Powerful yoga

This post is a slightly jumbled attempt to collect and process my thoughts on one of those unexpected transient moments that somehow strike deep into your consciousness and capture you, leaving a wash of thoughts and realisations across your mind. It might not all be correct or what I would like to think, but is my observations of what my Brian was doing. I wrote it only for myself but later thought it could be of interest to others in a similar situation.

Moments gone in a breath can leave a wake (on contrail...) to appreciate

My thoughts this weekend have been constantly drawn back to a comment made to me on Friday.

As I left my yoga class on Friday my teacher said I had worked well today. "Very powerful". That comment was unexpected and it had a massive effect on me. There was an instant emotional reaction. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was a positive one. I felt seen, I felt valuable, I felt that I had achieved something, that my work was "good"; I felt strong.

At that point I had no idea I was feeling all those things; it just felt good. But it kept coming back to me, and I was intrigued as to why such a small comment could have such a transformative effect. 

This teacher had seen my work. Had noticed, when I was just being quiet and not drawing attention, just working hard for myself. I have always craved that seeing from people. (Interestingly, I generally seek not to be seen: to melt into the background and be anonymous. To only be noticed when I choose, but this is the 'good' type of seeing.) People who pay attention to the things that are less easy to see. These are the ones who want to see, who really care. If you ask for attention everyone will have to give it. If you don't, the ones who are worth it will spot what is going on.

I thought perhaps he had noticed how hard I was working, how well I want to do (which as I write this, I realise is a little ironic in yoga...). Perhaps he notices each week how hard it is for me to relax myself. How I even when I manage, the tension creeps back within minutes or seconds and I have to work so hard to send it away again. Perhaps this is why he is so firm when he tells us to "Let Go". That nothing else matters right now except being here and breathing. Perhaps he knows how safe this makes me feel. Somebody else being so firm, instructing, almost ordering relaxation. I'm good at obedience, and being told to let go means it's actually OK to for once. One time I nearly just burst into tears!

Perhaps he sees some of my story. He once asked quietly about the marks on my arms, enquiring whether I was OK. I told him he didn't need to know; he didn't push for more and we've never spoken about it since, but I often wonder how often he checks to see how clear my arms are, or what he thinks when there are fresh marks.

Sometimes I have wanted to tell him, but I think it's better this way. A kind of silent understanding, and he responds in the best way for me, with strength and push. He understands that I need to work. No coaxing, no gentleness, but humour and strength, with care underneath. It's healing. Talking about it would complicate and mess it up. He's found the way to get to me, and wow, it works wonders. I feel like a different person after his classes.

He's probably completely oblivious!

So that's why commenting had such an effect, and it has had an effect like that before, when he's commented that my work was looking good today. (I think it's partly also that the comments are so minimal. No excess, no gushing or opinions, just a quick fact. Truth - thought through and genuinely about me, but objective and to the point. Feeling but few words. This is not overpowering but empowering, healing and draws me in to want more rather than making me want to push away.)

But why "powerful" in particular? Why was that so huge a reaction?

I often feel powerless? With anxiety, ASC and my mental health problem, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

It made me feel strong and I don't often feel strong.

Strong is one of the few good feelings I really want, I think. It's not nicey nicey, smarmy and wishy washy. It's definite. A positive attribute I could bear to have. I can respect it in myself.

A first step towards self-respect??

It said I had done a good job. I really like doing a good job, and somebody knowing I've done a good job, but not because I've told them, and neither have they told anybody else.

It acknowledged my work to discipline my body and mind. Part of this is the being seen and part that I like to have control over myself. I often feel out of control so this is a bit like a drug to me. Is it OK to get this from yoga or is it feeding the control addiction?

I was receiving respect from him and this was good. Not just nice comments but true seeing, understanding and respecting.

Bodies are strange!

A strange thing happened to me last night, and it's very sensory/proprioception/JABADAO! related. I thought I would share just for fun!

I prepared for bed as usual (or as usual for nights when I'm on my own at home anyway) last night, and settled down to sleep in preparation for another day at work. I am generally one of those very lucky people who has no trouble with sleep (other than stopping it!), but I had had a lie-in that morning and was (as usual) anxious about the following day so sleep evaded me.

I'm fairly patient and enjoy being cosy in bed so happily waited for half an hour. Wasn't feeling any more sleepy. Not overly concerned due to the lie-in, but beginning to worry how I will ever drag myself out of bed in the morning and manage on little sleep. Thoughts still flying round Brian. Picked up phone or book and read for half an hour. Thought should try again or the next day would definitely be a write-off. No Mr Peggy so lots of letting my body try different positions it felt comfortable in. No luck. Felt a strange urge to be in a kind of upside-down, rolling-over kind of position. Ignored it because a) too much effort to move that much, b) that would definitely wake me up more not send me to sleep! Body was persistent in wanting that particular movement so eventually I gave in, having nothing to lose by now! Good job nobody there to see! Stayed there for a good while because that's what body wanted. And weirdly noticed body winding down, slowing down and moving towards sleepy. Eventually it led to a more laid-down version, still a position in which I would NEVER expect to fall asleep (I usually only fall asleep in one or two positions), where I actually dozed off! Woke up a bit and transferred to pillow, and hey presto; great night's sleep. Weird.

Basically one of these! Magic sleep position. Who knew?!

And who knew I would find a picture similar enough that I don't have to keep trying to take one,
because it turns out it's actually quite a task on your own...

Learning to dance taught me to live

Learning to dance taught me to make mistakes.

It taught me that it's OK to be right.

It taught me interaction and friendship. By creating a structure and framework for interaction in manageable bitesized chunks.

It taught me that it's OK to be seen... It's OK to speak.

It taught me that you don't have to be perfect.

It taught me that my body needs movement and introduced me to even more ways of meeting that need.

It taught me to step out of my comfort zone.

It taught me that I can make things happen and that this is OK or even a good thing.

It taught me about the impact you can have on someone while being completely unaware of it (other people towards me, but this gives me hope that it can come from me too).

It showed me the magic of the expected.

It introduced me to some of the people I most aspire to be like. I suppose you call them role models.

It taught me tact and diplomacy.

It showed me the good in sharing life.

It taught me to walk with my eyes forward: the first steps to confidence in body and brain.

It taught me to acknowledge and feel emotions, and perhaps to consider expressing them.


I am still learning all of these things, and other areas of life have contributed too, but I can honestly attribute huge swathes of my social and emotional development to the process of learning to dance. This is of course true for everybody who learns dancing, but as somebody with autism, I have to consider the possibility that ballet has over the years been the therapy to teach me how to live in this world before I even knew why it was so difficult.

I wish I could thank all the people, past and present, who are a part of this process, but they'd probably think I was crazy (clearly I'm not, of course...). Some of these people know who they are, but most probably have no idea at all!

Jump off the world for a minute

I spent my dinner break the other day lying on the bathroom floor. I don't tell many people, but it's not an unusual or particularly negative place for me to be.

I try not to spend my whole break there too often as it's usually more beneficial to walk to the nearby gardens and lie on my bench under the trees in a few minutes of sensory mindfulness.

Occasionally I don't make it that far, and Thursday was one of those days. I just about made it to the bathroom before it all imploded and my body found the way it needed to calm itself. This time it was lying flat on my stomach on the floor with my face in a fleece, still as can be until the motion-controlled lights time out (3 minutes) and then the fan (5, I think).

By this time the crying has calmed somewhat, and the dark and the quiet help me to calm further. It's not a full-on shutdown. The sounds of the school day going by outside bring me back to my current location, and as I become able to open my eyes I observe the light reaching under the door from that other world of the corridor.

I am removed yet connected. Close, yet apart and unseen. I am safe.

What's in the Box?

Trigger warning: mild self harm reference

An excellent question! The Box, of course, is my "self-soothe box" in the language of mental health services, and my sensory box in every day conversation. I don't discuss it with that many people, but for the lucky few ( ;) ) this is familiar language as they already move in circles of sensory difference.

After my previous post, a curious reader enquired as to the contents of my box. I am very happy to share!

The great thing about the items in this box is that they can be used not only in a crisis or tricky moment, but whenever I  have a spare minute (I keep my box in my car so it's with me wherever I go) to keep regulated throughout the day as a preventative. I'm not as proactive about this as I could be as I am very busy and often in a rush, but it does make a noticeable difference when I take time out to invest in staying well regulated.

In my box:

A small jar of cinnamon. I find this smell so comforting, and it's cheap and easy to replace if it loses its effect. The reused miniature jam jar doubles up as physical/auditory input as the button can be clicked too! (Or "depressed" as some jars say. Always seems so cruel to intentionally depress a button...)

A tiny tin of coffee beans. These are great and multi-sensory too: not only do I love the smell despite hating the taste of coffee, but it sounds and feels pleasing to shake the tin back and forth. The hard cold of the metal is soothing if I hold it tightly in the palm of my hand, and the beans can be poured out and tipped from hand to hand.

A tube of bubbles. A wonderfully pleasing visual with the added benefit of controlling the breath.

A small tub of glue and spreader. This one is particularly good if I know I'm going to stay anxious for a while and need distraction within a situation where I can't access my tools. Once the glue has dried on a small area of my skin (an interesting cool, wet sensation), it can be peeled off. This is also an especially good one when I feel like hurting myself. It's a bit less "calming" than the others and can channel that urge in a less destructive manner. Please note, I don't advocate painting glue on your skin. It's probably not very good for it, but I'm just sharing something that I discovered works for me.

I had a small glitter jar, but it needs replacing and I'm not very good at making them! A great visual, with slow movement and sparkling light, and with a glass jar, there is the added weight in the hand and cool of the glass.

Putty or slime. Mr Peggy gave me mine and it has glitter in! I love it! Great for squeezing and using my hand muscles when the anxiety has an edge of frustration, or I just need some more forceful physical input. It smells good too.


mp3 player and headphones. This is loaded with music I find calming or expressive, including tracks from my JABADAO! training, which have an instant calming effect on me either because of some intrinsic value or their associations for me (or both).

A small soft toy. Comforting to hold in the hand or against my face.

Fabric soaked with bleach in a smell-tight container. This is associated with swimming for me, which I love. The movement for my body and the sensations of the water make it a great positive activity, and the smell evokes a positive feeling in me.

Fabric soaked with Tresemme hairspray. This reminds me of dance shows and exams; again an instant whiff of "good".

Elastic that I can pull if I need more intense or resistant physical input. This is just some I had in the house and I have to double it up two or three times to get the resistance I need, or I sometimes pinch a Theraband out of my dance bag, which does the trick! (see also, spiky massage balls, foam rollers, physio/yoga balls...)

Quotes. I have four or five of these: phrases people have said to me that really resonate with my mental health. I find most inspirational quotes sickening, so these are usually things people have said in passing, but have somehow hit me in a meaningful way (often it is quite like a physical hit when it happens, causing me to pause in whatever I am doing or thinking!) and managed to actually inspire me towards getting better.

A small colouring book, with pens, pencils and sharpener. I don't usually have time to use this, but it can be helpful when I do.





A notebook and pen. To remove excess thoughts from my Brain!

Recent additions: Ziploc bag of sawdust. I have recently given a home to two scrummy guinea pigs (what a wellbeing boost they are just by being there) after a ten year gap since the hamsters of my youth. Opening the woodshavings to prepare their hutch was an almost overpowering sensory memory moment and completely unexpected. Couldn't miss an opportunity to harness that: the calm of years of pet-induced wellbeing recreated by bagging some sawdust! Discovered it's not only great to smell and put the hands in, but it's pleasing to lay the bag flat and feel it squashing under the fingers too!


My Toroidz spiral. I have great friends who buy me sensory toys for my birthday! I could lose myself for hours playing with this! Mine is UV so you can use it in a dark space with a UV torch for extra amazing-ness. The combination of physical sensation - the light touch and movement with the cool metal - and visual is entrancing, and there is potential for infinite exploration of how I can affect the quality of these sensations.

And of course, a blanket! I'm becoming quite famous for my love of blankets as I learn to be more open about myself. People are beginning to get used to seeing me around with one. Wrapping myself tightly makes me feel safer, providing an even firm pressure all around my body, containing me. If I'm less anxious holding it in my hands, on my knee or against my face is a good boost to my regulation.

Bonus item! A firm favourite of mine for sensory regulation is my fleece bodywarmer. I can wear it all day at work if I need to and it helps me feel OK. It's tight enough to give me pressure round my middle, which I find very safe and calming, and it can be done up right up to my chin, so I can have a cosy safe feeling round my neck and face which really helps too. It's squashy, soft, cosy and lovely to touch, and just an ordinary everyday item of clothing that nobody would think twice about. Winner!

The elephant in the room

Most people who know me will by now have some sort of idea that my mental health has been taking a bit of a battering recently. It's not great, my natural coping mechanisms are not healthy, and my work has been impacted, which is a line that I have always considered unacceptable to cross.

It's funny really, because I spend a reasonable amount of time promoting awareness of mental health issues and encouraging openness and conversation about mental health, yet I am still so very guarded about my own experiences. Perhaps I am not as stigma-free as I would like to think, or perhaps I just believe that I am somehow exempt from the compassion that I want others to experience!

BUT I am taking baby steps in learning how to live a better way.

I am learning to listen to myself, to act on the gut feelings I have about which situations I can manage when, and what I need to do in my unstructured time (or "down time" as those who don't frequent my work environment would say!). 

This isn't always fun or glamorous. It means letting people down (again unacceptable by my "rules"), letting myself down (cue even more Bad Brain Stuff), missing out, being boring, looking lazy or unreliable (another of my greatest fears).

As yet, admitting that I should avoid a situation doesn't even mean enjoying some quiet time to myself: it tends to mean a long battle with guilt, feeling worthless and useless, like a drain and a waste of time and space.

It is also risky: others may not agree with or understand my decision or preference. Those who know me well know that if I indicate a slight preference or wish for something to happen that is a sign that it is so enormously important to me that I have taken the risk to express it, no matter in how tiny or inconspicuous a manner. Those who don't will easily walk over the herculean effort I have made, completely invalidating it and making it even worse the next time I consider trying.

When I do succeed in listening to myself, articulating my discoveries and following through on them, and am stuck in that thought/feeling battle, I am learning to employ some "self-soothe" tools to help me to regulate and stay or become calmer. This is an approach introduced to me by my mental health team and is often used with people who experience high anxiety or distress. It may sound a bit whacky or irrelevant, but because of my awareness of the power of sensory experiences I had a fairly easy time embracing the idea (having said that, I thought I was doing it for about 9 months until I had one of those moments of revelation where suddenly something makes even more sense!). It still feels very wrong to care for myself when I feel that I have done something wrong, but I am learning that it is necessary and beneficial. It works really well as a calming toolbox for me, and with calmness comes the possibility of movement (both figuratively and literally!).

I am VERY SLOWLY learning to try and share with other people a tiny sliver of what is going on. I hate it. Every fibre of my physical being screams not to do it: it is like a complete block - a near impossibility. It is not safe at all in my mind, and fraught with risks and fears: I won't be able express what's inside, they won't understand what I am expressing, I will cause them discomfort (eg. fear, sadness, guilt), I will waste their time, they will be annoyed with me (even if they don't show it) or disregard the importance of what I am expressing, that they will think they understand, but not actually grasp it, and on and on and on. People trying to find out what is going on can make it even harder for me to share.

Occasionally by some miracle I manage to include somebody in what is happening in me (poor longsuffering Mr. Peggy and Ma Peggy and a couple of invaluable Work Peggies!). Sometimes it helps in some way. I'm hoping that through learning to talk about things with my psychologist it will gradually become more possible with other people. 

The "mental health" (or "mental illness") road is one that I am inclined to share even less than the autism road, but I think it is important to acknowledge it, even if not to go further in sharing it. Perhaps one day it will become as "OK" for me to talk about as my autism is now becoming, or perhaps not, but for now I will keep taking the little steps that appear before me which seem to be right to take.

Sensory Series Part III: Sensory Mindfulness

Following on from my previous post where I tried to describe the experience and effect of a shared sensory moment (and failed to recapture this in my re-write!), I'd like to put together my thoughts on mindfulness.

Mindfulness is currently all the rage in the mental health world, and can mean pretty much anything under the sun. Some find it life-changing; others are underwhelmed, and for others it is actively unhelpful.

The first kind of mindfulness I was introduced to is one where you are supposed to observe your thoughts as they go by, not engaging with them but acknowledging their presence and not letting yourself get distracted into thought. I didn't find it useful. Maybe I never cracked it, but it didn't do anything for me!

More recently, I have come across mindfulness described by several different people more as being present in a moment.  According to this view, I have recently come to realise that I naturally live in quite a "mindful" way.

This stormy sea was a thrilling sensory experience: the roar
and crash of the waves, the cold water on my face and hands,
the smell of the salt water and the taste of it round my lips, the
wind and rain rushing at me. I could have stayed all day,
 completely absorbed in the moment, but my companions may
 not have been so keen!

Walking along in the airport just yesterday I noticed my awareness of the rain dripping down the windows of the tunnel, the weight of my rucksack on my back, the fact that one shoe was tighter than the other. Mr Peggy, when I enquired as to the contents of his brain at that moment, was aware of the stories of all the people walking alongside us - why they were travelling, where they were going etc. We found it an interesting comparison!

A technique often suggested for people with anxiety or panic attacks to regulate or ground themselves is to name one thing they can taste, two they can smell, three they can feel, four they can hear and five they can see. I do this automatically.

The tree above my bench

I take my lunch breaks outside, where I often lie on a bench. I listen to the sounds of the birds, the river, children playing, dogs exploring, the leaves moving. I feel the breeze, the warm sun (occasionally!), the wooden bench on my back or raindrops. I smell fresh rain, cowpats, flowers. If I open my eyes I see the blue of the sky, the green of the leaves, the clouds slowly moving, the light dappled through the leaves and branches, the bright light of the sun.

It adds up really (in my head anyway!). At Jo Grace's Sensory Engagement for Mental Wellbeing training day, she commented that according to the general definition of mindfulness (similar to the one I use of being present in the moment), sensory beings are by nature always mindful. Their experience of the world is primarily sensory, and they are therefore constantly present. (She then went on to explore what mindfulness for mental wellbeing could look like for sensory beings - being completely caught up in, engaged in and delighted in a moment.) I'm not a sensory being; I am a linguistic being - I am writing this, after all - but my sensory awareness is perhaps higher than that of some linguistic beings.

I lost my track of thought there, but I think this is mainly me bringing together all my previous thoughts as I have been discovering the sensory world, and realising that my natural inclination towards sensory mindfulness could be a useful tool to mental wellbeing.

Not only this but it with the right people and in the right contexts it can be even more than that: a vehicle to connection and communication from others, which in everyday life I can find stressful or draining. This connection itself is of course a contributor to mental wellbeing.

So at this point in my exploration of sensory awareness and its effects, I think I am going to employ my discoveries by putting meaningful sensory experiences, and especially shared sensory experiences, down as a tool to boost my wellbeing and to be intentional about pursuing such opportunities.

Any thoughts?