I had been experiencing chronic stress for several years. After 10 miscarriages and two ectopic pregnancies, I knew I wouldn’t realize my dream of giving birth. My weight had reached an all-time high of 220lbs, and I didn’t know the next step. When I looked at my future, I saw nothingness. I don’t want to give the impression that I had nothing going for me because I had everything going for me. It just wasn’t what I expected. Remember I told you about the year I spent reflecting on my life up to that point? If you missed my post Going Up, it explains that process. At the end of that year, I made a few commitments to myself. I decided to plan for my future without children or a spouse, and I would get a dog. Dogs were always a part of my life, and I had missed that companionship. I also decided to make a career change to Higher Education. During the next 3 years, I lost 50 lbs. walking my dogs and changing my diet. I also started a PhD and discovered love again. The chronic stress was still there; I just replaced one thing with another. Now, instead of having a baby, I was trying to give birth to a Dissertation. I was burning the candle at both ends by working 40 hours a week as a teacher and dedicating another 40 hours to my PhD work. I didn’t know what burnout was then, but I was learning about it first-hand. That’s when I found Yoga and decided to weave it into my research and life. Fast forward to November 2019, I became Dr. Lisa Clow.
In my research, I learned that Yoga helps people feel better about themselves because it focuses on love. The first half of Yoga Sutra 1, Verse 33, says the psyche can be calmed by cultivating an object of friendliness, compassion, and gladness. Why do those actions calm us, and can they work to soothe our amygdala and relieve us from chronic stress? The Ancient Yogis knew what scientists have discovered in recent research. Strauss et al. examined definitions of compassion and agreed that some standard components exist. Compassion includes recognizing feelings of suffering in yourself or someone else and then feeling empathy. Empathy is more profound than sympathy because you know what the person is going through; you’ve walked in their shoes. Recognizing that we all suffer can bond us as a human species. A typical description of compassion also includes changing the circumstances to stop suffering. Who knew all those steps were included in compassion? Well, the Ancient Yogis understood and based the entire system on compassion. Before I go further, let’s try a compassion meditation; Sarah Blondin’s “A Letter to the Women of the World.” Namaste
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January 2025
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