I was fortunate to get to travel with a friend from Portland and share some costs with. We spent Sunday evening and part of Monday in Puerto Vallarta, not nearly enough time to explore! I know I will want to return, with more time to wander at leisure through this vibrant town. Reminding me of the Kailua-Kona side of the Big Island and New Orleans, with a flair all it’s own, Puerto Vallarta is a place where everyone seems to go to have fun, locals as well as foreigners. Families with young children, hip trendsetters looking to get noticed, folks just there for a little sunshine & sand, and lots of older folks; everyone there to enjoy the views, the food, the music, the waves, and the sun.

We were there in the nine days leading up the the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This means a procession winds through town to the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe every day; we waited on our way to the hotel for one. Fireworks can be expected to randomly go off, any time, night or day. People gather at the cathedral daily to pay their respects to the Virgin. I made a point to offer my thanks for a safe journey when I popped into the cool of the church for a moment to admire the interior.

In the afternoon we all gathered at the airport before heading to the private nature reserve and small resort, Punta Monterrey.  I enjoyed simple, wonderful meals in good company, and spent my nights listening to the sounds of the waves just steps from the doors of my little cottage. I was grateful for the abundant time to rest and integrate the work we were doing.

The training itself, with my teacher Molly Lannon Kenny, gave a boost to my skills, gaining more insight into working with medically fragile folks to provide support. I have started to reach out slowly to people about my plans to work in this area. Once I’ve begun sharing my intention to offer support around end-of-life care I’ve noted there’s no shortage of people around me who’ve recently experienced loss or are dealing with parents who are entering last stages with terminal illnesses. I’m letting the path to how I’ll do more of this work unfold over this year.

In between the deep work I was doing with my new friends in practice, there were moments of profound, and every day beauty that continue to nurture my soul. Moments like walking amidst butterflies after breakfast ever morning as they fluttered around the multitude of flowers growing in abundance everywhere. The sound of dragonflies in the evening as they hunted mosquitos while the sun set and the surf pounded. Then there was the unexpected wonder of seeing baby, Olive Ridley Sea Turtles on our last morning there, while making our way down to the beach for a final ritual together, making it feel all the more precious for the tiny miracles we’d just seen.

One, truly magical afternoon found our whole little group floating together in the ocean. This alone was such a moment of deep connection that my heart was full. Then we heard the whales.

Deep bass notes, clicks, whistles, and higher, violin-like refrains; a veritable choir singing as they traveled south together. In those moments, as small and fragile as I felt, floating on the vastness of the ocean, I felt myself resting in, and connected to, the Divine.

In the weeks that have followed, I’m realizing I’ve taken something else home from the retreat. I’m finding that the grief, and low of depression, I experience very strongly from November into February; hasn’t been as dark as it has felt in past years. It feels like some of the sharp edges of my own grief have been smoothed down, like a piece of rock tumbled against sand until it is polished agate. Something in the rhythm of the waves, the songs of the whales, and in the singing on the beach I did; it all seems to have made my own grief lighter to carry.

Now I teach 10 classes a week that are for adults 60 and older. Younger folks come too, the classes are perfect for people who need a class that is a little slower and has an instructor that’s also a yoga therapist! This year I even presented a poster and a short talk at the Yoga Service Conference, sharing the Yoga in Chairs class I created and offer at the Mt. Scott Community Center three mornings a week.

In working with this age group I see people process a lot of change and grief. Grief for the physical ability they once had. Grief at losing parents. Grief at losing spouses. Grief at losing friends. Then there is the grief of a student who leaves classes because an illness has reached a point where going to yoga is no longer feasible. Having predominantly older students means that someone dear to me is always processing one or many of these kinds of grief.

I feel well prepared for this role of holding space for grief for my older students. When I once practiced with a Zen community one of my service positions was keeping the Merit List. This was a list of people close to members of the community who were either in distress of some nature or who had recently died. In my community we chanted the name of someone recently deceased for 49 days; the time it takes the soul to cross the Bardo. Sometimes I received the news of a death before my teachers. It taught me to be present to grief and to hold space for the grieving.

Years ago, when my teacher, Molly Lannon Kenny, lived in Seattle, Washington, she helped create a program for a hospice center there, the Bailey-Boushay House. She mentioned it during my time training as an Integrated Movement Therapist and whenever she did I’d think to myself that I wanted to know more about bringing yoga into hospice centers. Grief is a singular journey for each of us, we process our losses differently from person to person and, I think, from loss to loss. The presence I developed in my Zen practice, along with the practice I have in holding space for my students, I know will serve me in offering yoga interventions to the dying and those affected by the dying; family & friends and hospice staff.

This December I’m getting my chance to know more; I’m attending a small retreat with my teacher in Mexico to offer Bedside Yoga for end-of-life care. This is a perfect fit with the advanced training I’ve already done to offer integrative yoga to older adults. I’m thrilled to be attending this and it has already prompted me to take care of things like getting a passport with my married name and applying for pre-check on flights since I’m going to be helping with the Yoga Service Conference for the next few years, which means flights to New York.

I’m trying to find ways to raise more money, hoping to ultimately make this training debt-free! if you’ve got a few bucks to spare, I’m running a fundraising campaign and I’d be so grateful for your support.

I’ve been sharing this information with my students, noting how both mindful breathing and focused breath control, prāṇāyāma exercises, help the locus coeruleus to produce just enough noradrenaline to help us focus. In regards to aging brains, this study begins to look into why the longtime meditators have more “youthful” brains; losing less mass than brains of non-meditators. Reduced loss of brain mass may be related to a lowered risk of dementia.

It may be that the state of just enough noradrenaline is the state in which our brain makes new connections, helping us to maintain neuroplasticity. This is not only promising in regards to aging, but also significant in how we approach living with ADHD and PTSD. Empowering people with tools they can use, on their own, anywhere would not only provide relief and support, but rebuild the sense of capability for someone who may feel helpless in the face of anxiety, anger, and depression. I know in my own journey with C-PTSD, prāṇāyāma helped me feel less powerless, particularly when I’m anxious. I love that prāṇāyāma is not only a tool to help in the moment, but that it may support long-term healing through rebuilding connectivity in the brain.

Learning about the function of the locus coeruleus was not only fascinating from a neuroscience perspective, but it resonates with me in my practice as well. In Buddhist practice, we often refer to our path as the Middle Way. This often is related to a tale of a musician going to the Buddha for advice on how to practice. The Buddha responded by asking the musician about the strings on a sitar; what would happen if they were too tight? What if they’re too loose? The musician responded that when too tight, the strings break, and when too loose, no sound is produced.

“That is how you practice. Neither too tight or too loose.”, is said to have been the Buddha’s reply. That is the middle way.

This is an important lesson to take into the whole of our practice. Not being too rigid in any way and keeping enough discipline that we’re not slack. In Western society we’re all too often encouraged to “give 110%”, which is the very definition of too much and explains why burnout is so common. I myself lived many years practicing along the “too tight” mindset and was nearly hospitalized due to exhaustion.

Not only has rediscovering the middle way of practice been a huge benefit for me personally, it has informed the work I do with older adults. Now the majority of my clients and students are age 60 and above, I find myself guiding others in how to find the middle path between challenge and rest. Exploring together a practice of allowing ourselves to make just enough effort that we can feel exertion, but are present, breathing, and even enjoying our bodies. A practice focused on “Just Enough” creates space for my students to be more forgiving to their bodies, less stuck in the energy-draining efforts of resisting and denying the changing of the body.

*There’s a great summary of the study available from Trinity College Dublin as well.

There have been some breaks in there, times when my own health needed attention and the rest of not teaching. The span however, from my first class at Matt Dishman Community Center all these years ago, to the two classes I have taught today, remains the same. Ten years.

I became a teacher because the practice of Yoga Asana and Pranayama were so beneficial to managing my chronic pain that I wanted to share this with others. In becoming a teacher, I felt deeply called to fully practice the Eight Limbs of Raja Yoga.

A lot has changed from that Sunday morning these 10 years ago. I would then show up for a class with every single thing I planned to teach carefully written out in a notebook. For months this is how I taught, always going off the notes. In a way, it was how I learned since most of the Iyengar yoga teachers I studied with would have a lesson plan for the week.

Student Gear

While I still consider my training with Iyengar teachers to be the foundation of my teaching, I’m currently in the process of radically changing my actual approach in teaching to a more fluid, encouraging, gentle approach, even when I’m teaching someone how to do a handstand or arm balance.  This evolution in my teaching is part of the process of evaluating my teaching practice, along with on-going self-study that I’ve doing as I work to certifying in Integrated Movement Therapy. I’m concurrently working on certification as a Samarya Yoga teacher.

I still love teaching beginners. I’ve also come to love teaching very fit people, with a well-established practice, how to refine arm balance poses and teach them new ones too. Just this year I’ve been given the gift of teaching senior citizens; my oldest student is 91! I’ve experienced the delight of leading over 100 people at a technology event in 20 minutes of simple Yoga postures and mindful breathing the participants could take with them to do anywhere; they loved it.

Over the years I’ve taught the very fit, people with chronic health conditions, the very thin, little kids, adults, the occasional teen, geeks, artists, larger bodied people, writers, musicians, some who’ve just had major surgery, and fiery seniors who want to learn how to do a shoulderstand or headstand! Each and every student has been a gift to me.

In teaching I try to make an offering,  a light. As he lay dying the Buddha told his followers to, “make a light of yourself”. He had shown that a path out of suffering existed, those on the path should become a light for their own sake and for the sake of others.

Shunryu Suzuki was known to paraphrase this when talking to students, exhorting them to “light up one corner”. He said on one occasion, “We say, to shine one corner of the world—just one corner. If you shine one corner, then people around you will feel better. You will always feel as if you are carrying an umbrella to protect people from heat or rain.”

I think of this often when I teach. How important it is to show up, to be present to my students, to make a light for them to see and thereby find encouragement to shine brightly themselves.