Category Archives: Yoga Teacher Training

Think Fast – Or Not

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As regular readers of this blog, or my twitter feed, know, I’ve recently been fasting on “moon days.” This has meant full fasts on full moon days, new moon days, and ekadasi days. Having done so for a month, and having also completed two longer juice fasts in December, I’m trying to assess my reasons for fasting and whether I am accomplishing what I hoped with the process.

In December, I juice fasted for a total of 10 days (two 5 day fasts). This was partly to add additional tapas to my yoga journey, partly to cleanse the body in support of the principle of saucha, and partly to help my body physically process some strong drugs that I was given during a medical treatment. At the end of those experiences, I felt very positively about them (see previous post for details) and decided to investigate other plans/philosophies of fasting and yoga.

During this investigation, based on a suggestion of a teacher training peer, I encountered the triyoga idea of fasting, which encourages full (water only) fasting on the above noted moon days. This results in around four days of fasting per month.

While I have been able to do the fasting in the last month as planned, I’m a little conflicted about it right now. Fasting is not a religious undertaking for me; it’s a philosophical/physical undertaking. Thus, it needs to “make sense” to me in those ways. I understand the notion of freeing up energies usually associated with eating and I can see the value of that. But, I’m not sure it’s doing that for me.

Yesterday was a fast day, and coincidentally also a yoga teacher training class where we focused on the koshas. As we talked in class about the koshas and how yoga helps us to create more permeability in the physical, intellectual, and even emotional selves and thus improves access to the bliss self, I started to think about fasting in this way. Ideally, it appears to me that fasting is one way to remove focus from the “food layer” of the self and allow it to shift to other koshas. That seems good. But, I actually think, for me, full fasting is working the other way.

As an individual who has “struggled” with eating disorders for over 30 years, I’m not sure fully fasting is a good choice. I’ve fasted many many times in my life, and almost always for reasons completely related to the physical self and to the ego. I have a long history and a deeply ingrained pattern of seeing fasting as a way to weight loss or weight control. While I think the issues are relatively well controlled right now, fasting made them more present to me, not less. During fasting days, I found myself thinking about my weight and wondering if I would lose any weight. When I was hungry and considered breaking the fast, I convinced myself out of it not through any greater good, but through a combination of reminding myself that it would be good for my weight and refusing to “fail” at the effort. This is not exactly what I was going for with the fasting. These ramifications stretched somewhat into the day before and the day after the fast, when I wondered if I should reduce my diet more, so that the impact of the fast would be greater. The bottom line here is that I was actually more focused on the physical self and the ego, not less so. Hmmm…

I am not yet totally convinced that fasting is right out (to quote the great Monty Python) for me, but if I’m going to continue this as part of my yoga practice, I need to determine a way to do so that elevates my practice, rather than reinforces the “bad grooves” I already have.

This really highlights for me the idea that the practice of yoga is individual. Techniques – or poses – that work for one person may not work for another. Adjustments must be made to meet the needs of the student, whether that means an additional block or rethinking a fasting plan. Learning and yoga arrives in interesting forms!

Meditating Thoughts

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As a part of our yoga teacher training, we were required to participate in four meditation sits and write a reflection on the experience.  What follows is mine.

Reflections on Meditation

In a book series that I love (The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb), there is a character who has a thought bond with a wolf.  It allows him to be in the mind of the wolf for periods of time.  In the story, when life has become too hard and he cannot stop himself from worrying over the future and fretting over the past, he goes “with” the wolf.  He makes this choice because the wolf operates totally in the moment, hunting, eating, sleeping, bathing, playing, running , being where he is at all times.  Over the course of time, as the wolf and man bond evolves, they begin to take on each other’s characteristics, and the wolf begins to think about the past and future, and there is a melancholy to the story, because the reader can see that, while he has gained this human trait, he has lost something wonderful.  As humans, becoming like the wolf is very challenging.  Our minds race from one thing to another, focusing intently upon what we have done or what we will do, but rarely attending to what is happening in the very second we are in.  Like yoga, meditation is one way of encouraging this being in the moment.

For the past four Sundays, I have participated in a yoga sit with several other people.  While the session runs for about 45 minutes, it is broken up into 2 meditation periods, each between 10 and 20 minutes.  The time between and after is used for discussion of the experience.

The first Sunday, I came to the sit interested, but not at all apprehensive.  I practice meditation on my own, though not very regularly, and I view yin yoga as an opportunity to engage in short meditative sessions with each pose.  But, I had never engaged in a real meditation sit with others.

As we came into the space, I noticed that there was a calm and sweet vibe in the space.  Everyone seemed fairly relaxed, and the two regular practitioners that lead the system were very welcoming.  They explained how the session would work and took questions before we began.  I arranged myself in sukhasana on a blanket, with another blanket behind my back and my back against the wall.  My palms rested nested or cupped on my feet.

The beginning meditation period of that sit wasn’t difficult or uncomfortable to me, but it was quite a thing to see how my mind kept attempting to leave the space, and head into planning the following day (a Monday) at work.  I found myself chastising my mind for wandering.  During the break, I mentioned this and one of the regulars reminded us that it is fine for the thoughts to come, but we want to watch them rather than engaging them.  So, for the second period, I attempted to do this, and it went even better.  There was a lightness to my body and almost a feeling of floating that occurred.  It was extremely relaxing and lovely, and afterwards I felt simultaneously buoyant and settled.

In the three additional sits, I had mixed experiences.  Sometimes, I dropped easily and quickly into the feeling of calm, ease of breath, and patient observation of the mind.  Other times, it seemed to be a little elusive.  I found myself trying several techniques to focus my thoughts.  In the past, I have used mantras (I used a mantra through my last two labors/deliveries of my children and it helped much), so I tried that for some of the sessions.  It worked, or it didn’t.  I also attempted to focus on my breath entirely.  Having read in Jivamukti Yoga the directions to not follow the breath into the body, but to watch it at the entrance and exit, just at the nostrils, I gave that a try.  In some sessions, that worked very well (much more than in the past when I tried to watch the breath all the way into the lungs/ribs/belly).  In others sessions, not so much.  I counted (nope, that didn’t do well for me).  I tried eyes open (no) and closed (better).  The success or “failure” of each technique, I think, was probably less related to what thing I was trying to do and more to where I was in that time.

In the sits, or in the individual meditation periods, if I had come into the room in a relatively calm frame of mind, not rushed, not in pain, not in a twirl of emotion, it was much easier for me to bring myself to the meditation.  In the times where I entered in a hurry, had been having a difficult or particularly emotional day, or was fighting with my body in some way, it was more of a challenge.

Regardless of whether I found the experience easy or difficult, calming or a little annoying, I never ended the sit feeling like I had not gained something from being there.  The value of it, even in the very short term of the hours immediately after, is apparent to me.  I’ve begun putting 10-15 minute meditations into my work days and finding that, after them, I am much more able to continue on with my day in a calm and positive frame of mind.  Even if I’m not sure that I was actually meditating, I feel like after the session I am more able to be kind to others and appreciate them for who they are, instead of being annoyed or frustrated by who or what they are not.  This feeling of positive connection seems to me to be a lot of what it’s all about, so overall, I consider it a success.

I don’t know if I will often attend this particular sit, only because the time is not good for me, but I do think that I will look for other opportunities to meditate in the presence of others, because there is something about that that brings a little special something to the experience.  And, I’ll definitely continue to meditate on my own, for the benefits that I think it brings to me and those around me in the short-term, and in the pursuit of the larger good.

Namaste,
L