This is the eighth interview in an ongoing series called “At Attention, At Peace”; a conversation among teachers, students, and officials about the role of Yoga and meditation in addressing PTSD in the military. Click here to read parts one, two, three, four five, six, and seven. To subscribe to this series, email ‘subscribe’ to [email protected] to stay updated on new interviews. 

Richard C. Miller, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, and yogic scholar. He is the founding president of the Integrative Restoration Institute (IRI), co-founder of The International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), and founding editor of the professional Journal of IAYT. 

Miller has worked with Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the United States Department of Defense studying the efficacy of iRest. The iRest protocol was, and is continuing to be, used with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Based on this work, Eric Schoomaker, Surgeon General of the United States Army endorsed Yoga Nidra as a complimentary alternative medicine (CAM) for chronic pain in 2010. 

Miller and his organization have established iRest programs at various military sites, homeless shelters, prisons, hospices, universities, chemical dependency, mental health, Multiple Sclerosis and cancer outpatient clinics,  sites for pre-school children, as well as Yoga and meditation studios.

In this interview he discusses the trauma of losing connection with the self, how mindfulness can reminds us of the heart, and how the heart reminds us we are inescapably connected to others on any path towards true freedom and enduring peace. 

Full Interview with Richard Miller:

Lilly: Part of what seems to interest you is exploring ancient traditions of mindfulness and seeing where they have room to move in modern, Western contexts. What is an example of a word in the Yoga teachings that has overlap with the idea of being a warrior, or someone in the military?

Richard: In the Yoga literature we have the example of Arjuna undergoing the struggles of being a warrior that appear in the Bhagavad Gita. At the beginning of the story, Arjuna, we might say, is in a moment of post-traumatic stress collapse. He’s unwilling to go to war and has collapsed in despair at the edge of the battlefield as he faces relatives and kin on the other side of the field. It’s interesting to note that in the Bhagavad Gita each Sanskrit name of his relatives, whether they’re on his or the other side of the war field, represents a psychological state. So the Bhagavad Gita is really about how do we confront our psychology and overcome it in the battlefield of life.

There are words that appear in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that relate to the need for us to nourish strength, fortitude, patience, persistence, and perseverance as we walk the battlefield of life. These concepts are encapsulated in words like Vira which means to have such strength and intensity of willfulness that you can overcome any obstacle. We also find words like Satkara which means to have such intense devotion that you’re willing to persevere through even the most difficult or challenging circumstance you’ll face in your life.

The Bhagavad Gita is really about how do we confront our psychology and overcome it in the battlefield of life.

Lilly: In the iRest practice, at the beginning and ending of class, the teacher asks students to access their heart’s deepest desire as if it was already true. Can you explain the significance of that?

Richard: In the tradition of Yoga Nidra, recognizing and nourishing our heartfelt intention, or Sankalpa, is of utmost importance. The word sankalpa is composed of two Sanskrit words: san, which means born from the heart, and kalpa, which infers our innate and heart-felt sense of being. The word Sankalpa is related to the word Dharma which normally we think of as the work we do in the world but the word dharma actually means: that which is in harmony with the entire universe. So, the heart-felt desire, the way it’s formulated in our iRest meditation practice, is our deepest truth that comes from life itself, expressing itself through us.

People suffering from trauma or PTSD, have often lost their sense of connection with themselves and the world around them. During Yoga Nidra we want to get them in touch, right away, with their deep desire for healing, for feeling reconnected to themselves and the world.

Lilly: Can you tell me more about how a person is able to re-connect with themselves in an iRest practice just using their awareness?

Richard: Affirming our sankalpa helps us locate and nourish an inner-resource of well-being and deep peace into the foreground of our body and awareness. Next, we move into bodysensing and breathsensing which help us connect to the rich kaleidoscope of sensorial information that’s always being supplied to us through our body that often gets cut off when we’re experiencing trauma. By reconnecting to our body sensation, through energy and the breath, we begin to reconnect to our innate intelligence and our true selves.

 People suffering from trauma or PTSD, have often lost their sense of connection with themselves and the world around them. During Yoga Nidra, we want to get them in touch, right away, their deep desire for healing: for feeling reconnected to themselves.

Too often people have tried to focus on what they need to do in their outer world before they’ve re-established connection to their inner world. We want them to feel connected both internally and externally. Once a person regains connection to their inner sense of self, we want to then discover the actions they need to take into the world that enables them to feel potent and powerful again. This also helps them recognize how this practice pertains to every moment of their lives. Life is constantly asking us to act. If we aren’t connected within, we’ll often fail to understand the action we need to take into the outer world, and, by failing to act, sustain our sense of helplessness. Yoga Nidra is all about action.

People who are experiencing trauma often talk about feeling a sense of hopelessness, helplessness; they feel stuck. So, we ask them, “what’s the action you need to take?”

Lilly: Do you believe that the body is the primary place where healing trauma has to start?

Richard: I think, ultimately, healing comes through the body, and that the mind is informed, or comes to understand, through the body. Healing is a bottom-up process not a top-down affair.

That said, when working with any given individual, we start where they are. For instance,  if we try to get a person into their body too quickly in order for them to gain access to the wisdom inherent in their body they may leave the practice because they are too overwhelmed by sensation.

I think, ultimately, healing comes through the body, and that the mind is informed, or comes to understand through the body. Healing is a bottom-up process not a top-down affair.

I like to tell people, “you’re having this experience (emotion or thoughts) but you’re more than this experience; you are the one that was here before, during, and you will be here after your experience is healed. Your experience is a transitional moment that may last for minutes, days, months, or even years but, still, you are something more than your experience.”

Lilly: Yes, that brings up the concept of the witness in Yoga and meditation.

Richard: Exactly, being aware, being a witnessing presence, without being judgmental, allows us to step back and have a larger view, a fuller perspective, and, ultimately, heal through the trauma. Yoga, in general, and Yoga Nidra, specifically, helps us re-connect to our innate well-being and bring it to the surface of our experience, no matter our life circumstance.

Lilly: So there’s an element of real empowerment in the practice and a focus on, paradoxically, surrendering which enables a person to eventually feel themselves powerful and in control of their experience.

Richard: Exactly, we had one fellow who was triggered and overwhelmed by his PTSD during a medical procedure, but when he was able to put in place his inner resource of well-being he reported, “I’m in control of my PTSD. My PTSD isn’t in control of me.”

Ultimately, all along the way, we want them to keep dipping into this quality of health, wholeness, and well-being that’s here from the very beginning. Many other therapies are trying to help them establish this sense of well-being as a future experience and with iRest we want to help them see that it is already here from the very beginning.

Yoga, in general, and Yoga Nidra, specifically, helps us re-connect to our innate well-being and bring it to the surface of our experience. This is a powerful moment when a person is able to access this inner-felt sense of well-being and recognize it as something they can never lose.

Lilly: What, in your words, is a non-dual tradition and how is this concept incorporated into iRest?

Richard: The non-dual perspective is a view that recognizes that we are each an expression of an undivided wholeness that underlies all of life. While we are each unique, we are ultimately not separate from one another and the world around us. Our five senses and mind are designed to create a sense of separation of self and other, of borders and boundaries, where, in fact, there is only undivided wholeness.

The non-dual perspective of meditation, the way I like to present it, helps bring back online what I call our 7th sense that allows us to feel our underlying undivided interconnectedness.

This non-dual perspective fits in beautifully with helping people heal through issues such as trauma, homelessness, chronic pain, and insomnia because it enables them to re-experience their innate sense of health and wholeness right from the beginning of the healing process.

Among all the thousands of people I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve never known a person to not know what it’s like just to Be. Discovering and nourishing Being lies at the heart of health and healing.

Among all the thousands of people I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve never known a person to not know what it’s like just to Be. 

Lilly: Would you draw the connection between non-duality and the heart center?

Richard: Absolutely, the practice of meditation, in general, and iRest Yoga Nidra, specifically, is founded on love: love of self, love of others, love of life. Compassion, kindness, love, caring, heart-centered beingness these are essential apsects that form the core of the practice. If a practice is just mental or psychological, people will ultimately lose interest.

When we wake up in the morning we may be tired, exhausted, in pain, or experiencing a feeling of despair, hopelessness or helplessness, it’s love that’s ultimately driving us back to the practice mat.

Lilly: It’s interesting to think of the heart having a better memory than the mind for pleasure or peace.

Richard: You just hit on a core aspect which is: as human beings, we are pleasure seekers. We move away from pain and move towards that which ultimately gives us pleasure. Yoga, at its core, introduces us to an incredible pleasure of well-being and peace that goes beyond all other pleasures we may find in the material world. When we touch and nourish this inner felt-sense of equanimity, our practice comes alive and moves forward.

When we wake up in the morning we may be tired, exhausted, in pain, or experiencing a feeling of despair, hopelessness or helplessness. It’s love that’s ultimately driving us back to the practice mat.

Lilly: So, in your work with the military, when you’re speaking to people who have been to war and have experienced terrible, violent things, do you ever feel that you’re being dishonest when you say that there’s a love-center to all of us? Is there ever a sense of diminishing or speaking down to that experience?

Richard: If we are a true warrior, we are doing our duty when we go to war. We go to war not out of hatred or anger, but because we feel it is our duty that we must do. True duty comes from life itself; it has harmony to it. It’s not psychological or based on some belief, we’re willing to give our life for that felt-sense of harmony. I would never speak down to that.

Some time ago while meeting with a group of majors, colonels and military personel, I was asked, “If our military men and women engage this practice of iRest that you’re suggesting, what’s going to happen to them and how will they respond to fulfilling their duty?” I took a deep breath and said, “One of two things will happen. First of all some are going to realize within themselves that this really isn’t their duty, this really isn’t their dharma. But those who really feel that going to war is their dharmic duty, these are the ones who are going to learn how to apply the tools that you’re teaching them and go to war, but not out of hatred, not out of anger, but out of duty. They’ll do their duty, and as soon as it’s done they’ll drop their weapons and go over to the other side to the enemy that they were just fighting and help them heal.”

I was surprised at the response I received; they loved my response and agreed with it. They want to be surrounded by soldiers who also feel it is their duty.

Lilly: It’s interesting, I was in conversation with one of my students at the vets hospital who said, “I would never want to be in touch with my heart when I’m firing a gun at someone. Why would I want to be in touch with my heart when I’m killing?” I had no answer to that. So, it’s interesting for you to present the idea that it is in some people’s dharma, or purpose, to be a warrior and that it is not for others.

Richard: Heart, for me, isn’t necessarily what most people would think of as a warm lovingness; heart is an integrated sense of self where we feel ourself as an integral and not-separate aspect of life itself.

Every moment has its perfect response. And these practices help us know, in the moment, what our perfect response is to each moment we face in life. In the moment of battle, say, and having to kill someone, there is objectification, but we need to keep our hearts open. The challenge, then, is to, as quickly as possible, reconnect to ourselves and the world around us so that we can hold what we’re doing with a quality of respect in the heart and mind.

Heart, for me, isn’t necessarily what most people would think of as a warm lovingness; heart is an integrated sense of self where we feel ourself as an integral and not-separate aspect of life itself.

Lilly: I’m thinking of Arjuna on the battlefield and the message that he is getting to face the battle rather than retreat from it, as a way to embrace the circumstances of life that he can’t change.

Richard: It is interesting, that in order to heal completely from PTSD, we need to recapture our sense of heart and interconnectedness, and to come to peace with what we’ve done and what we’ve born witness to. Until the heart is incorporated there won’t be full healing.

Lilly: Yes. So, if it’s true that the heart is a necessary component that enables us to re-connect with our self and others, would you say that the heart’s purpose, or the next perfect action in certain moments might be immense grief or hopelessness?

Richard: Absolutely.

Richard: I think one of the difficulties within the military environment is that the work we do might be dismissed as inappropriate or potentially ineffectual, or, as one of the Marines said, “We’re Marines. We don’t do Yoga. That’s for sissies.” But when this Marine did participate in the iRest practice, he said basically that “it saved my life.”

I think iRest has the potency, power and place in the toolbox of soldiers and veterans for helping them heal through their PTSD, as well as to create an resiliency in their lives. I truly believe that the tools offered through iRest, Yoga and the non-dual perspective can bring in a sense of order and harmony. If we had more of what Yoga offers at the outset, we’d have a better military.

I think one of the difficulties within the military environment is that the work we do might be dismissed as inappropriate or potentially ineffectual, or, as one of the Marines said, “We’re Marines. We don’t do Yoga. That’s for sissies.” But when this Marine did participate in the iRest practice, he said basically that “it saved my life.”

Lilly: Staying aware of this interconnectedness, how do you think we as a country could have responded differently to the events of 9/11?

Richard: I think there is something that could have been done during that initial phase of emotion, which is to inquire, “what was our role in bringing that moment to fruition?” Until both sides are willing to say “what is our role” we’re not going to have ownership and true healing.

Our military leaders and politicians often breed a sense of separation, as we see in this current rancorous atmosphere that exists between Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. They’re all breeding opposition, separation, and fear. Until those in leadership positions are able to heal their sense of separation, we’re going to continue to suffer the consequences but separation is an invitation that is always soliciting us back to the peace table.

To me everything is a messenger. War, to me, is a messenger that is telling us that somewhere along the line we failed in our ability to remain with our heart and maintain unity.

That said, there are times for action when someone takes a position, like, for instance, Hitler did, during WWII, which demands action where we need to fight to overcome the adversity that’s happening.

Lilly: What are some of your greatest hopes in your work with the military and for the military at large at this critical time? The current suicide statistic for veterans is roughly one soldier or veteran each day.

Richard: My hope is that in the coming years we would see these iRest like practices well integrated into every VA center; that every veteran has access to our practices. And those who are in pre-deployment, including solders, their spouses, and their families have access to these kinds of tools, which can help create resiliency within them post-deployment.

So, Yoga, per se, and iRest and the non-dual teachings, specifically, can be part of the movement to instill a deep sense of spirituality even in those going to war. By spirituality I mean something that is very personal and specific to each person. It doesn’t mean something that is religious. It can be very secular activities such as entailed in iRest. It is an intervention that helps people stay connected to themselves and the world around them.

So that’s my hope. Personally, I’d like to see one of our teachers teaching in every VA center across the world.

To me everything is a messenger. War, to me, is a messenger that is telling us that somewhere along the line we failed in our ability to remain with our heart and maintain unity.

Lilly: I am interested in the word ‘freedom’  both as an American ideal and as an offering of a Yoga and meditation practice. How do you define this word?

Richard: True freedom is only present within the understanding of our non-separateness and interdependence versus “I’m free to do whatever I want.”

Our constitution is predicated on the belief that all people are created equal but that understanding has yet to be fully realized and embraced. If that were realized, and equality was truly put in place, there wouldn’t be famine, or people suffering from lack of food or poverty. We would’ve solved these problems a long time ago because we possess the means to do exactly that. But evolutionarily, developmentally, we’re not there yet as a species.

True freedom arises our of our responsibility to remain interconnected to ourselves and the world around us. There’s no true independent action apart from the whole, and there is no truly independent, separate person apart from the whole, except as a belief. When we look at the fact of the matter, we must realize that we’re all connected to each other. 

~Edited by Tristan Stapleton