Yoga is a tool, a self-healing tool, that is part of a way of walking through the day and life as a whole.I could replace the word yoga with many things:
Shamanism
Energy medicine
Tae kwon do
Tai chi
Qi gong
Andean Paqo Honoring Pachamama in everything because they see nothing else, it is their cosmology, their very way of being
Medicine Wheel Living
Celtic Cauldron Living
Living Astrology (not the foo foo horoscope stuff but the art & science of astrology & astronomy. Look that up IF so Inspired: SOLA)
on & on with indigenous, cultural groups living in Sync with and honoring the Sacred Heart of Nature, the rhythms of Nature
For me, and how I share this forward, is my seeing and immersing in Yoga as the gift of living in the Sacred Circle of Life, the Rhythms and Cycles of Nature. You ARE Nature. All of the above practices, and many more from the Global Collective, are versions of living in the truth of our Nature. Nature period.
When I counsel people around finding their calm space in life, Yoga principles are a huge part of what I share. Yoga postures and breathing, what the greater US culture perceives as Yoga, is just the tip of the iceberg of Yoga’s healing energy. Yoga is part of the Ayurvedic healing system. Practicing postures, breathwork, mantras, mudras, and other Yoga practices are pieces of the “calm the nervous system” for self-healing that Yoga and Ayurveda offers up.
My Yoga Counseling these days tends to be more on the spiritual side and strongly suggesting a daily physical practice as a means of calming, quieting, and toning the Peaceful, Rest & Digest mode of the body’s natural healing way of being.
Yoga posture and breathwork are the ideal Ayurvedic exercise. Yoga rejuvenates the body-mind-spirit, improves digestion, removes stress, tones the vagal nerve, balances all three doshas, improves circulation of blood - lymph - life force energy - cellular & extracellular fluids - nerve impulse… do I need to add more? Have I peaked your interest in at least giving the self-healing system of Yoga a try?
One of my Yoga Teacher Training Schools always invited us to try new habits, commit for 30-40 days of daily practice, and then see how we feel differently in Body-Mind-Spirit after our commitment. This kind of commitment, to self-healing, can bring profound transformation in the way to think, feel, and energetically express ourselves in the world.
How I offer suggestions for a daily practice to my students, clients, people I love: (*see the info below that I shared with my ‘students’ at Colton School before we started our Create Constant Calm Journey together)
Practice Yoga postures while deep breathing throughout the day where you can fit them in. If this means while standing at the sink or counter doing dishes or prepping dinner, so be it.
Yoga does not need to be an hour and a half continuous practice, fit in bits and pieces where you can. This is about creating calm and not another thing to cross off your to-do list.
The practice is creating peace in every moment of your day. Yes, it takes time, patience, and practice to get to this space. We need to let go of instant gratification and invest time into our healing, into creating constant calm within ourself.
Follow the cycles of Nature. Pay attention to the cycles of the day, week, month, and seasons of the year. Be aware of the different sounds, smells, and the energetic feel of each day and season of life.
Stay calm in every moment: Deep breath, create awareness around what just created the energy of being triggered (thank it for alerting you to that which does not create healing flow inside your being, that which does not serve your highest good), looking into the dark shadow of why this triggers you, what lives in the deep recesses of your mind, heart, and soul?
Ask yourself: why am I allowing this to bother me? How can I let this go? What action can I take instead of this trigger reaction? What new way of BEING can I bring to this lifelong habit of reacting?
Shed light into the dark areas of your being and bring forth your awareness as a tool for growth & transformation and living in your Sacred Heart Space. Yoga opens us to being in our Sacred Heart Space, peace & love. Yup, the Hippies of the 60s were onto something.
Transforming self, through awareness practices, heals you and opens the door for others to heal. Everyone in your Circle of Life can vibrate at a different level, if they choose, because you initiated change.
Butterflies are a symbol of transformation.
Be like the Butterfly and release your layers of trigger points to transform into your natural state of peace.
As I stay in beginner’s mind, relearning the wonders of Nature (this is inherent in all of us, part of our DNA because We ARE Nature), I stay mesmerized by where my practice takes me. This practice is my personal practice and the practice of services I offer to others, with Love.
If I have intrigued you to want to hear more about Yoga’s gifts to self: Yoga Blog Musings From Over The Years
*From the Create Constant Calm course I offered to the staff at Colton school when everyone was stressed by Covid.
One purpose of Yoga’s is to bring us back into the present moment via our body and our breath. So many of us have forgotten how to live in the rapture of the living moment.
I will be teaching very simple aspects of yoga. Simple to keep it as a doable *daily practice.
A yoga classes purpose is to have an experienced yoga mentor, hopefully with somewisdom, to lead you through learning. I will be honest, after 23 years of a pretty consistent daily yoga practice, I struggle to be in an actual yoga class. Yoga is a quiet inner journey, a moving meditation for me. Being in class with a yoga teacher, giving constant directions into and out of the poses, is a distraction for me. BUT, this verbal instruction is what supports your learning the hows and whys of Yoga so you can create your own moving meditation at home. The goal in coming to classes is always to create independent yoga practitioners never to create students who are dependent upon the teacher/guide for their yoga practice.
In class this week, and every 2 weeks, you will experience me guiding you into and out of a simple series of yoga physical postures to:
Move energy in your body
Bring you inside yourself to feel what your body feels like in this pose, in this moment
Keep your spine, and therefore body-mind-spirit, supple and youthful
Bring awareness to breath and all the magic this creates in your B-M-S so you can create a personal constant calm even when approached with life’s occasional chaos.
Build a little more inner wisdom each time we meet.
My wish for you is that you learn to use these yoga tools to create constant calm in your life.
*A daily practice can be as easy as 15-20 minutes each morning. Honestly, if 10 is all you can squeak out, 10 it is! Learning that everything you do is yoga (being alive to the rapture in the present moment) you can stretch and breathe while doing dishes, folding laundry, writing lesson plans, grading papers, driving kids around to various activities, etc. When we bring awareness, calmness, and deep inner peace to everything we do: yoga off the mat is our thriving existence.
In Peace & Love, Paula
From another CCC Colton Follow Up email (Maybe I will take all of the class follow up emails with their Yoga posture series and create a small spiral handbook of Create Constant Calm Yoga. It could be placed right on the floor at the top of your mat to support your weaving a daily practice):I am still giggling about our short chat in class around creating a daily yoga practice.
I want to offer some short, simple, easy to navigate suggestions to bring the calm into your day without a lot of extra "where will I find time for that Paula?!? Seriously, have you seen my schedule, walked in my shoes?"
A 5-7 minute nervous system reset to get the day off in Constant Calm Mode all before breakfast:
raise the spine up creating extension between each vertebrae while standing at the kitchen counter getting the coffee brewing: Deep Belly Breathe
turn sideways to the counter and reach up into the cupboard at a lateral spinal bend to carefully grab a coffee mug... deep belly breathing
turn to the other side repeat, grabbing another cup if someone you live with would appreciate your Act Of Love getting them a cup of coffee
turn your butt towards the counter and fold forward while deep breathing (and hopefully NOT picking up shattered coffee mug pieces from faulty lateral oopsies)
turn pelvis back towards the counter, lift the spine up and bend backwards from the Sacred heart space, deep breathing and NOT hyper extending your neck.
in the shower, position yourself comfortably and turn the upper body, from the Sacred Heart Sternum space to twist the upper body and rinse off, yup deep breathe
repeat on the opposite side, rinsing off all evidence of body wash choices.
while bending forward, twisting, etc. to dry off... do so with mindful consciousness to your deep breathing and sacred heart living
Look at that... you just had a morning yoga practice, breath work to calm the parasympathetic nervous system and tone your beautiful vagus nerve, and you did not use any extra time than maybe 5-7 minutes.
The Week #1 Yoga Posture Card I shared at Colton School.
