Ep #34: Limbs Three - Five: Signs, Poses, Breath Awareness (Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara )

Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs! Are you seeing them? Slayer not only gives us a lovely rendition of the Telsa remake from her 80's self, but demonstrates how the signs of the Universe are everywhere when you look, and ask. We get a deeper understanding of the physical practice of yoga, the Asana and even pick up a couple of breathing techniques as we start to develop our practice of Pranayama, and finally how to draw inside of ourselves like a turtle into it's shell as we prepare to head into the final limbs of yoga...and into that sweet magic space that is within us all. The sweet remembrance of who we truly are.
 
Mentioned in this episode:
To Reference more on Patanjali and the Yoga Sutras:
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Sacred Teachings)
Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga (by Rolf Gates)
Blog post reference for Pratyahara exercise. 

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Transcript

Do you know that there is something magical inside of you, but you don't know how to uncover it. The Heartsing podcast is dedicated to just that helping you put yourself first and figure out what lights you up. I'm your host, Addie B AKA Slayer of Namaslayer. And through my journey of losing nearly a hundred pounds, uncovering the magic of my soul and building the life of my dreams.

I'm leaving no stone unturned in the process of self discovery, and I'm here to share it all with you. So let's get started. Welcome to the Heartsing podcast. I'm Addie, AKA Slayer of Namaslayer and day. We are going to bust out three of the eight limbs of yoga, a sauna pranayama Pratyahara and wait before you're thinking, how can this help me on my health journey,

weight loss journey. This can be everything you guys listen closely to this one, because increasing your awareness of self in there, the transformation magic wise, and in using this portal to our inner self, through our bodies, our breath and our senses, all of this that we're going to discuss today, you will become more aware as you move through your day and each moment as you increase this awareness,

those decisions you make to stay on the path of Sreya these healthy choices with the longer term rewards, or we make the choice of the quick dopamine hit the, when we choose the path of prayer, you know, the salad versus the pizza. If you will, when you are more mindful of your body, of the moment, of how to watch your mind and become the experiencer,

you start racking up these Sreya decisions, and we increase this awareness of who we truly are. Have you noticed yourself being calm more of the experiencer as you're increasing your awareness on your path of self-discovery in this light, we're going to continue on this path of understanding these limbs of yoga. And we're going to get into the physical practice of yoga today, the Assata yoga and the breath pranayama,

and the control of senses of Pratyahara. But first I have to tell you a story about my signs this week, and this might involve me singing and eighties Addie common out again. So just get ready, except it's not the indigo girls, but we're rocking out a little Tusla because I can't talk about signs without that song. They remade coming in my hat.

So at first, I'm going to tell you about what happened this week. You guys know how I am about signs. Like when my spirit guides threw at me, it was time to write the book on top of all the other broad crumbs I was getting from the universe, all these little clues I was filing following. And I've been stymied lately. You guys,

if you've been listening, it's like, I feel like I'm stuck in the mud a little bit, or I had been feeling that way and knowing I really need to learn something more. I've got something in my path. But when I talked last week about being the butterfly in my wings, being a little sticky, realizing I wasn't growing, I'm ready for some more knowledge.

And I kept asking, what is it? How can I serve? What is my next path? And every time I'd ask, there'd be this voice, get to the map. And I thought it was just me getting to the mat and being in child's pose and being still, and just like being there, doing that part of my practice. And I still wanted more than this though.

Like I still wanted to hear more than us. Like what direction do I need? Especially just in case this was my like creative brain, just having fun with stuff, right. Even though it felt like the, like the real thing I ran across this book by Ralph Gates, in my research for the podcast series on the eight limbs of yoga that we're in the midst of right now,

the meditations from the mat. And I love it all linkable low it's. The book itself is not as much about meditation on the mat. Like when you do yoga on the mat, but yoga itself as we're discussing it with the eight limbs. So I'm listening to this book and hearing the voices, tell me to get to my mat. And it actually meant getting to my yoga mat.

I love the physical practice of yoga. And it was only through trying many, many different types of classes that I grew this love. And that remembrance of the feeling in Shavasana at times is what led me to add meditation into my everyday MK bucket list. And you see where that got us squirrel. I know. Okay. So for a couple of months,

I've been like, where do I go universe? What's my next path? What am I going to create next? And when I see myself in discomfort like this, with the sticky wings out of my cocoon, I start asking and seeking, how can I serve? And the mat kept coming up as the answer one day, I thought, how cool would it be to learn from Ralph Gates?

This book I'm liking so much because he's in alignment with my spiritual practice of yoga as ton of knowledge. And I don't want to just learn poses. I want to deepen my physical Assan and yoga practice to deepen my spiritual experience. And lo and behold, I like Googled, right? And he has an online course. That's now certified through the yoga lions.

So I've been sitting on this for a few weeks asking, and in the me first guy process, I've been telling you guys how I pull a cart each morning. And usually I'll ask a really general question. Like, what energy do I need today? That type of thing in cell-free flagged bang. I was getting really specific this week because like, I've really want to know this is my direction,

right? And so I asked really specifically in my yoga path deck, I said, ask my carts to show me my next direction. You guys, first day, guess what card I pulled? Yup. The Assana card. The next day, I shuffled like mad, determined to show that this was all just him. Crazy. Woo. And guess what card I polled the Isana yoga card.

I just started cracking up. I'm like, okay, already, I get it. And this is like, there are multitude of signs, you know? And so while I write the book this summer, I'm going to start my yoga certification mainly to deepen my practice, which is exactly how I started with my meditation teaching, by the way, to deepen my own meditative practice.

And I know that this is going to help take me on my home stretch to my weight loss goal to, I don't know how to explain it. I just know. And this brings us to the fact it's also the topic that was planned for the week. Another sign, right? Boom. Hello universe. I got it. Okay. Remember that song?

You guys that I was talking about earlier that Tesla re dead and now I have to sing it for you at least a little bit, just in case you don't know sun signs, everywhere signs blocking out the scenery break in my mind. Oh my God. Yeah, that's horrible. I know in this case, it's more like the signs that are guiding our minds,

right? So I would rewrite it, be something more like signs, signs, everywhere, sign, open your heart and file your signs. I don't know. Anyhow, you guys can come up with something better than that, but I onto more serious stuff. Now that you've had enough of Slayer singing in your ear, if you're still here and you're caught up on my journey with signs and my direction and how just watching for these broad crumbs and knowing and asking and having that,

feeling that knowing inside of you that, you know, when it's right, you know that when I feel the answer that, yes, this is it. When the energy rises to my fingertips. And it's my intention for this episode to not only inspire you to meditate, of course, but also to give you some tools you can use now in your everyday life to increase the awareness of the present moment and start increasing our capacity to live in the now to find Heartsing in the simple things in life.

Think about this as you go through your day today, just look for the little places you can find joy and the eight limbs of yoga, we've been learning about yoga in the sense being the joining of the body, mind and soul and not sweating on your yoga mat. Also, what I realized is all of that's in sync with what I'm creating at Namaslayer,

which also makes sense that Asana yoga is part of my next path of understanding that I can bring that to all the bad-ass, which is in bitches out there that might be intimidated by yoga studio or not even know where to start with a physical practice to help get still. And how can I weave all of these together as I create tools to help others on their transformation and see my soldiers got lit right there.

That's, that's the knowing, it's the path. This is the right move. It's almost like goosebumps or chicken skin, but it's inside my body. It's an energy flow inside of me. And now back to yoga, okay. These eight pass or limbs from the yoga sutras, a potentially these are a guide to our inner light that will guide us back through and sustain our transformation.

And we're just putting this in 2021 speak the first two limbs we just finished covering in the earlier episodes. The yamas are how to deal with the outside world, that truth trust, love, and letting go. And then of course the niyamas the second limb all about our inner self. And we learned about clarity and contentment. Self-discipline self study and devotion to source.

And our transformations are midlife. Metamorphosis life is this journey of us increasing awareness and all of these areas of our external and internal interactions throughout our thoughts and actions. And the next three limbs we're going to dive into here, help us start to focus the body and mind inside of us to carry into that focus and stillness. That leads us to the ultimate and final limb called samadhi,

where we remember our highest self where we're United again, with who we truly are. We remember right? You're thinking, okay, this layer, how do we get there? Right? As if it was just that easy. Wasn't you guys all the good stuff. It's not easy. It's uncomfortable. Think about something great you've created in your life. Was it easy?

Most hard things are uncomfortable. Our brains don't like it. And the funny part is this next practice. These next limbs are a practice in being comfortable, which is funny because it tends to be the hardest thing to do because it's really sitting, still breathing and just being, so why does that feel so hard? Especially at the beginning, because we don't yet see the rewards on the other side of learning more about ourselves.

And this comes back to the habits cycle, to our brains, being wired, to keep us safe and get those quick rewards for survival. And we fight this change. Our brains want us to stay fat and happy and liquored up. Our brains are super happy. It's our passenger inside us, our true selves that get more and more miserable as we seek one dope head after another.

And the good news is we can retrain these brains of ours. We just start putting the votes in the bucket on these paths of yoga, the closer and closer we get to that light, to that point where we have the tapa or the self-discipline to show up, because we know on the other side of doing these things for ourselves, we're more radiant and full Heartsing,

but how do we get to that point? Right? The process is uncomfortable, but the more aware we are and the more compassion we can have for ourselves, the more comfortable our transformation can be. And these next three limbs on this path as sauna pranayama, and Pratyahara help us increase this focus. So it becomes easier for us. And today, I want to make sure I leave you with some ways you can start to practice these in small steps in your life.

Maybe as you start to build a meditation or self-reflection practice for yourself on your path of freedom, the third lamb Assani yoga is indeed the yoga. You're all thinking about that. I've been saying, Nope, it's not that it's not that this does, this has to do with the body postures. So we call that a sauna, but it doesn't necessarily have to do with,

if you can perform a handstand or a downward dog on a yoga mat, while these actions might be on your path and something you enjoy, it's not, not necessary to practice yoga. The only instruction potentially our ancient Sage that is our guide on this path or our inner light gives is to simply sit in a posture that should be steady and comfortable. And this is reflected throughout tux on yoga.

That poses should be comfortable in study and can really be as simple as sitting in a comfortable chair. Now doesn't that make the practice of yoga seem a little more accessible, but why on earth would we practice just sitting in a chair, right? What could a yoga practice look like? That makes it comfortable to sit in a chair. That for me has become the objective.

Especially as I sit longer days at a computer. And as I age, I certain notice more creeks in my body and believe me, when I tell you I feel it in my hips and my lower back when I don't do my regular yoga routine and as subtle at first kind of much like meditation, I don't necessarily notice it while I'm doing it. It's the benefits outside of it.

I see. And when I don't have the practice in place that I see even more. So when I look to focus inward to my yoga practice, looking at it as a way to nourish my body for it to be ease and movement and self-love, and much less about how strong I looked in a poser position on a mat or the muscles I got are more in alignment with my practice.

This is become, it helps me ease into meditation and be able to move my body with grace. I didn't even have 20 years ago. Have you attempted a yoga class or something you were just turned off by it or feel like that's something you can never do? Or what is that? I, I would urge you to revisit this and I do a Sani yoga before I meditate now for the love of the feeling.

I could also feel my spine come into alignment as I stretch through my downward dog and other pieces in my body fall into place. As I go through the motions that indeed prepare me to set longer without distraction. You guys, some of these poses were very difficult when I was 300 pounds and out of necessity at that stage, I learned to do what I was capable of having switched my mind from one of influence from other people and the care and love of my body is showing up for me and what I can do in the moment and as potentially tells us OSI,

yoga should be comfortable in Sadie. So me ask you this, are you not trying something, whether it's yoga or something else, because you're afraid of what other people might think. This'll stop. Many of us in our tracks when we allow thoughts of other people, they're not even necessarily having those thoughts. And especially if you're in a yoga studio, if they're true yogis,

they're worried about their own mat and their own practice, not yours. So I'd urge you to look at that and look at it, just being comfortable and study. And when we teach primordial som meditation, we're sure to emphasize the need of being comfortable to not lying down. Like you're going to go to sleep unless you're in a position you can't set up.

But if you can to sit up and be comfortable, have your back supported your feet on the ground, you know, as comfortable as you want to be. If you're able to send a Yogi pretzel twist and not be distracted by your body or an ache in your knee, congratulations, I'm not sure what you win, but good work. You sometimes after yoga,

I'll meditate on my meditation pillow, but often you will find me in my big comfy chair with my feet grounded and a pillow in my lower back for support and meditation should be easy, comfortable in apparently so should a sauna yoga per pedantically. So sauna can prepare us for this. And this is how I use my yoga practice. I don't do a strenuous heart pumping session before meditation,

rather a slow flow where stretch, release, and start to focus my mind on my body. Once I move into a comfortable seat, it's for me, usually after some type of stretching, all the kinks out before I can sit comfortably. Sometimes I do this embed as well, but I run through a stretching routine on my back as I start to focus on my inner awareness and then onto my breath.

And that brings us to the fourth. Lemme yoga, pranayama prana means energy or life force. That essence that keeps us alive and also the energy that is the universe and all encompassing and Pronto also often describes the breath. So depending on where you break this word, interestingly enough, Yama means breath control or prana Yama, which would translate as freedom of breath and breath and mind are connected.

So we start to learn to alter our breathing. We can change our mind to, for example, we can choose a calming cooling breath, like the taco tum breath. I taught you earlier in that podcast. You guys remember that? Let's do it again. Cause it's fun. And you know, your kids will think it's cool too. So simply real simple.

You roll your tongue like a taco. And if you're not a tongue roller, just do the best you can. I use this one a lot. Being a Pitta, IRA, Vedic dosha type and summer is our season. It's pit a season. So you're feeling all the warmth of the fire to when you need to cool down, do the taco tongue Satalia it's called.

So let's try it. Roll your tongue and breathe in through your tongue and out through your tongue. And as that air comes out, feel how cool it is. It's actually cooling your body, close your eyes. If you can, if you're driving, don't close your eyes, but close your eyes and follow that breath in and out and feel like cool,

and feel your mind. Start to slow and your body start to cool. Let's see. You want to do the opposite. Let's say you want to cultivate some fire. Some of that Pitta energy in you. You need some energy. I love the breath of fire for this one, a Kundalini breath. I can feel the energy start to build. As I do this one,

let's try this one now and reverse that calming cooling effect. So you're pumped up for the rest of this podcast. Let's try it here. So a disclaimer, you know, we like to be dangerous here on the Heartsing podcast and do not do this breath. If you have cardiac issues, hearts, spinal concerns, if you're pregnant or respiratory issues. So if it's not you,

we're going to dig in and start practicing like a panting dog basically. And if you feel dizzy stop, so we're going to start slowly with only like 30 seconds of this breathing. It's really good for blood flow regulating that pituitary gland, which is often called the master gland because it tells other glands in your body to release hormones and this can affect Oregons throughout your body,

your skin, your energy, your mood. How cool is that through breathing? So all you do you guys to start, go ahead. And if you get still somewhere, put your hand on your belly and again, if you're driving, keep your, keep your hands on the wheel. So if you're in a place, you can do this, put your hand on your belly so you can feel your breath.

And as you inhale, your breath goes out and as you exhale, your breath comes back in and most of us do this opposite. So make sure you have your hand on your belly so you can feel it so in and out, and your breasts should be about the same length too. So inhale on your breath goes out and exhale. Your breath comes back in and then you're going to do a little faster.

Like the panting you go start slow and you build it up from there. It's a great AB workout too, by the way, it's a side note and take it slow. The inhale is passive where your hand is going out and exhale is powerful. And when you come out of doing this practice, take it slow, like return to your natural breathing.

Go ahead and try it for a few breasts here, not too long, your first time around and just take it nice and slow. And then as you can increase the pace and start to notice the feeling of fire build within you and the energy. You can see that each of these ways that breathing can change your state of being how cool is that there are so many breathing techniques you can learn and choose from.

It's up to us to determine if we see it as controlling the breath or freeing ourselves from the habits of our mind. And if I'm using this to lead into meditation, of course, I'm going to use a calming breath as I want to settle some of that pit of fire within me. So it can start to focus my mind. And this kind of brings us into the focusing of the mind or the withdrawing of the senses and our fifth limb of yoga called Pratyahara.

And this means to withdraw, draw back into ourselves prod. It does, and then a horror refers to anything we take in. So remember the story about the chariot in our five horses, the horses being our five senses that are out there running the game. If we don't have their reins pulled on them, which is the mind and emotions. If our intellect,

the part of us that has the power to make choices, our smart brain, if you will, the intellect can draw these rains on the horses. And that's how we're doing. When we're focusing the mind, we're learning to focus these senses in drawing inward to solve. And as we start a meditation practice, this can include things like focusing their breath and relate to the prior limb.

The pranayama, when we practice the Pratyahara, we don't actually lose the ability of the senses, but we start to lose awareness of them and to where they no longer us or reached the level of a mind experienced yogis may even be able to carry this into everyday living so concentrated and present in the moment they are that things and sensations and sound don't easily distract their mind.

I think of accurate, totally. For some reason, he comes to mind when I hear this thing has every time I see him speak, usually with Oprah, he's just study focused in this knowing nothing phases him. And yet there's this underlying joy in light, no matter the question, and potentially tells us at a certain point, our distractions, these known as retain free teas.

This starts to hinter our practice in and gets in a way of us obtaining a deep level of concentration that we need to learn to meditate, and that we need to start to ignore all of this external stimuli and internal chatter. Of course, the seems impossible. We're used to reacting to all the stimuli all around us in our minds, pushing our energy outside of us.

And when we need to sit to go inside to get to that table level awareness, sometimes it's a struggle. So what can we do? We don't work to shut off these senses, but rather we work to strengthen the energy inside of ourselves to focus of the beauty within that's greater than anything we can create outside. So try this practice. As you learn to sit still and take your senses inward.

I found this from Dasha open Heimer, as she teaches her students about entering Shavasana. And I'm in the link, this blog posts in the show notes. So you guys can get a copy. This is really kind of cool. So I want to leave you here with it today. Now, normally Shavasana, you guys is the final resting pose in yoga.

If you're not familiar with this, when you're laid out on your back and you're preparing for the journey inward after we did a physical practice. And if you can, you know, find a comfortable seat right now and do this with me and you don't need to lie down, you know, just sitting up is fine. Just be able to close your eyes or mark the spot and come back when you can,

if you do this after maybe a light yoga stretch, awesome. Maybe you want to do it after some breathing and had into meditation is you're sitting comfortably in a chair that works too. And maybe you just want to take a little break from work. However you want to do this is take a few minutes for yourself right here, close your eyes and just start breathing comfortably in and out.

Maybe use the cooling breath and kind of relax yourself. Now, lightly close your eyes and lift the upper eyelids slightly. So it doesn't press against the lower lid and notice if you're tensing up the forehead and be sure to relax. It gently lift the outer edges of your eye toward the temple to avoid the forehead tensing. Once your eyelids are in position in you're aware of a lightness around your eyes rolled up pupil downwards,

as if you're looking toward your heart, no straining. And once you're in that position, the eyes don't move. Now you relax the jaw. We're going to work on releasing the sense of taste here. So you let the tongue drop away from the palette. Don't hold the tongue back. The tongue tip nozzles gently behind the lower teeth and really relax the corners of your mouth.

Letting those just melt down toward your job bone. And now as we release the sense of smell, bring your attention to the root of the nose. That's the bridge of the nose area. And won't take long to relax here. Just focusing your attention on the noses root seems to relax. That sense of smell. And now we move on tear sense of sound,

and we're going to relax it in her ear, separating your attention to the upper rims of your cheekbones and allow the cheekbone to melt downward to your ear. Lobe. You'll feel your inner ear. Let go of tension. Now, as we move on to the sense of touch your skin is a largest sense organ in your body. This step of Pratyahara teaches you to relax your face.

Imagine a line in the center of your face. It begins at the hairline and defines your forehead in half the center of your nose, the center of your upper lip, the center of your lower limp center of your chin center of your neck. Now divide your face into upper and lower quadrants by drawing an imaginary line about one eighth of an inch above your eyebrows.

Softly moved the skin of your forehead, the upper quadrants from the center line to the temples and allow the skin of the upper quadrants to pool at the temple and bring your attention to the center line of the lower quadrants. Have your face move the skin from the center line to your ear lobes. And the skin is like warm wax, smooth Pratt. Your heart is often compared to a turtle,

withdrawing its limbs into its shell. And the turtle shell is the mind and the senses are the limbs. So you can repeat these steps as many times as you like until your senses are withdrawn. And over the years, as we repeat this practice, we can take less than a minute to start to really withdraw into that shell. So Pratyahara being present in the moment to like we bring this back to every day life with Pratyahara being conscious of these little things and watching for distractions due to stimulations outside of us,

it brings us inward when we do this. So when you do your mind work, even awareness around food. When I would notice wanting to have some stimulation from food, much less way, I needed food because I was hungry, but I wanted to be stimulated in some way. Having this recognition, this awareness brings me inside of myself. So how to get started with all of this.

You guys basic yoga poses, Google a beginner, yoga course. A lot of people like yoga by Adrian on YouTube. Try a bunch of different ones. Don't give up because you did one. You didn't like find what sings to you. I like the Shanti Shakti series on the Gaia network, but while you can modify anything, it's not a totally beginner yoga series,

but I love it because she talks about the goddesses and stories. I find it inspiring and I learn something about myself each time, even though it's the same one, I get inspired and new and I've seen him like over a hundred times. And there's quite a few on Gaia like that, but that's a paid app in. You don't need to do that.

There's a ton of stuff out there. You don't need to go to a studio. You could just find a simple stretch and have the same benefits to help get to your comfortable seat. As pedantically tells us, yoga is the first place I experienced this awareness of self from just being still. I didn't know it, but when I put meditation on my everyday bucket list,

it was from these experiences that made me want to seek more. So took the journey of Assani yoga and you don't give it a try and let it take you from feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable to a journey of loving you. No matter your size or athletic abilities, like I told you earlier, two yogis are practicing non-judgment anyway. So if you do go to a class,

they're not looking at what's happening to you or your yoga mat, they're focused on going within themselves. So basically you guys get over yourself and start to get into yourself. Stop caring so much a well, what others think and start caring for you and look up some basic pranayama breathing exercises or do the ones here were concent. Pratyahara like go throughout your day with the simple awareness.

Even like, while you do things like brush your teeth, notice how the toothbrush feels on your gums, how the toothpaste tastes, instead of all the thoughts in our mind, notice the sensations in your body and allow them to take you with it. Start to practice a few of these things and see what happens. I'd love to hear your story and what you're thinking about these eight limbs of yoga and our journey.

So far, we have got three more to wrap up and to get us to final limb of samadhi of that. Self-realization self-actualization. And remember you guys, we don't experience these in order. We can dive in any of these limbs at any time, you'll have to go from 1, 2, 3, 4, and five, you know, they can build on each other and help us get into meditation,

which is part of what we're going to talk about next week, concentration meditation, and finally, the self-actualization this realization of that magic that is already inside of us. Just waiting for us to remember and connect and understand that I am you, you are. And with that language Yeah,.