Our bodies send us distress signals and warnings all the time. They act as a filter for everything in our environment, including our thoughts. When we pay attention to what's happening in our bodies we can easily discern the right choice about anything, and we can prevent dis-ease from taking root in our bodies by choosing to release what's not in our best interest. When we don't pay attention, the filter gets clogged with stuck energy - old emotions, unprocessed grief, anger, guilt, fear - and we become a host for illness, injury and bodily decline.
Through a yoga practice, we can tune into the messages our spirits send us and learn to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us - and we can intentionally pull the spiritual messages into the physical realm to help manifest them.
Beginning a yoga practice for the first time often starts mostly in the mind. You're thinking about how to do it, concentrating on instructions and technique. You'll notice a few things about your body, mostly the poses that are challenging for you. Even then, though, you'll mostly be in your mind. You'll be evaluating and judging yourself. You'll may be thinking, ‘I can't do this.’
Most yoga instruction teaches you to pay attention to your breath as you move through poses. That's important for many reasons; it's especially important because it begins to move your attention fully into your body, in particular, to your heart chakra where, ideally, all the information you receive from the physical and spiritual realms is merged and filtered.
Most of the time, when we have a physical response to a thought, emotion, or situation, we feel it in our upper abdomen, chest or throat area. That's the energy moving through and expanding in our heart center. Focusing on the breath begins to create awareness of the ebbing and flowing sensations there.
As a yoga practice becomes more familiar, you begin to notice subtler nuances in your body. You begin to be able to “put your breath” in a specific place in your body to help you open and expand there. You begin to feel the slight difference that occurs when you turn your foot a different way, rotate your body a different direction, lengthen your spine further.
When you begin learning more advanced poses, you become aware of how the slightest change can make all the difference. Learning to balance on one foot in Tree Pose can seem challenging: then you discover that if you intentionally shift your weight on the balancing foot to the front of your heel, you can balance with ease.
That level of awareness opens you to noticing the tiniest of imbalances in your body. In Mountain Pose, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt if your feet are uneven by so much as a millimeter. In Triangle Pose, you know if your weight is on the inside or outside of the heel of your back foot. You can do standing back bends without fear of falling because you instinctively know your precise center of balance.
Off the mat, all of this intricate connection to what's going on in your body becomes your greatest source of information to help you make decisions about anything from what nourishment your body needs to whether or not to take a new job, start a new relationship, or relocate.
It helps you to be aware of the slightest warning that something isn't right - in your body and in your environment. “Fight or flight syndrome” is intricately tied into the movement of energy in your body - and a lot of what we’re exhausted by in today's world is the drain on our adrenal system as we try to handle things coming at us 24 hours a day and the old instinct to react to those things, as threats to our safety.
When you've cultivated a finely tuned attention to your body's messages, you can short circuit that reactionary process by taking action before its triggered. In being confidently decisive, you stop the biochemical dump that triggers “fight or flight” symptoms, lessening anxiety and the burden on your body.
The lessons learned while on a yoga mat carry over into everyday life, helping you create a life of health, safety and joy. If you don't have a yoga practice, I'd encourage you to consider starting one. There are some great beginner DVDs by Rodney Yee, Alan Finger (Yoga Zone) and others. Most local recreation centers offer yoga instruction. Rodney Yee has a great introductory book: Moving Toward Balance.
26 | ElementsForAHealthierLife.com | September 2016