Having something in your hand means you have the feel of it, you know the dimensions, weight and texture. It has some solidity to it. Perhaps most important is that holding it lets you know it’s real. This may in part explain our attachment to objects. At least this clarifies how it is that what we feel with our bodies often seems more real than what arises in our thoughts and emotions.
And, so it is with yoga therapy. Participating in a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy session enables what is stored, hidden or carried inside our bodies to be accessed through our senses in the present moment. This experience generally occurs through a combination of touch and movement. As images, memories, thoughts, sensations arise, they emerge through association with how our body is being moved or positioned or held. There is a connection with the physical that conveys a grounded sense of reality, offering us opportunities to explore who we are on a different level.
What we know or remember in our minds alone can be harder to hold onto or seem less tangible. Thoughts and emotions can be fleeting, shifting from one moment to the next. But when an experience is anchored in the physical in some way, there is less chance of it floating away. It feels more like holding something in your hand.
In the course of a yoga therapy session, you might follow this connection with your physical body in a myriad of ways. You can choose to step in and out of this door to your inner self, but whichever way you go the path is anchored in the body. This session is not like other experiences where the focus is more on using your body as a tool or where you are pushing to the limits of physical capability. In such situations, it seems as if the mind is driving the body toward a goal.
Phoenix Rising sessions are more about awareness – developing insight or understanding that encompass the way in which you relate to and interact with your body. This kind of experience can be about learning how to be with yourself, connected to your body. It offers an alternative to being led by the mental and/or emotional aspects of ourselves. I like to think of it as a way to bring all parts of who I am together, anchored in the physical vessel that holds them all.
In this type of yoga therapy session, you can bypass habitual beliefs about who you are, especially the stories that are held about your body. You know – the judgments and criticisms regarding your physical being – what you like, what you hate, what feels out of control – often in comparison with others or with an ideal of what your body should be. Here you have an opportunity to appreciate who you are in the moment. You can refresh the screen, so to speak, to “see” yourself from a different perspective.
Best of all, you are offered a new beginning point. And you may leave the Phoenix Rising session with a concrete next step to take in whatever direction you’ve chosen. See how it is to try on a new way of being with your body and to walk away with something new and exciting to hold in your hand.
