Managing My Stress

As dedicated students at the Colorado School of Mines, I would say stress is a part of every day life. The average amount of sleep me and my peers normally get is usually less than 6 hours, and the amount of work our professors assign is overwhelming. Sometimes, I feel like I just can't win. If I relax, then my grades suffer. If I excel in school, my mental and physical health suffers. Here at Mines, balance is not important to most students, professors, or administrators. However, balance is important to me, and I struggle with the fact that it seems so out of reach most of the time. So I decided to do a little research on my own about how to manage stress as a Mines student.
Not surprisingly, I found very little information about stress management that I didn't already know. Breathing exercises, journaling, meditation, exercise, and good organization are all stress relievers, and I feel that most students are aware of these stress reducing activities. Nevertheless, I feel that these habits are harder to maintain than most people realize, and in an environment that almost encourages stress, it is near impossible to find the time and the energy to simply stop and take a breather. Instead, most students (including myself) deal with stress by going through bouts of under eating and overeating, by drinking too much, by procrastinating, and by lashing out at others. So how do we integrate healthy ways of coping into our overwhelmingly full lives? My answer at this point is I have no idea. I myself struggle on a daily basis to manage my stress, my schoolwork, my body, and my mental health. In some ways, I believe the school is to blame - why create an environment for students that cultivates stress, anxiety, and imbalance in their lives? In others, we as students are to blame for these emotions when we make bad decisions about coping.
Because of my nearly fruitless research about and experience with coping mechanisms for stress, I have made it my intention to try different and new ways of coping. Armed with an arsenal of experience about how to deal with stress, then I can decide what fits my busy lifestyle and what mechanisms remain as lasting habits.
(http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_management_relief_coping.htm)

Meditation Flash Mobs Promote Peace

I have heard of flash mobs before, and seen the videos that flood the internet overnight, but I have yet to hear of a meditation flash mob. These artful gatherings of meditators are organized by an organization known as MedMob, or the Global Flash Mob Meditation Movement, which was founded in 2011. The group got its start "in a seemingly auspicious way." In the year 2012, Patrick Kronfli had a vision during his meditation practice: "hundreds of people gathered in silent, leaderless meditation outside the state capitol" of Texas, Kronfli's home state. After he arrived home from a trip to India, Kronfli shared his experience with two friends who, inexplicably, told him they had both experienced the same vision during meditation. Kronfli recalls, "it was so powerful to think of connecting in the public as a group, to pause for a moment and just allow a new stream of conciousness to go through." From that point forward, the friend's vision was to become a reality. They publicized the idea through a facebook page and held their first meditation flash mob with a total of 60 particpants shortly afterward. With each successive flash mob the number of meditators grew, and eventually the movement spread to other cities. On September 21st of this year, the organization joined several ofthers for Be the Peace, which is a larger scale meditation movement "to celebrate the International Day of Peace" with 248 cities participating total. Kronfli's words about the event were that is was "a chance to invite the masses to join in a prayer and meditation for world peace."
This article struck me when I read it for several reasons. The idea of a flash mob, translated into a meditation movement, seems amazing to me. In essence, its purpose is the same as the purpose of a traditional flash mob: to gather together strangers in an event which celebrates life. And yet, the meditation mob is different and unique in its own way, for it promotes a much deeper and more profound sense of a connection between every individual. Sitting in silence in class, with both friends and strangers around me, I experience only a small part of this larger purpose. The next event is on November 11th, and I plan to join in on the meditation.

Doing Something Good For Myself

As I began researching yoga articles and journals, pictures and videos, I realized that I don't want to blog about anyone else today. I want to do something good for myself - and right now, that means posting a collage pictures that I find soothing and interesting to me, the one member of my yoga community. Instead of delving deep into the feelings and insights of others, I want to delve into my own joy and happiness. As school wanes, I can't help but feel the immense weight of stress pressing down on my shoulders and my heart. I've become so much heavier in my spirit, and I intend here to relieve this, if only for a moment. So, I present my collage of things that make me joyful, happy, and spirited - this is my visual yoga practice.

Intention #11

"Take a leap into the unknown and know that where you land is where you are meant to be." ~Unknown

Tomorrow, I will release myself from the feelings that detain me in the future and not in the present. I will know that where I am right now, in my career, my life, and my schooling, it is where I am meant to be. And I will seek out those precipices from which I can take that leap into the unknown, and find myself in a whole new place.

Mountain Yoga

Today, I went up to the mountains to escape from the problems and worries associated with Golden, Mines, and the city in general. I often feel confused and overstimulated by the busy nature of Mines curriculum and the chaos of my own feelings and those of others around me. When I began this yoga course, I found a temporary relief from these overwhelming sensations. For 45 minutes, I was able to concentrate on my breath and my body, and nothing else. It was amazing to feel the tension strip off of my body into nothingness as the breath became my mind and the body became my only sensation. As school becomes more and more involved, and worries about the future plague my fretful thoughts, I find myself doing less and less yoga on my own. So this Friday and Saturday of fall break, I escaped to the mountains. I found there a sense of detachment, a feeling of separation from myself. Just by being up in the mountains and taking in the beauty around me, I was able to find that detachment I crave so often now that the spheres of school, career, and family close in around me. Although I never did yoga in the mountains - in fact, I mostly slept, read, and enjoyed the outdoors - I found the same relief in this haven as I find in yoga. I wanted to share this experience I had, an experience of mountain yoga (without the yoga).

Intention #10

"I'm a reflection of the community." ~Tupac Shakur

After today's class, I really explored my reaction to partner and community yoga. We all have our trying days, and mine have been piling up as my schoolwork steadily builds. But today, I felt healed and strengthened by my classmates. It was surprising to me that merely touching and interacting with strangers in a safe, healthy environment could be so restoring. So today, I am going to extend my hand to my community of students, friends, family, and strangers. I am going to conciously be part of the community that surrounds me every day.

Yoga and Technology

As I began searching for new articles and videos about yoga this week, I was overwhelmed by how saturated the media is with "yoga knowledge." The Google search I performed on just the word "yoga" returned about 369,000,000 results! Our generation's world is expanding, and we are becoming engorged with information that we often only subconsciously absorb. And yet this expansion also reflects our widening world view, our growing tolerance for new ideas and practices. But how do we, as individuals, navigate the information provided us by modern technology? How can we use the Internet, for example, as a means of deepening our experience of yoga and, in turn, how can such technology harm our yoga practice? These questions only skim the surface of this complicated and ever-changing issue surrounding technology. Yet I feel they are important ones to ask.
Regarding my own practice of yoga, I gravitate towards the end of the spectrum that rejects technology. In so many ways, technology can dislocate our sense of existence - we are often unaware of our own bodies, our own thoughts, and our own surroundings. I believe this dislocation to be stagnating, for it prevents us as individuals from connecting with the very things that sustain and validate our existence - such as our breath. I relish the chance to simply lie on the ground, close my eyes, and surrender myself to the sounds, smells, textures, and sensations that I often ignore in daily life. In our Wednesday yoga class, I found peace within myself simply by experiencing music while lying still, and I find it hard to believe that such revelations can occur when staring at a television or computer screen that pulls us outside of our own bodies and suspends us in a type of limbo, a half-existence. Despite my own concerns about technology use in my yoga practice, I acquiesce that technology has aided the spread of yoga throughout the globe. The Internet can provide us with information about yoga techniques, and can even provide us with music to accompany our practice. Where do we draw the line though?

Intention #9

"When you've experienced grace and you feel like you've been forgiven, you're a lot more forgiving of other people. You're a lot more gracious to others." ~Rick Warren

Tomorrow, I will give the gift of forgiveness to those around me. We are all human, and to be forgiven allows our human nature to evolve and grow from our experiences. I have experienced grace, and will be more gracious to others because of it.