Yesterday, a very important concept blossomed from the discussion that the yoga class is not only a place to teach but also a place to provide a safe environment. Yoga traditionally has been used to prepare the practitioner to enter into stillness. Stillness of the mind doesn't mean "not moving". Yoga is meant to harmonize the connection between mind body and spirit. When I make recommendations to patients for considering Yoga, the answer is usually "I'm not flexible", then I mention it will help get you to a state where you can meditate; "I can't sit still". I even remember discussing yoga with a collegue in the ER, she said the poses used to get her so sweaty, she would slip off the mat and get frustrated! (I love her but... perhaps we need private lessons first?) Even in current times, we are not given tools to relax. Most of our coping skills as adults come from learned experience from childhood.
The earliest childhood experiences- I remember occasionally getting placed "in the corner" which is probably a way to reflect and meditate. Or perhaps going to church during school with classmates and being told to be quiet, fold your hands and pray. I recall praying before state finals for track and field and having one way conversations with an image of the Virgin Mary or Jesus. Or perhaps it was the few seconds before taking off from a long jump I would repeat the visualization of me taking flight, and taking flight again and again. During this time, nothing else would enter the mind. Kind of like stillness. Or perhaps playing wide receiver in 8th grade (for a whole 2 weeks) there would be the excitement of the huddle, the confrontation at the line with the opposition, then the silence before the quarterback gave the "hike!" During that time, between tripod stance and "hike", time stood still. Kinda what Deepak talks about as getting into the gap, the gap between thoughts. This is where you find consciousness. No thoughts interrupt, the mind is not diverted with the 2000 thoughts per hour an average human goes through. This is when the cells of the body find peace, no influx of fight or flight hormone, no spring board from one thought, sound, sensation to another. In writing this blog, I see how athletes can get to a state of stillness, especially martial arts (before board breaking!) Short of the sports involvement though, there are very little efforts being made to attune our children (thus our future adults) on how to settle an anxious and fluttering mind.
Wait.....a thought just emerged into my mind, in a nightclub as two bone heads get to chest thumping, before the first fist flies, all the friends will pull the roosters apart and say "calm down, relax". Then one or both will start taking deep breaths like getting ready to hoist a barbell, then back to drinking.
In summary, the usual thing being taught to boys was being placed into a corner (solitary confinement), going to your room (more confinement), or being told to "hit him back" or just "shut up, be quiet!" (think fraternity) So how are societies adults supposed to react to stressors? Probably the same way as in childhood and adolescence which is why we have heart disease, high blood pressure, insomnia and sleep/sex disorders. The American Medical Association says that stress is a factor in 75% of all illnesses. I believe it is a higher percentage. With what I have learned from Mind Body Medicine/Ayurveda-the science of life, it is the spirit that is the one existing that happens to have a human experience in the form of a cell/organ/body/being not the human that has to learn to drop into stillness and find it's "spirit". This is probably why when a neophyte drops into a class or is "dragged" to practice with a friend who avidly swears by her yoga instructor, they usually get bitten and come back for more. I would say it is due to the suggested setting of intention in the beginning, the proper use of svasana poses interjected strategically during the flow of the class and the meditative breath control during and after practice especially at final relaxation pose. Whether beginner or experienced, this 60-75 minutes will work to make a change in the way the mind performs, the way the muscles feel and the way the breath(spirit) flows. How can one avoid the temporary bliss? I would like to think the feeling is from the gentle and caring voice, the compassionate heart of the instructor but I see this happening in Bikram studios and Iyengar studios (for the non-yogis, these two forms of practice are powerful but also very physical and exact so less time is spent on the relaxation and breath work) where the newbie just rants about how good it was and gets right back for enrollment. So in effect, the poses, the sequencing and flow can be powerful tools in themselves for settling the mind.
I believe in the power of yoga to heal. It is not just asana, truely the Eight Limbs of Patangali rejoice in the science of yoga as a means for finding bliss and being one with everything. The instructors of today will be wielding a very formidable tool to make people/patients feel and exist better than they can with modern medicine. The teacher that takes her position at the front of the class with little regard will potentially turn away that curious cancer patient that would have healed or the high risk lady that would have avoided another surgery on her back. We must consider our classroom has a safe/healing place and every person that walks into it as someone who desperately needs healing. Even further, all those we teach to breath and enter into stillness that begin to walk and talk yoga will attract more of the worlds "walking wounded" to also come experience true healing (and this includes the younger generation) so the epidemic of stress related disease can be vanquished. In medicine we are taught that every patient is an individual, every individual-a human being. No matter how many sick line our waiting rooms and hallways, each one has to be given 110% of a healers focused attention. I believe no matter how big our classes get, no matter how complex the personalities are, no matter how challenged the bodies appear; every student taking yoga has a story and must be given 110% of the teachers efforts to teach the lesson of the day and drop that person into stillness. When the injured, sick or dying get a respit from disease, cells feel it, the mind knows it and the spirit lives it. As teachers of yoga we have the power and responsibility to heal.
