Sandra is a quiet girl. I to have to pry the information from her. "How is your asthma?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "Fine."
"What do you mean your asthma is fine?"
"Yoga has helped me. I am down to squirting from one inhalator a day. I don't use the stronger one at all anymore."
"When do you squirt it? I asked.
"Before I go to sleep."
It was during savasana one night when all my students were dutifully concentration on breathing, that I leaned over Sandra. "Why do you use that inhalator?" I whispered.
"I'm afraid of not breathing at night." She whispered back.
All of a sudden I had an idea. "Have you ever tried holding your breath for a short time?"
I told her to inhale, and hold her breath, two seconds--kumbaka. This would clean out the air sacs of her lungs, clean out the memories of her little sister dying, give her the feeling she was in control and ease her fear about not breathing. Kumbaka is supposed to be the secret of long life, mental health and longevity. Soon she could hold her breath 15 seconds. Sandra was thrilled with her accomplishment.
"See? Not breathing a little bit is not frightening. When you go to bed, think of this." I told her.
Wanting to cure herself of asthma, every night before she went to bed, not only did she do deep breathing from her belly, she increased her breath retention to 25 seconds. And you know what?
Just last week, six months after she began Yoga, Sandra stopped using an inhator altogether! Better than that, Sandra is cured of asthma!
Friday, June 29, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Curing Asthma through Yoga Part One
One of my first Yoga pupils was a teenaged girl, Sandra, who had been suffering from asthma since she was a little girl. I vaguely knew her family. Her sister who had had congenital heart disease died about twelve years ago; I had seen the little girl being wheeled around in her oxygen mask. I didn't say anything to Sandra. I just welcomed her into my class.
I began by teaching her deep breathing from the belly; then showing her how to stretch the inhaled air up through her ribs to her chest. I saw she only breathed superficially,and was only filling the top of her lungs. The breathing exercises relaxed her; her concentration improved, and she seemed stronger. Once a week she would hitchhike to my house where I held the class. It didn't matter if it was raining, sleeting or storm, she would arrive hopefully at my door, breathing through her mouth in a loud wheezing way. Though she was dedicated, she continued to be asthmatic and to use two different kinds of inhalators.
The first breakthrough came when none of the other pupils that night showed up and I could work with her alone. I asked her when her asthma began. She told me when she was six years old. ' Was that when your sister died? " I asked her.
"I got asthma two years before she died," she responded.
I told her to lie down and do the deep breathing, and I propped pillows beneath upper back to open up her lungs. But this time I said to her, "You are lying on your bed, a little girl. You don't have asthma yet, and your sister is still alive." Suddenly her breathing became quiet, flowing like a stream.
The minute she came back to the present, her wheezing resumed, but she was glowing, as if she had made a discovery. The problem was emotional and deeply rooted. Over the next few months, we worked on this.
Stay tuned for Part Two and do have a look at my website!
http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/
I began by teaching her deep breathing from the belly; then showing her how to stretch the inhaled air up through her ribs to her chest. I saw she only breathed superficially,and was only filling the top of her lungs. The breathing exercises relaxed her; her concentration improved, and she seemed stronger. Once a week she would hitchhike to my house where I held the class. It didn't matter if it was raining, sleeting or storm, she would arrive hopefully at my door, breathing through her mouth in a loud wheezing way. Though she was dedicated, she continued to be asthmatic and to use two different kinds of inhalators.
The first breakthrough came when none of the other pupils that night showed up and I could work with her alone. I asked her when her asthma began. She told me when she was six years old. ' Was that when your sister died? " I asked her.
"I got asthma two years before she died," she responded.
I told her to lie down and do the deep breathing, and I propped pillows beneath upper back to open up her lungs. But this time I said to her, "You are lying on your bed, a little girl. You don't have asthma yet, and your sister is still alive." Suddenly her breathing became quiet, flowing like a stream.
The minute she came back to the present, her wheezing resumed, but she was glowing, as if she had made a discovery. The problem was emotional and deeply rooted. Over the next few months, we worked on this.
Stay tuned for Part Two and do have a look at my website!
http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/
Friday, June 22, 2007
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life and Mine
At the age of 56, I felt like I had come to the end of a branch on the kabbalistic Tree of Life, and even more than that, the branch was about to break. I felt like I had made the wrong decision in my life about profession and career. In addition to raising five children, and doing Yoga and meditation, I had been writing books that sold and books that no one wanted to touch, articles that were published and articles which never saw the light of day. A writer's life is a lonely and egoistical life, and no one knew it better than me. Sitting on the end of that branch, I realized a happy life was giving to others, hearing their thoughts, feeling their pain , reaching out heart and hand. "If I could do it all over again, I would be a healer!" I cried to myself.
I must have cried aloud because my children, now grown, heard me. "Mom," they said, "You've been doing Yoga all your life, why don't you start teaching Yoga?
"Just like that?" I asked
"Sure, just let people know that you are starting classes. Now jump down from that branch."
And that is just what I did.
I called up a neighbor and she called other neighbors. Within one month, I had six pupils. I was on another branch of the Tree of Life and from this vista, the world was the most beautiful thing and human beings were exquisite creatures.
See more on my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/
I must have cried aloud because my children, now grown, heard me. "Mom," they said, "You've been doing Yoga all your life, why don't you start teaching Yoga?
"Just like that?" I asked
"Sure, just let people know that you are starting classes. Now jump down from that branch."
And that is just what I did.
I called up a neighbor and she called other neighbors. Within one month, I had six pupils. I was on another branch of the Tree of Life and from this vista, the world was the most beautiful thing and human beings were exquisite creatures.
See more on my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Genesis of a Book
Writing a book for a few years is not an easy matter when you have children and even some granchildren running around the house. It is even harder when you are writing a book about Tarot symbols which you happened to discover in Franz Kafka when no one in the world thinks Franz Kafka was familiar with the Tarot, and your own neighbors do not know you even use Tarot cards. But there it was, the Tarot card The Hermit, staring out at me from Kafka's Amerika, and I knew I couldn't be quiet about it. The world had to know that the occult Tarot and respectable literature do meet.
I ran to my own Tarot library. Using esoteric scholar Robert Wang, I studied his bibliographies. There was a strong connection between Tarot and Kabbalah. So I began studying kabbalah at the university where I was doing my doctorate and for one year I studied the Zohar and the kabbalah of Rabbi Yizhak Luria, (the kabbalah that Madonna studies) Yet, I knew in order to write about the Tarot in literature I had to write more concretely and academically and I had to use models. Where had the Tarot in literature been discusssed before? I ran to the Encyclopedia Britannica. No entries for the Tarot, but their index directs me to T.S Eliot’s “The Wasteland.’ I learn that the Tarot figures in his ‘Wasteland’, in Madame Sosotris's Tarot.
I ran to the data base called the MLA. There were no entries for Eliot and the Tarot or this particular poem and the Tarot. I searched for ‘the Tarot and Literature.” It opened up to W.B. Yeats who was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. So my bibliography grew. I studied and researched and looked at the Tarot cards and read their meanings in the stories, poems, and novels of Yeats, Eliot and Kafka, and wrote and wrote, and edited and sweated, and compiled a bibliography and even did an index.It was a journey of discovery with lots of pain and confusion and frustration on the way.
The most frustrating thing of course was sending out letters to publishers and either being ignored, or politely refused, But finally my manuscript was accepted by the University Press of America, and just this week three years after I began, my publisher just sent me my copies hot off the press!
You can see my book on Amazon.com or on my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/
I ran to my own Tarot library. Using esoteric scholar Robert Wang, I studied his bibliographies. There was a strong connection between Tarot and Kabbalah. So I began studying kabbalah at the university where I was doing my doctorate and for one year I studied the Zohar and the kabbalah of Rabbi Yizhak Luria, (the kabbalah that Madonna studies) Yet, I knew in order to write about the Tarot in literature I had to write more concretely and academically and I had to use models. Where had the Tarot in literature been discusssed before? I ran to the Encyclopedia Britannica. No entries for the Tarot, but their index directs me to T.S Eliot’s “The Wasteland.’ I learn that the Tarot figures in his ‘Wasteland’, in Madame Sosotris's Tarot.
I ran to the data base called the MLA. There were no entries for Eliot and the Tarot or this particular poem and the Tarot. I searched for ‘the Tarot and Literature.” It opened up to W.B. Yeats who was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. So my bibliography grew. I studied and researched and looked at the Tarot cards and read their meanings in the stories, poems, and novels of Yeats, Eliot and Kafka, and wrote and wrote, and edited and sweated, and compiled a bibliography and even did an index.It was a journey of discovery with lots of pain and confusion and frustration on the way.
The most frustrating thing of course was sending out letters to publishers and either being ignored, or politely refused, But finally my manuscript was accepted by the University Press of America, and just this week three years after I began, my publisher just sent me my copies hot off the press!
You can see my book on Amazon.com or on my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/
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