Getting Out the Yoga Mat
There are many reasons why we might decide to get out the Yoga Mat.
We may feel stiff after a period of inactivity and want to gently move. Our minds may be over busy and agitated about an issue in our lives and feel the need to calm ourselves. But perhaps the most important reason for finding yoga time is it allows our mind to become quiet as we drop into the sensations of the body.
Practising mindful Yoga is not about striving in the exercise/ gym sense or being concerned about how to perform the posture. Practicing Yoga mindfully is about self -enquiry, noticing ourselves in many different ways, what we are experiencing in the moment. “What is happening right now?” “What am I sensing?” and “What do I notice”.
As yoga is so experiential it is often hard to articulate. As initially calmness is the goal, it is sensible to start with something that quietens us down. When the nervous system is calm, we are able to discern changes in our state more easily. I often start sessions with a sense of “grounding,” gained through quiet movement and postures.
For instance, lying on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor. This gives us a chance to settle, to arrive in the moment and to pay gentle attention to a sense of connection between floor and body.
Other experiences include a sense of spaciousness, a sense of effort , a release of tension, a greater feeling of ease. These experiences give us clues as to whether the practice is helping us develop our ability to pay attention to ourselves in the moment.
The gentle practice helps reduce our mental chatter and identify more clearly how we feel at a deeper level. Thoughts or feelings of restlessness appear and reappear until we are able to make sense of them.
Once these thoughts and feelings have surfaced, you then have the choice to do something about them. If an uneasy feeling of disquiet goes unacknowledged or worse denied, it will have continual power over us. But if approached with acceptance and compassion its power becomes less engulfing and insight leading to change can happen. Thus, this approach to yoga goes beyond the mat allowing mindfulness to permeate our lives.
If you are interested in exploring mindfulness yoga further. I am running an Online Mindfulness Yoga CPD workshop on Saturday May 22nd, 2021. A mix of theory and practice. The aim is to help develop your own practice by gaining a deeper insight into the process of self -enquiry through gentle movement so you can (in time) impart / teach Mindfulness Yoga to your students. Open to both beginners and more experienced.
The workshop was successfully run online in 2020.
Please see Mindfulness Now CPD listings – page? for more details on this year’s event or contact me for further information.
Aston Colley
BWY Yoga Teacher, Mindfulness Now Oxford Leader . D Hyp HPD.
Email: aston@nullunwind.uk.com