“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened.”
The Buddhist poster emblazoning this quote on my office wall is a simple decoration from Ross. But it lights a flame inside me every time that I read it.
It reminds me to shine bright in the face of fear. It reminds me to accept the good and the bad.
Today, I am going to share a secret with you. I am going to teach you something about yoga that most people do not know: how to use yoga poses as a prescription to change your life.
Two powerful results spark my desire to share this information: awareness and choice.
The more one learns about yoga, the more important these tools become. At first, any class, any teacher and any pose can get the job done. After a while, though, this may not continue to be true.
This year’s blogs highlight the interconnection of all aspects of wellness. The more tools we have, the better our chances of creating the results we desire. We have learned this month that we can energize ourselves and can enhance our moods through the energy gains and drains activity or through backbends. We can also do so through exercise.
One energy source we typically overlook when exercising is our back. The back holds some of the largest muscles (latissimus dorsi, trapezius and erector spinae) in the body, yet they are also some of the most underused thanks to America’s favorite sport: sitting. Americans now spend more time sitting than they do sleeping. This weakens our back muscles, which destroys our postures.
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Last week, I highlighted the importance of filling yourself up first so that you have the energy to truly care for others. I embraced yoga’s narcissistic appeal because it lures us onto the mat, where we can begin to evolve our relationship to ourselves and to the world. This week, I will teach you how to use asana, the practice of yoga poses, to generate the physical and mental energy to power this transformation.
It’s taken me about a decade of practicing yoga to figure out what we’re really doing on our mats: manipulating our bodies into specific positions to calm the mind. The mind and body respond differently to each pose, challenging us to learn to be OK with the varying energies and discomforts they elicit.
