Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote, “the meaning of life is to give life meaning.” This especially holds true as we get older. Priorities can shift and our motivations change, requiring us to reassess our purpose, says yoga teacher Cathy High.
Q&A with Cathy High
High is a Registered Experienced Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 200+) and a Registered Massage Therapist with more than 15 years of experience teaching yoga. She has extensive knowledge of the anatomy, biomechanics and injury recovery.
We recently spoked with High about the benefits of yoga and meditation for older adults and how the practices can be used to navigate life’s challenges — welcome Cathy!
Q: There’s a quote on your website that speaks to the idea that difficult choices help us rise to our full potential. Is this a quote that you yourself live by?
(Quote for reader reference: There comes a moment…in every life when the Universe presents you with an opportunity to rise to your potential. An open door that requires that only the heart walks through, seize it and hang on. The choice is never simple. It’s never easy. It wasn’t meant to be. But those who travel this path have looked back and realized it is about the heart…The rest is just practice. – Jaime Buckley, Prelude to a Hero)
A: For the most part, I do or I try to. I think that life is a series of journeys and crossroads where things can go in different directions. The fabric of the Jaime Buckley quote is the idea that there’s always a choice and it’s not necessarily an easy choice. But we must make a decision based on where we stand and what we know in the moment.
Q: You’re a mother, yoga teacher, health practitioner, jewelry maker, artist and traveler. How do each of these roles show up in your everyday life and yoga practice?
A: Each of those roles bring a different set of skills. For instance, being a mother has taught me to be patient. When I’m working with others and something causes me to become impatient, I step into the role of a mom and try to listen and understand.
Making jewelry involves very precise and detail-oriented work. So, when I’m teaching yoga, I can look at the finer details of a yoga pose. Also, I think that my diverse skill set helps me manage all the different types of students that I meet in yoga class. Having said that, these skills don’t always fit together harmoniously. Adversity is what encourages me to keep learning, to keep striving for more and to keep moving forward. All of those things are important, especially as we age.
Q: What are some of the challenges older adults face in yoga class?
A: A lot of my yoga students are mature adults. I think that there’s a social stigma about getting older. There’s this idea that you can’t do certain things anymore; that you can’t change or grow. Students that take my class see me teach and realize that it is possible. Over time, they too see and feel the changes. It spills over to other people in the class too.
Q: As we get older our bodies change. Our mindset too. Do yoga and meditation have a profound effect on self-perception?
A: Yes, I think yoga and meditation are incredibly beneficial to our self-perception. There’s a longstanding belief that when you’re older, you should just sit down and give up. But that’s nothing more than a story or narrative that you have in your head. Meditation in particular can help you acknowledge that story and change it. If you’re always telling yourself, “it’s not possible,” then you’re never going to do anything.
I think yoga allows people to work with the tools that they already have in their toolbox and slowly shift their mindset. For instance, if you have an injury, you can adapt your yoga practice to work around the injury. The injury doesn’t have to stop you completely.
Q: If a reader is not already a regular meditator, how can they get started?
A: The simplest way to start meditating is to go out for a walk and count your breath with each step. Or just sit down and take a few moments to be still and quiet. Meditation is really a practice of awareness. When you’re in a waiting room, for example, meditation can be as simple as closing your eyes, counting your breath and not getting distracted by who’s coming in or going out, or what you need to do next, like visit with the doctor. There’s also moving meditation, such as tai chi training and yoga.
Q: Practicing yoga requires a serious time commitment. Between work, family, friends and life, how — or better yet, where — can we fit it in?
A: I think it depends on what your goals are. For example, if you want to run a marathon, you would embark on an lengthy endurance training program to prepare. If you simply want to focus your mind and get your body moving in the morning when you wake up, try practicing three simple yoga postures each morning. This routine is easy to incorporate into your life and you don’t have to commit to a one-hour yoga class multiple times a week. You can always modifying things as you go — I don’t think that it has to be an all-or-nothing.
Q: What has been your most meaningful and inspiring yoga adventure so far?
A: I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of adventures. Last year I had the chance to travel with a group of women to Oaxaca, Mexico for a yoga and cooking retreat. It was so inspiring to see these women be exposed to new a culture and learn from the beautiful people that we met. In this new environment, everyone, including me, blossomed. I’ve always been inspired by like-minded people coming together for a common purpose. Journeys like this allow us to find common ground in an uncommon place.
Inspired to see how meditation can impact your life? We teamed up with Cathy High to create Calm the Mind: A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation. Sign up for our newsletter to receive a free copy.
