This picture was taken as a reminder for myself to let go of thinking so much. I found it sitting outside a friend's door and when I asked her about it, she replied with, “let go of everything, including your head.”
Then a few weekends ago at a yoga workshop called 'Coming to our Senses', the presenter stated something similar to this in different words. She said “take the needle off the record and stop the spinning mind.”
In therapy sessions, I feel that much of what I am helping clients with is learning how to get out of their heads and more into their bodies. To connect with their breath, their five senses, and practice mindfulness so that they feel less mind full.
The body is where we hold our emotions. It's also where we stuff them, store them, and try to ignore them.
What most of us don't realize is that these emotions need to be felt, seen, and heard. They need our attention and our love so that we can heal from past traumas and painful experiences that keep us weighed down and in the dark. The more we try to suppress and avoid them, the more powerful they become until we have no other choice but to feel them. I see emotions as our human guides because without them, we would feel nothing and then well, we wouldn't be human beings, we would be robots.
It wasn't until I became more involved in yoga and meditation, that I learned that I too was a walking head. I spent most of my time, thinking and thinking and actually believing every thought as though it were true because it was in my mind. The result was ongoing feelings of anxiety, depression, and fear.
If we allow it to, the mind can become a hamster wheel that keeps us stuck in a variety of thoughts that are full of judgment, self criticism, stories we tell ourselves, our misperceptions of self and others, and negativity that eats away at our souls and self worth.
Movement is what our body needs. Breath is what our mind needs in order to relax and remember to drop into the body. In yoga, we learn to feel and listen to our body. We use the breath as a healing agent to loosen up the pressure and tension we hold in our body that more than likely is also where we have stored emotions that we are too afraid or uncomfortable to feel.
This was a passage read in yoga class from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo:
We can only consider things so long. After a while, all the information-all the options and opinions-will begin to weigh us down. After our deeper eyes have seen the situation, all the well-meaning voices telling us what we should or should not do will start to feel like strings we can't cut through.
This was poor Hamlet's fate. He overthought his life away. He over-considered which way to go until he felt stalled and oppressed by just being in the world. It is natural enough to be cautious and thoughtful, especially when faced with important decisions, but often the only way to know what awaits us to live to it.
This brings to mind the revelation that came upon a Hindu sage centuries ago. One day in the middle of their morning prayers, the sage suddenly rose and ushered his students away from the monastery. He rushed about them and shooed them back into life like little ducks, proclaiming, “The day is to be experienced, not understood!”
If you want to feel more calm and ease, go ahead and start practicing this daily. Get out of your head, more into your body, and allow yourself to feel with mind, body, and spirit as a whole human. And remember to breathe through whatever comes up.