The next time you notice you feel anxious, pause to ask yourself: “How do I know that I’m anxious?”
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Our emotions begin as physical sensations in the body. These sensations, paired with our thoughts, are quickly understood as emotions. This process usually happens subconsciously. But there are clear indicators of our anxiety in the body: the pace of the breath, amount of tension in the muscles, and heart rate.

However, when we feel anxious much of the time, it can become difficult to feel these things, even when we practice mindfulness. We become desensitized and anxiety just feels like “the new normal.” And if anxiety is very intense, it can feel like breathing or meditating does nothing to alleviate it.
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Can you relate?

What are emotions anyway? We spend a lot of time trying to categorize emotions into good and bad, get rid of the “bad” emotions, and increase the good stuff. More happiness, less sadness. No anger, all calmness.
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This can lead to a lot of stress and struggle. ​​We spent so much time and energy trying to get rid of our anxiety and fear, and yet it keeps finding its way back into our life. Like that arcade game Whac-A-Mole – you keep trying to push it all down, but our emotions keep popping up in other unexpected places. Except, unlike the game, there are no prizes, and the game doesn’t end.

Exhausting, right?
If you want to find a new way to relate to your emotions, try this on for size.

​Have you ever tried to practice mindfulness in the middle of a panic attack?
 
For those who experience significant anxiety, the idea of being mindful when in the middle of a panic attack may seem a little absurd, and there is good reason for this. When we become severely anxious, our brain goes offline as a means of protecting itself. This is why people sometimes don’t remember details of traumatic events or dissociate when overwhelmed. Mindfulness is a skill that uses the mind, so it’s a tricky skill to use when the mind switches off in a state of significant stress.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Or maybe you’ve even said it yourself, when someone drops that now trendy and overused word: mindfulness. “I’m not very good at mindfulness. I can’t meditate very well.”
 
Oh, trust me. I know this feeling too. I've had this thought. Many times.
 
That's why, when I talk to clients about mindfulness, I’ll be totally honest - I do it with hesitation. Mainly, because I know how misunderstood this powerful little word can be. So I want to break this word down and simplify it for you, so you can start experiencing the benefits of being present without hitting these pitfalls.

Often I hear someone say to me: “I want to try yoga. I have friends who do yoga and they recommended I try it. But I don’t know where to start.” It saddens me when I hear that someone hoping to benefit from yoga comes out of their first class either shell-shocked or bored to tears, and as a result never goes back. A lot of negative first experiences with yoga have much more to do with goodness of fit than anything else. Like psychotherapy, there are some common factors to what makes a yoga class high in quality (i.e. compassionate and educated teacher), but also like therapy, the diversity of approaches and techniques is immense.
 
If you are interested in starting a yoga practice, first ask yourself what you are hoping to get from yoga, and go from there.
 
Today I’ll be reviewing a few of the major forms of yoga. I will do my best to be as objective as possible, but want to acknowledge at the outset that I am myself a certified yoga instructor in the vinyasa school, and so this is the form of yoga I am most familiar with. However, I’ve practiced as a student in many forms of yoga, and can speak from personal experience about the benefits and challenges of each school. For the purposes of this post, I will not be going into great detail about the philosophies and theories behind each school of yoga, but rather focus on the lived experience of attending a class, so you can find the form of yoga most likely to fit your needs and have a successful first experience on the mat.