Bonus Material - Interview

Defending the Restorative Practice
An Interview with Malcolm Clark

Last week I read an article in Shared Vision magazine, the November, 2008 issue, about the dangers of ignoring yourself and neglecting to include self care as part of your daily life. The article, Aging Gracefully: Avoid mid-life madness by being 'good selfish', focuses on the reality and dangers of a mid-life crisis, defined here as the mental distress that can lead to the need to make huge changes like quitting your job, having an affair or buying a new, unneeded car. In the article, written by Donna Barker, Julia James, a certified life coach, points out what we parents-of-young-children already know, that "when people are being pulled in all directions, the first thing they drop is quality time for themselves - time to recharge and rejuvenate."
 
Malcolm Clark of Victoria's U Retreat wants to give busy parents an easy solution to the potential of a hectic, no-time-for-yourself life. Malcolm is a Qi Gong teacher and bodywork practitioner who wants to clear the air regarding our current cultural believes toward what recharges and rejuvenates us. Fall seems like a particularly auspicious time for this talk, as it is a time of harvest leading into the winding down of growth and preparation for hibernating over the winter.

Malcolm starts the discussion by pointing out that the emphasis on physical, structured activities like cycling, running or going to the gym to unwind from a stressful day's work may help to "get rid of the tension in the body" but "does not actually bring the body to a deep place where it can really soften or relax... get to a place where the actual nervous system is being calmed." He wants to let people know that pounding relaxation through our body doing exercise may give the effect of a release, but actually only brings you to a plateau and, using this method alone, you can never go beyond the plateau.
 
What is the antidote? Malcolm encourages all his students and clients to create and follow a restorative practice. What is a restorative practice? It is something that you do daily, mindfully and with discipline for as little as 5-10 minutes and can be as simple as putting your legs up against the wall while lying on your back or holding a simple, easy, relaxed pose for long amount of time. This activity through stillness "allows you to settle into body, structure, posture, your emotion, your sensation... then you are actually going beyond the plateau" and allows for the deep body connection and body softening and to reset some held frustration that you cannot get rid of at a once-a-week yoga class.
 
Sound simple? It is, and yet it is one of the hardest thing for us to do. We have been trained to value hard work, challenging activity and, for exercise, sweat and progress. When we run a marathon or climb a mountain, we can look back or look at a map and see what we have done. With restorative practice, there is not this tangible result or feeling of accomplishing something after every session. But with regular practice, you will see results.
 
And restorative practice can be efficient, catering to one of the other cornerstones of North American thought. While physical activity helps to manage your stress load, Malcolm is teaching people how to train body to relax without a 30-minute or 1-hour window of time. Instead, he teaches how to use passive movement to allow tension to leave the body with a sense of ease and without a sense of force. Our body and muscles need a chance to relax and loose their tension, so we may feel less stressed and tense after a fast, long run but the muscles do not; they need their "turn" to relax.

Malcolm adds that we need both the active and restorative practices, and the proportions depend on the individual and their constitution. An A-type personality is going to need more action and physical sense for their body and mind to relax, but we all need the undervalued restorative practice that brings a deeper sense of ease. And as a parent of a toddler, the active practice is nonstop!
 
Malcolm's theories have come through personal experience and reflection rather than any particular book or teacher. He points out that all books on yoga and meditation emphasize the importance of bringing awareness to the breath, to the belly or to the third eye, which is another way of doing what he proposes. He has come up with the metaphor that our attention and our perception of our body is like a carrot on the end of a stick dangling in front of us. Our brain is used to being in charge of daily activities, and there are always distractions (computer, telephone, people) keeping our attention in front of us. A true restorative practice allows you to take that carrot and gobble it up so that your attention is now inside the body. And once you are focused on the body, you can ask, "What is my head doing, what is my leg doing, what is my breath doing?" From there, we can, with practice, slow everything down and create a sense of peace.
 
Malcolm points out that most of the people who have been working for decades on achieving enlightenment and understanding of meditation or other restorative practices all say that it is when they stop trying that they finally understand and reach the goal they are trying for. He encourages us to give ourselves the freedom to just sit in our chosen relaxing pose and be, to rest and explore peace, quiet and restoration and that "inspiration comes just from the sheer will power or wanting to connect with yourself."

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