HELLO EVERYONE!
Welcome to this week’s lesson as we learn about the MANY MISCONCEPTIONS there about yoga, WHAT it really is, and HOW it helps us to become the woman we were created to be and manifest the lifestyle we’ve always imagined.
INTRODUCTION
Although the title of my blog post describes what yoga can resemble to some individuals, I learned that practicing yoga is so much more than how we look, what we wear, what we drink, or where we practice.
Yoga is a deeply spiritual practice that brings about deeply personal results.
Yoga is more about WHO we are becoming on a mind, body, and spirit level and what that transformation will allow us to become and accomplish.
But unfortunately over time, yogic culture has been shaped and molded to present beautiful women with incredibly toned bodies, wearing $150.00 designer yoga outfits, practicing in tropical and elegant locations like Bali, Thailand, Costa Rica, Barbados, and more.
It’s those types of advertising and imagery that can cause us to make false assumptions about yoga and prevent potential powerful practitioners from getting on the mat reaping the incredible benefits a personal yoga practice can bring.
I was definitely one of those individuals.
When we see super-edited advertised images of women looking a certain kind of way we internalize those images and feel like maybe a yoga studio is some place that we don’t belong.
It’s this type of misinformation about yoga that kept me off the mat until I turned 55!
What a horrible waste of precious time. If only I had stepped into a yoga studio or at least opened my mind to learning more, I often wonder just how different my life would have been 25 years ago.
The truth is, yoga is literally for EVERYONE and the results it can bring are phenomenal! I swore I’d work to do my very best representing yoga in a positive and affirming way that inspires any potential student to begin her own practice.
No matter who you are, your skill level, where you live, your age, your size, your financial status – YOU are not only welcomed to learn yoga, you’re sincerely invited to join me!
YOGA IS…
Yoga is a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY that has students aged from brand-new babies being taught in their “mommy and me” yoga class to individuals who are literally well up into their hundreds.
There are MULTIPLE TYPES + STYLES of yoga being practiced all over the world with new varieties being created all the time. There’s Traditional, Bikram, Prenatal, Hatha, Vinyasa, Restorative, Yin, Kundalini, Power Yoga…the list goes on and on.
Each style of yoga was created to bring a specific type of result.
Those individuals seeking that result are normally drawn to that particular style of yoga. The more intense the yoga style, the more intense are the results.
Yoga is hard work y’all, I’m not going to lie. But it’s good work, the kind of work you feel from the depths of your soul to the tips of your toes.
I teach a beginner-level one Hatha/Vinyasa blend that offers more of a simplistic yoga experience that’s more attainable for brand-new and limited experienced yogi’s.
I also offer ways to simplify and modify poses to help you ease in and out of the asana throughout your session.
YOGA IS ALSO A SCIENCE, AN ART, AND SO MUCH MORE
In one way, yoga is a PHYSICAL PRACTICE with participants forever exploring the vast array of teachings, styles, and techniques that speak to them and their specific needs.
But yoga can be INCREDIBLY CREATIVE inspiring both teachers and students to explore their inner-realms of their imagination to design and participate in elegant flows that allow us to move effortlessly to the beat of our individual breath.
Yoga is also DEEPLY SPIRITUAL allowing us to open up our collective consciousness to discover and develop a deep and meaningful connection to our Higher Power and spiritual team in a way that makes sense to us.
Many of us have lost our connection to spirit or have gone through most of life not believing in anyone or anything at all. We’ve also lost our sense of self and who we were supposed to be and the difference we intended to make in the world.
Yoga can be a powerful SELF-DEVELOPMENT TOOL that teaches us how to reconnect to our passion and purpose, rediscover our vision and dreams to improve our day-to-day strategies, how we manage our finances, interact with our friends and family, take better care of our health and overall wellness, and so much more.
Universally, yoga is a powerful path that can be taken for a wide variety of reasons, each unique to the individual, but the benefits are always rewarding to the way in which we live our lives.
There’s literally no end to what yoga can be or do for you. All you have to do is be willing to get on the mat and be open to the experience.
WHAT DOES THE WORD “YOGA” MEAN?
Yoga means “to yoke” or to “make one with” the coming together and the building of a relationship with your Higher Power and spiritual team in a way that makes sense to you.
And again, this is because yoga was originally created from that religious viewpoint; by practicing yoga you are connecting to and building a relationship with your Higher Power.
Having a connection to a Higher Power IS a fundamental attribute with yoga but that Higher Power connection is subjective.
Yoga is often a door-opener for individuals like me and maybe you too, who are struggling with their spirituality, searching for new beliefs to follow, or are seeking a deeper relationship with the belief system they currently have.
I teach yoga with a spiritual perspective because my clients/students are normally extraordinarily broken and lack any type of spiritual connection but are looking to discover a Higher Power that resonates with them.
They want to find that connection for themselves.
So my classes do have that spiritualness to them, but there are teachers who do not incorporate any type of spirituality into their practice.
IS YOGA CONSIDERED A RELIGION?
We hear this question a lot and it’s actually a really good question.
Traditional yoga was created thousands of years ago and although it isn’t considered to be a religion on its own, it was built upon and contains certain attributes borrowed from Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and other major religions.
That’s because that’s all that was known to them.
The yogi’s naturally incorporated religious and spiritual aspects of the time into the practice because to them, it was also a form of prayer and acknowledgement to their Gods.
This has proven to be a big point of contention in many areas of the United States like public schools and big corporations.
Public school educators have tried on multiple occasions to introduce yoga to their students. Corporations and private companies wanting to offer yoga to their employees also faced a similar kick-back.
That’s basically because of the misinformation that surrounds yoga.
Parents thought their children were being subjected or forced to “practice a foreign religion”.
Likewise with companies, some employees feared they were being forced into something they didn’t understand or want to understand. They just didn’t like it.
Fair enough!
However, practicing yoga doesn’t mean you are practicing any specific religion or becoming part of any specific religion.
Because there is no specific religion assigned to yoga, yoga encourages you to seek out and explore a God-Source that makes sense to you in a way you can resonate with and form a long-lasting relationship with.
You can be of ANY religious or spiritual belief (or not) and still have a yoga practice.
You can build your yoga practice based on YOUR PERSONAL BELIEFS by simply adding who or what is important to you in the session.
Or if you don’t have any type of belief and don’t wish to add that aspect to your practice, you simply emit anything that doesn’t resonate with you and progress in your own way.
HOW A TRADITIONAL YOGA SESSION CAME TO BE
In the beginning, yoga was a talking-therapy.
The yogi’s, who are the spiritual teachers in the community, would go up in the mountains and perch themselves on the high ledges for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months at a time waiting patiently to hear important messages from the heavens.
They would then collect those messages, discern the information, and come back down from the mountains to share it with the villagers below – kind of how Jesus did with the Sermon on the Mount and Moses with the burning bush.
Through this communication the intention was that the people would heed this advice and live a a happy, successful, prosperous, and abundant life.
In Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain culture, being genuinely happy and healthy, enjoying pleasure in moderation, and becoming prosperous and abundant beyond measure were important goals for the community.
The yogis also knew that negativity and hanging onto any type of negative emotions, people, or scenarios would affect their happiness and cause deep internal imbalances leading to illness and dis-ease and ultimately impede individuals from living a long and happy life.
Mind you, man-kind had this awareness THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO and we’re still battling the same issues today.
The yogi’s were always listening for ways they could inspire their communities to release the negative people, places, and things that no longer serve them, focus on the things that do, and go forward in peace.
It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
But with some individuals, their pain and sorrow was just too deep and it would be very difficult for them to release that degree of negativity.
And let’s face it, in modern times, it’s certainly no easier!
Letting go of painful experiences and the people who caused them can feel incredibly daunting if not completely impossible at times.
I couldn’t just say, “Ok this certain situation is no longer going to bother me, it no longer has power over me” and poof, it’s gone!
I had been doing that for my ENTIRE LIFE and it hasn’t worked yet. So…
Over time, the yogis came to understand that human-beings needed more than words (literally) to help the community break-free from negative thought patterns, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences that kept them trapped in their pain and suffering.
AND OVER TIME, THE CONCEPT OF YOGA UPLEVELED AND TRANSFORMED TO INCLUDE MORE THAN SPIRITUAL MESSAGES!
The yogis came to know that human beings needed something they could do on a daily basis that addressed the daily mind, body, and spirit and helped them to release what was hurting them so deeply.
Around 500 years, or possibly even longer – before the birth of Christ, a book was written entitled:
“The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The 8 Limbs of Yoga”.
The book was written by a scribe named Patanjali. On the back side…there’s some discrepancy if Patanjali was his actual name or if it’s another name for “scribe”.
But this book became both a pinnacle and fundamental text and instruction manual for MODERN YOGI’S of the time.
The book breaks down and explains the EIGHT DIFFERENT ELEMENTS of A YOGA PRACTICE THAT WORK TOGETHER to create unity within the mind, body, and spirit and then together with God.
There are multiple texts written in India that talk about and explain yoga that go back literally thousands and thousands of years. It’s now believed that mankind existed in India possibly as long as 35,000 years ago!
But this yoga book was the first of its kind to bring this new and updated knowledge and has been the text for yogic practitioners today
The Eight Limbs of Yoga was originally written in Sanskrit and has been translated and commented on by many, many different spiritual scholars and yoga leaders and in many different languages.
But the most popular and sought after translation is that of Sri Swami Satchidananda.
The “Yoga Sutras” as the book is commonly referred to, consists of 196 sutras.
SUTRAS is Sanskrit for sutures or stitches or small bits.
The English translation is “verses” like the verses we see in most bibles today.
The 196 Yoga Sutras are divided into EIGHT MAIN CATEGORIES that make up the eight limbs of yoga.
They describe pertinent and powerful characteristics, beliefs, and behaviors that we want to develop alongside a specific skill set to help us uplevel and transform into the highest version of ourselves and live our very best life.
If we use a tree as an example, the eight limbs are presented in a way where we begin with the widest limbs at the base of the tree, giving us the foundation for our yoga practice and we work upwards to gain additional insight and instruction until we work our way up to the top of the tree.
Each limb we work through brings us to a higher level of consciousness and builds upon the one before. We work to master each limb as we go through our practice.
There is no perfection or competition in yoga. That’s why it’s referred to as a personal practice where each of us strives to reach our own individual level of excellence.
The Eight Limbs of Yoga are an awareness we keep working to master at every angle of our life, every time we get on the mat. We go back to the Eight Limbs over and over again, always striving to see how we can challenge ourselves and our personal growth.
I see the Yoga Sutras and the Eight Limbs of Yoga as a steady teacher in the storms of our lives.
Yoga teaches us more than the mind can truly comprehend at times. I’m often shocked and astounded at this knowledge I discover. The West is so sadly behind the times in so many different ways. If only we can open our minds just a tiny, tiny bit.
INTRODUCING THE YOGA SUTRAS; THE EIGHT LIMBS OF YOGA
I want to share a brief synopsis of each of the Eight Limbs of Yoga so you can have a greater idea of what yoga is about and what you’ll be working to achieve during your yoga sessions.
LIMB ONE: THE YAMAS
The YAMAS involve having a MORAL CODE OF CONDUCT that governs our attitude and actions towards others and the environment.
We’re working towards developing a strong MORAL COMPASS and PERSONAL DISCIPLINE that guides us through life and how we engage with others and the world around us.
The Yamas contain five different characteristics:
+ Ahimsa: exhibiting non-violence, non-harming attributes, developing kindness and compassion for all
+ Satya: truthfulness, being honest, having integrity, sticking to your word and following through, non-shortcutting, diligence
+ Asteya: non-stealing, not taking from others, being generous
+ Brahmacharya: wise use of personal energy, not wasting time, not doing things in excess, not cheating, respecting personal boundaries, not engaging with married or attached individuals
+ Aparigraha: non-possessiveness, non-hoarding, not being greedy, not coveting other peoples properties, not attaching to people, places, and things for your own personal gain
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LIMB TWO: THE NIMAYAS
The Niyamas involve the ATTITUDE AND ACTIONS we have towards ourselves.
The Niyamas also contain five characteristics:
+ Saucha: purity or cleanliness of oneself and belongings, being pure of mind, body, and soul, keeping a clean home, clean car, and your surroundings, organization, lack of clutter
+ Santosha: being content in the moment, taking the moment for what it is, stop looking for more, start being present with the good and the bad
+ Tapas: inner heat, our will-power, self-confidence, training the mind, body, and spirit to be cohesive, stepping up to the plate and swinging with purpose
+ Svadhyaya: self-study, self-reflection, introspection, mindful of one’s words and actions, admitting to mistakes, the study of spirituality and spiritual texts
+ Isvarapranidhana: surrendering to the divine, accepting the Holy Spirit, the realization that God, Universe, Spirit is real and here to help us, opening ourselves to the emergence of Spirit and spirituality
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LIMB THREE: THE ASANAS
The asanas are the different poses or postures we do in yoga.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds, maybe a thousand DIFFERENT TYPES AND LEVEL OF POSES that assist with the breaking-up and releasing of deeply ingrained negativity within our mind, body, and spirit.
Each pose has been developed to help us release a specific type of negativity and to achieve a specific type of result.
Poses exist in accordance from beginner to advanced.
You want to be comfortable coming in and out of one pose before advancing to a more difficult or you risk severe injury.
The more intense the pose, the more dramatic the result.
Yoga teachers “sequence” or string asanas together for a class to bring about a particular type of overall transformation to the students.
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LIMB FOUR: PRANAYAMA
PRANA is our breath or LIFE FORCE ENERGY. Everyone of us has life force energy.
The Chinese call it Chi, the Japanese call it Ki, and us Westerners just call it; Life Force Energy. Not very glamorous, but it is what it is.
Our LFE begins in the Root Chakra which sits at the perineum and FLOWS UPWARDS into and through the top of our head through the Crown Chakra.
The chakras exist along an imaginary line that sits just in front of our spine and skull.
The practice of PRANAYAMA consists of SEVERAL DIFFERENT STYLES OF BREATH/WORK that ignite, stimulate, and move our life-force energy throughout our chakras to cleanse and clear our mind, body, and spirit of negativity.
There are also different LEVELS AND INTENSITIES of breathwork (just like the poses) that have to be worked up to or they can make you nauseous or pass out.
I tend to focus on beginner pranayama techniques in my classes for this reason. Learning to breathe is important because many of us don’t breathe correctly.
We’re always either in flight or fight mode which seriously impedes the movement and ability of our LFE to flow through our chakras.
We either hold our breath which chokes off or we hyperventilate and spew our energy all over the place, wasting our energy.
Learning to breathe correctly is a powerful element in our yoga practice that does remove negativity but also brings balance to our session and into our everyday lives.
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LIMB FIVE: PRATYAHARA
Pratyahara is developing the ability to WITHDRAW OR DISENGAGE FROM OUR SENSES in order to not be distracted and disturbed by the world around us.
Today, humans are madly distracted and seek constant entertainment, making it extremely difficult to concentrate on the things that we need to.
Our sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and intuition contribute to chaotic energy running rampant in the background, acting like a constant flow of chatter.
As we grow in our yoga practice, we work to disengage and become unbothered by outside stimuli and put our attention towards manifesting the desires we seek.
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LIMB SIX: DHARA
DHARA is the IMMOVABLE CONCENTRATION OF THE MIND; focused concentration.
It involves learning to ground, center, and focus the mind, body, and spirit even deeper, allowing us to engage the mind in a way that allows us to PAY ATTENTION to the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t.
We resist giving into our worries, our fears, the strife of day to day life. We learn to exist above outside temptations and strive to be content with ourselves in each passing moment.
Yoga teaches us how to become independent of the stresses of life and learn how to enjoy our life instead.
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LIMB SEVEN: DYHANA
Dyhara is the term used for proper MEDITATION.
As we work through developing a positive mindset, work through asana, learn to breathe, to slow the chatter of our distractions, and focus on the things that matter, we’re able to reach a state of spiritual awareness that allows us to formally meditate.
Proper meditation involves being able to disengage from the senses and stimuli around us.
We’re able to maintain a sustained flow of concentration that allows us to simultaneously maintain a sustained connection to the universe.
Meditation is NOT blocking negative thoughts, it’s about not being distracted or disturbed by them. We can see them, feel them, acknowledge them, and let them go.
They have no relevance to us. We rise in our yoga practice to exist on a plane unbothered by the world around us.
This is the freedom that comes with doing yoga!
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LIMB EIGHT: SAMADHI
Samadhi is the final result of all of your hard-work in your practice.
The final limb of yoga is reached after we have mastered all of the limbs and we reach this state of eternal bliss.
Our energetic level is vibing so high, we’re not just maintaining a sustained connection with the universe, we are the universe.
We have upleveled and transformed ourselves into a euphoric and blissful state of mind. We’re free from negativity, distractions, and nonsense.
There is no more stress, no more worry, no more fear, and no more pain and suffering.
There is only peace, productivity, happiness, success, prosperous and endless abundance.
We’re able to focus solely on merging with the divine, maintaining a steady stream of consciousness, manifesting our deepest desires at will, and going forward in peace.
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THE TAKEAWAY
In my opinion, yoga is a powerful transformational tool that incorporates all of the aspects I listed above and works both internally and externally to release the negative people, places, and things from our mind, body, and spirit that have held us back from achieving everything we desire.
I had ZERO IDEA that yoga had the ability to do any of the things that it does, including heal the deepest darkest aspects of my being and help me break-through and release so many deeply ingrained blocks and obstacles I’ve held on to forever.
By the time I was called to yoga, I was so broken and in such a state of despair, I didn’t know if I had it in me to learn something new, let alone make it through the day.
I felt like such an incredible failure already and vehemently despised yoga, I couldn’t imagine WHY in the world Spirit would have me go through a yoga course in the middle of a pandemic, on top of everything else I was dealing with.
But it turns out that yoga was my saving grace. Spirit knew exactly what I needed and never gave up on calling me to learn it. And if you’ve been feeling this call, it won’t give up on you either.
Yoga was the magic potion I had been looking for my entire life that I didn’t even know existed, even though it was right under my nose the entire time.
Through teaching yoga classes, I made a vow that I would do my best to present and teach yoga in a way that INSPIRES and ENCOURAGES women into getting on the mat and experience all of the healing and transformative benefits yoga has to offer.
Yoga is SO much more than just being a hot chic in a designer outfit, sipping organic smoothies, in a foreign location. I mean, you can do all of those things, if it’s something you truly enjoy. You can do whatever you desire.
But if you have been wanting to learn yoga and have been put off by the images and advertisements you see, I invite you to look past the stereotypical yoga girls and experience the authentic personal healing benefits of yoga for yourself and see what yoga can do for YOU!
FINAL THOUGHTS
By developing a daily yoga practice, we receive and integrate important and inspirational messages from our Higher Power and develop and implement positive thoughts, beliefs, actions, and practices in a way that releases stress, pain, sorrow, and suffering allowing us to live a healthy, happy, prosperous, and abundant life.
It’s wordy, but that’s about the best way I can describe it.
Of course your journey and the results you receive will depend on you and what you want to achieve. Yoga IS subjective, and the journey and the results will depend on the person doing the work.
It’s hard work, I’m not going to lie.
But developing a daily yoga practice can literally help you create miracles in your life!
I’ve incorporate each of the EIGHT LIMBS into into every one of my YOGA sessions to bring you a multi-faceted approach to accessing multidimensional healing abilities throughout the mind, body, and spirit that releases deeply ingrained blocks and obstacles that no longer serve us and make way for the things that do!
I’ll teach you how to connect to your inner goddess + divine feminine energy and uplevel and transform yourself into the woman you were created to be and manifest the luxury lifestyle you’ve always imagined!
You got this girl! EVERYTHING you have ever desired is within your grasp!
All you have to do is DECIDE that the life you have been living is no longer suitable and the negative trauma and drama you’ve incurred has impeded you from living your best life and making all of your dreams come true.
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GET STARTED ON YOUR TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY TODAY!
Download my FREE PDF Workbook: The Goddess Imagine Sacred Space Project!
It’s filled with questions, suggestions, and a checklist to help you create the IDEAL SPACE for you to kickstart your transformational journey today!
GO HERE to receive your complimentary copy!
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READY TO DIVE IN AND START YOUR OWN YOGA PRACTICE?
Introducing: The Goddess Imagine Reflection Experience
This is a 30 minute introductory yoga class and support materials that contains all the insight and ideas you need to begin your personal yoga journey today!
You’ll receive a beautifully illustrated workbook, a link to the video, an illustrated yoga pose outline, and access to the GODDESS IMAGINE community!
GO HERE to get your introductory yoga class today for only $17.00!
Thank you very much and I hope to see you soon!
Brightest Blessings + Namaste’,
Krysten Burkhardt-Hansyn
Goddess Imagine, LLC
A Transformational Yoga + Modern Metaphysical Practice