3 BEST YOGA PRACTICES FOR THE 5 LAYERED SELF ASANA "YOGA", PRANAYAMA "BREATHWORK", MEDITATION3 BEST YOGA PRACTICES5 LAYERED SELF AND THE 3 BEST YOGA PRACTICESWhat are the 3 best yoga practices and why? You are likely already familiar with Asana, as it is the physical...
3 Best Yoga Practices for the 5 Layered Self, Asana, Breathwork, & Meditation
3 BEST YOGA PRACTICES FOR THE 5 LAYERED SELF
ASANA “YOGA”, PRANAYAMA “BREATHWORK”, MEDITATION
3 BEST YOGA PRACTICES
5 LAYERED SELF AND THE 3 BEST YOGA PRACTICES
What are the 3 best yoga practices and why? You are likely already familiar with Asana, as it is the physical practice of yoga that has been widely popularized across the world. The other two practices are gaining popularity but not necessarily amongst yoga practitioners.
Imagine if someone came along and said here are the 3 magic herbs you need to take daily in order to heal your body, mind-body, and balance your energy. And instead of taking the 3 herbs the entire world just got really excited about 1 of them. The recipe would be incomplete, and so would the benefits. This is what has happened with yoga, and we are missing out on the massive benefits as a result.
Asana is for the body
If you have been reading my blogs, and following my work, you know that I love sharing tips about the physical practice. The human body is something I am particularly passionate about. I am not here to tell you that the physical practice isn’t important; it definitely is. I simply want to support your transition to the next phase so that you not only feel better physically, but you learn to cleanse the mind and balance and optimize your energy, which is what the yogis call Prana.
What is the Prana?
Prana is the word for the relatively unexplainable life force within each of us that is causing a pulse of our heart, inflation and deflation of our lungs, amongst many other things. To make it simple, it’s our energy system. The aspect of prana that most Asana practitioners are interested in connecting with is the energy channels known as Ida and Pingala, known in modern science as Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Nervous System. In simple terms, we are talking about your “rest and digest” relaxing energy and your “Go” focus, alert energy. Learning to manage balance, optimize, and utilize energy/prana is one of the major goals of the yoga practitioner. With the right practices you can become masterful and at sleeping, waking up, being alert, resting, being calm, focusing, exercising, etc.
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What is the Mind or Heart-Mind?
In a moment we are going to get into the layers of our Self and the 3 practices for total well-being. But first let’s discuss something that is often ignored, the mind. This is no easy question to answer, so much so that the mental health industry struggles to define it – how can you establish the health of something you can’t even define?
It’s one of those interesting things. We know we have a mind, but the only tangible, physical representation of it is the brain and nervous system…but no one has yet to dissect a mind. Fortunately, yogis have been contemplating and studying the mind for centuries so we can turn to them for answers.
The mind is our way of experiencing the world by utilizing thoughts and emotions as the tools to process time, space, and occurrences. The mind is perhaps the most important system to take care of because it is governing our entire perception of our existence. This is why Yoga is most often defined as the study or science of the mind when we look at sacred texts. You will never see it defined as the study of the body, though that is a part of studying the mind.
So, as magnificent as the physical practice of yoga is, it is limited, only targeting one layer of our being which is called “Deha” or Body. Yes, feeling better physically helps us energetically, mentally, and emotionally but it’s just a temporary bandaid. To get to the root we need to do yoga for all the layers of our being which include:
The 5 Layered Self According to Tantra Yoga
- Deha: The Body
- Citta: Heart-Mind, thoughts & emotions
- Prana: Energy, life force, autonomic nervous system
- Shunya: The Void, calming, peaceful, clear, stillness
- Cit: Blissful Awareness
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“THE TRIFECTA” THE 3 BEST YOGA PRACTICES
Under the umbrella of yoga, there are many amazing approaches to work with the 6 Layers of our Self, but if I am to recommend the top 3 best yoga practices, it would be as follows, but not in any particular order:
- Asana: (Commonly referred to as yoga) Cleanses Deha, the body.
- Meditation: Cleanses the heart-mind first, and with practice allows us to root deeper into Shunya, and Cit, pronounced “Chit”. Meditation cultivates our ability to experience Blissful Awareness even in our day-to-day tasks.
- Pranayama: Balances out our energy levels
For each of these layers, there are yogic practices. Most familiar and most popular is “Asana” which is to help develop awareness, strength, and flexibility of the body. We can think of this as a cleanse for the physical form.
For Citta, Heart-Mind, it’s unfortunate that many of us are not provided with the proper tools to keep the mind clean. We brush our teeth because plaque builds up daily on the teeth, similarly, the mind builds up and collects unwanted toxicity. To cleanse the mind we use the practice of meditation, specifically “mantra” – a repetitive phrase to cultivate the mind’s attention and strengthen our ability to focus.
For Prana (Energy) there are incredible breathwork practices available to us in the yoga lineage, called Pranayama. Breathwork helps balance the autonomic nervous system which simply means that we can harness the “Go” energy, and manage the “Rest and Digest” energy. Finding the sweet spot allows us to meditate with greater ease, de-stressing the mind, helping increase mental clarity amongst a myriad of benefits.
MOVE•BREATHE•RELEASE
Yoga, Breathwork, Meditation!
Expand your yoga practice with Asana for the body, Breathwork to balance your energy, and Meditation to find greater peace of mind, focus, and clarity. This is the best way to establish a meditation practice while enjoying the benefits of a routine physical yoga practice.
THE PROBLEM
Now that we know these 3 practices help us to feel better physically, mentally, emotionally, AND energetically, why don’t we practice them routinely?
Well, the answer is simple. We created a habit, or pattern of brushing our teeth, but haven’t created one for meditation and pranayama yet. Maybe you haven’t created one for yoga yet either?
THE SOLUTION
To create a habit, repetition is the only thing that is needed. However, repetition requires effort and prioritizing your time. Most adults struggle with this. I once read a quote that said something along the lines of “If you have the time, meditate for 20 minutes each morning. If you don’t have time, meditate for an hour each morning”. This is comically the unfortunate truth – the more you fill your day, the more time you need to process and digest everything that is coming in.
Let’s acknowledge that routinely showing up for yourself and practicing Asana, Pranayama and Meditation might seem like a lot at first. This is why I have created an online program to make this easy for you called MOVE•BREATHE•RELEASE, consisting of 3 practices per week, each of which includes all 3 practices, so you do not need to find time to do them all separately. Each of them is fully guided so you do not have to worry about how to do the postures or the breathwork exercises or how to get through your busy mind. I take care of all that for you. All you need to do is show up.
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- MOVE•BREATHE•RELEASE: 12 CLASS PACKAGE
- Journey To Bliss: 12 Class Immersion with 4 Guided Meditations
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3 Best Yoga Practices for the 5 Layered Self, Asana, Breathwork, & Meditation
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