Yoga as a natural path for body, mind and soul well-being

Source: https://www.macrolibrarsi.it/speciali/chakra.php

I just discovered the post about Mental Health (https://ecency.com/mentalhealth/@naturalmedicine/earn-a-new-badge-on-hive-buzz-shine-light-on-mental-health-issues ), getting the Badge and I felt enlightened.

The I discovered that the @naturalmedicine account has been dismissed but I thought to carry on anyway the challenge to get the Badge as well. If not for the Badge, at least to share the experience and the path I have undertaken and to honour the work that Natural Medicine has carried out rough years!

I am posting this content into The Herbal Hive, since it has been elected as one of the two legitimate heirs of Natural Medicine Community, thanks to the great work and support done by @theherbalhive and @artemislives and back in time to the support of @acidyo.
I hope that @theherbalhive will appreciate this “delayed post” from that contest from almost two years ago.

I am here going to talk about Yoga path I am doing, why I have chosen to become a Yoga Teacher and how the approach we use can bring a lot of good results to body and mind.

I have started practicing Yoga back in 2016 thanks to one of my former Elementary classmate that inspired me. Before that meeting I was persuaded that Yoga was a soft gym for old ladies carrying fancy coloured mattresses. Then, she explained me how she used Yoga to treat her patients from addictions (drugs, alcohol and so on) and that totally got me: I simply asked when I could come to try a lesson. I tried, and I practiced continuously for one year. Then she moved and I could not continue with her.

But…..

Then came my Yoga current path that was actually started by my wife Mary that you can see here writing about different recipes and I think that soon she will start her own blog here :D

She found a guy practicing Yoga at the park. I was stull playing Wheelchair Basketball (where you can find my story here https://ecency.com/hive-166408/@mikezillo/my-journey-into-wheelchair-basketball )

I was training hard into wheelchair basketball but when the vaccine became compulsory in Italy to keep playing I simply stopped, refusing to exchange my health for a passion. My health (and soul) were much more important!

That’s when I started this integral esoteric Yoga journey.

At the beginning I have to be honest, I was practicing because I liked it, I felt some form of deep attraction but I was not aware of all the subtle changes that a correct Yoga practice can bring to our body. The type of yoga we are practicing is inspired to the Maha Siddha style, a whole conception of Yoga not just as choreographic postures but rather more holistic approach to the body and spiritual dimension.

After some months of intense practices, my teacher asked me if I could have ever thought of becoming a teacher and my answer was double. The inner was like “Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, that would be great” while the external was a more moderate: “I am not sure if I can be ready but if you think I should apply, I would be definitely up for it! Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” 🤣.

The first thing I really got passionate of were the 7 chakras, understanding where they were located, their functions, their polarities, their vibrations, their correlations to our everyday lives.

Chakras are main energy centres of our body that can be activated through an aware Yoga practice through different Asanas that can bring to our body different kind of stimulation, input and energetic connections with, for example, the cosmic and the telluric energies.

Particularly, like originally said in the post, Yoga can help a lot with body and mind things.

I am going to show some Asanas, without explaining too much of the esoteric approach but giving some good insights about their functions on a body level.

Here is me and Mary in VIPARITA NAMASKAR TADASANA, a great posture for mental presence and shoulders mobility.

This is me in another posture of Jiva Balasana, a posture great to strengthen elbows, knees, shoulders, ankles and most of the body joints. This posture gives balance, stability and willpower to resist one second after one second while the weight start becoming too much.

This one, is called Garudasana, the eagle posture, where balance, mental stability and mental silence prevail. This posture is great for concentration and focus but also gives a strong dynamization of the standing leg while giving more mobility to the other leg.

So, how Yoga Asanas can bring positive things to body? And then mind?

Every Asana brings gradual stimulation of muscles, sometimes muscles we have never felt in our lives due to partial or non-correct movements we do in our everyday lives.

Activation of muscles is synonym of energy movement toward that specific area and that is why some doctors already prescribe Yoga as a healing/nurturing technique for some kind of diseases. But you need at first to find an enlightened doctor and then find the correct Yoga teacher that can help you in that path. Prescribing drugs is of course much more easy and immediate in result. But it will often be a partial result.

Mind can enjoy Yoga results from some different perspectives: the first one is about concentration that is connected to the “Third Eye Chakra” Ajna-Chakra, balance is also connected to the Chakra at the base of the neck (Vishuddja-Chakra) and many emotional imbalances can be linked to imbalances of the “Heart Chakra”, Anahata-Chakra.

Practicing Yoga with a sufficient awareness level can really bring to the rebalancing of Chakras and energy flows. Energy is what leads our body, mind and emotions to feel good or bad. I cannot say that everything can be solved with a proper Chakra work but a lot of things can really find an improvement!

Each Chakra may have a specific type of music, colour, emotions/feelings, shape, herbs and food to stimulate it. There are so many correlations that I will post more about it, since it’s something I am studying right now and will be happy to share with you all!

So, answering to the original questions on how to bring that value to people, I have started my own Yoga class, that for the moment is still quite small, but I have started sharing the benefits of Yoga practice with people in the town where I live. And that’s my starting contribution to the Offline Community.