i usually put them in the disposal, but may drop them back in the carton while i'm working

[ironymaiden]

i'm reading the first of my takeaways from Norwescon: The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.

one of the recurring themes is "neurons that fire together wire together" - research shows that associating an activity or emotion with something else that happens simultaneously will bind them together in our brains. i'm chewing on this as i try, again, to make regular exercise a habit that sticks.

i've been back in yoga classes for about four weeks. since it's been a long time since i practiced regularly, i'm way out of shape, and i'm dragging along C (who has never attended a class) we took the neighborhood studio's into series. it starts with basics and adds more asanas each session. this meant that it was only last night that we did pigeon pose in class.

as i held it, tears started to roll. hip openers, and sometimes balances, bring up crazy shit for me. this time, after class i was angrier than i've been in a long time. pretty much everything that crossed my path enraged me and i had no inhibitions about expressing my feelings instantly. (i've worked very hard to place a governor between my brain and my mouth, with a limited degree of success. otherwise i have that Saggitarian superpower where i blurt exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.) C went into a similar place, which was kind of hysterical in retrospect because we had nothing more serious to shout at each other about than a disagreement about the proper disposal of eggshells.

this kind of thing is notorious, but i'm never entirely ready for it. i've never been angry before - usually i get hit with memories i didn't want to examine. i have to keep in mind that this will mostly pass as i practice regularly.

Comments

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I hope the intensity of the reaction was due to not having had it for a while, and as you move forward the tone of it lowers over time. (Or that it stops entirely, but I don't think that's realistic.)

FWIW, that's what I do with eggshells too.

[sinthrex.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing.

I haven't hit a pose yet that does that, though it's entirely possible that I haven't gotten deep enough into many of the poses yet. I've gotten glances from the instructor, because my downward facing dog is so pathetic due to how amazing tight my hamstrings are that I usually start chuckling about it.

[ivy]

Thanks for the book link! I've run across that phenomenon before, both as a mental hack and as a problematic association that I had to work to unbind. My best success with exercise has been friends + fun + exercise, and then blogging about it which brings one more friends who want to do such things with you. [grin] I hope it works similarly for you!

Pigeon fight: I'm sure it was awful at the time, but that is pretty damn hilarious. I haven't had the emotional upwelling in that context, but I've definitely had it happen similarly in others. Moving meditation, gaaaah sometimes.

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

I hope this works for you because that would be such a good thing to know-- and positive. The endorphin thing never worked for me which makes exercise more of a struggle. Oh to be like a dog and joyfully run everywhere.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I think I vaguely remember someone talking to me about having this kind of response from yoga, but I don't think it was you and I think it was years and years ago. I find it fascinating. I hope you find a way to find it cathartic because, obviously, buttons are being pushed somehow. I hope they're healthy ones. I hope you'll write more about your yoga journey. This is really interesting to me.

[ironymaiden]

one warning about the book: the author is a Freudian psychotherapist, which i didn't realize until we got to a chapter talking about sex and the Freudian vocab kicked in...i know that "perversion" is a technical term to him, but seeing it used in a discussion of porn and kink just makes me furious.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

I haven't been doing yoga very long, but I'm surprised to find how much I like it. I just follow classes at the gym, but that's enough for now – and it's convenient to be able to go to the classes without worrying about demerits for missing.

[buhrger]

i've had independent confirmation that he's pretty thoroughly freudian, yup. was the main off-note in the book, as you say.