Yoga is more.

Yoga is so much more than just flexibility and postures. It is so much more than just movement, doing splits, or touching your toes. Yoga means “to yoke” or “union”. This union has significance to our mind body connection. Your mind, body, spirit, are all apart of you, and all of them working in tandem takes years of perseverance to experience the fruit of this union. We must train the body to work together with our mind, our mind with our spirit, and spirit with our body.

The physical postures of yoga called asanas are just one of many tools to start training the body to experience union.  Over the short time I’ve been exposed to the asana practice, I’ve met so many who have experienced great benefits to learning their own bodies and enjoying the physical benefits of having a consistent movement in their lives. Improved flexibility, strength, concentration, weight loss, confidence, and a sense of achievement when accomplishing a new and challenging posture. I’ve also met those afraid to even try yoga because their own perception is that they have to be “bendy”, “flexible”, “look good in yoga pants”, “I don’t have the money or time” or “I don’t want everyone looking at me especially when I fall flat on my face!” All of these are normal reactions that even I had at one time to the physical practice of yoga. I didn’t know there were other paths to experiencing yoga.

“If the mind can conceive it, the body can achieve it.”

Asanas are just one of the eight-limbed paths of learning what it is to yoga. Another one of those paths is called Dhyana, which means steadfast meditation. A form of meditation is to pick an object to focus on, while observing the flow of thoughts that travel across the mind without becoming attached to or lost in a particular thought. 

Sound easy? Give it a try. Go ahead. You are right. Not so easy.

Just as it takes time to train our bodies to perform the asana, it also takes time to train the mind to operate in a continuous flow rather than the fragments of thoughts that swarm in our minds, distracting from purpose and intention. 

Here is something for you to try this week sometime to start training your mind to just observe your thoughts without particularly attaching to any of them. You many need a partner to do this, so grab a friend, partner, or just someone you trust driving, some uplifting music (instrumental, positive lyrics, something that brings only good thoughts) and hop in the car and go for a drive. It is important that you both are quiet and refrain from talking. 

Sit in the passenger seat and look out the window. Take a deep breath, relax and start observing the view.  Begin naming things as you pass, and reading as much as possible. Try not to turn to ever look back at something, but try to hold a steady gaze as to not be attached to a particular sight. This exercise is helpful if you drive in an area that the things you see you are familiar with and you can easily identify.  Example: power line – do not turn sign – spruce tree – hawk – bailey’s auto parts – light pole – stop sign – rocking chair on porch – mailbox – license plate SGY1204 – sidewalk – man walking dog - squirrel - blue car - flowers - shrubs - biker - cat - etc. 

See how long you can just name objects without other thoughts interrupting your observations. Once you identify your thoughts have wandered, or have started to think about your week, or lost in a thought because something you saw reminded you of “that time when”, just return to the task of naming objects. Remember, we can train our attention span; this is an easy way to begin that training. You might surprise yourself with how long you can keep it up. 

Lastly, put yourself back in the shoes of your childhood self. Remember when everywhere you went you were gazing out the window because you “didn’t want to miss a thing!” especially on summer road trips 

Call back that level of attention; it is inside you. 

You have everything you need to begin your journey of yoga, union of the mind, body and spirit. 

From the Garden