The Power of a Pose

Not feeling especially happy today?

There’s a well-known, quick fix solution social psychologists might tell you about … it involves putting a pencil between your back molars and clenching down for about two minutes.  You’ll feel a little happier when it’s over (and not just because you get to relieve your face from the discomfort).  Try it with an open mind – it’s a little weird, but it works.

Here’s the “science” behind the trick. The muscles activating in this “pose” are the same ones that bring a smile to your face.  This biting-down activity is doing more for you than simply “turning a frown upside down” … in theory, it’s securely activating the same tissues and nerves around your mouth to simulate a sense of well-being in your psyche, mimicking a smile without the psychological effort of “faking it.” In other words, you’re letting your neurological system take care of your mental well-being, from the outside in.

The same logic applies to our yoga practice, perhaps in an even broader context.

Think about your body language during the times you feel your happiest, most confident self.  As you walk into a room, perhaps your chest is protruding.  You walk a little taller. When you’re full of good energy … your arms are extended and ready to hug, help, high-five … whatever.  You’re literally a “bigger” version of yourself.  It’s not rocket science – it’s just easy to tell that you’re feeling good by looking at your posture.

On the contrary, during the not-so-great days, you might catch yourself slouching or folding your arms, holding yourself tight for comfort or protection.  You’re a smaller version of you, maybe using those hands to chew your nails as a coping mechanism for your anxiety.

Much like the good old pencil trick, this is how the yoga helps us psychologically from the outside-in.  You’re opening your body.  Expanding your chest, lengthening, stretching … Releasing whatever nervous energy you’re holding up that’s keeping you tight, small, or timid.  By standing tall during tree pose, you’re giving your body permission to feel strong and balanced – even if your mind isn’t 100% there. By proudly releasing your chest in camel, you’re beaming with confidence – even if you’ve had the kind of week that would rather make you feel like crawling into a cave. By enlarging your body, you’re enlarging your mind.

Bottom line … There are those sometimes elusive feelings in life we all strive for:  happiness, confidence, inner peace.  You may not always be feeling these things on the inside … but if you start by displaying them on the outside, through your body, you’ll get there.  Don’t discount the power of a pose, no matter how small it may seem.  Keep it up!

Have a Little Faith

Happy New Year!

Last year seemed to go by so fast, and this year is off to a quick start!  January is almost over… and New Years resolutions… have they already gone out the window?

Every year people set resolutions to get in shape, quit smoking, and eat healthier.  The yoga studio, gyms, and health clubs get flooded with people in January, but as time goes on the people seem to fade out.

Why is it so hard for us to stick with our goals?

You can never fix the problem by dealing with the problem!  You must go to the cause.  We have to be willing to not just change our behavior, but our thinking.  In Bikram Yoga we practice Hatha yoga, the physical practice of the postures, as well as Raja yoga, mental concentration.

The mind is one of the most important and one of the most complicated subjects in our life.  When you have control of your mind, anything is possible.  With mental strength you can truly accomplish anything.

Bikram teaches us that there are 5 aspects of the mind we have to learn: faith, self-control, determination, concentration, and patience.

It always surprised me that faith is considered an aspect of the mind.  But truly it is.  In Bikram’s Orange book he says, “Faith is the essential ingredient in the practice of life, and supplies the foundation for controlling the mind.  With faith, all things are possible—you just have to believe.  In order to aspire to Self-Realization, you must first have faith in your Self.  How can you ever realize anything in which you have no faith?”

We have to actually believe that we can do it!  I am constantly taken back by the number of people I have talked to that have never tried Bikram Yoga that don’t believe they can do it.  I hear things like,   “I just can’t take the heat.  I’m just not flexible.  I can’t do that.”  Really?  How do you know?  You haven’t even tried it yet!

Yoga helps you develop faith in you.  As teachers, we already believe in you, and part of our job is to transfer that faith to you, so you believe in yourself as much as we do.  Bikram says, “The purpose of my life is to make people realize the goodness buried in themselves—that they deserve to be happy, and they can be.”

If you want to accomplish your New Years resolutions this year, come to Bikram Yoga.  We use the body to start to train the mind.  We start to train the mind by developing faith – a belief that you actually can accomplish whatever you desire.

Next time we will take on the 2^nd aspect of the mind, self-control.  In the mean time, I’ll leave you with my new favorite quote:  “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  -- Howard Thurman

Come Alive in 2013!  Practice Bikram Yoga!

Can Anything Steal Your Peace?

By Nicole Deacon

“If anyone can make you angry, upset, take your peace away from you, you are the loser.”  -- Bikram Choudhury

What Bikram?  Come again?  If someone else does something that makes me angry or upset aren’t THEY the jerk?  What do you mean I am the loser?

We cannot control what other people do, say, and feel; but we can control what we do, say, and feel.  When someone does something that makes us upset, it is easy to blame them and easy to think that if they would just do what we want that we would be happy.  There is a great saying, “Resentment is like drinking poison hoping the other person is going to die.”  This is what Bikram is saying.  When we have negative feelings towards someone else, whether they deserve it or not, it is not them that suffers, it is us.  When someone cuts you off in traffic and you get mad… they may never know it… it doesn’t really affect them, but it does affect you.  You could be having the best day of your life, someone cuts you off in traffic or says something mean to you, and then you are having the worst day.

One of the most important lessons I have learned from Bikram is to “let nothing steal your peace away from you.”  That’s one of the reasons this yoga is so great.  You are in a HOT room, with florescent lights, smelly carpet, looking at your imperfect reflection in the mirror, a teacher with a microphone is yelling at you to do more, your mind yelling at you to quit, the person next to you is driving you crazy, and then what…. you find a way to breathe in the chaos.  Despite everything going on around you, you let none of it take away your peace of mind.  It starts in the yoga room for 90 minutes at a time, but then before you know it…. You’re more patient in traffic, kinder to your kids; little things don’t set you off as easily.  Little by little the yoga starts to make its way into your everyday life.

One of my favorite stories is about a mom who had taken a few months break from the yoga.  When she walked in the door after being gone, she looked up at us with this sad face and said, “My kids sent me back to yoga.  They said I was a better mom- more patient, less moody.”

During the Holiday season I find the yoga to be more important than ever.  With added stress and added time with family it is a good test to see…. Can anything or anyone steal my peace?  When I’m not doing class regularly, my answer is YES, so I make it a point to go to yoga.  When I’m done with yoga I feel stronger, more centered, more stable, more peaceful.

Happy Holidays.  May nothing steal your peace away.

Enjoy the Moment

Imagine practicing Bikam Yoga for a decade! Well our November students of the month have done just that! Neeta and Bharat have been practicing for 11 and 10 years, respectively. Neeta started at the urging of friend who told her about BYPV and within a year Bharat was practicing as well. Having suffered from significant neck pain and generalized arthritic pain for years, Neeta says Bikram Yoga has really helped to lessen these ailments and improve her physical well-being.

Bharat, who was already very active and healthy prior to practicing, (gym, weight training, cardio, personal trainer, sauna steam room, hiking, 5 and 10k runs) says that he has stuck with just the yoga for the past 10 years, never looking back on all of the other exercises he used to do. He says, "That tells you how much I like this and how many benefits I have experienced from yoga". His weight is under his control, HDL went up from 39 to 59, all numbers were good on his recent physical, he feels good, sleeps well, performs actively, and has no tiredness.

As Bharat talks about the yoga, he states, "Yoga has been an ancient Indian method of keeping ones mind and body in harmony. It has been practiced over 5000 years. There are many different types of yoga and all help, but Bikram has formatted this ancient yoga in such a scientific way so that it can be easily applied in today's busy life and yet still get all of the benefits of yoga."

Neeta's advice to new students is to "keep coming to class and continue your practice! That is the key to gaining the most benefits from Bikram Yoga." Bharat advises, "Be fortunate to have discovered Bikram Yoga in America which was only kept to the East. Be patient, and continue the practice at your own level and all the benefits are just the bi-products as your mind and body become harmonious. Be peaceful, be in the present, and enjoy the moment."

Appetite for Yoga

By Rachel Payne

When I was first asked to write about yoga and nutrition for our BYPV blog, my first reaction was that of resistance.

Why, you may ask?  After all, that is what I am going to school for.   To honestly answer that question, I don’t know why I resisted.  Maybe because I am always bogged down with essays, and research papers and the thought of having to write ONE MORE THING purely nauseated me and sent me into a child-like rebellion (and straight to the kitchen).  Or perhaps it was because when it comes to nutrition and fitness, there are so many variables, and one size does not fit all, so I felt like it was going to take a lot of preparation on my part and that was stressing me out. Or maybe it is my ever increasing senior-itis, and I just don’t want to do it.  Whatever the reason, it’s insignificant. Ultimately I wanted to deliver something personal, and authentic.  I wanted to talk to you about a subject that I have a passion for, a topic that many can relate to, something that keeps me up late at night reading and meditating upon….something that is me and that is potentially you too.  After a lot of prayer and meditation, I felt led to guide you through this mini journey of my life….my yoga and my nutrition…but with a much different twist. If I reach but one of you, my mission is accomplished...deep breath...are you ready?  Or a more appropriate question, am I ready?

From as far back as I can remember I have had a poor relationship with food.  Through all the tragedies and circumstances this life has handed me, food was my comfort.  It never talked back, it never disrespected me, it never judged me, it never abused me, it was always there; it flooded my brain with all the feel-good chemicals that I needed in order to temporarily ease the pain of the moment.  And now as a 30 year old adult, my relationship with food is still poor.  It is a vicious cycle, stressful emotions lead me straight to the kitchen, followed by remorse and guilt, which then sends me back into the kitchen.  Many variables play into this aspect of my life.  It is not just one thing that keeps me a slave to the cookies, cake, pudding, and ice cream.  But the bottom line is, it is an addiction.  But unlike the addictions of sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, exercise, (insert yours here), food cannot be taken away.  We need it to survive.   Thus continues my struggle to overcome, or mend my relationship with food.  I feel like my own prisoner sometimes, trapped in this body that I cannot seem to maintain.  I bust my tail in the gym 5-6 days per week, I do yoga, I eat clean, I hydrate, and I rarely-to-never eat out.  Yet I cannot maintain any amount of weight I lose on a permanent basis.  As a Dietitian to-be, and nutrition professional, this is a constant struggle.  I want to live authentically, practice what I preach.  Every day I battle this addiction.  Every day I am faced with emotions that are hard to handle, not to mention the ever expanding waist line due to my frequent binges.  I have always been one who tries to practice what I preach.  And it is ever imperative that I lead a lifestyle in which my future clients will look up to and respect.

This struggle and reality is what led me to yoga.  Every day I face myself in that mirror.  It doesn’t matter how far away I am from the mirror, from the front row to the back row, I cannot hide.  That mirror is MY accountability. Looking, loving, and accepting myself is the hardest feat.  To accept today, the now, and THIS body is all my body wants.  My 90 minute moving mediation is my “cure”.  Every day when I am faced with difficult emotions that unconsciously send me straight to the kitchen, I stop and breathe.  What would happen if in that moment I put into practice all the discipline and focus I demonstrate on that yoga mat?  What if I allow the emotions to arise, watch them as a spectator without judgment, just as we are instructed to do in our daily yoga practice?  Imagine, most of our suffering comes from resisting what is already there, particularly our feelings.  All any feeling wants is to be welcomed, touched, allowed. It wants attention. It wants kindness. If we treated our feelings with as much love as we treat our dog or our cat or our child, we'd feel as if we were living in heaven every day of our sweet life.  This is what my yoga has taught me.  Have I mastered this? Absolutely not.  Every single day I start over.  Some days are better than others, but what I do know is that I always have my yoga.  It calms me, teaches me, encourages me, and keeps me in that space of gratitude.  All our bodies want is love and acceptance, and from that space, we are overcomers and conquerors.  There will always be problems, so many problems, but if we stay grounded in our own presence, in our own “alrightness”, we can deal with them from a clear space that our yoga practice creates within us.  The more and more we love and accept ourselves exactly the way we are, the better and better we will get at EVERYTHING.  Such self-acceptance creates emotional freedom which inspires all of us to grow to our fullest potential.

Thank you for allowing me to share this with you. You all motivate, encourage and inspire me.  I am grateful.  I look forward to sharing with you again, perhaps next time on a more educational note about yoga and nutrition.