Yoga: Having a Conversation with Yourself

“Jennie, I really need yoga in my life – when are you teaching?”
“Jennie – what’s a good yoga pose for stress?”
“Jennie, I hurt my back…is there yoga for back injury?”
“Jennie – I’d love to start doing yoga but there just isn’t any time.”

Some people know me as the “yoga gal” which is something I’m totally not complaining about. I love yoga. I’m obsessed with yoga. I recently did an exercise where I had to write out what I would do more of if I didn’t have to do all the menial tasks of the day and was able to hire someone to do them instead. Yoga topped my list. Yoga retreats. Meditation. Traveling with yoga. Reading more yoga books. (You get the idea).
A while back, I was involved in a car accident where someone hit me from behind while I was at a dead stop. The holistic chiropractor I went to for treatments said I was lucky.
“Most people who get hit like that get are injured for months. You’re so lucky you do so much yoga.”
The idea is, that when you get hit at a dead stop rather than while moving, all of the impact, instead of being taken up partially by the moving vehicle, goes through your spine. Ouch.

Those who have a regular physical yoga asana practice regularly stretch muscles and help to maintain length and strength of ligaments, stabilizing joints. Such bodies that are used to moving in this way on a regular basis, as my chiropractor explained, are able to take impact better and are able to heal more quickly.

That’s the physical part of yoga.

I often remind my students that yoga is awareness: awareness of body and awareness of mind. Once I heard an accomplished musician friend, describing the weekly jazz concert he played with a fellow jazz musician as, “just simply having a [musical] conversation,” because it was such an effortless thing at this point, after years and years of playing with each other. It got me thinking that doing physical asana (postures) is just simply having a conversation with our own bodies. Every time we get onto our mat, we learn more about ourselves. Our bodies, through doing physical postures, tell us something about what we need. After we do a couple minutes of cat/cow (when we’re on our hands and knees, drop our belly and lift our heart and face on an inhale (cow) and then drop our head and arch our spine, pushing through the earth with our hands (cat) on an exhale), I tell my students, “Remember JUST this movement right here. Do this throughout the week (at work, when you get out of bed, on your lunch break) the next time you say to yourself, “Ah – I wish I had time to go to yoga!””
If you’re the type that goes home and relaxes on the couch to watch TV, get on the floor instead. Reach your feet up to the sky, or pull your knees into your chest, swaying side to side. Drop your knees to one side for a twist, then the other. Breathe into each side. Notice what your body is telling you. Awareness. Conversation. Five minutes. Two minutes. One minute. That’s all you need.

As I sit and type after a long week and weekend and have new muscle tension in my back from rocking and nursing a new baby (my twelve-pound human weight!), I sway back and forth in my chair, spine tall, and let my head fall to either side, breathing into each side of my tense neck to try to keep the conversation going. This is yoga. This is awareness.

You still have no time for yoga? Well it’s a good thing yoga is not all just physical. According to Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga, the “asana” or physical part of yoga, is just one part of our full yoga practice. So to the student who asks me about “yoga for stress,” I ask them back: When you are stopped at a red light, are you aware of what your mind is doing? When you yell at your partner or kids, are you aware of your emotions? When you are upset or furrowing your brow as you type emails at work, are you aware of your breathing? Or does stress take over your life?

And so not only did my physical yoga practice help me to heal quickly from the impact of another car, but also to calm the stress that goes along with being involved in an accident: forgiving the other person for leaving the scene, letting my breathing, and therefore blood pressure come right back down to normal, being aware of my surroundings and thinking quickly to get out of harms way and to prevent others from getting injured, etc.
The next time you get stressed, or think you don’t have time for yoga, or think you need to rely on someone else to tell you how you need to do yoga, sit (or lie) and have a conversation with yourself. Breathe in to your senses. Breathe in to tense spots in the body. Start to be aware of your thoughts and find calm by clearing, even for a moment, thoughts from your mind. Don’t worry, they’ll come back. Clear them again as wind clears clouds away. Twist in your chair slightly to the right. Breathe. Slightly to the left. Breathe. As you stand in line for the bathroom, or in a traffic jam, focus your eyes on something, turn the corners of your mouth up slightly, breathe, and notice how you feel. This is body and mind awareness. This is having a conversation with yourself. This is yoga.