Living at the peak of your abilities, means a life lived in Flow. Here, life coach Jeanne Beukes shares the principles of Flow and how they can help you live life more consciously…

Most people associate happiness with lots of money, a comfortable house, a new car, a promotion or the right relationship.  But do these things really bring happiness? Or are they possibly just fleeting enjoyments on the path to our true destination –happiness?  Here is where it is important to highlight the difference between pleasure and enjoyment. Pleasures derived from external influences, or materialistic gains, certainly make us feel better in the moment, but they don’t help us grow and, unless controlled, can actually become addictive. As humans we always want more – more comfort, more things, more pleasure and, unless we learn to enjoy the moment and the passage of time as it occurs instead of always wishing for more, we are going to be disillusioned and disappointed.

When we are able to experience happiness from everyday activities (relishing the moment, enjoying our interaction with our environment, people and daily tasks) we are living in Flow and finding happiness from living, rather than from external desires.

WHAT IS FLOW?
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow means living at the peak of your abilities and was termed by him as the “Psychology of Optimal Experience.” We have all experienced Flow at some point or another in our lives: that feeling when we were so engrossed in an activity or experience that we lost our sense of time and what was going on around us, feeling only the joy of the experience. Some people refer to this as being ‘in the zone’ – i.e. having complete involvement in what you are doing.

HOW FLOW CAME ABOUT:
As a young boy in Eastern Europe post World War 2, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi saw many adults devastated by the effects of war. Yet there were others who were able to keep their sanity as well as sense of joy and even succeeded in helping others during this difficult time. Curious to how they managed this, Csikszentimihalyi started what was to become a 30-year study on the source of happiness and meaning in the lives of others.

Later as a university professor with the help of his students, he introduced the ESM or Experience Sampling Method, a method of interviewing where people from and all walks of life were given electronic pagers and answer booklets and approximately 10 times per day when the beeper went off, they were asked to stop, document and answer questions on what they feeling in relation to the activity.   The findings today constitute what is now called a Flow experience.

THE NINE COMPONENTS OF FLOW:

Clarity:
In every situation, there are contradictory demands, and it’s sometimes quite unclear what should occupy your attention. But in a Flow experience, you have a clear purpose and a good grasp of what to do next. You are clear on the overall goal as well as the step-by-step process to follow of where you are going and what you are doing.

Feedback:
Feedback is immediate; you know moment by moment how the activity is going and how well you are doing. Clear feedback allows you to make adjustments to affect the outcome. If you don’t know how you are doing, it’s hard to keep concentrating. For example, a surgeon conducting an operation knows at any particular moment how well he is doing by how much blood is entering the wound.

Support and challenge:
The challenge of the activity is matched with your abilities and skills set. There is a balance. If the task is too demanding for your abilities, it will be stressful and frustrating; if too easy, you will be bored. The match of skills and challenge needs to be interesting to create enjoyment. In a Flow experience you feel engaged by the challenge, not overwhelmed.

Focused Awareness:
Awareness is where your focus and concentration is, and on what you are doing. A lot of our time we operate with split attention, doing something while thinking about something else. In a Flow experience, you can achieve so much more, because you are present and your focus is not divided. When you are absorbed in the activity, you don’t think about unrelated things and are not distracted by what’s going on around you. By being focused on the activity, unease that can cause anxiety and depression is set aside. You feel good about your ability to be completed singly focused and this creates a feeling of inner harmony. A great ease and spontaneous energy comes from concentration.

Free from worry:
Learning new skills and having new challenges is a relief from day to day restraints. In a state of Flow, you’re too involved to be concerned about failing, you just don’t think about failure. You know what has to be done and you just do it. Flow can be a form of escape, but in a productive way, not by suppressing or dulling reality.

Control:
You feel in control, but there is an edge to the experience i.e. there is a balance between conscious control and being on autopilot.

Free from self-consciousness:
In a Flow experience you are so involved, concentrated and committed to what you are doing that you are no longer aware or care what others think.  You lose self-consciousness – the ego defense of everyday life.  Some of the worst feelings we experience are from worrying what other people think of us.  This drains our energy.
In Flow you feel a sense of transcendence, of going beyond the limits of the ego and yourself.  You feel part of the energy flowing around you and being connected to something greater than yourself.  Paradoxically, the experience of letting go of the self is what strengthens it.

Time:
In Flow your sense of time is transformed. It adapts itself to your experience, to how you feel. Time flies when you are really engaged – hours become minutes… or minutes become hours, or so it seems.

The activity becomes ‘autotelic’ :
The activity is an end in itself, done for its own sake, for the enjoyment the experience provides, not for some future purpose or anticipated outcome.

HOW FLOW CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE:
Flow is a magnet for growth, pulling you to higher levels of complexity or advancement. It helps you master your consciousness and gain control over your inner life: your attention, moods, and willpower. This helps you achieve the second goal – to gain control over your external life regardless of external conditions.

Flow grows our self-esteem. When Flow has occurred, you are able to reflect on how you felt from doing something new, learning a new skill and being challenged. The feeling is always a good one. Self-esteem and inner strength increases as a result of feeling good about yourself and letting yourself go.

If we can live consciously, then we can live remarkably. We spend approximately 1/3 of our time working, 1/3 as free time and 1/3 on maintenance activities for our lives and ourselves. This maintenance time – shopping, driving, cooking, eating, cleaning etc can be perceived as wasted if spent unconsciously.

If you learn to enjoy these, and do them to the best of your ability, with efficiency and elegance, so you experience a sense of control over even the smallest activities.  Instead of the activities ‘doing you,’ you will get an extra lift knowing you are not wasting your time, but doing your best. Living a life in Flow is about consciously building goals into daily chores, even making a game of them.  By doing this, our attention is framed and we are able to be present in the moment.

Enjoying day-to-day experiences as part of a meaningful life fills you with serenity and satisfaction, which is a giant stride towards happiness.

When we consciously look for opportunities to create Flow experiences, we become involved in the endlessly rich opportunities for action the world around us presents.

By Jeanne Beukes
(Meta NLP Certified Life Coach; Member of Comensa)
Email: jeanne@flowcoaching.co.za or visit www.flowcoaching.co.za for more information

Pain, either physical or emotional, is very important in life. Pain is one of life’s best teachers and helps you to evolve if you learn to endure and watch it. Where pleasure is superficial, grief can be intense and deep. A day or week of fun can whiz by in a moment, but an hour of agony seems like living your whole life through it. A week of fun can’t teach us what an hour of intense suffering can. This is the beauty of pain…

Pain can bring our focus to the single point of its origin, whether physical or emotional. Pain has a true meditative nature since it doesn’t allow our mind to deviate in other directions easily. If someone has hurt you emotionally, your whole thought-process gets focused on that person. If you have a toothache, your whole physical and emotional awareness gets consumed by it.

When people say that they have emerged stronger after sufferings, they mean it. To run away from paroxysms or making them a big issue or by leaning on every available shoulder to cry, is a sign of weaklings. If one realises the importance of such moments, one can use them for deep contemplation and spiritual evolution.

Experiencing and watching the sufferings in a detached manner is the first step towards spiritual awakening. A life without experiencing pain is unseasoned and brittle and can fall apart even with a subtle unpleasant jerk. Someone who has weathered the storms of pain, watching and enduring them, becomes mature and indomitable in the truest sense.

There is no escape from pain since it’s an integral part of life. If we don’t know how to cope with it, we shall always dread it. The more we refuse to confront it, the more unbearable it becomes. The best way to deal with it is to accept it and watch it as a witness. When one evolves spiritually, one learns to accept both pain and pleasure dispassionately.

Spiritual sadhakas go through the process of experiencing pain by walking on fire, sleeping on beds of nails, standing on one leg for life, piercing their bodies with tridents, flogging and bleeding themselves and even getting crucified like Jesus Christ. The real motive is to watch and experience the pain in a detached manner.

It’s only through contemplation and practices that we can develop a spiritual attitude. Reading and listening to spiritual discourses do give guidance and show us a path, but we need to live in the spiritual awareness on a daily basis.

We sometimes read or hear someone saying that to understand pain, one should feel that one is in the body and not the body. But such knowledge will stay confined as information only till one starts realising: “Yes I am consciousness. I am not the body. I am living in this body. This body is not my permanent abode. I was present even before this body was born. I will be present even when this body will be destroyed.”

Such meditative contemplations help us advance on the spiritual path. A stage comes when we are not much affected even when life brings us face-to-face with the most difficult situations. If we realise that nothing is permanent, including the most painful current situation, a totally different kind of awareness descends to help us emerge unscathed through the worst tribulations.

By Dr Dinesh Sharma

The word ‘mindfulness’ is popping up in newspapers and academic work across the globe. Once you are aware of it, you’ll notice it everywhere! Finally, the Western world has found a way to bring the wisdom of the East to a secular audience, with significant results. Research evidence shows its impact on stress, depression, anxiety and chronic pain.

But you do not have to be unwell to benefit from a mindfulness practice. Some MBA programmes are also offering mindfulness courses as a way to enhance the efficacy of the business community, and to prevent burnout in such a competitive environment.

As yoga practitioners, we can often glimpse, or even taken a long gaze at, mindfulness. When we are in a yoga pose and find ourselves exploring the sensations, aware of the feeling of simply being there, in the moment, then that is mindfulness. For me, Virabhadrasana II provides us with a wonderful metaphor: our feet are planted firmly on the ground, supported by the earth beneath us; one arm points forwards, directing the way to our goals and intentions for the future; one arm points behind, acknowledging and accepting how the past has influenced who we are; yet our body and mind are still, in the moment, knowing that it is the only moment in which we can truly exist.

One of the organisations that is bringing this valuable work to the Southern African region, is Mindfulness Africa. It was set up by Rob Nairn, former UCT Professor, and now an internationally-acclaimed meditation teacher. He has witnessed the benefits of mindfulness amongst his students and then trained a group of facilitators to carry on this valuable work. Other mindfulness practitioners in South Africa operate under the umbrella organisation, IMISA, and present the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn.

We talk of mindfulness as a faculty, an attitude and a practice. Just as athletes strength their bodies, so we strengthen our minds through regular mindfulness practice. This can be through formal meditation, where we sit for forty minutes and watch, and then release, all the thoughts that arise. Or we can practise informally, in daily life, such as taking a deep breath when we are waiting at the red light, or eating a meal with complete awareness of the smell, look, taste and texture of the food. And while we bring our minds back, again and again, to the present moment, we do so with acceptance. We notice, rather than judge, the thoughts that come up.

For example, when our spouse is late home, again, we watch our anger arise, accept the anger and accept ourselves for feeling angry. We notice where the anger makes itself felt in our body, such as a tight jaw or tense shoulders. Once we can see and feel this, we are more able to let it pass. And then when we talk to our spouse about how we felt, it is not with a feeling of tightness, but with a willingness to explore how we can both make changes in our behaviour and our response.

Mindfulness provides the little space between stimulus and response. It is the place in which we choose to act with awareness, rather than to react to what daily life puts in our path.

By Lucy Dixon-Clarke

Co-Creation: Working With Others to Realise A Dream

The manifestation and the success of any dream you have, depends upon the engagement and interaction of others. Frequently we take our ideas, our seeds, and pass them onto others. This can be done in the spirit of sharing or the spirit of co-creation. Sharing is when you freely give your ideas and input to someone else because you know they may be able to give birth where you cannot. You are literally moving a seed to more fertile territory.

Co-creation is different. With co-creation you are either going to ask others to help you birth your ideas; or you are going to help them birth theirs. Done well, co-creation is action that acknowledges and employs the positive aspects of our interdependence with others. Co-creation is essential if a thought form is going to move into the physical world. We can do many things by ourselves; but in almost every instance it requires the assistance of others to realise our dreams. You can sit in a closet and design a building; write a book or a song; envision world peace. That may be the end of it, which is perfectly okay. When a creation of this nature is discussed, constructed, published, recorded, distributed, enacted and ultimately enjoyed by other people; the magic of our ability to co-create occurs.

Co-creation occurs in many forms. Sometimes we inspire others to join in and “play with us”. This type of co-creation provides the best examples of leadership and success because the outcome, the manifestation of the dream, is jointly shared and jointly created. When you don’t have to win or compete with anyone the journey is fun. We also have to be comfortable and enjoy helping others with their birthing process. In both instances we need to remember the relationship and potential problems that occur if we begin co-creation glued to a specific outcome. Success blossoms from engagement in the process of co-creation.

For success to occur, co-creation depends upon aligning your intention with the intention of the others who are creating with you. If two (or more) people co-create, but have not aligned their intentions, they will never manifest or create what they believe they have agreed on. The underlying issue is that people often agree on something verbally, but their intentions are not matched. It is like having several people in the same lifeboat, but paddling in different directions. The boat is either going in circles or going nowhere fast. Yet everyone wonders why.

Intention, whether it be for yourself, or for co-creators, is your direction. Your boat needs a direction or it will never reach land. Attention is how you (or the group) are going to focus your energy to realise the mutually agreed upon intention. You decide to head west. Are you going to row? Put up a sail? Start the engine? Energy always follows attention. This is important, and it is true for the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of yourself; and it is true for anything you are trying to birth. Let me share something that seems obvious, but individuals and groups of people do it all the time. It takes more energy to be fragmented than it does to be focused. That is because each fragment requires energy to continue moving. Focused attention of energy with clear intention always creates results.

The easiest way to synchronise a team is the same way you do it for yourself. Simply check and discover if their intention matches yours. Let’s spend a moment on conversation. Communication is a unique gift we all have. But communication can create clarity, or confusion.

Listening, not talking, is the key. Deep Listening. Sometimes we say we are listening, or nod our head like we are in agreement, but we have not really heard a thing. So we have agreed without acknowledging what the other party is telling us. One way to fix this is to verbalise what you and the other parties believe is an agreement. Something as simple as, “What I heard you say is (blank). Is that correct? Are we in agreement?” This creates a verbal contract for a shared understanding and a common intention.

Usually the first thing that people want to talk about in any conversation is their intent at that moment. Become keenly aware of the initial part of every dialogue. Not only what others say, but what you yourself say. I am having a Reiki session with Cindy, my incredible massage therapist and energy worker. Before we start she asks, “How is it going? What’s happening in your life?” I tell her I have just made a big change and am starting something new. It feels to me like jumping off a cliff. Cindy looks at me and says, “O.K. Let’s see if we can transform jumping off a cliff into flying off a mountaintop with new wings.” It is not until I hear her verbalise what I had just said, until I hear my own words echoing back at me, that I realise importance of my words. I examine the mental image of jumping off a cliff. It is suicidal. Cindy is correct. I need to shift my own viewpoint towards one of flying to new horizons; not leaping to sudden death. Sometimes we need to have another voice feed us back our own viewpoint in order to recognize it, and formalize a proper intention.

Be expansive during every conversation, whether you are on the phone or in person. Everything that is said by anyone in attendance adds to the conversation. It is all related. If you are having a meeting, a discussion, about a project that you are seeding you need to be extremely open.

Whether the dialogue is between you and one other person, or a group of fifty, allow that aspect of you that created the seed to also recognise and include the spirit of the other individuals. Their contributions are essential to your success. Stay true to the intention, and not to everyone’s horizontal stories. People will take what you verbalise; they will interpret you with their personal filters, then immediately go off into their story about the situation. In fact other people are silently waiting to see if they will agree or disagree with you before you even say one word. It can be a challenge to stay with the intention.

As you talk with others watch to see if they “go off,” wandering into their stories. You can recognize this easily as people have a tendency to have their eyes move away, usually up and to the left or right, when other thoughts come in. Recognise that other people are simply doing what they are doing. Be aware that sometimes we, and the people we expect action from, want to stay in the process. The reason is that we (or they) do not actually want to reach a final decision. The current moment provides the teaching; and it is the place for seeding and birthing.

By Bill Eager

About the Author
Bill Eager is the author of Thrive Inside: Secrets of Spiritual Masters, Gurus and Shamans available on Amazon.com.  Bill is a certified yoga instructor, yoga nidra facilitator, reiki and energy healer. He leads workshops about positive personal transformation at conferences around the world.

I remember my first yoga class clearly. I was four years old and my mother made me wear matching Tinkerbell vest and panties to the class. Everyone thought it was cute. I was traumatised. My 4 year old ego was already comparing itself with the rest of their ladies in their black leotards…

This was the late seventies when yoga wasn’t just a fashionable form of exercise. It was part of a way of life that had been handed down through generations. The class was held at the back of the community temple and the postures were simple, done in traditional Sivananda style. With the natural flexibility of a child, I remember being able to easily touch my head with my feet in the bow and fell sound asleep in Savasana.

I stopped the classes when my mother did and rediscovered it some 20 years later. It’s been a part of my life ever since but my relationship with yoga has evolved and continues to shape every part of my existence in so many ways every single day.

My first experience of yoga as an adult was with Pravina, at the time a true Iyengar teacher – disciplined, stern and slightly intimidating and that old feeling of not being good enough was still very much with me. While everyone else in the class was hanging upside down from ropes, I was struggling to breathe in dog stretch. But I was hooked. My body responded to the stretches and I loved that good achy feeling in my muscles in the next morning. It was also a fantastic break from the stress of being a medical intern.

My next teacher came to become a very special person in my life. Orlene was my first experience of a guru. Yoga and spiritual philosophy had been part of her life for 40 years and she shared her knowledge generously and passionately. She fulfilled a yearning for knowledge that I had always carried and I soaked it up. I read ferociously – Deepak Chopra, Carolyn Myss, Ram Dass, Neal Donald Walsh, Paramhansa Yogananda. I couldn’t get enough. I had found my place in the world.

Chakras, auras, crystals, past lives, angels – wow, this was incredible stuff. Meantime, back on the mat, my biceps were taking shape and being upside down made all my old belief systems rattle around in my head. I reached a point when I could no longer reconcile my ‘new’ understanding of life with the way I was practising medicine. I gave up being a conventional GP and started to work more holistically.

As I approached thirty, I channelled my restlessness and angst into my yoga practice. I needed to push harder, stretch deeper, hold longer. Ashtanga and Bikram yoga became my thing – until I found Kundalini yoga that is.  The Kriyas, dancing  to drums and chanting left me swimming in tears of bliss. It was time to go to India, to the home of yoga.

Walking through the dusty streets of Rishikesh, with the mother Ganga my side, yoga bag slung over my shoulder, I was the happiest I’d ever been. I had returned home and my healing had begun.

A few months after I returned home, in a serendipitous moment, I bumped into Pravina, my first yoga teacher whom I didn’t even recognize. She looked 10 years younger!  I could also see how she had softened and grown through her own journey.

With the guidance of my Guruji’s Pravina and now Geraldine, my yoga practice has become so much more than what I do on my mat.

Yoga has become the portal to my soul and my magic carpet. Yoga is way that I navigate my way through life. Every day I discover new things about myself. I realise how much I still yearn for my teacher’s approval. Old fear shows up in handstands, anger gets released in hip openers. Backbends are an instant cure for fatigue and the sounds of Om connects me to all that is.

But more than all of that, there is a subtle awareness of the guru within. The guru that guides with a deep and ancient wisdom. The guru that speaks very loudly in soft whispers.

She lies deep within me and lets me know when ego has caused me to do harm to my body whether it be overstretching in yoga or overeating. She guides me to seek silence and solitude and rest if need be and nudges me on when it’s time to go out into the world to express myself. She steers my rebel energy to safe waters and allows my inner child to play. She is the voice of the sage in my work. In fact, Yoga is the first item on my script pad.

Yoga is the deep intimacy with my essence, my most profound teacher and greatest healer.

By Dr Ela Manga

Integrated Medical Practitioner

Woodlands Centre for Wellbeing and Spa

Dr.ela@healingatwoodlandds.co.za

082 330 6915

The current population of the world is around 6,878,400,000. Currently 140 million new births occur every year and about 50 million people die.

We live in a world where there is ample opportunity for averages. Create a survey and ask enough people and you will soon get a fairly accurate average of whatever you seek to know.

The average household has 2.5 children. Which one of your kids is half the kid he used to be? Households also have an average salary, an average car, house, divorce rate and a dog.

Thinking about this world of averages made me feel very… well average, so I gave the ideas some further thought.

What desire do YOU have to be not-average? If we have enough positive answers we could create another average but let’s forget that for now. We all desire a higher purpose, a significance of life, an often idealistic dream of what it means to really be different. We dream, desire and fantasise about these things yet we often fail so miserably to reach what we really want.

I spoke to a young twenty four year old chap the other day about his desire to create a super world as the motivational books told him he could easily do. He already had his, The Secret driven, million rand cheque up the fridge and was busy eating up books by Anthony Robbins and other motivational speakers yet, for some reason, it felt to me like this man is battling to break from the bonds of average living. Sensibility told him to not do the things that would be not-average and rather do what everybody does. After all if everybody does it, it must be the best option right?

Indeed it is, and this is why I wrote this article.

Being not-average requires us to sometimes be not-sensible in our choices and decisions. It requires us to do the things we desire and not the things that the average person would consider as illogical. A coachee of mine had a small pool of savings in her account which see felt she sensibly should keep in case of a financial emergency. She also desired to become a yoga instructor and wanted to book a trip to Mauritius but she did not have money, especially for something so extravagant. Spending the savings on a trip to Mauritius, or even a Yoga course, would create a sense of uncertainty in the case of need. Sensibly she kept the savings for security, which is exactly what the average person would do. The problem is that six years have passed and she did not do much effort to grow the savings by much.

After a coaching session with her she decided to “impulsively” spend the savings on a yoga instructor’s course, and book a trip to Mauritius. She even had to take a personal loan to supplement expenses of the Mauritius vacation; a bad decision for the average person in need of sensibility.

So the lady went to Mauritius and indulged in the ample amounts of free red wine, food, conversation and beautiful beaches, started her yoga course and funnily enough paid back the personal loan in only four months. Since I last spoke to her she also planned on having the same savings amount in her account within six months. Furthermore she joined a gym as a yoga instructor and is currently making some extra cash which she exclusively places in the savings account. She has now also decided to save some extra to do more not-average things. I think skydiving was on the list somewhere.

You see the average lady does not normally do such not-sensible deeds but this lady decided to be not-average.

A friend of mine recently bought a small sports car which is, probably the most not-average and impractical car on the market. Someone who is bigger than the norm or someone who like tight jeans can forget getting out of the car and he, being tall, has to really bend to get in and out. Maybe he needs that Yoga course too. It’s a little impractical two seater sports car about half the height of an average car. Due to its impracticality, the sales person sceptically told him to rather test drive and look at the car before he decides. The sales person preferred an average sedan.

These sports cars hardly sell in South Africa and are mostly famous for the race track, probably because the race track has no potholes. He never looks back! He decided to be different and my reward is a fun, sporty and head turning car which gives a great sense of freedom. He has spoken to many men looking and commenting at the car. Most of them have a strong desire to own one and many of them can actually afford it, but I cannot help sensing a downward spiral of realistic and sensible thoughts that prevent them from making the move.

Faiths like Buddhism and Hinduism bless a marriage as long as it brings happiness and peace. Average statistics shows us that many marriages exist based on reasons other than this happiness and peace.

Do we stay married or committed for the sake of kids, religion, conformity or money, and not love? Is that how we plan to spend a substantial amount of our limited years on earth, being unhappy?

The average person earns an average salary in South Africa. What not-average and almost illogical things have you tried to step outside this average? Millionaires have gone bankrupt averagely eight times before they became rich. Going bankrupt so many times speak of doing not-average things to become great. How ready are you to be risky? How ready are you to stand up when you fail?

It is Christmas soon. The average person spends R400 on gifts during festive seasons. When did you last make, instead of buy, a gift for someone close to you? A poem? A painting? Crafting maybe? What will it take this year to become not-average in the holiday season?

The average person reads an article and then forgets about its contents or message. What are you going to do different to be not-average with this not-average message?

The choice will always be yours.

By Monré Jameson Botes

www.tremendis.co.za

What is the core?

The core is a buzz word that is often used in physical therapy, fitness or Pilates training that is said to improve day to day posture, encourage pain-free posture, prevent injury and enhance physical fitness.

The key focus of developing the core is to develop a girdle of strength, (often referred to in Pilates as the “powerhouse”) between the ribs and the pelvis by co-contracting  the deep abdominal muscle called the Transversus Abdominus, the muscle of the Pelvic Floor, the diaphragm and the deep postural muscles of the spine to develop a strong trunk to hold us upright.

However the core goes beyond physical training, it is less efficient when worked in isolation and is much more efficient when integrating mind, body and spirit.  An efficiently working core is about a balance between flexibility and control in both mind and body.  When teaching movement I noticed that clients moved better the more self aware they were or the more self aware they became and that everyone’s level of awareness was different.  There seemed to be a strong relationship between the mind and body and the one influenced the other which meant that how we think, feel and behave influences our movement and changing the way we think can change the way we move or changing the way we move can change the way we think.

My Personal Journey to the Core
In my earlier days of teaching Pilates it was the Transversus Abdominis, the deepest abdominal muscle that was given a great deal of attention and it was this muscle that we began to focus on by using language like “zip and hollow”,  “engage the transversus”, “pull the navel to spine” and “close the ribs to the pelvis”, not realising that by focusing on the front of the body and using language associated with effort and strength I was actually tightening, shortening and weakening my spine. I was focusing on the outer rather than the inner being and began to feel tight and tense in my neck and shoulders by overworking and over cueing the core.

The turning point for me happened through my training with Polestar Pilates UK in 2005 who encouraged the practice of Somatic movement principles like Feldenkrais and the Trager Method.  Somatic meaning the whole person – mind body and spirit.  Moshe Feldenkrais one of the Somatic movement masters developed his Awareness Through Movement method based on his experience and practice of Jujitsu and it seems that most other Somatic movement pioneers based their principles around similar eastern martial arts practices.

Yoga refers to, Chakras and Bhandhas, unblocking to allow energy to flow in the mind and body. In other Eastern philosophies it’s about balancing yin and yang, or learning to harness and direct Chi; it’s about quietening the mind and being present in the moment. It’s about being and becoming rather than doing and achieving.  All these principles are based on awareness and a higher consciousness.  The awareness is heightened when the mind, body and spirit are interconnected.

So although eastern practitioners of movement may not refer to the “core” the way we know it, they were masters at identifying where and how it worked.

How do we experience it?
Body Sensing BQ is a method of experiencing the core with “effortless effort” by tapping into the body’s own intelligence or BQ using Tom Myers Anatomy Train’s effective communication techniques and movement inspired by yoga, Pilates, Feldenkrais and the Franklin Method.  Tom Myers is a soft tissue expert who developed an ingenious and very clever way of looking at anatomy by looking at how “everything connects to everything”. Similar to the Chinese meridian lines but describing instead the myofacial lines (muscle and fascia), the “glue” that holds us together.

He explains how the elasticity of the muscle and tissue or facia creates a structure that suspends our skeleton and when in balance this structure moves easily and efficiently.  The best way to describe it is like sheets of muscle layered on top of each going from the outermost to the innermost layer. It’s Tom Myers’ use of yoga postures to describe the meridian lines and his interpretation of the “core” that completely transformed the way I looked at the body: Instead of an isolated group of muscles of the trunk, the core becomes a 3 dimensional structure occupying space within the deepest layer of the body, from the arches of the feet to the tongue and from the “heart centre” to the fingers. What was even more significant is how little muscle strength is required for core control.  The effort is in the awareness of aligning and organising the body so that it moves with ease and efficiency.  It becomes “core control” versus “core strength”.  It becomes a body that is flexible and strong versus tight and weak.

It’s about aligning the body so that the top half seamlessly connects to the bottom half, connecting the rib cage to the pelvis.  The thorocolumbar junction, (the heart centre where the rib cage ends and the lower spine continues) is where the diaphragm, the solar plexus, adrenal gland, psoas (muscle that joins the spine to the thigh bone) blend and connect. It’s where breathing meets walking, emotion, feeling, sensing and digestion.  It’s where we often block the spine and channel of communication.  The “core” lies at the heart of this junction influencing the state of our mind, our emotions, our physical and spiritual being through the condition of our “breath” or “prana” or “chi”.

So what about the core and yoga?
Yoga is about integrating mind, body and spirit, to develop awareness and greater consciousness and is a great example of the core in training.  Meditation, breath awareness, centering, grounding, emotional awareness, energetic sensation,  awareness of our relationship with the earth and gravity are all vital for core health. Often people who end up with an injury whilst “doing” yoga are not aware of their intelligent body and their core connection, they lose the spinal alignment that connects the top half to the bottom half or like people who “do” Pilates often tense up and forget to “let go”. The more you let go both physically and mentally the better control you have.

“Natural Whole Body Breathing” allows the diaphragm to move through its full range massaging the internal organs and facilitating movement with rhythm and flow. In natural breath, the whole body expands in its entirety -  front back and sides from deep down in the abdominals. There is freedom of movement with no holding in.  The trunk in natural breath contracts automatically when the diaphragm deflates upwards allowing the abdominals to sink back. We see this in breath patterns in yoga. A backbend is facilitated with an inhalation that expands the entire spine and ribs opening up the vulnerable front line creating space in the joints of the hip, lengthening the abdominals and opening up the heart centre and throat whilst maintaining length through the back line or spine.  The forward bend works well on an exhale. On a releasing breath to decompress and open the veterbrae of the spine.

Here are a few guidelines to work the core efficiently in yoga:

1. Pay attention to the breath and work with its intelligence.  Feel how the body “wants” to breathe when you go backward, forward and sideways.
2. Maintain length through the entire length of the spine with every posture from the back of the head to the tailbone – become more aware of feeling and sensing this from the back of the body rather than the front
3. Become aware of the core of the shoulder girdle and pelvis using the natural bone rhythms in the body. When the arm bone spirals outward the collar bone widens and the shoulder blade slides down and wraps around the rib cage.  Try this in downward facing dog. The rhythm of the thigh bones work similarly for widening and opening up the hips in standing postures.
4. Set your bodies intention – how would you like it to move before you move
5. Be aware and present to the sensations in your body, if a movement feels uncomfortable or awkward acknowledge and change it to feel better.

By Yasmin Lambat

For more information on Body Sensing, contact Yasmin Lambat on 076 848 3778, email yasmin@purezest.com or visit www.bodysensing.co.za

Swami Anubhavananda

Many people have come to think of meditation as achieving total suspension and cessation of all thought, said Swami Anubhavananda at his talk “Yoga Understood or Misunderstood” at the ISHTA School of Yoga & Health recently. According to him, therefore, ideas of meditation being a “silent group suffering” seem apt as no one can suspend thought totally and this is not the aim of yoga, he says.

Yoga, says Swami Anubhavananda, is rather when we abide in our essential natures. Elaborating on the qualification of man’s two distinct natures – our essential natures VS our acquired natures – Swami Anubhavananda explains that our essential natures cannot be altered whether you want to alter it or not. It is divine . Our acquired natures on the other hand are gathered as a result of habit and are subject to change. Yoga, he says, helps us take responsibility for those acquired natures, responsibility for our lives and helps us “straighten the mind” to have control over this nature.

An example he gives is how we often find ourselves in a struggle or finding ourselves trying to prove something to someone. Often, he says, we don’t know what or even  who we are struggling against or trying to prove. “We believe the longer the beard, the higher the wisdom”, he says. This is untrue.

This is according to him a way that man has carried his aquired self and we become heavy through the load that we bear.

Like our essential natures, Swami Abhuvananda believes that when we find effortlessness, when we can step away from our “body identification” and move away from the mechanisation of our own lives, will the expression of our actions be effortless – this is yoga, he says.

“Our mind is available to us at any number of times” Swami says, but it is the quality of the mind and not the quantity that we need to focus on. It is our own choice to sit in meditation and meditation will come if there is no compulsion towards it, that is, when it is efortless. “When we have value for something, our approach will be different”, he expounds. “Never sit for meditation as ‘Mr Somebody’”, he advises; rather, “sit for meditation as ‘Mr. Nobody’.

“Meditation is when you are in the utter present. Without past or without future. When we are are in deep, our thoughts don’t disturb us, we are immune to the influence of thought.” Yoga, according to Swami Anubhavananda, is the freedom you find when you have misery yet you are not miserable. And when we find peace within ourselves, we are at peace with the whole world.

“In meditation the infinite happens. This recognition of our true nature is not found in the nature of the acquired mind and its thoughts – it is found through dissolving these thoughts and this acquired nature”, he says. “When we have found the freedom that allows our divine, blissful self to be expressed under all conditions, then we have found yoga.”

Some pictures from the talk held at the ISHTA School of Yoga and Health with Swami Anubhavananda:

Penny, Norman and Amy Anstey enjoying tea with Swami Anubhavananda

Wendy Wood (Nandiva) and Swami Anubhavananda

Vegan tea and cakes

Photographs courtesy or Norman Anstey and Stuart Wood

Nicki Forman-Levitan discusses how she found her way to personal sadhana through yoga

My life is dedicated to the practice of yoga. Yoga is my life’s calling. I teach, I study, I eat, sleep and dream yoga. It’s my life’s work, my grand passion and my ostensibly “healthy obsession”. Running a home with a husband, two small children and a thriving yoga school affords me the luxurious opportunity to live this dream. Yogic immersion, albeit somewhat tethered by domestic necessity, is essentially my modus operandi, a divine karmic gift I acknowledge with gratitude.

Despite having this plethora of opportunity to practise, I still struggle to maintain a consistent sadhana (practice) that ensures “x” rounds of Surya Namaskaras per day, so many rounds of Kapalabhati and a guaranteed meditative daily Samadhi. “Take one yogic capsule a day,” as Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati of Bihar School of Yoga teaches and “call God in the morning”.

Abhyasa is the discipline that Patanjali dictates and it demands a consistent practice in order to evolve along our yogic paths. Abhyasa means fostering an attitude of persistent effort to attain and maintain a state of stable tranquility. It’s a devoted path – the fruits of which are an insight into the direct experience of the eternal core of our being. So, finding and committing to a personal sadhana is the goal of the sadhaka or practitioner.

Is this a reasonable or even viable possibility for the Western yogi or yogini, especially those of us attempting to balance jobs, family or studies with a consistent and disciplined practice? To accomplish a full asana practice daily might not always be possible, so the real question then becomes how the practice of yoga can filter from the mat into everyday life? How can one creatively develop one’s own personal sadhana?

Notwithstanding the fact that asana, pranayama and a solid dose of yoga nidra is crucial to yogic evolution, sadhana can also Finding your way to a personal sadhana be found in changed perspective, in seeing one’s reality with yogic-coloured spectacles, a so-called rosy tinted drishti or l’esprit en rose. Allowing all aspects of life, including both its tribulations and joys, to become a screen for yogic projection is paramount to this shift in awareness.

Patanjali offers some tools to aid in this shifted perspective, which he describes in the Ashtanga (eight limbed path) of which asana (posture) and pranayama (control of breath) are merely two limbs. The first limb – Yama – contains the ethics, which have to do with training your actions, speech and thoughts in relation to the external world, particularly with other people. Dedication to upholding and developing these yamas is a laudable sadhana in itself and provides a perfect buffet of potential interpretation from which to choose when developing one’s own sadhana.

The first yama is non-harming (ahimsa) in thought, deed and action. Cultivating ahimsa can be a lifetime’s sadhana. Try being ahimsic after being stuck in traffic or losing a much sought after job promotion. Try ahimsa when faced with a relentless mosquito! This is where to apply your yoga practice – to the places of challenge, not just to the glorious afterglow of Savasana. Using these spaces of discomfort and difficulty becomes a platform for personal sadhana. Not only does it make the challenge surmountable but also keeps your practice alive and pervasive.

In whichever way yama talks to your personal evolutionary needs, be it the development of integrity through the principle of honesty (satya) or striving towards remembering the higher reality (bramacharya), is a personal choice that should make sense to you, the aspirant, relative to your life’s developments and needs. Some yamas are easier to manage than others. Non-violence and not stealing (asteya) might be a breeze for one yogi but a mountain for another. When Patanjali spoke of aparigraha (non-possessiveness) he surely hadn’t been to a side-walk sale or to a rooftop market. How many candles or cute little yoga outfits can a yogini possess without forgetting that yoga needs to come out of the closet, and live its truth!

Perhaps choose one yama to develop as a sadhana or simply try integrating all wherever possible. Whatever your sadhana is of less importance than a consistent and committed awareness. This awareness inspired by dedicated practice to a chosen sadhana, allows us to begin to welcome challenge as an opportunity to set our yogic GPS in action and guide our souls along the path of light. We begin to recognise in this way that the guru (the dispeller of darkness) is none other than our own inner voice intuiting from an omniscient perspective, so that our every thought and its consequent action is a consistent sadhana.

But surely Patanjali, living as he does today in the hearts and souls of his countless yogic progeny, would encourage the idea of the all pervasive, boundless yoga practice, one beyond the mat? One where the realization of Self is evidenced in thought, word and certainly action, including those during that queue, traffic jam or marital tiff.

Finding your personal sadhana in your own way becomes the mantra du jour. Ask yourself what will be useful in the pursuit of your spiritual goals and be proactive – what yogis call kriya (action) in the realisation of these goals.

B.K.S Iyengar outlines the three-fold goal which is one and the same: “Sadhana is a discipline undertaken in the pursuit of a goal. Abhyasa is repeated practice performed with observation and reflection. Kriya, or action, also implies perfect execution with study and investigation. Therefore, sadhana, abhyasa, and kriya all mean one and the same thing. A sadhaka, or practitioner, is one who skillfully applies… mind and intelligence in practice towards a spiritual goal.”

Recently in Rishikesh, on the ghat of the Mata Ganga, following one of my first Kundalini yoga classes with the amazing Gurmukh Khalsa, the following satsang gently changed my perspective forever: “You have a heart, love. You have two hands, serve.”

All the rest is fluff. This turns out to be my sadhana – attempting a daily return to love and service. Listen to your inner guru and find yours.

By  Nicki Forman-Levitan

Before we consciously realise it, yoga becomes the driving force that galvanises us into action, so that we can start living our passions…

If you’re like me, yoga crept into your life surreptitiously. Yet the impact has been profound. With an old knee injury and my thirties creeping up, I unknowingly turned a corner and left aerobics and spinning behind. Yes, the universe and my “knee karma” guided me gently, yet firmly, away from years of body perfect pursuits, towards the yoga studio.

There I found the awareness and courage I needed to change the negative aspects of my life. Nine years later, I’m changed for the better and finally learning to live my passions – teaching yoga and writing.

Oddly perhaps, passion from the root Latin word “passio” actually means “to suffer”. We learn however that it’s only when our passions are unfulfilled and our emotions unbalanced, that we create our own dramatic and exhausting suffering. To break this cycle we first have to recognise that in this “situational suffering” we’re coming from a place of ego and acting from the perspective of fear and not trusting our essential wholeness.

The key yogic premise, Patanjali’s yoga sutra Yogas Citta-Vrtti Nirodhah, beautifully explains how a daily yoga practice enables us to notice or recognise our true, complete self. The Sanskrit translates: “When you stop identifying with your thoughts, (the fluctuations of the mind), then there is yoga.” It describes, logically and accurately, the process of unfolding awareness, which inevitably leads, (for anyone who practices yoga consistently), to self-actualisation.

Yoga asanas direct our prana (life force) upwards to the ajna (third eye) and sahasrara (crown) chakras to perfectly prepare us for meditation. This is when we learn to stop identifying with our “monkey” minds, i.e. the ego. Non-attachment to thought begins with simply being able to observe (without judgement) the mind and its constant fluctuations. Our thoughts aren’t permanent, real or necessarily based on truth either – rather, they’re subjective.

By recognising this, we open up space to become aware of the blissful, peaceful state of simply being. This state of being liberates us. The moment we let go of all our heavy expectations of ourselves, the chance of actualising our dreams and passions becomes truly possible, perhaps for the very first time. In fact, it becomes likely. Why? Think of a balancing asana such as Natarajasana or Lord of the Dance Pose. In the asana, the instant we let go of our fear of falling over and focus only on our breath, we balance! Suddenly we are a light, lithe dancer…

This holds true for all our strivings, every day. The world tells us to look outward to define ourselves – to careers, relationships and material success. When we attach to this, we feel we never do, have, or achieve enough. We focus on perfecting and correcting ourselves in all the wrong ways. Wasting energy and time, we scatter our attention, spread ourselves too thin, squash our inner voice and childhood dreams – and then berate ourselves or others when we fail. Afterwards, we review our failures again, through the mind (which takes itself rather seriously indeed). Living like this can drain us of the vitality and clarity of purpose needed to make changes towards self actualising, in a non-pressured, fulfilling and organic way. When we persevere with yoga, it becomes habit to simply notice our moods, our daily hankerings, the little voices in our head and then to laugh them off. With determined calm, we start to habitually value the profound importance of simply being, in every moment of every day.

Suddenly, our priorities rearrange themselves like we’re shuffling a deck of cards and the universe seems to roll the dice in our favour too.

Our path is never random. In the beginning, all this “noticing” may unsettle us, shake things up a bit – as the intellect and ego wrangle with the soul. However, this holds the key to fulfilment. Thankfully, yoga heightens our awareness, so we recognise the signposts along the way and are galvanised into action, to follow them.

By Mandy Walker