The root of Yoga means to yoke, to unite. One of my first teachers taught me yoga is a practice of re-membering, of putting ourselves back together again, consciously. With each ah-ha moment, we get to know ourselves better. Yoga is a delving inward towards our true and essential nature– through the shrouds and traumas of life towards our inner essence, which has always been there and is interconnected with all beings and with our planet.
Yoga is not a form of exercise– though the asanas, the postures, do strengthen and stretch the body. Yoga is a practice of awakening. And paying attention to the physical body is certainly a part of this practice. This is a developing awareness of our Anamaya Kosha– our food body. And yoga takes us deeper and deeper into our energy body, our mind, our intuition, and our interconnectedness.
Through yoga we can calm and reset our nervous systems. We can expand our capacity to engage the ventral vagal nervous system and live more conscious, contented, compassionate lives. Through yoga we can learn to nurture and nourish ourselves and to become more present for others.
The restorative practice is of equal importance to the physical work of the practice. It is in these practices we learn to question the PUSH life can become and to invite balance– We learn to play as well as work. We learn to listen as well as speak. We learn to deeply relax as well as GO. In the restorative sections of practice we may move beyond trying to please others towards nurturing and caring for ourselves.