A little trigger can go a long way: How yoga calms the path

I was triggered yesterday by a prank call and spent the day observing my reactions. I thought about food. A lot. And I’m not talking salad. I over-shopped online with food groceries. I had pizza for dinner. But I also pushed my partners chocolate biscuits towards the back of the cupboard and sat in my studio with all that I was feeling.

I noticed how I wanted to cover up the vulnerability I felt. I had memories from the past that hadn’t had an airing for years. Mostly I felt that the energy in my body was dense, uncomfortable - I felt quite gross. So, yes, triggered, but not half as much as in previous times, thanks to my own yoga practice.

Yoga allows us to not always connect with negative, disturbing or reactive thoughts. Often these reactions and thoughts result in habitual, destructive behavior - either old habits, or unhealthy new ones - in the flash of a blink. Mostly we are unaware of this process. We blame others or begin a familar spiral downwards.

Yoga helps us to retrain the brain by being aware of how we are feeling, notice our thoughts and reactions without acting on them, and focusing on something else - our breath, the open space between our eye brows, the release of tension in a part of our body. And the guided meditation practice of Yoga Nidra allows us to plant an intention in our subconscious when we are super relaxed, while we are awake, to set us in the direction of how we want to feel in life. Our brain then filters out thoughts that are not aligned with our intention. This intention can be used to disrupt negative and unhealthy thoughts and behaviours as they occur.

Guided meditation, restorative yoga, pranayama, Yoga Nidra - all these beautiful easy ancient practices allow us to gently and kindly release or soften old patterns that keep us from being in life in a more useful or kinder way. These practices bring us home to our natural state of being. We’re still messy. But we no longer feel that this mess is “me”.

Yoga is not about sticking your foot behind your head. Yoga’s purpose is to lead you through meditation to a calmer place where our triggers come up to go. We may need to gently stretch and release our bodies first so we are not distracted when we sit, but ultimately, yoga is about stilling the rollercoaster of your mind - not just for yourself, but for the world around you.

It took us a lifetime to get here. Come and talk to Janie about creating a calmer life through yoga, one less pizza slice at a time.

#restorativeyoga #lifereset #meditationnz #yoganidra