Inside Out

After class recently, one of my students commented that since she turned 50, she has been focusing much more on how her body feels and much less on how her body looks. As she put it, “We all struggle with how we look as we get older, but I realized that feeling good is something I can experience at any age.” 

To which I said, “Yesss!” 

In our image-obsessed culture, it is hard not to focus on our appearance. We are constantly bombarded with images of “perfect” bodies and we are sold the idea that if only we were thinner, younger, less wrinkly, more toned (fill in the blank) we would be happier. Furthermore, if we just buy whatever product is on offer, physical perfection and contentment will be ours.  

Of course, we all know this not to be true. As someone once said, if being young, thin and flexible brought us happiness, ballerinas would be the happiest people on earth. That said, the pressure is constant and even the most stoic among us have our wobbly moments when our powers of critical thinking wane and our self-esteem suffers. 

Now, we all want to look good. There is nothing wrong with that! But sometimes we need to take the pressure off and give ourselves a break from worrying about our appearance. The good news is that yoga can help us do that by offering the chance to experience our bodies from the inside out. 

One of yoga’s greatest gifts is the opportunity it gives us to shift out of sight and into sensation. For example, take a moment to look at your feet right now. Notice what they look like, whether you have shoes on or bare feet. Then close your eyes and take a moment to notice how your feet feel. You might notice some tingling sensations or maybe some warmth, just from becoming more aware of them. This physical feeling - or “body awareness” as it is often referred to - lies at the heart of yoga and it is the key to experiencing greater comfort and joy within our physical frames.  

So, you might ask, which way to the land of comfort and joy? 

When we practice yoga, we first arrange our bodies in the external shape of a pose. This requires sight. It is important to take a look and line up our body parts to ensure that we are aligned correctly which will, in turn, bring us greater benefits and keep us safe. But this act of looking is not the practice, it is the prep.The real practice is what happens next - paying attention to what we are feeling in our bodies, moment to moment.

Unlike ballet or gymnastics, the external shape of the pose is not the end. It is just the beginning. This is fantastic news for those of us who will never do the splits! The goal in yoga is not - thank god - to “perfect” our poses, but to set up each pose in a way that is appropriate for us and then dive into body awareness, which of course includes the sensations of our breath. The poses are a means to an end. We are not so much “doing” poses as we are meditating on our bodies in different shapes. 

Wait a minute, “meditating on our bodies”? What does that mean? A simple definition of meditation is that we intentionally focus our minds on a chosen object and we bring ourselves back to that chosen object whenever our attention wanders. That “object of meditation” can be a candle, a phrase, an image... It can also be your body. 

When we start to pay closer attention to how we feel rather than how we look, not only does our experience of each pose become deeper, we are much less likely to injure ourselves. We can respond to internal cues and safely deepen our poses from the inside out, rather than forcing our bodies into positions because we are worrying about our appearance. We are also much more likely to have a positive experience. Nobody ever had a good time criticizing their own body. But a good time can be had by all when we let go of the act of looking and, instead, scuba dive into the world of sensation. 

Like anything, body awareness takes practice.

To begin with, there might be a flickering on of light bulbs across your internal landscape, perhaps a little dim at first, as you learn to pay attention to how your body feels. Over time, the lights gradually get brighter, dark corners start to illuminate and, eventually, even the simplest of poses can offer the equivalent of an inner psychedelic light show. As I like to say to my students, “The magic is in the details!” 

It is important to remember that ‘advancing’ in yoga is not about how fancy your poses are (although they may well become quite fancy!) It is about how fully you are experiencing whatever you are doing in this moment. The splits might not be attainable in this lifetime, but the gasp-inducing feeling of a lovely appropriate hip stretch is available to us all when we practice yoga from the inside out. 

While it is true to say that yoga can help us change how we relate to our bodies, we all know that it is impossible to entirely escape the emphasis on aesthetics in our culture. If you are hoping to look better - which, let’s be honest, most of us are - a regular yoga practice can, of course, help with that. But just remember that yoga has so much more to offer than toned arms.  

If it is greater happiness that you are after - not just over the age of 50 but at any age - focussing on feeling better will have a positive impact not only on your yoga practice, but also your daily life and your relationships. And if you feel good when you do yoga, you will be much more likely to come back to your mat.

Do yoga. Feel better, lovelies!

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