Integrity: And Other Stuff Your Yoga Will Ask of You

Integrity:

And Other Stuff Your Yoga Will Ask of You

If you do yoga long enough, your practice will ask things of you. It is ironic really. We often go to yoga for things. For example, I began to practice yoga in search for inner peace-- substance-free, self-destruction-free, self-actualized-- inner peace. I wanted something, actually I wanted a lot from yoga.

However, the more I practiced the more yoga asked of me.

The first few things that yoga asked of me were to eat right, hydrate, and drink less. Whenever I tried to practice half starved, dehydrated, and with a touch of a hang over, it affected my yoga practice. I didn’t like it. I looked forward to the experience of the practice and the integrated feeling during savasana. Yoga said to me, “Catherine, please, eat well, drink water, and don’t drink the night before you practice.” Yoga asked me this during sun salutations. Yoga asked me this when I worked on headstand. Yoga practically screamed this at me during planks. Yoga whispered this to me during savasana. After many requests, I gave in. I said, “Okay. You are right. Okay.” And, so it was.

Next, Yoga asked me to be truthful. It asked my to be utterly and completely truthful. Whenever, I had layers of truths, the layers floated through my head and haunted my practice. The layers were thick- things I had said I would do and misperceptions I had allowed to persist. Mostly, the distracting layers of thought were filled with the little and bigger lies I was telling myself. Yoga calls truth-telling, satya. Yoga asked me for truth during my sun salutations, my side planks, warriors, and especially during half pigeons and frogs, especially then.

I tried to figure out where yoga was going with all of these requests of me. I asked yoga, “Okay, so I eat better, drink more water, and drink less wine. I am truthful. For years now I have been in a practice of truth seeking and telling. Where are you going with this? Why are you asking all of this of me? And why do I feel so much better when I answer your requests?” I asked, “Why yoga, why?”

Through my studies and practice, I think I am getting closer to an answer. Ultimately, you will find that yoga asks you to be in integrity.

In my quest I asked, “What is integrity?” Let's break it down.

Integer

(root- Latin)

intact- a thing complete in itself

Integrate

(root- English)

combine (one thing) with another so that they become a whole

Integrity

(late Middle English)

the state of being whole and undivided

                 the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles                 

As I looked for the meaning, the root, the “from-where” of integrity I found yoga.

Yoga

(root- Sanskrit)

a yoking, union (we could say- integration)

A River of Integration

            William James (http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/jimmy11.htm) called consciousness a river in which all things streamed together into one aggregate of consciousness. Getting specific, in Daniel Siegel’s Book “Mindsight” (click here http://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-The-Science-Personal-Transformation/dp/0553386395/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414947327&sr=8-1&keywords=mindsight), he explains that neurological integration looks and feels like a river with two banks. In the center, your awareness, consciousness and way of being are in integration and this feels good, you flow forward in your life with relative ease and adaptability. On either side of the river, you can get caught up. On one side is chaos and the other is rigidity. 

CHAOS----------INTEGRATION----------RIGIDITY

When you are well integrated you feel like this: Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized and Stable- Siegel calls this FACES.

 

Black River, Brantingham Lake

On the Banks: Out of Integration

When you are not in integration, you can feel chaotic or overly rigid. There are ways we rationalize both.

The Chaotic Side

Sometimes when we are veering toward the chaotic side- or living there- we might tell people, “I am a free spirit” or “I don’t believe in constraints or boundaries.” Some individuals are this way and do so in complete integration. For others, it is different. You can recognize this as a cover story when you say these things when you are late to meet someone you love or you are refusing to take responsibility for life concerns like rent, 10,000 unanswered emails, or credit card bills. In these cases, there is no “free spirit” and you are clearly out of integration and using the cover story of free, light living as a defense. Those around you can feel the disconnection and the loss of integration. Those around you can feel- the lack of integrity. People don’t like that feeling. It does not feel safe or secure to be around someone out of integration in this way. It does not feel light or easy. 

The Rigid Side

Rigidity is no better. Although there are many cover stories for this, one that is an old favorite of mine is “perfectionism.” Under the guise of trying to be perfect, many of us are really just locked into rigidity. In rigidity, you are not flexible, adaptive, or energized. You are not fully integrated as you hold on tight to rigid behavioral patterns, rules, or ineffective ideals. Some use it as an excuse for poor health behavior like restricting foods or poor relational patterns like controlling others in relationships.

I call perfectionism “romanticized rigidity.” I have explained it in my forthcoming book- Mindfulness and Yoga for Embodied Self Regulation (you can also cite this blog- [note, citing sources is also part of living in integrity]). Sure, it sounds pretty, “perfectionism,” but it is nothing more than romanticized rigidity. Trust me, this way of being does not feel safe and secure to be around either- like chaos- it is marked with a lack of integration- a lack of integrity.

Why? Because all of your fails, your hard tries, you fears, your challenges are hidden, stuffed down and not processed. You are presenting a veil or illusion of constructed perfection with a big hidden mess underneath. Others feel pressured to be a “fakely” perfect as you are, somehow believing in the illusion. You create toxic environment condoning rigidity and lack of integration- worse- you try to make it look good. Your room is clean but your closet is stuffed with clothes and your dirty laundry and coffee mugs are shoved under your bed. Your room looks fantastic- you might even post a photo for all to see how pretty the surface looks. Even if it looks good on the outside, you are out of integrity.

Now- it is important to say that being in either chaos or rigidity is not bad. It just is. Yoga asks you to notice and then bring yourself to center. No need to deny the struggle, in fact OWN IT. Yeah- I shoved dirty laundry under my bed to make things look better than they are- okay- and so- let me grab that laundry, put it in the hamper (better yet the washer) and get on my yoga mat.

Then you look at your life and ask- what do I need to change to be in integrity? What will bring me more integration? Yoga will ask you- Were you too tired to bring the clothes downstairs because you are overbooked everyday? Do you do too much for others and not enough for yourself, so that there is nothing left at the end of the day? Are you spending so much time on the appearance of being okay that you have no time for actually being okay? Are you stuck in a slump struggling to get anything, even one thing, done? Do you need more structure?

You will know when you find integrity. You can feel it when you are there. You can feel it when those are around you are there.

Integrity is – well it is attractive. Not in a pretty way- it is attractive in this I-want-what-you-have way. 

You want to be around it.

You want it.

This wanting, this calling-- is your soul, your brain, your heart, and your body asking you to let them live as one. To live in integrity.

So, get on your mat and listen. Listen to what your yoga is asking of you. You might need to cut back on the wine. I did. You might need to hydrate more. I had to do that too. You might need to be more honest with yourself. Ugh- me too.

Yoga will also give you something back- your integrity.

Namaste,

Catherine

The Yoga Bag

The Empty Beach

The Empty Beach

I just got home from Long Beach, California. I was travelling for work, reviewing grants for the National Institute of Health (NIH) for two days. Each day after the meeting ended, I laced up my running shoes and headed out to the beach for a long run. In late-October, it turns out that California temperatures are still between 70 and 75 degrees. When you are travelling from Buffalo, NY that is nothing short of grand.

The first day we got out late and I was tired from travelling. Still, I had run a good stretch of ocean-side, four-lane thoroughfare. About 1.5 miles in, I found the beach.  Pausing, hands on my hips and sweating from the run and the heat, I looked down the vast stretch of coastline. For miles, the beach was nearly empty. Determined to finish my mileage and get back to the hotel in time for room service and some bad television, I set my eyes on the horizon and kept running. I was not aware or present. My mind moved on to the next thought about the meeting, how it went, and how I thought I was doing. These meetings are fascinating- so many brilliant grant proposals- so many brilliant reviewers. It is mentally exhausting. I missed my daughters and my husband. I feel safe and loved with them. Within the tired knots of thoughts, I reflected, meaninglessly, on how empty the beach was.

Long Beach, CA (10/2014)

The second day, we were done early. I had an entire afternoon to run and walk down miles of beach. And that, I did. I grabbed my room key, my music, headphones, and a credit card just in case, laced up my running shoes again and headed out.

This time I was clear. Less to ruminate about. My work was done and I was flying home first thing in the morning. I smelled, in the beach air, the windy saltiness and the cycle-of-life undercurrents. I noticed the many different varieties of birds and foliage. I think I saw at least three different types of seagulls- small tiny seagulls, classic seacoast and parking lot gulls, and rougher, scraggly, seemingly street-smart big, grey and brownish ones. I saw light russet birds with long beaks and long legs and tiny sharp, quick, darting white and grey birds with almost no beaks at all. There were palm trees of all sizes and stages of being from new growth to old trees that seemed to have grown too high for their own good. I think I saw aloe and at least one cactus garden- one confirmed as it was labeled, “warning cactus garden” and the other not labeled yet clearly filled with prickly stalks holding goal-post arms. On the ground before me, I saw seaweed and tiny pieces of shells. I thought about how the sand was different from the sands on Cape Cod or the gravel in the Adirondacks. It was soft, a combination of seashell fragments, sand, and earth.

A different kind of tired, I stopped running and shifted my gaze and squinted so I could see the horizon more clearly. Looking long down the beach, I once again noticed how empty it was. Instinctually, as if called to do so by some urge that must have been felt by others for lifetimes before me, I took my shoes off and walked for miles on the edge of where the water met the sand.

I thought about how the elements, the first four chakras, were all here. Earth- as my feet sank into the sand. Water- meeting the earth, waves both crashing and lapping onto the beach.  Fire- as the sun moved closer to the horizon surrendering into the water. Last, air- the endless expanse of sky, the invisible scaffold that was holding the gulls in the air, and the Pacific air in my lungs. At the beach, they are all so clearly here. I dug me feet into the sand, the wet sand, felt the sun on my cheeks and shoulders, and breathed. “My God,” I thought, “this is beautiful.”

The beach was nearly empty.         

I wondered if people who live in California forget. If the beach is always there, right there, do you forget? Take it for granted? I acknowledge that I was in Long Beach and not Maya Tulum, Mexico or some other paradise-like beach. Still, I noticed it there too. In Mexico, the beaches were full of tourists. Not the people who live there. There is this thing humans do. We seem to turn our backs to the beauty, especially the beauty right in front of us. Like when you forget to notice how handsome and kind your husband is or how the house you live in is the house you always wanted as a kid. That is, unless we consciously set intentions and make plans- we simply don’t spend time there- in the beauty of it.

Then, I considered that the beach being right there is sort of like mindfulness and meditation always being right there. Mindfulness and meditation are like a California beach in the sun- there for all of us. It is as if  we all have condominiums whose lofts and patios opened right up to the beach. When I was running by- those days on the beach- I could see people sitting inside, busy with their lives, and backs to the beach. Forgetting. Not seeing.

When I get present, mindful, and meditate, it is peaceful. I feel a relief from my daily worries, calming, and clearing- just like this walk on the beach was for me. Yet, until rather recently I would neglect presence. I knew how good it felt, the benefits, all of that. Presence, mindfulness, and meditation were and are easily accessible. Your brain and body are- literally- always right here with you. There is no time, no moment, that it can’t be done.

I am writing as a reminder that we all have beaches that we are ignoring.

You have immediate access to beauty, peace, and stillness.

It is right there. Turn. Look.

Yeah, life gets crazy, stressful, and busy. And- turn around, watch the sun set, breathe the air and dig your toes in the metaphoric sand of your life- just for five minutes- do it anyway.

And- those of you who live at the beach- for God’s sake, go outside.

Why? Because you can and I am here to remind you how beautiful it is.

Catherine Cook-Cottone
The Yoga Bag

What Yogis Could Learn from Runners

What Yogis Could Learn from Runners 

I am both a yogi and a runner.

In fact, I have been running since 8^th grade (which works out to about 36 years). I have run cross-country, track, triathlons, marathons, half marathons, 5ks, and the famous Boiler Maker in Utica, NY. I have run in cities all over the United States, in the winter, summer, fall, and spring. I am a life-long runner.

My yoga practice began in a more serious manner in 2001 and is much younger than my running. When I started doing yoga, I learned about non-judgment. I also saw non-judgment practiced and modeled among my teachers, by the yogis that I met in my travels to trainings, and in the studios I attended.

Lately, something has shifted in yoga. Online, in conversations, on blogs, all over--there seems to be a growing need to judge other yogis.

I truly love that there are variations of yoga and my yogi friends across a variety of practices. I have done Hatha, Vinyasa, Bikram, Power Yoga, Ashtanga, Acro, TIMBo, and many more types of yoga. I have taken classes with Ana Forrest, Baron Baptiste, Seane Corn, and studied at the Himalayan Institute and Kripalu. Each variation has its own beauty, wisdom, and focus. I have experienced this as openness. The more ways I learn to practice- well, it is like learning more ways to love.

I wish we could let the judgment go. I am not sure how it serves us.

All these decades that I have been running, fellow runners ask about your running history and your goals. You might say, “I am training for a full triathlon” or “I do 5ks” or “I do half marathons” or “I jog with friends and do walk/run a lot” or something else like that. Nearly universally, the other runners honor the efforts of their sister or brother runner. We are glad you get out there, take care of your body, and share the love of the run.

As I was running this morning, I was reflecting on how as a yogi I am always telling runners how much they could learn from yoga, how yoga can help them, and all that. It was then that I thought about this judgment-thing that has manifest among some yogis. I realized that perhaps we, the yogis, could learn something from runners. 

Like runners, we could honor our fellow yogis for their spiritual journey; however like or not like ours it is, no matter how many limbs are integrated, and how Western or Eastern, or reflective or active. 

Like runners, we could just honor the practice, the importance of the individual, self-directed journey, and be in non-judgment.

So, here it goes. This is a shout out to my running friends and to my fellow yogis- all types of runners and all kinds of yogis:

I love you and I honor your practice.

Runners, I know what it takes to lace up the running shoes and get your feet on the road.

Yogis, I know what it takes to get your body on your mat.

I honor your effort.

I honor your self-love.

From a place of openhearted acceptance and non-judgment, I say- however you shine- keep shining!

See you on the roads, trails, or yoga mat soon. I look forward to sharing a knowing nod, a smile, and a sense of camaraderie as we honor each other for our efforts to be on our journey. 

Catherine Cook-Cottone

The Yoga Bag

Self-care, Substance Abuse, and Eating Disorders- 20 Minute Survey- Please Help

We are doing some very important work on Self-care, eating disorders,
and substance use- PLEASE complete this survey- It will take you about
20 minutes and be a HUGE help to my research team!!! 

Do self-care practices influence eating behaviors and substance use?

RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS NEEDED!

You are being invited to participate in a research experiment titled
“The Influence of Self-Care on Substance Use and Disordered Eating
Behaviors” This study is being conducted by Amy Fish, B.S. under the
supervision of Dr. Catherine Cook-Cottone in the Department of
Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology, University at Buffalo.

This research study is intended for adult participants who are 18
years of age and over.  If you are not yet 18 years of age, please do
not participate in this study.  Researchers are investigating any
unique associations among self-care practices, eating behaviors, and
substance among ethnic and racial minorities given that these
populations are unrepresented in research.  As such, ethnic and racial
minorities are highly encouraged to participate.

This study consists a series of questionnaires regarding eating
behaviors, substance use, and self-care practices.  Your participation
is estimated to require about 20 minutes of your time.  There are no
known risks associated with participating in this study, however it is
possible that you may experience some slight discomfort regarding the
topics of the research.  As payment for your participation, you may
choose to provide your contact information to be entered to win one of
five $20 prepaid giftcards!!


https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TLVQTB

From http://cis-greatercentraltexas.org/self-care/

Daily Meditation as Archeologist: The Excavation of My Mind

Daily Meditation as Archeologist:
The Excavation of My Mind

My daily meditation practice has been a process of excavation. I sit, close my eyes, and begin to focus on my breath. I then bring my mantra to mind. I use mala beads to move from one recitation to the next. Once I have meditated on my mantra, I bring my awareness to-- my awareness. I watch as thoughts move into and out of my awareness.

I see them.

I imagine them as layers of sediment that I am carefully removing as I get closer to the center. My thoughts present in a sensational form. They are cloudy and I don’t bring them to clarity. I let them soften even more until I let them go.

Each thought seems to have another one just underneath- at least lately. There has been a lot on my mind. Meditation has helped me see quite clearly the many layers. I have a sense that, before I meditated regularly, all of these thoughts competed for awareness, a process that was quite taxing on my cognitive capacity. I often craved relief and would seek it in a glass of wine or some other escape.

As I have deepened my practice of yoga and moved toward a daily meditation, I have found that the physical grounding of asana (yoga poses), the calming of breath work (pranayama), and meditation allow me to see, become aware, of these layers as they truly manifest in my experience.

I have come to notice that being in inquiry about this, my thoughts, my choices, my actions and reactions is- in and of itself- powerful. I have become aware that there is nothing I need to fix or defend. That awareness and presence are sufficient.

They have an excavating effect. 

You may wonder what I am seeking- why dig? Why excavate? What else is there to know?

In essence, my meditation allows me to act as the archeologist of my mind. I excavate, see, and discover the nature of my mind through careful, reflective, awareness. Like an archeologist, this inquiry allows me to uncover the patterns of human behavior, my patterns, and my layers. This is empowering. I am left with self-knowing, the self-love that comes from caring practices toward the self, and calm presence.

Like the archeologist, I am in belief that under the layers there is an understanding. What I find will bring me closer to knowing the self (as an archeologist becomes closer to understanding the history of human kind).

Ultimately, I am in search of this space to which Victor Frankl refers -

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

 Victor Frankl

This is what I seek- this space, the power to choose, growth, and freedom- and layer-by-layer I get closer.

Catherine Cook-Cottone

The Yoga Bag

From www.nydailynews.com