New way to Relieve Headaches - by Talia

Have a headache?

I don't imagine anyone wanting a headache - the first thing most of us do is reach for medicine (which could anything from an acupuncture needle to a cup of tea or glass of wine). My go-to used to be coming into headstand - it's the reason I was so persistent with practicing it until I could come up alone. 

I had noticed that headaches would come when I was full of thoughts - all these thoughts ricocheting inside my head. In headstand, the thoughts are flipped upside down. Your new focus is balance, it is on your center. When you can find your center, the whole body-mind stops trembling. That is: the body is still and the mind is still. This is Yoga. This is Meditation.

This does not mean that you must go home and practice headstand if you have a headache. This is about watching: watch my body and go to my center; when I have a thought, as soon as possible I notice there's a thought and go back to my center. The practice with headstand is that when you are thinking, you will have to quickly refocus to right your balance. But then: "headstand becomes so easy that you can fall asleep" - your mind goes back to dreams, to thoughts - so just keep coming back!

And it happened,

I noticed headaches came when I had no thoughts - ?

I am often so full of thoughts, it is dizzying. Thoughts are just imagination. A function of  Mind, which is exactly where I don't want to be.  Up until a few days ago, I would catch thoughts and think,"you are useless, go away". And it did go, quickly, but almost instantly another thought appeared. I thought I was catching the thoughts and watching them. But in fact, I was now swatting them inside my head.

Mind is crazy, always.

"Watching is not mind's work.

Watching has no judgement.

Just take one step back and watch what happens in your mind.
And leave it there with no judgement, no more story." - Nirvakalpa

Of course there are times when headaches are brought on by other things: heat, dairy, dehydration, weather changes etc - but it is important to watch when it happens. Is it every time (you have dairy) or only sometimes? Is there a thought that comes before it? What might it be related to (for instance, dairy comes first from Mom - her milk, and her love). And nowadays, we have many ways to fix a problem. 

But look at what medicine does - it merely treats the symptom, and the symptom will return. We need to go deeper, deep to the root of the problem - where is it coming from.

Your headache is in the head, in the Mind.

Yoga is cessation of functions of the Mind.

Yoga is watching.

How to stop and just watch. You don't need to be in headstand. Be where you are now. 

Just take one step back.