Ego Depletion

Do you want to make a big shift in your life? You want to begin a healthier diet, or an exercise program, quit smoking, quit alcohol, tackle compulsive shopping, or in our case, begin a masterful Breathing Program. There are many stages and pitfalls along the way, some you know well, and then, there is this other obstacle called “Ego Depletion.” Read on.

First, there is the “Bloom of Inspiration.” You see the Big Picture. You see the long term effects of where you could go, For example, you know without a doubt, deep in your bones that regular exercise will help your body, emotions and mind. It will make your whole life happier, if your body is happier and functioning well. A vital body and mind will help you accomplish all the other things in your life you want to achieve. Regular exercise makes sense. You see the bigger picture about where this new activity will lead you. You decide to take action.

The second stage is important: to make a commitment to yourself. “I want to effect this change in my life.” It is powerful to write your commitment down, and build in a system of reminders to help you stay on track. Use your phone, write post it notes and place them around the house. Keep a calendar of your practice is powerful system that helps you get to exercise. Give yourself small rewards for getting through your practice. Announcing your intention to a group of friends adds extra power and force to help make this great change in your life. Sometimes the social connection can be the smartest way to keep you accountable and on track with going in the direction you have chosen.

You make great strides for a week, maybe two. You are riding the high of your initial inspiration. It takes will power to get the whole thing started, and it will take will power and all the other tricks you can think of to get you through the many walls of resistance that naturally show up. You may even make “sacrifices” like not going to a friend’s party because you know it will be a slippery place, you will feel like shit afterwards. and you might not exercise for a week after Bob’s party. Going to Bob’s party would be a disaster, because, well, you know Bob.

If you make it through this stage, congratulations! You chose long term advantage, for impulsive short term gratification. This kind of “Executive Decision” is usually connected to the Orbitofrontal cortex which is found behind the eyebrows. (Imagine if you had a practice that strengthened that part of the brain, like This Next Breath!)

30 or 40 days pass and you are still with your exercise program. You have been true to your commitment and intention. You enter a new wonderful phase, called “Momentum.” Now your inspiration has turned from “good idea” into a habit. Your project suddenly gets easier. You don’t have to force yourself to get out of bed and exercise. You are getting so much self esteem, joy and power from feeling like you are in control of your life. You can make change! You can steer your life towards a better future! This is a very empowering stage. It has become “The New You.”

Time passes. A few months go by. Life changes. Things happen. The shininess fades. And then a critical obstacle called “Ego Depletion” rears its ugly head.

Theories on “Ego Depletion” are a crucial topic in social psychology. It is based on the idea that will power is a limited quantity. It occurs when mental and physical energy is low and the barriers to impulsivity break down. The self control to make long term choices over short term gratification falls apart. The personality that was originally inspired, that made a commitment, that lived the commitment for 30 days or 30 years, falls apart. Emotions arise. Thoughts become slippery things. The voices in your head suddenly start finding “reasons” why you should do the opposite course of action. “It’s too hard” “ I need a break” “Everything in moderation.” There are literally thousands of ways humans self sabotage our best intentions. We find plausible “reasons,” but the reasons were ultimately based in emotion! (see previous blog post.)

Some psychologists have suggested using fructose, glucose on the tongue, but not fully consuming it to help make a shift back into your original inspiration.

For the Yogis, it always comes back to the Witness. Can I Witness those thoughts, rather than identify with those voices. Can I stay operating at a higher level? Dealing with personality and behavior change is the toughest and most rewarding adventures of all.

Here is where a breath practice can serve like no other endeavor. Breath practices are closely connected to our higher evolution. Breath and Spirit, one’s innermost essence, are one and the same reality to the yogi mystic. Come back to this next breath, over and over, and over again when the going gets rough. Being able to observe what is arising in the mind by staying on the edge of the moment can be daunting. This is where skillfulness with a breath practice can come to your aid and help steer your life towards a better future.

In the Hatha Yoga Pradeepikaa and in the writings of Swaamee Kripalu, you will find that they speak so highly of breath practices leading to the evolution of your consciousness like no other practice. Anuloma Viloma in particular, is unparalleled in helping you make the quantum leap of your life. Breath practice like long exhales and the subtle body energetics we use in this program, bring you into the “Seat of the Soul,” where you resonate with the essence of your life’s purpose. You get the bigger picture of your life. A long term breath practice, like we offer in This Next Breath, are like the movie “Ground Hog Day.” You evolve into a better version of yourself.

Warning: it is helpful to remember, “Humans have an infinite capacity to deceive themselves.” May we all catch our self deceptions before acting on them. Heaven help us all.

Praanaayaama Diary 12/31/18

Praanaayaama diary: 12/31/18. Slowly, I have built back a strong Praanaayaama practice rekindling my ashram days. Back then it was 24 minutes “AV” Anuloma Viloma, & 90 minutes asana. “Practice happy, build it slowly.”

My baseline this month was 24 mInutes AV and then four little 4 minute AV practices WOFHOW. (Without fail, hell or high water.) 16 days this month I got in a double 24+24. Things start to get pretty trippy at this level, but the good kind of feeling: sharper attention and memory, increase in articulation. I started adding in the AV Flow this month which makes it doubly double intense. (1 minute AV flow=2 mInutes AV.)

Yesterday, I tested the boundaries. 36 in the early am AV flow, 20 minutes leading a class in AV flow, 30 minutes more in photoshoot AV flow with Belinda. Plus multiple small practices.

Yes, that is the boundary for me right now. It feels like an alchemical transformation factory inside. Fireworks without the gun powder. A strong desire to purify on every level arises. Purification is the only way to shift into what this practice calls for. Breath burns up what is impure: food, thoughts and habits.

The boundary is when irritation starts arising. The signs of too much are clear. Then it is time to stop. “Practice happy, build it slowly “ is the first rule.

I am telling this to you because most people do yoga but don’t really understand what a Praanaayaama practice is.

No wonder Swaamee Kripalu said “Praanaayaama is the soul of yoga. It is yoga itself.”

Don't Cardio, Breathio...

Juliet asks:
“How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?”
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 5

The simple answer to Juliet’s famous question is “expiratory reserve volume.”

Juliet’s poor nurse, like many people, lives her life in the tidal volume of her breath and when challenged uses her expiratory reserve volume. Most likely, if she is a Shakespearean nurse, she has a slumping posture, a droopy heart and a collapsed rib cage. She gets through life with a small breath.

Cardio is a bad strategy for this nurse. “Cardio, Cardio, Cardio,” is the old and busted January mantra. Strengthening the heart muscle is noble, but the heart is only part of the picture. In January, many people get back to running and feel their heart beating out of their chest. We FEEL it in the heart. The pounding heart is how the limited myth of cardio began. Make the pump pump faster.

“Where you think it is, it ain’t” said the great Ida Rolf.

To be healthy, the myth goes, you have to make the heart beat faster and faster, and work harder and harder for 30 minutes everyday. Forget about the rest of the plumbing.

Physiologically speaking, the heart is only 20 - 30% of how the mitochondria (the power houses in the cells) get fed oxygen. Overall, it is a complex reality including the lungs, blood vessels, diet, metabolism, blood quality, posture, daily habits, age, past history, genetics and the quality of your mind states.

The heart and lungs are inseparable. The right side of the heart pumps blood into the lungs and the lungs then feed the left side of the heart. The left side of the heart then pumps it into 300,000 miles of blood vessels. We can chop heart and lungs apart with a scalpel, but they are one.

“Breathio, Breathio, Breathio” is the start of a bigger picture. Developing your lungs, fascia and skeleton is the yogic approach. Barring medical conditions, first passively manipulating the lungs, rib cage, spine is far easier and a kinder method for our Shakespearean nurse. Developing your breath means you are going to work with posture and alignment for many months or years and create new habits. The entire body, mind and spirit eventually become involved in taking this next breath.

The myth of deep breathing is a persistent one, even in yogic circles. There is a belief that yoga is all about deep breathing 24/7. Nope. That is still not the yogic method. We do practice near total lung capacity a couple of times a day in a daily practice. However, the deep and energizing breath practices of yoga (kapaalabhaati and bhastrikaa) are only preparations, not the central practice itself. The myth of deep breathing confuses many yoga teachers. Your breath needs to match your metabolic rate and that range is tightly controlled by the body.

The central practice of yoga is praanaayaama. A major milestone in yoga is eventually slowing the breath down to the two-breaths-per-minute range through alternating nostrils for 24 minutes. Then the breath slows down more. An ordinary person, like you and me, can do this with training and time. Anyone can do this. It is not hard to do, once you get your breathing habits in place and practice consistently. You don’t have to be smart, talented or a contortionist. You do need to be persistent.

The breath doesn’t lie. You cant use your will to accomplish this in one day. You, the person reading this right now, can build a powerful breath practice in the next year. Practice happy, build it slowly.

This Next Breath is an online breath course that will help you do this. It is lighthearted and fun too. The course is made up of videos, audio recordings and online coaching and support. You can develop the ultimate skill, the breath, at home. Find out more.

Reflect on past decisions. Decisions are emotion based.

"Decisions are emotion based, and then we back them up with reasons." says Blake Eastman, of the Non Verbal Group, a Human Behavior Expert. "It is necessary to have a reflective system in place to examine the thought process that went behind every decision, and that includes writing them down, if we are going to understand ourselves and make better decisions. There is only one way to steer our lives. Are all my decisions and behaviors consistent with my goals? Everyone needs a review process in place if you are going to have your behavior align with your goal."

Reflection on the thought process that went into a decision, is the piece I need to come back to today. Without deep reflection on our decisions, especially in the early morning hours, we will continue to make emotion based reactions that may or may not be in alignment to where we want to go. Is my thought process emotional justification, rationalization? Is that a squirrelly sub personality?

If the voice inside says "I will wait and see how I feel", "I am too sick""Too tired" "'I can't' means I won't" these are usually emotion based voices that are powerfully convincing and may sound like "my truth," one of the smarmiest phrases ever. These voices are not really you, the yogis will tell you. Ekhart Tolle would call them your "Pain body speaking."

Setting a goal and living it, is one of the most exciting, worthwhile and self esteem building things a human can do.

One of the tenets of this program is to "Never Miss A Day." In the early morning hours, as we transition from sleep to waking state, our mental decision making capacity is diminished. Some days the thought process at that time of the day is murky and dark. In this course, we follow the maxims "Practice Anyway." "Show up for your life.""Keep a Calendar."

This Next Breath is a simple 25 minute Breathing Program and done everyday becomes a super powerful, super charging, life changing force, or so say the people doing this program wholeheartedly. It starts off small and grows big. Even though this practice is 25 minutes, any commitment to a goal invites breakdown, and fears around breakdown and all kinds of interior personality problems. Gratitude and Forgiveness are important friends along the way.

Maybe practice today doesn't look like other days, (personally I am up to one hour of Anuloma Viloma) and I showed up, hell or high water, ragged and beaten up by this cold. Resistance was at an all time high. Maybe todays practice was "shoddy" compared to the other supersonic days. Drop the judgment about "good and bad" again and again and again. Start again.

We all do the best we can with our commitments. I wish you well with the voices inside your head and steering your life. What you practice gets stronger.

"Just when you think you have mastered the voices in your head, they get trickier. Yogi Amrit Desai