While I have always enjoyed the movements and asanas of yoga, I have always been puzzled as to why I had never truly felt like immersing myself in the practice. What were my friends who spoke highly of it and who refused to skip a class finding in yoga, that I wasn't?
Let's flash back nearly seven years ago to my being in Saint Paul's Hospital on September 23, 2006. I am in the full throws of active child labour, moments away from pushing a human being out of my own body and I can remember Luke standing next to me coaching me to "Breathe... Breathe Catherine. Focus on your breath"... My mind drifted for a second to my pre-natal yoga teacher who had echoed the same words to me only a couple of days earlier during practice.
I began to focus on and cling to the sound of my lungs inhaling and expelling air as if it was a life force sustaining me through the enormous pain I was in the midst of enduring... In between puffs of nitrous oxide, I found myself getting up and doing various yoga asanas right there in the middle of my private hospital room. And with every movement I was 100% focused on my breath. Inhale... Exhale... Inhale... Exhale... I imagined the air of my breath flowing though my throat into the back of my lungs, lengthening down into my toes, back up the front of my legs and circling around my womb and centre of pain and massaging it, before raising up through my belly and then being exhaled.
In fact the only time I lost control that day was when I started into the transition phase of labour and lost focus of my breathing... Instantly pain started to fill my body. But then I remember closing my eyes and starting to breathe again...
This particular day, the day my first child was born, was the very first time that I truly harnessed the tips and breathing exercises I'd learned over the years in the zillion yoga classes by dozens of different teachers and finally embraced the practice of pranayama.
What is pranayama? Pranayama is a yogic discipline with its origins in India. It is a composition of two Sanskrit words that basically mean "the extension of the breath".
Pran means life force/vital energy/breath, and ayam means to expand, extend or pause. Pranayama is the fourth of the eight limbs of Ashtanga yoga described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and is recommended as part of a yoga practitioner’s regular practice. To call it “deep breathing” severely understates the complexity of this practice – pranayama is much more than just deep breathing.
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika states that pranayama is practiced in order to understand annd control the pranic process in the body. Breathing is a direct means of absorbing prana and the manner in which we breath sets off pranic vibrations, which influence our entire being. By becoming aware of the nature of the breath and by restraining it, the whole system becomes controlled. When you retain the breath you are stopping nervous impulses in different parts of the body and harmonising the brain wave patterns. In pranayama, it is the duration of the breath retention, which has to be increased. The longer the breath is held, the greater the gap between nervous impulses and their responses in the brain. When retention is held for a prolonged period, mental agitation is curtailed.
Through pranayama the mind can be brought under control. In many spiritual traditions, including Sufism, Buddhism and Yoga, it is known that by concentrating on the breath, you can still the mind, develop one-pointedness and gain entry into the deeper realms of the mind and consciousness.
Fast forward back to present time... This past year has been a doozy of a year for me physically and mentally. A lot has happened and allowed me the opportunity to reflect, assess and repair. Along with that is the understanding that this process of repairing, etc is not static, but rather a dynamic one that I have to exercise on a regular basis.
I am an over-thinker or an obsessive-thinker rather, if I'm being entirely honest. From the moment I wake until the moment I fall asleep I am thinking. Observing. Analyzing. Strategizing. Problem-solving... Thinking thinking thinking... This is who I am and I've never ever been able to switch this part of me off. Ever! The realization that my obsessive nature is a major stress-trigger, which has no doubt been the main culprit in my poor health was quite a profound revelation.
This is where yoga and pranayama comes in...
The only time in my entire life that I am able to completely shut off pain, my fears and my obsessive thoughts that race in my brain is when I am smack dab in the middle of a yoga class, feet firmly planted on my mat and I am BREATHING. In that place, at that time the only thing I am thinking of is my breath. And so for one hour every day, my brain, body and my energy have the chance to focus, balance, heal and restore. It's incredible and I'm kicking myself for only giving into this now in my thirties - Mind you I think it's taken these three decades to build the discipline necessary to find this path.
Be it in in the midst of physical pain such as child labour, pulmonary embolisms and appendicitis, mental stress at work or emotional turmoil dolled out by life circumstances, I feel stronger by integrating pranayama into my life and my well-being. Furthermore, I am several "ohms" past feeling silly by chanting in my yoga classes. I now look forward to this part of my yoga practice an and grateful for this wonderful sound that clears and calms my mind and opens up the channels for healing...
"Where the mind goes, the prana follows" - Thirumoolar (South Indian saint)
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