breath Archives | Essential You Yoga

Breath as a Bridge to Joy

“The yoga tradition tells us the mind and breath are twin laws of life, they travel together. When the mind is calm and clear, the breath flows smoothly. Conversely, when the breath flows smoothly, the mind calms and clears.

The condition of one determines the condition of the other….We experience the boundless joy deposited within the mind itself, which manifests when the mind is able to plumb its own depths.”

~Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, The Secret of the Yoga Sutras

When I started my yoga practice, I was regularly not breathing.

Crazy, right? But my body’s reaction to stress was to tense EVERYTHING up, including my abdomen, and just hold my breath.

In that state, my feelings of stress would increase to feelings of panic, and everything would feel like a life or death situation. Psychologists call this “fight or flight” syndrome, and it’s a classic reaction to stress.

Continue reading “Breath as a Bridge to Joy”

Holiday Reflections

The world around us reflects the world within. We see what we expect to see, people reflect back to us our histories, habits, and ways of being. Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying, “water seeks its own level.” In life, we gravitate to people and situations vibrating at the same frequency as the energy within us.

When we gather together with family for the holidays, we are often faced with deeply ingrained habits and ways of being reflected back to us by our family members. Perhaps these habits are buried deep within our subconscious and we are unaware of them. Continue reading “Holiday Reflections”