Breathing life from the yoga mat
[Music]
hi
i’m nimisha i have been yoga teacher
from past
11 years and student of yoga for life
i would like to ask you a question how
many of you know here how to breathe
please raise your hand
interesting we all know how to breathe
this is the idea i wanted to share with
you all today
how to make use of your breathing and
your yoga as a tool to live your life
with more resilience
more happiness less stress and less
anxiety
many of you may have an idea about yoga
one which shows yoga as a physical
practice
where we are working on our bodies to
look like a pretzel
but this is not yoga
yoga on the mat is all about
how to sharpen our self-awareness
resilience and cultivating grit
our experience from the mat can help us
to create a toolbox to deal with the
difficult situations in life
and it all starts and end how we breathe
while doing yoga yoga is an ancient
practice
which was born in india my motherland
but in today’s fast-moving world yoga
has become a synonym world
of physical exercise awesome practice
but asan practice is only one part of
yoga
yoga has eight limbs these are eight
foundational pillars of yoga without
them
yoga will be broken yoga
the whole system of yoga will collapse
these eight pillars provide us
a strong foundation to stay grounded
when a tsunami or a storm hits in our
life
and the fun part is you can practice all
these eight limbs
on and off the mat from your office
chairs
to when in the middle of an argument
with your partners
or your work colleagues
just imagine a caterpillar
i’m going to name this caterpillar yoga
the caterpillar
yoga the caterpillar has eight legs
okay i know what you all are thinking
that
spider has eight legs not the
caterpillar
so just be bit creative with your
scientific minds
and imagine a caterpillar with eight
legs
okay the yoga the caterpillar will not
be able to move
without its eight legs it needs all it
eight legs to move steady and slowly
but in today’s fast-moving world
and in my 11 years of teaching yoga
i have witnessed that we all are working
so hard to strengthen the one leg of
this caterpillar
which is asan practice the physical part
of yoga
that we overlook all the other seven
legs of yoga
let’s meet all the eight legs of yoga
the first one is yamas which are social
ethics
the social ethics are kindness
truthfulness generosity
non-stealing and self-management
niama’s of personal discipline where
purity
austerity contentment self-study and
surrender
comes then we have asan which we all are
very familiar with
which is the connection of body and mind
then
we have a pranayama mindful breathing
we have turning inward patihara then we
have dharana which is concentration
focus then we have dhyana
letting go and the ultimate leg
the ultimate goal of yoga is samadhi
the complete harmony of self
all these eight legs works on
and off the mat
yoga can help us in many different ways
in our life
be it in any sudden challenging
circumstances
or a companion in a long healing complex
journey
yoga also has the ability to impact a
society a community
when people take this practice off the
mat
and turn it into a collective energy
yoga can be your companion your friend
who holds your hand until you reach a
dark scary tunnel
i will tell you about a dark scary
tunnel i had to survive
in 2017 i was sitting in an
endocrinologist
office holding my 10 month old baby girl
while doctor was looking at the screen
with his worrying eyes
he said he uttered the words
we have to do more tests seems like
you might be having a thyroid cancer
these numbers are way off chart
he checked the bulging lump in my throat
and said let’s give
uh thyroxine 150 mg to see if this
lump reduces in six weeks
those words shook my little perfect
world with the two young children
and one supported husband
i left the doctor’s office puzzled
disoriented and worried
worried about my little kids
what if i will die who is going to take
care of my kids
and surprisingly i was more worried
about
my husband starving not getting his
indian dishes made by me
after six weeks of grief i
realized that it was time for me to
really embody my
all eight limbs of yoga on and off the
mat
i deeply trusted my body and mind
i practiced mindful breathing took one
day at a time
one breath at a time i turned inward by
looking at the traumas
straight into the eyes by practicing my
satya
my truth i let go let go of the
expectations i have created from my body
from my life then i started
two year long journey to complete heal
my hypothyroid
after a while
the lump was reduced so there’s a
possibility
of me having a hypothyroid cancer or a
thyroid cancer
but i was told that i will be on the
medication for my entire life
i was determined to do the work by
living my
all yoga and its eight limbs on and off
the mat
journey was uphill
but yoga was helping me tremendously to
say
on the path of my healing and with the
help of doctors
to wean me slowly from the medication
but the yoga was there
holding my hands all the way through
this journey
in the end i did not even need the
medication
that butterfly gland in my throat was
thriving
working well on its own once again
during this complex journey a long
journey
yoga was yoga provided me a tool kit
which was very vital for my journey
it taught me how to take one day at a
time
how to cultivate resilience how to
turn inward self-surrender to the
situation
and let go of the expectations i
was creating my caterpillar
was moving all on its eight legs
in the process of transforming into a
butterfly
just not in my personal journey i have
witnessed many
caterpillars transforming into a
butterfly
and each time i see one resilient
butterfly
i reassure myself that this system of
yoga
works yoga also can help us
to deal with the daily
day-to-day certain challenging
experiences or situations which arises
in our life
mohammed my 60 year old yoga student was
involved in a car accident
the driver of other car was fuming with
anger and hurling insults to him
during this time muhammad stayed calm
and he
offered all the damages to cover all his
damages
despite of muhammad being kind and
generous
the other driver decided to call the
traffic police
mohammed was deeply connected with his
body and mind which allowed his nervous
system
not to go in flight or fight mode which
allowed
his mind and body to
make a logical conversation make a
logical decisions
mohammed explained in his own words
suddenly it occurred to me that as if i
was living my yoga off the mat
by fully present with my mindful
breathing
be by connected with my body and mind as
i would have been on my posture practice
muhammad weaved his yoga practice off
the mat
in this difficult situation his
caterpillar
was also transformed in a butterfly
in this difficult situation which arise
suddenly
yoga provided a set of skills for
muhammad
to just not more aware of his body
but his mind was more resilient too
you guys are not only influential on
individual level
it has a ability to impact a society
when people take this practice off the
mat
and turn it into a collective energies
the most powerful impact of this
practice
i have witnessed in 2020 when the covet
hit
in our small community cows all human
connections were restricted
we felt as if we were locked inside our
own houses
during this time i started
yoga virtual yoga on a pay it forward
concept which means you take a class
with me
and you pay it forward with your
generosity
a gesture of kindness and gesture of
compassion
to yourself or to the others
we saw each other’s faces through the
screens
to remind ourselves that we were not
alone
in the time of uncertainty we were not
alone
in the time of struggle
we set up the intentions to be fully
present for that one
hour and not to think what’s coming next
we set up the intention to turn inward
and process our fears
of uncertainty by doing so
we all were grounded in the present
movement
by doing so we were all collective
practicing on and off the mat
we met four times a week from april to
september
in one of the most strange times our
generation has ever faced it was
unprecedented time
nobody was equipped enough to deal with
yoga during this time provided a toolkit
to people to stay resilient
in one of the most challenging times
yoga provided the toolkit taught them
how to take one breath at a time how to
take
one day at a time without worrying too
much
about what’s coming next
virtual yoga became
our platform and life
became our math
collective energies people cultivated
this
collective energies they turned their
collective grief
into the collective effort yoga taught
them how to change this collected effort
to a collective energies to uplift each
other
to help each other
and to check on each other often
all caterpillars were in the process of
transforming
into a butterfly in one of the most
challenging
times if i call on you today to start
practicing yoga
you might think that you need a mat
or you need to follow a youtube video
that’s great that’s perfect
but what i’m highlighting today is
yoga is more than meets the mat
as yoga has helped me and many of my
other students
to face my own storms and tsunamis
yoga can help you to face your storms
and tsunamis in life
i would like you to invite again to
close
your eyes and take one deep breath
in and out through your belly
thank you