Awareness AND expression
Yoga helps us to relax into ourselves, to sink into our bodies and allow the chattering
in our heads to subside. It takes our bodies from having our ‘head in the clouds’
to being on the ground - or "grounded". As our internal dialogue slows we can begin
to get a more whole sense of ourselves, giving us perspective on our busyness. This
deeper bodily awareness is the important and satisfying experience of yoga. However,
this alone will not reach or change the deep imprints of our life‘s experience that
is etched in our bodies. Thus soon after a yoga session we can return to how we
were before the session.
Body Psychotherapy says that this awareness AND EXPRESSION from our bodies are both
needed to fully connect to, understand and process our experience. This frees up
our bodies, and minds, to remain grounded and connected in our daily lives and not
just during a yoga session.
Tension from restrictive messages
Our body literally is our unconscious mind but she does not speak in words, she
speaks
through tension. We have constrictions and blockages in our bodies where our body
is ‘overcharged‘. This charge is held in place by restrictive messages we developed
early in life. We can also have limp or dead areas of our body. This is called ‘deleted
behaviour’, where our body deadens itself so as not to repeat the restricted behaviour.
These restrictive messages are called ‘toxic introjects‘. They block the natural
impulses in our bodies to reach out and achieve satisfaction. They achieve this
through our experience of anxiety as we approach the forbidden actions and our "shoulds"
and "should nots".
This stops us getting our needs met and increases self-alienation. If the blocks
are strong, the energy we normally use to speak out can turn into self attacking
or resignation. They are about a need to maintain control, captured in the phrase
"don’t lose your head", and can be the basis of tension headaches.
Hear the body speak
But we have to be able to hear our bodies rather than demanding she speak or tell
her what she is saying without listening. Arnie Mindell, a body psychotherapist,
said: "Once the abandoned self in the body has been touched by listening and caring
for it, the body awakens and acts like a partner of consciousness." When our body
speaks it comes in involuntary movement, feeling, image and metaphor and is an expression
of our whole personality - conscious and unconscious. We hear the restrictive messages,
the ‘shoulds‘.
Express from the body
The heart’s primary channel of communication is through the throat and mouth. When
we express these 'shoulds' with bodily connection to the feelings we find the unmet
needs behind them. This unblocks the constrictions and puts life back into the dead
areas of our bodies. 
We speak ‘from the heart’. This allows our past to become present,
clearing space for a new future. When we are not connected bodily someone ‘speaks
off the top of his head’ or ‘out of his hat.’
This helps us make the transition between being ‘hung up’ or tense and being on
solid ground or ‘grounded’ for the long term. In the transition is the anxiety of
letting go of the ‘shoulds‘ - a bit like humpty dumpty thinking the cracking of
his shell is the end of him when it actually reveals a new identity.
This journey takes some time but each step gives us invaluable insights. We use
yoga to familiarise with the grounded state, we learn to listen to our bodies, hear
and express the restrictions, allow the needs behind them to be felt, and free ourselves
strand by strand of the restrictions in our lives.
The Class
Participants engage in a yoga class that will involve therapeutic dialogue - with
each person able to set the limits of their own external dialogue - in a safe and
confidential environment.
The sessions benefit:
- yoga teachers and practitioners who want to add an extra dimension
to their practise.
- Psychotherapists/counsellors looking to know how the body can inform their practice
- part of Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
- Those who just wish to know more about themselves.