8/29/24 Live Session Recording / Guest Colleen Kuemmel

I liked the shares on sleeping and just how important it is to a human being. When I am deprived of sleep and rest my body begins to shut down and I become super emotional. I have learned that I cannot be superwoman and that I need to rest in between trying to do everything right now. I am the type of person who takes on too much sometimes and I am the one who suffers for it.  

I learned so much from Colleen's body scan. I'll never forget when my therapist asked if she could do a guided body scan with me, and it was so amazing. I never believed that could do anything until I actually was willing to try it. I would be interested in learning more body scan techniques to try on a group of people. I will be reaching out to you to get in touch with her.

Just finished the lesson/ recording.  When I first heard the idea of Saucha, I was immediately judgmental of the idea of purity from my association with patriarchy and religion.  I liked the reframe to think about," cleaning up my own space both mentally and emotionally.  Also, the connection to the environment and how prisons, people of color, impoverished people are often forced to live in polluted areas.  Saucha also evokes this feeling I have, perhaps dread, not to be polluted by the parts of me that are cynical and hopeless.   I experienced this working as a county designate and part of my job was to assess SI/HI/ and gravely disabled people under a 5150.  The majority of time, it was people needing a place to sleep, come down, transportation out of the area. There was incredible waste and having to go into the ER at all hours of the night led to burn out.  I notice this kind of," purity," and curiousness I have now being new to my new job.  I notice many people in the prison system do not and I fear this happening to me.  This challenge of seeing oneself without empathy, this challenge of being a person with resentment is awful.  I resented my colleagues because I worked more than anyone else as I did not have kids.  During the pandemic, they wanted me to assess via computer screen and I refused as I could not do a true assessment.  Taking someone's rights away is a very big deal.  My colleagues resented me because I would go into the ER and they would say things like, " You are endangering all of us."  So for them, I was unclean.  It was worth it to me because the idea of releasing someone and then they kill themselves was a boundary I could not cross. 

Great Class (as always) 

I really resegnated with the share of feeling guilt around rest. The world we live in is hyper-capitalistic and we often feel we have to do/achive/give/share more with others and 'earn' rest. I have found myself wrapped up in that feeling of needing to earn rest - this has been a great reminder that we all need, deserve, and should give ourselves rest.

I listened to the conversation of purity and breathed a sigh of relief, I think often conversations on purity and 'purity culture' are toxic, misogynistic and damaging and often used as a tactic to control and reinforce harms against woman. I thank you for naming that that is often how the idea of purity is used. I like the idea of purity is truthfulness, clarity and connection to highest self and the embodied trust of self and gut

I resonate more with using the word organic rather than purity for the reasons you mentioned, it can be a triggering word for female bodies. I like the idea of trying to clear the clutter within, getting rid of excess thoughts that are causing harm. When we talk about clearing material clutter, I feel it's important to consider where we are rerouting that clutter and how they could be harmful for the environment, consider illegal dumping or throwing stuff in the trash. I have really been trying to use Buy Nothing facebook groups and marketplaces to either give away or sell items at a deep discount so they get a second home. 

Thank you Colleen for the presentation. I often find Yoga Nidra helps me ease into sleep when I am particularly restless. 

We were asked to think about our rest. I have always been someone that requires a lot of sleep. 8 to 10 hours in order to function. I do not think I got a lot of rest as a child and the adults in my life were hard workers who rarely rested or took time for themselves. Rest appeared lazy. I am still fighting this guilt and shame. But through learning about my CPTSD, I just require more sleep. So my body can heal. As far as Saucha. This lesson was one of my least favorites just because of the bodily sensations I did not realize I had surrounding the word Purity. It feels so icky. It makes me think of expectations a man has for his wife / daughter / church congregation. And from my experience the man is a huge part of the impurity. I was glad when Jenn offered a shift in vocabulary so I was able to see the yama more clearly. Purity into clarity!

Thank you for the session I watched it and wrote some notes in my diary but I am writing some thoughts here as well from that date: The importance of sleep. To pay attention to it in my own life. Still running a "mental program" from childhood that I have to be be be do do do and there is NO time to rest or sleep. So its very deep in my body. I feel a lot of anxiety in the days that I rake time to "rest" because" I am not productive and not making money.  

I am incorporatin more Yoga Nidra and Body Scan in my own practice and this is something Ill love to share in some sessions. 

I feel this weekly conversations are very enriching about genetics, ancestors and much more

I agree that the language Saucha as "purity" can feel be off-putting. I do feel so much better when the space around me is organized because the energy of the room feels more open. Similarly, when I notice I am overthinking, I am more able to let go of some of the thoughts and feel more light and open. I appreciate the conversation on body scans. Body scans were something that was really difficult for me at first because I couldn't connect to many parts of my body, I couldn't pay attention and my mind would wander, and I didn't understand the point of it because it didn't make me feel relaxed – it felt like a task that I was doing wrong. Overtime, I rebuilt and grew upon my mind-body connection and which allowed me to have a better experience a body scan. I enjoy doing shorter versions and now that i know more about the benefits, I would love to do longer sessions. When I was volunteering at Plum Village, we did "deep relaxation" meditations that included body scanning along with other things and that was always a really healing experience (nearly everyone felt so relaxed they would fall asleep every time haha).