meditate

On July 9, 2018July 16, 2018 By tcooleyIn meditateLeave a comment

Attitude is everything, particularly for runners. Attitude and outlook can be improved with intentional effort.

Meditation can be loosely described as intentional effort that can lead to greater peace through self understanding and increased mental focus and clarity.

Yogic philosophy provides a wealth of insights to build a meditation practice and develop a more optimistic, positive attitude that can benefit your running performance.

There are a variety of guided meditation exercises that can help guide your performance. From using guided meditation to visualize the big finish and challenges that may be presented during a race, can help you prepare in advance and overcome them.

Since everyone is unique, I can guide you through these exercises individually that will work best for you. Generally, it is more helpful to first be guided through these exercises working with someone. We call this ‘yoga nidra’ or guided meditation.

Once you have experienced the positive effects of this guided meditation exercise, you can work with it on your own as you incorporate it into your relaxation and breathing practice.

Learning key concepts from yogic philosophy can also help to improve the mental game by releasing yourself from mental attachments that can hinder performance and prevent you from negative spirals. Since everyone is unique, I recommend discuss this directly so it is appropriate for what you need.

In addition, working with a mantra can help to improve flow while running and keep you focused and strong. Mantras are personal so choose a word or phrase that is empowering and makes you feel positive. The repetition of the mantra is key for creating a flow state while running and blocking any negative thoughts from creeping in.

There are various meditation practices that can be helpful, and can be combined with breathing practices that create a deeper and richer experience.

In her book, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with your Mind, Pema Chodron opens with a quote from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to describe the practice of meditation:

“The principle of nowness is very important to any effort to establish an enlightened society. You may wonder what the best approach is to helping society and how you can know that what you are doing is authentic and good. The only answer is nowness. The way to relax, or rest the mind in nowness, is through the practice of meditation. In meditation you take an unbiased approach. You let things be as they are, without judgment, and in that way you yourself learn to be.”

Being present is a practice that takes time to cultivate. If you are new to meditation, it can be frustrating if you feel that you are not doing it right or feel that you are not good at it. Let that go.

Listen to this brief audio clip of Pema Chodron sharing the key to meditation as she discusses how to develop the right mindset for meditation and steps to begin a practice.
I’ll be sharing more resources and suggestions for building your meditation practice here, so follow me and get ready to experience the limitless and expansive now.

move

On July 8, 2018July 16, 2018 By tcooleyIn moveLeave a comment

Establishing a regular asana (pose) practice has enormous benefits for building strength, balance and flexibility. Based on your needs and preferences, you will find poses that appeal to you and work for you with experience.

I recommend attending hatha yoga level I classes first to ensure that you are doing the poses correctly working with an experienced teacher. You may want to shop around and try different studios and teachers to find a class that is most helpful to you.

Based on your training schedule, you may want to aim to practice yoga 2-3 times per week, starting slowly and gently. It is important for runners who have a demanding training program to take a very easy relaxed approach to yoga to experience the full effects. Less is more here. Never strain in a yoga class, as overdoing it can set you up for future running injuries. Never do anything different just before a race or big training run, start slow and gradual as you integrate running within your routine.

Once you have a good foundation, you can access yoga classes online at your convenience. I recommend Yoga Anytime, which offers a trial subscription and offers a wide variety of practices with various teachers.

Over time, you may want to develop your own home practice based on the poses that benefit you the most. While there are significant benefits to attending classes in person, you should be aware that there are options that may be helpful for committing to a regular practice.

Generally, you will want to make sure that you are including poses in your practice that can be beneficial for runners. Once you are familiar, consider the following poses that may be particularly helpful for runners based on individual needs:

• Core poses – Pelvic tilt, cat/cow in table position, bird dog from table, plank, side plank

• Lateral strength poses – single leg/double leg raises, scissoring, running legs from supine position, single leg lowering, side angle pose

• Back strengthening – Locust, locust legs, bridge, one-legged bridge

• Balance poses – Rising and lowering on toes, tree pose, stork/holding one knee in front of body, dancer’s pose, warrior three, half moon

• Inversions – Downward dog, legs up the wall, shoulder stand

[Note: If you don’t know any of these terms, ask me!]

You can gradually incorporate select yoga poses based on your individual needs, below are guidelines to use as a starting point for consideration and discussion with me:

• Hill reps or sprints – Static hamstring, quad, glut and hip flexor stretches, such as runner’s lunge, walking dog, thread needle in supine and lateral side bends

• Long road or trail run – Foot stretches, inversions, full body stretches, six directions of the spine, hip mobilizing movements (talk to me!). If you have difficulty falling asleep, try deep breathing, meditation or relaxation exercises

• Light run – Dynamic cool down such as sun salutation, balances such as tree, strong standing postures such as lunging warrior one and goddess pose

• Rest days – Strong flow sequence to build strength as well as in lateral strengthening poses to restore muscle imbalances. Meditation, breathing and relaxation to disconnect from training stressors and reset your frame of mind

breathe

On July 6, 2018July 16, 2018 By tcooleyIn breatheLeave a comment

The essence of yoga is tuning in to the inner world and feeling the subtle cues that contain a wealth of information. Through relaxation and breathing exercises, you can develop improved focus and concentration and increase the sense of ease within your body that can help improve form.

A regular breathing practice also will help to deepen your mind-body connection, condition your breathing muscles, improve oxygenation to the brain and other vital organs and help you relax.

Below is a breathing exercise that can have enormous benefits, aim to do this 3-4 times per week:

• Make sure that you will be uninterrupted and undistracted for about 10 minutes, and choose the time of day that you will feel most at ease

• Set a timer for 10 minutes and choose an alarm with a pleasing delicate sound that won’t startle you (consider downloading the Insight Timer app, which has a free version that includes ambient sound and gentle alarm bells and allows you to track your progress)

• Find a comfortable position either sitting in a cross-legged position or lying on your mat

• Begin to lengthen your breath on the exhale, without straining

• Count your breath on the inhale and exhale, making sure that your exhale is longer than your inhale

• Focus your thoughts on your breathing and if other thoughts pop up, acknowledge them and let them go (you can try to visualize these thoughts as clouds that are passing by)

• Feel your body relax even deeper with each breath

• When the timer sounds, gently and slowly come out of your deep relaxation state and ease back into your day

This practice not only helps to improve ease in the body, but it strengthens inner awareness that is critical for a stronger mind-body connection.

chant

On July 2, 2018July 16, 2018 By tcooleyIn chantingLeave a comment

My first reaction to chanting was discomfort, confusion, rejection. I looked at the other yogis and yoginis who were really into it and I thought it was weird, I just didn’t get it. I felt really out of place and awkward.

But since chanting is included in every yoga class at Yogaville, I found myself in this situation repeatedly for many years. Then, it finally clicked. I stopped thinking and I started experiencing and everything changed.

Chanting is about experience, it is important not to overthink it.

Bhakti yoga is the yoga of devotion, and through chanting we praise what we love. Sanskrit words are intended to be felt deeply as in onomatopoeia, which is defined as ‘a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.’

One of my favorite examples is the sanskrit word ‘swaha.’ The original definition that I learned years ago was ‘letting go of that which no longer serves you.’ Since then, I’ve heard many other definitions, so I can’t with any precision or confidence tell you what the word means. Yet, it still has meaning for me although it changes each time I use the word.

This is Sanskrit, it’s taught me to let go of definitions but rather try to grasp the vague concept and allow the meaning to grow, change, transform.

The fundamental meaning of most chants is ‘praise the beloved.’ Unlike western schools of thought, the meaning is unique to each person and that’s ok, we do not have to agree in order to share a similar warm feeling deep within our loving hearts.

Chanting is not religious, it is spiritual. In all my years of chanting, no one has ever told me that I need to praise someone or something in particular. Rather, chanting can lead us toward being more spiritual and connected to our limitless, infinite self that existed long before our birth and will exist long after our death.

Chanting offers us the opportunity to focus the mind and enter a state of pure experience that can lead to a bliss state.

As Krishna Das says, “It’s great that we can come together with people we don’t know and chant songs that we don’t know the meaning of and ask questions that we’ll probably never answer and still find all that we need.”

Krishna Das is one of the most well-known kirtan artists in the world. Kirtan is call-and-response chanting, typically performed with instruments such as the harmonium (think table top accordian) and tablas (look almost like bongo drums with a much richer sound).

My first kirtan session at Yogaville took me back to the days as a kid when we’d sing songs around the camp fire that we all knew and loved. It was possible to get so absorbed in the music that you could forget where you were and what day it was and be blissfully lost in the moment. That’s kirtan.

I once joined an informal kirtan gathering at Yogaville, and just as we were really getting into it… the lights went out and we were in complete darkness. No one reacted, we didn’t even miss a beat. We chanted for another 10 minutes or so. This was in my early days of getting into chanting, so I was still trying to get my head around it.

The experience made me realize that this was the real thing, these people weren’t faking it. After the chant ended and we shared a few moments of silence, someone said, “Did anyone else feel us all levitate?” We chuckled, and someone finally got up to check on the breaker.

One of the great benefits of chanting and kirtan is that they can be used as another tool to focus the mind. Long after the experience, you can repeat the chant quietly to yourself and block out all other thoughts.

If I’m having a bad ‘monkey brain’ day and my thoughts are on overdrive, I chant and then repeat it to myself throughout the day and peace and quiet replace chaos and frustration.

Each time I chant, the feelings that I receive are more profound and filled with meaning. Now, I focus on being open and available when I chant… and often cry tears of joy and I am not alone as it’s not unusual to see others break open during kirtan.

David Newman, another one of the world’s most well-known kirtan artists, describes it as moving from broken-hearted to a heart broken open (let’s face it, we all have broken hearts in one way or another). (Note that he is referencing a phrase that is used widely in eastern philosophy, it is not his originally. But it’s a good excuse to reference David Newman as I love his music.)

So, tune in, turn on and chant.

Start with OM.

I will be sharing recorded chants in the future, so follow me and get ready to bliss out. In the meantime, you might want to check out the websites of Krishna Das and David Newman.

welcome.

I am so happy you are here!

The list of benefits from a regular yoga practice is indeed long, and a few of these benefits are particularly important for runners, including:

• Increased flexibility
• Increased muscle strength
• Improved respiration, energy and vitality
• Greater protection from injury
• Improved mental acuity and concentration
• Improved balance

Perhaps most importantly, yoga can help improve the mind-body-spirit connection, which is so critical for improving athletic performance.

As the name of this blog indicates, you can start with OM to create the foundation of your practice that will lead you to a better, more peaceful life.

OM is the sound of the universe and represents the union of mind-body-spirit, which is the goal of yoga. (Note that there are as many definitions for OM as there are stars in the sky but this is a basic definition for beginning to understand the concept!)

OM is significant as it is often used as part of a centering technique to focus the mind and move into deep relaxation or prepare us for what we are about to do. Experiencing the openness of the “O” sound and the vibration of the “M” sound can be helpful for drawing inward.

As you make the sound either quietly to yourself or out loud, allow it to increase your awareness and presence in the moment. In the words of Ram Dass – Be Here Now.

Ideas for beginning to practice with OM:

First thing in the morning, sit up tall as you rise from bed and breathe in gently and on the exhale quietly voice the sound OM, repeat three times with the breath
If you feel stressed or upset during the day, take a moment to breathe and repeat OM three times to yourself
If you are getting ready for an important moment – such as a job interview, first date, big work presentation – use your OM practice to center yourself before launching in
Before you go to bed, sit up tall and breathe in gently and on the exhale quietly say OM, then repeat three times
Before you run… before you eat… before you speak… before you shop… before you check your mail… before you say, I love you… you get the picture
As you practice with OM, gradually shift your experience to a heightened sense of relaxation with the goal of fully experiencing the sound

We will explore more meanings of OM and additional practices using the sound, but start with this technique to begin a new journey toward strengthening your mind-body-spirit connection through the power of yoga.

If you are uncomfortable with practicing OM, use your breath and focus on the inhale and the exhale as you slow your thoughts. Chanting OM or another mantra can be helpful to tune into your inner world, so over time you may want to try again and focus on the experience of OM without judgement or expectation.

The sound vibrations can be deeply meaningful and bring you closer to a pure experience state, so it may be worthwhile to try again as your relaxation practice deepens. Or it may just not be for you, which is fine as well. I encourage you to follow my blog as there may be other practices that are relevant and helpful to you.

Start with OM is personally relevant for me as this is the practice that I struggle with the most.

In lay terms, I have often run frantically into burning buildings filled with assumptions, fear and negativity rather than taking a moment to clear my mental slate and breathe through my OM practice. I dive into important conversations and meetings before taking a moment to draw inward and focus and clear my mind so that I am fully present and available to the people who need me the most.

Start with OM is a journey for me as well, to remind me to focus on the simple act of empowering my scared, hurt and frustrated inner child using OM.

I am thrilled to be starting this new journey with you, using OM as the light guiding us forward to greater peace, love and joy.

OM Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.

On June 20, 2018July 16, 2018 By tcooleyIn MeditationLeave a comment