Balance & Harmony Through Yoga
Balance & Harmony Through Yoga
Inviting Balance & Harmony into your life
In our busy lives, with our minds working overtime to think, sort and organize everything into our often time poor schedules, creating space to practice slowing down and touching base with quietness is rare but so very important. It is here where we create awareness of just where we are at. It is here where we delve below the surface to check in with how we really feel. It is here where we can truly nourish oneself – creating balance and allowing harmony to not only reside within but to flow.
Our yoga practice is a beautiful place to practice creating more balance and harmony in our lives. As we leave to world behind and dive whole heartedly into our practice, we create this movement mediation type state. Where, when you move with intention, the benefits of your practice are enhanced. Catching moments of silence, creating the space where we can really just BE.
There is a yoga for everyone
We are so fortunate living in our demographic area, as there are many types of yoga on offer. From hatha based asana classes to sound healing meditations, from yin yoga classes to aerial yoga, from kirtan (singing), chanting, dancing and devotional practice to iyengar and power yoga – and everything in between and to the extreme. The options are literally endless. Then, of course, you can practice at home in your own space and time. Whether you are physically able or that way inclined – there is a yoga for you – everyone can use yoga to create health and happiness.
The trend of action based, asana classes focusing on the physical poses, developing flexibility and strength are only the tip of the iceberg to what is available in terms of yoga. It is well worth seeking out a few options as each and every person has different needs and wants. If we keep growing and searching for practices that really resonates with us, we are truly serving ourself , our family, the wider community and possibly the entire universe. WOW!
How Physical Balance can bring harmony to your body, mind and spirit
The body is truly a magical vehicle. As we learn what it means, and practice what it takes to bring balance to our physical body, we allow it to function optimally, as it was designed. With this balance, we find creating clarity of mind, radiant energy, gratitude, connection to self, compassion and loving kindness, becomes a natural progression. Improving the health of the physical becomes easier as our mindset and attitudes adjust and change. Trying to create change with an old mindset can feel like hard work. With yoga on your side, working on the combination of body, mind and spirit simultaneously, your chances for growth and change are certain.
What is physical balance?
As we know, true balance in the physical body is not just about standing on one leg. It depends not only on our quality of MOVEMENT – our mobility, core strength and muscle tone but on many other aspects including FOOD - supporting our bodies with the right vitamins, minerals and nutrients, as well as cleansing and detoxing. These intern support our ORGANS - creating strength and efficiency in our organs and systems in order to function optimally for us (ie deliver nutrient rich blood to our cells). And lastly, and some would believe most importantly, our physical body depends on a more SUBTLE ENERGY - our thoughts and feelings, our breathing and energy (or prana). These are perhaps more subtle but very powerful factors in creating ultimate balance and harmony within our physical body and bridging the gap to a more spiritually enlightened self. All this fits in and interconnects with the yogic pathway and into Pantajali’s 8 limbs of yoga.
“It is through alignment of the body
that I discovered the alignment of my mind,
self, and intelligence”
BKS Iyengar
What is yoga?
The excuse I hear most for not being able to do yoga is “I am not flexible enough”. I actually find this heart wrenching to hear as I feel these people have not yet had the precious opportunity to truly understand yoga. They have unfortunately missed the whole concept of what yoga is. It is easy however, to see how people can arrive at such an understanding, with the way the western world predominantly depicts yoga. We have all taken the bait to the hype behind our modern day money making, social media posting yoga industry. We all know the images of long slender human like figures folded or bent into positions that can make the average person feel quite inadequate, or those human pretzels tied up in knots. And while this may sadly prevent some people from ever trying or getting into yoga…. Those that do, soon find a whole new world.
Going beyond the physical practice
Our muscles are designed to work in synergy with each together, in a three dimensional integrated manner. Yoga is more about creating this muscular support to stack and move our bones around and protect our joints from degeneration than creating flexibility without the safety of the fascial network.
Tight muscles are often this way because they aren’t supported. If you build the strength around this muscle and on the opposing side, the tight (perhaps short and overworked) muscle tends to start trusting and hence lengthening. We create this balance that deeply depends on strength and support. Flexibility comes more readily when we create a system that works together, with each muscle able to carry out the job it’s designed to do. I truly believe the flexibility a new comer develops in the first few weeks, is more from the activation and strengthening of their actions than from a new found flexibility on its own.
There is research to show that if you solely desire flexibility, rolling on a foam roller or balls can be more beneficial to lengthen a muscle (or the fascia) than stretching it.
Even the most basic asana based class is about activating muscles and increasing strength as much as it is about flexibility. And while some poses appear to be a show of flexibility, most have a solid foundation in strength, alignment and control. A pose becomes a creative way to take care of every part of the body, allowing us to access often forgotten or taken for granted body parts. A simple pose or exercise becomes an ‘asana’ when we bring a meditative mind to the pose – This is when healing happens.
Transformation through yoga
To transform your body into that body or being that flows from one pose to the next feeling both long and strong and yet soft and graceful, connected to the breath and feeling fearless and vulnerable at the same time – we generally need to progress along the yogic pathway. This goes far beyond the ideals of flexibility and strength of machine like movements. To journey here, we must create awareness around our thoughts, mindset and actions, around our emotions and feelings, fears and delights. Often what is truly holding us back is not our actual physical ability, but our limiting self beliefs, our thoughts and coping mechanism, fears and mental patterns we have set up. As we practice yoga, we move along on many parallel but interconnected continuums, some faster than others, depending on where we are at, what we know and what we are ready to take on board and learn.
This natural progression can occur on the mat, day by day, week by week as you turn up – creating more and more awareness of ingrained patterning and habits. As we peel off the layers that have been layed down through lifes experiences, as we release old patterns in the physical due to injury, emotions, or stuck energy, we allow energy to flow - the mind opens to new perspectives, new ideals, and new goals. We develop new concepts and understanding of why things are the way they are and create true awareness of our actions and emotions – allowing us to come closer to our true self - to who we are under the layers of life, rules, ego, beliefs and coping mechanisms we have learnt. We strengthen our chakras, our muscles, our connection to self as we practice in the safety and support of our studio, and we inevitable take this learning off our mat and transfer it out into our outside world.
“Your body, mind and soul
were designed to act as one.
Connect the three and you will align
with the life of your dreams”
Roxana Jones.
Creating happiness with yoga
There are many different types of yoga and even within the one type, there are so many variations. One of the beauties of yoga is that each teacher brings with them, their own passions, interests and skills. It is always good practice to try out, and be creative, with different practices – keep your mind open to new (or old) ideas you come across. As you discover all that yoga can be and as your yoga journey continues you will find what resonates with you most. Discovering what yoga and which of the 8 limbs (according to pantajali) that serve you most in your current moment, is well worth the effort. Often we can bounce (or float) between different options and aspects as our needs change as we follow the ebbs and flows of where life takes us.
The 8 limbs are designed in a natural progression towards ‘enlightenment’ or inner peace or a continual state of bliss, which is the ultimate goal or step in yoga. It is intended that if we practice the first six limbs - Yamas: moral disciplines, Niyamas: positive observances, asanas: posture, pranayama: breathing techniques, pratyahara: sense withdrawal, dharana: focused concentration, then we are gifted with the last two, dhyana: meditative absorption and Samadhi: bliss or enlightenment. But we can pick and choose and take things from here and things from there, the more you know, the more choices you have. The journey is ours to take however we please. “Yoga isn’t linear. It’s creative. It’s about breath. It’s about alignment. Yoga is meditation: stilling the waves of the mind, opening the heart and learning to be brave and humourful in the face of life’s inevitable obstacles” Waylon Lewis.
The ultimate goal of yoga - Balance and Harmony around the World
One of the ultimate goals of yoga is for each and every person to create their own balance and harmony within…to find their true self… and with this… live in complete balance and harmony with all that is other across the universe. One of my favourite peace mantras or invocations is “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” - May all beings be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life somehow contribute to this happiness and freedom for all.
As you practice yoga and bring about balance and harmony to your physical world, you realize that it is not really all about your physical body at all. The process of starting, irrelevant of what yoga you chose, was essential to your journey. Your reason for starting yoga is often different to the reason why you continue yoga. Your reasons continually change as you learn and grow and transform. As your asana practice continues, you realize that it is not how deep or far you go in a particular pose but the importance is in the quality of the movement. This knowing supports and encourages the development of your mental and emotional world. Your true intelligence is enhanced and your energy shifts. As this all bubbles and grows and feeds off each other… you start to notice the flow on effects. Opportunities to create balance and harmony in your outside world – with nature, with relationships, with spirit, with everything other than you – really starts to gain momentum. This is where gratitude wakes you up in morning and inner peace flows from you and living in true harmony is experienced.