by Mia Velez

Change is the act of becoming different, a natural occurrence that makes life possible. So why does it cause so much stress? Change comes into our awareness at the end of comfort. When life is good, there is no need to change. Only when things are uneasy do we begin to shift. Even the act of denying, resisting, or escaping from the discomfort is a form of change – but the kind that leads to unbearable circumstances. If we are interested in a transition that leads to harmony and liberation, that’s when our Yoga practice comes in. Yoga has provided me the tools to anticipate the uncertainty of change and gracefully accept it by teaching me how to have a relationship with my inner self. Because the body does not decipher between actual and perceived threat, we can tap into our stress induced reactive patterns within the safety of our yoga mat.

During a Hatha practice, we center our movements and poses around our breath. When a pose challenges us, we check in with our breath to see how it has changed and work to steady the breath. With a steady breath, we can make choices on how to proceed: do we ease back from the challenge and practice self-care, do we hold the pose and observe in stillness, or do we challenge our limits by pushing our boundaries? Depending on the person, any of those choices can push us out of our comfort zone. As the difficulty persists, we can observe what thoughts or emotions arise in response. For the achiever like myself, choosing self-care was a difficult choice even when my body needed the rest. What I discovered when choosing the more challenging option was the thoughts and emotions that surfaced were similar to when I was dealing with conflict in my life and relationships. From self-criticism to blaming others, these reactive patterns were there to protect me, but they did not serve me.

The physical engagements in Yoga are simply the entry point to the inner world. For instance, being honest with how my body moves and how it cannot has given me the courage to be truthful with myself. Yoga practice has inspired my ability to stay present and not fall into my reactive patterns. I have found that when we shift a small part of our life, everything else shifts with it. It may cause an unraveling in our relationship, an inquiry of our path in life, or a realization of who we truly are. This is how Yoga can help us gracefully accept change. It builds the muscle around centeredness in times of confusion and conflict. When we implement the teachings of Yoga, the transformation is accompanied by the grace of ancient knowledge.

Clarity achieved through stillness, steadiness in breath, and honesty in movement has allowed me to be in uncertainty without triggering the stress response or at least has kept me from succumbing to my reactive patterns that keep me stuck in a loop. When we begin to shift our awareness to the inner self, we start to discover the filters and the conditioned behavior that keep us from being our authentic self. I have many times left a yoga class in near tears as I had uncovered an old emotional wound that had not healed. It gave me the opportunity to look at it and properly heal and release the hurt. Often times the internal change that occurs is simply releasing something from the past that was held by the body.

In a Yoga practice, we can be aware of our predictable reactive patterns and choose a different path. Having a relationship with my breath and my choices has given me the fortitude to face adversity that change often brings.

Mia Velez entered the Integral Yoga Sangha in 2016 through the kitchen by helping to cook Thursday community lunches and silent retreat meals. In 2018 she certified as an Integral Yoga teacher to learn more of the IYI approach and be part of the lineage. Mia is a disciple of the Moy Yat Ving Tsun Kung Fu lineage and is highly influenced by her martial arts training. After completing her first 200-hour teacher training in 2008, she began to see an undeniable parallel between Yoga and Kung Fu. When she began teaching Kung Fu in 2014, she incorporated Yoga insight and principles in her classes. Her goal in teaching is to connect with the students and to facilitate a safe space for exploration and self-inquiry. Yoga and Kung Fu are integrated into her daily life as a mother, a preschool teacher, and advocate for gender, race and class equality through multiple non-profits groups.

By Katharine Bierce

The other day I walked past a sign at an exercise studio that said, “The limit does not exist. Come push past your limits today” as a way to try to entice people to come in to exercise.

Seeing stuff like this makes me angry.

Angry because it suggests that you need to do more, better, harder, faster, stronger. It’s an attitude of striving, pushing, and doing, possibly to the point of overdoing.

Western culture is obsessed with more, more, more. But ever-increasing consumption leads to waste. Growth for its own sake is what cancer does.

Burnout doesn’t help anyone.

Pushing harder when you’re stressed out is not useful.

And last but not least, blowing past “limitations” is an excellent way to injure yourself.

I think a better, more productive, and more mindful approach to movement comes from the yoga tradition. (Don’t get me wrong: Cardio is important too, but the attitude towards your wellness practice matters.)

Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi said, “You are perfect just as you are. And you could use a little improvement.”

To Work With Limitations, Study Yourself

Intelligent growth of understanding your limits, working with them, and breathing through your experience in a way that ultimately expands what’s possible, all while cultivating an attitude of self-acceptance… that’s what I specialize in.

I have several yoga students who have done physical therapy and are recovering from injuries, and what’s most helpful is to focus on what you CAN do, not what you can’t.
In yoga, when you can maintain a smooth, steady breath (such as Ujjayi pranayama) in a yoga pose, that’s a signal from your body that it’s okay to go further. If you find that you are not focused on the breath, if the breath is choppy, or if you’re holding your breath to try to “get through it,” that’s a sign that you may be over your edge, or backing off would support your practice more. In contrast to going to the gym, turning on the TV, and checking out while doing cardio (hey, I love watching TED talks on a treadmill too!), yoga is more about “checking in” and increasing your capacity to notice and be with your physical, mental, and emotional experience. Even while doing abs or holding poses for a while. Even when a pose feels challenging.

Limitations (like past injuries, a fixed mindset, etc.) are something to practice with, to bring breath and attention to, not something to “push” against (because by pushing, you encounter resistance). By allowing, or bringing a more yin or feminine energy to hard attitudes or stuck places, you might find more possibility than a yang or masculine energy attitude of doing, striving, or pushing. (Side note: yin and yang are co-essential, non-hierarchical opposites. Each person regardless of gender has both masculine and feminine energies, and we need both to stay in balance. However, Western culture tends to value the masculine over the feminine: doing over being, taking over receiving, obvious over mysterious, etc.

By building the capacity to maintain the focus on the breath, keeping a smooth, steady breath, and feeling what’s going on as it happens, you can build the skill of working with your limitations. And growing your practice intelligently, without forcing.
One of Patanjali’s yoga sutras is Sthiram sukham asanam: the yoga posture (asana) is characterized by a balance between strength/effort (Sthira) and ease (sukha).

Mindfulness of the breath and bodily sensations helps you stay “in the zone” so that you’re not overdoing it (which can lead to injury) or under-doing it (which isn’t going to challenge you to grow).

Cultivate Self-Understanding

No matter what’s going on in your body or mind, having a felt experience of understanding what works and what doesn’t is a skill you can use your whole life.
What do you want to cultivate in your practice? In your life? Wouldn’t it be more useful to understand your mind and body better and build self-compassion along the way, too?

This article was originally posted on Business Casual Yoga website, which offers ideas and resources for yoga and meditation practitioners who want to integrate wellbeing into a busy schedule.

Katharine is a yogi and a techie who begins her day with meditation and movement practices. She likes supporting others in finding ways to integrate mindfulness and compassion into their busy lives. Although she started practicing yoga as a teenager, she really got hooked on yoga while putting in 12 hour days as a consultant in New York City. She completed her first 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2014. Katharine cares about guiding people in developing attention, awareness, and self-acceptance, and she is also especially passionate about helping people with injuries to incorporate yoga as part of their healing journey.