December 6, 2023 • 33 mins
In this solo discussion episode, we'll explore the three intertwined modes that constitute our very existence, the Gunas. This enlightening discussion will offer a fresh perspective on the intense sensations and fluctuations experienced in a yin practice, allowing you to cultivate a deeper understanding of your own nature.
But we don't stop at the yoga mat. Imagine applying these timeless lessons to your everyday life - finding meaning in the changing seasons, and adopting an attitude of curiosity and joy instead of fixating on a particular state or rejecting others. Fascinating, isn't it? We also delve into the intriguing biological component of this experience, using the stress-strain curve of connective tissues as an analogy.
For those among us grappling with pain, we offer a unique perspective on its understanding and a potential path to alleviate it. So, if you're curious about how ancient philosophy intertwines with contemporary yoga and life, join us on this journey of discovery.
Get your FREE Practice Gallery Workbook: https://yoga.mandyryle.com/greatest-hits-practice-gallery-gallery-workbook/
Ready to apply your practice to healing your pain issue? Schedule a FREE discovery call to chat about your options: https://yoga.mandyryle.com/appointments/
But we don't stop at the yoga mat. Imagine applying these timeless lessons to your everyday life - finding meaning in the changing seasons, and adopting an attitude of curiosity and joy instead of fixating on a particular state or rejecting others. Fascinating, isn't it? We also delve into the intriguing biological component of this experience, using the stress-strain curve of connective tissues as an analogy.
For those among us grappling with pain, we offer a unique perspective on its understanding and a potential path to alleviate it. So, if you're curious about how ancient philosophy intertwines with contemporary yoga and life, join us on this journey of discovery.
Get your FREE Practice Gallery Workbook: https://yoga.mandyryle.com/greatest-hits-practice-gallery-gallery-workbook/
Ready to apply your practice to healing your pain issue? Schedule a FREE discovery call to chat about your options: https://yoga.mandyryle.com/appointments/
Transformational Self Care
A Late Winter Wellness Retreat in the Dominican Republic
March 3-10, 2023
Join me for a 7 day Caribbean wellness retreat. Each day we will focus on a pillar of self care. By the end of the week you will have a group of new friends, some unforgettable memories and a personal self care strategy to enhance your life back at home. Learn More
Let's connect! Follow me on:
Facebook
Instagram
TicToc
YouTube
Free Resources:
Master the Yin Yoga Pose Repertoire: 7 Day Email Course
Introduction to Pain Care Yoga
Practice Gallery Workbook - 6 go to sequences with pictorial instructions
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever wondered why those long holds in
your yin poses can feel sointense?
Wondered how your pose could beblissfully perfect one moment
and then nearly untenable in thenext?
Do you wonder if it's just youhaving this experience or if
(00:21):
this is normal?
In today's episode, we'll beexploring some concepts from
Yoga Philosophy to answer thesequestions and more.
I'm excited to connect the dotsbetween your physical, mental
and energetic experience in yourpractice, and I think that you
(00:43):
will find that this will makeyour practice even sweeter and
more productive.
Welcome to the YIN Yoga Podcast.
I'm your host, mandy Ryle, anexperienced yoga teacher,
strength and conditioningspecialist and nutrition coach,
empowering individualschallenged by persistent pain to
(01:06):
reclaim their vitality andindependence.
Yoga, and YIN especially, are abig part of how I help my
students and clients, so comealong with me to learn about how
you can leverage your practicetoward vibrant health and
well-being.
Before we get started today, Iwant to let you know how much I
(01:30):
appreciate you being a listenerto the YIN Yoga Podcast.
This episode is the last one ofseason four.
I'll be taking a break over theholidays, but I will be back in
January with some really bignews, so we're all so busy this
(01:52):
time of year, myself included.
That's why I'm taking a breakthis year.
I know that it can be achallenge to fit in a full hour
of practice, and I so appreciatehow many of you do that every
single week.
But in order to help you out,this holiday season, I'm doing
(02:14):
something that I've neveractually done before I'm
offering my teaching offlinewith a free practice gallery
workbook.
So this workbook includes sixof my most popular sequences,
which are focused primarily onthe hips and the waist, but I
wanted this to be a reallyuseful resource for you, so I've
(02:34):
also included a couple of shortchair YIN sequences that you
can use if you're at work ortraveling.
One of those chair YINsequences, by the way, is a
little sequence that I usefrequently with my clients who
have neck pain.
So if that's something you'restruggling with, definitely
(02:57):
download this workbook.
It's very easy to follow alongwith the practices.
It's just a gallery of imagesand it sort of step by step
takes you through how thesequence should go, and you can
use the workbook as a standalonepractice guide or, if you'd
prefer, you can actually use thegalleries as a companion to the
(03:20):
podcast, because each of thesequences in the workbook is
actually associated with anepisode from these last four
seasons on the podcast, so it'sa little bit like my greatest
hits.
So I know that when things getbusy or when your routine gets
disrupted, the first thing thathas to go obviously for all of
us, especially as women, is yourself-care, your care for self.
(03:44):
This workbook is my attempt tomake it just a little bit easier
for you to look after your ownphysical and mental well-being
during this busy time.
So, speaking of busyness, let'sdive into our topic for today
the gunas.
(04:04):
On a personal note, I will saythat I love this philosophy
because it gives vocabulary, itgives words to experiences that
we all have in common.
What's amazing about thesephilosophies from ancient yoga
(04:30):
to me is that they describeperfectly our modern struggles,
even though they were conceivedof thousands of years ago, and
to me, there's a little comfortin knowing that people
everywhere, for all time, aresharing some of the same
challenges that I'm strugglingwith.
So did you know that there is aphysical, psychospiritual
(04:54):
correlate to this feeling ofoverwhelm and frenetic activity,
according to yoga philosophy?
And so this busyness isexternal, but I think for a lot
of us practicing yin, thisbusyness is also very much
(05:15):
internal, and so yoga philosophyactually has some answers for
us about what that is and how wemight make harmony with it.
So this philosophy that we'regoing to talk about today
actually comes from the sankya,which is sort of like a
(05:36):
precursor to a lot of the yogaphilosophies, and it is now
present, this philosophy, in allof the schools of Hindu
philosophy, including the danta.
So I'm connecting the dots herefor you from these philosophies
.
So sankya, vedanta, which isreally the foundation of
(05:57):
classical yoga For many of you,you might recognize that as the
yoga of patanjali, right, that'sclassical yoga.
So today we practice amodernized, posture-centric form
of classical yoga, and so it'salmost as if this philosophy is
(06:19):
in the DNA of what we're doingtoday.
It's mostly invisible, but it'salways there.
It is an essential part of whatwe do.
So the Vedanta explains thatthere are three interdependent
modes or qualities of Prakriti.
Okay, I'm going to stop rightthere.
(06:41):
What is Prakriti?
Okay, prakriti is the originalor natural form or condition of
anything, of everything.
It's the fibers that make upour conditional existence.
(07:01):
It's the primary substance ofeverything that is in the world
that you experience.
It makes up your body and allbodies, right?
Not just human bodies, butanimal bodies and insect bodies,
right, it makes up nature, itmakes up the seasons, right?
(07:23):
This is Prakriti.
It is the primary substance ofyour personality and your
thoughts.
And Prakriti is composed ofthese fibers, we could say, and
(07:46):
these fibers are known as thegunas, and there are only three
of them, three qualities thattogether make up all of our
conditional experience.
I know this is deep stuff,right?
So what we have is a universewhich is full of Prakriti, which
(08:10):
is created by these fibers ofqualities, which are the gunas.
So if you have done a yogateacher training, you've
probably heard about the gunas.
But if this concept is new toyou, no worries, I'm going to
keep it very, very simple and,as always, you know, I like to
teach experientially.
(08:31):
So I think that when we kind ofget into what this looks like
in your yin practice, it'll makemore sense.
So if you're feeling a littleoverwhelmed at the moment, no
worries, it's going to get moreclear as we go.
But remember, everything inyour conditional existence is
(08:51):
derived from these threeelements which together
constitute Prakriti.
So the gunas make up everything, which sounds kind of weird
because there's only three ofthem, three interdependent
qualities which, in theirblending and perpetual changing,
(09:16):
make up the world you live inand the way that you experience
it.
So that's important here.
And it's hard, I think, to getyour head around for those of us
who live in the West, right,because we think of these things
as separate.
But in Eastern philosophies, ofcourse, they're not separate.
So the gunas are never static,they're not just set, they're
(09:40):
constantly changing.
One of my favorite modern yogateachers, richard Freeman, says
that the gunas are like rockpaper scissors.
But when I teach thisphilosophy I usually describe
them as a puppy pile.
So think of a litter of cuteand wiggly, fluffy, little
(10:02):
adorable puppies rolling around,right, how they like to pile on
each other, right.
So sometimes one is on the topand then they kind of tussle
around, and then another onegets on top of her and then they
tussle around and they wrestleand then pretty soon those two
are both on the bottom and nowthere's another puppy on top.
(10:24):
So what you see, even in apuppy pile, of course, is that
there's usually a dominant one,right?
They're all sort of movingaround, they're all sort of
exchanging places, as the top,we could say, but there's
usually one that ends up on thetop or more dominant.
More often, the uniqueness ofyou is defined by your guna
(10:50):
constitution.
Okay, so you have all of thegunas in your personality, which
I'm going to explain in asecond, but one is probably a
little bit more dominant.
So another way of thinkingabout the gunas is as energy,
because they are all different.
(11:15):
Each of the three gunas aredifferent, sort of similar to a
concept that we're quitefamiliar with in the yin
practice yin and yang right.
So remember that yin and yangare opposites, but they are also
dependent on one another tomanifest.
Without one, the other simplydoes not exist.
There's not a good one, there'snot a bad one, they just are
(11:40):
and they compete with each other, but they also balance each
other.
So the three gunas, the threegunas very, very simple.
There's only three of them areThomas, rajas and Satva.
So Thomas is the quality ofheaviness and lethargy.
(12:04):
It's dull, it's dense, it'sdark.
In some ways although let's notgo too far with this comparison
it is like yin right.
Note that there are otherqualities associated with Thomas
that I don't think you canassociate with yin, and that
(12:27):
would be things like illusion.
Thomas is associated more withthe feeling of being depressed
or tired.
And Thomas is also the qualityof chaos, of chaos Okay.
(12:50):
So I don't think we can putthose last qualities in the Yin
category, so we're not going totake that analogy too far.
But I just wanted to give yousomething that you could kind of
compare it to in your, in yourcurrent level of understanding.
So Rajas is the opposite, it'sthe opposite of Thomas.
(13:11):
It is the energy of passion,activity, desire.
It's also the, the Gunaassociated with sorrow, with
anxiety.
It is the Guna that isassociated with egotism, it's
(13:35):
the Guna that is dominant whenwe have like we just talked
about that busyness, whetherit's external or internal.
So Rajas, just like Thomas, isnot good or bad.
It simply is.
When there's too much of it,things not so great.
(13:56):
Same with Thomas Too much, notso great, right amount, fine,
neither good nor bad.
And then, finally, this thirdquality is Satva.
Satva is harmony, it's balance,it's perfect.
Satva is knowledge, it'shappiness, and I always like to
(14:21):
break it down even more to theroot of the words.
Satva, which is Sat.
Sat means truth, or that whichis unchanging, that which has
always been and will always beexactly the same.
That is Satva.
(14:42):
Now, as you're listening to this.
I wouldn't blame you if you'rethinking oh yeah, satva, that's
what I need.
I need more Satva, I should bemore Satvik.
I hope she tells me how to bemore Satvik, but unfortunately,
that's not the way the gunaswork.
Remember, they're changing allthe time, like a puppy pile due
(15:03):
to their own whim and seemingrandomness.
They are constantly shaping,altering our moment to moment
experience within our existence.
(15:23):
And what this philosophy tellsus is not that we're doing
something wrong because we'vegot too much Rajas.
What it tells us, actually, isthat it is not our job to cling
to a certain state or to rejectit, but to learn to accept, to
learn to, to practice Santosh,to practice being content,
(15:50):
regardless of the direction thatthe gunas send us.
Because it's not the excessiveRajas that brings us our
suffering, it is our resistanceto it, it is our trying to shape
something which is inherentlyunshapeable.
Right, you can't control thatpuppy pile and you can't really
control the gunas.
(16:11):
And so when I talk about yogaphilosophy, I want to let you
know that I love thesephilosophies and that they are
extremely important, not just tohow I teach and practice, but
also to how I live.
But I also want to let you knowthat, to me, these are a model.
To me, they are a useful,comforting model which helps to
(16:38):
give me a sense of direction, tofeel understood, to feel a part
of the entire human condition.
Right, I don't personallybelieve that there are these
fibers that create existence,but I wanted to put that in
(16:59):
there in case you're getting alittle squeamish if these things
seem to conflict with some ofyour other beliefs.
They could be a belief, theycould be a model, they could be
somewhere in between.
The choice is yours how to usethese philosophies.
It is 100% yours.
(17:19):
There's no way, no perfect wayto conceptualize these.
Okay, so let me help you seehow this model, these gunas,
manifest in your yin practice.
To give you a little bit ofcontext, so imagine you're in
(17:42):
your practice and you have yourprops all around you, and the
next pose is caterpillar.
So that's the pose.
That's a lot likebasjimottanasana, right?
It's the pose where you'reseated with your legs out in
front of you and you roundforward for a period of time,
(18:05):
and let's just say, for thepurposes of this example, that
you have supported yourself withmaybe like a bolster ramp
between the thighs, and so, asyou round forward.
You're feeling very supportedand yet there's also some
sensation in the back and in theback of the legs, maybe your
(18:27):
butt, if you got kind of atighter glute area.
And so you settle into thissupported pose and in those
first moments maybe it's alittle bit something, but the
more you settle, the more lovelyit becomes, the more pleasant.
(18:49):
We could say.
It's satvic, right, you'reperfectly poised on these props
for this really beautifulpresent moment, experience of
your body and you can feel yourbody, but there's nothing that
is uncomfortable.
And then, as you hold for alittle while, you might begin to
(19:17):
notice that things get a littlemore intense, right, and the
intensity feels like maybe arestlessness.
It feels like should I come outof this?
The sensations are gettingbigger and your mind is going
(19:40):
faster, trying to contextualizewhat you're experiencing.
And then maybe you move for amoment and you adjust your props
and you settle back in andsuddenly you're just there and
you feel so heavy, you feel sodense, so settled, almost tired,
(20:03):
sleepy, so just like that wewent from Satva to Rajas, to
Thomas, right, you're feeling alittle sleepy, and then that
sleepiness just becomes thisbeautiful floating feeling that
you have and as you're sort offloating and enjoying again in a
(20:26):
little brief moment of Satva,you start to think, wow, this is
great, I love this, this isawesome.
I should do this every day.
Why don't I do this every day?
This is the practice I shouldbe doing every day.
So then Satva becomes Rajasright, and so what we have is
(20:50):
the gunas manifesting themselvesover and over and over in our
puppy pile, even within a singlepose.
We've all experienced thisright and the directions are to
remain still for a time, and theteacher is perhaps encouraging
you to be still, and yet you'reanything, but still, anything
(21:14):
but still.
As this pose is ripening, thegunas are expressing themselves.
And even though we think I mustbe virtuous and still and calm
if we acknowledge the gunas, wehave to acknowledge also that
that's impossible, that ourexperience is ever changing,
(21:39):
ever changing.
Interestingly, I think thatthere is a biological component
to this ripening experience, atissue behavior which is
occurring within you, which isinforming the experience that
you're having in your body andyour nervous system and your
(22:02):
mind, and this biologicalexperience, I think, is related
to the stress strain curve ofconnective tissue.
So I'm not going to go intothat, that's too much for today
and it's way beyond the scope ofthis particular episode.
But if you would like to putthis philosophy with the
(22:24):
biological component of theexperience, I definitely
recommend that next you listento my episode Understanding Yin
Yoga and Fascia.
I think that'll really roundout your understanding of this
and I think that would be areally, really lovely way to
show up to your practice nexttime.
(22:44):
So let's imagine this experienceof observing the natural ebb
and flow.
So instead of wanting to clingto the sattva or cling to the
thomas in your pose andrejecting that busyness and the
frenetic activity and therestlessness, instead we'll just
(23:07):
imagine that you're observingit.
So you're in your pose and thegunas are puppy piling and
changing and transforming yourexperience moment by moment.
And instead of fighting it, youdecide to be curious.
Curious about the gunas,curious about the behavior of
(23:30):
your tissues and how thebehavior of your tissue's, via
the nervous system it lists.
It's an emotion.
Right, you start to get to thatkind of tight spot, gets a
little intense.
There's an emotion with that.
It could be one of a milliondifferent things in a single yin
(23:52):
class with a group of people.
Each person will be havingtheir own emotional association
with the sensation that they'reexperiencing right.
And then from an emotion,seamlessly, comes a thought and
from a thought a reaction.
Maybe you'll shift around,maybe you'll move your props,
(24:12):
maybe you'll go deeper.
It's contextual, right.
So let's imagine thatexperience instead of fighting
it or clinging.
We're curious and imagine thatcuriosity is suffused with joy.
The curiosity is suffused withjoy in your ability to observe
(24:41):
the gunas in the body.
So, as you know, to me yin isnot about stretching, it's not
about stressing tissues, it'snot about harmonizing key, and I
spent many, many yearsapologizing for that.
And strangely, as I've beendoing this podcast and I get to
talk to the people for whom thisis the point of yin, I feel
(25:05):
more comfortable now being who Iam, because I know that there
are really really great teachersout there who can teach you how
to stress your tissues andharmonize key.
But that's just not me, right?
So, definitely, I don't thinkthat that approach is wrong.
It's just not why I do yin andit's also not why most of my
(25:27):
pain care coaching clientsreceive yin in their programs.
Contrary to popular belief, Idon't add yin to a client's
program to stretch them out orto improve flexibility or range
of motion.
To me, yin is about awareness,deep, profound learning at a
(25:50):
cellular level, at asubconscious level, and we have
all experienced how the learningwe do on the mat is
effortlessly applied in ourlives, right.
A situation that we may havereacted to in the past.
We can just move through withso much grace and equanimity and
(26:11):
when we look back we realizehow beautifully we navigated it.
And it's not because we had tothink through it this is how I
should do it it's because we'vepracticed so much.
It's so many times on the mat.
We have experienced that deep,cellular, subconscious learning,
and so I think a good way toconsider how this model and what
(26:32):
we learn in our practice can beapplied to our lives is to
consider the seasons.
So, as I am recording this,we're moving into the fall
season, right.
Things sort of look likethey're dying, everything is
getting brown, it's cold, it'sdark, right.
(26:55):
So this would be this season,really, of Thomas, this lethargy
sleeping.
And for me personally I grew upin Texas, I now live in the
Northern Midwest and I havenever adapted to this season.
I despise it.
I want it to be summer all thetime.
(27:18):
So this is an example ofresisting right Of this natural
occurrence of Thomas and we caneither accept with joy or we can
resist.
And then, after the fall, wehave the winter, which is still
a very deep form of Thomas, Iwould say personally, but this
(27:41):
is based on my own bias andafter the winter, we have the
beautiful spring.
The spring is maybe a littlesuffused with satva.
It's perfect, it's harmonious.
Things are growing, birds aresinging, trees are blooming.
It's just harmony.
(28:03):
It is the natural cycle ofgrowth, and this cycle of growth
would not have been possible,by the way, without Thomas,
without everything going toground and developing and
expanding below the earth.
And from spring, in this satvikseason, we have summer, and to
(28:27):
me, summer is Rajas.
It is frenetic activity.
Things are growing, growing,growing.
As we move toward the end ofsummer we have like this, almost
like Rajas on steroids right,all of your plants get really
leggy, they're sort offrenetically growing.
It's not even healthy anymore.
(28:47):
And so, even though all of us inour life would probably always
prefer to be in a season ofRajas growing, moving, I think
what we can take from theseasons is that that's not how
it's supposed to be.
(29:08):
We're not always supposed togrow.
Sometimes we're supposed torest, we're supposed to
regenerate, we're supposed toregroup, and I find that so
charming.
I find this philosophy socharming and compassionate and
kind, because what it tells usis that we are not to fight it,
(29:35):
but to accept it, to enjoy it,to be content with it.
That is where we find harmony.
That is where we find harmonyin our practice and in our lives
.
I use this philosophy with mostof my pain care coaching clients
.
So I'll give you anotherexample of how the gunas show up
(29:58):
in our lives.
So when we can reframe ourbody's sensations, even the
unpleasant ones, as the naturalexpression of our constituent
energies, we can begin tounravel our distress from
certain sensations.
So to me and many of my clients, they would designate that
(30:20):
experience of pain as Rajas it'stoo much, it's frantic, it's
restless, it's get me the hellout of here, right?
And then often pain can also bethat feeling of Thomas, of
heaviness.
But also Thomas manifests asthe inability to get motivated,
(30:40):
the inability to really livefully engaged in our lives,
because so much of our life isconsumed by pain.
So when we reframe this, wereframe these sensations as just
Rajas and Thomas.
These are just energies, and wecan dismantle our distress, we
(31:07):
can turn down sensitivityimmensely.
This is a technique that I usevery frequently, so I hope that
this discussion about the gunas,how they show up in your
practice, how they show up innature, how they show up in your
life has been useful.
If you are interested inlearning how you can apply your
(31:33):
practice, your philosophy, tohealing your pain issue, I would
love to sit down and chat withyou.
So I will leave a link to mycalendar in the show notes in
case you would like to schedulea free, totally free, 25 minute
discovery call, just so that Ican learn a little bit more
(31:56):
about what's going on with youand I can help you to understand
better what I do and if itmight be of use to you.
And, by the way, that link tomy calendar will be right next
to the link for my free PracticeGallery Workbook link, so be
sure to snap that up while youcan.
(32:17):
Thank you so much for being alistener and I will see you in
2020.
Have you ever wondered why those long holds in
your yin poses can feel sointense?
Wondered how your pose could beblissfully perfect one moment
and then nearly untenable in thenext?
Do you wonder if it's just youhaving this experience or if
(00:21):
this is normal?
In today's episode, we'll beexploring some concepts from
Yoga Philosophy to answer thesequestions and more.
I'm excited to connect the dotsbetween your physical, mental
and energetic experience in yourpractice, and I think that you
(00:43):
will find that this will makeyour practice even sweeter and
more productive.
Welcome to the YIN Yoga Podcast.
I'm your host, mandy Ryle, anexperienced yoga teacher,
strength and conditioningspecialist and nutrition coach,
empowering individualschallenged by persistent pain to
(01:06):
reclaim their vitality andindependence.
Yoga, and YIN especially, are abig part of how I help my
students and clients, so comealong with me to learn about how
you can leverage your practicetoward vibrant health and
well-being.
Before we get started today, Iwant to let you know how much I
(01:30):
appreciate you being a listenerto the YIN Yoga Podcast.
This episode is the last one ofseason four.
I'll be taking a break over theholidays, but I will be back in
January with some really bignews, so we're all so busy this
(01:52):
time of year, myself included.
That's why I'm taking a breakthis year.
I know that it can be achallenge to fit in a full hour
of practice, and I so appreciatehow many of you do that every
single week.
But in order to help you out,this holiday season, I'm doing
(02:14):
something that I've neveractually done before I'm
offering my teaching offlinewith a free practice gallery
workbook.
So this workbook includes sixof my most popular sequences,
which are focused primarily onthe hips and the waist, but I
wanted this to be a reallyuseful resource for you, so I've
(02:34):
also included a couple of shortchair YIN sequences that you
can use if you're at work ortraveling.
One of those chair YINsequences, by the way, is a
little sequence that I usefrequently with my clients who
have neck pain.
So if that's something you'restruggling with, definitely
(02:57):
download this workbook.
It's very easy to follow alongwith the practices.
It's just a gallery of imagesand it sort of step by step
takes you through how thesequence should go, and you can
use the workbook as a standalonepractice guide or, if you'd
prefer, you can actually use thegalleries as a companion to the
(03:20):
podcast, because each of thesequences in the workbook is
actually associated with anepisode from these last four
seasons on the podcast, so it'sa little bit like my greatest
hits.
So I know that when things getbusy or when your routine gets
disrupted, the first thing thathas to go obviously for all of
us, especially as women, is yourself-care, your care for self.
(03:44):
This workbook is my attempt tomake it just a little bit easier
for you to look after your ownphysical and mental well-being
during this busy time.
So, speaking of busyness, let'sdive into our topic for today
the gunas.
(04:04):
On a personal note, I will saythat I love this philosophy
because it gives vocabulary, itgives words to experiences that
we all have in common.
What's amazing about thesephilosophies from ancient yoga
(04:30):
to me is that they describeperfectly our modern struggles,
even though they were conceivedof thousands of years ago, and
to me, there's a little comfortin knowing that people
everywhere, for all time, aresharing some of the same
challenges that I'm strugglingwith.
So did you know that there is aphysical, psychospiritual
(04:54):
correlate to this feeling ofoverwhelm and frenetic activity,
according to yoga philosophy?
And so this busyness isexternal, but I think for a lot
of us practicing yin, thisbusyness is also very much
(05:15):
internal, and so yoga philosophyactually has some answers for
us about what that is and how wemight make harmony with it.
So this philosophy that we'regoing to talk about today
actually comes from the sankya,which is sort of like a
(05:36):
precursor to a lot of the yogaphilosophies, and it is now
present, this philosophy, in allof the schools of Hindu
philosophy, including the danta.
So I'm connecting the dots herefor you from these philosophies
.
So sankya, vedanta, which isreally the foundation of
(05:57):
classical yoga For many of you,you might recognize that as the
yoga of patanjali, right, that'sclassical yoga.
So today we practice amodernized, posture-centric form
of classical yoga, and so it'salmost as if this philosophy is
(06:19):
in the DNA of what we're doingtoday.
It's mostly invisible, but it'salways there.
It is an essential part of whatwe do.
So the Vedanta explains thatthere are three interdependent
modes or qualities of Prakriti.
Okay, I'm going to stop rightthere.
(06:41):
What is Prakriti?
Okay, prakriti is the originalor natural form or condition of
anything, of everything.
It's the fibers that make upour conditional existence.
(07:01):
It's the primary substance ofeverything that is in the world
that you experience.
It makes up your body and allbodies, right?
Not just human bodies, butanimal bodies and insect bodies,
right, it makes up nature, itmakes up the seasons, right?
(07:23):
This is Prakriti.
It is the primary substance ofyour personality and your
thoughts.
And Prakriti is composed ofthese fibers, we could say, and
(07:46):
these fibers are known as thegunas, and there are only three
of them, three qualities thattogether make up all of our
conditional experience.
I know this is deep stuff,right?
So what we have is a universewhich is full of Prakriti, which
(08:10):
is created by these fibers ofqualities, which are the gunas.
So if you have done a yogateacher training, you've
probably heard about the gunas.
But if this concept is new toyou, no worries, I'm going to
keep it very, very simple and,as always, you know, I like to
teach experientially.
(08:31):
So I think that when we kind ofget into what this looks like
in your yin practice, it'll makemore sense.
So if you're feeling a littleoverwhelmed at the moment, no
worries, it's going to get moreclear as we go.
But remember, everything inyour conditional existence is
(08:51):
derived from these threeelements which together
constitute Prakriti.
So the gunas make up everything, which sounds kind of weird
because there's only three ofthem, three interdependent
qualities which, in theirblending and perpetual changing,
(09:16):
make up the world you live inand the way that you experience
it.
So that's important here.
And it's hard, I think, to getyour head around for those of us
who live in the West, right,because we think of these things
as separate.
But in Eastern philosophies, ofcourse, they're not separate.
So the gunas are never static,they're not just set, they're
(09:40):
constantly changing.
One of my favorite modern yogateachers, richard Freeman, says
that the gunas are like rockpaper scissors.
But when I teach thisphilosophy I usually describe
them as a puppy pile.
So think of a litter of cuteand wiggly, fluffy, little
(10:02):
adorable puppies rolling around,right, how they like to pile on
each other, right.
So sometimes one is on the topand then they kind of tussle
around, and then another onegets on top of her and then they
tussle around and they wrestleand then pretty soon those two
are both on the bottom and nowthere's another puppy on top.
(10:24):
So what you see, even in apuppy pile, of course, is that
there's usually a dominant one,right?
They're all sort of movingaround, they're all sort of
exchanging places, as the top,we could say, but there's
usually one that ends up on thetop or more dominant.
More often, the uniqueness ofyou is defined by your guna
(10:50):
constitution.
Okay, so you have all of thegunas in your personality, which
I'm going to explain in asecond, but one is probably a
little bit more dominant.
So another way of thinkingabout the gunas is as energy,
because they are all different.
(11:15):
Each of the three gunas aredifferent, sort of similar to a
concept that we're quitefamiliar with in the yin
practice yin and yang right.
So remember that yin and yangare opposites, but they are also
dependent on one another tomanifest.
Without one, the other simplydoes not exist.
There's not a good one, there'snot a bad one, they just are
(11:40):
and they compete with each other, but they also balance each
other.
So the three gunas, the threegunas very, very simple.
There's only three of them areThomas, rajas and Satva.
So Thomas is the quality ofheaviness and lethargy.
(12:04):
It's dull, it's dense, it'sdark.
In some ways although let's notgo too far with this comparison
it is like yin right.
Note that there are otherqualities associated with Thomas
that I don't think you canassociate with yin, and that
(12:27):
would be things like illusion.
Thomas is associated more withthe feeling of being depressed
or tired.
And Thomas is also the qualityof chaos, of chaos Okay.
(12:50):
So I don't think we can putthose last qualities in the Yin
category, so we're not going totake that analogy too far.
But I just wanted to give yousomething that you could kind of
compare it to in your, in yourcurrent level of understanding.
So Rajas is the opposite, it'sthe opposite of Thomas.
(13:11):
It is the energy of passion,activity, desire.
It's also the, the Gunaassociated with sorrow, with
anxiety.
It is the Guna that isassociated with egotism, it's
(13:35):
the Guna that is dominant whenwe have like we just talked
about that busyness, whetherit's external or internal.
So Rajas, just like Thomas, isnot good or bad.
It simply is.
When there's too much of it,things not so great.
(13:56):
Same with Thomas Too much, notso great, right amount, fine,
neither good nor bad.
And then, finally, this thirdquality is Satva.
Satva is harmony, it's balance,it's perfect.
Satva is knowledge, it'shappiness, and I always like to
(14:21):
break it down even more to theroot of the words.
Satva, which is Sat.
Sat means truth, or that whichis unchanging, that which has
always been and will always beexactly the same.
That is Satva.
(14:42):
Now, as you're listening to this.
I wouldn't blame you if you'rethinking oh yeah, satva, that's
what I need.
I need more Satva, I should bemore Satvik.
I hope she tells me how to bemore Satvik, but unfortunately,
that's not the way the gunaswork.
Remember, they're changing allthe time, like a puppy pile due
(15:03):
to their own whim and seemingrandomness.
They are constantly shaping,altering our moment to moment
experience within our existence.
(15:23):
And what this philosophy tellsus is not that we're doing
something wrong because we'vegot too much Rajas.
What it tells us, actually, isthat it is not our job to cling
to a certain state or to rejectit, but to learn to accept, to
learn to, to practice Santosh,to practice being content,
(15:50):
regardless of the direction thatthe gunas send us.
Because it's not the excessiveRajas that brings us our
suffering, it is our resistanceto it, it is our trying to shape
something which is inherentlyunshapeable.
Right, you can't control thatpuppy pile and you can't really
control the gunas.
(16:11):
And so when I talk about yogaphilosophy, I want to let you
know that I love thesephilosophies and that they are
extremely important, not just tohow I teach and practice, but
also to how I live.
But I also want to let you knowthat, to me, these are a model.
To me, they are a useful,comforting model which helps to
(16:38):
give me a sense of direction, tofeel understood, to feel a part
of the entire human condition.
Right, I don't personallybelieve that there are these
fibers that create existence,but I wanted to put that in
(16:59):
there in case you're getting alittle squeamish if these things
seem to conflict with some ofyour other beliefs.
They could be a belief, theycould be a model, they could be
somewhere in between.
The choice is yours how to usethese philosophies.
It is 100% yours.
(17:19):
There's no way, no perfect wayto conceptualize these.
Okay, so let me help you seehow this model, these gunas,
manifest in your yin practice.
To give you a little bit ofcontext, so imagine you're in
(17:42):
your practice and you have yourprops all around you, and the
next pose is caterpillar.
So that's the pose.
That's a lot likebasjimottanasana, right?
It's the pose where you'reseated with your legs out in
front of you and you roundforward for a period of time,
(18:05):
and let's just say, for thepurposes of this example, that
you have supported yourself withmaybe like a bolster ramp
between the thighs, and so, asyou round forward.
You're feeling very supportedand yet there's also some
sensation in the back and in theback of the legs, maybe your
(18:27):
butt, if you got kind of atighter glute area.
And so you settle into thissupported pose and in those
first moments maybe it's alittle bit something, but the
more you settle, the more lovelyit becomes, the more pleasant.
(18:49):
We could say.
It's satvic, right, you'reperfectly poised on these props
for this really beautifulpresent moment, experience of
your body and you can feel yourbody, but there's nothing that
is uncomfortable.
And then, as you hold for alittle while, you might begin to
(19:17):
notice that things get a littlemore intense, right, and the
intensity feels like maybe arestlessness.
It feels like should I come outof this?
The sensations are gettingbigger and your mind is going
(19:40):
faster, trying to contextualizewhat you're experiencing.
And then maybe you move for amoment and you adjust your props
and you settle back in andsuddenly you're just there and
you feel so heavy, you feel sodense, so settled, almost tired,
(20:03):
sleepy, so just like that wewent from Satva to Rajas, to
Thomas, right, you're feeling alittle sleepy, and then that
sleepiness just becomes thisbeautiful floating feeling that
you have and as you're sort offloating and enjoying again in a
(20:26):
little brief moment of Satva,you start to think, wow, this is
great, I love this, this isawesome.
I should do this every day.
Why don't I do this every day?
This is the practice I shouldbe doing every day.
So then Satva becomes Rajasright, and so what we have is
(20:50):
the gunas manifesting themselvesover and over and over in our
puppy pile, even within a singlepose.
We've all experienced thisright and the directions are to
remain still for a time, and theteacher is perhaps encouraging
you to be still, and yet you'reanything, but still, anything
(21:14):
but still.
As this pose is ripening, thegunas are expressing themselves.
And even though we think I mustbe virtuous and still and calm
if we acknowledge the gunas, wehave to acknowledge also that
that's impossible, that ourexperience is ever changing,
(21:39):
ever changing.
Interestingly, I think thatthere is a biological component
to this ripening experience, atissue behavior which is
occurring within you, which isinforming the experience that
you're having in your body andyour nervous system and your
(22:02):
mind, and this biologicalexperience, I think, is related
to the stress strain curve ofconnective tissue.
So I'm not going to go intothat, that's too much for today
and it's way beyond the scope ofthis particular episode.
But if you would like to putthis philosophy with the
(22:24):
biological component of theexperience, I definitely
recommend that next you listento my episode Understanding Yin
Yoga and Fascia.
I think that'll really roundout your understanding of this
and I think that would be areally, really lovely way to
show up to your practice nexttime.
(22:44):
So let's imagine this experienceof observing the natural ebb
and flow.
So instead of wanting to clingto the sattva or cling to the
thomas in your pose andrejecting that busyness and the
frenetic activity and therestlessness, instead we'll just
(23:07):
imagine that you're observingit.
So you're in your pose and thegunas are puppy piling and
changing and transforming yourexperience moment by moment.
And instead of fighting it, youdecide to be curious.
Curious about the gunas,curious about the behavior of
(23:30):
your tissues and how thebehavior of your tissue's, via
the nervous system it lists.
It's an emotion.
Right, you start to get to thatkind of tight spot, gets a
little intense.
There's an emotion with that.
It could be one of a milliondifferent things in a single yin
(23:52):
class with a group of people.
Each person will be havingtheir own emotional association
with the sensation that they'reexperiencing right.
And then from an emotion,seamlessly, comes a thought and
from a thought a reaction.
Maybe you'll shift around,maybe you'll move your props,
(24:12):
maybe you'll go deeper.
It's contextual, right.
So let's imagine thatexperience instead of fighting
it or clinging.
We're curious and imagine thatcuriosity is suffused with joy.
The curiosity is suffused withjoy in your ability to observe
(24:41):
the gunas in the body.
So, as you know, to me yin isnot about stretching, it's not
about stressing tissues, it'snot about harmonizing key, and I
spent many, many yearsapologizing for that.
And strangely, as I've beendoing this podcast and I get to
talk to the people for whom thisis the point of yin, I feel
(25:05):
more comfortable now being who Iam, because I know that there
are really really great teachersout there who can teach you how
to stress your tissues andharmonize key.
But that's just not me, right?
So, definitely, I don't thinkthat that approach is wrong.
It's just not why I do yin andit's also not why most of my
(25:27):
pain care coaching clientsreceive yin in their programs.
Contrary to popular belief, Idon't add yin to a client's
program to stretch them out orto improve flexibility or range
of motion.
To me, yin is about awareness,deep, profound learning at a
(25:50):
cellular level, at asubconscious level, and we have
all experienced how the learningwe do on the mat is
effortlessly applied in ourlives, right.
A situation that we may havereacted to in the past.
We can just move through withso much grace and equanimity and
(26:11):
when we look back we realizehow beautifully we navigated it.
And it's not because we had tothink through it this is how I
should do it it's because we'vepracticed so much.
It's so many times on the mat.
We have experienced that deep,cellular, subconscious learning,
and so I think a good way toconsider how this model and what
(26:32):
we learn in our practice can beapplied to our lives is to
consider the seasons.
So, as I am recording this,we're moving into the fall
season, right.
Things sort of look likethey're dying, everything is
getting brown, it's cold, it'sdark, right.
(26:55):
So this would be this season,really, of Thomas, this lethargy
sleeping.
And for me personally I grew upin Texas, I now live in the
Northern Midwest and I havenever adapted to this season.
I despise it.
I want it to be summer all thetime.
(27:18):
So this is an example ofresisting right Of this natural
occurrence of Thomas and we caneither accept with joy or we can
resist.
And then, after the fall, wehave the winter, which is still
a very deep form of Thomas, Iwould say personally, but this
(27:41):
is based on my own bias andafter the winter, we have the
beautiful spring.
The spring is maybe a littlesuffused with satva.
It's perfect, it's harmonious.
Things are growing, birds aresinging, trees are blooming.
It's just harmony.
(28:03):
It is the natural cycle ofgrowth, and this cycle of growth
would not have been possible,by the way, without Thomas,
without everything going toground and developing and
expanding below the earth.
And from spring, in this satvikseason, we have summer, and to
(28:27):
me, summer is Rajas.
It is frenetic activity.
Things are growing, growing,growing.
As we move toward the end ofsummer we have like this, almost
like Rajas on steroids right,all of your plants get really
leggy, they're sort offrenetically growing.
It's not even healthy anymore.
(28:47):
And so, even though all of us inour life would probably always
prefer to be in a season ofRajas growing, moving, I think
what we can take from theseasons is that that's not how
it's supposed to be.
(29:08):
We're not always supposed togrow.
Sometimes we're supposed torest, we're supposed to
regenerate, we're supposed toregroup, and I find that so
charming.
I find this philosophy socharming and compassionate and
kind, because what it tells usis that we are not to fight it,
(29:35):
but to accept it, to enjoy it,to be content with it.
That is where we find harmony.
That is where we find harmonyin our practice and in our lives
.
I use this philosophy with mostof my pain care coaching clients
.
So I'll give you anotherexample of how the gunas show up
(29:58):
in our lives.
So when we can reframe ourbody's sensations, even the
unpleasant ones, as the naturalexpression of our constituent
energies, we can begin tounravel our distress from
certain sensations.
So to me and many of my clients, they would designate that
(30:20):
experience of pain as Rajas it'stoo much, it's frantic, it's
restless, it's get me the hellout of here, right?
And then often pain can also bethat feeling of Thomas, of
heaviness.
But also Thomas manifests asthe inability to get motivated,
(30:40):
the inability to really livefully engaged in our lives,
because so much of our life isconsumed by pain.
So when we reframe this, wereframe these sensations as just
Rajas and Thomas.
These are just energies, and wecan dismantle our distress, we
(31:07):
can turn down sensitivityimmensely.
This is a technique that I usevery frequently, so I hope that
this discussion about the gunas,how they show up in your
practice, how they show up innature, how they show up in your
life has been useful.
If you are interested inlearning how you can apply your
(31:33):
practice, your philosophy, tohealing your pain issue, I would
love to sit down and chat withyou.
So I will leave a link to mycalendar in the show notes in
case you would like to schedulea free, totally free, 25 minute
discovery call, just so that Ican learn a little bit more
(31:56):
about what's going on with youand I can help you to understand
better what I do and if itmight be of use to you.
And, by the way, that link tomy calendar will be right next
to the link for my free PracticeGallery Workbook link, so be
sure to snap that up while youcan.
(32:17):
Thank you so much for being alistener and I will see you in
2020.
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