This post is inspired by a course I took with Kristine Kaoverii Weber entitled, “Change Your Story, Change Your Life — Yoga, Neuroplasticity, and the Art of Conscious Transformation.”
When we think of health we usually think of it as the opposite of illness. A binary way of categorizing: health = good vs illness = bad. But perhaps a better way of describing priorities about our health is: flourishing vs languishing.
You can be flourishing in health or illness. Barbara Fredrickson explains that, “Flourishing is living within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generatively, growth, and resilience.”
What is resilience? How do we increase our resilience? What does this have to do with yoga?
Resilience is about having appropriate responses to your environment and experiences. It requires psychological and physical flexibility. And no, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be about to bend over and touch your toes, but rather more about the mind and body influencing one another. Resilience requires awareness. All yoga practices help us connect and build awareness through asana (physical postures), pranayama (breath), meditation, and ethics.
The key to resilience is identity — knowing who you are and knowing that nothing will change that. In yoga we get to know ourselves intimately, peeling back the layers, uncovering our truest Self. We slow down, allowing time and space for “interoception,” the practice of becoming aware, in tune with, and listening to your body. Kaoverri Weber says, “When you approach your practice with awareness, curiosity, and openness, you can leverage the power of interoception to train your nervous system and increase resilience.”
“It isn’t that the waves stop coming; it’s that because you train in holding the rawness of vulnerability in your heart, the waves just appear to be getting smaller and smaller, and they don’t knock you over anymore.” — Pema Chödrön
Our growth doesn’t end when we fall down; it ends when we stop trying to get back up.
Krystal Barschig 