Comforted by Alice Boughton

by Leza Lowitz

I first encountered the word “containment” in yoga when I took my Restorative Yoga teacher training. In the context of Restorative Yoga, containment means literally creating a container for the practice, one that feels safe and comfortable enough for the yoga practitioner to relax into the pose physically and mentally, letting go.

The benefits of adding physical and mental containment to your restorative yoga poses include a greater sense of safety and security, which leads to an increased ability to relax and be comfortable. Containment can be central to a feeling of safety and comfort, especially for trauma-sensitive practitioners.

Physical Containment

When we relax the body, it is common for past issues or trauma to arise. And people experiencing anxiety can feel vulnerable, especially when lying in supine positions (on the back) with their front bodies exposed. In Restorative Yoga particularly, we want to make sure that four conditions are in place in our physical space to allow optimal relaxation and trust. These four best conditions for optimal Restorative Yoga are:

  1. Safe/Stable Environment
  2. Warm
  3. Dark
  4. Quiet

This first condition, a safe and stable environment, is where containment comes into play. When we feel safe and supported, the fight-flight-or-freeze response (sympathetic nervous system) is deactivated and the rest-and-digest response (parasympathetic nervous system) can kick in, allowing us to find peace of mind and equilibrium.

The most obvious way to create safety and stability is to practice in a place that is safe and secure. If it is appropriate, you can lock the door to your practice space. Another way of creating safety is to have your props or back directly against a wall. This creates a border and sense of safety. I have found that putting blocks against my feet or having my feet pressed up against a wall creates a sense of containment and well-being.

Weighted blankets serve the same function. Reportedly, pressure from the weight mimics a therapeutic technique called “deep pressure stimulation,” which is used to relax the nervous system. A sandbag placed on the belly in face-up (supine) postures can have the same comforting effect. When a sandbag is placed on the lower back in prone poses, the feeling is literally that someone “has your back.” When sandbags are placed on the calves in Savasana, there is a sense of depth and grounding, as if the physical body were sinking into the earth and being held from beneath. This is another aspect of containment—feeling held, supported, contained.

Regular blankets covering the body also aid in helping the practitioner feel safer. Also, if you don’t have sandbags or don’t want that much weight on you, a thin folded blanket works well to add a sense of security and comfort.

The effect of containment is similar to swaddling a baby. It can feel as if we are back inside the womb or being snuggled and held in loving arms. Whenever I do Restorative Yoga, I try to create a comfortable and safe physical container in which to do my practice.

Mental Containment

On a mental level, containment is a way of gaining more control over our thoughts and feelings. When we have more control over our responses to life’s challenges, we are less reactive and more at peace. Mindfulness meditation is a type of mental containment—holding all that arises in conscious, loving awareness. This takes a lot of practice. Our minds are busy places, and our mental triggers can take years to become ingrained in our brains, so re-habituating our mindset does not happen overnight. But thanks to neuroplasticity, we can re-wire our brains and replace our habitual knee-jerk reactions with conscious, wise, and compassionate responses.

Another technique for mental containment is to imagine a container big enough to hold your problem. Visualize putting it completely into this container. Close it tightly. You can also imagine putting it away somewhere, locked, if desired, and you can envision giving your container to a spiritual guide who can help you release it. This practice can be done repeatedly until the problem is alleviated. The container can be opened any time you wish, if more layers of experience become available to you to let go of.  Some people find it helpful to use a real container in which to place a note, journal entry, letter, documents, photos, or objects they might want to contain in order to discover a wise, compassionate response to them or to move beyond them.

One further mental containment technique is one common in Insight meditation. When you have an obtrusive thought or feeling, you can imagine putting it into a bubble or cloud and watch it float away. You can then return your focus to a neutral mental focus, such as your breath or the physical relaxation of your body,

Every time you let go of the obtrusive thought or feeling and return your focus to the object of meditation, you are moving away from distracting thoughts and you are also telling your nervous system you’re in safe circumstances. After 5 to 10 minutes, this triggers the relaxation response.

While it is optional, having a mental focus for restorative yoga poses, such as focusing on the breath, body sensations, or the gradual physical relaxation of the body, is a good way to trigger the relaxation response and create containment.

 

You can read more about Leza’s writing at www.lezalowitz.com and about her yoga studio and classes at www.sunandmoon.jp.

Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.