What does the word yoga invoke in your mind? What is the first image you see? Many think of yoga as a set of postures, a form of exercise or the ability to stretch the body to its ultimate capacity . Yoga definitely includes improving bodily balance and awareness through movement, but it is certainly not limited to that.
Yoga is about creating balance
Today’s emphasis is on ‘doing’, on going ‘outwards’, on being ‘busy’, on ‘ticking as many items in the to do list as possible’. For some, to achieve inner balance, the yoga they need most is the yoga ‘of doing nothing’
Imagine if you were only able to inhale and kept on inhaling and inhaling; at one point you wouldn’t be able to go any further. Unless you exhaled, you wouldn’t be able to take your next breath. Well, yoga nidra (yogic sleep / conscious deep sleep) is one way to introduce the exhalations in your daily/weekly routine. It is the pause button we all need when everything seems to move faster than we can handle. Sometimes, pausing for as little as 5 minutes is all we need, to recuperate but often, we find it hard to indulge in such luxury because ‘TIME IS PRECIOUS’. Unaware that when we allow the natural rhythm to take place, relaxing in our exhalation, time seems to expand because we’ve slowed down. The paradox is, you will then be able to fit more in the time that you have, fulfilling all that matters most. The clarity that is achieved puts everything in the right priority, giving you a sense of being in the flow of activities instead of drowning underneath their weight.
If you need external encouragement to ‘STOP’ and indulge in doing ‘nothing’ – allowing the body and mind to sail on ‘the sea of pure being’ – you can listen to ‘Unwind the body, breath and mind’ CD. I will guide you step by step to a state of conscious deep relaxation with ancient techniques that are most suitable for modern people. Whether you want to dedicate 5, 10.. 20, 30 minutes or a whole hour, the CD has been laid out in such a way to accommodate your need.
April 2012
