To all of my fellow yogis this is the month for you! September is National Yoga Month! Yoga is more than a way to recharge the mind, stretch muscles and boost flexibly, the practice can reconnect an individual to their inner being and the community around them. But what is yoga?
Yoga can be summarized as three possibilities or approaches:
1. Yoga as Power–
Yoga can be explained as a means to attain a degree of power or control over the body and mind. Yoga links the body and the mind through intense physical and mental effort. For instance, through rigorous physical practices a state of concentration is developed and maintained which is used to hold power over the body and the breath. Within this approach, such control is often seen as prerequisite to the body and mind becoming free of disturbances and distractions.
2. Yoga as Meditation –
In this approach, yoga is a tool for a movement towards a deeper relationship with your sense of soul, by searching both into and beyond what you experience as the everyday self. Yoga is a skill by which you seek to sustain awareness and clarity in spite of the impulses of everyday life. Yoga is a process by which you grow in your understanding of yourself. From this you come to realize that you can change those aspects of yourself that are unhelpful on your journey through life.
3. Yoga as Therapy –
Yoga is both a restorative and preventive as it is applied as a therapy to help people with emotional problems or poor health. The approach needs to be very different for each person. One person’s potential to change his or her situation will be affected by his or her problem, while another person’s problem will be affected by his or her potential to change his or her situation. Yoga as a therapy also presumes that are willing to accept some responsibility within your situation. Here, with the support of a teacher, you can introduce and work towards sustaining creative changes in your lifestyle.
The above three aspects of yoga- power, meditation and therapy – are mutually supportive in helping to maintain physical health, psychological vitality and spiritual purpose within the commitments of daily life, work and relationships. The guiding principle is to see the person rather than the problem or disease and to accept that more than a pre-ordained technique is involved.
To learn more about yoga and positions click here to purchase my e-book Living Healthy with Yoga.
Start doing your yoga today!!
HEPSA Living Healthy Online 