Spring Cleaning: Decluttering: On our Mat and In our Lives.

Spring is the season we have the opportunity to throw open windows and let fresh air in. Spring is the season we find the dust in corners and decide to give away or get rid of things we do not need.  It is a relatively simple process to rid ourselves of accumulated dust or belongings.  Or, is it? Letting go of our belongings brings up a host of emotions. We can declutter a cupboard and if those items are left sitting in the hallway, we can gradually decide to keep a few. Why do we hold on? Letting go is a complex process but a vital one if we want to reopen space in our house as well as in ourselves.

We realise what we hold onto when we notice tension in our body.  Last year I had to declutter the home I grew up in of around 50 years of belongings. I am sure you understand this was not an easy process.  Childhood memories lye deep in our psyche as well as our body and can be brought to vivid fruition by the most random of discoveries.  In his book, The body keeps the score, Bessel Van Der Kolk  discusses how  ‘flashbacks’ are ‘unmodified by the passage of time’. These flashbacks have the propensity to ignite strong emotional responses and if these go unmanaged, they become stored as physical tension and discomfort.  Memories create emotions and feelings are the attachments that weave into our body and create tension, unease and sadness.  We can donate tangible things to charity but it is a lot harder to rid ourselves of those feelings of attachment. The beginning of this process is to notice.

Within Yogic philosophy, Patanjali’s Yoga sutras (Ch.1 V 12) guides us to abhyasa  (practice) and vairagya (detachment).  Our practice has to be with constant attention to the present moment.  In this way  detachment  from sense objects, from thoughts and from intangible (but very deep) attachments may be a possibility.

Letting go of tension and emotional connections that are detrimental to our health is a constant process.  We think we have let go/decluttered and then something may occur that brings us back to that feeling, memory or sense of loss.  Attachments can be deeply rooted and hard to let go of.

Memories are not easy to forget: I once noticed someone cutting down a militant Ivy plant that was covering most of his garden fence panels.  Over the course of a few weeks, she gradually and seemingly brought this wayward plant under control.  After a while she reached the final panel and as she was clearing this, new tendrils were beginning to infiltrate the first panel again.  Our mind and body follow this pattern.  We may think we have cleared something out but do not be surprised if it revisits you.  It can be a memory or an old injury. Our practice is to notice, to not judge, and to begin again.

Do not let your mind wander during your practice, but instead be completely there.

(Scaravelli V 1991 Awakening the Spine)

What would it be like if every time we came to our mat we practiced without preconceived ideas or accumulated knowledge?  Sometimes, our mind is so full of what we think we should be, could be, have or have lost that we fail to acknowledge ourselves as we are.  It takes courage to be ourselves and give our -self permission to practice asanas without force or pushing our body into a shape.  In the same way, it takes courage and love for our self to sit quietly and acknowledge our pain and disquiet as well as our happiness and freedom.

Often, we are so busy trying to fix others and focusing on the outside of our body that we fail to notice those darker, dusty corners inside. Tension in our body is an accumulation of our experiences and if we are lucky enough to have lived a full life, we all hold a substantial amount of tension.

To let go of tension we first of all have to ‘stop’.  This involves internal focus and a great deal of compassion.  Listening to our body is not easy because our mind always wants to control us in some way.  We can begin by creating a dialogue with our body and so be friends with the thoughts in our head.  We can actively ask our feet to feel the ground. We can ask a shoulder to release the arm or a hip to not work so hard. We can notice discomfort in one part of our body but can we acknowledge that another part is compensating? We learn to befriend our body through our thought processes by noticing how hard it works for us.

This way of practicing leads us to the wonderful possibility of creating internal space.  This can be just a ‘feeling’ but feelings are powerful.  Where we hold tension or discomfort we can feel ‘tight’ or compressed.  Our movement may be inhibited in this area, but can we be okay with this?  An injury or a worry can tighten our neck.  Anxiety can grip our abdomen.  What would it be like if we observed these states as just that?  In the same way a part of our home may be filled with ‘stuff’, so our body has become a dumping ground for fear, worry and experiences.

The idea of decluttering our body can lead to the  wonderful possibility of creating space.  When we declutter a book-shelf or loft it appears bigger.  If we can let go of what we do not need in our body, we can feel lighter, spacious and free.

Where to start: The beginning

Contact with the ground.  We all receive nourishment and support from the earth. If we can focus on the physical sensations of where our body is connected to that which is supporting us there is a possibility we can let go of tension.

This can be standing, sitting or lying.  Our attention is everything in this way of practicing.

Something to try; Supine twist

Lying on our back, knees bent ( feet flat to the floor) let the knees drop to one side as your shoulders rest on the ground.  If your knees have gone to the right be attentive to the experience of contact with the right ribs and hip on the ground.  Can you visualise everything around the left hip (ligaments, fluid, muscle, tendons) releasing and pouring into the right hip?  With a sense of deep awareness can we then create an upward movement from the hip below to the one above.  This can be a feeling of ‘churning’ or ‘spiralling’ and we repeat this process until the upper hip feels far away and the lower hip feels lighter.

In this way, we begin to move the internal body upwards and backwards. Outwardly we may appear quiet, but inside we are moving.  Inside the pelvis we are decompressing and sweeping out darkness to find a lighter, more spacious body. This way of practicing gives us the possibility of renewal and the realisation that our internal body can be so much wider and comfortable.

Traditionally we clean and declutter in Spring but is there a chance we can release not needed tension every time we come to our mat?  We can always give our unwanted belongings away but we eventually conclude it is not the things and ‘stuff’ we have to let go of, it is the emotions attached to them.

Donna Negus

BWY teacher and Diploma course tutor.

Long term student of the insights given to us by Vanda Scaravelli.

Donnanegusyoga.co.uk

Desikachar T.K.V.  (1999)  The Heart of Yoga Inner Traditions International

Scaravelli V (1991) Awakening the Spine Harper Collins

Van Der Kolk (2015) The Body Keeps the Score Penguin