Week 2: Breath

Week 2: Breath
Our theme for week 2 is breath and the related phenomena of movement, transformation, and vitality. The term in yoga that contains these elements and is central to its practice, is prana. A Sanskrit word, prana is most commonly translated as “life force” or the underlying energy of life. Prana is the energy, or force, that is the source of the movement, vitality, and transformation we observe in all of life.
In yoga, breath is considered the physical link to prana. Or, said another way, breath is our physical tool for working with prana. It is our mechanism for creating movement, increasing vitality, and enhancing transformation in our lives. It is a tool for preserving and enriching life force.

Week 2 Yoga:This week in our yoga practice we will bring our awareness to how breath itself moves and to how it helps to move the body. We will observe how the movement of breath changes and transforms what is happening in our bodies. We will notice how breath is the key to our vitality, our life force.

Off the mat we will take a look at how learning to breathe – metaphorically speaking – can transform what is happening in our lives. Notice when you are your holding your breath. Experiment with bringing breath to situations you have been unable to transform. This week we will feel where our life challenges are and learn how to breathe in challenging circumstances.

To Ponder …
In what situation or relationship am I so tense that I am squeezing the breath out of it, unable to create any movement toward transformation or resolution?
How much vitality and life force do I bring to my daily life?

Week 2 Meditation:
Some people see meditation as a time to use the mind to do inner excavation. Actually meditation is not a time to explore how our mind and psyche are functioning. Rather, it's a time to disengage from that habitual mode of mental functioning. It's a time to leave the psychological self alone, leave the mind alone, and rest into an entirely new way of being. That way of being is right there for all of us, just below the surface. With a little practice, the simple, elegant meditation that we are doing offers immediate access. The usual modes of observation and analysis further obscure it. This week, rest into your mediations twice daily. Are you ready for 10 minutes each sitting?

Week 2 Diet:
The nutritional equivalent of Vitality is Fresh Food ... Food that comes directly from the earth. The further removed our food is from its source, the less it has retained its nutritional value or prana.With regard to diet, this week we take a look at the vitality of our food. Is our diet alive with prana and supporting our vitality? Start making changes in your diet to eliminate foods that have no life in them, and eat only foods that are vital and life supporting.

Diet To-Do* Make fresh, whole foods the focus of your diet this week.
* Incorporate whole fruits, vegetables, and whole grains into your diet.
* Did you know there are more than 10 different whole grains? How many have you tried? Brown Rice, Millet, Wheat or Bulgar, Quinoa, Barley, Whole Oats...
* Avoid white sugar, highly processed foods, and flour products (or an excess of all flour products).
* Begin to be aware of how much animal food you are eating (meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs).
* Begin to give thanks for your food.
* Chew chew chew.
* Avoid eating out of instinct, instead make choices that will support your vitality.
* Plan where your next meal is coming from. Plan 3 meals and 2 power snacks each day.

Quotes
"The antidote to exhaustion is not rest, the antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness..." David Whyte

“You know that our breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air. The organ that serves for this is the lungs that lie round the heart, so that the air passing through them thereby envelops the heart. Thus breathing is a natural way to the heart. And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart and, together with this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the heart and to remain there.” Nicephorus the Solitary