My Insomnia Story...

My insomnia journey began In April of 2022. I was traveling, visiting friends in Texas. 

Side note, I’ve used sleep meds while traveling from time to time, well before the insomnia began and had no issue with it.  I had a couple with me just for the first couple nights as that is usually all that is needed. However on this trip, my friend and I were sharing a room, which we had done countless times before traveling together but for whatever reason, on this trip I wasn’t sleeping well. The third night of the trip I didn’t sleep at all, had a completely sleepless night. I don’t remember that ever happening before and I was freaked out about it. 

I’ll preface this by also mentioning that I had been through a really stressful life event with my daughter prior to this trip. It is an ongoing stress but things were more stable at the time of my trip. I was able to get a short nap the day after the sleepless night and I rallied and had a good time that day and had fun with my friends. That night I took something my friend had brought, a muscle relaxer, and I did sleep. And I flew home the next day. 

Things settled at home and got better. I then had another trip to NYC in May to help my daughter move out of her dorm and into an apartment. The first couple of days were fine (I had my travel sleep meds, but again just brought a couple) then the third night I didn’t sleep at all, again. We were flying home the next day and I was exhausted and getting concerned. We ended up having to stay an extra night as our flight got canceled due to weather and I slept very little that night. When we finally got home I was sure things would get back to normal but they didn’t. 

This is the period where I tried everything under the sun. All the sleep hygiene we hear about, all the supplements, teas, tinctures, acupuncture, qi gong, vagal toning exercises, and finally meds. I went to my primary care Dr. first. She prescribed maybe a week’s worth of Ambien. It worked but after it was gone, I was right back where I had been. My sister recommended I see her psychiatrist, so I did. She prescribed more Ambien and Xanax for the sleep anxiety that consistently showed up earlier in the evening and also a SSRI. I used both  (ambien and xanax) for about a week and then just the Ambien. And it worked great, until it didn’t. For about 6 months though, I thought I was better. I didn’t love needing Ambien to sleep but I was also willing to take it because I valued sleep over not taking Ambien.  Then it stopped working and this is when things got dicey.  Around October (I’d been taking it since June) it wasn’t as effective, and often did nothing. So I started taking a xanax if I’d wake up in the middle of the night. Ambien before bed, xanax 4 or 5 hrs later, which usually got me a couple more hours. This wasn’t every night but it was often enough that I felt it was beginning to be a real problem. I was afraid of the meds, and I was afraid of not sleeping.  Just before Christmas, things really got bad. I wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours a night even with these drugs and I was pretty sure I was slowly getting addicted to the Xanax.  I told my psychiatrist this and she took me off the Ambien and Xanax and prescribed Seroquel for sleep and a low dose valium as a way of weening off the xanax. I had tried Seroquel before and had not found it helpful so I was hesitant to try it again, but I was also desperate and listening to my drs medical instructions. That night (the day before Christmas Eve) I took the Seroquel and had an awful experience as if someone was holding me down, under water, and just my head was exposed, barely able to breathe. I was simultaneously having a panic attack. I willed myself out of bed, and told my husband “I need to go to the ER”. Unfortunately, that experience was awful and while they gave me an injection to help me sleep, I had a bad reaction to it and felt like I was crawling out of my skin, and my throat was filling with fluid and I coughed and coughed. It was horrible. We got home at 4am, slept 2 hours and then at 8am I went to the mental health crisis center. Christmas Eve day. They were incredibly kind and compassionate. They didn’t like me taking 2 benzos but they also did not think I was addicted as the dose was so low and I wasn’t taking enough of either one to be addicted. The Dr. at the clinic put me on mitrazapine and said to take it an hour or so before bed and if I still found I needed xanax or ambien to sleep I could take one OR the other but definitely NOT both. My system was completely freaked out. I really think it was on par with what is more commonly known as a nervous breakdown. My nervous system shut down. I was in a state of freeze for a period of time, and that was really quite a scary place to be. I was just barely surviving. I’d lost 13lbs and was intensely afraid, unstable , and I isolated myself most of the time. This lasted several weeks. 

First week in January 2023, my daughter and I had a vacation scheduled to Mexico. It was supposed to be a wonderful thing, but I didn’t know how I was going to go. I decided come hell or high water I was going. And I did and it was good for me. I was not in a great place, very anxious and fragile, but I went and I am really glad I did.

When I got home, I found Martin Reed’s work and I tried his program for a couple weeks but it was making things worse, mainly the sleep restriction. Through him however, I found Daniel Erichsen’s work, he was interviewed on Martin’s podcast. I started watching his Sleep Coach School youtube videos and I was so validated, and knew immediately this is it, this is the missing piece. I joined his Immunity program. The concept of hyperarousal explained everything. And I thought “I’m not crazy, I’m not losing my mind. I am stuck in fight or flight mode and my system is on extreme hyper alert, hyper vigilant mode.  It is overriding everything, including my sleep drive.”

I’ve learned the only “cure” for this is time, awareness/education, and an orientation towards safety.  The nervous system wants to come back to a parasympathetic response. Given time, safe (enough) conditions and some awareness/education it will do so naturally. This is important to understand because it is not something we can force. Believe me, I tried! There are many tools/ resources out there and while those may be helpful in a  preventative way, when we are in the thick of it all, these tools can become weapons in the war we are (unintentionally) waging against ourselves. Because peace of mind and returning to parasympathetic, is really an effortless process. The less we try, the less we force, the less we attempt to control - the easier it becomes. This is a difficult concept for the brain however, because it has evolved to be a problem solving machine. It sees insomnia as a problem (also a threat) that needs to solved and keeps us awake to protect us from this imagined danger. It is here the healing work begins. The work of accepting what we cannot change; and what we cannot control. We cannot control sleep. We cannot control our thoughts, or the emotions and sensations that are generated by them. All we can control is how we respond, react, and show up for all of it. It is difficult inner work to detach from the mind. We have identified with our thoughts probably all of our lives and may truly believe they define us. That they are us. But they are not. Our mind is like a narrator of everything we are experiencing at every moment. There is an ongoing internal dialogue narrating everything-judging it, explaining it, criticizing it, and sometimes maybe even enjoying it. 

But the thing is, the mind is generally not a trustworthy narrator. Thoughts are not facts. And the mind has misinformed the brain that nighttime wakefulness is scary. We don’t like it and so the brain does what it has evolved to do as a survival machine and that is to protect us from danger, so the most primitive and instinctual part of our brain (the limbic system) is alerted that we are in danger. Whether that threat is real or imagined, does not matter, this part of the brain does not know the difference. It sounds the alarm and deploys all mechanisms to keep us safe-including hyper awareness, hyper vigilance, hyper arousal, hyper alert, heart palpatations, eyes scanning, body sweats, all feelings intensify- it is essentially all hands on deck. No way we are sleeping with all that going on. The brain also likes patterns so it is always on the look out for one and when it finds one, it becomes a conditioned response. And this is insomnia; a conditioned stress/fear response that replays automatically when we try to sleep. It’s not rocket science, it actually is pretty straight forward. And it is not our fault. Our brilliant brain is doing exactly what it has evolved to do and we just need to now show it, by how we are responding to nighttime wakefulness, that we actually are safe. It was a false alarm. This retraining of the brain takes time, but if I can do it, so can you.

I’ve come to believe healing/recovery is an ongoing process. I’m not sure there is a tangible end goal, as in “I’ve arrived, I’m done, all healed up now.” Recovery/healing is much more nuanced. It is slow and subtle. A feeling of okayness. A knowing, “I’m going to be alright.”

Difficult nights happen for everyone sometimes. It is part of being human. Recovery doesn’t mean the end to that because that is not reality. Recovery means I’m going to be ok, no matter what the night looks like. Recovery means I am going to live my one precious life as best I can, even if I don’t sleep well. Recovery means, I’m not afraid anymore. I have my preferences and, of course, I prefer to sleep well, we all do, we are human and we can’t pretend we don’t care about that. But when we are no longer afraid of experiencing a difficult night, insomnia has no power over us. And it just fades, slowly (very slowly) away. 

The end of an era...the closing of Sacred Space in Kayenta

It’s difficult to imagine leaving my beautiful space in Kayenta and yet the time has come to do just that.

In all honesty, there are many factors contributing to this decision. It can’t go without saying Covid was hard, on everyone, but for small businesses it was especially difficult and it was for my business as well. That being said, it is only a small part of why it is now time to say good bye to my Kayenta space. To be clear, Sacred Space will continue in whatever form I continue my business it is my life’s work and it goes with me where ever I may land. So though I am leaving my space, Sacred Space will never be gone. It resides within us all. It’s the place we occupy when we access true healing and presence and gratitude. It continues. But the doors of Sacred Space in Kayenta will close August 16th, 2021.

Three big life changes will coincide in August for me. One, closing my beloved space on August 16th. Two, taking my oldest child, my daughter, to NYC to begin college in Manhattan on August 20th. Three, coming home and having major abdominal surgery to remove my uterus, August 30th, the day my daughter begins her fall semester! All of these events are incredibly emotional and mark the end of an era for me in profound ways. So I’ll use this space (this blog) to process, to vent, to provide updates (to my 3 readers ;)

As I write, even now, tears come. I’ve been doing a lot of work to process all of the emotion around this and I’m clearly far from done. I may never be done. But I know for me, part of my process is writing. So that’s what I’ll do.

I have to say I am so overwhelmingly grateful for the community Sacred Space has built. It is no less than miraculous the gifts it has brought into my life. All of my Find Your Joy yoga group and my massage clients, we are a community, a kind of family, and it blows me away that I have been so lucky to have lived this dream for 9 and half years, so I must extend a huge hearted thank you to my community. We are so blessed.

So it’s time and I am ready-mostly. Change is inevitable and necessary. So we may as well embrace it as best we can.

There is always something magical waiting on the other side.

Boundaries

Boundaries. Man, this has always been a hard one for me. Creating healthy boundaries. I teach on this subject and not because I have it all figured out but because we teach what we most need to learn and this seems to be something most of us are working on. Yogi Bhajan said “if you want to learn about something read about it, if you want to understand something write about it, if you want to master something-Teach it.” I’m doing all three. And still. Boundaries are tricky. On one hand, With too many rigid boundaries we wall ourselves off, when we armour up we can’t connect with others. If we shield ourselves from true connection we become isolated and avoid experiencing the deepest most profound aspects of life. On the other hand, if we lack all boundaries we have a difficult time standing on our own feet, being in our own power and we may let people walk all over us, finding it hard to say no or deal with any kind of conflict. In the middle there is a balance. A place of healthy boundaries where we honor our needs and are able to voice them confidently and with love. Where We can stand in our personal power clearly and effectively while our heart remains open and we allow ourselves to connect deeply with others and we align, honoring ourselves & honoring others.

I seem to fall in and out of balance.

But just when I think I’m doing pretty good, I’ve got a decent handle on it, the universe throws me a curve ball. Like it’s saying “ok let’s see if you’ve really got this”.

It’s rather comical that right now as I write this I’m at a yoga training in Sedona where the focus is on clearing & healing the seven energy centers and yesterday was the 3rd chakra, solar plexus, Where boundaries and empowerment are key lessons. So right on target another opportunity to practice boundaries comes my way.

I had someone call me and ask me to please reconsider, to make an exception, on a boundary I had already set. Even though I was very clear when stating this boundary (which is also a business policy).

Here’s what happened. First, I was angry with myself for immediately wanting to go back to my “I just want to please everyone” mode and avoid conflict at all costs even if that cost is my integrity or my personal power. I was upset with myself for not feeling empowered enough, confident enough, to stand firm in an already stated, clear boundary. Luckily and actually likely, because of the work I’m doing this week I was able to see that the universe was actually giving me a gift, another chance to understand this lesson. And I can be strong, and the boundary I set is valid and I stand by it.

Can we see how sometimes if we ask someone to make an exception a special concession just for them it violates a boundary? If I make exceptions over and over again because I’m not strong enough to stand in my power I compromise my own integrity and values. Asking someone to make that choice is unfair, it’s unethical and it’s disrespectful.

If you don’t respect me for standing my ground, that’s ok. It’s more important that I respect myself. And I’m learning to honor my own boundaries and in doing so I’m learning to honor yours as well.

We are all learning. It’s a process.

And forgiveness is a big part it.

Finding Solid Ground~ A Meditation

Every class I teach and every time I come to my mat I begin with grounding.  A simple, brief meditation that takes only a couple minutes but changes everything.  

There are days I feel like I'm sinking and finding solid ground proves more challenging than other days. Such is the way of life. There are times we just feel off, ungrounded, scattered.  Knowing how to regain our center, to reground, to root our energy can feel like a small miracle. 

The meditation:

First come to your mat, take any seated position, cross legged or whatever is comfortable. Start to focus on your breathe. Let the inhale and exhale be as deep and long as possible, creating a wave like motion with your breathe. Allowing the low belly to rise and fall. Let this rhythmical motion of the breathe begin to soothe and comfort you, like the ocean tide coming in and out. Become aware of your sitting bones and tailbone, feel the sensation of your sitting bones weighted into the floor, into your mat, gently press your sit bones and tailbone into the floor and be aware of an energy at the base of your spine, at your tail bone, draw your pelvic floor muscles slightly in and up to activate the root chakra energy. On your next exhale visualize an energy cord ( a line of energy) coming from your tail bone, through the floor and all the layers of the earth, all the way to core of the earth. Once there, visualize this energy cord rooting into the core of the earth. You could visualize tree roots growing into the core of the earth firmly taking hold, or an anchor dropping into the earth and anchoring you, providing an emotional anchor or an actual energy cord you can plug into the core of the earth could work too. Visualizing your tail bone turning into a literal tail and solidifying with the earth is another visualization. There are many, find one that works for you. It may change from day to day. If it is difficult for you to visualize this at first, don't worry about it, just have the intention that you are consciously grounding your energy into the core of the earth, energy follows intention. The visualization will come with time. Once you feel rooted and grounded, take a deep inhale and grow taller through your spine allowing the crown of your head to lift to the sky.  Here visualize another cord or beam of light (energy) coming from your crown all the way up into the heavens. Connecting with something greater than you, that is part of you, that is your essence. It doesn't matter the name you give it (Source, God, Universe, Spirit  Divine, whatever) what is important is the connection. Find that connection, see it in your mind's eye. On your next inhale draw your arms up to the sky, let your palms meet and come to your heart. Recognizing & honoring the light within your own being. As you also take a moment to honor this light within all beings everywhere by offering a namaste...

Balanced:

Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty simple and can be very insightful as to where you are energetically in this moment. There are days I'm anchoring into sand and it takes some time ( and  focused intention) to turn that sand to concrete and reground myself.  

When we are both rooted and connected, we realign our energy centers. We find our balance and feel centered and grounded within our own energy, creating an energetic boundary of protection. We can serve others and ourselves more effectively from this more grounded and enlightened perspective.  Finding our center and returning to balance allows us to reconnect with our own nature and our own nature is infinite. 

What's the difference between Find Your Joy Yoga and other styles of yoga?

Find Your Joy Yoga is  yoga for the maturing body, mind, spirit. I joke that it's yoga after 40, but it's much more than that really.  It is a spiritual practice that aims to find space in the body through asana. Calm the mind, through meditation and connect with the spirit through breathe and deepened awareness. It is a practice for those who are no longer interested in rockstar poses or contorting their bodies in such a way that leaves them hurting or worse, injured. There are a thousand options out there for a yoga practice that is physically based. There are strong, power vinyasa flow classes in every studio and gym. Find Your Joy Yoga is a different kind of practice.

I created Find Your Joy Yoga because I, being over 40 myself,  wanted to practice in a different way. And I couldn't find a class or style of yoga that was more about connecting with spirit than about getting into difficult poses. That was more of a spiritual practice than a physical one. But I still wanted to flow, to move but more gently, deliberately, with intention rather than attention to "master" a certain pose. 

Yoga for me is a practice. I am always learning, changing, evolving. I do not believe I've "mastered" a single pose, it's not why I practice. And I found I was no longer interested in going into a class with mostly 20 something's doing rockstar poses.  Don't misunderstand me there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be able to do a difficult yoga pose, challenging yourself and finally being able to do a pose you've worked up to. When I first came to yoga in my early 20's I wanted to do those poses too, and I did, most of them. And that was fun, for awhile, but ultimately unfulfilling for me and my practice changed. It became less about asana and more about stillness, tuning into my higher self, connecting with higher consciousness. The practice of asana became a way to truly listen to my body, create openness. 

So for the last 10 years I've been primarily teaching to folks over 50, and I created this style of yoga for my students and for me and for anyone for whom this style and concept resonates with. There are so many styles of yoga, a yoga for everyone. We find a style that suits us given where we are and what we need at the moment and that changes and evolves with time. Then we find the next path that suits us better, helps us grow in perhaps another way.

There's an old yoga saying "the paths are many, the Truth is one." There are unlimited ways to arrive at the same truth,  to reach "samadhi" or enlightened consciousness. One way or another we all will get there. Find Your Joy Yoga is one way. If it resonates with you, practice with us. I'd be honored to share the journey with you.

Namaste

Traveling the landscape of grief

For the past 8 months I've been grieving the loss of a primary relationship in my life, my mom. The thing is my mom is not dead. I've been grieving the loss of someone I deeply love who is still alive but for unknown reasons she has shut me, and my sister and our families, out of her life. This has been the single most difficult thing I have ever experienced.  And I've been through some stuff, I am not naive. But the relationship I had with my mom was my one true north. It was always a constant. Reliable, unconditional, connected. Until 8 months ago when she found out the cancer that she had valiantly fought off and won 25 years ago had come back, in her colon. From that point on she said she needed time and space, she needed me to back off, and this was something she needed to do on her own. I went from talking to my mom almost every day to no communication at all. She did not choose to shut my brothers out of her life and that just makes everything more confusing. It's extremely difficult not to take it personally, though I know deep down it's not about me.  

And this is where my yoga practice comes in.  My practice has become a safe space to sit with the pain of loss. The landscape of grief is not tidy, there are no roadmaps but my mat is a place where I cannot hide from it, seek distraction or otherwise look away. It is here I allow it to come in, settle in for a nice game of bridge, talk to it, try to understand it. I cry on my mat a lot these days as I move through this grief.  I do not know how long this process will go on, I only know that without my practice I would be an interminable mess. Some days I am anyway, but mostly when the sadness comes I find my mat. I sit, I move gently through the pain and process it as best I can, allowing it space to move through me.

And epiphanies occur from time to time as I get still and quiet enough to hear the voice of spirit. Yesterday it was this: "On the other side of grief is grace. They reside on the same doorstep. The only way out is through. As the heart opens, it heals.  Practice opening your heart to grace."

And so I do. And it is a practice. A daily one.  I am finding my joy again one day at a time on my mat.

After 20 years, I needed more.

I have been practicing yoga for over 20 years and teaching for 17 of those years. My practice has changed over the years. My body has changed, my mind has too. 20's and 30's something yoga doesn't work for me anymore. I am no longer interested in "rockstar" poses or contorting my body in such a way that leaves me hurting or worse, injured. I'm interested in a practice now that makes me feel good, where I can find joy in the practice of asana, meditation and my life off the mat. I'm interested in creating space in my body, quieting my mind, and letting my ego go on a nice long vacation without me.  If you share this feeling Find Your Joy Yoga is for you.