Author Archives: Alissa

Can Yoga Help Fix My Brain?

Posted on September 24, 2009 | 2 comments

Many moons ago, one of my best friends and I attempted to take a Yoga class together. We were both 24 at the time, and we were both pretty hyperactive. Neither of us was able to gather up the focus needed to really get into it. We would goof off through the whole class, and then we’d both infallibly fall asleep during the closing meditation. Both of us decided after our 10 sessions that we were not the Yoga types. My friend and I both remain fairly high-energy, but have mellowed out quite a bit in our “old age.” Both of us have grown in our ability to focus. She practices T’ai Chi. I have tried that (my husband loves it, and has been in touch on and off with a master since he was 16), but it really wasn’t my cup of tea (that pun was intended – if you know how much tea is drank in conjunction with T’ai Chi!).

In recent years I have been feeling a pull again towards yoga. I’ve had little tastes of it when I’ve been in belly dance classes (my attempts to learn belly dance keep getting thwarted – first by my grad school class schedule, and then by breaking my ankle). It seemed like maybe I might like it now that I’m more of a grown-up. Two things sealed the deal on trying it again: 1. David has been doing it as part of his coursework for school, and has been encouraging me to take it up as something we could practice together, 2. Another dear friend of mine mentioned to me, while I was in the middle of a meltdown, that yoga has played a key role in helping her to love her body. She said that she loves it because it helps her to be more “in” her body, and builds the mind-body connection.

My mind-body connection is broken. Well, maybe not broken in the sense that it doesn’t exist, but it is sick in a way that has to be hurting my attempts to get healthier. I have mentioned a couple of times on this blog that I have been through treatment for eating disorders. Part of what causes eating disorders is body dysmorphia. This means that when you look in the mirror, you don’t see what is really there. You see yourself as being distorted somehow – too fat, too ugly, etc. Here’s the description from MayoClinic.com:

Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can’t stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance — a flaw either that is minor or that you imagine. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful and distressing that you don’t want to be seen by anyone. Body dysmorphic disorder has sometimes been called “imagined ugliness.”

For info on causes, go here.

As stated above, body dysmorphic is a chronic disorder. The behaviors surrounding it can be cured, but the disorder itself is ongoing (though it can go into remission!). Therefore, one needs to learn good self-care and coping mechanisms. Some doctors want to try to treat this with meds. I disagree with that approach, particularly because there aren’t any medications that are approved for specifically treating this disorder. What you’re actually treating is the related depression, anxiety, etc. I’m not necessarily depressed or anxious in a clinical sense, so I think that behavioral therapy is the way to go. Obviously I learned how to stop starvation and purge behaviors. I’m still working on the binge part; but that is getting progressively better. Otherwise, I am doing a pretty good job on the physically self-destructive behaviors front.

The more internal symptoms are the hard part. Especially since I actually am on the heavier side at the moment. Here is a list of symptoms, hand-picked from MayoClinic.com, that I struggle with:

  • Preoccupation with your physical appearance
  • Strong belief that you have an abnormality or defect in your appearance that makes you ugly
  • Frequently examining yourself in the mirror or, conversely, avoiding mirrors altogether (I avoid)
  • Believing that others take special notice of your appearance in a negative way
  • Feeling extremely self-conscious
  • Refusing to appear in pictures (I don’t mind this if I am not overweight. If I am, I will still do it, but it makes me feel miserable)
  • Comparing your appearance with that of others (the funny part about this is that though I am very hard on myself, most other people look lovely to me. Therefore, inside my brain, almost everyone is better looking than I am)
  • Avoiding social situations (only when I’m heavy. If I am, I will try to avoid situations where we are going “out,” or where there are a lot of people I don’t know).
  • Wearing excessive makeup or clothing to camouflage perceived flaws (I have relaxed on this front. I will now go some places without makeup on, but for a long time, even though I don’t wear a lot of makeup, I wouldn’t leave the house without the minimal amount I do wear).

These symptoms all appear as minor behaviors that other people may or may not notice.  The bigger part is inside my head. I know rationally that all of these things are extremely self-centered and/or untrue. However, the whole reason that it is a disorder is because it is irrational. These symptoms, at certain times, will keep me from doing things that I love to do.

When my friend mentioned yoga to me as a form of body-love, I was crying because I didn’t want to go out dancing. I didn’t want to go because I was embarrassed of my body. Usually I can hide the real reason that I don’t want to go, but she had kept pressing me about it until I had to be honest. I LOVE to dance. But at the moment it is hard for me to do it. Obviously I am getting more and more comfortable with being honest about what’s going on in my head. I attribute this to being less and less lazy about self-care.  Meditation  helps a lot to re-program my thinking-keeps out the automatic negative thoughts (ANTS). Exercise helps a lot with endorphins and just getting rid of energy that I might use against myself. Massage helps dissolve issues with being seen.

On Monday night I finally started a yoga class. I have practiced it every day this week, and I already know that I love it. I am looking into doing another weekly class. It is so good; it is so good because it is something that I feel good doing right now. Not when I am thinner or in better shape. I don’t feel self conscious or judged in the studio, which I think must have something to do with the spiritual aspect of yoga. I don’t think when I’m doing it, I just feel. It is the first thing that I have done that feels like it is addressing all of my broken pieces at once.

Anyhow, if you are a person that has body image issues, and aren’t already doing yoga, I highly recommend starting!

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

Where Do We Go From Here?:Perspectives on Afterlife

Posted on September 22, 2009 | 5 comments

I don’t mean to get too morbid, having two death-related posts in a row. But the topic of life after death seems appropriate in the wake of a funeral. A recent article in Newsweek indicates that though a majority of us still self-identify as Christian, many Americans are swinging towards Hindu ideals when it comes to perspectives on religion and the afterlife, with 24% of Americans now believing in reincarnation. Though different faiths or perspectives have different definitions and ideas about these categories, the major categories of belief for the afterlife seem to be heaven/hell, reincarnation, some kind of a “spirit world,” or nothing at all.

One thing about the Newsweek article definitely applies to me: I think all religions are basically the same thing. I think they have the same goals, just different ways of getting there. And, apparently like the majority of Americans, I still self-identify as Christian, or sometimes even as Catholic. This is primarily because I was raised Christian and have been educated in Christianity, and it was easier for me to do a comparison of the religion I know to the other religions than it was to switch all together based on the details of each religion, which I probably wouldn’t subscribe to anyhow. Also, I consider myself a “cultural” Catholic, meaning that Catholicism is such a part of my family history and my being that I couldn’t extract it if I tried. And obviously, there are elements of Catholicism that I still believe. I guess I just figure that if it is all the same to me, why should I waste my time fighting it? Anyhow, I’m not going to get any more into the nuts and bolts of my personal faith; I simply provide the above as a basic background for my beliefs.

Another disclosure of belief: I believe in ghosts. Call me crazy, but I can’t not believe in them. Well, if I didn’t believe in them, then I would just have to believe that I am, in fact, crazy (I’m not gonna argue that this could be true!). I have never seen a ghost, and don’t know if I really care to start. However, there have been numerous occasions where I have heard them. Again, I won’t go into this right now, but just know that it is something I believe.

As a Catholic, I was raised to believe in Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. Even as a kid, the idea of Hell didn’t jive with the image of the just and loving God described by Jesus. So, I guess you could say that I never did believe in Hell. I believe that we metaphorically “put ourselves through hell.” I kind of still believe in Heaven and Purgatory. I think that Heaven is simply another plane of existence. I think that people can have glimpses of it while they are still here. I think that some people (Christ, Buddha, Yogis, etc.) spiritually live there while they are physically alive. This concept of Heaven is not really a locality but a state of being. People that have reached that state don’t really leave this planet, they are just invisible to us. So, I guess that I think that some “ghosts” are really just visions into that other plane. Purgatory might be another explanation for ghosts. Maybe some people aren’t ready to move on to the “Heaven” plane at the time of their physical deaths, so they just hang around here, on the physical plane of existence, until they are ready.

Though my concept of Heaven jives pretty well with faiths that subscribe to reincarnation, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I have read some pretty compelling evidence for reincarnation; particularly the trials that potential reincarnates of the Dali Lama pass. However, I wonder how or why we would get into new bodies. Do we get to pick? Why would we do that? Are we being punished? Are ghosts just people who chose not to get reincarnated, but aren’t yet enlightened? I’m not sure what to think. Maybe this is an idea that my Christian upbringing just won’t let me get my mind around. Or maybe, though I love life, I just really want to believe that I won’t have to come back here when I’m done. Maybe I’m worried I’ll get bored.

After all, I am a child of a scientific era. The society that I have grown up in is technologically advanced and grounded in scientific method. Everything must be proved before it can really be believed. I have also spent a significant amount of time in academia, which I think inadvertently tends to promote skepticism. Though I have already disclosed that I believe in a god of some kind, because of the era I’ve grown up in, I am still naturally skeptical. Being a creative type, it’s easy for me to paint all sorts of colorful pictures of what could happen when I kick the bucket. It is harder for me to subscribe to them. It takes a big leap of faith for me to…well, you know. Have faith. Sometimes it takes considerable faith for me not worry that when we die we just…die. And overall, sometimes it is just easier for me to believe that I really am nuts for thinking any of this.

I am interested to know what you think: Am I crazy? What do you think happens to our souls when we die? Do you even believe in souls?

5 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged

Life or Death; You Decide

Posted on September 21, 2009 | 3 comments

David’s grandmother passed away last week, and was laid to rest on Saturday. I didn’t know her very well because she was a victim of Alzheimer’s, and it was fairly advanced by the time David and I started dating. Despite not really knowing her, I cried through the entire funeral service. The first reason is that I cry almost any time I see someone I love crying; and I have the insane good luck of not only loving my husband deeply, but also loving his whole extended family. I’m a big empathetic crier. Also, any time that I read or listen to the story of someone’s life, I can’t help but put myself in that person’s place. In the case of David’s grandma, she did a really good job at life. She was someone who lived life with grace and joy despite an abundance of adversity. I didn’t cry because it was sad that she had adversity in her life; I cried because I was happy that she was still so happy. I wish I had felt the same thing at all of the funerals I’ve attended.

Adversity in life is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. It’s been on my mind because my family is one of the many families that has been hit very hard by the economic problems in this country. With five adults (my parents, my brother, my husband and myself) living under one roof, and with each of us having our own fully-developed and separate problems, the house is a veritable petri dish for the many ways that people deal with adversity. I’ve been closely observing everyone’s different responses in my family and outside of it. There are almost as many difficult circumstances and ways of dealing with them as there are different people in the world, but I think that they can all be simplified into two sources and two ways of responding. The following is what I have observed so far.

I think there are two basic sources of adversity. The first source are things that people can’t help, and had no part in bringing on themselves. Things that just “happen” to people that have nothing to do with their choices. Some examples are disease, floods, child abuse, tornadoes, and other disasters. Cases in which the victims are completely innocent. Some might put the economic downturn in this category. The other source is based in human choice. For example, I chose to go to college for writing, even though I knew it would make it harder for me to make money. I guess you could call this category the category of difficult decisions: you weigh the pros and cons of a decision and decide what you think is best, and sometimes you end up being wrong.

Sometimes the line between the two categories is blurred. Often people will do everything they can to be sure that an event is whittled down to the finest point of fault. After hurricane Katrina, for example, a lot of people said those people somehow deserved what happened because they chose to live in a city that is at risk for flooding. This whittling becomes especially true when you bring God into the discussion. People don’t want to think about the possibility that God would just let something like that happen, so they find ways to make disasters the fault of the victims. More often it’s the other way around, where people don’t want to accept responsibility for their problems, and play the victim of a tyrannical God when a problem is really the result of their own poor choices.

One thing that is universally true about adversity is that everybody has it (and if you can’t see someone’s problems it just means that they’re really good at hiding them). A second thing that is almost as true is that the severity of each person’s problems are completely in the context of that person. For example, when we hear celebrities whining to the press we all harden our hearts, because we think “yeah, right. I would LOVE to trade my problems for her problems!.” But if the worst thing that ever happens to that celebrity is that she gets her picture taken too much, it is going to feel just as bad for that person as it would feel for the average joe to lose his house. We can’t really compare our problems to anyone else’s, because no two people are the same inside their heads and in terms of what they are emotionally equipped to handle.

Like I implied in my opening paragraph about David’s grandma: some people respond to adversity as a fact of life. They might be sad for a little while, or mad, but they deal with it and move on. Others respond as if they are always a victim. In other words, they get angry about the problems life presents, no matter how huge or how minor, and then never even try to get over it. And what is the point of staying angry? It does nothing but destroy a person’s ability to see the ways that they are blessed. I think that these two ways of responding represent two basic ways of viewing life: you can either view it as a trial or a gift. A blessing or a curse. And I’ve been learning that so much depends on choice.

It isn’t always easy; especially when I feel like life is throwing curve-balls at my head on a daily basis, and I still have my fair share of days where I don’t want to get out of bed; but I have been trying to choose the perspective of life as a gift. The way I see it is that no matter what happens, no matter how bad things suck, I still have this life, and I try to be grateful for it. I could have never been alive at all. I don’t want to waste my time on this amazing planet being angry all the time about things that I couldn’t help, or about times that I made the wrong choice. It’s a gift to have the capacity to make any choice at all. I have to say, the more I can bring myself to think this way, the less big problems seem, and the more happy and alive I feel.

3 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged ,