Yoga And Sunny Yoga
Yoga
hurry up and rush forward to your mat, to your poem and poetry, to your thoughts, to your intentions. Cry in complete silence. And tell yourself a story. My story was about hate. And how I am learning from it.
I tell myself that I am no longer standing on the sidewalk of my cousin’s house in Bangladesh, weeping about how unfair it is. I couldn’t help but think of how much she hurt her father so much. I’m just as much a victim of heartbreak as she, and I wish she would just let him back out of her life, not force him, for he had been a good man.
I just wished I could close my eyes and spit outlines that anyone could understand in a way that doesn’t hurt me.
Though when I close my eyes, it feels like my body is praying, telling me, “Hey, buddy, we want you. Let’s get you back here so that you can be free, where you belong, where your friends belong.”
When I tell myself my story, my body feels calm, my soul is awake, my mind is clear. And I remember what it is like to be free. I can tell the world about my hope that I can be free again, but it’s as simple as this. I can speak out about it, I can watch others speak out, and then I’ll come to the very same conclusion that I had when I was in that house, in that doorway.
So I’m making my way to where my name is, where my father is, where my mother is. That place where I belong, where the dream can come true. Where I can tell the world that I’m free.
Sunny Yoga
I recently had the pleasure of practicing a few different poses but decided to try a trick with the tried and tested yoga variation of the crescent knot. This is the highest rank of yoga (ikigai) and has so many soul-lengthening benefits — but how does this stretch work, and what did the benefits for my mental health be?
AllsortsOfSitting
I had to sit on a stool with my elbows apart and my shoulders up. I began with a lap of the sitting position with my knees slightly open, stretching my arms behind my head, and my palms flat on the floor.
Then I moved with a slight limp and then on to the Pause Pose (the closest form to sitting at the back of the group as a whole group would expect to).
Each upright movement did remind me to take a deep breath, the key to this being the posture you’re in. This is referred to as Resting and Pause (RVA) yoga for guidance in clients who suffer from mental health disorders. This poses is the focus of anxiety and depression, and decreases the chances of overeating, eating disorders, or anxiety from the three. This can be an extremely powerful benefit for people living with mental health issues, but is the only effect?
Sitting on the stool and stretching is relatively uncomplicated and I can practice these several times a day, which I do naturally, but it’s a little more difficult when I was stuck in the ongoing flow of different postures. I tried a million different ways to pose, doing several crunches, doing more forward bends, standing up straight, turning my knees up to my chest, lying flat and straight in the pair of legs, and doing most of the same poses two or three different times.
I watched in awe when the variations of poses in this pose led to increased arousal, increased emotional balance, greater physiological digestion, improved blood circulation, and improved mental health benefits that I’d not gotten from other types of yoga.
Understanding the impacts of the poses on meditation is something I’ll probably do post-prayer (think, “I’m done again”), but in the beginning, I would notice the change in body image that happens with people’s own yoga practices. I began feeling more comfortable in my body and more relaxed, which has been incredibly helpful for my physical well-being.
You might ask yourself, “What are the benefits of yoga?”
Sitting up straight on the stool and repeatedly crunching your knees together could be considered the mental benefit from this, but our mindfulness will likely go a long way. Meditation is about enhancing the attention we focus on within the moment, while you may see others doing “monotonous” yoga or can fit them in your next “Monday Morning” meditation.
Maybe, more important than the practice itself is the practices you are interested in doing — the conditions under which you can meditate are what will determine your wellness and mental wellbeing.
More Meditation
With increased physiological digestion, I began to find myself more hungry and thirsty.
That hunger and thirst were what led me to eat many of the snacks and meals I had not been eating for a while.
Eating a lot of healthy snacks during my hour and a half practice has meant I had all the nutrients to properly re-hydrate and warm up before my next session.
I could have stopped this practice after I felt like it, but I continued until I got to my final posture. As I leaned down to face the sun, my body started to get more hot, and breathing became more challenging. My energy level rose, but my self-esteem fell due to my change in mental health, which meant I had to shift my focus to a positive and calm nature and a love of the energy around me.
It worked.
I started to mentally embrace the smile I had earlier been looking for. I saw the beautiful images of the sunrise beneath me, sitting there with arms folded underneath my thighs, eyes downcast and eyes wide-open.
I would describe the experience of finding peace as “apple cores,” with apples being the prime food source that all other foods lack.
In no words, I would describe this post as the apple core eating of art, a symbiotic relationship between a patient and her art, and myself.
Although this yoga practice has offered me not only the connection and clarity of body weight but the creation of an entirely new self, there was still a part of me that believes there was something else. I believe I still need more form, more but
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