In these digital times we watch others share their identity-shifting stories. We see the before- and-after pictures of people losing weight or mastering yoga asanas. We engage in facebook challenges to learn habits such as chewing your food for 20 bites before you swallow to improve digestion, taking a breath when you feel anxious to slow down the self talk, or piggyback a new habit around an old habit to integrate it into your routine. These strategies are offered to assist you in moving towards your goals.  It is not always an easy process. Sometimes we are meet with emotional/behavior resistance to change.

Course Correction

Course correction is something sailors do.  It happens when we are on a course, meet an obstacle (limiting behavioral patterns) and self-correct.  Course correction can initially present as the resistance we experience as we attempt to establish new behavior patterns.  New behaviors and Identity shifts are choices and not overnight events.  The road can be long or short with twists and turns. Change can be painful but necessary part of our evolution.  It is the feeling that comes with the choice of stepping into the headwind with your comfort zone at your back and trying something new.   

Course correction can show up in many forms of internal resistance: frustration, anger, self-doubt, depression or anxiety. It is the number of times you walk back and forth in front of the fridge and open and close the door during the mental debate around food consumption. It is when you don’t want to exercise but you show up anyway, one foot in front of the other.  It is when you are sad or frustrated and make a choice to not put on a social mask or self-medicate and instead journal what you are feeling and present yourself to the world as you truly are. We are given many tools to assist in shifting our behavior and identity. We just have to pick them up.

My most challenging course corrections happen when I challenge old memories and beliefs that are firmly embedded in my emotional and physical bodies.   I needed professional support and guidance to help me identify, re-organize and reroot patterns around abuse. Author Ruby Gibson, author of My Body My Earth taught me how to use techniques of somatic archaeology and brainspotting to locate emotions (self worth, shame, guilt) that were holding me back. One strategy was using my breath to explore old emotions themselves rather than getting lost in the story. I was resistant, it was painful and it was a course correction. The outcome was acknowledgement of generational beliefs and autopilot behavioral response patterns I had fallen prey to.  Ruby provided a safe space to explore, expand and shift my perspective.

You can’t change the past but you can renegotiate the power it once held over you.  I learned that people are really doing the best that they can at the time with the tools that they have.  Forgiveness is the key to emotional health. The Law of Forgiveness Prayer was written by Rev. Dr. Roberta Herzog. Reciting this prayer helped me to forgive myself and others.  Thus, providing me with the opportunity to resculpt neuro pathways and stimulate different parts of my brain, crucial to my mental and emotional well being.

Law of Forgiveness Prayer

“_______, I forgive you for Everything you’ve ever said or done to me in thought, word or deed that has caused me pain in this or any other lifetime.  You are free and I am free! And _____

I ask that you forgive Me for Anything that I have ever said or done to you in thought, word or deed in this or any other lifetime that has caused you pain.  You are free and I am free! Thank you God, for this opportunity to forgive _______ and to forgive myself”.

Forgiveness is a gift. It gives you freedom.

Course Correction for the Emotional/Mental Body: An analogy

Think of your mental/emotional self like a baseball team.  Visiting team has self-esteem, confidence, communication and self-care on the infield.  Bases loaded by the home team with guilt, self-judgement and anxiety on base. Depression is up to bat.  Spanda (the Ayurveda principle of pulsation between expansion and contraction) is pitching. Will the home team get a hit or will the visiting team end the inning?  It fluctuates, like Spanda, pulsing back and forth as we shift and grow, shift and grow. This is a process. There is no magic wand.

What is important to remember that the visiting team hasn’t played together as long as the home team.  The visiting team is getting to know each other. Their positions may change and they may add to the roster as they get stronger with players like empathy, forgiveness and self-love.  Sometimes the home teams wins. What is crucial is to get back in the game. I  can assure you, the more your team practices, the easier it gets.  How will you know this? The triggers that have held you back will have lost their power.  It is a soft subtle shift and it feels amazing.

If you have made it through a course correction please feel free to unpack and comment below.  I also encourage you to read or re-read past YHC blogs as they hold inspirational gems which may comfort and inspire you.

How to Make Friends with Your Shadow: Kristen Polzien
Marcia Wilson Who Struggle with Change: Marcia Wilson
Clear Ancestral Karma with Ritual: Jackie Prete
From Breakdown to Breakthrough to Easeful Living: Khim Lim
Treating Trauma in the Moment with Ayurveda: Gin Burchfield

*Special thank you to my editor Kari Zabel for her wordsmithing genesis

“Breathing in, I calm my body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh– from Being Peace

When I was 25 my dad died from pancreatic cancer. His death, just 4 months after diagnosis, left me questioning what it meant to live a full life and how we can most effectively navigate these very human challenges. My search for answers unfolded into studies in Buddhism, Yoga, and eventually Ayurveda. Some of the first writings I was introduced to were the simple and effective teachings of Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. One of my favorite writings of Thich Nhat Hanh was a mantra from his book, Being Peace: “Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment.”  This phrase was taught to me in an abbreviated form: “calm, smile, present, wonderful.” I began to use it during hot and sweaty Bikram yoga classes, during the stress of marital separation and as a tool to share with my yoga students. Over 20 years later this mantra is still my favorite go-to.

Mantra = Mind Protecting

Mantra- the use of sounds or words as objects of concentration- means “mind protecting. ” By allowing our awareness to settle on the sounds we repeat aloud or silently we “protect” ourselves from thoughts or emotional responses triggered by our daily lives. Staying focused on the mantra protects us from negative thoughts, monkey mind and replaying conversations in our head. It keeps us in the moment. Mantra comes in many forms. Some mantras, called “seed” mantras, are sounds that do not have a particular meaning in English. Full phrases in both Sanskrit, “om shanti shanti shanti,” and English (“breath in goes deep, breath out goes slow”) are used commonly. Mantras can be used with other practices like yoga or as a stand alone meditation practice.

Train Your Nervous System to Be Calm and Steady

A key teaching from the world of Ayurveda is the value of mindfulness or meditation practice as part of a daily rhythm of self care called “dinya charya”.  One of my teachers- the Abbot of a Theravada Buddhist Monastery, helped me understand that practice is just that, practice. The time we spend meditating – whether we follow the breath or use a mantra- gives our nervous system and subconscious a chance to develop a familiarity with the technique.  The goal? When we face a challenge in real life – when we need to be calm and steady and hold space for ourselves – the mantra and our breath are right there with us. Our practice gives us ability to access calm and peace even when it seems elusive.

Anxiety + Overwhelm: Using Mantra to Navigate Life

As much as I had used the mantra “calm, smile” both in practice and in troubled times, it was this winter, over 20 years after first learning it – that I had the chance to see the full benefit of mantra in action.

My History of Anxiety

Part of my history is one of anxiety and overwhelm. I notice that this tendency is worsening as I age. Ayurveda views anxiety through the lens of what is called a Vata overdominance imbalance. As we age, we tend to become even more Vata dominant in our bodies, minds, and hearts which means that managing anxiety is made easier by self care practices like keeping things simple, following a routine, oil massage, and using practices like yoga and meditation.  Although I follow Vata pacifying self care practices, my life recently has been one of travel, living in temporary accommodations and spending endless hours working on the computer. These are all lifestyle factors that increase Vata and make me more vulnerable to the panic attacks I can experience on planes and buses when I feel confined.

How I Stopped My Panic Attack

I am sitting in an aisle seat in a plane. I fly a lot and love travelling in spite of the fact that as soon as the beverage cart rolls up beside me and the flight attendant looks down at me, I get triggered. Something about this scenario makes me unbelievably claustrophobic, which I compensate for first by taking off shoes and sweaters. I start clearing away anything that might be blocking me or even touching me. I ask my family to move as far into their seat as they can. The stronger my panic attack the more I need to take action, I ask the flight attendant to move the cart, and I often stand up and try to walking in the aisle. In the past, I have never been able to calm myself without asking others to help by moving and giving me space.  On my recent flight to Mexico, I had a surprise. I began to feel myself getting triggered, a panic attack looked inevitable, I looked down, dug deep, and began repeating “breathing in, I calm my body, breathing out, I smile.” I blocked out everything else and repeated until the beverage cart moved on. And to my surprise, I averted my panic attack.

Trust The Practice

I lie on the floor in Bikram yoga with eyes wide open, breath ragged and “calm, smile, present, wonderful” on endless repeat. Walking and breathing to the rhythm of mantra. Meditation. Following my breath, as I drive, sit to work and in-between activities.I have learned that practice comes in many forms and that when my real-life anxiety meets years of experience with a favorite mantra, my ability to calm and regroup is right there, waiting for me. Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. I got this.