Like about half the country, I’ve been doing daily yoga with Adrienne. I was enticed first by my wife, a certified yoga dance instructor, and then by my daughter-in-law, who had us tuning in every morning in their cozy fixed up cottage perched on a hill on the northwestern shore of Lake George ( an autumn visit undertaken after suitable quarantines and testing.). It’s wonderful to have a daily practice which truly melds mind and body.
As if channeling my blog from December 11, Adrienne is calling her 30 day program which began yesterday, Just Breathe. Like meditation and clinical hypnosis, the practice is centered on the breath. According to an article about her in the Sunday New York Times magazine several weeks ago, Adrienne first thought about this theme when learning about the George Floyd killing. She teared up when she was telling the story. If 2020 was the year when so many could not breathe - either literally - from Covid 19, the massive forest fires out West, or a policeman’s boot on the neck - or figuratively, from now knowing whether our democracy, or this planet, - can survive,we all hope 2021 will be a year when breathing will be easier for us all.
But it is not only the attention to the breath that yoga has in common with with hypnosis. Adrienne’s voice is warm and hypnotic. She is permissive, reminding participants to modify the practice as we see fit. She “invited us” to sit in a comfortable way - exactly the words i use with patients. And having just received my first Covid vaccine (the Moderna version) I was looking forward to relaxing my achey arm, and having the breath help that good messenger RNA get to work creating antibodies!
She suggested that a “part of you” can “observe yourself” on the mat. This “hidden observer” was found by the husband and wife psychologist researchers Hildegard and Hildegard to be a hallmark of the hypnosis process. There is always a part of our brain looking over us as we embark on a hypnosis practice, as a way of maintaining our identities, of monitoring what is going on. That is one reason that the fears of us doing something harmful or destructive in hypnosis, to ourselves or others, is largely unfounded.
Today, she invited us to “go inward.”. To go into the our inner world, to harness the imagination, is another hallmark of hypnosis. And being well versed in meditation and self-hypnosis, I was only too happy to take her up on it. She suggested that “You are your best teacher,” an expression I often use with patients. They are best able to figure out how best to use the suggestions we make.
When she instructed us to notice the “arrival” of every breath - and by implication, it’s departure - I instantly thought of trains arriving and departing from the White Plains where I would catch the commuter train to New York City as a kid. I loved everything about the train - the noise the engine and the steel wheels on the rails, the call of the conductor “Next Station stop Yonkers” or “next station stop Bronxville” or “Harlem.” I loved the changing views outside the slightly grimy windows and finally the period of underground darkness before we’d arrive at the awe-inspiring Grand Central Station. I loved the freedom of going into the city to explore on my own. I loved how it made me think of how my dad and I had put together a whole model train village, tacked own a big piece of plywood on hinges so it could be picked up and stored against the wall of my playroom basement.
When Adrienne said to “train our attention” onto some part of our body, her suggestion reinforced the image. And I was able to use the metaphor to utilize my breath to help focus on exactly what move, stretch, or position she was teaching us —- exactly what a good therapist utilizing clinical hypnosis would do. I ended the second session today feeling relaxed and alive. And my arm barely bothered me at all. When we focus on something else other than an achy part for a prolonged period, and direct healing energy to flow throughout our body, one can not help but to ameliorate discomfort.
Furthermore, using my imagination and my breath in this way was a magical way to wisk out the terrible year we’ve had, and to welcome in a hopeful and happier New Year. As the teenaged heroine Nao learns in Ruth Ozeki’s novel “A Tale for the Time Becoming”, using the mind and body together in this way is a “superpower” that anyone of us can learn!
And Adrienne is a excellent teacher.