“The mind is not the master, but it often behaves as if it is.”
– T. K. V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga
Free your mind
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Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra harnesses the power and benefits of deep rest. In the sacred texts, the Goddess Nidra is of the most powerful and this practice is related to her maternal powers of nurturance, connection, and transformation.
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Breathwork
Control of the breath is one of the first skills and steps in yoga. Breath has the power to transform any process of the body or state of mind. Using both modern and sacred techniques equips us for momentary and long-term relief and clarity.
Yoga Nidra
This practice is extremely beneficial for anyone with a busy life and needs a moment of absolute stillness and deep relaxation. The meaning of the Sanskrit word “Nidra” is sleep. Yoga Nidra is known amongst yogis as “Sleepy yoga” but not without respect to its potent effects. The sacred texts refer to the Goddess Nidra as one of the most powerful, which we can compare to the power we know and experience after deep rest.
The practice of Yoga Nidra is also known as “sleepless sleep.” In this practice, we train the body to go to sleep while activating the mind and entering a state of abundant (almost hypnotic) awareness. When your body is asleep and your mind is awake, then you physically come out of the practice with the physical feelings of having taken a nap and your mind feels less heavy by having worked through what it needed to.
This type of yoga is also known as “psychedelic yoga” because of the unmistakable spiritual experiences that are possible in this practice. Scientifically, the goal of the practice is to activate delta waves in the brain, the slowest that science has recorded, which put us in a state where external awareness has been suspended. This is a state of dreamless sleep, and it is a sacred portal to knowing our deepest selves.
In any case, whether you fall into a meditative state or not, you will come out of the practice feeling rested, which is a goal for many of us.
“Yoga Nidra connects us to the energy of the Universal Mother, which includes feminine qualities of nurturing, support, rejuvenation, receptivity, and surrender”
Breathwork
Breath is the source of our life force, our first and most potent tool for meditation and deepening our yoga practice, and it is freely available to us at all times. Breathwork serves many purposes – we can use it to practice concentration, to clean out our organism’s systems, to generate heat in our bodies, to activate and energize the body and mind, to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and unwind, to direct prana in our bodies, or even to bring us to psychedelic-like states or experiences. In fact, recent studies on breathwork have proven that it is 5x more effective in grounding and regulating our systems than typical meditation practices, and the effects last longer after the session.
I use breathwork in many of my classes as a way to begin or end the class because of its effects on our bodies and states of mind. However, standalone breathwork classes can serve you just as well as a yoga class or meditation. Lasting anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes, my breathwork classes can be modified to serve whichever purpose you intend (such as the effects I’ve listed above), and I will provide you with quick and easy techniques that you could spontaneously use throughout your day to bring a sense of calm or energy whenever needed.
Fatigue, bloating, anxiety, asthma, scoliosis, and many more common issues have all been cured in thousands of people simply by the power of the breath. If you find yourself needing to sigh often, take big breaths when talking or exercising, or constantly feeling on edge and short of breath, then practicing breathwork may be the answer to your problems!
“The missing Pillar in health is Breath. It all starts there. ”