Thursday, December 29, 2011

Seane Corn Yoga Biography two - YouTube

Seane Corn Yoga Biography two - YouTube:

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Seane Corn Yoga Biography @jerseycorn1 @YogaRoadMap - YouTube

Seane Corn Yoga Biography @jerseycorn1 @YogaRoadMap - YouTube:

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Is Yoga a Religion? Kiki says “No way!” | Elephantbeans

Is Yoga a Religion? Kiki says “No way!” | Elephantbeans:

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Thursday, December 15, 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Hope and Fear in China

Hope and Fear in China:

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‎'If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all."

~Yogi Bhajan
· ·

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Watch Documentaries online | Promote Documentary Film : Living Yoga: The Life and Teachings of Swami Satchidananda by Shiva Kumar

Watch Documentaries online | Promote Documentary Film : Living Yoga: The Life and Teachings of Swami Satchidananda by Shiva Kumar:

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Hurricane Renewal


Hurricane renewal   Leave a comment

Most of us- sadly, not all- are emerging from Hurricane Gloria land relatively unscathed.  In the New York area there is flooding and property damage; roads are impassable in much of Westchester, Queens and Long Island. Trees are down. Electric power is out in many places and it will take several days at least to get the services we take for granted back to normal.
TAKE FOR GRANTED- There’s a phrase that deserves consideration. Here’s a chance to really appreciate what you have, as the big clean up begins.
The cleaning starts at home- by that I mean, finding ways to calm and center yourself.
Some suggestions:
1. Home yoga practice- this is a great time for restorative yoga. Judith Lassiter has many fine suggestions in her books, which are easily available.  She suggests passive asanas, ending with yoga nidra, a deeply relaxing experience that should end ALL yoga practice.
2. Contact friends and relatives and see if anyone needs your help.

3. Meditate on your good fortune.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Low Cost Yoga


Yorkville Studio @ 1629 York Ave @ 86th Street, New York, NY 10028 | Hot Yoga @ 132 E 85th off Lexington Ave

Yogi's Choice - Pay What You Can

New York Yoga, sensitive to the needs of those out of work or who cannot afford membership, has created Yogi’s Choice, as we believe yoga should be available to everyone.
Yogi’s choosing the studio’s new donation-based classes will receive instruction from a revolving roster of some the studio’s top teachers and fresh new faces including recent graduates of New York Yoga’s Yoga Alliance-certified teacher training program. Yogi’s Choice classes range from 60 to 90 minutes in length, and are offered at various times during the week at both studios Monday through Saturday.  All donation-based classes are at an intermediate level, meaning they are perfect for all types of yogis from beginners to advanced-level practitioners.
Suggested Donation is $15 but Pay What You Can!
See You On The Mat
York StudioHot Studio
Monday 8:25a – 9:25aMonday 1:30 - 2:30p
Tuesday 3:05-4:20pTuesday 1:30p – 2:30p
Wednesday 8:25a – 9:25aWednesday 1:30p – 2:30p
Friday 3:05p – 4:20pThursday 1:30p – 2:30p
Saturday 2:50p – 4:05pFriday 12:00p – 1:00p
 Saturday 1:00p – 2:30p

Monday, May 2, 2011

Concrete Tornadoes: September 11 and Emotional First Aid

Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 41, No. 2, Summer 2002 ( 2002) 

Concrete Tornadoes 

LYNN SOMERSTEIN, PhD, RYT 

ABSTRACT: I present the case of a Hispanic woman whose physical illness parallels the massive 
destruction that she witnessed at the World Trade Center. I talk about my own feelings of terror 
and how I try to deal with my private ghosts as I sit afraid and wanting to help. I mention the 
longings we all have for powerful parents who can protect us and keep us safe. 

KEY WORDS: parallel process; traumatized therapist and client; parental figures. 

On September 11th only a few individual firefighters, police and building 
managers had the knowledge and the luck they needed to protect themselves 
or anybody else. The lines between helper and victim burned away as we 
entered the whirlwind together and struggled to emerge from its maw. We 
hungered for a strong benevolent parental figure to protect us in a time of 
danger and help us tolerate and soothe feelings of guilt, grief, terror and 
aggression. 

“I was prepared to die,” one woman said to me. So was I, so I did the 
important things, helping myself as I helped others, and told my friends and 
families that I loved them. Work and loving connections were my solace. Action 
defended my psyche and defined my soul. 

As I write this in the beginnings of December we no longer feel like we’re 
travelling near the crossroads of death, but many people continue to suffer as 
old traumatic reactions are elicited by the horror of “America’s New War.” It’s 
our task to hold onto ourselves as we join together to hold others. 

“All those people, there were hardly any bodies. Where did they go? But 
that’s not the worst. There is something else. This is linked to something 
else,” said a woman I will call Norma. I met Norma in an emergency therapy 
group that I helped lead. The group met in their workplace a few blocks away 
from the necrotic rubble that had once been the World Trade Center. Members 
of the group had been caught in the maelstrom and did not know what to 
do or where to go. They wanted to be told, to feel held by someone who could 
give directions, but the authorities were no help because they didn’t know 
what to do either. 

“Clear the area!” the policeman announced. 
“Where should I go?” 

“I don’t know. Just leave.” I can imagine how frightened the policemen were 
themselves as they ordered people away and remained at their posts themselves. 


In our work in the group we tried to comfort ourselves and to create new 
bonds to hold one another and ourselves and to weave personal meanings in 
the midst of violent meaninglessness. Norma broke down and ran away as 
members of her group spoke about papers exploding from the WTC, papers, 
memos and printed e-mail all splattered and covered with human blood. Two 
of Norma’s friends followed her and I followed them, all of us rushing down 
the hall together, symbolically recreating escape from the events of September 
the 11th. I edged into the discussion, which was in Spanish, by asking for 
“Un vaso de agua, por favor, dos, two glasses of water,” one for myself and one 
for Norma. I followed Norma to a private office to speak to her alone. 

Norma’s desk was placed catty-corner to a beautiful picture window that 
looks out on the shiny New York Harbor, with no indication of the massive 
destruction nearby. Norma is an attractive woman in her forties with long 
dark hair that she wears pushed back. She had on a stylish embroidered 
sweater set and a classic black skirt, but her worn shoes betrayed her financial 
problems. She and her husband emigrated from a Latin American country 
about twenty years ago. We spoke together in a mixture of Spanish and 
English. 

“Should I cry?” Norma asked me. “Do you cry?” 

“Yes. I cry.” I hoped to help Norma feel less guilty and more connected to 
her emotional life by giving her a piece of my own life as an example. 

Norma described the events that she had witnessed. She had been leaving 
the subway station near the WTC just as the world exploded. Norma has 
epilepsy and has endured this condition in silent shame for her whole life. 
Her attacks feel like explosions inside of herself. The chaos and doom that 
she observed outside doubled the chaos and doom that she feels inside. She 
was terrified that she would have an attack in the middle of this toxic whirlpool. 
She saw people jump through fire to their deaths, watched the buildings 
fall and walked through the black wind that rose up like a whirlwind from 
the Underworld. Norma faced these stone tornadoes alone. 

After a time everyone was told to walk north. Norma kept on walking in a 
massive emigration of thousands of people until she met her husband on 23rd 
Street and Third Avenue where he was waiting for her. “He saved me,” she 
said, “I kept my eyes closed the whole time.” Of course, she really saved herself. 
She is attached to the myth of a powerful parental figure that will care 
for her and protect her from internal threats and outside threats as well. 
Norma “kept her eyes closed the whole time”; she maintained denial in an 
attempt to shut out the noxious vortex. She is a traditional woman and she 
has cultural as well as personal reasons that prevent her from seeing that it 
was her own actions that saved her. I think that she cannot face her power 
and helplessness and the unbearable aloneness that is part of being in this 
universe. She can’t face her own aggression either, just as I sometimes feel 
shaken by my strength and vulnerability. We are all part of this upside down, 
fulminating world together. 

Norma is a strong, proud woman who accepts neither help nor pity. She has 
survived, and does not believe that she deserves to feel anything other than 
gratitude, but she is terrified, sorrowful and incensed. Norma believes that 
only the dead are permitted to have strong feelings of rage, fear and sorrow. 
Perhaps powerful feelings are safe only with the dead. She feels her own 
feelings might cause an epileptic attack and kill her. She feels unworthy; she 
should be punished for surviving and for leaving others behind. I wonder 
about the parallels between her two trips north, the first from South America 
to the US, and the second just now away from southern Manhattan and towards 
Flushing, Queens. 

“What should I do?” Norma said. “I pray. Do you pray?” 

“Yes.” I said. Sometimes when I light the Shabbat candles, meditate or do 
yoga I manage to act with intention. Sometimes when I listen to people in 
therapy I hear them with devotion. That’s prayer. I usually take comfort that 
everything is temporary, but then again, this temporary includes me and 
right now I feel a little too impermanent and scared. That’s another kind of 
prayer. 

I thought how ironic it was that I was working hard to help Norma feel 
that we had something in common so that she might talk to me. I spoke to 
her in Spanish; I talked about the neighborhood that she lives in and the 
number 7-subway line she takes to work. I know her route very well. Norma 
thought we were completely different while I struggled to show Norma how 
our lives touched, and inside I knew how much the same we were. We were 
both in shock about the New York troubles, and that called up other horrible 
memories and inspired paranoid thinking. Norma was scared to leave her 
apartment. I was nearly as jumpy as I had been when I was a kid. I thought 
about my emotional and physical emigration from my parents, who offered 
me little protection and often put me in danger. 

I wondered yet again, as I wonder over and over when I work with clients, 
how I come to sit in the analyst’s chair. What makes me different? The work 
that I did and do with my analysts, my supervisors, my teachers, my colleagues 
is part of it. My unconscious has earned a Ph.D. My pens and paintbrushes 
in my hands show me how to value and pursue my feelings, thoughts 
and ideas. 

Meditation and art and psychoanalysis have helped make space between 
my experience and myself so I have a little wriggle room to look things over 
and maybe play with them if I feel comfortable. Then I take that space with 
me when I sit with clients and we talk and breathe together. Some days I 
breathe in rhythm with their agony. 


Later that day, after I had said good-by to Norma, I walked to the WTC site 
with a friend so that we could see the destruction again. We could not believe 
that this had happened; we were still in denial. I imagined a morass of lost, 
severed souls, each trying desperately to realign dismembered parts of the 
self with the shape of the world, in order to reenter the pool. The catastrophic 
and savage deaths at the WTC seemed to me to imbue the entire area with 
the stench of terror and meaningless violence. Where was the Great Pool? 

Amid the acrid and sweet smells of burning people and burning matter I 
detected the scent of incense, and followed my nose to a street corner where 
Buddhist priests had set up an altar where they prayed and chanted to help 
undo the terrible confusion and allay the fears of all those poor trapped, incinerated 
souls. I imagined the dead following the incense, stroked and 
smoothed by its scent, helped to find a doorway out of the Hell Realm. 

Today I am back in my office with my clients. We are working together to 
center ourselves and to make meaning so that we can include the world’s 
awful pain and within it our own particular and private griefs. The ground 
shakes beneath our feet. 

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Angry Bus


The Angry Bus

April 12th, 2011  |                
By Lynn Somerstein, PhD, RYT, Object Relations Topic Expert Contributor
My yogi friend Leila told me this story:
It was a horrible cold rainy day in New York City, and Leila was waiting for the bus. Suddenly a woman came up to her and asked which bus went to 98th Street.
“The bus I am waiting for, the M15, stops at 96th Street,” Leila said.
“I don’t like the M15. I was just on that bus and had to get off because the bus driver was nasty and started a fight with me.”
“That’s too bad,” Leila said. She thought about her own struggles on the yoga mat earlier that morning when she started out mad at her boyfriend, and worked her way through it. “Sometimes you can stop being mad. It’s not worth it. Anger takes too much energy and can spoil your day. Let it go.”
“That’s just what I always tell my kids,” the woman said. “It’s never worth staying angry. Let it go, I always tell them.”
Just then the M15 drove up. “Hey, here comes another M15,” Leila said.” Let’s get on the bus together.”
“No,” the woman said. “I don’t like that bus.”
“But it’s not the same driver. It’s a different bus than the one you were on before. Come on!”
“NO!”
Leila got on the bus by herself while the woman stood alone in the sleet.
Later Leila decided that this was no ordinary woman; she was really an angel sent to show people what anger looks like.
I love this story. It shows exactly how crazy anger makes us. The woman, who I feel should have name- let’s call her Angela- chose to stand in the freezing cold rain rather than get on a warm dry bus that would take her where she wanted to go. How many times have I done that? So many times I’ve preferred to stay angry and feel justified, feel RIGHT, when really a solution is in front of my nose, if I could only drop my angry blinders and see it. You know the phrase, “blind anger”? This is a perfect example. Angela was blind to the opportunities the bus was offering her.
Leila tried to give her a helping hand, but Angela refused to get on the bus, even with Leila’s company. And the bus she turned down wasn’t the exact same bus where she had her first problem; it was a different bus, just with the same number. Angela knew that, but it didn’t matter. As far as she was concerned, all the M15 busses were no good. Her anger with one bus had spread out to include all busses with the same number, just as anger with one person can spread out and affect other people who somehow remind you of the person you’re really angry with, but you don’t know it, you just automatically condemn everybody, miss the bus, and stand cold and alone in the rain.
People who are controlled by their anger rain on everybody else, too. They feel alone, and then they arrange to be that way by chasing everyone away, or by not recognizing hands of friendship. William James, the famous psychologist, said, “the things we pay attention to most become our reality.” Angela’s reality was an angry bus. If you can get behind the rage and work with it before it takes on a life of its own you’re ahead of the game. You need to know yourself better, find your buttons and press uninstall. A therapist will help you recognize your issues and develop better controls. The sooner you can recognize and name your feelings, the sooner you can be in charge. Meditation and yoga can help too.
And what if you do feel angry, then what? Take a deep breath, and “do turtle.” Fold your arms around yourself, give yourself a big hug, and breathe. “Doing turtle” is a feature of the PATHS (Promote Alternate Thinking Strategies) program developed by Mark Greenberg to teach children how to recognize and deal appropriately with their emotions. It works for adults too. Resorting to PATHS, psychotherapy, meditation and yoga will teach you to recognize your feelings and slow down and reflect before you act. It takes time, of course, to develop new skills, but it’s worth the investment.
So get on the bus.
If you like this article, please bookmark it or share it with others using any of the following services:
             
©Copyright 2011 by Lynn Somerstein, PhD, RYT, therapist in New York, NY. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Lynn and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Prayer for Water of Fukushima



A message to all members of The Presencing Institute Community


Many of you may already know about this call - and we felt it timely to also pass along. Please join us in putting our attention with Dr. Masaru, and others around the globe, towards the health of the water of Fukushima.
With warm regards, kelvy, on behalf of PI
 
WATER CEREMONY WITH DR. MASARU EMOTO
Thursday, March 31st, 2011 at 12:00 noon in your time zone
 
From A Letter from Dr. Masaru Emoto to Fellow Citizens of Plant Earth:
Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to the water at the nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan....During over twenty year research of hado measuring and water crystal photographic technology, I have been witnessing that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration of human prayer no matter how far away it is. The energy formula of Albert Einstein (E=MC2) really means that Energy = number of people and the square of people’s consciousness. Now is the time to understand the true meaning....I ask all people, not just in Japan, but all people of the world to join the prayer ceremony as fellow citizens of the planet earth.
 
Please say the following aloud or in your mind. Repeat it three times as you put your hands together in a prayer position.
 
"Water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, we are sorry to make you suffer. Please forgive us. We thank you and we love you."
 
With love and gratitude,
Masaru Emoto, Messenger of Water
http://emotopeaceproject.blogspot.com/

Visit The Presencing Institute Community at: http://community.presencing.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Life's Cafe


 

Life’s Cafe

March 10th, 2011  |                
By Lynn Somerstein, PhD, RYT, Object Relations Topic Expert Contributor
Release
This past month was filled with the normal spectacular events of life- birth, death, and the spaces in between. My mother-in-law died at the age of almost 99; held by someone close to her; it was reported that she ate a bit of dinner, and that as she began the process of dying her last words were “thank you.” She was in a mostly vegetative state for many years, and her death was a blessing. I’m amazed that she was able to speak at all, and thankful that she was feeling grateful. Family and friends created a loving space for all of us to heal.
It feels a bit strange to say what I’m thinking about next. It’s about my cat, Bella. Perhaps a cat’s death mentioned next to a person’s death is an uncomfortable pairing, and some people may object. But these two deaths happened one on top of the other, paired in time. During the mourning period for my mother-in-law, my cat Bella developed a sudden, rapidly growing spreading cancer, untreatable. She stopped eating and started to decline; I brought her to the ASPCA to have her painlessly euthanized. She died in my arms, her nose buried in the crook of my elbow. My ache was alleviated by the lovely holding sensitive response of all the workers and doctors I met on the way as we travelled toward her death, and I returned home without her. She had been mine to care for since she was a kitten, and her calm aware energy was a gift.
My mother-in-law’s death, though expected, was nevertheless a surprise when it finally happened, evoking the memories of our complicated relationship, calling up my feelings about my own parents’ deaths, and heightening my awareness of the growing fragility of the many older people whom I love. We’re all transients, myself included. These thoughts led me to think about reification- how we humans make our attachment figures, human or animal or otherwise, into unchangeable permanent things we can cling too, and that seem to cling to us and tell us who we are. This is an illusion, clearly, both Western and Eastern psychology would agree to that. It’s how we delude ourselves into believing that nothing will ever change and that we are immortal. I found comfort in the different levels and interpretations of reality of the two psychology/philosophies.
Spaces In Between
Freud wrote, in “Mourning and Melancholia,” that normal mourning is the gradual letting go of the relationship that has ended with death, a painful and necessary psychic process. Each of the myriad links to the beloved is gradually weakened and rendered less painful. Contemplative psychotherapy holds that the mind’s contents are malleable, and we must be present to our hearts’ contents. Yoga has given me many years of experience of meditation, relaxation and softening. I was fortunate; I had at least three perspectives to help me deal with my grief.
I remembered that, just as I always tell my students and patients, the first commitment is to the self. I gentled myself. I went out of the way to do nice healing things, lots of yoga and meditation, music to listen to; I got a massage, bought myself a present. Cried when I needed.
February is also my birthday month; I didn’t feel much like celebrating, but others did and I went along to please them and found myself having a pretty good time. I enjoyed working and playing with others but for a while decided to forego the petty torments of bureaucracy. Paperwork could wait for a bit.
Embrace
Two weeks later the event my family and I had been waiting for- my fourth grand child was born. “Release that which is going out and embrace that which is coming in” was the motto of the day. The baby embodies possibility, a new round of attachment and loss, new opportunities- joy! He is a good sleeper, eater and cuddler. He was a big baby- 8 lbs 7 oz, and already has juicy fat cheeks.
On my desk I have a yellow strip of paper that says: “Release that which is going out.  Embrace that which is coming in. Leave alone that which has not yet come. Want nothing, and embrace everything.” written by Anonymous, and found in my favorite restaurant, the Ayurveda CafĂ©.
If you like this article, please bookmark it or share it with others using any of the following services:
             
©Copyright 2011 by Lynn Somerstein, PhD, RYT, therapist in New York, NY. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Lynn and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile