Greetings, YTT Community! If you were unable to join live, please review the recording as you are able. Please share any questions or concerns you may have about the remaining timeframe of the live sessions of this program and questions and discussion at the start of the session.
Please also share your thoughts on the discussion of Santosha (Contentment). Consider sharing any additional insights or ideas that you may be considering.
Take time to plan through a short movement sequence, either focusing on the first or second half of trauma-informed sequencing. Please add to your reflection below the community you are planning a sequence for and what movement you would offer for your chosen section.
Please consider reaching out on this platform or through the group email to coordinate workgroups as you are able and interested.
Contentment can be difficult to discuss when working with folks with trauma or you are personally dealing with it. We often think about the before times, or play the dangerous "what if" game. Speaking to folks that are incarcerated about contentment can be triggering, how do we speak about contentment with folks that may never see outside of the institution? I work with adults that have been found incompetent to stand trial and have been sent to a state hospital for treatment, pausing their legal proceedings. Many of them are restless and want to return to court to resolve their charges and find some resolution, understandably so. I encourage them to consider the benefits of the hospital (better healthcare, various treatment groups offered by LCSWs, recreation, music, art, dance, and occupational therapists, and considerably better food) and consider how these different resources may improve their quality of life, provide them with skills that can help them in the community to increase contentment about being somewhere that was outside of their control.
Ideas for the first half of sequencing for folks with severe mental illness in a state hospital:
1. Welcome - the intent of the practice is to offer a space where everyone feels safe in their body and to have a moment to connect to themselves. Participation in this practice looks like anything that isn't disruptive to others, but please stay within the space of your mat for the safety of everyone.
2. Discharge/energy release - rub hands together, shaking of upper and lower limbs, shoulder rolls, marching, torso rotation, pranayama
3. Dynamic warm-up - having difficulty with this one (have a meeting scheduled) - begin in mountain pose, inhale with raised arms, exhale with lower arms & repeat 3x., lateral bends, mountain, lift heels, external rotation of hips, stepping forward and back, side to side
4. Centering - begin to shift from where you have been today, honor an experience you may have had (thoughts & body sensations), transition to current moment and consider what you are bringing into the space, ask yourself can you set anything aside? is there anything today or in this moment? maybe continue moving your body and provide it stillness. Transition your focus to your breath and take a few breaths at your own pace, transition back into movement with a possible reading.
Of the yamas, I feel my family taught us this lesson the most, but not on purpose. I think I have a lack of attachment to wanting things others have because growing up we could not afford, or the adults in my life did not believe they were good enough to have or want the things others had. But they still wanted to be proud. So I think I was raised with a lot of gratitude for what I had and I have been able to carry that into adulthood. Making me very resilient. I am definitely the tortoise in the tortoise and hare story. I have always felt really good running or walking my own race.
I appreciate that Santosha reminds us that we cannot find contentment externally, it is within us. It also encourages me to continue cultivating a practice of gratitude. I noticed that some things I say to myself or with my friends are along the lines of "you're always on the right path," "you'll always have enough," or "home is within me" – to me, these thoughts are all along the lines of Santosha, however I can very clearly see that this is not something to say directly to communities who are incarcerated, unhoused or low income communities because generally their path has been forced upon them by the system, their basic needs might be unmet so they don't always have enough of what they very realistically need, and their housing situation has been forced upon them by systemic issues as well. Especially coming from a place of privilege in the space, I would be careful of what I say in regards to contentment. I think it might be better to focus on gratitude in the body and breath. But I am still thinking of more ways to bring in contentment that is sensitive to the circumstances that these communities are forced to be under.