I am in his class at least every other day. The most intriguing yoga teacher I have found here in NYC, Dechen Thurman. Generally he closes class with a ten minute seated meditation. At times we sit in silence, and other times he rambles on as we focus on the breath or third eye center. This particular night was one of those ramble-on nights. I deeply enjoy his monotone babble, it affects me much more than I realize, as I sit in a puddle of sweat from the last hour and half grueling vinyasa practice. During his conversation with himself, this particular evening, Dechen said something along the lines of,
“How many of us remember things how we want them to be?...
You are retelling a story to a friend, and you are excitedly explaining a confrontation you had with a co-worker. You say, you said this…and then your co-worker said this… and then you wanted to say this, but you didn’t. When you retell your friend the story you tell it as if you did say that awesome comeback, and the tone of your voice implies ‘TAKE THAT! HA!”
I huge smile came to my face, my yoga teacher just called me out! I have most certainly done that. I never mean to lie or embellish the story, but in the heat of the moment the rewritten story just comes out of your mouth as truth. What is this all about? I didn’t even have time to consciously edit the story. My mind selected the edited version, as if it really happened. “In a sense, when we remember something, we recreate a new memory” Johnson pg. 46. I rewrote history as I was reliving the story and telling my friend all about it. “Some scientists now believe that memories effectively get rewritten every time they’re activated, thanks to a process called reconsolidation.” Johnson pg. 46 What does this mean about my memory? How did the event really go down, if each time I remember a previous life event, I experience something different? How credible are my faculties of perception, or even my recollection of perception? For instance when remembering a previous love relationship, or a horrific event in the past we can experience physical sensations in the body from the remembrance of this memory. If we rewrite memories, do we have the mental power to rewrite our associations to the past? “Memories transform our perception of the present, but the process is even more nuanced and layered than that: reactivating memories in a new context changes the trace of memory itself.” Johnson pg. 46.
Memories and leaned behaviors affect how we interact with the world in the present moment. Our associations with the past is exactly who we are. Every time we relive the stimulus retracing the neurocircuitry of a past event, it becomes reshaped because of the existing subtle differences in our mind, body and environment. If these two ideas hold true, then we have the power to simulate the memory of a past event and change our associations by controlling the present stimulus that is filtered through our sense organs and brain. Sounds like a bazaar matrix-like sci-fi experiment. The baffling thing is spiritual seekers, monks, and sages have been activating this same concept through meditation and spiritual practices for thousands of years.
Yasodhara Ashram is a magical place situated in the West Kootaney’s of British Columbia on Kootaney Lake. The ashram’s founder a female of the Saraswati lineage, Swami Sivananda Radha. Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, her Guru told her to return to the west and communicate the truth of yogic teachings to westerners. With no money, and no plan she left India to live the words of her Guru. While living at Yasodhara Ashram in 2009 I learned a walking meditation tactic called The Straight Walk. The guidelines that outline the practice of the straight walk are vague for a reason. The practitioner has optimum space to observe the mind and body. Start at point A and walk to point B. Turn your back at point B, and then walk back to point A. The object is to walk towards, and then away from ‘something’, while observing how the mind and body interacts in the space between point A and point B. The walk takes place in intervals determined by the practitioner; five-minute walk between the points, and then a five-minute free write of your experience. Repeated as many times as the practitioner sees fit. The yogi becomes the scientist and the experiment simultaneously.
My name is Susan Ashley Hunt, and I am a recovering bulimic. I avoided therapy at all costs throughout high school and college. I convinced myself it would not work for me, and I had to heal myself. I was living with my parents, and at a very low moment about three years into the emotionally sick habit, my mother found food and purge reminisce in my toilet boil. I hadn’t cleaned it well enough, and she noticed when she was in my bathroom. With nowhere else to turn she threatened to kick me out of the house and put me in a rehabilitation center. I slowed the habit down, in order to not be caught again until I went back to school. I graduated college, unhappy with a distorted view of my reality and myself. Yoga and its healing power lead me to Yasodhara Ashram, to live and participate in yoga development course.
Swami Sivanada, a resident teacher at Yasodhara Ashram described the straight walk with clarity and then said, “Now go do it.” As I ran to a quite place, I knew exactly what I was going to walk towards and away from. Point A would be a healthy, happy, smiling version of myself. Point B would be me, on my knees, with my head over the toilet, bottom of the toothbrush down my throat, purging with tears running down my face. Johnson points out the process of memory recollection is layered and very complicated. That was most definitely the truth, all I know is when times get rough I turn to binging and purging. It is the action that satiates my mind, when layered conflict, and undecipherable emotions arise in life. This is precisely the reason I chose the situation for the straight walk. Here I was in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, confronting the biggest issue in my life. I visualized the memory, reliving it, in a controlled circumstance, where I gave myself the space to observe.
The hour walk was filled with strong sensations, epiphanies, low points and an array of emotions.“Conscious control over the emotions is weak, emotions can flood the consciousness. This is so because the wiring of the brain at this point in our evolutionary history is such that connections from the emotional systems to the cognitive systems are stronger than connections from the cognitive systems to the emotional systems.” Le Doux, pg. 19. Reliving the purging memory in a different stage of life, delegates the power of association to the cognitive system of JUDGEMENT FREE AWARENESS. As the scientist, I was conducting a controlled experiment, and this time the variable was not being overwhelmed by emotions, the variable was the present moment. As I walked I let myself feel, digest and understand what drove me to binge. As I walked toward a happy thriving image of myself I wired my brain to develop a healthy self-image. Walking between these two points demonstrated the progression that lead to each state, giving me the power recognize either mental trajectory in the present moment. The straight walk allows the emotional systems and the cognitive systems to function in equilibrium. Restoring the power of choice, we have the choice to choose who we are in every present moment. Who we are no longer is has to be dictated by associations to the past. All we have is NOW.
By: S. Ashley Hunt
Check out these books and links:
- Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life By: Steven Johnson
- The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life By: Joseph LeDoux
- Link to Straight Walk Workshops @ Yasodhara Ashram
