October Emotional Wellness Month
Simple Practices to Balance Your Manomayakosha, the Emotional Body
In honor of October as Emotional Wellness Month, I will share a bit about our philosophy and practice through the lens of traditional yoga practices and Universal Yoga as taught by Guruji Andrey Lappa.
The ultimate goal of yoga practice is to find absolute balance, which will allow you to reach your higher self, moving toward pure consciousness, and liberation.
To learn more about yoga philosophy, please watch our Events and Trainings page for future Dharma Teachings and Teacher Trainings with our co-founder and teacher, Raj Patra.
For the here and now, incorporate some practical methods to access and balance your emotional body, or manomayakosha in your daily practice:
When music is played during yoga practice, tap into the emotion that the music brings up for you, especially in connection with the asanas (postures) and energy (prana) of the practice.
Use a chakra meditation to balance your chakras and their emotional effects. This particular meditation was shared with me for the Full Moon (click through) by Raj Patra. We will share this guided meditation as a virtual practice on Saturday, October 31st, the Blue Moon.
When you have a strong emotion arise within you, such as anger or desire, try to observe that emotion and where it is coming from objectively, practicing upeksha, or equanimity. This will bring about greater control over your emotional fluctuations, moving toward neutrality (non-duality).
Use mudras to intensify the emotional effect of meditation and asana practice - gestures associated with emotion and intention can boost your practice by connecting the dots between your physical body and your emotional body.
Finally, we offer for you the opportunity to develop loving-kindness, or metta, toward all beings. Metta is not simply an esoteric yogic concept, but a dedicated meditation practice used to cultivate positive energy and vibrations that can be released generally or sent out directly from practitioners to an individual. Check our schedule for the next offering of metta meditation practice.
by Casey, YFL teacher and coordinator, from teachings by Raj Patra and Guruji Andrey Lappa. Casey has over 300 hours of yoga teacher training and also practices Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka.