skull, your brain has never directly experienced the external world, and it never will. Instead, there’s only one way that information from out there gets into the brain. … Everything you experience — every sight, sound, smell — rather than being a direct experience, is an electrochemical rendition in a dark theater.’”
 
The electrical impulses themselves are neutral, but in order to conserve energy and survive, our brain has developed mechanisms to improve efficiency, such as using the Reticular Activating System to sort and filter what is most important.  This bundle of nerves just above the brain stem determines what the brain will focus on and uses neuro-shortcuts or habit loops to strengthen and reinforce what it "knows."  This can help or hurt us.  Early experiences, for instance, can create harmful beliefs that we aren't good enough, or good ones like, most people are basically good. When the beliefs form our outlook, our brain chooses its focus to reinforce it.
 
The good news is, we can affect our brain system and its pathways.   In her Dec. 13, 2015 article, “Epigenetics:  How Your Thoughts Change your Brain, Cells, and Genes,”  Debbie Hampton wrote that “expectancies and learned associations have been shown to change brain chemistry and circuitry which results in real physiological and cognitive outcomes, such as less fatigue, lower immune system reaction, elevated hormone levels, and reduced anxiety.” 
 
EXAMPLES
Let’s look at some examples where this effect was tested and proven.  In one of the pieces I read about this topic (Science Proves Your Thoughts Influence Your Reality and Shape Your Brain for Better or Worse-You Choose, 11/28/22) writer T. Cheney wrote:
 
"In Jonah Lehrer’s book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, he tells of experiments conducted by Frederic Brochet in 2001 at the University of Bordeaux. Appropriately enough, the experiments involved wine. In the first one, Brochet took two glasses of the exact white wine, colored one of them red with food coloring, and proceeded to get observations from 57 wine experts. The experts described the “red” wine in terms of its “jamminess” and other red wine jargon. Not one of them identified it as a white wine.

In another test, Brochet took the same medium-quality Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was labeled to look like a fancy, fine wine while the other was labeled to resemble a common table wine. The wine experts gave the exact same wine in different bottles very different ratings. The wine in the expensive bottle was described as “agreeable, complex, balanced, and rounded” while the identical wine with a cheap-looking label was said to be “weak, short, light, flat, and faulty.”"

Lehrer writes:
"What these wine experiments illuminate is the omnipresence of subjectivity….Our human brain has been designed to believe itself, wired so that prejudices feel like facts, opinions are indistinguishable from the actual sensations. If we think the wine is cheap, it will taste cheap. And if we think we are tasting a Grand Cru, then we will taste a Grand Cru.”

And this one is really wild.  Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer studied hotel room attendants who regularly went up and down stairs, pushed vacuums, stretched and other forms of movement for their cleaning work.  When surveyed they all said they “didn’t exercise.”  Half of the 84 women were told their work-related movement met the standards for the Surgeon General’s definition of an active lifestyle, the other was told they did not.  When measured a month later, the group who believed they were active saw a decrease in weight and waist-to-hip ratio and a ten percent drop in blood pressure. None of the maids had changed their routines. The only difference between the groups is how they viewed what they did…and the body responded as if it they exercised more even when they hadn’t!

So what does this mean for the average person who has accumulated a lifetime of experiences and beliefs? Cheney writes:
“Every situation or event, past, present, or future becomes what your brain defines it to be. In this way, your experience of reality is your own creation. Your brain even physically responds by reinforcing neural connections that coincide with your predominant, habitual thinking, a concept known as neuroplasticity. In other words, your recurrent thinking patterns physically shape your brain’s form and function which then reinforces and encourages more of the same kind of thinking.”

TOOLS TO USE
You can influence your brain in two main ways: internally by your thoughts, feelings, hopes and imagining; and externally, by the ways in which you seek to develop or reinforce inputs. 

Internally, we can use these three tools to in effect “reprogram” ourselves:

• Mindfulness-which disrupts and changes the Default Mode Network (that groove of habits and pathways).
• Meditation-which increases our neuroplasticity and helps us form new pathways.
• Visualization-Imagining a situation fires neurons and affects the chemicals released very much like actually doing something, again strengthening and making new pathways in the brain.

The discipline we practice in yoga to stay present and mindful helps us be conscious about building new habits, thereby changing our "default."  Our meditation actually builds up the size and activity in parts of our brain dealing with learning, memory, emotional regulation, and perspective and as well as neural connectivity and cognitive function according to Dr. Sanjana Gupta (What Happens to Your Brain When You Meditate Every Day?, verywellmind.com, January 6, 2024.)

​Externally, we can shake things up!  Generally, we want to stay open to new and differing stimuli. For instance, we might:

• Have new experiences like traveling, meeting new people or learning something new.
• Do things in a new way.  That’s why I change up how we get into shapes, the order we do things, and being playful and mindful about how to move.
• Change your routine.  Even stepping off your nondominant foot, or changing your exercise or habitual practices helps your brain become more adaptive and resilient.
• Be social.  Really listen to your friends and loved ones.  Put yourself in new social situations or enter them with a more open mindset. 

 
It can be daunting to undo a lifetime of old inputs and pathways which affect our beliefs and systems of reaction to them.  But I personally know it can be done.  I struggled with intermittent, sometimes deep depression as a youth into young adulthood in response to trauma.  Over the years I’ve very consciously worked to change from a stance of victimhood and hopelessness.  Am I a work in progress?  You bet!  But I know that I am a resilient, capable and amazing person whose life includes an abundance of everything I care about—including joys large and small.  Does it erase every hard time?  Oh no, but my toolbox is full and I know I can handle what comes.  I am so grateful for the practices of yoga, meditation and Sacred Anatomy Energy Medicine which help me to grow and thrive. 
 

What is this odd photo?  It's me taking my golf cart to the "big store" to load up on groceries.  I strap 'em on the back, feeling a wee bit ridiculous as I buzz down the main drags of Key West with my haul. For the little stuff, I hit the farmer's markets and little grocery on my bike.  So much fun.
 
I'm including this partly for the absurdity value, but also because I want to share a story about embracing our whole self with joy.  In an odd way, it relates to President's Day which we celebrate this coming week.  The presidents we celebrate demonstrated amazing integrity in the face of really stiff challenges.  Were they perfect?  Of course not, but somehow they rose above the doubts and fears that keep us from acting from our strongest, best place.
 
So what do those lofty leaders have to do with me and my golf cart? Well, like every other human I know, I've had my own doubts, fears and challenges.  And when I've shared about the amazing abundance of getting to be in Key West for the winter, I have felt a tinge of embarrassment at times.   
 
So my self-study led me to what was underneath that guilt. And the answer for me was fear, a fear that I hear in different forms and with differing answering responses from a lot of people.  Am I enough/ do I deserve good things?  For a lot of years, my way of resolving that fear was to try and "earn" love and abundance through service.  That was pretty natural.  I'm a nurturer by nature, but like any quality, it can become a shadow quality with a destructive edge. For me that usually means giving beyond my physical capability until I’m ill or injured.  The Universe and my body speak, but I don’t always listen!
 
But what I've been learning is that I AM loved and lovable just by my very existence and me spitting on the gifts of this life or squandering my light and the accompanying joys of living serves NO ONE.  Killing myself to "deserve" that love helps no one. In fact, what I'm learning is that the more I accept and celebrate these Universal gifts, the more I'm able to share and expand the light for others.  
 
What I've found is a calling to help others embrace their own wholeness, help one another shed our old fear-based and crippling beliefs, and assist others to step into their own Divinity so that they, too, may share what they're here to offer the world.  The more we can take on that journey, the more integrity and power we bring to our existence.  
 
If any of this sharing made you uncomfortable, irritated or judgemental, that's ok!  I invite you to explore these and any emotions you encounter as well as the physical places where those emotions land.  What great feeding ground for your own discoveries. Why do you feel something? What's underneath that feeling?  Persist and I know you'll land on your inner wisdom, too, even it it's to say, "She's wrong!"  Welcome to awakeness.
 
And if it made you think, hmm, that’s familiar.  Again, welcome to becoming awake!  I’m always happy to chat, share, disagree, explore. Reach out!

Difficulties arise for every one of us.  They do.  They will.  
The question we face is, will we make them worse or better?
 
Our yoga challenges us to consider the ripples we make as we move through the world.  What self do you offer?  Do you make a big, angry splash?  Are you a gentle source of support and acceptance?  The self-inquiry we undertake and the awareness we cultivate helps us to develop a peaceful stance.  Does that mean we won't experience any more challenges?  Of course not.  Wish I had that magic elixir!  But it does help us to maintain our equilibrium and integrity so that we don't increase the disturbance for ourselves or others.  And, it helps us to have compassion and grace for all beings, wherever we are on our paths.
 
Let's be clear.  We don't have to like or support bad actions, or the things that challenge us.  Feel the feels!  But do we want these emotions to stick to us and weigh us down?  That's when we become dense and muddled and make a huge splash. Imagine you're going through your day and someone snaps at you and treats you unjustly. Ouch!  That sharpness can stay with you and magnify as you turn that injustice over and over in your head. And what happens then?  You've gotten crabby and you in turn blow at someone.  That bad event changes how you react in the world. Or, you can acknowledge, "That was rotten.  It hurt."  And then figure, "Hey, that person must be hurting to act so hurtfully."  Feel it.  Acknowledge it.  And then, release its hold on you.  You can stop the cycle of hurting.
 
That's doable in my little example, which we've all certainly encountered.  But what about when the bigger stuff hits? You're in chronic pain?  You've lost a job.  Someone you love is suffering and you can't fix it.  Sitting with your feelings isn't always a one and done situation.  Sometimes, it means sitting with each wave of feelings. But our yoga practice is just that.  It's practice "being with"--even the tough stuff.  The poses we hate.  The emotions that come up.  Our mental judgements and stories.  We develop the courage and capability of meeting each thing...and then letting it move on.  And that process shapes us and how we move through the world.
 
The more we "attach" to the stories and feelings, the more they control us.  Many years ago my family lived in California and my husband had taken a new job across the country.  He had to start it before we could join him, so I was tasked with preparing our house to sell, keeping it clean and supporting us all through the upheaval of leaving—largely on my own.  And I had so much fear.  I wasn't going to have the house in shape for it to sell for the price we needed.  Our kids were going to fall apart.  I had to leave the circle of support I'd created and start all over...and so on and so on.  One day after yoga I sat with the most dominant fear in that moment, which happened to be about money. 
 
I didn't do my normal thing--get busy, tuck the feeling away and carry on.  I gave myself space to just be scared.  I still remember so vividly, because it was a different response for me then.   I imagined holding myself, murmuring soothing acknowledgements to myself, just like I would for someone else experiencing pain.  I cried, felt and witnessed my experience. But instead of rehashing the story, I just felt the pain until, for the moment, it was spent. And I realized the tension and inability to breathe were gone, again, for that moment.  In that space of peace, I imagined everything working out ok.  I didn't have to know how.  I could let in that glimmer of possibility.  And I felt better. The gripping fear had dissipated. And I was in a better space to move forward, without all the contraction caused by my smothering emotions.  
 
Fast forward, and yes, change occurred.  We sold our house.  The move happened, with a few glitches but really, it was all ok.  In retrospect, it was actually fabulous.  But we don't get a crystal ball in the moment.  We just have our toolbox.  We have the means to keep charging into our lives with the energy of negative fire, or we can embrace the certainty of change and direct our energy.  Our emotions can lead us into more mess.  More tension.  More adrenaline.  More wreckage.  Sometimes, it can be a catalyst to change something.  To learn something, even if it’s simply that we are resilient and supported.  And in that space, we reclaim a peaceful stance.
 
We are humans, having a human experience.  And that experience is often tough.  Will we create secondary pain through our reactions? Or will we use the fire as momentum to learn and grow? Will we spread pain or peace?

Anyone who’s been in my yoga classes for long has heard me give the lemon meringue pie metaphor. 
 
That pie sits there and we jump in.  We feast on the bright, glowing yellow and enjoy the light springiness of the white meringue.  We enjoy the contrast of the puckery lemon and deep sweetness. And then…we hit a shell.  And we recoil as we continue to try to get rid of the sandy grit. Ugh.  It seems to go on and on before our mouth is clear. Blech!
 
The question is, then what?  Is your whole focus going to be trepidation that you might hit another shell?  Or will you turn back and allow yourself to rejoice in all that is good about that pie? Will it ruin lemon meringue pie for you forever more? 
 
I know it’s silly, but getting vivid with an image like that really helps me be clear—we don’t control everything that comes our way, but we can work on how we respond and on where we put our focus. Maybe if you made that pie, you’ll take note of something you want to do differently.  Maybe you’ll just accept that sometimes that wonderful pie also has some grit.
 
To me, where I direct my focus is direct gratitude practice.  Gratitude practices have pretty clearly been demonstrated to lift us.  According to “ Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier,”  an article in Harvard Health Publishing, August 14, 2021 (Link at www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier#:~:text=In%20positive%20psychology%20research%2C%20gratitude,express%20gratitude%20in%20multiple%20ways.),  ”…gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”
 
Certainly, it doesn’t erase the challenges we face.  But with gratitude, we also acknowledge the goodness in life.  This also resonated for me: “In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, being grateful also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.”
 
The article names numerous studies which conclude that people who cultivate an awareness of the good in their lives, and especially those who express it (like in a thank you note or a compliment) not only feel better, but they affect the people around them positively!  It makes sense.  Employers who share positive feedback inspire greater loyalty and effort.  Spouses who thank their spouses are both happier.
 
In one example, two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami found that those who wrote a few lines each week on what they were grateful for were more optimistic and felt better about their lives than a control group who wrote about irritations. The gratitude group also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.
 
Some optimists are born, but we can cultivate the gratitude awareness skill and change our lens on life.  In this article, the author suggests we can call on the past, present or future to find gratitude! Relive and give thanks for positive memories.  Slow down enough to appreciate the bounty around us in the present.  And choose to be open to the possibility of beauty that may come in the future. 
 
Our yoga teaches us the resilience and discipline to stay open.  It can be hard.  Our biology wires us to stay vigilant to avoid pain.  But do we want to hole ourselves away in protective, negative-expecting mode?  To our brain, each thought is a reality. We have the choice to create and recreate our reality. 
 
Recently while on crutches, unable to set one foot down, I got really fatigued and at one point fell repeatedly over a few days.  I began replaying the falls and the trauma, fearing what might happen the “next fall.”  I realized finally that I may as well be falling over and over and over as far as my brain went.  The more I dwelt on it, the frailer I felt.  Yikes!  I began by stopping myself every time my monkey mind went to falling.  Then I slowed way down and thought of all the tools and resources I had to stay upright.  I gave thanks for my strong body, which hadn’t been injured and which was carrying me around despite a challenge.  And a strange thing happened. I wasn’t afraid, I didn’t fall again and I found better ways to navigate safely.  Oh, and PS, I actually got a lot of little gifts of awareness during the challenge of infirmity.
 
So for me, I choose to love the pie! 
 
 
 

Several years ago, after a head injury that left me with years of chronic migraines, I read an amazing book called, "Living Well with Pain and Illness: The Mindful Way to Free Yourself from Suffering” by Vidyamala Burch.  It’s an amazing book. The thing that’s stuck with me has been these two premises:  
SOMETIMES WE WILL HAVE PAIN.  We can’t avoid that.  But we can avoid increasing our pain!
AND
EVERYTHING CHANGES
 
These ideas were consistent with our yoga teachings, but her exercises on living with pain helped me take the ideas in just when I felt most hopeless.  Specifically, we cannot change that sometimes we’ll experience pain and other stressors, but we can control how we respond to them.
 
Burch says that our most common responses cause “secondary pain.”  Yes!  We tense and grip and brace, which actually causes more pain.  We avoid situations and emotions—and they follow us, prolonging our discomfort.  We even cause ourselves pain by clinging to our joys—depriving us of completely being in the moment in each scenario, what we deem pleasant and unpleasant.  Everything changes, the “good” and the “bad.”  Attaching to either of them can increase our discomfort.
 
Our yoga teaches us the principles of nonattachment and surrender.  This quote from the actor Michael J. Fox, whose life has been altered greatly by Parkinson’s disease, illustrates those principles in action.  He explained, “If I let it affect everything, it’s gonna own everything. I don’t deny or pretend it’s not there, but if I don’t allow it to be bigger than it is, then I can do everything else.”  Now that’s some amazing nonattachment and surrender! 
 
As he demonstrates, nonattachment doesn’t mean you don’t care.  That would be a huge lie!  Of course we care.  We don’t have to like everything life sends our way.  But we can avoid creating secondary pain and missing out on the gifts that might be hidden in each moment.  I’ve been relying on those lessons a lot this year with the physical challenges that have come my way.
 
Our yoga offers us the opportunity to practice and develop the truly difficult skills of staying present and awake, even when we want to flee, wallow and wail.  What is that process?  We question, gather information, be with what we’re experiencing, feel what we need to feel…and then accept.  We accept that sometimes we have limitations.  Sometimes we have pain.  Sometimes we’re bored, frustrated, angry.  And we accept that those are part of our human condition.  And what’s next?  Then there’s action.
 
Sometimes that action is surrender, releasing your expectations of how you thought something “should” be. Oh, those are some shackles to pain!   Letting go can be the path to clarity on the right way forward. Sometimes it’s accepting how something is now, and working to shift it.  Maybe it’s recognizing a weakness and taking action to grow strength there.  Maybe it’s activism, communication, getting educated or just being with yourself or someone else compassionately.
 
We can all learn to flow with our lives more peacefully. What I know is that we can embrace life more comfortably when we let go of our egoic expectations, and when we allow ourselves the time and space to explore our reactions and get clear about what’s happening in our life.  That leads to a more skillful reaction and maybe even some new gifts of understanding and growth!