Yoga From The Inside Out (Chapters 3 & 4)

As I was reading these chapters, I kept thinking about how we had talked about the mind and body in class one day.  I agree with the author that our minds and bodies are connected.  We can use our bodies to achieve higher levels of peace whether that means emotionally, mentally, or socially.  At the same time, our bodies cannot be healthy unless we are also healthy in our mind.  There are times when your body will be fine, but your mind will be wailing; eventually your body will feel the strain of the mind's stress and get ill.  In short, the two influence each other.  It also works the other way too.  Dr. Schultz has told us to smile, to push our shoulders back and eventually we'll begin to feel happy.  All of this reminds me of examined life from freshman year.  The class was structured around those five aspects: the intellectual dimension, the physical dimension, the social dimension, the emotional dimension, and the spiritual dimension.  It’s awesome to see how examined life course from my freshman year can be connected to examined life/capstone course my senior year.

In chapter 4, the author writes about paying attention to various things.  I have noticed that I have become more aware of various parts of my body that I had never thought of before.  For example, today we talked about the outer shin muscles; I had never thought about my outer shin muscles, let alone being able to control them.  I have realized that my body can do more things than expected.  Another example is that in many poses we need to lift our quads.  I have never thought about being able to lift my quads.  Oh…before taking this class, I had never thought about being able to spread my feet like leaves.

In chapter 4, I really enjoyed reading Minnie’s story.  I can relate to Minnie in that I am also very critical of myself.  Hearing Dr. Schultz say that everyone moves at a different pace and has different strengths helps me in being ok with my progress. Minnie and I are also similar in that neither of us expects anything when we come to yoga class.  Neither of us really thinks about what we’ll be learning in class; we arrive and let things come as they come.  I’m always excited to hear about what we’ll be learning and to know that we’ll be going over new things.  Learning new poses allows me to have a greater storage of poses to practice.

One other thing: I love how the author talks about the difference between being with our feelings and going into our feelings.  I had never thought about a difference between the two.  The author explains that going into our feelings means giving into our emotions and acting on them.  On the other hand, being with our feelings means self-observation and being unattached.  This demonstrates the sutras – specifically the ones saying that the vrittis can be combatted with practice and disattachment.  The author is definitely demonstrating that she understands and practices the sutras.