This is a wonderful article by Janet Stone, a Bay Area based Yoga Teacher.
I wanted to send it to all my students / readers, because it speaks eloquently to all of us.
Our lives are so busy, running, till we drop exhausted on the bed at night.
Practicing Shavasana more often can help with this constant inner and outer chatter.
This article analyzes that, gives suggestions as to changing the definition of Yoga practice and taking care of ourselves.
I hope you read it too and let it resonate within you too :)
After reading this article, I hope you will practice more Shavasana :)
The number one commodity as a parent is TIME. Time is always precious. There are fewer moments to linger on a thought, to have a conversation that doesn’t get interrupted after half a word, or to take care of your basic needs.
One question I often hear from parents is, “How do I make time for yoga when I can’t even find time to take a shower?”
What I’ve noticed over the years of being a parent and creating support for other parents is that there is no transition period to pause and acknowledge the massive shift that occurs when a child enters our lives. Everything changes, but we still carry around old expectations of how our yoga practice should look based upon how it was in our pre-child days. But that doesn’t mean we have no “time” for yoga.
Ask Yourself: What Constitutes a Yoga Practice?
First, take stock of the moments you do have in a day and what you do with your time. In doing this, it’s important to acknowledge the amount of love and attention that is going toward your child or children, whatever age they may be. This may help you cultivate realistic time frames for the various other parts of your life, including your yoga practice.
Then, ask yourself: What is my deepest intention for my life? Exploring your deepest intentions can help inform your actions, the ways in which you use your time, and how you create space for things that are in service to your life, your vitality, and possibly even your sanity. If one of your deepest intentions is to model a healthy, balanced life for your children with an emphasis on self-love and self-care, then you will want to place time and attention aside to cultivate this modeling. This could be a 15-minute walk in nature that suddenly becomes your “practice,” or 30 minutes of vigorous asanas, or 5 minutes of deep pranayama. As you become more realistic about your time, you may broaden your definition of what constitutes a “practice.” Make these practices doable within the current framework of your life, so you can step off the merry-go-round offeeling guilty about taking too much time away from your kids, then feeling guilty for not taking care of yourself. Remember that a yoga practice only takes minutes. If we stress less about not having enough time, strangely we have more time.
Parent-asana of the Week: Shavasana
This resting pose takes your yoga practice to a place where you can completely let go.
Though it may seem like an easy pose, Shavasana can actually be very tough to learn and practice well. The great yoga masters K. Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar even called Shavasana the most difficult of all yoga poses. For many students, the ability to lie completely still — like a corpse — while being both fully aware of and unattached from the present moment takes much practice and patience. Unlike active, moving, and physically demanding poses, Shavasana requires a conscious decision to release the mental chatter and surrender fully into a state of presence.
The benefits of Shavasana are much more than just physical — this pose enhances and renews the body, mind, and spirit.
Shavasana is most often used to end practice to allow your body, mind, and spirit to fully relax and release tension. It’s a time to let lingering thoughts and worries fade away. From the depth and darkness of Shavasana, you can be rejuvenated, refreshed, and reborn.
The deeply relaxing aspect of Shavasana is known to be therapeutic for stress. When you’re under stress, your sympathetic nervous system produces a “fight or flight” response that can over-stimulate your mind and body, causing anxiety, fatigue, depression, and disease. Conversely, practicing Shavasana stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system — known as the “rest and digest” response.
Relaxing the physical body in Shavasana has numerous benefits, including:
The physical response can further result in:
In addition to the mind-body benefits, Shavasana is also a time during your practice when you can connect with your peaceful, innermost self. The word “yoga” is often translated as “union,” referring to the connection between your mind, body, and spirit. When you settle into Shavasana and become aware of this connection, you are truly practicing yoga.
ABOUT JANET STONE : San Francisco-based yoga teacher Janet Stone started her practice at age 17. A student of Max Strom and meditation teacher Prem Rawat, Stone teaches vinyasa flow
at events around the world. Stone
has two daughters and offers this advice to moms: “Motherhood offers infinite lessons in the realms of surrender, empowerment, grace, mistakes, and patience, and then some more patience—as well as the endless unfurling of transitions and change. Practicing yoga amidst this adventure can support us in myriad ways to
find our center.”
All images and information are copyrighted to their respective owners.
All images and information are copyrighted to their respective owners.
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