Last night I wrote a piece on love. I focused on using yoga to assist with heart opening and creating clarity. What I didn’t mention is the importance of nourishment. An open heart does well with sustenance circulating in and out and around it.
There’s nothing like a sweet phone call and a vigorous bike ride to get blood pumping into and out of the heart— filling, releasing and nourishing the opening that was created.
What gets your blood pumping?
-acorn.
Elllll. Ohhhhh. Veeeee. Eeeeee. Love. Why is it that four letter words are impossibly weighty? Love. It sounds so simple. To pick apart the layers of love would take more than a lifetime and the definition of the word would differ from lover to lover and from loved to loved.
The simplicity of the sound and vibration of the word love is misleading. The frequency with which we use the word love in our everyday (myself included) doesn’t do justice for just how complicated the concept is.
I am still trying to figure out how to best love and be loved– how I want to give and receive love. Love is visceral, electric, soft, nurturing and sweet. Love starts with the self and once we love ourselves, we are then ready to fully love another. It’s a foundation for which growth can occur; not just for the individual, but for the whole.
When I love fully and when that love is reciprocated fully, love permeates my entire physical body and stirs my insides like a ladle in a vat of soup: warm, spicy, satisfying.
Love is wonderful, even when it hurts. Love is wonderful, even when it’s muddled. In my body, love feels expansive, tingly, cleansing and electric. I LOVE that feeling. I LOVE love. When things get messy in love, whether with family, friends or with a significant other, two things are vital for me– I need to open my heart and I need clarity.
I have put together a yoga sequence to address both clarity and heart opening. I threw in some of my favorite postures (postures that I feel a sense of ease in) to create balance given the intensity of a heart opening series. This series focuses on back bends. Back bends should be practiced with caution and only when your spine is warm and ready to move. Backbending is contraindicated for high and low blood pressure, migraine and serious low back and neck injury. As always, please practice with caution.
LOVE.
What does love feel like in your body?
-acorn.
“When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.” -Isabel Allende
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” -Elie Wiesel
Hi readers! It’s Monday which means that it’s time to reenter the work week. As I begin to refasten my thinking cap, I can’t help but have some thoughts around the press surrounding Bill Clinton’s entrée into “veganism” (which actually first starting coming to press in 2010.) I have incidentally left my diet of of the blogosphere until now– not for any reason in particular, but because being vegan is simply a matter of course for me. My diet is not my identity or something that is always top of mind, except when an article like this comes out.
I am writing this post in order to continue dialogue around what it means to be vegan. I will be the first to admit that I don’t believe that labels are useful when held to rigid standards, after all, veganism is a social construction and is defined differently depending on who is doing the defining. Although many people in the vegan community would disagree with me, I believe that there is no one way to define veganism. With that said, I personally react to the label being used when someone is actively eating eggs or animal flesh, even if “just once a week.” That’s my own bias based on my definition of what it means to me, to be vegan.
I am curious to learn more about the nuances of what it means to be vegan and how the definition differs from person to person, so please do chime in!
My girlfriend posted a link to the AARP article on my Facebook “wall” this morning (or is it a timeline? I can’t keep up!) In response to the link, I wrote:
Ooof. I’m not sure how I feel about all of the publicity around this. I like that he is reducing his intake significantly as that has a huge impact. People go vegan for many different reasons. Billy started out due to health reasons. I went vegan because my heart hurts when I think about the fear response that animals endure before they are killed. Neither reason is better than the other, but because the label (for me) implies compassion, the weekend omnivore thing (have read that he eats eggs, fish and turkey from time to time) sends a message that I’m not comfortable with. With that said, I applaud him for taking charge of his health for both himself and his family– as a result, animals lives are saved. I wish the title read: “Bill Clinton Reveals How He Became Veganish”
For me, veganism means abstaining from animal flesh, fish, dairy and eggs. It means doing my best to avoid animal by products. Attending to my personal ethics surrounding promoting compassion and non-violence extends to all living beings. I choose to eat honey and take a Lanolin based vitamin D supplement for personal reasons. Does that make me “so not vegan?” What do you think? What does veganism mean to you? I know this topic is heavily charged. Diet is very personal and it astounds me that the vegan community, a community that often preaches compassion can be so self righteous and condemning. Please be respectful of one another in the comment section.
Please do share your thoughts.
Recent news articles on Bill Clinton’s “vegan” diet:
Mercy for Animals (see pages 2 and 3)
-acorn.
“What is it that should trace the insuperable line?… The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” —Jeremy Bentham
“There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties.… The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.”
—Charles Darwin
“Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.”
—Leonardo Da Vinci
“Poor animals! How jealously they guard their pathetic bodies…that which to us is merely an evening’s meal, but to them is life itself.” —T. Casey Brennan
Body aches, angry belly and exhaustion: inflammation! inflammation! inflammation! My insides are pissed. I’m not sure what the culprit is though I have some suspicions– (I’m looking at you: food allergies, overtaxed muscles, coming down from an emotional high and STRESS.) This last week has been brutal.
I have been doing some reading about the impact of yoga on inflammation in order to revamp my practice to address my angry bod. I came across this journal article. The study found that IL-6 levels were 41% higher in novice yoga practitioners than in individuals who have been practicing longer.
**For reference, Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a cytokine (molecule that signals cells) which mediates the immune response that occurs due to fever, infection, allergic response or trauma leading to inflammation.
Encouraged by this finding, I decided to dig a little deeper to see if I could find other studies that demonstrate the impact of yoga on inflammatory markers.
Click HERE, HERE, and HERE for a few studies that I came across. There were many! If this isn’t motivation to get my rear in gear, then I don’t know what is.
When you’re feeling uncomfortable in your body, it can be challenging to engage in a body centered practice because it requires acknowledging the discomfort. I know that for me, if I ignore the discomfort, it will persist. I put together a gentle yoga sequence that feels good in my body to reduce inflammation. As always, just because this is a good sequence for me, that doesn’t mean it is what your body needs. Feel free to use it as a guide and make any changes along the way. All yoga should be practiced with caution. Respect your body. New bodies are hard to come by.
Gentle anti-inflammatory mini sequence:
1. Balasana (childs pose)
2. Seated tummy circles
*Benefits of tummy circles: warms up lumbar region of the spine, improves digestion as the gentle movement massages your internal organs, particularly those involved in eliminating waste. This movement also activates and aligns the ileocecal valve. (TMI? Oh well!)
3. Seated tummy massage
4. Table top to cat/cow with dynamic movement (shift hips back and side to side)
5. Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog)
6. Uttanasana (forward fold) come into a wide legged forward fold
7. Arda uttanasana (half way lift)
8. Come to a seat for a seated body scan. Check in with your body and notice if there are any areas that feel swollen, inflamed, bloated or irritated. Imagine soothing warm salt water infiltrating those parts of your body– moving in an out and around the irritated parts. That imagery works well for me, but you can choose whatever is soothing to you.
9.Viparita karani (literally: inverted action; a.k.a. legs up the wall)– get cozy and hold for 10 minutes.
10.bring knees to chest and roll gently left to right to massage lower back
11. savasana- 10-15 minutes
One of the very first posts on the Acorn Bends Facebook page was this photo from The American Institute of Stress, shared by Anatomy in Motion (if you have an interest in anatomy, I recommend following their Facebook page– great, accessible information on the human body.)
Click to enlarge! credit: The American Institute on Stress
What do you do when your insides get angry? If you have any favorite ways to decrease inflammation, please share!
-acorn.
“In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel “burnout” setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have a long-term perspective.” -Dalai Lama
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