Category: yoga

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New Yoga class! Slow Flow Yoga starting 21 Apr/Abr – delicious, delightful

New yoga class in Altea. Slow flow community yoga at Taronja Wellbeing.

New Yoga Class in Altea

Are you looking for a fun yet deep yoga practice? Would you like to practice yoga with like-minded people? Well, I think you ought to check out my new yoga class!

FAQ

What is slow flow?

I teach hatha yoga in a very specific way.  Firstly, following the Viniyoga method, there is almost always a dynamic and a static phase for each posture.  This means you get both the flow of Vinyasa-style yoga and the holds of classical yoga.  

I design my classes with anatomy in mind.  There are four kinds of yoga:  Bhakti (devotion), Raja (intellect), Karma (selfless service), and Hatha (movement).  I am very clearly a hatha yoga teacher and use my deep understanding of anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology to design sequences within sequences all with a clear objective in mind. 

Loosening up the deepest layers, the bits that no one can get to, the parts that hurt but you can’t put your finger on.  Yoga, specifically Viniyoga well-taught, gets to these parts. Feel free to read up on slow-flow yoga here, at my Alteayoga blog.

In my new yoga class, I will introduce sequences that I developed over the past four years whilst working at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Where are the classes?

Yoga Taronja, Altea (Cap Negret)

Taronja Wellbeing is a dedicated yoga and wellness space. Although it is located on the busy N-332 road that goes through Altea, the room is quiet and there is ample parking.

Taronja is very easy to find: Use this Google Maps link. The Hotel Cap Negret is right next door. There is a large public parking lot right opposite the hotel. If you are coming from Altea, it’s a ten-minute walk or even shorter cycle.

When do the classes start?

Starting 21 April 2023

The Spring term will run until it gets too hot and everyone wants to lounge around on the beach or in the shade. So, count on having class at Taronja Wellbeing with me, Rachel Rose, until the end of June.

What time are the classes?

9:30-11:00

A good yoga sequence should end with pranayâma and meditation. The 1.5-hour format of my new yoga class allows time for postures, breathing, and resting.

What to bring and wear

I recommend a long-line shirt or top. It’s so distracting to have your lower back uncovered! If you have yoga socks, bring them! We have mats, blocks, and bolsters at the center, but you are always welcome to use your own. If you’re likely to get cold towards the end of the practice, bring a sweater or shawl. Water is ok for afterward, but we don’t recommend drinking water during your practice. Bring tissues if you’re having any issues with hay fever.

Is the class in English or Spanish?

I always try my best to deliver my classes in both English and Spanish and this new yoga class will be no different. It is a challenge, but it’s the only way to make the group inclusive and high-vibration! After all, we are all living here in the beautiful Costa Blanca, where polyglot multilingualism is the norm! Yoga classes are a great way to meet like-minded folk, and make friends.

How much do classes cost?

Classes are donation-based. This means that you can pay what you like. I suggest between 5-10€. But, if you are more well-off, then leave more and pay it forward! There are plenty of hard-working people around here who could do with a yoga class, but whose budget might not stretch to it. Inequality is a huge global problem. But, as they say “Think globally, act locally”. I am just a humble yoga teacher. I want my classes to be available to those who need them whilst still being able to put food on my own table. So, a long answer to a short question. Pay what you can, pay it forward.

Any more questions?

If there is anything that I have missed, give me a buzz on the phone number in the photo above 👆 . Whatsapp works too – you’ll see the green icon at the bottom right of this page.

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Yoga classes in Altea – amazing! New as of 18-2-22

We are back to the mat, people! Group yoga classes are back, and I am truly thrilled to get back to teaching you the finer points of Hatha yoga.

yoga classes in Altea

A year has now passed since I last gave a group class. It has been a strange year, to say the least. The pandemic (which I know we are all bored of talking about) has exposed rifts both in our inner lives and in our societies. We just had to hunker down and do our best. I wasn’t on my best form for a few months there, so I felt like I didn’t have the energy to give as a teacher. I stuck with my massages, for sure, but yoga became about my personal practice and about teaching private yoga classes at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Luckily, I kept my skills fresh teaching yoga at this world-famous wellness hotel. There, I teach yoga, meditation, mindfulness and pranayama (breath work) and I truly love it. They are private classes, and so have a different feel than group classes. Group classes have their own special vibe, and I am so excited to get back to teaching them.

Group yoga classes are social

I once read a very interesting interview with an Indian yoga teacher from a very distinguished lineage. He was giving a seminar in Sweden and the interviewer stole (borrowed?) a few minutes of his time.

When asked about the differences between teaching yoga in India and teaching yoga in the West, he mentioned the predominance of group classes in the West. Traditional Indian teaching would have been one-to-one, guru to student. Outside of India, that tradition has been lost, or substituted. The teacher mentioned that in Western countries, loneliness is a major social and psychological problem and that group yoga classes play an important role in alleviating this loneliness.

Nice people go to yoga class

In yoga classes, we often meet like-minded people and the environment of yoga encourages a deeper kind of sharing and more intimate conversation that might feel out of place on a pub night out, for example.

Alone in company

I have personally experienced the extremely common situation of being really into personal growth whilst in a relationship with someone who is not. That provoked in me the deepest feelings of loneliness as I felt invalidated when trying to talk about issues that really mattered to me. I was lucky that I worked in the field of wellness and preventative medicine and that gave me an outlet. (Nevertheless, when you’re the teacher or therapist, you’re not expected to share so much as the role of the teacher is to hold space for others. But, that conversation is worthy of a whole other post! )

Entrainment

Have you ever seen those videos of metronomes spontaneously synchronising? There is a tendency for energy waves to fall into patterns, and this is observable in many different area. Birds flying in a swirling flock, feedback on a microphone…and humans meditating. Yep, the phenomenon is called “entrainment” and it happens.

Basically, when you do yoga or meditate, you reduce the frequency and amplitude of your brainwaves. SMB (slow-medium Beta) is the frequency associated with meditative movement modalities like yoga, tai chi or chi gong. If you are practising alone, your brainwaves will relax, but if you are with people who are doing the same practice, it seems like everyone’s brainwaves synchronise and you get to the happy place a little more easily. Also, when you are in the presence of the highly trained and experienced teacher, your brainwaves entrain to theirs. Fascinating to think about, no?

Come to class!

I will start by offering one class per week and take it from there. I am super busy, as is everyone, so I want to make this work.

Day: Fridays

Dates: 18-02-2022 until the end of June.

Time: 9.30-10.30

Studio: Qiyoga

Address: Calle la Mar 143, Altea

Price: 30€/month

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Orchids, yoga, and lying fallow

About to bud

Fallow land is land that is not planted with crops. It is left to lie uncultivated for a season in order to improve the quality of the soil. In the olden days, before chemical fertilisers forced land into continual productivity, parts of a farm would be left fallow for a short time before being replanted on a rotating basis.

Humans also need to lie fallow. Everything does. Everything needs a reset, and a downtime. Just like choosing not to reply is a form of replying, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The symbolism of the yin-yang teaches exactly this: everything has an equal and opposite. All activity requires rest, all restfulness requires its activity. Meditation is a lovely way to fallow from the activity of daily life.

Hibernating

Montreal is known for its vibrant cultural scene and especially its summer festivals. Canadians know this is possible partly because of the government’s massive investment in arts and culture and partly because of freezing Québec winter. Montrealers hibernate so that they can bloom in the long, warm summer days.

When it’s cold, you don’t hang out on café terraces. When it gets dark by 4PM, you tend to snuggle up at home. You lie, as it were, fallow. All that downtime can make for some great art, if you’re that way inclined.

Yoga and meditation invite us to lie fallow. They invite us to stop and observe and be still. They invite us to open up a space into which may arrive…anything. All that downtime can make for some great (re)awakenings, if you’re that way inclined.

Hello, little one!

Orchids

I am a lover of orchids. I am regularly given orchids who are lying fallow. Once the bright blooms wither and die, the plant itself is nothing special. Just a few thick and waxy leaves and some rather strange, grey, worm-like aerial roots. No, like this they are not eye-catching. But, give them some sunlight, a little fertiliser and a few months’ rest and they will reward you with dozens of delicate flowers that can last up to six months.

I grow orchids in my massage room. Orchids seem to thrive in the ambience of a therapy room. The stillness, the quiet, the controlled environment suits them just fine. I have tried growing other green plants – ferns, small palms, devil’s ivy – but with little success. They seem much happier in the upbeat and variable environment of a home. But orchids, conversely, in my home don’t thrive. They survive, they bloom, but they don’t burst forth as they do in my massage room.

Hey buddy!

I like to muse that this is because the massage room is a place where their fallow time is respected. They are just allowed to be, to not be beautiful, to receive no comments, to attract no admiration. They just sit, and wait, and gather strength. Perhaps they are meditating. Perhaps they are astral flying back to the South East Asian jungles from whence their ancestors came. I don’t ask and they don’t tell. I just watch them gather speed and know that, come February, their fallow time will end with a burst of colour, life and manifestation of their innate glory.

New shoot on an old shoot

Sit, be still, breathe

Think of meditation and yoga as the stillness before the flowering. The point of postures and breathing and contemplating is not the acts themselves but what comes after. It is not about how much you bend or how long you breathe, it is about what is created by those acts. The yoga is a vehicle, what comes next it totally unique, it the manifestation of YOU, your true nature.

I often say “I don’t do yoga, yoga does me”. Yoga and meditation have allowed me to see who I truly am and to be who I truly long to be. I was a shy and sensitive child who lived through various traumas which, cumulatively, made be edgy and nervous and hyper-vigilant. I was high-functioning and was no beast, but I consistently found myself acting in ways that I would later regret, making hasty decisions that I would later regret and, most importantly, NOT DOING things that I would later regret not doing. Yoga brought me down to Earth. It grounded me and cuddled me and calmed me and gave me a purpose. Yoga and meditation are unfailingly generous, and they are the best time investment I have ever made. I lay fallow for a long time, I lie fallow on a regular basis. But what came out of all this, the life that I am living right now, is marvellous.

As winter draws in, in the Northern Hemisphere, I encourage you to lie fallow. Take time out and watch the clouds, watch your mind, watch your emotions. Be still, breathe, all is coming.

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Yoga and minimalism

When I think of yoga imagery, minimalism the last thing that comes to mind. The Hindu aesthetic is quite clearly maximalist, full of colour, symbolism and detail. This spills over into Western yoga. Yoga leggings, to choose an obvious example, are often brightly coloured and patterned. Many yogis adorn their studio spaces with multi-hued batiks. This is super good, a few years ago I would have done the same. I really like colour. But, there has been an evolution in my consciousness and my yoga teaching and practice. I call it Y O G A | M I N I M A L I S M.

Am I minimalist in my home life?

Yes and no. It has been the work of my lifetime to overcome my hoarding habit. Not only am I born in the Year of the Rat (Rats are considered to be innate hoarders), but both my parents had a marked tendency to save everything for a rainy day. Add to this an exaggerated sense of responsibility for The World (I thought that if I *didn’t* recycle or dispose of ethically I would doom us all!) and some pretty tight years, economically, and you get a person who holds onto to stuff. A big part of my personal (r)evolution was learning to part with things – EVEN if I like them, EVEN if they’re useful.

It was hard at first, but I got the hang of it and now I can confidently say that my possessions do not overwhelm me and are manageable and useful. I had to do the same thing with my yoga. Beginning in 1999, I have practiced yogâsana, and was lucky to find Viniyoga in 2007. Since then, I have worked on focus and exclusivity, and it has brought such an enormous sense of peace and joy – as well as more minimalism. I just do this one thing – Viniyoga and mantra. (My thesis for my first YTT was on mantra and it is core element of my practice). Even so, I do always try to deepen certain poses (the progressive development over time is called “Vinyasa Krama”), and there are still moves that I would love to master. But, that is only desire and I can choose to act on it, or not. For now, I choose to gentle and calm postures, no straining, lots of rest. It works for me and I think that it can work for most practitioners with more than a decades’ practice on their mats.

Y O G A | C O N F U S I O N

Yoga is a bit of a hoarder. It has a lot of facets. You start with postures and suddenly find pranayama. You start with mantra and suddenly find yantra and suddenly you think “I am going to print some t-shirts”. Modern yoga is definitely NOT minimalist. Yoga is full to bursting with ideas, scriptures, imagery, history and options to personalise your practice. It is far too easy to be drawn into ever wider and more disperse circles of yoga.

For example, you begin by studying a 200-hr Sivananda YTT, and after a few months’ teaching, you understand that you need more depth. So you go on a 500-hr Yoga Therapy YTT. This helps, but by going to a different lineage, you find that the same posture is known by different names, depending on whom you study with. You start to investigate and find out that Kundalini yoga doesn’t even use Sanskrit, it uses Gurmukhi. You listen to the Kundalini bhajans and discover that you like chanting. Suddenly you have a white turban and a spiritual name. You get into White Tantra but find the scene a bit way-out. You pull away and suddenly you’re doing Beer Yoga…

Sounds funny, right? But it is not that far-fetched. It is modern yoga and it can pull you in all directions, if you’re not careful. Being pulled in all directions is the OPPOSITE of yoga, which, of course, means “to unite”. Yoga is about becoming united in body and mind, united in your path and your purpose and united in your heart and spirit.

Y O G A | M I N I M A L I S M

Minimalism, as applied to yoga, means sticking to one path, and using fewer and fewer props and postures. Yoga, union, is, after all, found in meditation. Meditation does not use anything at all. I have said many a time that meditation is profoundly counter-cultural as the one who meditates consumes nothing at all, hardly even air.

The more I practice and teach, the less I do. And I mean that in the gross, outerworld way. Of course, I try to stay “in yoga” all the time, even when I am out dancing or whatever. But I don’t feel the need to make challenging yoga shapes, post every day to Instagram whilst wearing cool yoga gear or even convince people of the many incredible benefits of yoga. In fact, I have become very minimalist in my approach to yoga.

My list:

  1. If someone hears the call to do yoga, they will. If not, don’t try to convince them.
  2. If a practice accelerates the breath, it may be good and fun, but it goes against yoga. They say you’re born with a certain number of breaths and using them up faster shortens your life. Move and breathe S L O W L Y.
  3. If you can stop, do. If you can just sit and breathe, do it.
  4. Focus on the exhale, not the inhale.
  5. Remember the Yamas ahimsa and santosha. Ahimsa is “no harming”. Don’t hurt yourself. Santosha is “enjoyment”. Make your practice fun and enjoyable.
  6. Gratitude. What a gift is it to practice yoga, to live in a time and a place in which yoga has travelled across the globe and embraced us all. Thank you, Purusha.

To close and honour the ending principle

Hindu philosophy, as applied to yoga, identifies Lord Shiva as the closer of things, the one who lets things end. As I finish this post, I offer my words to this principle. Ending, emptiness, the void – these are all quite frightening to the Western Mind. We see endings as finite, but if you see Life itself as a continuum, as energy gathering, unfolding and dispersing, then endings aren’t so scary. Minimalism in yoga is allowing your âsana practice to draw inwards, to become tighter and smaller and, well, more minimal. Don’t be afraid of letting a sweaty or active practice fade as you age. It may be just what you need. After all, if we don’t open space for the new, how can anything new enter our life?

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Yoga Breathing Classes 101

Yogic Breathing is Healthy Breathing

Rachel Rose meditating and practising yoga breathing
Meditation and breathing

I have spent much of the past two years teaching people to breathe. I still teach postures, but pranayama mostly fills my days, now. Sadly, I gave up teaching group yoga classes during, and then after, the pandemic. It was a super hard time. I am glad that all the videos I streamed via my Facebook Page, Alteayoga with Rachel Rose, are still online. They are a poignant reminder of the dark days of the first confinement.

The SHA keeps me super busy, as do my massages.

At time of writing, I am offering Yoga Breathing Classes here in Altea. Please contact me if you would like to know more. Breath is life!

How we Breathe

Don’t forget that I began writing about the mechanics and fine tuning of breathing here in this blog. I called it “How We Breathe“. You might find something interesting there. Go have a look!

Breathe.

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Alteayoga is back!

Dear yogis and yogis-to-be – I am back! Soooo happy to report that yoga did not let me go. I had a wobble, I admit, back in June. After lockdown eased and suddenly we were out on the streets again, I didn’t quite know where to situate myself. I had grown quite used to giving class via Facebook Live, every evening at 7. (If you want to check out those classes, pop on over to my YouTube channel and select the Playlist “Yoga for Small Spaces”).

When the new reality hit – the SHA still closed, the place where I had given class a closed space with no room for even four people, the prospect of wearing a mask whilst practising – it seemed insurmountable.

So, I just did my own practice. I kept hitting the mat. I healed a hurt right shoulder (darn dogs pulled me down…again) and I kept posting little reminders (on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter) that it is going to be ok, that yoga has answers for questions that you don’t even know how to formulate, but which are there, bubbling away under the surface. I just….kept practising.

Lo and behold, people starting asking me to teach again. I am not going to pretend that I have LOADS of students. But, the students that I do have are pure love, super cool people, a real “type” of person – creative, independent, a bit wacky. Hey, I guess I resonate with those kinds of people…wonder why?

Well, long story short, I started working at QIYoga here in Altea and the rest, as they say, is history. We had a few sweet months of classes in the centre, and are now practising online. But, we are there, we are checking in, we are a group, a little team of happy yogis and I am so, so, thrilled to be able to teach.

So, yoga, and yoga and more yoga. Oh, and some laughter, good food, good friends, sunshine and all those good time things. Blessings, catch you on the mat.

-RR

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Yoadict – leg movements

In installment 2 of my Spanish-English Yoga dictionary, I am going to look at the legs. Check back to installment 1 for arm movements.

  • Feet together = piés juntos
  • Feet slightly apart = piés ligeramente separados
  • Bend your knees = doblar ó flexionar las rodillas
  • Lift your heels = levantar los talones
  • Stand on your toes = Ponte de puntillas
  • Stand on one leg = apoyate sobre una pierna
  • Lift your leg = levanta la pierna

That’s it for now. Hope that helps!

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Therapists

I was musing, today, on the difference(s) between doctors and therapists. One of the most rewarding things about working at SHA Wellness is the amazing colleagues I interact with on a daily basis. Once you listen to a therapist and ask “how did you get here?”, you get the most beautiful stories of redemption.

Many patients arrive at therapy after a long trail through the halls of medical science. Many, many people finally find holistic therapy only once they have exhausted all other avenues. It is that state of knowing “something” is wrong, but no one seems able to tell them what. All tests come back ok, but the pain continues. The frustration is palpable, you see their shoulders loaded with tension, their short breath, their exhaustion. You long to tell them that it will be ok, that there is a way out. You do it, you reassure them, you hold space for them, then you listen. You listen so intently, so fixedly, that they feel like they have finally been heard, and the healing journey begins.

Why are therapists able to listen, to hold space for another person in pain? Because most of us have been there. That is the difference between therapists and doctors.

Think about the profile of each group. Doctors are usually high achievers who find their way to medical science because they are intellectually bright, or because they have a doctor in the family, or because they have money. A small percentage arrive at medical studies late, or as a second degree, or because they have hit rock bottom and climbed their way out.

Therapists, on the other hand, are usually people who have chosen their path after healing themselves. Therapists have often overcome pain, digestive problems, mental illness or spiritual angst. Therapists are often second-careerists. I know therapists who have been entrepreneurs, artists, information scientists, athletes. All share a common trait: they have overcome. They have pushed through. They have sought the light. And now, they are earning a meager living transmitting this knowledge to you.

The open secret in the yoga and therapy world is that most of us were fucked at one time or another. Most of us were fucked for a very long time. But, we pulled through, healed, and came back to help other people know that they, too, can heal.

That is the difference between a doctor and a therapist. I am not saying that doctors haven’t struggled. Not at all. But almost all therapists have struggled and almost all of us have overcome.

Sometimes, I wish I could tell you my story. But, I am too busy listening to you. I wish you well, I wish you health, I wish you healing. Got to that doctor for the tests, but trust your therapist for all that cannot be quantified, scanned or computed. There is more to all this than medical science can diagnose . The Russian word for “spiritual angst” is “Tocka”. English lacks such a word, but the concept is there.

Om, love is all around, it is an inexhaustible force and as strong as nuclear force. Om namo namaste namaha.

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Even yogis have down days

Today was just one of those days. Feeling narky, out of sorts, with too many troubling thoughts running around my head. I wasn’t in dire straits, just a little off-colour. It happens to all of us, even yogis.

A mindful day

Difference is, we yogis have tools to work with when things seems askew. Mindfulness, deep breathing and conscious relaxation all help to keep intrusive thoughts away. Honestly, on the tough days, there may be a true mishap, but as often as not, you’re feeling bad because of your thoughts. The Buddha talked about the two darts: the first dart is the real situation, what actually happened to cause the hurt. The second dart is what we think about what happened. Often, the first dart is sharp and painful, but short-lived, while the second dart burrows in like a burr beneath a saddle.

On the blah days, it is usually our own thoughts that asail us. So, we observe, then calm them.

Today was my day off. I am not the only person, I know, who feels more stable on work days. Personal life is much more unpredictable and informal than work life, and sometimes it can feel overwhelming.

The weight of household chores and paperwork, then some attempts at a social life or creative release, can leave us feeling a little dispirited and pressed for time at home.

My strategy has always been a “one foot in front of the other” approach. I look at the mess and just start with one small thing. I keep myself focused on the task I have chosen, knowing that it is better to finish one or two small tasks than start a dozen and leave them all unfinished. It has been shown that mess and clutter contribute to feelings of anxiety, so I try not to leave things unfinished. Just get going.

Today, I did some DIY. I am not gifted at DIY, but today I worked slowly and methodically. I did my little tasks well enough. I found the tidying up afterwards particularly tedious, but I plodded through it, realising by this point that some of my narkiness was probably due to hunger.

I washed the dishes while cooking some rice, and sung mantras. Om Tare Ture Tuttare Swaha was the mantra of the day, but I just sing whatever occurs to me. I sang it in my own style, but the version in the link is a cool one. I felt much better by the time the food was ready, so eating it was a pleasure. I sat quietly, doing nothing other than eating mindfully. I chewed and savoured every bite, breathed only through my nose, and paid close attention to every detail. It was heavenly. By the time I got to lie down for a little siesta, it was nearly 17:00. I had a meeting at 18:15, but set my mind to relaxing. It can be hard to relax when you know you have to get going again soon, so I just counted my breath, letting the exhale be longer than the inhale, and relaxed my muscles. I drifted into some state of (un)consciousness. Whether it was sleep or just deep relaxation, I rose feeling much refreshed.

And now it’s evening and I took some time to do a drawing for this post. Drawing mindfully is another wonderful relaxation technique.

As for the million thoughts in my head: they are still there, and the big decision I am turning over still needs to be made. And Mercury is still retrograde, so who knows what will transpire. But, I feel better, happier, lighter and in control of my emotions. And that is what it’s all about.

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Yoga and the Blues

It is an open secret in the yoga world that most of us arrive here after trauma or trouble of one sort or another. In fact, I have heard said since my earliest days in this strange world of integral healing “people arrive at yoga when they are tired of suffering.”

I think it’s true. The suffering just goes on and on. As the Buddha observed, life is suffering. We suffer in our minds, our bodies and our spirits. Sometimes a little at a time, sometime all three at once.

So, the blues bring us to yoga. And yoga helps make the blues a little more manageable. But the blues don’t go away. They are there, we just learn how to deal with them better.

What are the blues, anyway, and where do they originate? The blues is emptiness. The blues is the sense that something is missing here, and we can’t quite work out what. The blues is the void. Each part of the body-mind-spirit construct may give cause for the blues. The body has appetites and desires. The mind never stops. The soul aggrieves with its absence.

Body

When we are young, maybe the body doesn’t suffer as much. At least, the aches and pains are fewer and easier to deal with. As we age, maybe our mind gets calmer, we find some wisdom. But the suffering is still there. The body asks loudly for food, shelter, comfort, touch, stimulation of the senses. We are constantly being dragged off by desire and appetite. It is the way of the body. The body is the lovely prison that we inhabit for a time, and its wants generally dominate our entire earthly life.

Mind

The mind is just as bad, if not worse. The mind wants distraction. It likes to be busy. It oscillates between fear of what is to come and remorse for what has been. Rarely does it sit quietly, without judging and in the present moment. Mental fluctuations, called vrittis in Sanskrit, cause us untold suffering. As we think, we feel, we have emotional/limbic responses to our thoughts. Our heart may race, or we feel choked and tearful, or hot and agitated. This somatisation of thought and emotion wreaks havoc in our lives. The mind is the construct through which our soul has to view the world. The mind requires much cleansing and polishing lest its distortions be mistaken for reality.

Soul

The soul, well, the soul suffers all this. Its voice is the quietest but the most insistent. It talks to us in the dead of the night. It whispers to us when things don’t “feel” right. It begs us to listen, but generally we don’t. And so, the soft restful peace of the soul is denied us. We suffer its absence.

What does all this have to do with yoga and the blues?

So, the other unspoken secret of the yoga world is that yoga teachers also get the blues. We are often, by nature, sensitive people. Yoga makes us more sensitive, but less vulnerable. How?

When you have become aware of and able to control the subtle energy (prana), you can control how much energy sticks to you, and how much of your own energy you allow to escape. You get a kind of protective bubble.

When the blues come knocking, instead of, as before, running out to find bodily comforts (alcohol, food, etc)…before plonking down on the sofa with binge watch a series…before succumbing to that empty soulless feeling…you just sit with it. You watch yourself having these feelings, you don’t detach from these feelings, you feel them, but you watch yourself feeling them. You watch where the breath moves, what parts of the body feel heavy or shaky, you watch yourself and you don’t do anything. Except normal, basic care. Healthy food, good rest, time with living being (pets, plants, trusted people) and you just…wait it out.

(For completeness, let’s remember that medically diagnosed depression is not the blues and probably needs professional intervention…)

Patience being a virtue and all, the blues soon pass if you just let them. Nothing ever gets resolved overnight. Hurts happen, disappointments bite, life is a bit shit sometimes. But yoga says : “sit still, watch, wait it out”. And you know what? It works. And it hurts hardly at all.