How yoga gets us out of our heads and into the present

Since I can remember, I’ve always been a thinker. One to ruminate on things, wonder, reflect and contemplate. Spending quality time in my head over the years has had it’s ups and downs. It has meant I’m good at critically analyzing topics, have a good knack of de-compartmentalising things and putting them back together, with a detailed understanding of the entire topic and anchoring that knowledge to other areas of interest. I do love this part of myself and it really comes in handy.

However, taking exclusive residence in my head, for me, has meant that I became disconnected from my body and my spirit – two other parts of me that I value immensely.

Through my yoga practice, I have become much more in-tune with what is happening within my body. Where I am holding tension, where I feel heavy, stuck, open etcetera. Yoga has increased my awareness of feelings I’m holding within my body and has deepened my relationship and understanding with and of myself.

 How does yoga do this, you ask?

Well…my body doesn’t lie. But my mind does. My mind is very clever and is very convincing. My mind is just trying to keep me safe, keep me aware of previous experiences and it has an amazing ability to draw conclusions of current experiences based on those previous experiences…without a lot of accuracy I might add.  Through life experiences, I also became quite good at disassociating from my body and this then became a subconscious pattern.

But my body doesn’t lie. Sure, it reacts to the cues of my mind but when I tune in to my body first, it creates a buffer between spiralling into an experience created by my mind to one that I can see with my eyes wide open.

Because of this practice of getting on the mat everyday, I am now able to recognise that I am feeling tight in my chest for example.  It is the practice of moving and breathing that brings more awareness to our bodies.  Taking notice, becoming curious without judgement, ‘oh I feel more restricted than usual in my hamstrings today, isn’t that interesting’.  With practice, the awareness of our bodies, starts to show up off the mat too.   Why does it feel like my chest is about burst into a million pieces? I take a moment…and I breathe. I stay with my breath until I can identify why it is that I have suddenly become overwhelmingly anxious. “Oh, I was just imagining something incredibly terrible happening to all the people I love and wondering how I was going to manage being all alone in this world”. Goodness! No wonder I felt like my chest was about to combust. When you live in your head a lot, it’s easy to get carried away and before yoga I would not have been aware of this feeling. My body doesn’t lie and by having a much greater awareness of how my body is feeling, I now have a process that I can continue to revisit when I feel overwhelmed or completely discombobulated (one of my fave words), and it allows me to become more present and mindful to my experience.

Through the thread of my mind and body, I now recognise those things in life that align with my true purpose – and that’s my heart, my spirit (that part of me that doesn’t change).

My body doesn’t lie.   My mind might tell me what I should do as a career, how I should be, but tuning in to my body allows me to access the joy, the love and the mystery of life as it is – one where I practice living in the present moment, through my mind, my body and my spirit. 

If you’re keen to explore with me how to tune in more to your body, check out my Ashtanga yoga classes in Kuranda or Cairns. You will find all my class times on my website, including a description of the classes. If in doubt, you can always contact me to have a chat.

B x