Simply Yoga: What I am Not

Yesterday I went on adventure.  Okay… it was a LITTLE adventure, but it was fun and it was something I had wanted to do for quite a while.

I went to the library.

Not the one I usually go to… that one is actually in my town… but the BIG one in down town Austin.  I got a new library card (who knew that I would have to pay for the one in town because TECHNICALLY I live in a mudd district and, even through I am within the city limits, I have to pay $40 a year for that one for a family card and I can get one for free just because I’m a Texas resident in Austin… go figure.  Yeah, it means that I have to remember to take this adventure at lease every 3 weeks to take back books I get but it means that I have an excuse to actually take lunch every three weeks to take back the books I have checked out.

So, that was my big adventure… about 8 blocks round trip… but it did include a small hill and interesting places I had never passed before.

I got several  books on RA… several on epilepsy… and a couple on yoga.  One of the Yoga ones (see, I told you I was a type A and when I find something to get my teeth into, I really really get my teeth into it) was for Arthritis, and that one I am going to spend a lot of time reading.  The other one was Yoga for Depression.  I want to try to help the Squirrel person head off depression as soon as she can because she is way feeling that her life sucks really bad with the epilepsy.  She will actually listen to me (go figure, a teenager that listens to her mother) when I calm her down and explain that it was EXACTLY a month yesterday that she was officially diagnosed and sometimes it takes a bit of tinkering and tweaking of the meds to get her butt settled down.

She SO isn’t into the whole Yoga thing (she is more of a kick boxing kind of girl) but I think in the case of some of what I found it will help her.  I know that it is SO helping me…

What did I find?  A “pose” you can do sitting in a chair or laying on your back in bed or on the floor.

The Pose

Okay… find a place where you are as comfortable as you can be.  If you are not in a great deal of pain but ARE in an office (I can see me using this a lot there) a chair is good.  Last night I did it laying in bed right before I went to sleep.

Relax your mind and your body as much as you can.

Deep breath in… come on… INHALE slowly through your nose….

Exhale slowly through your nose…

Inhale… saying to yourself (in your head works best because you are inhaling and that makes REALLY talking to yourself sound weird and it can make the dog look at you like you are loony) …

I am not <insert what you are NOT>… for example

I am not my depressed mood.

I am not my anxiety.

I am not the chaos that is today.

I am not my RA.

I am not the pain.

I am not the inflammation.

I am not… whatever… for Squirrel… I am NOT the Epilepsy….

Hold your breath for a count of 4…. sitting relaxed (eyes closed works great)

Exhale SLOWLY through your nose saying in your head as you exhale… I Am… that’s it…simply I AM…   The book didn’t say why or what… but it seemed to ground me just realizing that I am… present with myself… breathing… relaxing… loved… cared for… human…

On the single exhale… say the I AM thing about six times…. make the exhale last a while…

…

now….

Repeat the whole Inhale talking to yourself… exhale talking to yourself… repetition about 3 or 4 times…

That’s it… the whole pose… No stretching… no pulling… no… nothing… just… sitting and thinking and breathing.

It seemed (at least last night) to help…

think about it… it can’t hurt!