New Yoga Classes!

I am excited to announce a new partnership with Rachel Mapp, the Life Doula and Cedar Creek Wellness. Rachel moved into the building and has built a beautiful space for women to gather. Check her out here, and follow her on Facebook! The Women's Room is on the second floor of 985 Gaines School Rd. Above the office. 

Through this partnership, I am going to be able to start offering 2 more yoga classes each week. Classes are $10 each. You can purchase a full series or multiple class pass at a discount.

Check out the website for full details but here is a short run down:

These classes are limited to 6 participants per class

8 week Body Positive Yoga for Women Thursdays 6pm-715p from 9/22-11/10/16  

Vinyasa Flow Mondays 1pm-2:15p from 9/26 -12/19/16 

Classes are $10/each. Six class passes are available for $50 and can be used at any of my Classes. 

AND Don't forget about the ongoing Saturday Morning class, 9:00a out in Arnoldsville at The No. 3 Railroad Street! 

Why I do yoga

I started practicing yoga when I was about 19 years old. Someone gave me a pilates and yoga for beginners DVD. I did it, and liked it. I got this "Yoga Self Taught" book that I have since lost when moving or something. When I started reading it, I realized that I didn't know how to breathe at all and that the body has an amazing ability to heal and balance itself. Throughout my high school life, I was paralyzed with anxiety and self doubt. Painfully insecure and filled with self loathing. I was afraid to speak up about anything or be seen. When I first tried yoga, I had begun a transformation into a more confident and outgoing person by that point and I know yoga helped me shift to where I am now.

Where I am now-ish 

I went to some classes at a gym, at some local studios, got some more DVDs. I went to a class at a friend's house taught by another friend, Living Room Kundalini. It was amazing. I felt clearer in my mind and my body. I practiced on and off for years. I read some about the 8 limbs, and worked on breathing. I used the breathing knowledge I learned in yoga to cope with anxiety and soothe my social angst. I also did traditional counseling and wrote piles of journals. There have been years when I slacked off and didn't practice the asanas. But I always carried with me some of the lessons I learned from doing yoga. Not judging myself too harshly was one of them. One of the biggest lessons was learning to focus on the process of doing something rather than the outcome. I heard it over and over from teachers, it's not about whether or not you can do a headstand, it's about the fact that you showed up and tried. To me, this is one of the most valuable lessons that yoga offers us. I practice asana pretty regularly now. I'm still not one of those svelte super strong pop up into an handstand kind of yoginis. But that's not the point of practicing yoga. If you can do super hard arm balances that's awesome. If you aren't quite there yet, that's awesome too because you are practicing and trying and working on being stronger in your mind and body. That's amazing.

The philosophy of Yoga is rooted in the Yoga Sutras which is an outline for living in a healthy and spiritual manner. In chapter 2, the first aphorism is translated as "Austerity, study, and the dedication of the fruits of one's work to God: these are the preliminary steps towards yoga."
To me, this means focusing on the process and the acts of devotion and not on the outcome. If I practice yoga focused on the outcome of doing an arm balance, then I am missing all the benefit that comes from that work such as the opportunity to practice breathing while working hard, being accepting of my body and abilities in the present, learning alignment and muscle control. I miss the benefit of feeling my body and being in the present moment if I am focused on when am I going to be able to get my legs up. Instead of seeing the process that I have made, my ego is disappointed because I didn't do the pose I wanted to do. But there was still benefit in the process of trying!

I do feel more confident in my body and my strength, I know I am strong. I know that I am connected to my spirit and the universe. I hope that through starting to practice yoga with me, that you also start to feel that way. That you are able to find a few moments of a quiet mind and strong body in every class and eventually find those moments every day.

Don't forget: I have a 6 week Yoga series starting at No. 3 Railroad Street in Arnoldsville. For more info, check out the website. Or schedule a private session!

Parasympathetic Nervous System Response and why you need to exercise it.

This post is a throw back to high school science class. I'm going to explain the difference between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous systems. It's important to know about these systems within our bodies because they play a key role in anxiety, anger, tension, and relaxation. Knowing how something works helps us understand why something works.

The Sympathetic Nervous System is in charge of keeping us upright, breathing, and going. The fight or flight response is part of that system. Flight or Flight is how we defend ourselves in a dangerous situation. When this response is turned on, our muscles tense, heart beats faster, and our body prepares itself to fight (or run) for survival. Your brain sends chemical signals throughout the body telling all your organs and muscles that you are in danger. This is useful when there is actual danger, but unfortunately, some people's fight or flight response is always turned on or very easy to trigger. Panic attacks are this fight or flight system gone completely awry. It is a sympathetic nervous response. That underlying anxiety, constant worry, jitteryness, is all due to some kind of malfunction in the fight or flight system. At the end of the day, the "wired but tired" feeling is because your body has been pumped with adrenaline and other excitatory chemicals and it wears you out physically. But your brain is still pumping those chemicals so you're still thinking thinking thinking. For most western people, the Sympathetic Nervous System is strong, and the fight or flight response is very active. We live in a fast paced world where we skate from one activity to the next, navigating busy streets, busy people, and always thinking about our next move. Trauma and chronic stress can also cause the fight or flight system to stay on all the time.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System is what helps us fall asleep, relax, and calm down; frequently called the "rest and digest" response. It balances out the Sympathetic System. It's our bodies natural ability to relieve pain and tension. Most people need to strengthen this system. Guess how you do it? Mindfulness, Yoga, and Meditation. It has been shown (through science and stuff) that taking a few minutes to focus on deep diaphragmatic breathing, activates the Parasympathetic Response. It is like a muscle that requires exercise. It takes practice and repetition. But the more you work on feeling and understanding this system in your body, the easier it becomes to activate and use this natural calming response in times of stress.

You have the tools to heal and restore yourself already within you today. Like most people, you need to practice turning it on and strengthen those natural systems, but the foundation is already there. Humans have an amazing ability to heal themselves. It's so strong that any new medical treatment has be checked to see if it's really effective or a placebo. Activating and strengthening our bodies natural ability to calm, detox, and heal is vital to wellness, coping with stress, grief or trauma. The way I practice this is through taking time every day to practice some mindfulness breaks and connecting with my breath. Most days I do a little yoga and meditation too. You can add me on Periscope (@ccwellnessathens) for weekly guided meditations and yoga tutorials. By working with me one on one, we can develop a practice that fits with your current life and time tables. Please post any questions or thoughts in the comments below. I would love to hear from you!

Namaste!
~Valerie

More about the Parasympathetic Nervous System:
WideBrain.org explains the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PDF)
Neuroscience Introduction to Autonomic Nervous System
Psychology Today: 4 tips for slowing down

Where do I start with Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a hot word right now, with lots of medical and mental health professionals talking about it. Mindfulness is a conscious, non-judgmental focus on the present moment. You’re still probably thinking “BUT WHAT DO I ACTUALLY DO?! “ Mindfulness is a skill, and something to practice, any time anywhere. Focus on the process of doing these things, and not so much on the outcome. You don’t have to start meditating for hours every day. Here are 5 things you can do to experience mindfulness, or develop present moment awareness, starting today.

Perhaps you've seen this cartoon around the internet:

1. Take a few moments every hour to focus on your breathing. Right now, feel the breath as it enters your nose, and as it exits. Expand your lungs from the bottom to the top, even to the sides. Every time you do this, you strengthen your innate ability to calm yourself. When you focus on your breathing, you are activating your parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is your body’s internal calming system. Taking a few moments every day to focus on your breathing starts to strength that system.

2. When you are in your car or waiting in line, resist the urge to look at your devices. I love the smart phone and you’re probably reading this on your iToy right now. Next time you are in the car, or a line, do that breathing thing, but add in feeling your feet in your shoes. Notice how your toes come into contact with the innersoles. It’s try to press your weight evenly through your feet. Take a breath. Look at the people around you, they’re probably looking at their phones and missing the life right in front of them.

3. When you eat, do not turn on the TV or look at your devices. Look at your food. Smell it. Feel the textures on your tongue. Start by doing this when you first sit down, start by doing it for at least 3-5 minutes before you start looking at something else.

4. Start or end your day with meditation or prayer. That’s more tricky, but to get the full benefit and to really start working that parasympathetic response, you need to start meditating. Even 3 minutes a day has benefits. Try a guided meditation or visualization. These types of meditations are usually easier to start with. There will be some links at the bottom of this page to direct you to some meditation resources. Prayer is also helpful because it is purposeful time for you to focus on something bigger than yourself, and taking time to connect internally with the spiritual. It’s more active than meditation, but having this spiritual practice is just as important. Again, you are purposefully focusing your attention, which is mindfulness.

5. Experience FLOW states. Have you even been doing something that was so interesting or engrossing, that you lose track of time? For those moments, there is nothing but you and your task. This is called flow and is considered an "optimal experience." It happens when your task is just challenging enough to hold your attention. Your skill level and the challenge meet up perfectly to keep your brain quiet for a little while. Recreation is an important part of a healthy life. It’s easy to put that on the back burner when you’ve got kids, career, or basically modern life. It doesn’t have to be done every day, or even every week, but you need to make fulfilling recreation a part of your life. Once a quarter at the least. Some people run or do craft/hobby projects. Some people fish, golf, paint, hike, mow the grass, do a puzzle, color, or do yoga. There are tons of options. It needs to be challenging enough that you are able to just do the activity. Not so hard that you get frustrated or angry, not too passive so you get distracted. Having these types of experiences are just as important as meditating or other daily mindfulness practices and are an integral part of caring for yourself. Find what that is for you, and then do it. Seriously. Make time for yourself to have these experiences.

All of these are things you can start doing this week. Focus on just doing the tasks, and try to let go of the outcome, the changes you expect, or wondering if you are doing it “right.” Just try and see what starts to happen.

Meditation Resources:
Fragrant Heart Free Guided Meditation Audio
Shannon Ball Meditation Mondays  One of my teachers and all around awesome human, Shannon Ball makes inspiring meditation videos which she posts on her blog from time to time.
UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Center
Mindful Muscle

More Info on Flow States:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Theory of Flow

Is it just a crazy dream?

Like two sides of the same coin, every life ends in death and death can bring new life in its wake. Death is always a part of life. Our lives are much more fragile than we would like to admit.  It is easy to forget this fact in our current busy life. There has been a lot of death around me recently.  It’s easy to forget that people can leave us at any moment. There may not be a chance to say hello again, or to start a new story with a person. There comes a time when they are gone and you are left with sorrow and questions. 

There are so many emotions that come up when someone dies. The closer that person is to you, the more intense those feelings can be. You can’t avoid it, you can’t ignore it, you have to ride it out. People turn towards their friends and family to support and process the experience of grief. People turn towards faith and prayer. People take comfort in feeling the presence of something bigger than all of us, faith in God, or the Universe whatever you want to call it. A skill that can be helpful regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs is the practice of meditation and mindfulness. Mindfulness, when used with prayer and other spiritual frameworks cultivates a deeper understanding of ourselves and our experience on this planet.

Grief is a time when I find the practice of mindfulness most helpful but also challenging. Mindfulness is an opportunity to fully experience feelings, which can be intense. However, by taking in that experience, one can move to place where you can be with your feelings without being overcome by them. Joan Halifax, a Zen Abbot who writes extensively on death and dying recommends repeating the statement,  “May I accept my sadness knowing that I am not my sadness." This goes along with the deep understanding that absolutely everything we are experiencing is temporary. It may feel very intense and long lasting right now, but it will pass. Just like everything before this moment.

There are many articles about grief and it’s various stages (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance). I like to think of them more as states, and not stages. The word “stages” implies a sequence, a pattern, but for a grieving person there is no pattern. They can experience all of those states in one day, moving back and forth from Anger to Depression, from acceptance to denial, or any other sequence; around and around we go. The word state implies a feeling, or a way of being. Using Meditation and mindfulness assists with all of the states of grief.

For me, one of the more difficult parts of grief is the anger. Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh tells us the following in his discussion of "Loosening the Knots of Anger":

Mindfulness does not fight anger or despair. Mindfulness is there in order to recognize. To be mindful of something is to recognize that something is there in the present moment. Mindfulness is the capacity of being aware of what is going on in the present moment. “Breathing in, I know that anger has manifested in me; breathing out, I smile towards my anger.” This is not an act of suppression or of fighting. It is an act of recognizing. Once we recognize our anger, we embrace it with a lot of awareness, a lot of tenderness.

When it is cold in your room, you turn on the heater, and the heater begins to send out waves of hot air. The cold air doesn’t have to leave the room for the room to become warm. The cold air is embraced by the hot air and becomes warm—there’s no fighting at all between them.

We practice taking care of our anger in the same way. Mindfulness recognizes anger, is aware of its presence, accepts and allows it to be there. Mindfulness is like a big brother who does not suppress his younger brother’s suffering. He simply says, “Dear brother, I’m here for you.” You take your younger brother in your arms and you comfort him. This is exactly our practice.

This is exactly my challenge right now. Taking my anger and sadness into my arms, not judging or ignoring. But experiencing those feelings for what they are, and becoming a conscious observer of my thoughts. So that I can ride the waves of grief until one day it will be easier. 

And so it begins!

Hello dear friends! Welcome the blog of Valerie McGuinness at Cedar Creek Wellness. I hope to use this space to post thoughtful articles which may be helpful to those seeking clarity and happiness in their life. Sometimes I will write something, sometimes it will be content from around the internet, and sometimes I hope we can have guest bloggers. Please contact me if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for stopping by!