Lisa Mitchell : Freelance Editor & Writer

Lisa Mitchell's Blog

Nov 15, 2010

 

Generation Yogi




Annalise and Mei walked into the community centre class, two wriggly, giggly pubescent girls. I smiled weakly and sighed. I sighed because I was tired and community centre classes are often demanding; they’re cheap and attract truckloads of lovely people who needs are vast and wide.

Acute back problems, specific injuries, chronic conditions, inflamed emotions, exhausted mums, self-conscious concretised men, the vital and enthused, the depressed and disillusioned  and on this tired night, I knew I couldn’t span the chasm.

“What is it you’d like out of this class?” I asked the girls, who were coming for the first time.

“Fun,” they said.

I explained to them, and their poor, frazzled, over-worked mother, that while they were welcome to attend, they’d enjoy a richer experience at a yoga class tailored to the Yogi Generation. Mum was offended (overtired). How dare I presume her children were lacking the intelligence to grasp the spiritual concepts of an adult class.

“Sigh”. It’s not about intelligence. Yoga for kids and teens is different to yoga for adults. In fact young kids, in particular, are much closer to their spiritual ‘womb’ or inner self because of their all-embracing perspective. We life-worn adults are the ones with steely-bars of unhelpful attitudes and beliefs blocking our way.

Age-appropriate  and developmentally appropriate  yoga can be delivered as the magic it is because children have the imagination and openness to explore yoga’s spirituality. Why shoe-horn a young person’s radically different state-of-mind, emotional and physical being into an older class when passionate teachers are tailoring yogic adventures for 4-7 year-olds, 8-11 year-olds, 12-15 year-olds and higher teens?

Some people question whether kids need yoga at all. What have they got to be all knotted-up about? Ask any primary school cherub and the answer could be “plenty”: missing time with dual-income parents; cyberbullying; parental divorce; loved ones with cancer; sibling rivalry; friendships turned sour; plain old not coping (yes, already).

Here are a few reasons to seek out an age-appropriate class for your beautiful blossoms:

Storm breaker
At a time when teens most need reassurance and support, a yoga teacher makes a terrific storm-breaker. He or she can be a non-threatening, significant source of perspective for beleaguered or confused teens who are trying to work out their place in life. No matter how good the parenting, it helps to have an independent adult (who isn’t emotionally invested) whose soul job (awful pun, but intended) is to recognise, nurture and uplift their individuality.


Competing for gold

Healthy competition is gold for establishing essential qualities like motivation, focus and discipline, but ruthless on self-esteemless others who compare themselves endlessly, and fall short despairingly, of the Chris Judds and Giaan Rooneys of this world. Yoga’s consciously-created, non-competitive space teaches kids that they’re a winner as they are: “You are unique for a reason; no one can ever be a better `you’; and only you can do what you have come to do in this life”. Yoga encourages kids to accept everything they are, the positive and the negative.

Quasimodos-in-the-making
Kids’ rapidly evolving bodies are strapped into heavy school bags and plonked on seats far too many hours a day, compressing delicate spines and ceasing muscular activity (and therefore vital internal processes). At home, it’s more of the same at the PC or TV. Osteopaths, chiropractors and Bowen therapists must rub their hands in glee at the security of this income stream. I’m often astounded at how much kids lack in reasonable flexibility and strength.

Wise l’il souls
Imagine if someone had told you at an early age that your potential was infinite, that you had all the resources within you to cope with anything life threw your way, and then showed you how to tap those resources. Yoga teaches self-awareness, self-responsibility (for life and your actions and reactions to it) and how to draw upon intuition and deeper layers of wisdom by connecting to the inner self. That’s one ‘imaginary’ friend you want by your side.




Shhhhh, can you hear it?

Kids rarely hear the sound of silence. One of life’s speedier lessons is “You’re weird, or a geek or a nerd” if you enjoy time alone. How many kids do you know whose extracurricular activities rival the diaries of Blue Chip executives? We’re creating a generation of burnt-outs before they’ve had time to bloom. I had one VCE student who came to class all floppy, and I let her flop in bliss because it was the only place she was allowed to. Yoga for young ‘uns nurtures a reflective, contemplative, clear-thinking generation.

MINI RESOURCES
Keep your eyes peeled for flyers.
Google “children’s yoga Melbourne”.
Search www.yogabugs.com.au or www.findyoga.com.au or www.yogateachers.asn.au to find a kids’ class near you.

Visit www.meditationcapsules.com for a sensational book and CD on mini meditations by Janet Etty-Leal, a wonderfully accomplished meditation teacher who runs her highly successful Meditation Capsules program in schools all over Melbourne.


Check out this excellent boxed set of cards for under 8s (“Creative Yoga Games for Kids”) as well as a guided relaxation CD for teenagers at
www.overthemoonstudio.com/index.html .

Lisa Mitchell is a hatha yoga teacher, relaxation instructor and freelance writer/editor who specialises in holistic wellbeing.

Nov 3, 2010

 

The Buddhist and the Black Hole



It’s a relief to know that this ochre-and-orange robed monk was once hospitalised for depression. If you want advice on how to dig yourself out of a black hole, you need a man with a spade on the inside.

Lama Marut, formerly Brian K. Smith, is just the bloke. He’s the favourite sports coach you had when you were five: big like a bear (in a reassuring way), direct, fun and with an American accent that curls around his forthright southern charm. Last month [subs: September] at The Breathing Space studio in Prahran, he delivered a lively and provocative talk on “Depression: The Real Causes and Real Cures”.

For the millions of Australians who emerge time and again from the muck to consider their options - anti-depressants, big bucks on talk therapy, self-help books, and diet and exercise - a wise guy like Lama Marut has some straight answers for fearless seekers.

Get all the help you need, he says, work out what the “real conditions” are around your depression, like a dead-end job (“Why don’t we work as hard on our spiritual lives?”), or the inherited doldrums gene, but ultimately, you need to ask the big questions to find the cure. Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life?

We’re living a consumer capitalist nightmare, he says, so overstimulated and busy entertaining ourselves for fear of boredom that we’ve lost the capacity to be still and to contemplate.

His condensed wisdom and wit on the subject spans the acquisition of patience, the opposite of the “anger turned inward” that lies at the nub of depression, according to Lama Marut (and Freud), and the value of an “ego-ectomy”.

“You pay therapists to make you feel better about yourself. Religion, offers free the idea that you should feel worse about yourself. Spiritual life is about being ego-less . . . if you want to be happy, stop worrying about your own happiness and start worrying about the happiness of others.”

“Real causes” of depression, he says, include the isolation experienced through not appreciating that we are all connected; not following through on spoken intentions and commitments; revelling in other’s misfortunes, and that ol’ consumer-capital chestnut, Envy, where the iPad-elated plunge into iPout Envy (Prius Envy, whatever) with ever-increasing obsolescence cycles.

In two entertaining hours with Lama Marut, how obvious the truth of the matter seems, and how simple applying the Buddhist antidote might be if only you didn’t have that nagging depressive tendency to feel like a cheese wad for not getting all this in the first place and then becoming consumed by fear that you never will! While diet and talk therapy lifted my grimmest turbulence, it’s spirituality that dissipates my recurring storms.

“Buddhists say regret is the only useful negative emotion because it encourages change. Foster good, healthy regret, but not guilt, which is just beating yourself up. Maybe if I beat myself up enough, I won’t have to change!” he responds with that lopsided grin, like a bear trying to smile. He knows all our cheats.

To avoid depression, he recommends accepting responsibility for your own happiness. Adopt the law of Karma (cause and effect)  “what comes around, goes around”, “you reap what you sow” (see reading list below). It empowers you to wield your free will through the understanding that your present actions create your future reality. Handing your life over to a god “to micro-manage” or to the random hand of Fate is one sure-fire way to feel helpless.

Perhaps the easiest curative measure to cultivate is a daily practice of gratitude, he says. Give thanks for the man who fixed your blocked sewer, the farmer who grew your broccoli, the dog that adores your very being. “You are the recipient of so much good will,” he urges, it helps to acknowledge it, continually.

Remember, too, your Buddha nature (you don’t have to be Buddhist to have one): “You have infinite potential to change”. When in the mire, know that “this too shall pass, you won’t feel like this forever”. “Change is the reality. The way to be a happier person is to embrace change. Expect it. Don’t resist it”, he says.

Learn to be more giving. Start slow, and give what is easy to give. Learn to think about other people’s welfare as much as your own, and then, perhaps one day, more than your own.

And finally, cultivate the supreme wish: “that everyone be free of suffering and that I be free of suffering so that I can be free to help others”.


DEPRESSION BUSTERS


The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
, by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn. These psychologists, psychiatrists and scientists distil the anatomy of depression in a brilliantly accessible way and offer a clear process for beating depression. Includes a CD of mindful practices.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, by Deepak Chopra. Excellent beginner’s guide to living by the Universal Laws (eg: Karma).

The Mood Cure, by Julia Ross. Never underestimate the effect of a bad diet and poor sleep to ignite, and fan, depression.

Lisa Mitchell is a hatha yoga teacher, progressive relaxation instructor and writer/editor who specialises in holistic wellbeing.


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