Mindfulness: Don't know what to do

What to do when...
you don't know what to do anymore.

Thank you voices for your wisdom. I am being quiet now.

Some yogi and yoginis (female and male yoga practitioners) come to an interesting, and utterly terrifying, crossroad of practice and stress. What do you do when yoga doesn’t help you feel grounded anymore, or when the usual amount of yoga that you do doesn’t feel like it helps as much. And why did it change? What happened? Will the magic “come back”?

I’ve dealt with these fears and realizations in my practice. And all the answers are relative to everyone’s own personal experience. 

ॐॐॐ

But what I can offer is... community, comradery. Sometimes, just knowing that someone else understands is half the battle. Feeling understood and knowing that you can help others understand you is important to the psyche, to our modern nervous systems, to the spirit. 

What we don’t expect is that feedback the nervous system/ or spiritual system provides to us, in the moment, can be subtle; and we often avoid it unknowingly. We are so capable of multi-tasking that most of the time we’ve snoozed our inner guidance’s notifications before we realized we had them in the first place. I am guilty of this despite an awareness of it. It takes practice to keep the soul’s song close. It’s just like learning an instrument or a new skill. A whole constellation of awareness feeds every action. And it only comes together after much effort and time. But any effort and every effort is perfect. 
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Kundalini yoga teaches that any modification is valid. If you find yourself freaking out and unable to do a prone posture because the meditation before made you think about an uncomfortable childhood memory you haven’t revisited in years, then don’t do it! As Dr. Van Der Kolk states, the body keeps the score. And it knows what it can handle and what will be beneficial. If one can learn to listen to the fear, and treat it like a friend, it can be disarmed. Fear can teach us contrast- what we don’t want or what we don’t wish to risk. Every practice might be different. I feel slightly different every time I wake up. Why would yoga be static then? Some days, camel pose is going to be a mind-blowingly wonderful sensation. Some days it might be more of just an intention. And that’s okay. 

Thus Spake Maek
Oct. 29, 2020

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Tool of the trade, and age
Rhythm can help us to relax, release.
One tool that we have at our fingertips, literally, is rhythm. I’m talking about the universal and ancient proclivity inherent within us. Rhythm- repetitive movement/motion/vocalizations is soothing to the nervous system and body. Bilateral physical stimulation in the form of tapping, patting, slapping, light-based and sensory-based biofeedback, as well as other more creative avenues have been utilized and produce measurable effects. And that is just one example of the multiple ways to apply the supporting principles of research that back similar techniques like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing).
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An example of general research. 
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