Wendy Teasdill on Integrating Philosophy in Yoga Teaching and Practice

In this interview, Wendy Teasdill talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about her book, Integrating Philosophy in Yoga Teaching and Practice: A Practical Guide.

“At the end of the day, I think we find our own path.” ~Wendy Teasdill

Wendy began her involvement with yoga to help her deal with her hepatitis, which required her to undertake a lifelong regimen of rest and proper diet. As she was an active person, she got into yoga through pranayama, which are specific breathing exercises intended to enable one to tap into, and accumulate, cosmic energy. 

Wendy then investigated Iyengar yoga, which is yoga developed, practiced and taught by a man named B. K. S. Iyengar, who had gotten into yoga to improve his own health. Iyengar yoga involves precise approaches to the asanas, long holds and a lot of discipline which reflected Iyengar’s own being a hard taskmaster. Wendy did get a lot of training and a firm foundation in yoga discipline and training, but when she got pregnant, Iyengar yoga didn’t entirely work for her, so she developed her own, personal style. This was because Iyengar yoga, like most yoga that were first brought to the West, were “very masculine,” as these were designed for male bodies, and not all of Iyengar yoga applied to female bodies, particularly pregnant female bodies. Wendy notes that people should follow Iyengar’s example, but to not necessarily all of the methods taught and develop their own, personal style.

Where yoga during pregnancy is concerned, Wendy notes that the more challenging poses shouldn’t be practiced. As an example, Wendy mentioned how the downward dog pose caused her to throw up, and why, and instead focused on doing the cat position instead. Wendy also mentioned that, due to the influx of progesterone in the pregnant female body, some challenging yoga poses might be easier to do, as the pregnant female’s body is more flexible. Wendy does not recommend that one do such challenging positions, as once the progesterone is gone, one could end up with overstretched and damaged ligaments and tendons, which could result in pelvic problems and vertebrae going “out of whack.”

Wendy has always liked writing throughout her life, so writing books seemed natural to her. She has written all her life, and writing books were as much for herself as these were for others. Where Integrating Philosophy in Yoga Teaching and Practice is concerned, Wendy hopes that all yoga practitioners can get something from it. The book itself contains the answers to the questions that she had when she started out in yoga, trying to make sense of the rationale and the philosophies behind it. Where the philosophies are concerned, Wendy focuses more on the philosophies defined in yoga itself, rather than Cartesian dualities which, she notes, are integrated into the structure of the English language. She points out that the mind-body connection is a recent concept in Western philosophy, whereas this could be thought of as being a part of one of yoga’s main philosophies, which is that “All Is One.” (The other main philosophy is the separation of the divine from the worldly.)

Wendy points out that the word “yoga” means, “to unite,” and that the poses that are associated with yoga weren’t originally part of the practice. These physical exercises became part of yoga practice later on, to the point of their becoming a dominant aspect of the practice, and are intended to help unify one’s mind, body and spirit. Wendy also notes that there are several different styles of, and so many approaches to, yoga, which are intended to suit different natures, and that creation, maintenance and destruction are the modes of nature, with each person having personality traits in each of these modes.

Where contemporary issues are concerned, Wendy believes that people can get insights and answers to questions, sometimes to the point where the questions disappear, and doing so requires practice. She points out that the questions asked are strongly influenced by one’s background, social conditioning, one’s friends and the media around, and that yoga takes one to a place where things are not conditional, enabling a different take, insight and approach. Yoga, Wendy remarks, enables one to find points of rapport rather than separation, and the information in the book enables one to get a stepping stone to understanding. Wendy then gives an example of how focusing on the pelvis can help one progress in one’s understanding.

“It’s an endless journey,” Wendy remarks where life is concerned. “We each have to make it for ourselves.”

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Integrating Philosophy in Yoga Teaching and Practice: A Practical Guide by Wendy Teasdill

Saeeda Hafiz on Her Journey from Poverty to Inner Riches (The Healing)

In this interview, Saeeda Hafiz talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about her book, The Healing: One Woman’s Journey from Poverty to Inner Riches.



“Be as authentic as you can be in your journey.” ~Saeeda Hafiz

Saeeda initially intended The Healing to be a calendar to enable people to get in touch with themselves, but she then realized that, as she did so with other people, she found herself telling the same stories over and over again. It was because of this repetition that Saeeda decided to write The Healing as it has presently become.

Saeeda mentioned that, as she went along her journey of living healthy, she would occasionally get flashbacks of childhood traumatic events. She grew up in an environment of poverty and domestic violence, with her mother being the only parent who brought up her and her siblings. This upbringing permeated her life and the lives of her siblings, particularly when it came to stretching the money available.

Saeeda notes that, within the African American community, there is a conversation that getting an education ensures that one rises above the circumstances of one’s poverty, but that doing so isn’t easy if the community and environment don’t support that goal. She gives the example of her grandfather who claimed he was doing okay, despite getting only a junior high school education, and he then pulled her father into what he was doing. She notes that there are changes involved with assimilating into an environment different from the one that one grew up in, and that not everyone is comfortable with this. Saeeda thus used food and yoga to center herself as she underwent this kind of journey of curiosity and development.

Although friends had tried to get her to try out yoga during college, Saeeda became involved in it after she graduated. She acknowledged that she initially resisted going to yoga classes, particularly as she was the only black student taking up yoga and her classmates were twice her age and could hold yoga poses she couldn’t yet hold, and could hold their poses longer than she could. Saeda nevertheless felt that yoga was a calling for her, and that, at the end of the classes she took, she got a sense well-being and peace, as well as that healing was about to happen.

Saeeda remarked that the conversation of doing certain things will result in freedom from the past isn’t a truthful one. She notes that, in her experience, eating food that was “alive” helped her synthesize her childhood experiences. Yoga also helped her understand that there was a path of moving these experiences through herself to create a deeper sense of health. Saeeda also remarked that eating the proper kind of food and yoga helped to lift herself from those negative experiences, particularly any shame associated with these. She then points out that this can be useful when coming to terms with the parts of a family’s or a country’s history that were traumatic, as acknowledging and integrating these aspects is actually what enables one to move on. Saeeda also remarks that empowering one another is important to move on, and that people need to own their actions to allow forces to come into play, so everyone can move forward together.

Saeeda notes that there is always power in the present moment, where one can look where one presently is and realize that there is something one can do to help change one’s present direction. To those who may be struggling with the traumas of her past, Saeeda recommends that they try to connect with their own, inner voice, the voice of their true self, and see what it’s telling them, noting that it takes a lot of work to run away from oneself, which is easy to do with the distractions available today.

Purchase from Amazon: The Healing: One Woman’s Journey from Poverty to Inner Riches by Saeeda Hafiz

Becky Thompson on Teaching with Tenderness Toward an Embodied Practice

Becky Thompson talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com about her book, Teaching with Tenderness: Towards an Embodied Practice.



“We need to be able to breathe with each other.” ~Becky Thompson

Becky is a poet, activist, yoga teacher, mother and grandmother as well as a professor in sociological theory in various universities for several years. As a teacher, Becky is familiar with what is presently going on in classrooms today, and she brought her academic discipline to bear on the topic of tenderness, which she defines as a capacity of humans learning and being with each other - a capacity which she remarks is being undermined by social inequality, such as racism. Becky remarked that she was in Greece when the first refugees from Syria and Afghanistan arrived, and she remarked that some of the first refugees she met were students no different from those she had dealt with in the United States, save in their experience of fleeing. Becky has returned six times to work with the refugees and the experience has enabled her to gain a deeper understanding into what tenderness is all about.

Becky notes that tenderness requires one to have an open mind which can embrace complexity, community and paradox, where rituals of inclusion are done along with habits that encourage deep listening and where memory is an antidote to alienation. Tenderness, in her opinion, is something that encourages people to realize that there is something more than oneself and where people are engaged on a deeper level. She also remarks that people need to be able to tap into the feeling at times of stressful disagreement, and notes that, at present, any kind of disagreement produces a sentiment where violence is likely to happen.

Becky wrote Teaching with Tenderness for students and teachers, and while she starts by talking about tenderness in the classroom, she goes beyond that by speaking about what it means to practice tenderness throughout one’s life. She mentioned a story of her fellow teacher who wondered about the kind of support available for teachers who could get worn out--support which is widely given at present, and where the stress teachers face is concerned, Becky gave the example of her own mother, who was a teacher, and she didn’t have time to go to lunch or have a bathroom break between classes several times. She also noted that teachers also sometimes pay for classroom improvements from their own pocket and that the teachers in college are under a great deal of stress to ensure that their students are able to apply their skills immediately after graduation.

Becky remarked that people “left their bodies” during highly stressful events in their lives and that rituals are needed to enable people to reconnect and re-enter their bodies. Becky noted that slowing-down learning is necessary as an embodied practice, where the body and spirit and intellect are all related and interconnected with each other, as being embodied is a psychological, emotional, spiritual and political practice. She gave, as an example of the kind of compartmentalization that is present in the educational system, the attacks of 9/11, when the teachers didn’t speak about the event as if it was (“business as usual,” outside the confines of the classroom), despite that several of the students were affected by the attacks. Becky also noted that there is a lot of dissociation going on, presently, amongst members of the government in the United States, which is an example of compartmentalization, and notes that this also goes on in other countries, from the stories told to her by the refugees she works with. She also noted that people she spoke to in Bali couldn’t recall a time when there had been a murder and had never seen a gun, which indicates that it is possible to live in a place where the fear of violence isn’t present.

Becky’s vision for an education where tenderness is integrated is one where students feel energized and involved with the subject matter they are investigating, noting that her yoga practice helps, since yoga enables people to become present to, and within, their bodies. She gave an example of giving her students around twenty minutes to relax, and after the students woke up from that rest, the ensuing conversation was the most vibrant one she had experienced. Becky would like to see contemplative practices be integrated into education to help students engage and become productive and points out that she doesn’t compromise the rigor where her own teaching is concerned.

To others, Becky would ask about when they felt most alive, confident and available to learn and what enabled this, so that they can teach others to reproduce these in their own lives.

Purchase from Amazon: Teaching with Tenderness: Towards an Embodied Practice by Becky Thompson

Lisa Danylchuk on Recovering from Trauma and Stress

Lisa Danylchuk talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com about her book, Embodied Healing: Using Yoga to Recover from Trauma and Extreme Stress.



“The slower you go, the faster you get there.” ~Lisa Danylchuk on Embodied Healing

Lisa is both a licensed marriage and family therapist and a registered and certified yoga teacher who has worked with various people, such as those in low-income areas, on issues related to stress. She wrote the book so she could reach those whom she couldn’t reach directly. It is primarily intended for those people who deal with those suffering from trauma, giving a foundation of treatment and yoga philosophy, as these presently exist, to help those suffering from trauma. There was no single incident that made Lisa think about writing the book; rather, it was a long-time process that arose from her yearning to write a book.

Lisa noted that stress is not necessarily a bad thing, as a certain degree of such is necessary in our daily life and is good for us. Extreme stress and trauma, however, impacts the entire human system - mind, body, energy, spirit - particularly the nervous system, which gets either hyper-aroused (which results in such emotions as anxiety and anger) or hypo-aroused (a parasympathetic reaction which results in such emotions as depression and dissociation, or numbness and “checking out”). She notes that traumas can spring from physical threats (such as physical violence) as well as emotional threats (such as bullying), and that different people respond differently from the same situation - depending on personality, how they were raised and other factors, with one person suffering long-term trauma from one situation while another would just shrug it off.

Lisa stresses that such reactions are a normal human reaction to an abnormal environment or situation, such as physical abuse in the home and chronic violence next door, and the treatment depends on how the person so traumatized reacts, rather than on the situation itself. A proper treatment thus needs to be tailored to the individual concerned, and knowing what questions to ask and what choices to make are thus very important.

Lisa noted that different populations have different percentages of people who suffer from trauma, and she remarked that, while trauma has been a recognized condition ever since it was first labeled as “shell shock” in World War I, the traditional therapies, which included electroshock therapies, weren’t based on a full understanding of trauma, and were thus crude. Lisa noted that, even in the past twenty years, trauma treatment has progressed a great deal, but that there also is more to learn. She also remarked that she has a wide variety of methods she can use and chooses the particular treatment for a particular patient, and that shame is still a major obstacle for people who are seeking help for trauma, which makes a good relationship between the patient and the therapist vital to the process itself.

To someone who is suffering from stress, Lisa would first ask how they want to feel, and that, as instilling hope is very important, she would then tell them that it is possible to heal and recover from trauma, that there is help available out there and that they should get help. Lisa notes that those who have healed from their traumas are happy to share their experience, and that trauma is not about the person involved, since bad things happen to anyone.

Lisa wants to write a book on healing in general in the future.

Lisa Danylchuk’s website for her book, Embodied Healing: Using Yoga to Recover from Trauma and Extreme Stress, is howwecanheal.com.

Purchase from Amazon: Embodied Healing: Using Yoga to Recover from Trauma and Extreme Stress by Lisa Danylchuk

Eric Walrabenstein on Waging Yogic Inner Peace

Eric Walrabenstein talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com about his book, Waging Inner Peace: How 5,000 Veterans Used the Ancient Secrets of Yoga and Mindfulness to Reclaim Their Lives from Stress (and How You Can, Too).



“Stress isn’t really about stress, it’s about managing your humanness.” ~Eric Walrabenstein

Eric was an officer in the United States army who had already suffered the effects of stress when he was mugged sometime in 1980, from which he suffered from chronic stress for at least a decade after that - something he didn’t recognize at the time, but which resulted in such things as bouts of insomnia, agitation and issues with anger management. The experience was what made him seek out a way to get back to a state of wellness, which led him to meditation and yoga. He had always gravitated towards training, so as he got more involved with meditation and yoga, it was natural for him to share this with others, which was why he took a yoga teacher certification course some four years after starting off in yoga.

Waging Inner Peace is based on the BOOTSTRAP program that Eric created specifically to enable military veterans to cope with the stresses that stemmed from the pressures they experienced while in active service, with Eric noting that the effects of stress on veterans and troops is “catastrophic” and that around 20% of all veterans who had been on active combat deployment suffered from stress-related disorders, according to the US Veteran’s Administration, and Eric calls it “an epidemic.” BOOTSTRAP, which is based on the idea of “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,” is a ten-week program that enables those who take it up to better understand the underpinnings of stress, and as more and more people took the program, Eric realized that the principles and techniques could also be applied by non-veterans to their own lives.

The book itself sprang from when the mother of a veteran approached him with her concerns about her son, who was a Marine who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and was concerned about the situation. This was the impetus for Eric to start thinking about how to reach people who had no physical access to him, and from there, Eric realized that writing the book could impact more people than those he could reach with just his practice, particularly since he found these practices to be particularly transformative in his own life.

Eric notes that there has been a shift in the way society helps veterans deal with stress compared to before, giving the example of a relative who was a B-17 bombardier in World War II who dealt with stress by downing a few drinks and moving on. He notes that being in combat overwhelms the “human” system, and he also notes that stress has an internal component where people are concerned in that people’s responses to a stressful situation differ depending on how they respond to it, with one such example being how the same person can take the stress of traffic in stride one day and become angry, while being in the same situation, on another. He remarks that different people respond to stress in different ways, which is also the reason why some people aren’t affected by what others would deem to be large amounts of stress, while others just need a slight amount of stress to put them into a tailspin.

Eric remarks that stress isn’t an entirely bad thing, noting that “good stress” enables people to grow, such as the stresses people experience when they learn new things, or when they work out in a gym or getting a cold, which only improves a person, but that too much stress overwhelms one’s system, which is what causes problems. PTSD is on the extreme end of the stress spectrum, where people are stuck in a “fight or flight” state which causes the symptoms associated with it, including adverse physiological effects such as high blood pressure.

Eric notes that, while yoga seems to be oriented more towards the physical today, it actually springs from the mental and psychological. He notes that BOOTSTRAP essentially enables people to mind their own humanness, which is the essence of managing the stresses people face in their everyday lives. BOOTSTRAP works on how people can help themselves to recover, and Eric also notes that this is not meant to be the sole source of recovery, as other methods - pharmaceutical, therapy - are also necessary. The process helps people understand the internal patterns of thought and attention that contribute to stress, then use specific techniques to interrupt these patterns to bring oneself back to balance. He gave the example of one of his veteran clients who had been struggling with stress and brain injury for years and who, after only four weeks into the program, had been noticed by his therapist to be more alive, relaxed and different in a positive way, with that veteran remarking that, for the first time, he was in control of his own recovery.

One of Eric’s techniques is called “Mindfulness,” which is based on two parts. The first is focused attention, where one brings one’s attention to what is going on in the present, while the second is to focus one’s attention without judgment, or with acceptance, and gave the example of being mindful while being stuck in traffic.

To people who are stressed out, Eric would tell them that they need to recognize that the greatest source of stress comes from within, due to the way we have learned to respond to our circumstances. He notes that a lot of us blame stress on the outside world, but that our own reactions to the circumstances play a part, and that we should be curious about what goes on within us that exacerbates the stress response.

Eric remarks that, when he started writing the book, he was focused specifically on helping veterans deal with stress. This then developed to helping anyone with chronic stress conditions, then evolved to helping everyone, as everybody deals with stress every day, remarking that, according to the Center of Disease Control, 90% of all first visits to physicians stem from stress, which directly affects the nervous system. He notes that managing one’s humanness in a way that enables us to interact with our circumstances and the world around in a way where we can be productive and positive. He notes that we should pay more attention to what goes on within us the same way we pay attention to our physical bodies, giving the regular brushing of teeth as an example.

Eric Walrabenstein’s website is bootstrapusa.com.

Purchase from Amazon: Waging Inner Peace: How 5,000 Veterans Used the Ancient Secrets of Yoga and Mindfulness to Reclaim Their Lives from Stress (and How You Can, Too) by Eric Walrabenstein

Gurutej Khalsa Shows How Yoga Can Give You More Time for Work and Life

Gurutej Khalsa talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com about her book, The 13th Month: How You Can Get an Extra 29 Days Each Year.



“When you get in the company of the whole, you become more whole.” ~Gurutej Khalsa
 

Gurutej Khalsa, a pioneering Kundalini Yoga guru based in Los Angeles in the United States, presently teaches yoga, consciousness, community building and meditation throughout the world. Her book, The 13th Month: How You Can Get an Extra 29 Days Each Year, came to be because one of the things she often hears from people are statements which essentially say, “I don’t have time.” 

Her intent for writing the book, The 13th Month, is to enable its readers to shift some patterns in their lives so they can do things differently. One such aspect is breathing, and during the interview, Gurutej did a four-part, basic breathing exercise with the interviewer which made the latter somewhat lightheaded (as Gurutej commented it would) but which also made him somewhat more alert. Gurutej also mentioned that she has yoga flipcharts of eighteen different exercises, some of which could, in ninety seconds, help one clear out one’s head, like before going into a meeting to create a clearing for new thoughts or to take in something new. She also mentioned that one’s day actually starts when one goes to sleep the night before. She mentions that her book gives some possible ways to address the issue of getting a good night’s rest, and that she took in the feedback that she got so she could create exercises that could be done in the span of ninety seconds to three minutes. 

There was some problem in connectivity when Gurutej spoke on the topic of energy. She pointed out that most people don’t think about personal energy when the word “energy” is mentioned, and she pointed out that she wants people to think about this, as she believes that if people can change their energy state, they can use the energy, such as from anger, through a process of releasing and recycling and reusing, to transform and fuel themselves, rather than drain them. 

Gurutej mentioned that her name was given to her by her teacher, and that a change in name reflects a change in energy and resonance that affects the person so called in a certain way, such as, possibly, the Spirit. 

Gurutej said that she had always been spiritual, and in her former life as a Catholic, she loved the energy, if not the politics and the angst, and at a very young age she told her mother that she would start her own Order once she was old enough. What drew her to yoga was its teaching that the body can be brought into a higher state of consciousness along with the spirit, unlike the teachings she encountered in several religions that the soul is good and the body is bad. 

Gurutej pointed out that Western yoga focuses more on exercise rather than the archaic Indian version, which also focuses on meditation as well, but that yoga, as practiced in the West, is still good, as it enables people to breathe differently. She points out that, with Kundalini Yoga, the branch of yoga that she follows, meditating in the morning sets one’s day, and the challenge is how to carry that energy throughout all the challenges that crop up during the day. 

Gurutej admitted that, in the 1960s, she "took enough drugs to take out an elephant,” and when she discovered yoga, she realized that she could achieve that same high with yoga as she did with drugs, and so switched over to yoga. She opined that the atmosphere in the 1960s was the Universe creating an opening to prepare the world for the present times, and sprang from the experience of the 1950s, where women needed to find ways to manage the lives and worlds that had been created for them. Gurutej mentioned that the desire for connection, the desire for something much more, was one of the drivers for the creativity of the 1960s. 

Gurutej expressed her desire to experience dancing more, and also noted that it’s more about how we go through an experience and what one gets from it is what counts, rather than not wanting to experience something. She notes that she had gone through challenges in her life, such as the death of her daughter and being a single mother, and that there is a gift behind each experience, regardless of how “horrendous” the experience might occur to a person. She gave Nelson Mandela as an example. For her, she pointed out that being the best that one can be at a certain age is  what matters, as our needs and desires and lessons learned change from age to age, and that bringing one’s wisdom at the age of, say, fifty, to that same person at the age of twenty, wouldn’t work because of this. 

The 13th Month: How You Can Get an Extra 29 Days Each Year, is an ideal book for anyone who thinks he or she does not have the time. With the help of yoga, Gurutej Khalsa can help you create that time and you also get the benefit of having more energy and zest for life in the process. She's a living example of what she teaches in the book.

Website: www.gurutej.com

Purchase on Amazon: The 13th Month: How You Can Get an Extra 29 Days Each Year, on Amazon