What is it about yoga which makes a difference for anxiety sufferers?
In my experience, the solution to overcoming anxiety has a lot in common with going through a successful weight loss program.
What I mean by that is that, in both cases, nobody apart from yourself can 100% do it for you. If you are trying to lose a large amount of weight and you know that you need help with it, you might join a weight loss centre. But just because you become a member of the centre, pay the fees, show up to the meetings and buy the diet food doesn’t mean you get a result. All of that is hardly going to have any effect on your weight unless you are committed, persistent and unless you become responsible for what you want to achieve.
Once you are dedicated to the process of losing the weight and you actually take responsibility for the process, you consistently perform the exercises, cook the recipes provided by the centre, eat only the portions recommended etc... Although the tools, the knowledge and the support are given to you by someone else, it is actually the commitment, the responsibility and the consistency you put in from yourself which are the ones getting the actual result of “losing the weight”.
So the same applies for anxiety.
I still have never heard anyone say that just counselling or just medicine or any other of the things that we traditionally “reach for” has actually completely taken the anxiety out of their life. Of course it is important to continue to take the medication that has been prescribed and to continue to seek assistance from professionals. But, unless we are also willing to take some level of responsibility for the process of healing, unless we are willing to look at ourselves, the best we can achieve might be a reduction of the symptoms or maybe a state of resignation to the fact that we are going to live with some degree of anxiety for the rest of our life.
I was a sufferer of anxiety, panic attacks and chronic depression for well over 10 years of my life. Everything I ever reached for to “make myself feel better” seemed to eventually let me down at some point, until I started to take some responsibility for the process of undoing what I had been doing to myself for so long, in my body, in my heart and in my mind.
The answers for me came progressively as I learnt how to look at the huge load of what I had been carrying inside myself. All the old distorted beliefs I had been holding about myself, the unprocessed emotions from the past my body was still holding on to, the old shame I had about some aspects of myself, all the things I had been “avoiding looking at” for so many years. In my body, all of this had translated into tangles, twists and tensions which were in themselves causing more pain, more stress and made even sitting on a chair unbearable for me for years.
What made the difference for me was that through the various systems that yoga offers, I learnt to “sit in silence with myself and open my body to let the old emotions out. In doing that, I also became more aware of the obsessive patterns that had been established in my mind and in my whole nervous system. I began to realise how I had been experiencing life in a distorted way, giving everything an interpretation that was causing the rise of the panic and anxiety and causing the overreaction to trivial events. I learnt to witness my thoughts, my feelings, and the connection this had with different parts of my body.
I learnt how to begin the work of re-wiring and re-programming my own mind and my body. Along that process I re-discovered the freshness, joy and excitement that life is.
It took me many years of searching, learning and exploring to get to a package of tools that gave me the way to freedom. In the end, what made a difference for me came from a combination of six different yoga traditions with elements of Zen, Acupuncture and Chinese medicine added to it.
So what made the difference for me was that I took some responsibility for my healing and I went searching, then I gathered all the tools which seemed useful. Sure, I still took advice and guidance from various professionals, of course... that was part of the learning too.
That combination of tools is now what I teach.
It is important to note that not all forms yoga will be helpful for anxiety sufferers.
Some of the more modern forms of yoga focus heavily on the physical achievements and the competition. These are definitely not helpful to anxiety sufferers. If you find yourself in a yoga room surrounded by people who are more interested in checking how hot they look in the mirror during their practice rather than feeling what is inside of them, then you can be sure this is not the form of yoga you need as an anxiety sufferer.
The type of yoga which you want to practice is one that forces you to be with yourself internally, to sit with how it actually feels on the inside of your being, both physically and emotionally as you open your body. A form of yoga that is taught by someone who reminds you to witness your mind as you are going through your practice, so you can start to become familiar with your own mind-body patterns.
If you have that and you have the dedication to being part of the process of healing yourself then it will not take long until you can start to experience a change. Yes you will cry too, and you will feel pain and sadness through the process... But that is ok, because that is part of the healing...Just as we stretch the nerves, the muscles, the organs, the tissues and the joints, sensations of discomfort will arise but we will be in fact realigning things in our nervous system, getting rid of the distortions of the mind and the distortions of the body.
As we live in a society that favours the physical (what we can SEE) to the detriment of the emotional ( what we can FEEL) it is unfortunately a fact that many yoga teachers are now teaching what seems more like an exercise class than a healing class.
My mission is to help change that and to help people to change how they feel about themselves.
For those who would like to learn about some of the tools mentioned in this article, I will be running a two day workshop for ADAVIC members on Saturday 19th AND Sunday 20th June 2010
WHERE: Balwyn Library Meeting Room, 336 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn.
TIME: 10.00 am to 5.00 pm (each day)
COST: $150.00 for non members
$120.00 for ADAVIC Members
$120.00 Early Bird Price (paid by the 16th April)
Contact ADAVIC for Registration and Payment form on 9853-8089 or email them on adavic@adavic.org.au or book online at www.adavic.org.au
Written by Claire Phillips Feb 2010
Claire is a teacher of Vitality Yoga and Meditation, specialising in teaching skills for emotional health and mental health. YTAA accredited.
Claire can be contacted at Claire_Phillips@iprimus.com.au
In my experience, the solution to overcoming anxiety has a lot in common with going through a successful weight loss program.
What I mean by that is that, in both cases, nobody apart from yourself can 100% do it for you. If you are trying to lose a large amount of weight and you know that you need help with it, you might join a weight loss centre. But just because you become a member of the centre, pay the fees, show up to the meetings and buy the diet food doesn’t mean you get a result. All of that is hardly going to have any effect on your weight unless you are committed, persistent and unless you become responsible for what you want to achieve.
Once you are dedicated to the process of losing the weight and you actually take responsibility for the process, you consistently perform the exercises, cook the recipes provided by the centre, eat only the portions recommended etc... Although the tools, the knowledge and the support are given to you by someone else, it is actually the commitment, the responsibility and the consistency you put in from yourself which are the ones getting the actual result of “losing the weight”.
So the same applies for anxiety.
I still have never heard anyone say that just counselling or just medicine or any other of the things that we traditionally “reach for” has actually completely taken the anxiety out of their life. Of course it is important to continue to take the medication that has been prescribed and to continue to seek assistance from professionals. But, unless we are also willing to take some level of responsibility for the process of healing, unless we are willing to look at ourselves, the best we can achieve might be a reduction of the symptoms or maybe a state of resignation to the fact that we are going to live with some degree of anxiety for the rest of our life.
I was a sufferer of anxiety, panic attacks and chronic depression for well over 10 years of my life. Everything I ever reached for to “make myself feel better” seemed to eventually let me down at some point, until I started to take some responsibility for the process of undoing what I had been doing to myself for so long, in my body, in my heart and in my mind.
The answers for me came progressively as I learnt how to look at the huge load of what I had been carrying inside myself. All the old distorted beliefs I had been holding about myself, the unprocessed emotions from the past my body was still holding on to, the old shame I had about some aspects of myself, all the things I had been “avoiding looking at” for so many years. In my body, all of this had translated into tangles, twists and tensions which were in themselves causing more pain, more stress and made even sitting on a chair unbearable for me for years.
What made the difference for me was that through the various systems that yoga offers, I learnt to “sit in silence with myself and open my body to let the old emotions out. In doing that, I also became more aware of the obsessive patterns that had been established in my mind and in my whole nervous system. I began to realise how I had been experiencing life in a distorted way, giving everything an interpretation that was causing the rise of the panic and anxiety and causing the overreaction to trivial events. I learnt to witness my thoughts, my feelings, and the connection this had with different parts of my body.
I learnt how to begin the work of re-wiring and re-programming my own mind and my body. Along that process I re-discovered the freshness, joy and excitement that life is.
It took me many years of searching, learning and exploring to get to a package of tools that gave me the way to freedom. In the end, what made a difference for me came from a combination of six different yoga traditions with elements of Zen, Acupuncture and Chinese medicine added to it.
So what made the difference for me was that I took some responsibility for my healing and I went searching, then I gathered all the tools which seemed useful. Sure, I still took advice and guidance from various professionals, of course... that was part of the learning too.
That combination of tools is now what I teach.
It is important to note that not all forms yoga will be helpful for anxiety sufferers.
Some of the more modern forms of yoga focus heavily on the physical achievements and the competition. These are definitely not helpful to anxiety sufferers. If you find yourself in a yoga room surrounded by people who are more interested in checking how hot they look in the mirror during their practice rather than feeling what is inside of them, then you can be sure this is not the form of yoga you need as an anxiety sufferer.
The type of yoga which you want to practice is one that forces you to be with yourself internally, to sit with how it actually feels on the inside of your being, both physically and emotionally as you open your body. A form of yoga that is taught by someone who reminds you to witness your mind as you are going through your practice, so you can start to become familiar with your own mind-body patterns.
If you have that and you have the dedication to being part of the process of healing yourself then it will not take long until you can start to experience a change. Yes you will cry too, and you will feel pain and sadness through the process... But that is ok, because that is part of the healing...Just as we stretch the nerves, the muscles, the organs, the tissues and the joints, sensations of discomfort will arise but we will be in fact realigning things in our nervous system, getting rid of the distortions of the mind and the distortions of the body.
As we live in a society that favours the physical (what we can SEE) to the detriment of the emotional ( what we can FEEL) it is unfortunately a fact that many yoga teachers are now teaching what seems more like an exercise class than a healing class.
My mission is to help change that and to help people to change how they feel about themselves.
For those who would like to learn about some of the tools mentioned in this article, I will be running a two day workshop for ADAVIC members on Saturday 19th AND Sunday 20th June 2010
WHERE: Balwyn Library Meeting Room, 336 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn.
TIME: 10.00 am to 5.00 pm (each day)
COST: $150.00 for non members
$120.00 for ADAVIC Members
$120.00 Early Bird Price (paid by the 16th April)
Contact ADAVIC for Registration and Payment form on 9853-8089 or email them on adavic@adavic.org.au or book online at www.adavic.org.au
Written by Claire Phillips Feb 2010
Claire is a teacher of Vitality Yoga and Meditation, specialising in teaching skills for emotional health and mental health. YTAA accredited.
Claire can be contacted at Claire_Phillips@iprimus.com.au
Yoga should be really helpful for anxiety sufferers. It works a lot with breathing who always slows the heart pace. It's completely normal to worry when things get hectic and complicated. But if worries become overwhelming, you may feel that they're running your life. Overcoming anxiety may have to do with some yoga and maybe pilates too. Everything that can help the sufferer relax and have peace of mind.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Kevin