What is Yoga Therapy?

In brainstorming recently with a social worker colleague on how to develop our private therapy practices, we were both charged with the question of how to explain what we do in the course of lan elevator ride -- in other words, short, sweet and to the point! In reviewing my web site, I realize that the answer is right there, though it may not stand out right now. Yoga therapy seeks to find the places where energy is either trapped or depleted and uses breath, movement, sound, visualization, meditation and thought power to restore balance.

That's it! What makes it so interesting, in my opinion, is that each of us is such a complex web of mind, body and spirit that starting in one area often leads to another. Working to free up some energy in chronically tight muscles may eventually result in the release of stored-up emotions and thoughts that keep us psychologically bound. I will offer a personal example: for months I was suffering from lower back pain and restriction on the ride side (which I have been told relates to moving forward with our life). I've kept at it with Yoga, breath, awareness, everything I could think of, as well as staying on top of my own psychological process. It was getting worse and worse -- which made it really hard to be a good Yoga teacher! Finally, a the breakup of a recent relationship, including the recognition of my own patterns that helped to ruin things, simply flattened me. I spent plenty of time crying over the loss. One day the crying got out of control and suddenly it felt like deep grief related to something else -- I had enough self-awareness to realize it was grief long held but never expressed over the death of my mother, which was 20 years ago last month. After the crying that day ran its course, I suddenly experienced a freedom in my back that I had not felt in a very long time. Now the challenge is to integrate this awareness and use it to truly move forward.

Thus is the power and beauty of Yoga therapy -- a process that works holistically, honoring the unique entity that is each one of us, and which can have profound, lasting results.

"Law" of Attraction?

Years before I was introduced to Yoga, I was introduced to the "new age" movement and the principles of metaphysics. These include the concept that your thoughts and vibrations create the realities of your life and that, by controlling them, you have the power to manifest the reality that you want. Norman Vincent Peale in "The Power of Positive Thinking" was one of the early pioneers of this movement. It's a vastly appealing concept and one that, once you start practicing with it, can have exciting and inspiring results. Like any other "law," however, once you start probing a little more deeply, you start to encounter some very tricky edges. For instance, any doubt or any "negative" thought or vibration can be seen as the obstacle towards achieving what you want. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on us to maintain a "perfect" energy field, as well as putting the blame squarely on our own shoulders when things don't go as we wish. It can be empowering to realize that positive thinking tends to create positive outcomes, especially if you are someone who has never really been conscious of your thought patterns and how they affect you. But positive thinking does not control everything that happens to you and around you -- rather, it helps you maintain a positive attitude that changes your experience of what happens to you. The clearer you are on what you want, and the more focused and persistent, the more likely you are to get it. But other people have their own agendas and their own processes and we're all working together wihtin the same web -- so do your best, but don't blame yourself if it doesn't all go according to your plan. If you see where you can do something differently, then adjust -- but realize also that a huge part of learning to live with the flow of energy in this world is to let go. Practice having faith that you can get through it; cultivate a mindset that "this or something better" is manifesting for you. This way, you will truly feel that you are attracting the best things for your life, while knowing that part of the swimming is always going to be upstream. On shanti.

The Yoga of Relationship

This is it, folks, as far as I'm concerned -- the burning ground for growth and awareness in our lives (and NOT mentioned in the ubiquitously quoted Yoga Sutras). Coming just off the rails of yet another broken relationship, I am forced to look deeply, once again, at the aspects of relationship that work, those that don't work, those that hook us and those that throw us so far off course. Nowhere is the notion of samskara -- conditioning -- more relevant than here, as we see again and again our patterns of communication, emotional response and our ability (or lack thereof) to reprogram ourselves so that we can have fuller, richer, deeper, more satisfying connections. For years I have been trying to find a way to reconcile the parts of myself that I split off at a very early age as a sort of survival mechanism -- in fact, the name OneSelf Yoga is born of that very quest. Years of self-study (svadhiyaya to those interested in the classical connections) and practice and I seem to inch closer and closer and yet still I find myself ultimately doing the same things and getting the same result. This time I even saw it happening, but felt unable to stop it! And so I am left with the usual tumult of anger, hurt, shame and sadness that accompany each "failed" attempt. There is no easy answer to this one, I'm afraid, and the wisdom of Yoga is to simply keep studying, keep practicing and to have faith -- to find the place inside where you can go in order to feel that it will get better. Yoga and meditation are not about getting it "right," or "perfect" or getting to any place in particular -- but they are about learning to ride the waves with greater skills so you can stay on top longer, enjoy it more, and realize that both the good and the bad feelings all come from the same place, so all have their place. Not easy, I repeat! But I'm doing my best. The good news is that I am more than ready for the next one. Let's see where it leads me.