Shamanic Yoga and Healing
There is something so magical about how nature goes through its cycles in order to continually rise again. Leaves fall, plants break through from the earth to reach the sun, buds open, and the rivers surge past the old banks after big storms to expand into their new flow. Nature has its own rhythm and cycles for bringing balance, and our duty is to sync up our natural rhythms with hers to bring greater balance and overall wellbeing for all. In Shamanic Yoga students are empowered to do their own personal healing work for the greater community. It differs from the notion of yoga as therapy, which is considered to be care that we give to an individual patient for his or her disorder or disease. Here, the intention for the healing is to return each person to his or her inherent wholeness and natural rhythm.
Yoga as healing work begins with the teacher seeing the student in their highest state. Seeing ourselves in each other is the notion that there is no separation. Dr. Stanley Hew Len demonstrated this in the Hawaii State Hospital, more than thirty years ago, with mentally ill criminals who had committed extremely serious crimes. He sat with each criminal’s file, practiced the process of Ho’oponopono (I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you) and, as a result, the rate of recidivism was decreased. He believed he was working on himself as much as he was working on them. When we allow ourselves to step into this, knowing that the work we do is for the collective, the back door of sameness opens up and softness arises.
Yoga asana, pranayama, mantra, mudra, japa, meditation, storytelling, and active prayer are techniques used to call each of us back home to this remembrance that we are enough. The physical body is the layer between our connection to the earth, the atmosphere, our everyday interactions and our inner experience. By anchoring into the earth and setting our roots down, we arrive into our bodies, allowing the spiritual experience to begin with simply being there in this form of embodiment. This simple practice is a reminder to source from that which is stable (the earth, the mountains, nature) and then stay plugged into your center–“still-point”. Setting a strong beginning, where the space is one that is settled and deeply grounded, stabilizes students for the session and allows opening beyond time and space, form and formless.
The healing work during this practice is steadily integrated through each session. Active prayer is used to set an intention, at the beginning, for the group or individual, knowing we are working in co-creation towards one’s highest destiny or the highest good. Space is then held for releasing that which is no longer serving, removing fears and limits, and transforming heavy energy to light. As the teachings are woven in, clearing practices, such as breath work and movement, are used to unblock any locked areas so we are no longer pulled back, but can move forward. As we begin to do this clearing, we step into a lighter and luminous field of awareness. Each person is strongly encouraged to navigate and find clearing practices that work for him or her. This method has no fixed way and truly follows the premise that everyone comes with unique wisdom and that we are here to remember the medicine that works for us.
To fully reconnect to our vitality sometimes means calling parts of our deepest self back home, gathering our soul pieces that we may have lost. At times, when one experiences an emotional or physical trauma, a part of one’s soul (our vitality, our essence) flees the body in order to survive the experience. It is how we survive pain and is a survival mechanism. Returning to the light is a welcoming back home to our heart and a trusting in the process for a greater vision of peace. Through the practice, moving beyond time and space, students may journey to forgotten places and gather lost parts. This may occur through storytelling, movement and music, meditation or song. Yoga as healing provides opportunity for each one of us to open up fully to love, radically forgive and soar deeply into our destiny. It is an opportunity for each of us to be active in our own healing process, knowing the work we do is for our children, our children’s children and for all of our ancestors.
Melissa Donohoe