Sadness is my sickness; sickness is my sadness.
Sr. Dang Nghiem
The Poetry Mission
I have a few new mini- missions. My first is to do something with all these words that keep coming out of me. On top of the novel I painfully went back to, and the new one I am writing...get this...in poetic verse ( who the he## does that?)... I am getting my poetry into some kind of organized collections. Whether it gets published or not I have to do something with all these poems...hundreds of them. They are like my photos, just collecting in disorganized chaos on this computer. I just don't know what to do with these things. I really don't.
Submitting Poetry. Yuck!
Sometimes, I think an ego that wants to be recognized would benefit me some...it would help me to get these things out of the computer closet and into the world because Self tells me that is where they belong, in all their imperfection. But the submission process makes me want to vomit! I am so adverse to it...and not because I fear rejection. I am well used to that. It is just so time consuming. The process is something I would judge ( I know I am succumbing to duality) as completely sucky....so I tend to avoid it. :)
The poetry is also different than the other stuff I write. At least with the others, I have received some semi-validation that I can write in those genres...but with the poetry...the most exposing of all mediums...I haven't got a clue what other people think. And I really don't care.
When we submit...we have to care. It is like I have to plea with a potential publisher, "Oh please like me," because my poems are me. I am completely exposed in them. When I submit poetry , I feel like I am standing naked in front of all the Simon Cowels of the world after I just poured my soul out. (If you heard me sing...you would know why I feel so much at risk of never getting a Golden ticket). It is not that I care anymore about what they think of me or my poems. It is just that , if Self tells me they gotta be out there, I know they have to get past them first.
So it is like I am standing there with my arms up asking, "Well? Do you like me or not? I'm 56, I don't have a lot of time to waste here. Don't waste my time telling me I need lessons or a few reconstructive surgeries before I come back next season. Not going to happen! I got to get these out to the world for some bloody reason I will never completely understand...Just judge me quickly so I can move on to the Voice or America's Got Talent or something before it is too late, k? Hurry, hurry!"
Hurry!Hurry! equates to months of waiting.
Anyway, I did submit to a contest. Created two chap books with a small portion of my poetry and I sent them out. I will not hear back until August. I am quite sure there will not be a Golden ticket attached to the message I get back...and that is okay. I broke through that mental barrier I have towards submitting and they are out there. I will keep organizing and compiling chap books and hopefully I will keep up with the momentum of sending them out. Self...just asks that we try right? The rest is up to the universe.
Anyway...Mission Two: Trauma Release and Body Awareness
I am trying to reconnect with body and help others reconnect with their bodies which is teh basis of yoga I suppose. I know I have trauma trapped in my body and I want to use mindful yoga to release those knots. I then want to help others release their knots. I cannot do that, however, until I assume the correct posture.
It all begins with posture
I have been noticing surprisingly , as I look at some of the yoga videos I put on my page, that I have fallen out of the correct postural alignment. I was so embarrassed when I realized this because I felt like a hypocrite as a yoga teacher.
I slipped right into old postural habits I developed years ago when I had to give up my active life style for a more sedentary one. This period of isolation has led me once again to spend hours in front of the computer and on the couch and much less time in the studio. The body compensated in its attempt to accommodate and preserve.
It does not take long for the body to accommodate the mind, and for a new wiring and "normal" to take over. Some muscles will shorten and tighten because of the new posture, other antagonistic muscles will over stretch and weaken. Then the body, in its wisdom and desire to keep us balanced and stable on our mission through life...will accommodate for the weakening by shortening and tightening muscles elsewhere...which will lead to a weakening and overstretching of that muscle group's antagonistic muscles...and so on and so on and so on.
If we are not mindful of our body...we won't even notice what is going on until we start to notice a decreased range of motion, chronic pain, or injury. Now the body works as a unit, right? All muscles are interdependent. So a chronic pain in the bottom of the foot can actually be due to improper posturing of the cervical spine. A knee injury can be a result of rounded shoulders. Get that?
Posture is important! Good posture, like all healing, starts with mindfulness.
Three Common and Unhealthy Postural Changes
There are three obvious postural changes that can occur when we spend excessive amounts of time sitting in front of a computer or TV. They are : Tech neck, a forward roll of the shoulders and a pelvic tilt which can be anterior or posterior.
When I seen myself in one video, I was shocked to see all so clearly. I noticed during an upward sweep I could not bring my upper arms back to my ears. I noticed my chin jutting out explaining why I was having some discomfort in the back of my head and this constant clenching of the jaw. I noticed an overextension of the thoracic spine and a rolling of my shoulders thus explaining why I was getting shoulder and neck pain again...for the first time in years. And I noticed the pelvis in an anterior tilt sometimes and a posterior tilt other times. I was going back and forth between the both because I have a hypermobile lower spine. This was playing havoc on my knees when I stood and on my balance as a whole.
It is like wow! That happened fast. So here I am wanting to release the body of its trauma and I am creating more tension instead. Before I can do the body work and teach the body work for healing trauma to others, I will need to re-establish balance and stability in my posture.
So that is what I will be doing on my yoga page: helping myself and others correct these postural habits. And...the good news is... it is very correctable!
Four Ways to Re-establish Balance in the Mind
And to heal from trauma we also have to re-establish balance in our minds. We can develop very unhealthy habits that leave the mind straining and paining. Just like the body, the mind really does have our best interest at heart and when we are facing trauma...it does what it can to protect us. We tend to have many defense mechanisms that at the time are very helpful and necessary. Unfortunately, like improper body posture, they can become habits that no longer serve us and lead to more injury.
In a lovely dharma talk Beginning Anew, Sr. Dang Nghiem speaks to these four ways of realigning ourselves.
In Step One we begin by making it a daily practice to say thank you...to self. Recognize what the body and mind are doing to help us. See the Fight and Flight response that we may or may not be trapped in, as beneficial and necessary thing for our survival. It is there for a reason and it has helped us in teh past. Sure, we may develop an addiction to it...but that is okay too. Just recognize it as we move into different mental postures.
Sure you may have rolling shoulders like I do, leaving your knuckles dragging on the floor ( ;) ) but know that was the body's attempt to accommodate your needs. It can be corrected. So say thank you to body, mind and Self.
Step Two involves expressing regrets. Say sorry to yourself at least as often as you say it to others. We are much more cruel to our bodies and mind than we are to others. Say sorry to your body when you realize that something you did caused it to experience pain. Don't beat yourself up...apologize. Notice how often you criticise yourself and apologize to you for doing that. You as a body , mind and Self deserve your apologies more than anyone else does!
Step Three asks that we express the hurt. We so often supress and repress our strong feelings because we do not ant to deal with them. That is how trauma gets trapped in the body in the first place. We need to learn to express our pain. Best done if we can confront the individuals or circumstances we feel have "hurt" us in a kind and compassionate way. But if we cannot do that express those feelings to yourself. Sit with them, recognize them, allow them, embrace them and look deeply into them. I use the wonderful expression of written word to help me deal with painful emotions. I rather them on the page than in my muscles and cells.
Finally, Step Four is about making resolutions. determine what you can do to correct these habits you have had that no longer serve you. Just like we correct our unhealthy postural habits we correct our unhealthy mental habits.
So I have some missions that involve correcting habits of body and mind. Bear with me.
It is all good.
Plum Village (Jan 2020) Beginning Anew/ Holiday Retreat Dharma Talk/ Sr Dang Nghiem 2019 12 30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b6I5aAU3as
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