Yoga to Ease Anxiety
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Facing Criticism with Anxiety

6/19/2016

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I take criticism hard. I automatically assume they are right and I am wrong for even trying. I think I have to be all the way right or I shouldn’t even open my mouth. That's perfectionism and all or nothing thinking, two symptoms of anxiety. Add paranoia to the mix and the merest inclination that I could have done better means jumping to the conclusion that everyone will see I'm a total fraud.
 
It's like a punch to the gut. One negative comment washes away years of positivity and sets off roiling doubt, inducing a self-reflective funk that makes me a drain to be around. That is how anxiety becomes depression.
 
I am not writing this for kudos or comfort, but to let others know, if they react (overreact) this way, they are not alone.
 
It's embarrassing. I'm supposed to be able to handle this kind of thing. I mean, I know that when someone offers a critique or constructive criticism the thing to do is rationally evaluate it on its merits and progress from there, incorporating or disregarding as appropriate.
 
But it can take me days to get to that point, depending on what the topic is, depending on how sore the sore spot is that they touched. And why am I covered in sore spots?
 

Fear. Some days I am made out of fear.
 
Anxiety is a maladaptive expression of our response to threats. I experience a knee-jerk reaction to protect my sense of self-worth, when really I should wait until my amygdala is done hijacking me and I can think more clearly to respond.
 
Instead, I end up reconsidering my entire purpose in life and wishing I could just fade away, back into the oblivion where I used to live. Agoraphobia was in no small way a reaction to this fear—I was hiding from the possibility of being wrong.
 
And this reaction is set off not necessarily from someone actively trying to tear me down. Just pointing out a misstatement or a nuance I neglected is enough.
 
Some people can brush off criticism. Maybe I should have gotten used to it in academe, where people build careers off of falsifying and criticizing what came before. I hid from that too, writing on obscure topics no one would see, or that were so divisive it was easy to set any criticism into the "skeptic" category—the equivalent of saying "haters gonna hate" and walking away.
 
But now what I write is relatively mainstream, at least it's for a much wider audience than the metaphysical and ethical consequences of parapsychology or the relationship between Kohlberg's stages of moral development and the emergence of wisdom. What I write now is like standing naked in the town square compared to being covered in the armor of other people's theories and the multisyllabic pomposity of the ivory tower.
 
It's my heart bared to the world every time.
 
To disregard criticism out of hand, to go to the other extreme and say "I can't be wrong; therefore, you must be," is narcissism. We see this a lot online and maybe it's a viable defense against the propensity for anonymity to lead to indiscriminate asshole-ishness. But I can’t seem to just blow it off.
 
I want to find balance between RuPaul's admonition that "What other people think of me is none of my damn business" and falling apart every time. I’m getting there. At least now I can keep functioning. Thanks to years of treatment—cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, meditation, medication, and self-compassion—the episodes of extreme self-doubt pass more quickly, and I know better than to make irreversible decisions while in the midst of them.
 
Until this balance comes naturally, all I can do is keep showing up, take my time, and make the best decision in each case regarding when to engage for my own growth and the benefit of my work and when not to engage because there is nothing to gain from the dialogue.
 
But how do you know which is which? What if I’m wrong? 

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The Sacred Biochemistry of Self-acceptance

6/8/2016

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​“Integrated inner work does not seek to overcome or perfect the body. It does not cultivate an aversion to any aspect of our humanity, nor is it about trying to get somewhere other than in our bodies. Rather it seeks to become more self-aware, self-accepting and compassionate within the lived experience of our bodies.”  
​​A few years ago, I fell in love with Julian Walker’s little book Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind: A Modern Yoga Philosophy Infused with Somatic Psychology & Neuroscience. Given this week to considering the Yoga of Darkness, I come back to it here, seeking refuge and rootedness in the biology of transformation. All quotations in this piece are from Walker. I hope you find as much hope in the process as I do.
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​There are certain stages along the path to growth. Georg Feuerstein labeled these as
  • ​Self-observation
  • Self-acceptance
  • Self-understanding
  • Self-discipline
  • Self-actualization
  • Self-transcendence
  • & Self-transformation

And while we progress along these in a somewhat linear way, until we come to the end we don’t outgrow any of them. We begin at the beginning, with observation and acceptance, and continue observing and accepting as long as we want to keep on the path.

Call it mindfulness, call it witness-consciousness — self-observation is the act of becoming aware of our thoughts and processes, our drives and hang ups.

And when we start to really see what’s inside, it can be pretty damn uncomfortable. It might be disappointing, disheartening, or downright scary. You may, as I did, realize a depth of mental illness that seems unrecoverable. You may find violence and dread; antipathy, weakness, disease; resentment, jealousy, or maybe systemic resignation.

Regardless of what you find, the next step is acceptance. 

​No matter what we find when we turn within, that is where we are. To deny it or berate ourselves because of it is not the way forward; acceptance and compassion are. 

​“Compassion is an attitude of empathy toward the reality of human suffering. On the mat this means turning toward yourself with the same level of kindness and care you would offer a very close friend or dearly beloved.” 
​The work is to simply be present with what we find. 
​“Being present is an open attitude to what arises in awareness as the breath moves in and out.”
​
“Authentic presence is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and one another. It becomes the hallmark of a more integrated person who can be with self and other, shadow and light, struggle and grace authentically.”
And this is the beginning of change, a real and lasting and biologically based change:
​“In neuroscience terms, we train the brain to be in a state of mindfulness when we choose again and again to stay present with sensations. We are being mindful of our bodies and breath and the moment to moment unfolding of the experience of sensations. This mindfulness state has been shown to activate neuroplasticity—our brain’s ability to transform not only function but also structure in response to experience.
​
“We literally enter a zone of transformational possibility at the level of the brain when we are in meditative states. We can be mindful in many different ways, but being mindful in relations to our bodies brings together a set of brain functions that make insight, compassion and integration possible in powerful ways.”
By simply experiencing our embodiment, staying connected to our breath, observing and accepting what arises with compassion, we allow our brains to rewire toward peace.
“We think of these three principles [breath, presence, and compassion] of transformational neuroplasticity as a doorway into the ‘sacred biochemistry’ of yoga practice. They represent both a poetic and science-informed way of seeking to frame the experiential processes of self-transformation through yoga and meditation.”
​To put this together with Feuerstein's stages: through the discipline of embodiment, we observe, accept and come to understand ourselves. We heal; we grow. Our brains heal, and our brains grow. We blossom, actualizing into our best selves. Eventually, we have transcendent experiences of union. We transform into beings of sacred radiance.

And it begins with compassionate acceptance of the darkness within.
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