Body Consciousness trough Yôga

The Life Mentoring Method®
 is a psycho-corporal approach to the development of a person’s health and overall well-being. Most of our clients come by the referral of a previous client and it already got back to us how they warn the newcomer: ‘Watch out, with Proff you are going to sweat for sure.’
Yes, it is true, almost all of them are going to do some kind of physical activity like body workout (often integrated with martial arts training) or yoga. Doing so we aim to develop the body consciousness of the person and more, help them to release marks of intense past experiences and emotions guarded in the body’s unconscious memory. By applying proper physical methods (body training, yoga, martial arts, massage, Chi Kung) these are much easier accessible than simply speaking about them.

But why we wanted to improve one’s body consciousness? Why is it beneficial for anyone, for someone aiming to change their lifestyle or more, tackle some kind of health or psychological hardship?
Everything is interconnected, our mind, our body and our spirit. All the muscles are connected to the brain so when we are working out a muscle, we are developing the brain too. In the same time, we are sending the message to the brain that ‘we are strong’, ‘we can do it’. So why physical training for self-development? First, because one gains self-confidence in the physical plane recognizing that (s)he is able to do things with their body that they would not have imagined before. This experience supports the psychological efforts to change certain habits or get over difficulties since the person is getting more powerful in his/her mind at the same time.

The Special Role of Yoga 

If this self-development supporting physical activity happens to be yoga, while getting stronger, we also increase our physical flexibility. Amazingly, increased physical flexibility leads to increased mental flexibility which makes us more resistant to the stresses of everyday life. Yoga is an exceptionally useful method for learning about our body and gaining more body-consciousness. By naming the muscles that are contracting and stretching during a posture, the yoga instructor helps the practitioner to learn to identify them. Besides, for the correct execution of the asanas the practitioner is required to make fine alignments with several muscles at the same time. By raising the practitioner’s attention to all of these body parts, most of the time harmonized with the breathing as well, their body consciousness improves amazingly. Another great tool for gaining more body consciousness is the complete, detailed scanning of the parts of the body during the relaxation phase of the yoga practice.
All these practices aim to pull the person into the present moment. Through the observation of their bodily sensations, and sensing their own physical reality, they are more probably able to let go of their mind centred self-experience. It is a kind of grounding into the here and now. In this state we are more able to listen to our intuition, our inner wisdom, and connect with the universe that we make part of. Just as the word yoga means union, we unite with our true nature and become less connected to that self-image we create influenced by our own past life and the concepts and mindsets that we have taken up socially and culturally.
Yoga is special in terms of body consciousness also due to its strong breathing focus.

Yoga teaches the practitioner to breathe properly, and to be conscious of his/her breathing. Breathing is our connection to the physical world, we obtain vital energy from the universe through breathing and it is the bridge between our mind and body.
‘When the breathing is under control, mind is under control as well.’ - Charaka Samhita 
By practicing yoga we gain more physical awareness even in terms of identifying our bodily reactions to daily life stresses so we can handle them better simply because we feel them, consciously. Imagine a situation where you are in a hurry to finish a task and suddenly you become aware that you keep contracting your abdominal region. This way you are going to start breathing into your chest and throat region, which causes anxiety (in fact you might do that all the time without anyone telling you that it is unhealthy). However, an improved body consciousness allows you to identify the contraction and relax the muscles for example by starting to breathe deeply into your stomach.
Actually, it is quite important to apply some technique like this since it is scientifically proven that our heart rate becomes disordered during negative emotions like anger, anxiety or frustration.

The research of the HeartMath Institute shows that even if we think about a frustrating situation, our heartrate starts to be erratic. Due to the disordered heart rate the neural signals sent by the heart to the brain hinder our cognitive functions. Not only the performance worsens, but also other functions and systems of the body are affected negatively like our hormone, immune or digestive system.
The good news, however, is that we can reverse the harmful effects of stress and negative emotions by connecting the conscious breathing with a heartfelt positive emotion. Given the fact that breathing patterns regulate heart rhythm, we can get back to steady heart rhythm by breathing slowly and equally. Applying the breathing technique, recall an image that makes you feel a positive emotion like love, care, appreciation, compassion, courage, honour, dignity, tolerance, enthusiasm. This technique, elaborated by HeartMath, leads to the alignment of your heart, mind and emotions, consequently facilitates the functioning of your mind (and helps to avoid damages in the other body functions).
The only thing you need is body consciousness to be able to recognize that your heart beat is disordered, you are feeling anxious, and so on. When you already identified, which of your body part is contracted, the very first thing I suggest you to do is to breathe consciously into that part of the body, and release the tension. Just as you learned it during your yoga practice.

by Fanni Szintai-Major (Life Mentor)