Looking for tips on Yoga for Beginners? Yoga poses can be used to explore feelings. Think of  your time with yoga poses as an experiment; as if you were in a laboratory. Kripalu yoga developed a framework for working with emotions: Breathe, Relax, Feel, Witness, Allow.

Decide how you want to experiment with an emotion. You may wish to go deep and explore, or you may prefer to simply witness. There are 3 principles to consider when witnessing. Let’s use one principle working with a Standing Pose.

Standing poses are great to work with. They bring a quality of strength and confidence as you make effort to sustain the pose. At the same time  you remain calm and relaxed as you pay attention to your breath. The two qualities of effort and surrender create a balance in yoga poses and in life. In yoga for beginners it is an important point to grasp through experience.

Working with Emotions through Sensations

Enter the pose and find a way to hold the pose comfortably to allow sensations to emerge and expand. Avoid suppressing or sidestepping sensations. Remember to breathe consciously, and create space for the breath with micro movements.

Witness

After you have established the pose, totally focus on the physical sensations you feel.  Notice the size, shape, quality of the sensation. Perhaps you are able to see colors and images.  To witness is to observe without judging or analyzing.  If creating a sound helps with a release of emotions, by all means free yourself.

Healing Emotions

This process releases stuck energy of feelings and emotions. What do you notice when the energy is released?

I invite you to share your experience of healing emotions through any of the yoga poses you choose to explore in your laboratory.

test-ayurvedic-mind-body-constitution1

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian healing system that allows you to gain insight into your body mind.  It explains how to keep the body mind balanced with the internal and external environment, and functioning optimally.

When you have insight into your unique body mind nature, you can adjust your yoga exercise practice for balance. In addition to this Yoga Ayurveda connection, you understand:

Your likes and dislikes
Why you do the things you do
How you are likely to respond to stress
What diseases you are more likely to succumb to
What your dominant tendencies are, both negative and positive

The ancient seers realized that the 5 universal elements exist within all of creation. That the qualities or metaphors of earth, water, fire, air and ether is present within nature in various combinations.  For example: observe the proportion of solidness – earth – that’s within a palm tree and an oak; the quality of lightness – fire – within garlic and pepper; and the quality of movement – air – within a tortoise and a hare.

A unique combination of the elements, called doshas, form the body, and each body must be cared for it its own unique way to achieve and maintain balance with the environment.  This is essential for health as an excess or deficiency of an element can ultimately result in disease.

Take the test to gain insight into your unique body mind nature.

This is part 1 of a series on Yoga Ayurveda.