Yoga: Are we missing the point?

7/6/2017

Lindsay M. Adler, LMFT, CEDS, E-RYT 200

Picture this:

You decide to take your first yoga class. You walk in, set your mat down, and take a look around. Almost all the students (mostly female) are wearing the newest Lululemon pants. Many students are practicing reaching their foot to the back of their head, even before class begins.

The instructor arrives and keeps telling you to push yourself. Everyone around you is huffing and puffing trying to jump from one pose to the next. When the instructor asks everyone to try an arm balance, you freak out because somehow everyone just easily jumps from having their feet on the ground, to having their feet dangling in the air while they are balancing on their hands.

And when you are finally done with all that bouncing around, you lie in savasana (AKA corpse pose) but feel that your mind can’t stop thinking about how awkward you feel and you start to judge yourself for not being able to balance on your hands. Worse still, you aren’t really sure how to let go of these thoughts and your instructor has left the room so you can lie in this pose for as long as you like.

How do you imagine you might feel after taking a yoga class like this? Would you feel calm, relaxed, centered, and connected with your body? Most importantly, would you feel compassionate towards yourself and would your nervous system feel at peace?

This kind of scenario has become all too common as yoga has become popularized in the United States.

Today, the problem is that yoga has turned from an emotional and often spiritual practice based on physical movements and conscious control of one’s breath to a practice based on image, commercialization, social class and physical eliteness.

What is yoga?

Yoga has had many different purposes in the thousands of years it has been in existence. Overall, yoga has always been intended to be a practice that unites the mind and body. Yoga actually means to “yoke”.

People often erroneously think that yoga is a religious practice or even just a “workout” when in fact it is neither. Yoga is a practice where one learns to integrate mind and body states, experiences and sensations through the use of movement and controlled breathing. Simplified, yoga is a type of moving meditation.

People often associate yoga with individuals bending and twisting into pretzels; however the real emphasis of yoga is not about how far one bends, stretches or twists. Yoga is about connecting with one’s body and mind. When practicing yoga, one’s intention should then be about increasing internal awareness with the hope that less attention is paid to what one looks like and instead is focused on how one feels in one’s mind and body. Through this process, yoga can help someone let go of negative and competitive thoughts.

There are various benefits to practicing yoga. Yoga poses or asanas stretch and strengthen the entire body, leaving you feeling relaxed, calm and at ease. Physically, it lowers blood pressure, can reduce risk of heart disease, increases blood and oxygen flow to your vital organs, and reduces chronic body pain. Psychologically, yoga is often encouraged for those struggling with mental health issues such as eating disorders, depression and anxiety. This is because yoga can reduces stress, help someone learn new ways to coping and increase heart rate variability.

Yoga meets our society

Have you seen the magazine Yoga Journal? Yoga Journal is a great example of how yoga has become popularized in our society. With that popularization, yoga has shifted away from a physical, emotional and often spiritual practice to a Westernized symbol of affluence and physical perfection.

In our westernized society, yoga is a symbol of affluence. What do I mean by this? Take a look through Yoga Journal and you can see. Yoga has become the “in” thing to do. This means all of the celebrities do it and of course when you see these celebrities “practicing” yoga, they always have the newest most expensive yoga clothing, are stick thin and decked out with makeup—all of which are not related to what yoga philosophy teaches us.

As the “in” thing, yoga is mostly accessible via private yoga studios and gyms. All of which require a student to buy a membership or purchase classes. Other options for practicing yoga include videos (via DVD, online streaming or Youtube), donation classes and city recreation programs that have classes at a reduced fee. Overall, in most cases someone has to pay to learn yoga, meaning someone has to have extra money lying around to pay for these classes. So, if you are struggling to put food on the table or pay your rent, you likely aren’t going to be able to afford to take yoga classes or simply have the time to practice because you might be working several jobs to make ends meet.

Practicing yoga in our society can also mean students trying to meet physical perfection through being able to jump into a handstand or touch your foot to your head in a backbend. This is perpetuated by media, which emphasizes images of people doing advanced poses.

For example, consider Instagram, where you see photoshopped images of people posing on the beach or type “yoga” into Google imagines and you will get a list of pictures of majestic men and women contorting themselves. Think about how this might affect someone who has a disability or injury. Will they see these images and think they can do yoga?

Changing the face of yoga in our society

We need to shift the way yoga is viewed in our society. Take a look at a few ways we could change the way we see yoga.

Allow yoga to be more available to everyone-despite socioeconomic status. For example, studios could provide more community classes, free classes and donation-based classes.
Shift the focus away from materialism (i.e., clothing or other products) and promote the philosophy of yoga. This means teaching others about the philosophy of yoga. (I plan to discuss the philosophy of yoga in a later blog.)
Media should show people of all shapes, sizes and ethnic backgrounds practicing yoga and, practicing more than the physical yoga practice.
As much as someone focuses on teaching the physical practice, they should also be teaching the other aspects of yoga beyond the physical practice. This does not mean a teacher can’t teach the physical practice, a good teacher can integrate the emotional and psychological components of the practice with the physical practice. Go beyond teaching Power yoga, how much you sweat, strengthen or stretch the body. For example, when I teach a physical practice, I try to make sure I introduce to the student ways they can understand their nervous system through the movements they make. This way, they can understand how to have their practice be a part of coping with stressors.
Teachers can create a culture in their classes of non-competition and non-materialism. This might mean slowing down the practice to help people understand the mind-body connection yoga brings and reduce the emphasis on jumping from pose to pose.
Studios can offer classes of all types, not just Vinyasa or Power yoga but restorative yoga, therapeutic yoga, yin yoga and much more. This will give students the opportunity to see other sides of yoga beyond the “workout”. It can also provide people who have injuries or disabilities a place to practice.

Yoga is inherently good!

Yoga is essentially good. Yoga is not the problem. The food, diet, fitness and fashion industry is what has shifted the meaning of yoga to something more superficial, materialistic and commercialized. I have heard individuals tell me they were turned away from yoga because they felt intimidated by the practice, which is disheartening to hear. My intention of writing this blog is not to discourage people from trying yoga or practicing yoga.

My intention is to bring us (including myself- I am not immune to society’s messages) back to what is really important and the reason for practicing yoga-AKA the intention of practicing.

Finding a healthy intention for practicing yoga is important. Think about why you are practicing. What do you hope to achieve beyond physical benefits? Sometimes it takes finding the right teacher or class that will help you develop healthy intentions for practicing. I suggest trying all types of yoga and various teachers. And, while taking classes and thereafter, notice any thoughts and feelings which arise after the practice. Use this information to inform you about whether the class or teacher was a healthy fit for you and if it was healthy, what emotional or psychological components can you work on from the practice. Meaning, even if a teacher focuses on integrating physical and psychological benefits of yoga in the class and being non-competitive, it doesn’t mean you might not still struggle with competitive or negative thoughts about yourself. In that case, allow the practice to be a place to reduce these psychological states. And as one of my teachers always said, most importantly, enjoy the journey.