Provider Feature // Kara Lundin of Your Own Yoga
How to Develop a Personal Yoga Practice
Having your own yoga practice is more than rolling out your mat at home and following along with your favorite digital media. There are many benefits to having a personal yoga practice and it is accessible to everyone no matter how long you have been practicing. In an article for Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Cristie Newhart discusses why having a self-guided practice is so important. She writes...
"Personal practice supports you experiencing the postures at your own pace and not your teacher’s. You learn for yourself what works for your body and what doesn’t, what’s open, and what needs more coaxing. Without a teacher moving the class along, you may be inclined to find new ways to explore and feel a posture. You can pause and slow down where you need to, and learn to follow prana where it takes you. In the process, you strengthen the muscle of svadhyaya, self-study."
Svadhyaya translates to "self-understanding" or "self-study." It is one of the five niyamas (or personal observances) in the eight limbs of yoga. Sva means "one's own," or the power of one’s self. Adhyaya translates to "practice”," to study, contemplate, or examine.” In the book The Practice of the Yoga Sutra (2017), Tigunait's definition of svadhyaya is "to study, examine, and reflect on ourselves, our internal states, the objects of our senses, and the condition of our body.” Self-study goes beyond the observance of physical sensations, our emotions and the thoughts of the mind. It is studying the self with the heart and understanding that what you know is limited by your conditioning. The goal is to see things in a new light each time we encounter ourselves. To really practice self-study we must employ our mind to flow peacefully inward for a long period without interruption and with reverence. This is where we begin to find fulfillment and freedom.
If you are in search of tools to accelerate your wellbeing and mature your yoga, you will find that a strong personal practice can help you regain the lost innate wisdom of your mind-body. Spending time developing a personal practice helps us restore the natural wisdom and knowledge of the body and infuses us with self-trust and self-acceptance. Having a personal yoga practice is a complement to the more widely known globalized yoga classes we are used to. Most classes primarily focus on the technical aspects of postural yoga. Developing a personal yoga practice will heighten your ability to be responsive instead of reactive. You will learn to self-regulate and understand how you process sensory information.
We rarely experience yoga at our own pace and are often asked to move on before we are ready, or to stay longer than we need. In his translation and commentary of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (2017), Sri Swami Satchidananda talks about experiencing your own yoga and being able to "quote" from your own experiences while learning. He directs the reader to what Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said...
"Forget all you have learned; become a child again. Then it will be easy to realize your wisdom."
Through personal practice, you have the opportunity to observe your own experiences and to really tap into what is arising through movement. You also have the space to tend to what is coming up for you in your own time and in your own way. You are learning about the true Self and not what you have been conditioned to be and believe. Regular personal practice becomes a study of your patterns. Perhaps those are ways of thinking, or ways the body positions itself. Through self-guidance, we can observe the effects yoga is having on us in the moment without interruption to move on or pressure to stay put.
Between the music, demos, and teaching cues, yoga classes have become a primarily externally focused experience. You might be resistant to the idea of practicing yoga without instruction from a teacher, and if so, ask yourself why that is. How has your relationship with yoga been constructed? What resistance is coming up when you think of giving the body and mind some freedom to move with your own intuition? How might the way you practice change if you are not being guided, but instead listening to your innate wisdom with self-trust?
These are some of the first questions to ask yourself as you begin developing your own yoga practice. This is not to say that you will never go to a yoga class again or that it has no benefit. You can always enjoy the freedom that comes from being guided from one posture to the next. There is great healing that comes when you allow your mind to relax and be led by the instructions you hear. A yoga teacher is one of the best sources of inspiration and knowledge. The feeling of moving together in unison with a group is unmatched. But to truly practice yoga, you need to find an intrinsic state of stillness on your own. Only then will you see the power that becomes available to you through your actions, choices, and the ability to listen to your internal world. Here are a few ways you can begin to develop a personal yoga practice:
Reduce the external sensory intake within your control. In our world, we are constantly being overstimulated with information, sounds, images, expectations, and other stimuli. One of the first things you can do to start a personal yoga practice is learning to experience being with yourself. What does it feel like to let up on trying to control your environment or the situation around you? What does it feel like to just sit, stand, or walk with limited external stimulus and becoming present with what is happening around you? What happens when you don’t add distractions, while trying not to feel frustrated with the ones that are beyond your control?
Use your imagination and trust that you can curate your own experience. Many of us are used to having experiences created for us and this is especially true in our yoga classes. While it can be an amazing healing experience to be guided through a well-tailored sequence of yoga postures accompanied by a thoughtful playlist, we might find ourselves becoming reliant on others in order to feel settled. Learning to cultivate a state of inner tranquility on our own is an invaluable practice.
Have a dialogue with your mind-body. Ask yourself what you need today and let that guide your practice. Take a moment when you first wake up to notice how you are feeling both in mind and in body. Yoga is not all about movement and alignment on the mat. Aligning how you feel when you wake up with the necessary pace of your day and then make choices that support your needs rather than your obligations to cultivate a sense of wellbeing. Even if you don’t have time for a full asana practice or a quiet meditation, you can set some time aside and offer the body a little movement in an area that might be stiff or stagnant while your coffee, tea, or morning nourishment is being created. You can offer the mind time for rest during the day by removing external stimuli when you would normally turn on something to distract or feed yourself with information or images. Give the body some activation if you feel energy you need to allow to release. Even jumping in place while raising your arms over your head helps you connect to your energy and feel prana move within the body!
Start with asanas you love! Trust your body and why it enjoys certain poses. Even if you are new to yoga, you will still have poses that feel good in your body. Find time to just roll out your mat and sit or stand in silence for a few moments. Then do whatever posture pops into your head. It could be as simple as neck or shoulder rolls or more complex like a down dog. Start gently as you notice how it feels in the body. Maybe you say to yourself “I need to warm up a little before I do this pose.” What can you do in your body to loosen up and get blood flowing? How many poses can you recall just from memory? What does each one feel like today? Explore your own understanding of the way your body moves.
Link breath to movement. Practice allowing the movement of the body to follow the breath in and out, rather than focusing primarily on the alignment or flow of a pose. Inhale to open, expand and lift in a posture. Exhale to contract, fold forward, and release. Slow down your movement and notice what happens in the body on the inhalations and the exhalations. Try reversing how you naturally breathe and see if you can notice a difference. For example start in standing, try inhaling when you fold forward toward your feet and exhaling when you lift the body back up. What does that feel like? Often when we do yoga, we are listening to the breath cues we hear, but we never take much time to truly feel why we do things a certain way or how it might feel if we tried it another way. Sometimes we are so focused on getting the posture alignment correct that we the breath becomes our secondary focus. Make the breath the leading force in your practice and start to become more intentional when breathing.
Share your self-acceptance. Practice with a group and find joy in the diversity of each individual's yoga. It is so hard not to compare ourselves to others and to what we see around us. Sometimes in your personal practice you might feel blank, like you don’t know where to go next. Doesn’t this happen in life all the time?! Learning to be comfortable in ambiguity on your mat can help you develop a positive relationship when uncertainty arrives in other areas of life. It is helpful to try practicing self-guided yoga within the support of a group to help you become more comfortable and keep you committed. In Your Own Yoga’s Open Studio, you can access this type of alternative yoga space where everyone is practicing a self-guided session, but is also generating that group energy we all love feeling.
Non-judgment of self and others. Experience and validate what is happening on any given day. This could relate to internal or external situations. Sometimes the practice room is quiet and tranquil, sometimes there is a lot of external noise and busyness taking place outside. Learning to not judge how you feel when your ideals and expectations are not met is a skill that will not only bring a greater sense of peace to your practice, but will transfer into your daily life as well. When you perceive others in a certain way, watch how you are creating judgements about them or a situation. Instead of trying to control the situation, notice if you are feeling frustrated, jealous, irritated, or some other emotion. Let that feeling become your focus and begin to work with it and allowing it to center and dissipate through movement or through the breath. Try to decrease expectations. Adapt your practice to fit the ever changing nature of existence. This practice will help you to cultivate inner stillness despite external circumstances.
Release yourself from the tight grip of expectation. We all have expectations of what we want to look and feel like when we do yoga, and in our lives as well. In a culture that is hyper focused on goals and outcomes, it can be hard to find peace with where you are at in this moment. Start releasing your expectations of what your yoga practice should look and feel like. When you first come to your mat, take a moment to experience a sense of stillness in the center of all that is happening externally and among all the internal chatter circling around the mind. The benefit of having a personal yoga practice is that you can learn to meet yourself in this space time and time again.
Utilize the enormous amount of resources to build a personal yoga practice. We have so much at our fingertips! So many videos, blogs, webinars, workshops, books, websites, and social media accounts that offer endless hours of content to educate yourself. Even if you are just beginning to learn about yoga, take some time to recall what you have been learning in classes, and see how much you can start to recall on your own. Reflect on what is difficult or seems to be missing. See if you can find out how to fill the gap through your own research. The ability to take your learning into your own hands is a privilege that we often take for granted.
Once you feel more comfortable practicing on your own, identify something you want to work on. Focus on this aspect in your practice for a while. Write what you want to practice down! There is no shame in having a list of postures at the top of your mat. Find a sequence you want to practice online and work with it for a while. Start to commit it to memory. You can always tailor it by adding your favorite poses or taking out ones that don’t feel good in your body. Play around with suggested modifications and find what feels safe and painless in your body. Find your own pacing through your breath.
Seek support. Just because you are practicing more on your own, doesn't mean you have to be alone. Continue to attend yoga classes and work with your teacher. Notice how your practice is changing and note what feels different. Find support building your practice with others in class and within the abundance of educational and therapeutic offerings available. In Your Own Yoga’s Supported Personal Practice sessions, we use this time to dive deeper into your questions, workshop specific poses, and process your experiences.
Empower yourself by making your own choices. There is real benefit to taking your asana choices into your own hands. Making sure you are practicing safely starts with understanding your edge, and not going beyond it until the mind-body is ready. Self-directed yoga is the practice, but you will soon see how your confidence continues to grow in other areas of your life.
Practice the same poses for a while. Become very intimate with a simple sequence like Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations) or a floor sequence you enjoy. As you practice the same postures again and again notice how you experience them differently each time. How are they shifting for you on any given day? Notice your reaction to the feelings, sensations, and realizations you are having. Keeping your practice simple allows you to focus less on thinking about the sequence and giving more space to pay attention to how you are processing or working with the stimulus you are receiving though your movement. How does your response change from day to day? Committing a sequence to memory allows you to begin to unlearn unhealthy reactions, and then recreate patterns by replacing them with positive responses. Once you gain this skill on the mat, you can begin to use the same techniques to respond to the world we live in or the situations that are causing you suffering. This is the collective responsibility of the breath and the ultimate goal of yoga.
A personal yoga practice is a responsive practice and it highlights our relationship to all the external stimuli coming in, as well as the circling thought patterns of the mind. Practicing yoga should not be goal-oriented. Goals can restrict us from becoming responsive and can create attachments to outcomes. Yoga is a practice of transformation and the benefits come from how we are learning to be responsive within our movement. Allow for shifts to happen. Strive for realizations. There is not a “right” or “perfect” when it comes to your practice. There are multiple truths even within one yoga pose. You are the expert of your own dispossession and therefore an expert in your yoga practice. Learn to encourage and have confidence in yourself through the development of your own yoga.