Past becomes present
Past becomes present, when you least expect it.
October/November Yoga Therapy starter package will help you soul soothe your way through the upcoming holiday season, a time when the past's impact feels the strongest, for many of us.
The deeper we look into the Yoga Sūtra-s, the deeper we look into ourselves. The deeper we look into ourselves, our self-discovery supports holistic understanding of who we are, really. Yoga unwraps the tightly wound default and defense mechanisms that operate us, most of which served important original purposes, many of which no longer do. And the goal is we gain the capacity to be self-sovereign. We'll get personal into today's blog, where you can read about a Yogic explanation of becoming triggered, and learn how to reestablish some peace in such moments.
Today, as all days, was psycho-emotionally multifaceted. Sudden, I felt unexpected panic. How did I go from content, sitting in a vegan restaurant half way between Union Square and Washington Square on a warm, Autumn Friday night to gut tightening panic? I queried myself. While most anyone glancing across the street at the lovely facade of a building and very young children playing on the concrete stairs would either carry on or delight, I couldn’t watch.
This experience did, on the one hand, give me agita all night. It was that triggering. On the other hand, it blatantly illustrates a Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra Fourth Chapter concept, that when a cause shows up, a result happens. And it’s immediate. Unconscious. Mechanical, operating deeply within our subconscious, the residue that remains from prior experience. And it shows us the past’s knots that we have yet to resolve. It’s the beginning of healing.
Why’d this disruption to my peace arise, as I happily finished my vegan, walnut pate sushi rolls and started on my key lime pie, after an amazing day, sitting with my deeply loved one? Through being in relationship with myself, I immediately knew the answer. Nine years ago, the first day after moving into our new house, my three year old son slipped down half a flight of stairs. Right in front of his father and I, standing at the bottom. Time slowed down, we dashed to save him, but neither of us made it in time, and…crash. It was not the first nor the last of many, but it’s the one whose fear and anxiety are so lodged within me that as I see children playing on stairs, I panic in anticipation of a similar fate for them.
I did not ignore this feeling. I did not numb myself. I paused and sat there with this horrible feeling, watched my companion happily observing the [brave] woman guardianing four children under the age of four on the concrete steps, catching them if they slipped, playing with them, allowing them to play with each other, allowing him to enjoy. So I noticed - someone has a different perspective here, so it’s possible to view my trigger with absolute delight. I used my exhale and some sound to dissipate the big, fat knot in my solar plexus (crowded restaurant, safe to say no one heard or cared). I came into the present moment, where no one was hurt and everyone was having fun. I told my story. And on the way to the 6 train, we sang. We sang loudly, a beautiful Alicia Keys duet, strolling joyfully, generating loving feelings. I stayed in relationship with my unresolved Mama trauma, with myself, with the present, with the context, with my pie, with the warm October Friday night.
There’s no prescription for triggers, but the above is a snippet of how I dealt with one. It required a strong backing of Yoga practice, awareness and creativity. If you have read this far, you definitely have all of that in your wheel house. May you be inspired to look at the cause of your trauma, to deconstruct the past from the present and to feel and practice and creatively heal now and forever as the waves of old patterns rise high.