Tag: yoga workshops

RAIN Meditation on TV addiction – Part 1

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A personal story on wanting – meditation on addiction

Four years ago I discovered Tara Brach’s RAIN meditation. It is not an exaggeration to say that it changed my life. Since then, I have read all of her books; have listened to hundreds of her podcasts; practiced daily; presented the meditation to my yoga students in Berlin and applied it to better understanding my daughter’s emotional world.

RAIN is a meditation that guides you through an emotion rather than around an emotion. RAIN is an acronym and each letter stands for a step to follow as you meditate:

  • R is for Recognize what you are feeling.
  • A is for Allow the feeling to be here as it is.
  • I is for Investigate where the feeling is in your body (this is not a mental investigation as to why this feeling is here).
  • N is for Nurture the hurting place.

If you want to get to know this meditation I highly recommend that you check out Tara Brach’s RAIN resource page.

What are my addictions?

When I was reading Tara’s Radical Acceptance I stumbled upon a chapter called “RAIN on Wanting”. This chapter was dedicated to how to use RAIN meditation on addiction and addictive behaviors. It got me thinking about if I have any addictive behaviors myself. The only thing I came up with that may be problematic was that I go through periods of time where I get totally wrapped in watching a series on Netflix. This is not constant and I still go to work and parent lovingly so I have never considered it to be an addiction. On the other hand, when I go through this it sometimes feel like I can not break the spell.

Can series watching be an addiction? How to bring meditation on addiction.

… when I go through this it sometimes feels like I can not break the spell.

Can series watching be an addiction?

Is this really a problem? Could it be an addiction? I sway between two poles when I think of this. On the one hand, I believe in the power of stories. It can be an art form of both entertainment but also (when watching something of quality) self discovery and empathy. Being put into another person’s shoes, living through the lens of their eyes, and opening yourself to other point of views carries beautiful transformative power. On the other hand, series watching also has an addictive sort of power to it. I feel that there are so many other things I could do in the evenings. Things that I equally love, such as listening to or playing music, drawing, singing or talking to a friend on the phone. Unfortunately, I often feel too tired to do any of these at the end of the day and turn to TV as a passive form of entertainment ending up to be my default choice.

Have you ever meditated on the feeling of wanting?

One thing that I realized as I pondered on these thoughts, was that I never ever have simply sat with the feeling of “wanting tv”. When this feeling of wanting arises there are two possible extremes that I react with. I either give in to it (turn on Netflix) or I come down very strongly on myself for having it (no! You have to work in the morning! And one episode will lead to another! And no, this is just not an option right now so stop feeling it!). Both the meditation world, as much as the psychological world, say that sitting with a feeling is important. This is something that I definitely practice a lot with other feelings in my life through RAIN and other techniques. So it was a big surprise for me to realize that there is one feeling – the feeling of wanting TV- that I have not sat with. I always react swiftly to it and never allow it to be. I either immediately act on it or push it away. What would bringing the RAIN meditation on addiction be like?

So I thought that next time the feeling arises I will pause and practice RAIN on wanting. I was curious to see if this would be helpful or give me new insights on the way I approach the subject. On Part 2 of this blog I will outline what happened during the meditation session. But till then, maybe some readers want to try out RAIN on Wanting on their own?

I am very interested to hear your experience.

About the author:

Pinelopi specializes in Hatha Yoga. Her yoga Kreuzberg Berlin classes are open for and welcoming to beginners. She offers Berlin business yoga,  private yoga classes for people struggling with chronic pain, yoga courses, retreats and workshops.  She is currently deepening her knowledge through Leslie  Kaminoff’s Yoga Anatomy course and training to become an Alexander Technique teacher.

Sorting Through Suffering–Is your subconscious talking?

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I recently offered a workshop: Self Healing through Yoga. Two weeks before the workshop, I got extremely stressed. At one point, I realized what I was doing. I caught my “ego mental voice” worrying about being successful rather than listening to my heart which was clearly saying, “I trust that the people who need to be there will come and they will receive what they need from the workshop.” Repeating negative mental thoughts, together with the pressure to not fail, brought intense stress and unnecessary mental pain into my life all the way up until the workshop.
The workshop went very well.

The following week, however, I had a series of unpleasant events which seemed to culminate in the loss of my wallet. I wondered what was happening to me. I immediately posed this question to my dreams and asked them to help me understand what was I missing.

I looked at the symbolic messages from my dreams and the things that were happening in my life and was finally able to decipher the message my subconscious was trying to send me. I realized that I had not been humble about the success of the workshop. I took most of the credit for myself without recognizing all the support I had from the other teachers at the studio who promoted my workshop, the support of my community who sent good thoughts my way and also the support from the greater force who guided the right people to attend. I didn’t take the time to sit and meditate in gratitude for all the help sent my way.

The day after this realization, I found my wallet. It had been in my house the whole time!

Instead of believing that the universe was playing a trick on me, I believe that my subconscious mind was trying to bring me to a place of awareness that I previously couldn’t see. The loss of my wallet was representing a loss of focused values within myself.

One of the first questions in the workshop that I had just finished teaching was “what needs to be healed”? This is what I really need to heal: I did not need to lose my wallet in order to make up for my lack of humility after the workshop. I needed to forgive myself without needing to punish myself- to be concious of my attitudes and learn from my mistakes.

Through the symbolic interpretation of the messages of my dreams and others events in my life, things started to make more sense. I became very aware of something that was restraining me from being free. I am now more aware of how difficult my subconscious mind can make my reality- even to the point of actually losing my physical things!

There are many types of pain. There is external, internal, that which is brought by others, and that which we bring on ourselves. They are all difficult and they all hurt. But they can also teach things, about life, about limits, about taking care of ourselves and about practicing gratitude.

Perhaps the most complicated of the types of pain is the kind we bring on ourselves- the kind that is so often created by our subconscious mind. Self inflicted pain often shows itself in the form of useless stress and mental turmoil that we so naturally create in our own lives. Fortunately, we always have the option to examine this pain conciously and to grow in the process.

For more information about interpreting your dreams, join us for our next Dream Yoga Workshop.

Spaces are limited and the last workshop was full–you can contact us to reserve your space in advance.