|
Yoga
Experience
Here’s
a simple practice that both soothes and energizes so it’s wonderful to do
when you’re feeling anxious, and it lifts the depressed mood as well. This
practice combines a special breath with a posture and an affirmation.
Part I—Breath to Fortify the Nerves
Come into a standing position with your feet parallel and an inch or two
apart for stability. Tuck your tailbone. Draw your shoulders down your
back. Stretch your arms out in front of your waist. Inhale and make fists
of the hands. While holding the breath, pump your fists back toward your
waist. Exhale and relax. Repeat. Close your eyes and feel the effects of
the breathing exercise. |
 |
Part II—Tadasana (Mountain Pose)
Stand with your eyes closed, your arms by your sides, and your palms
turned out. Feel the energy you’ve generated circulating through your
body. Notice the tingling in your arms and down into your hands. Feel the
energy pulsing in your palms. Draw your shoulders back and tuck your
tailbone. Lift out of the waist and slowly begin to lift your arms out to
the side as though you are making an offering of this energy. Bring your
arms over your head with the palms facing each other. Relax your shoulders
down. Continue breathing long and deep through the nostrils, filling with
prana. Feel as though you are holding your arms up, not from your
shoulders, but from the core of your body. Ground your feet and experience
your connection to the earth. Feel the energy pulsing between your hands.
Focus on your breath. Allow your breath to fill this vessel you’ve been
given for this lifetime with life energy, strengthening this vessel so
that you can hold more prana, more light, more joy; expanding your chest,
your heart, your lungs, so that there’s more room inside for your
authentic expression of self. Hold this position for at least ten long
breaths.
Part III—Affirmation
Continue to hold Tadasana and breathe deeply through the nostrils. Relax
into the sensation that’s strong in your body. Bring the breath there.
Bring the attention there and dive through that window of sensation into a
deeper experience of being in your physical body in this moment, in Yoga,
in union.
Now affirm to yourself: “I am aligned with the energy of the universe, and
the energy of the universe supports and protects me.”
However, if this affirmation feels uncomfortable in any way, don’t use it.
Try an affirmation you can believe. How about, “I am the energy I feel?” |
When you feel complete, slowly release the pose, lowering your arms to
your sides. Stand with your feet a comfortable distance apart, your eyes
closed and your arms at your sides, palms face out. Breathe. Relax. Feel.
Watch. Allow. You are energy!
| |
|
|
| |
“The yoga
mat itself becomes the place you show up with your whole self—your
grieving self if you’re grieving, your angry self if you’re angry.
And the practice itself brings the emotional body back into
balance.” |
|
| |
—Amy
Weintraub, “Depression and Our Forgotten Magnificence,”
Yoga International (July/Aug, 2002)
|
|
