Healing Ourselves

This is my latest article for the Stanly News and Press.  It is dedicated to my beautiful friend, student and teacher, Erin Rose Ryan Sizer.

I am writing this just hours after attending a beautiful friend and fellow Yoga teacher’s funeral, so the power of Yoga to heal emotional wounds is on my mind. Yoga is great for your emotional health because it helps you to remain focused on the present moment and your breath, which are essentially all we own.

We live in a world of “what if’s”.  We worry so much about what we could have done differently in our pasts that we waste the lessons of our sorrow on regret.  Studying and practicing Yoga helps us learn to let go of attachments.  People tend to hold onto the sad things that have happened in their lives the same way they grip and hold themselves up in surrendering postures because they fear that it will hurt when they let go.

Sometimes is does hurt when the muscles relax and pose deepens, but we find that after a few moments of focusing on the present and the breath, the pain subsides and we are now okay in this new place.  The body will never change if we do not let go.  You can be stuck in a moment the same way you can feel stuck in a Yoga pose.  But the more you practice, the more you will reap the rewards of riddance.

The only way the pain of your body and your mind will change is by going straight through it with long deep breaths.  In life and in asanas, you cannot go over it, under it or around it.  Sometimes you have to hold your poses longer to work through it and sometimes it happens more in a flow, but the work has to be done.

Focusing your attention on the always-present moment is something we do not get a lot practice with in our society.  I think this is why Yoga has started moving so strongly through our culture as a way to counter all of our distractions.  Focusing on all of the senses during a Yoga class brings heightened awareness of that focus off the mat.  If we realize that at this very moment everything is okay and we are all right, we will begin to heal and appreciate all we have more deeply.

Yoga is not a magic pill for healing your pain and sorrow, but it is an effective tool that can bring you more peace and more gratitude.  A Yoga class is a place that supports us and accepts us and waits patiently for us decide when we are ready to let go.

Listen To Your Body

My beautiful friend and fellow yogi, Meghan.

I write an article about Yoga in my local newspaper, the Stanly News and Press.  Here is my latest:

In a recent New York Times article titled “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”, William J. Broad discusses the dangers of injury through Yoga.  When someone sent this article to me, my first thought was “Oh no!”  But as I read it, I found myself agreeing with much of his point.

Broad tells of teachers and students who have experienced injuries due to taking their egos with them on their mats.  I try to remind my students regularly that Yoga is not a competitive activity and if you are a naturally competitive person, please use this time to let that go and work on listening to your body.

Our American culture seems to scream that more is better, but when it comes to physical activities that we hope to maintain and sustain our good health, I don’t believe that is a good philosophy.  I fell in love with Yoga because it was the first exercise that I felt I could do for the rest of my life.  I was lucky because I found teachers who stressed safety and modifications and who did not push me to find my limits, but encouraged me to become more mindful and aware of my body’s abilities and limitations.

We do not say that we “do Yoga”, we say that we “practice Yoga”.  This means that it is something we study regularly with the knowledge that we will have to adapt our poses and our practice at different times in our lives.

I see pictures of people in amazing poses and I have to admit that I am impressed.  But I can also honestly say that I know that I will probably never practice or master those types of poses and that does not bother me one bit.  I practice Yoga for my health, not because I want to perform in Cirque de Soleil or make it into Yoga Journal magazine.

I, too, have experienced pain and injury through Yoga.  These things happened from overuse or pushing too hard when I was not warm enough to demonstrate a difficult pose in class.  I should know better, but life is a process and those injuries have taught me valuable lessons about myself.

If Yoga is a part of your life, remember to listen to your body, always move slowly and mindfully through your poses and never concern yourself with what someone else looks like in a pose.  “Know thyself.”