I recently read an online Yoga Journal article that I feel inspired to share with you. For me, this article is timely and inspirational because it validates my focus to a more therapeutic form of yoga services.
Allow me to give you the ‘short and sweet’ of it… entitled “Change for Good”, the article explains that we, as human beings, have specific energy patterns (called samskaras in yoga) that manifest as habitual tendencies. Often, these habits are disempowering and even destructive. While the author of the article speaks specifically to samskaras as being of a mental or emotional nature, I would suggest that they also manifest as physical patterns as well. Let me give you some examples to better explain….
Physical:
– How do you hold your posture: do you tend to lean forward or round your shoulders?
– Do you have certain common movements or actions you habitually do without even realizing it? Like always crossing your legs a certain way, tilting your head to one side, or crinkling your forehead when you’re thinking?
Emotional:
– Do you get defensive when in conversation with specific people?
– Do you get fearful or discouraged by specific situations and circumstances?
Mental:
– Are you able to stay focused on one train of thought without getting derailed by other thoughts?
– Do you make assumptions about your abilities or what you are capable of? For example when faced with a new challenge, do you automatically think, “I can’t do this” before you even consider what’s involved?
– Do you have a tendency to procrastinate?
Now if you found yourself relating to any of these examples, you are not alone. We ALL have our own physical, mental and emotional tendencies! They are part of the human condition. Our samskaras have developed over years of experiencing repeated actions, movements, circumstances and thought processes.
Over time, they become our “modus operandi” or blueprint for how we live our lives. In the article, the author uses the metaphor of “mental grooves, like the rivulets in sand that let water run in certain patterns.” This offers a great visualization to further understand samskaras.
Imagine your mind as soft, unprinted sand. As you go through your life experiences and you act or move in a particular way, or think and react in a certain manner to similar situations, grooves are being carved into this sand.
Each time you repeat these actions and thoughts, those grooves get deeper. As time passes, these grooves become deeply engrained in your mental foundation. And you “fall into” them whenever those same or similar conditions and circumstances present themselves.
Thus physical, mental and emotional habits are formed and unfortunately, many of these internal patterns can feel very disempowering – like we repeatedly make the same mistakes or perhaps continue to injure our selves in the same area. Certainly, I am simplifying to illustrate the nature of samskaras, but this is the essence of how they work.
The good news however, is that we CAN change them. Just as a wave can wipe away the markings in the sand, we too can clear our old grooves. We have the ability to re-draw the lines of our blueprints and create new empowering habits. And when we work toward shifting these patterns, we embark on a journey to truly transform our well-being.
This is EXACTLY the crux of yoga. All the poses, breathing exercises, mantras, visualizations and meditations that we do are tools… tools to help us retrain our bodies to respond and act with more ease and comfort. Tools to help us re-pattern our thoughts and emotions so we feel internally clam, clear and “uncluttered”. This combination of retraining our bodies and re-patterning our minds is what allows us to transform our health to …what I like to call… an “elevated state of being-ness”.
And this is EXACTLY the mission of the Therapeutic Yoga program that I have been developing for the past several months. It offers a systematic structure that supports you in your daily effort to retrain the body and re-pattern the mind to be healthier and more empowered.
So I encourage you to read the full article (http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/1719 ), and if it inspires you to want to take charge of your health, give me call… I would love to share more on how the Therapeutic Yoga Program can transform how you feel – in mind, body and spirit! OR better yet… come see me this weekend (Aug 13/14th) for one of my 3 Therapeutic Yoga workshops and get a live experience of how powerful this practice can be.
Here’s to creating new empowering grooves… Be Well and ENJOY ~ Sheetal
Well put!!! You have so many gifts, including the ability to explain difficult concepts in such a clear and engaging way. I’m grateful to have walked into my first yoga workshop with you last year and continue to learn from you.
Thanks Sheetal!
Hello Debbie! So nice to hear from you… and THANK YOU for your kind words. I too am grateful…. grateful for students like you that allow me to do what I love to do. 🙂 Be Well!