“Today, I will ask my Higher Power for what I want and need.
I will not demand – I will ask. Then I will let go.” “The Language of Letting Go” ~ Melody Beattie
Recovery begins when we recognize that we are forgetting our true nature. Dominated by the ego (i.e., sense of separate-ness and individuality), we live our lives as sensory beings. In the pursuit of pleasure through the senses, we tend to overindulge. In yoga this is described as our spiritual ignorance.
In Recovery we often think of ourselves as “broken”. What we practice or think regularly, we embody and what we embody we transmit. But the body is both the site of healing and the site of practice – the body is the sacred site of the yogic experience. It is like a temple, the holy ground.
The feeling of “I need to fix something” equates to something is broken VS there is something right and it needs re-membering. To re-member (vs dis-member) is to bring back into the body along with the spirit of a yogic state of mind. The habitual mind belief of “some parts of me are valuable and other parts are not” misses the full experience of our lives.
A practice that allows the sense of “awe”, humbly gifts us the willingness to be alive. With both humility and truthfulness, we are able to fill the cup of life with a willingness to be “awed” and “surprised” – life it is not performing.
How would it feel to recover or reclaim something that maybe we haven’t felt since we were 9 years old?
There is something right in you and it needs remembering, it needs reclaiming. AND then… THIS… becomes empowering.
In Yoga Sutra’s
11.46 The natural comfort and joy of our being is expressed when the body become steady (asana/posture/pose).
11.47 As the body yields all efforts and holdings, the infinite within is revealed.
11.48 Thereafter we are freed from the fluctuations of the gunas (stability, activity, consciousness)
Harmonizing Body, Breath, and Senses
Therapeutic Yoga for Recovery teaches us simple ways to understand and increase our capacity for self-regulation (Sattva in Sanskrit). This practice is offered as a bridge from a western based solution to spiritual solutions of resilience and immunity and the ability of
how to get through a day – day in and day out….
Once you can concentrate the mind away from the “weapons of mass destruction” and the “failure of the intellect” ~ Durga Leela, you can then have the zeal for a freedom, that abides by spiritual, mind and body principles witnessing a life transformation. This embodiment moves from suffering to solution ~ reclaiming purpose and meaning.
The mind is an addictive mechanism. But through the benefits of Therapeutic Yoga for Recovery it offers simple ways to increase:
- self-regulation/Sattva and move away from suffering
- navigating moments for pause
- from stimulation to calming a lived experience
- so that we can return us to life ~ to a connection of something steady. I remind you…
The primordial cause of our suffering is FORGETTING our true nature is SPIRIT
CNN Health recently published an article on ~
Overdose Deaths Soar
The number of US drug overdose deaths in 2020 rose 30% from the previous year, according to preliminary data released yesterday. It marks the sharpest annual increase in at least two decades and the highest absolute total on record. Health officials pointed to the wide-ranging impact of the pandemic and an increase in the supply of potent street drugs.
Of the more than 93,000 overdose deaths reported, roughly 57,500 were linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl (see data)—more than a 50% increase in such deaths from the previous year. Up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, the drug is often mixed in with other street drugs, sometimes unbeknownst to the user. The super-potent drug has been blamed for a “third wave” of the US opioid epidemic.
No region was spared the surge, with only New Hampshire and South Dakota reporting a drop in overdose deaths from 2019.
Read the full report – https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/health/drug-overdose-deaths-2020/index.html?mc_cid=220585d76b&mc_eid=5b14cbb0a9
However, there is research and proof from NIH Research that has shown that people who practice yoga regularly have low cortisol levels (your body’s main stress hormone) and that regular practice of yoga helps to build a better connectivity between the mind and body through a series of postures, breathing exercises, and meditation. It can be an important tool for stress reduction by lengthening the exhalation relative to the inhalation, which in turn increases the tone in the sympathetic nervous system. When the sympathetic nervous system (CNS) is heightened, it fully changes the body’s natural flow of function and misdirects its’ function into a “fight or flight” capacity. The other side to the CNS is the “rest or digest” capacity. If the “fight or flight” capacity is too charged up, the “rest or digest” capacity cannot do its job to calm the CNS back down.
The benefits of yoga include decreased stress and tension, increased strength, balance and flexibility of muscles, lowered blood pressure, and reduction in cortisol levels.
The format of Yoga for Recovery classes was established nearly 20 years ago by a Yoga Master teacher who worked on her own path of recovery. The format of teaching this workshop virtually has proven to be highly successful.
Peace, love & dogs,
Linda Benton
There are less than 4k Yoga Therapists globally with a Yoga Therapist certification ~ I have over 2000+ hours of formal training. A typical yoga teacher has a 200 hour training.
No yoga experience is necessary – none of the postures are advanced. When the portion of class is postures, students could even utilize the practice thru chair yoga.