Imagine yourself awaiting sunrise at dawn. As the sun rises, you feel its warmth. You open your arms, inviting its warmth into you with literally open arms. In yoga sun greetings, we replicate this action as we open our arms and open our heart centre.
But this can be a vulnerable position in terms of defending ourselves- physically, mentally, and emotionally. It takes strength, awareness, but also courage to sustain such an open posture. For many of us, it is not a familiar way to hold our bodies, so it can help to consider how to assist ourselves. As always, the breath is with us to help open us up. We can deploy Uddiyana Bandha, drawing belly muscles inward and upward, to contain the breath higher up in the chest cavity. We can contract the back muscles, rolling shoulders back and drawing shoulder blades toward each other, to direct air to the front side of the body. Like squeezing an end of a balloon, we increase the pressure in the remaining area, the front chest. Then as we fill the lungs, the expansion opens our heart centre further. As we work to open our hearts in classes this week, our asanas gradually become more demanding. So the challenge becomes to keep that open heart when things get difficult- a metaphor for life perhaps! Outside the yoga class, you would look a bit odd doing all of this, and I would not encourage you to habitually hold in your belly! But you can develop the habit of rolling your shoulders back and down, and lifting your gaze, perhaps whenever you are walking. This open hearted posture will resonate in the energy you project to those who cross your path, especially if you throw in a smile! How do we know if we are well grounded? What does it provide us with? Consider how we may feel when we lose our ground, when we feel uprooted: insecure, a need to be on our guard, wary and defensive, vulnerable. We may find ourselves being overly critical of ourselves and perhaps others. Or we may latch onto a mooring to make us feel more stable. This could be friends, familiar routines, even food that soothes us.
What do we associate with a sense of being well grounded? A sense of vitality yet with inner calm, comfortable in our own skin, a sense of openness and trusting, ability to stand on our own two feet. So in your asana practice, be well grounded, notice if you start to lose your ground and stand firm again. Explore ways to maximise this sense of grounding, embody it. Breathe... feel your connection to the earth and rely on it, use it, play with it, learn how to maximise it within each asana. Create firm roots for long shoots. In our practice as in our lives, we can sometimes feel compressed; no space to move, our breath feels constricted. So we explore ways to make some space.
I recently was reminded of a very insightful comment: yoga is not about using the body to get into the pose: it is about using the pose to get into the body. So the pose is just a tool, a device to make us notice, to learn about our bodies but also our minds and our emotions. We can use a pose to explore this idea of finding space. Take Trikonasana for example. Often, a student will have their lower waist contracted, more a lateral bend than parallel to the floor- their lower hip and armpit are moving toward each other rather than away. Where can they find the space to lengthen the bottom waist? Well, that depends on where the resistance is coming from, and it is likely not in the waist! Our awareness needs to move away from this area as we explore making changes elsewhere. So what happens if the front knee is well bent- is there now more room to lengthen through the side body? What about changing the distance of the back foot (closer, further): any difference? Now try pressing through the front foot to drive the lower hip away toward the back of the mat whilst anchoring through the back foot to energise along the spine to the crown of the head: direct the armpit and all along that lower waist in the direction of the front of the mat. Can you feel more stretch and length: more space between each of those lower ribs? Space in a target area can be created by decreasing the depth of the pose in other areas. Once your body and mind is able to connect with this feeling of openness and length, then you can think about gradually deepening other areas, aware of when that space starts diminishing, stopping at that point and working there with the breath. When the body gets accustomed to it, there may be the potential to move a little deeper again- maybe today, maybe next time. So too if we feel hemmed in by our thoughts or emotions, we can be aware of it, and move our awareness away from it to somewhere else that helps us. This may be focusing on the breath, or a peaceful image, or a positive and affirming thought that opens us up again. Notice, challenge, change. Find a way to make some space. I recently read an interview (http://www.bangor.ac.uk/mindfulness/documents/23823-Bangor-CMRPNewsletterAmended_Prood_1.pdf page 18) with a mindfulness teacher living with a life limiting cancer. She shares a personal mantra that she has been working with: ‘whatever happens, let it happen’, ‘wherever it goes, let it go’, ‘there is no purpose [beyond this moment]’. Your instinct may be to balk at this, as it can sound passive and defeatist.
But reading her reflections on this, I think it acts as a much needed reminder that we continually need to draw ourselves back to the right now i.e. this moment and be fully present within it. We can then LET it happen, so fulfil the potential the moment offers now we are in it. We then have the power to engage with it and transform it rather than fight it or ignore it. So we direct our energy in this way and then release ourselves from speculation of future outcomes that divert our attention away from the next moment and the next. Our purpose lies in the now and what we choose to do with it. Sometimes this involves planning our future efforts to realise our visions, one moment at a time. On our mats, we can consider how to stay engaged with every breath of our practice. We may become aware of energy diverted into wrestling with a pose and then begin to let it go to transform our experience. We can then open our field of vision and find countless ways to connect more fully to it. So find a purpose in each breath, let it happen, and then let it go. All sorts of things can throw us out of our sense of comfort, and the weather is no exception! This can affect our energy, mood, appetite, sense of concentration, etc (there is a reason a siesta is popular in hot climates!). So if you are struggling with the hot temps, reflect on whether you are trying to carry on as you would in cooler times and “soldier through”. Perhaps you need to acknowledge the messages your body is giving you, and invite some temporary alterations to your lifestyle. Simple changes could include better hydration, smaller portions and lighter foods. Clothing choice is also important for comfort. You could even fill a spray bottle with water to mist yourself throughout the day! Where possible, work schedules could be altered to give you a rest in the heat of the day and shift work to cooler hours.
Our yoga practice can also change with the weather. We can pursue gentler, more restorative practices, and Pranayama such as Sitali to cool and refresh us. Accommodations- on and off the mat- should reflect your connection with your body and mind and how best to nurture healthy balance. Be well! Discussion of the Kleshas continues with Raga and Dvesah. (Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras discuss the Kleshas in Chapter 2, verses 3-9.) Raga and Dvesah arise from opposite ends of a spectrum and both describe behaviours that distract us from knowing our selves better. As with all the Kleshas, they obscure our true understanding in quite powerful ways.
Raga describes that sense of want, desire that is beyond what we need, in order to create a sense of inner security. We feel unwilling to let go and try either to cling onto or to re-create the pleasant feeling. I suspect we can all find our Raga trigger of choice (Chocolate anyone? How about another glass of wine!) Unhealthy desires lead to a sense of craving as opposed to feeling content. Dvesah indicates negative emotions we connected with unpleasant, fearful, or painful events, e.g. behaviours such as avoidance, judgement, or hatred. Some of our habitual reactions can be triggered by natural animal instinct to avoid danger. But we need to be prepared to let go of such reactions when they serve no positive purpose anymore. We need to know when to dismantle our barriers. This can be a lot easier said than done! For many of us, our barriers were erected so long ago, we do not even notice they are there anymore. And then we wonder why we feel disconnected to others, who read and heed our Do Not Enter sign that we forgot was there. We can take awareness of these Kleshas onto our mats and notice those asanas that we enjoy and would like to do more of and those asanas which would never feature in our own personal practice. Do we gravitate toward ones we feel we execute well, or that energise us? Or perhaps ones that help us relax? Do others confront us with our limits of strength and flexibility that we would rather not be reminder of or which make us feel exposed to injury and bring tension into the body? Such reflections can grow your practice and your understanding of yourself. Be open and honest with yourself, without judgement. Learn when the feelings you have are constructive and helpful (an asana really may be too difficult without modification) and when they are reinforcing unhelpful behaviours. And don’t be afraid to reach out for a helping hand. You will likely find others with similar experiences who can share helpful insights with you. As mentioned last week, class themes move onto the Kleshas- obstacles that we build and so have the power to dismantle, if we choose to. Avidya translates often as spiritual ignorance, clouds that obscure our ability to see our true inner selves. The aspects of this are described as Asmita (sense of “I am”), Raga (sense of want, desire beyond what we need), Dvesha (aversion, avoidance), and Abhinivesha (fear of change, of things coming to an end.)
I find it helpful to think of the Kleshas as vines growing in a garden, obscuring what lies behind them. When we slowly start to strip the vines away, we reveal once more what had been obscured. It remained there the whole time; we just had trouble seeing it. And if we ever ignore the vines, they will grow back again. So once more in our yoga practice, we can try to stay connected to essentials, even when new postures and unfamiliar vinyasas arrive- this week in the form of Moon Sequences. Do we become entangled in the vines of the asanas, or can we see beyond them and still stay connected to our breath with a clear mind? After my three week break, I am re-reading recent postings and get the sense that it all comes back to some pretty simple and yet frustratingly elusive things. One of my holiday reads was Yoga School Dropout by Lucy Edge. It starts as a light read as she travels through India from ashram to ashram, sampling as from a pick and mix, searching for The Place with The Answers. Her story is told with much humour and self deprecation, and whilst she figures out some key things, she still has a long journey ahead at the close of the book. But what she does conclude is that it is less important what you do than how you do it.
On our mats we can bear this in mind in our ability stay connected to the sense of moving meditation with our breath control. And also in our choice of asana, how we actively work in the pose, and what we discover. We can be mindful of when we are straining or taking things too far, but also when we have slackened off too much, perhaps in less challenging poses. So breath by breath, keep tuned into how you are working- no autopilot and no overdrive! So now I have a better grasp of Duhkha, last week’s theme, how can I become more aware of the situations that give rise to it so I can try to act differently? The Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar mentions the play of the Guna as relevant. These are states of mind. At one end is Tamas, heaviness, and at the other is Rajas, restlessness. Both can draw Duhkha. Absence of either is described as Sattva, likened to clarity.
Whether Tamas and Rajas are good states of mind to be in will depend on the situation. If a troubling external event arises in our lives, a sense of tamas can prevent us from reacting hastily without clarity, which could create Duhkha. At times when we feel a bit stuck and in a rut, a sense of rajas can spur us out of our stupor into action and back to better balance in our life. So again, an awareness of what state we are experiencing and what purpose it is serving us- help or hindrance- can provide us with more clarity- sattva. And we can take this into our asana practice and be aware of the states of mind we take into our postures and whether they are an asset or a liability. Start with noticing, and then you have the chance to work on change, even if it takes awhile! It’s funny how at certain times, a Yoga Sutra can seem either mundane or impenetrable to me. Yet at other times, the same one suddenly seems very illuminating. Such was the case when I came to Sutra 1.8, the counterpoint of 1.7 discussed last week. Sutra 1.8 mentions incorrect knowledge or misapprehension i.e. wrong understanding. OK, fine, we all experience this. I then read about Duhkha and Sukha in The Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar.
Duhkha is describe as a kind of darkness of the spirit- the sense of constriction, feeling bound up, or to me, that sense of being “out of sorts”, sometimes without knowing why. Sukha is the opposite, a sense of good space, lightness, peace of mind. Actions arising from incorrect knowledge create duhkha- sometimes immediately, sometimes much later. Desikachar powerfully comments that an action based on correct knowledge harbours no Duhkha. So it sets free our peace of mind. Yet how impossibly difficult, when so often, we believe ourselves to be acting “with the best intentions”- i.e. we think at the time we are using correct knowledge yet hindsight proves it not to be so. For me, Desikachar’s comments provide another perspective with which to view my thoughts and deeds and their impact, particularly in creating that sense of Duhkha. Once again it asks us to put a mirror up to ourselves for the causes and the remedy. This could take awhile! |
AuthorRuth is a yoga therapist and yoga teacher based in Cheltenham, UK. She emphasises yoga as a tool for well-being, for individuals and in her classes, in person or via zoom. Archives
October 2023
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