Prana: Yoga Life Force

Yoga practice gets your energy moving.

In yoga, this energy is known as prana and it is the foundation of all life, the subtle life force energy that flows through our bodies and animates our living world.

The Sanskrit word prana is first found in the Chandogya Upanishad text 3,000 years ago and was further refined and described in later yoga texts and teachings.

Most yogis have had an experience of prana - it's the way your body loses sluggishness as you practice; or the way that you sometimes bring jangly anxiousness to your mat and replace it, through breath and movement, with grounded calm.

It is said that prana gets stuck within our bodies, and this leads to spiritual stagnation: instead of blooming into the creative humans we were born to be we get plagued with inertia, doubt and restriction. These knots are known as granthis and the practice of yoga clears them.

The aim of yoga is to increase the amount of prana within your body so that you become shining, well-balanced and calm. The aim of yoga is to clear all the granthis and to live a confident life of self-reliant peace.

Our practice not only teaches us how to increase this energy, but also how to contain it within. If we are not disciplined, we lose prana all the time and everywhere. We become embroiled in commotion, inner and outer and we become exhausted, with no time for the important things, sometimes we become unwell.

Think of your body as a permeable vessel and imagine your prana stimulated by your yoga practice (breath and movement), imagine actually drawing prana within yourself as you practice, whilst also moving your body and breath in order to release old stagnant prana and release it, untying all of those knots. Imagine holding all of that energy within you then as you move through your day, your week, your year, your life.

This concept of prana is easy to witness in a teacher that seems to embody a powerful sense of compassion and calm; it is there in the grounded smile of the Dalai Lama, or the powerful righteousness of Martin Luther King. It is in you too. All you have to do is learn how to build it, move it and contain it within.

Sarah x

What is it that you need?

What is your yoga practice for? This is a good question to ask yourself as you come to your mat to practice at home. This simple question, when considered quietly and with focus will lead you to understand and to give yourself exactly what you need from your yoga practice on any given day.

Sometimes, it will be right to push yourself beyond your previous boundaries, to test your courage, your strength and your flexibility, to attempt asana/breathing practices/meditations that you have previously found challenging. On other days, it will be more appropriate to move slowly and mindfully, or to sit quietly to meditate on something familiar, even to read something inspiring instead. The trick is in understanding your differing needs and over time you will learn how to respond to them appropriately.

Some people find it hard to motivate themselves to get to their mat at all, and once there the feeling that they don't really know what they are supposed to be doing and can't remember any of the poses leads them to give up easily. But some cat stretches, a standing forward bend, savasana, or some simple breathing practice (of the 'I am breathing in; I am breathing out' kind) is sufficient to lead you to your intended outcome.

Other people find it hard to believe that 10 minutes of gentle stretches constitutes a worthwhile yoga asana practice; that yoga should be 90 minutes of sweat and hard work, or nothing at all.

But I have come to my mat for 90 minutes of hard work and for 10 minutes of very gentle stretches and emerged feeling more whole, more happy and more centred from both.

Every yoga practice should draw you nearer to kindness, focus, gentleness, strength, serenity, peace and joy. It should always bring more ease to your body and mind. But how you get there will differ from day to day. Sometimes you will find your centre by working hard; sometimes you will find it by giving yourself gentleness. Remembering that no yoga practice is a waste of time, is a way to approach your mat with a kind attitude every time. With a kind and gentle attitude towards yourself, you simply can’t go wrong.

Sarah x

We are all People Pleasers

People pleasing is your attempt to control what people think of you. You want to make people like you and you want everbody to think good things about you.

Perhaps you think you have a special gift that can make others better.
Maybe you are investing a lot of time and energy doing things to prove your goodness and usefulness to the world.
Or is your secret fear that the world can do without you - if they don’t need you, then what is your value?

The truth is that you don’t need everbody to like you: you have plenty of rewarding and valuable relationships in your life.

The truth is that if you truly valued and admired yourself, you wouldn’t need all of that external validation.

The truth is that nobody can fix anybody else; healing is an inside job. You are special, but not because you are a saviour.

It's awkward isn't it, because most of us want to be liked by as many people as possible, or even by everyone. And so most of us are people pleasing a lot of the time.

But you want to be free and energised, right? Not trapped and exhausted. So you're going to have to find a new way of moving through the world at some point. And you know as well as I do that acceptance, not control-seeking, is the key to peace.

How long it takes you to get round to this is up to you. When you finally do, you will be astounded by how little anyone cares that you said no to something you usually say yes to. You will discover that the thought that they needed you was all in your head! If you are afraid that you are surplus to the world’s requirements, you will come to feel confident that the world still loves you even after you have stopped betraying yourself in the service of others.

Controlling is a trap: you will never succeed and you will run yourself ragged trying.

Acceptance is freedom: now you will learn how to roll with life’s waves, how to bounce back from difficult times, how to grow in empathy.

Controlling is exhausting; accepting is energising.

Beauty lies in our capacity to be around for each other, to respect other people’s choices, to have confidence in our own worthiness and to honour the life journeys of the people we know. They are doing it their way, you are doing it your way. Neither are better/best; both are valid/true.

Allow the world to embrace you without grasping for it. You will be surprised how generous it can be when you loosen your hold a little.

Sarah x