Tag: subconscious mind

Sorting Through Suffering–Is your subconscious talking?

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I recently offered a workshop: Self Healing through Yoga. Two weeks before the workshop, I got extremely stressed. At one point, I realized what I was doing. I caught my “ego mental voice” worrying about being successful rather than listening to my heart which was clearly saying, “I trust that the people who need to be there will come and they will receive what they need from the workshop.” Repeating negative mental thoughts, together with the pressure to not fail, brought intense stress and unnecessary mental pain into my life all the way up until the workshop.
The workshop went very well.

The following week, however, I had a series of unpleasant events which seemed to culminate in the loss of my wallet. I wondered what was happening to me. I immediately posed this question to my dreams and asked them to help me understand what was I missing.

I looked at the symbolic messages from my dreams and the things that were happening in my life and was finally able to decipher the message my subconscious was trying to send me. I realized that I had not been humble about the success of the workshop. I took most of the credit for myself without recognizing all the support I had from the other teachers at the studio who promoted my workshop, the support of my community who sent good thoughts my way and also the support from the greater force who guided the right people to attend. I didn’t take the time to sit and meditate in gratitude for all the help sent my way.

The day after this realization, I found my wallet. It had been in my house the whole time!

Instead of believing that the universe was playing a trick on me, I believe that my subconscious mind was trying to bring me to a place of awareness that I previously couldn’t see. The loss of my wallet was representing a loss of focused values within myself.

One of the first questions in the workshop that I had just finished teaching was “what needs to be healed”? This is what I really need to heal: I did not need to lose my wallet in order to make up for my lack of humility after the workshop. I needed to forgive myself without needing to punish myself- to be concious of my attitudes and learn from my mistakes.

Through the symbolic interpretation of the messages of my dreams and others events in my life, things started to make more sense. I became very aware of something that was restraining me from being free. I am now more aware of how difficult my subconscious mind can make my reality- even to the point of actually losing my physical things!

There are many types of pain. There is external, internal, that which is brought by others, and that which we bring on ourselves. They are all difficult and they all hurt. But they can also teach things, about life, about limits, about taking care of ourselves and about practicing gratitude.

Perhaps the most complicated of the types of pain is the kind we bring on ourselves- the kind that is so often created by our subconscious mind. Self inflicted pain often shows itself in the form of useless stress and mental turmoil that we so naturally create in our own lives. Fortunately, we always have the option to examine this pain conciously and to grow in the process.

For more information about interpreting your dreams, join us for our next Dream Yoga Workshop.

Spaces are limited and the last workshop was full–you can contact us to reserve your space in advance.

The Subconscious Mind Speaks–Yoga Talks Back

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The subconscious. It’s is a tricky thing to grab a hold of. It speaks to us through dreams, physical sensations, inexplicable associations, vague memories, intuitions and other non-linear, tricky-to-define phenomena. It influences the way we interact with the world, whether we know it or not.

But by directing focused attention of the conscious mind into these phenomena, we can use it as a tool to access the subconscious. We can draw back the curtains and  find out how it is working.

Therapy does this through talking: “What does this experience remind you of? How does it feel in your body when you talk to your boss? What did you dream last night?”

Yoga asana access the subconscious through concentration, breathing and physical movement of blocked lymph and muscle. Regular practice helps to loosen and eventually dissolve blocks in energy in both the body and the mind.

When the subconscious blocks are loosened and the energy of consciousness flows freely, chitta becomes incredibly powerful. Fluid, responsive chitta sees harmony, calmness and safety (Whether I make more money or not, everything will be OK). This feeling makes life a lot easier! Decisions come out of a clearer place than before. You perceive a spaciousness and sense of possibility that was always there, but that your subconscious mind could not recognize, because it was tied up in knots about old things.

Directly out of unblocked chitta flows the ability to respond intelligently and thoughtfully to your life and the world around you. You are thus enabled to use your  mind to make smart, helpful choices, and you avoid getting caught in old patterns and recreating bad dynamics.

Classical Hatha yoga and Vinyasa Flow yoga both offer these benefits, but we are happy to announce the addition of a new here at English Yoga Berlin. On Thursdays, from 16h-17h30, Melina Cinq-Mars will be teaching Hidden Language Yoga.

Hidden Language Yoga is a unique technique created by Swami Sivananda Radha. In Hidden Language Yoga, we practice the physical posture of asana, as well as looking at the symbolic meaning behind the posture´s concept. It is a reflective yoga class that
requires a journal and pen to take note of what the body has to say, what the mind thinks and what emotions emerge. This gives participants a chance to create space in both the body and mind, space to learn to know one´s self better. Hidden Language can also involve some sharing of insight at the end of the class for the benefit of all.

We hope to see you on the mat!

Yoga and the Subconcious

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Churnings of the Mind: What is Chitta Vritti?

Most people in the West associate yoga with the practice of asana– the well-known postures that yogis contort themselves into. There are many obvious benefits to Asana practice and health benefits of yoga in general: it relaxes and strengthens the muscles, increases flexibility, deepens breathing capacity, helps correct posture and generally supports the health of the spine and rest
of the body.

But the practice of yoga is designed to work on multiple levels. As you are relaxing and strengthening your physical body, the practice of yogic breathing and concentration begins to access the subconscious mind, and thus begin the subtle but powerful emotional and spiritual transformations that yoga students talk about.

The Subconscious and the Monkey
In Yogic philosophy, human suffering originates in ´chitta vritti´, which roughly translates as ´the churnings of the mind´. Mental or cognitive energy was understood by ancient yogis to be an incredibly powerful force, but one that can cause deep habits. These habits can often distort reality.

These habits move from the conscious mind : “I smoke joints on the weekends, because I enjoy it and it feels good”, into the subconscious mind: “If I don´t smoke a joint at night, I get anxious and can´t sleep.” In the subconscious mind, thoughts can become inaccessible, entrenched and sometimes unhealthy.

Obsessional or addictive thinking, unquestioned likes/dislikes, unhelpful attachments and negative thinking are all symptoms of the subconscious contorting itself into specific forms and then being unable to return to its original fluid, responsive state. As our thoughts jump from topic to topic or branch to branch, much like a monkey, it is easy to become misdirected, confused and overwhelmed.

This is where hatha yoga and vinyasa flow yoga comes in. These classes and our new Hidden Language Yoga class are all designed to help discover the power of the subconscious mind so that we can ultimately use it for good in our lives and in the world.