dear friends,

this winter time offers us a cool down, a slow down, a shake down… an invitation to turn inward and soften into a reflective exploration of the past year’s offerings… to sift through and churn up and lay to rest treasures and trials… and to let it be, just as it is, for a while…

and for you, friend, whatever arises, may you draw on your own unique ways of being to guide you through… may you feel held and supported by your own heart and the hearts of those around you… may you honour and be oh so generous with yourself and others in this time of great celebration and great sorrow…

this year has been a difficult one for me and as i look back with heartbreak and tears, i also call in as much curiosity, generosity, and presence as i can muster…with the knowledge that we are all in this together… thank you for your kind words, presence and care throughout the years and in this year in particular ❤.

‘Be gentle with that tender heart of yours.

It may be holding a years worth of grief inside it.

Be caring with all those parts of you that feel life’s tender moments, childhood pains and unmet emotions.

see you on the mat,
jessica

P.S Winter Classes: I am on the mend and wondering if there is interest in a soft slow flow yin class on Tuesdays from January 15 – February 5th? I have Tuesday morning available and was thinking about 9:30-10:30 but could be flexible with the timing and the dates. Let me know your thoughts?

be like the tide,
tide is breath.

breathe in, nourishment and delight
breathe out, cleanse and clear.

“We need both a sincere resolve and effective practices in order to awaken our heart and mind. On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness”
Tara Brach (2003). Radical Acceptance

Anxiety is a whole-body experience; it is natural to desire and try to move towards a sense of relief. We develop coping skills and strategies for dealing with the often overwhelming cascade of sensations, emotions, energy, and behaviours associated with anxiety, however, we may also find that we are at a loss of how to help ourselves in the midst of such an experience. I know that some of my own skills and strategies are life-affirming and support my long-term resilience and wellness while others are in need of a tune-up or a toss-out. Where are you at, right now?

“Yoga encourages us to follow the path that most appeals to our hearts”
David Frawley, Yoga & Ayurveda.

Within a context of holistic health and uplifting choices, it has been shown that yoga & mindfulness practices that focus on self-regulation and self-compassion can
…
*Support deep relaxation and sense of well-being
*Build mental & emotional strength through internal focus
*Guide us to set intentions and stay committed to personal intentions
*Reduce reactive mind
*Increase attention to present moment
*Better regulate responses to emotions
*Support us to engage in compassionate self-study & self-awareness
*Improve cognitive abilities: helps us to access forgotten or new strategies and/or change the direction of a response by reinterpreting the meaning of the emotional event, experience, or situation.
*Help us de-centre from distressing thoughts and emotions and take proactive steps towards wellness
*Lower use of maladaptive coping strategies (e.g. blame, avoid, substances, self-harm)
*Help to shift mood more quickly (e.g. feel bad in morning, better in afternoon)
*Befriend our bodies & ourselves.

What sparks your curiosity, increases your capacity to self-regulate, and deepens you into a kinder, gentler relationship with yourself and others?

Here are a few practices that you might wish to explore; these practices focus primarily on accessing the body & breath as a resource for managing anxiety.  When we experience anxiety, our bodies may feel very uncomfortable, we may think something is very wrong and, in the midst of anxiety, it can be challenging to make sense of the messages that the body is giving us. These practices are intended to help us get grounded, relieve stress, and support our capacity to mindfully befriend our experience with self-compassion.

A gentle yoga practice, like this one from Yoga International, that focuses on stable breathwork, deliberate movements, and guided relaxation can be helpful to calm the mind, settle the body, and clear anxious energy.

The Body Scan, like this one from Elisha Goldstein, can help us to attune to the subtle sensations in the body in a non-anxious time. Through this practice, we can increase our ability to notice unique and subtle sensations of anxiety and take skillful action before it  becomes more and more overwhelming.

There are many types of helpful breath practices offered through the teachings of yoga and mindfulness. This is a very basic breathing practice called ‘Calm Breath’ from Anxiety BC.

Our anxiety may be due to factors that may be beyond our control and/or that require a community response in order to deal, such as environmental degradation, social issues, political unrest. A dedicated yoga, mindfulness, and self-compassion practice can support us so that we can engage in skillful reflection and grounded action off the mat, into the world. What I offer here is intended to uplift and support you – if you find any of the practices increase your anxiety, please stop and take a nourishing action. It is not one-size fits all.

More pathways to be explored… more posts to be offered.. more resources to be shared.

In care,
jessica

Looking for further support? Check out Anxiety BC  or Bounceback Program from Canadian Mental Health Association. If you have a resource you would like to see listed here, contact me and let me know.

Footnote: Over the spring of 2017, I developed a four week program entitled Ease Your Worried Mind: Yoga, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion as resources for managing anxiety. I have offered the course twice in the community, each time refining and responding to client feedback in order to help the course be more effective and nourishing. I offer some of the content here, for you. Let me know your thoughts?

Please note: I draw from evidence-based studies, education & experience in mental health & addictions, yogic texts, practices, and philosophy, client feedback, and other sources; I do not make any medical claims nor is this a comprehensive survey of all that is available to us. I do invite you to get the professional support you need, try out practices that seem safe and grounding to you, find a local yoga teacher to help you in your practice, and stay curious and compassionate.

Sources: Keng & Tong (2016); Prakash, Hussain, & Schirda (2015); Menezes et al. (2015), Forbes (2011), Drummond (2016), Marcia (2014).

this path is paved with gold / jkl / 2017

Many of the wisdom traditions invite us to take heart from the changing season and slow down, rest deeply, and savour nourishing foods, relationships, and experiences.

We are also invited to reflect with intention…
What is important to me?
What needs to be cleared?
What is one step in the right direction?

“When I give myself over to the experience of savoring, wisdom emerges. Savoring calls for a kind of surrender. We have all kinds of stories in our minds about why we perhaps shouldn’t give ourselves over to enjoyment, whether out of guilt or shame or a sense of fear out of what might happen. Yet we are called to yield to the goodness of life, to bask in it.

Savoring calls me to slowness: I can’t savor quickly.

Savoring calls me to spaciousness: I can’t savor everything at once.

At this time, I hope time and space conspire for you to be nourished, receive the generosity of others, and savour the light within.

May our practice be of benefit to ourselves, each other, and the earth.

Take good care,
Jessica

I am looking forward to spending time with you this Autumn sharing and exploring simple practices intended to nourish well-being, cultivate self-compassion, and nurture our capacity to rest deeply.

Yin for Well-Being & Self-Care
This five week series is a gentle and steady practice of simple yoga forms, breath practices, and guided relaxation to support overall wellness and self-care. As we gather together, we will explore yin, a slow style of yoga that invites us to let kindness lead the way, tend to ourselves with generous attention, and connect to natural inner ease, joy and freedom.

Yin is a nourishing type of yoga, that can also be somewhat challenging, as we are invited to explore sensation with curiosity and cultivate stillness. In this floor-based practice, yoga props such as bolsters, blankets and blocks help us to release, lengthen and extend into ease and spaciousness. Variations are encouraged to adapt the practice to meet our own conditions. Suitable for most students.

Self-care is about taking care of ourselves… in sometimes the most simple and basic ways. Part of self-care is giving ourselves a high five and sincere praise when we show up for ourselves… and also giving ourselves tenderness and love when we have a hard time doing so.

Source: Revolutionary Self-Care

Details
Thursdays 5:30-6:45PM / September 14 – October 12 at Nourish
Cost: $69 plus tax
Early Bird Price : $63 plus tax (Before September 7th!)

Go easy, friends. We are all in this together.

See you on the mat,
Jessica

Find other offerings here

This weekend, I will be joining some of the Nourish crew and Emma from Plant-Based RHN for a day long retreat at Woodwardia, home of the Salish Coast Land and Marine Conservation Society & a vegan sanctuary, on Texada Island. This promises to be a day of deep nourishment as we gather together to soak in nature through yoga & meditative walking, plant-based meals, free time, and sound healing with Cindy from Crystal Music, Art & Books. It would be lovely to see you there — you can find more details and, if it resonates, please register here.

I am honoured to offer a 45 minute Yin / Restorative Yoga session in the afternoon. As we soften into supported heart-centred shapes, I will be reading poetry and offering guided meditation that encourages us to rest in self-compassion and deep restoration.

Self-compassion is really a necessary part of wholeness and resilience. When we invoke our natural capacity to engage in self-compassion, we remember that kindness can lead the way, that a balanced view of ourselves is more useful and relevant than harshness or critical judgment, that we are not alone in all of this, and that our basic nature of joy and wisdom is always available to us – especially in the midst of overwhelm, agitation, or despair. It is not always an easy road, however, self-compassion is a balm to our uneasy hearts and helps us tend to ourselves with what we need: tenderness, truth, skillful action, and so much more.

When we cultivate our capacity to rest fully, we offer to ourselves a great gift: to relieve ourselves of unnecessary tension and connect to natural inner ease and freedom. It has been shown that approaching rest from a place of self-compassion, rich & resonant belly breaths, and a devoted intention truly soothes the nervous system thus relieving rigidity, over-activity, and dullness in the mind, body & spirit. We become nourished and attuned to our deepest nature  – joy, wisdom and presence.

I have found that it is like a spiral… learning, falling and learning again. And yet, my foundational practices continue to ground me, help me to stay curious, to approach with mindfulness, and to remember my intentions more quickly when things get a little / a lot messy and unwieldy. I have also found these practices naturally flow outward and I have become more more curious about how to extend compassion, rest and relaxation off the mat and into my relationships with ourselves, friends & strangers, and the earth. And it is my intention with my teaching that we gather together so that we may recover and replenish ourselves and move into the world more deeply connected to what is truly important, with gratitude.

One of the ways I replenish my heart is through poetry. And so, I would like to leave you with ‘The Peace of Wild Things’ read by the poet Wendell Barry. I hope it offers you a sweetness on this day and invites you to take time to take time in your daily practice to be nourished by nature, rest in self-compassion, and be restored.

Post Direct Resources
Self-Compassion: Kirstin Neff 
The Relaxation Response