Category: Healthy Activities

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Mindfulness

The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us.
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Oddly timely that Mindfulness Training was offered to me through the local school system – while my ego said – what? I already practice meditation – why – but then, out of curiosity, I took up the offer. I am so enjoying the program offered by Mindful Schools because it puts into a structured package all the things I have learned on my yoga journey and makes them plain English language that everyone can better understand. If it’s to be more effective, I would also go a step further and take the Dynamic Mindfulness Course with Niroga Institute. It’s a natural progression as we need that “dynamic” movements to get to the stillness –
we can’t just sit like monks from the get-go … especially in a school setting because Mind is so intimately connected to the Body, we have to study and affect both to make a real change; that of personal transformations connected to the transformations of those around you.

To me, Mindfulness appears to be a Western word encapsulating yoga philosophy. It’s about Dhyana with the use of Pranayama, so that we regain our vitality and find a purposeful meaning in life. But of course one cannot talk like this with all this Sanskrit and yoga philosophy so … translated into a more palatable and accessible language. And it’s rolled out into the schools where its most needed. This recognition of such a need is also interesting because the ancients had the asana, the physical moving aspects of yoga to settle down the energetic young boys too agitated or behaviorally troubled to get to that place of just sitting. Quietly to reflect … It’s a tough proposition to ask testosterone driven boys or anxious girls (girls were not allowed to physical yoga way back when …) to be still and quiet enough to meditate. So the physical – the dynamic movements – settled them down. Once the body releases tension and tightness, the fidgeting, the tingling, the itchiness, the soreness … the wiggling, the bouncing, jumping … stops. The agitation in the body eases. Then … fluctuations of the mind ceases to take us to that world only those who experienced it can define … as place of peace and equanimity. As a student of yoga, Mindfulness to me is a Western name to Dyana, i.e., meditation or a process and a practice to get to that state.

At the root of Mindfulness is the Eastern philosophy, particularly from yoga philosophy and kind of reminded me of that story from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
little prince

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What exactly is “Yoga Therapy” ?

After your read and appreciate the depth of this definition, it’s important that that therapist is very well trained – 200 hrs. “instructor” probably will not be able to serve at this multi-layered capacity unless she branched out from the healthcare profession (is a PT or OT, RN, even MD, PhD). It is also important for the therapist to know their scope and stay humble enough to refer the client to the right help with more expertise if the need is beyond our scope. That’s why its important for the YT to know others in the caring and healing profession to refer out to. Here’s a IAYT Definition and the rest is all an excerpt from IAYT’s page:

Yoga therapy is the process of empowering individuals to progress toward improved health and well-being through the application of the teachings and practices of Yoga.

– IAYT Educational Standards for the Training of Yoga Therapists

Selected Additional Definitions by the respected authorities in this vast subject:

Yoga therapy is a self-empowering process, where the care-seeker, with the help of the Yoga therapist, implements a personalized and evolving Yoga practice, that not only addresses the illness in a multi-dimensional manner, but also aims to alleviate his/her suffering in a progressive, non-invasive and complementary manner. Depending upon the nature of the illness, Yoga therapy can not only be preventative or curative, but also serve a means to manage the illness, or facilitate healing in the person at all levels.

– TKV Desikachar & Kausthub Desikachar

Yoga therapy, derived from the Yoga tradition of Patanjali and the Ayurvedic system of health care refers to the adaptation and application of Yoga techniques and practices to help individuals facing health challenges at any level manage their condition, reduce symptoms, restore balance, increase vitality, and improve attitude.

– Gary Kraftsow American Viniyoga Institute

Yoga therapy is that facet of the ancient science of Yoga that focuses on health and wellness at all levels of the person: physical, psychological, and spiritual. Yoga therapy focuses on the path of Yoga as a healing journey that brings balance to the body and mind through an experiential understanding of the primary intention of Yoga: awakening of Spirit, our essential nature.

– Joseph LePage, M.A., Integrative Yoga Therapy (U.S.A.)

Yoga therapy adapts the practice of Yoga to the needs of people with specific or persistent health problems not usually addressed in a group class.

– Larry Payne, Ph.D. Samata Yoga Center (U.S.A.)

Yoga therapy is the adaptation of yoga practices for people with health challenges. Yoga therapists prescribe specific regimens of postures, breathing exercises, and relaxation techniques to suit individual needs. Medical research shows that Yoga therapy is among the most effective complementary therapies for several common aliments. The challenges may be an illness, a temporary condition like pregnancy or childbirth, or a chronic condition associated with old age or infirmity.

– Robin Monro, Ph.D. Yoga Biomedical Trust (England)

Yoga comprises a wide range of mind/body practices, from postural and breathing exercises to deep relaxation and meditation. Yoga therapy tailors these to the health needs of the individual. It helps to promote all-round positive health, as well as assisting particular medical conditions. The therapy is particularly appropriate for many chronic conditions that persist despite conventional medical treatment.

– Marie Quail, Yoga Therapy and Training Center (Ireland)

The use of the techniques of Yoga to create, stimulate, and maintain an optimum state of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

– Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D.

Yoga therapy consists of the application of yogic principles, methods, and techniques to specific human ailments. In its ideal application, Yoga therapy is preventive in nature, as is Yoga itself, but it is also restorative in many instances, palliative in others, and curative in many others.

– Art Brownstein, M.D.

Yoga therapy may be defined as the application of yogic principles to a particular person with the objective of achieving a particular spiritual, psychological, or physiological goal. The means employed are comprised of intelligently conceived steps that include but are not limited to the components of Ashtanga Yoga, which includes the educational teachings of yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Also included are the application of meditation, textual study, spiritual or psychological counseling, chanting, imagery, prayer, and ritual to meet the needs of the individual. Yoga therapy respects individual differences in age, culture, religion, philosophy, occupation, and mental and physical health. The knowledgeable and competent yogin or yogini applies Yoga Therapy according to the period, the place, and the practitioner’s age, strength, and activities.

– Richard Miller, Ph.D.

Yoga therapy is of modern coinage and represents a first effort to integrate traditional yogic concepts and techniques with Western medical and psychological knowledge. Whereas traditional Yoga is primarily concerned with personal transcendence on the part of a “normal” or healthy individual, Yoga therapy aims at the holistic treatment of various kinds of psychological or somatic dysfunctions ranging from back problems to emotional distress. Both approaches, however, share an understanding of the human being as an integrated body-mind system, which can function optimally only when there is a state of dynamic balance.

– Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D.

Yoga therapy is a holistic healing art. Rather than prescribe treatments, it invites presence and awareness. Using age-old yogic approaches to deeper presence and awareness, we are able to know ourselves more fully. Out of that knowing, we are more easily moved to embrace the opportunity for change, growth, and enhanced well-being in body, feelings, thought, and spirit.

– Michael Lee, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy

Yoga therapy is the application of Yoga to individuals to empower them to progress toward greater health and freedom from disease.

– Ganesh Mohan, Svastha Yoga and Ayurveda

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Is yoga fitness or … therapy?

It’s both.

Yoga is a great multi-faceted form of exercise, an effective fitness program, incorporating mindfulness to movements while building strength; improving flexibility and fostering spiritual growth or even transcendence. Done regularly, the practice serves as a potent preventative medicine by improving our heart health; muscle tone; stretching and releasing the connective tissues, improving one’s balance … all these great benefits.

But all times, it’s therapeutic. I think I heard Judith Lasater say, yoga to her has always been more than a fitness regimen but more about the therapeutics and quieting of the agitation in the minds.

For cancer survivors, it’s especially a safe place, an empathetic supportive community, to aid their healing process through the use of expertly sequenced lesson plan.

I learned so much from this expert teacher and equally as much from her students who showed up to fully engage in Lorien’s expertly led group yoga class and then stayed awhile to share their stories with us So many smiles, even a joke shared by a cancer survivor student to which we all laughed with; good vibes; SO Very inspiring conquering that fear we all have – that fear of the ultimate unknown, to be so vulnerable to open up to that fear we all share – fear of suffering, fear of death ! It’s about mastering your fears – this class – and acceptance of the impermanence while slowly regaining the energy to be empowered. It’s such a powerful class I recommend highly as most everybody I know are eventually affected by cancer, suffered by friends and family, if not directly by themselves.

Thank you for holding that space of learning and sharing Lorien !   Beautiful souls lit up the beautiful space. Namaste:)