om spirit
information so it can be retrained. This is extremely exciting news
as it means we can change our behaviour. No matter what habitual
horse has been pulling us around without our control we can learn
to train it to go at the pace we want and where we want.How does yoga or meditation help?
When we practice yoga we are trying to interrupt the habitual
patterns. Again, let’s revisit the chaos from earlier. I receive the bad
news from my girlfriend and get off the phone. I feel the feelings
of heat rising in my body. Instead of going into my anger and
wounded child part, I decide to sit and first find a slow and even
breath, calming the nervous system so I can start to give space to
the feelings that are present, holding them with compassion. I can
even use the feeling to focus the mind and as I feel into it, it often
dissolves and wasn’t as scary as I had once thought. If the ‘I maker’
has already come in, we can notice the mind has wandered and
whether it is already in a ‘part’ or ‘role’. We can smile, acknowledge,
and with loving kindness and patience bring it back to the breath
Either way, I am empowering myself in everyday life. Instead of
mindlessly going into a reaction, I am creating space to respond.
This is the key difference. So often we spend life reacting mindlessly:
either clinging to things we think will make us happy, that feel good,
but will ultimately pass and return us to our suffering, or pushing
things away that don’t feel good, also creating suffering too. When
we practice yoga or meditation we are creating space and allowing
things to be as they are.
If there is discomfort there is discomfort; if my mind is busy it’s
busy; if I am sad, I am sad. I hold whatever is present like a mother
holding her child, with patience and compassion. The paradox is that
we aren’t trying to change anything, but through this acceptance we
actually change our brains. Thus creating neural pathways of loving
kindness.Luke Bache ia a yoga teacher, holistic wellness expert and
mindfulness coach (urtruenature.com)around the world to see evidence of this. The scary thing is when we
behave in a particular way we are more likely to act like this in the
future. I am creating neural pathways in the brain so my behaviour
can soon be a repetitive personality, part creating a seemingly never
ending wheel of suffering.
We can think of the parts of the personality as an onion with
layer upon layer of perceived notions of ‘self’. For instance, some
of my layers of personality might be: ‘The Wise Yoga Teacher’,
‘Competitive Sports Guy’, ‘Gentle Dad’, ‘Sarcastic Friend’, ‘Emotionally
Wounded Child’, ‘High Achieving Go Getter,’ to name just a few. I
have developed all these parts of personality throughout my life’s
experiences of reacting to stimulus with the clinging or pushing away
of pleasant or unpleasant feelings. The ‘I maker’ has created these
different parts of personality in response, all of which are constantly
playing out; some beneficial, some not.
Let’s go back to the above example. My partner returns and I am
in my, ‘Emotionally Wounded Child personality’. I had spent time
making the dinner and it was our anniversary and she forgot. The
feelings of anger and sadness were too much so I avoided them,
pushed them down and stepped into my personality role. In this
role, I am irritable, distant, closed and upset. Whatever my partner
says to me, I am seeing reality through my hurt and vulnerable
child glasses. I am not seeing things as they are (my girlfriend had
a terrible day), and this part of my personality doesn’t want to die
(abhinivesa); it is attached to its beliefs. I am therefore causing
suffering to myself and her.
How to break the cycle of suffering and see things
for what they are
Neuroplasticity is the process in which the brain’s neural pathways
are altered as an effect of environmental or behavioural changes.
If you think of a camera, when you take a picture, you are
exposing the film to new information. It reacts to the light and its
composition changes so it can record the image. Similarly, the
brain’s composition is constantly changing when it is exposed to new