As a teacher in yoga, if you have not examined yourself thoroughly, completely and continually, then you can not help your students.
As human beings, it's part of our nature to seek balance and understanding.
Like most of the western population, I've been running 90 miles an hour with my hair on fire, basically living life in a controlled fall. When I began to slow down, I realized just how much I depended on momentum to keep going. Not only did I discover that I was grotesquely out of balance, I learned that if I did nothing to correct the imbalances, they would certainly continue to manifest themselves in my life in exponential proportions and ways that were completely unmanageable.
Yoga provides us the tools to find balance in our lives. From self-awareness to form and asana practice to the bones of yoga: breath. Your breath is the bridge between your body and your mind. When your mind is agitated the fluctuations are reflected in your breathing patterns. Breath not only reflects your state of mind, it also can be recruited to calm your mind. Indeed, there is a neurological sensory and motor response between your breath and your mind. Prana or life force energy is brought into the body primarily through your breath. So, if you aren't getting enough, you are cheating yourself of oxygen AND PRANA. If you are running 90 miles an hour, if you have injuries, disease, stress, a poor environment, unresolved grief (who doesn't?)... all of these things contribute to our inability to breathe fully. The result? Your body becomes stressed and this creates even more anxiety further tipping you out of balance.
When you begin to MANAGE your breath, you can begin to "take the tooth out of the tiger," you can relax your mind and FINALLY come into to balance, the gap, the stillness within.
Is your yoga practice ALL physical? (yes Bikram yogis, I'm talking to you!) Well, then you can rest assured that you are indeed out of whack. If you are out of whack in your yoga practice, guess where else you are screwed up? Do you want to live your life just getting by, dulling the pain with more pain? Pain doesn't cure pain, stillness cures pain - understanding cures pain - freedom cures pain and the recipe for success all begins with balance.
