Yoga For Grief Support
  • Home
  • Classes
    • Group Yoga For Grief Support >
      • FAQ
    • Online Yoga Programs >
      • January-April-Schedule
      • Navigating Grief
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Guided Audio Practice - Online >
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Workshops and Speaking Engagements
    • Mentorship for Yoga Teachers
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact

I Feel, Therefore I am

2/5/2019

0 Comments

 
It was in 1637 that Descartes wrote the phrase je pense, donc je suis, which translates into “I think, therefore I am.”

I can’t help but wonder if this is where we went off track.  Granted, Rene Descartes was a philosopher so this phrase has more depth than what I'll write about here...but is this where, to quote Robert Frost, two roads diverged in a yellow wood? Where we started to overvalue the mind and cognition and under value the body and emotion?

There was another philosopher back then, who took the opposite stance to Descartes. His name was Spinoza. Instead of seeing the mind as a reasoning machine and separate from the body as Descartes did, Spinoza thought the body and mind were one continuous being, where thoughts and feelings are foremost in the body, not the mind. “For his beliefs, Spinoza was vilified and -- for extended periods -- ignored. Descartes, on the other hand, was immortalized as a visionary. His rationalist doctrine shaped the course of modern philosophy and became part of the cultural bedrock” (1).  (There is a great NY Times article about this here).

Fast forward 382 years and we live in a world where are overly cerebral. We value science, logic, rationality. We need statistics, and evidence. Productivity and objectivity is a marker of success. We are basically floating heads, walking around, detached from our bodies, disconnected from feeling.  We are disembodied. Dissociated.  

I think, therefore I am, is a concept that yogis have been addressing for years.
"Yogash chitta vritti nirodhah" meaning:
Yoga is the nirodha (regulating, mastering, integrating)
of the modifications (gross and subtle thought patterns) of the mind.

- Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
In other words, the true nature and purpose of yoga is to stop the constant chattering, and churning of thoughts in the mind. The yogi channels the power of the mind, the mind does not hold reign over the yogi. The method to do this is multifaceted and robust...and perhaps a topic for a different post.

I probably don’t even need to write this obvious fact, but I will: We aren’t just a bunch of heads walking around. Our heads are literally attached to our bodies...(insert cheeky emoji here).

In any-case, a more apt phrase worth adopting may be: I feel, therefore I am.
Picture
Eve Ensler, a playwright and author of The Vagina Monologues, was interviewed by Krista Tippet on Becoming Wise. It was on this program, I first heard “I feel, therefore I am.”  

She has this to say:
“My whole life, if I look at the body of literature and theater pieces I’ve written, has been this huge journey and attempt to get back into my body. Every play on some level. But you think you’re in your body and then you get cancer. You wake up after nine hours of surgery with tubes and catheters and all kinds of things coming out of it, and you realize that it’s the first time in your life you’ve ever been in your body. You are a body. You are pure body. And that experience is so incredible. It was so incredible to be in my body, to not have this be an abstraction.” (2)
During her experience with cancer she would chant: "I feel, therefore I am."

I think grief is similar. For me it was anyway. There was something so visceral and unignorable about how grief showed up in my body. It wasn’t a mountain bike race I could push through...it was complete surrender to a force within myself, and much greater than myself (or my mind, maybe?). Grief forced me into communion with my body. My body and my emotions had more power than my mind...but the hard part was releasing my mind from trying to do it all, and to let my body and emotions guide me.


It turns out that Spinoza was right; “Feeling, it turns out, is not the enemy of reason, but, as Spinoza saw it, an indispensable accomplice,” (1) and scientists are just starting to understand it now.

In Finland scientists have mapped where more than 1000 participants felt 100 different emotions  in their bodies. They compiled the results to create “bodily sensation maps.” What they found was that: “even those feelings you think are all in your head still create sensations in the rest of your body." As co-author Riitta Hari put it, "We have obtained solid evidence that shows the body is involved in all types of cognitive and emotional functions. In other words, the human mind is strongly embodied."” (3)

I find it so striking; the areas that light up and the areas that don’t. Our bodies speak to us constantly, through sensation, and lack thereof. 
​
We try to think our way through our losses but we can’t. We have the entire rest of our body that is trying to communicate with us... we have to FEEL. Our minds have to understand that we feel. They have to unite. ​

Yoga is one way to do this. The practice unites the body and the mind - to be mutually respectful allies. In Yoga for Grief Support, I teach about the mind - give strategies to tame it...and explore the language of the body. 

If you want to learn more about the classes and groups I run, you can visit my website by clicking the links below:

In person groups in Edmonton
Online Program
Picture
From an Instagram Page I follow called @EmbodiedMindfulness Click the pic to visit it...
References

​1.  Emily Eakin, 2003. I Feel, Therefore I am. New York Times. Retrieved from:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/19/books/i-feel-therefore-i-am.html on December 4 2018
​
2. Krista Tippet,2016.  Becoming Wise. Retrieved from:
https://onbeing.org/programs/feel-therefore-eve-ensler/ on December 4th 2018

3. Lauri Nummenmaa, Rita Hari, Jari K. Hietanen, and Enrico Glerean, 2018. Maps of Subjective Feelings. Retrieved from: 
http://www.pnas.org/content/115/37/9198 December 5th 2018


Feel, Feel, Feel...

​Sandy
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Get new posts by email:
    Powered by follow.it

    Author

    Sandy Ayre
    Occupational Therapist
    Yoga Instructor
    Death and Grief Studies Certificate

    Sandy offers in-person Yoga for Grief Support classes in Edmonton, and world-wide online. 

    ​Learn more about her here.


    Categories

    All
    About The Class
    Authenticity
    Book Recommendations
    Care-givers
    Coping With Grief
    Guest Posts
    Inspiration
    Mind Body Connection
    Mind-Body Connection
    Music
    Nature
    Prayer Flags
    Spirituality
    Taking Yoga Off The Mat
    Videos
    Yoga Philosophy
    Yoga Poses


    Archives

    December 2022
    March 2022
    August 2021
    May 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    June 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    December 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

Classes

Group Yoga for Grief Support
Online Yoga Sessions
Guided Audio Practice
Workshops

Helpful Info

Resources
Blog
Newsletter

About Us

About Sandy
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
© Yoga for Grief Support in Edmonton
  • Home
  • Classes
    • Group Yoga For Grief Support >
      • FAQ
    • Online Yoga Programs >
      • January-April-Schedule
      • Navigating Grief
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Guided Audio Practice - Online >
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Workshops and Speaking Engagements
    • Mentorship for Yoga Teachers
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact