Using Mindfulness to Increase Awareness
Yoga, I’ve often felt was simply counter to the way I’m wired. I typically seek out fast paced, intense, sometimes contact-oriented activities. Though I was introduced, in college, to Hatha Yoga (a style that focuses on coordinating postures with breathing) and I even taught it at one point, I was resistant to its practice with any kind of consistency. It seemed to take up too much time that I could be out running or biking or doing some other sort of intense exercise. Yet every once in a while I felt compelled to jump into another class and always appreciated how I felt afterwards and would silently concede that it had been just what I needed.
I finally recommitted to the idea of making yoga at least part of my weekly practice a couple of years ago. While taking a Hot Vinyasa class, which is basically yoga for the Type As like myself, the instructor kept talking about noticing, and awareness while we were in certain postures. She said, “often, the posture that we like the least is exactly what we need the most”. She was speaking to me. In fact, I concluded, that had been my relationship with Yoga all along. It was exactly what I needed.
Yoga teaches a very important psychological skill called mindfulness. It requires a multilevel awareness from its participants. You must become aware of your breathing, aware of sensations in your body, aware and then detached from your thoughts and aware of proprioception (a fancy word for individual body awareness in space). As with anything else, through practice you become more proficient at this skill and it translates beyond the yoga studio. Awareness, in my opinion, is perhaps the most important of the 3 attention styles (awareness, conceptual, focus/action). I say that knowing that all styles are important in context and priorities dictate, which is most important at any given time. That said, awareness is what we use for empathy, seeing the whole court (or the whole road and surrounding area), noticing and observing, including what’s going on within our own bodies. A critical skill for fitness of body, mind and spirit.
For more on mindfulness:
http://www.theyogablog.com/an-md-explains-your-brain-on-meditation/
Namaste
