“See every difficulty as a challenge, a stepping stone, and never be defeated by anything or anyone.” – Eileen Caddy
In yoga, the asana Virasana (Hero pose), means ´hero´ or ´warrior´.
This asana encourages the opening and expanding of the chest to create and increase deep breathing; this helps to connect yin and yang energy in the body which connects the energies of our upper and lower bodies as one.
Deep, conscious breathing is the easiest and fastest way to calm down the nervous system and activate our parasympathetic nervous system that induces relaxation, peace and harmony. From moment to moment, our mind and body is literally altering and reorganising itself based on our thoughts and actions.
Your body communicates its wisdom to you through energy whilst your brain communicates its wisdom through consciousness. For this reason, yoga is the perfect practise for mind – body communication as each movement creates greater flow of energy in that area and throughout the body whilst using our consciousness to focus our attention and breathing in unison with each careful movement of the body. Therefore, our physiology becomes our psychology.
To begin, kneel on your knees in an upright position with knees close together; slowly lower yourself to sitting position with our buttocks touching the floor (buttocks on floor helps ground us like a tree taking root); rest our hands, palms down on our thighs or lift arms in front to shoulder level with palms facing us, clasp hands together, turn inside out and lift over the top of our head. Be careful not to lean back and keep our hips forward.
In this asana, we can feel ourselves grounded and rooted by being in a kneeling position which helps circulation of blood flow to the feet and buttocks on the ground to connect to mother earth like a tree taking root. Storms make trees grow deeper roots. That is the philosophy behind this asana. By becoming grounded, we can imagine this process as starting to come to terms and accept current conditions in our life; acceptance isn´t passivity, acceptance helps us to let go of resistance to what has already happened in the past so that we can outgrow the problem or situation, as Carl Jung thought that problems can´t be solved only outgrown for our evolution.
The deep conscious breathing which is expanding the chest and heart area is helping to cultivate resilience through our own personal storm as well as helping our consciousness regain clarity under these new circumstances by focusing the mind on our breathing, it is opening the mind´s portals to all possibilities and a boundless existence where the soul´s wisdom can be more easily heard and felt in mind and body through consciousness and energy. By lifting our arms and hands above our head, it is like a symbol of standing in our truth and authenticity where we can kneel grounded and breathe deeply and consciously into this truth no matter what the outside circumstances look like or no matter what others are saying or doing to us. This helps to create flexibility in mind and body to cope with adversity and become adaptable whilst also remaining true to you.
The hero pose will literally take you from being a worrier to becoming a warrior in your life. Try it and see what this pose means for you and how it helps you become a hero and warrior in your own and other people´s lives. What changes happen for you in the inside and do you see these changes also manifest in your outer world reality too?
Quick energy tip: When stretched for time and feeling disconnected from yourself or life, use the ´hook-up´ energy technique from Donna Eden, energy healer and pioneer. Place a finger in your belly button and push gently upwards whilst with the other hand use a finger to push the skin up where your third eye is between your eyebrow points. Believe it or not this is a quick and effective way to get your energy up and connect your yin and yang energy points together so energy flows easily throughout the entire body; this is a quick pick-me-up whenever you are on the go or have missed a yoga session.
Rainbow in my clouds is a blog sharing knowledge and research from psychology for self-development, reminding us all to practice kindness and compassion, keep smiling and live in gratitude no matter what our current situation is: this will help us to enjoy the good times and help see us through the bad times. Many blessings!!!
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
—Albert Einstein
