Yoga Nidra Journey - Serenity Sessions
An antidote to fast-paced living
UPCOMING SESSIONS:
NZSpirit Festival
Thursday 23 January - Sunday 26 January 2025
Te Wai Pounamu - Orton Bradley Park,
Charteris Bay, Banks Peninsula
Orton Bradley Park
I will be holding a Yoga Nidra Journey at this South Island NZSpirit Festival
(Day/Time TBC)
A Yoga Nidra Journey is for those who want to feel better.
You will leave feeling re-calibrated.
You will have an enhanced sense of peaceful well-being and inner calm.
The 2025 schedule is yet to be confirmed. Message me to register your interest.
Are you craving to transform, and alchemise the stresses held in the body and mind?
Every session is a little different but in each session, we flow through practices that enable you to experience the rejuvenation of your body, mind, and nervous system, based on traditional Hatha Yoga; asana, pranayama and pratyahara, completing in a soundscape journey relaxation.
Come along, find your way back to your natural state of being, feel content and experience deep relaxation.
YOGA NIDRA JOURNEY
WHEN: 2025 schedule TBC in January
TIME: TBC
WHERE: 2024 Journey’s were held at the Wellington Meditation Centre and Anahata Yoga Studio, Petone.
COST: $35.00
OUTLINE:
Introduction
Asana Flow - Easeful yoga asana flow to warm up the body and activate the subtle energetic fields
Pranayama - Breath practices to get connected to our bodies
Pratyahara - Extended Yoga Nidra Journey where you will be guided into an extended 8-stage Yoga Nidra practice
Soundscape Journey - chakra activation sound experience
Grounding and return to daily life.
Q&A - an opportunity to answer any queries that may arise
Yoga Nidra is suitable for all levels. It is the most powerful tool to shift yourself
into a natural state of calmness, releasing tensions, and cultivating contentment
and creativity.
Yoga Nidra has countless positive impacts on all systems of the body. With regular practice, the benefits are limitless. If you are experiencing mental tensions, emotional overwhelm, or physical discomfort, Yoga Nidra helps your body access its inner superpowers. Yoga Nidra assists the body, mind and spirit in deep relaxation, releasing outdated narratives, processing emotions, and attaining profound physical rest.
If sleep issues are impacting your life a guided Yoga Nidra journey offers the equivalent of 2-4 hours of deep sleep for the body systems, in one 30-minute session.
If you feel content with your current world and life, Yoga Nidra can further enhance all aspects of your life.
With regular practice, you can find further inspiration, and tap into deeper levels of yourself, and your creativity.
Yoga Nidra provides opportunities for creative visualisation practices, enhancing
self-awareness and the manifestation of your heartfelt desires.
Read more: Yoga Nidra: A Journey to Deep Relaxation and Beyond
The Four Essential Stages of Yoga Nidra
There are four essential stages of Yoga Nidra. The system has been developed to work with the somatosensory cortex enabling the most effective relaxation outcomes.
If you have participated in a Yoga Nidra class or online offering, and if these stages weren’t provided, then you would have been practising a guided meditation, not Yoga Nidra.
Four additional stages can be included in different ways to develop intentions, create deeper states of relaxation, and enable the processing of feelings and emotions. Visualisation stages release symbolic elements from the subconscious, enhancing our well-being and the release of emotional, mental and physical tensions.
Depending on the type of practice, such as 4-stage or 8-stage sessions, Yoga Nidra can help release unconscious tensions, activate visualisations and symbolic release of past impressions, enhance abilities to manifest your reality, and to process emotions. For spiritual seekers, a regular practice that increasingly taps into the visualisation aspects can provide insights into the superconscious mind (turiya).
Suppose you have experienced Yoga Nidra in other classes, online or apps and have not been conscious of moving through specific stages. In that case, you most likely were experiencing a guided meditation, not an authentic Yoga Nidra practice. Not to detract from guided meditations; they are also very beneficial and powerful. But they aren't Yoga Nidra.
The four essential stages of an authentic Yoga Nidra practice are:
SETTLING - INTERNALISATION - Bringing awareness inward, preparing the mind for relaxation and developing a ‘witness’ awareness.
ROTATION OF AWARENESS - Systematically moving awareness through different parts of the body. relative to the homunculus (or her/homunculus) aiding in deep relaxation
BREATH AWARENESS - More relaxation is achieved by focusing on the breath, calming the nervous system, further developing ‘witness’ awareness
and activating subtler energies at the cellular level.
EXTERNALISATION - The gentle process of gradually bringing conscious awareness back to the external environment.
What is Yoga Nidra?
Simply put Yoga Nidra is "a systematic method of inducing complete physical, mental and emotional relaxation". Modernised by Swami Satyananda, Yoga Nidra is designed to help us thrive in our current lifestyles.
Living our best, fast-paced lives, we are all constantly in an activated state of 'fight or flight' even at lower levels - and we have become somewhat numb to this phenomenon, as our super busy lifestyles require us to be 'on' a lot more than we are naturally adept to be.
This overstimulated state, of being in the sympathetic nervous system response, is indicated as a contributing cause to a variety of health challenges including but not limited to; chronic stress disorders, fatigue, immune issues and many emotional and socio-behavioural issues, that we have normalised to cope with life.
Yoga Nidra is accessing 'the state of deep relaxation with inner awareness'. It is simple to undertake and offers profound changes to the physical, mental and emotional body.
The yogi lies or sits comfortably and keeps a light awareness on the instruction of the yoga guide.
It can be practiced by anyone, it has many benefits (to be showcased in a longer talk/blog) and is well supported by science and research.
Teaching Yoga Nidra
An authentic lineage connection enriches my Yoga Nidra teachings. I had the privilege of learning directly from Swami Karma Karuna, who trained extensively with Swami Satyananda, the creator of modern Yoga Nidra.
Living at Swami Karma Karuna's retreat for eight months provided me with an immersive experience where I absorbed many teachings, both consciously and subconsciously. This unique training has allowed me to bring the genuine essence of Yoga Nidra to my students.
Through these teachings, I offer the traditional Yoga Nidra practice that transitions the mind through various brain wave states. This practice is deeply rooted in wisdom, research, and dedication.
I feel the responsibility of my gained knowledge and am passionate about sharing these transformative teachings with others.
What is Hatha Yoga?
This is a concise overview of this significant framework for life. What is commonly thought of as yoga, or asana/physical practice is often referred to as Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga ultimately encompasses many aspects of yoga, being a significant body of spiritual knowledge.
Hatha yoga, as described by Swami Niranjanananda, "has a deeper purpose than just that of physical movement, or asanas, and body awareness. Hatha Yoga involves balancing, managing and directing the energies that control the body and guide the mind'.
Hatha Yoga practices and techniques balance the pranic system (or energy systems) that govern all functions of the body and mind. Hatha yoga enables the physical body to retain, and regain its strength, providing a physical vessel for the mind to rest in, and enabling attainment of clarity of mental and emotional states of being. Most major styles of Yoga we are familiar with today come from Hatha Yoga, a tantra practice.
"Tantra and yoga are only two different words belonging to the same way of life. with Tantra being the philosophical, theoretical aspect and yoga the practical aspect. What tantra tells us, yoga asks us to practice".
Hatha Yoga Book 1 - Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati.
Hatha Yoga aims to encourage the union of the Ida and Pingala energies (also can be thought of as the Feminine + Masculine - Shiva + Shakti - Sun + Moon - Prana + Mind - Positive + Negative - Yin + Yang energies) at Ajna Chakra at the top of the spinal cord - a place scientifically known as the medulla oblongata.
It is understood that to only focus on attempts to control the mind to feel the best we can, is a difficult journey. So Hatha Yoga provides a framework for yogis to practice regularly to obtain a deeper sense of their true selves, working with the physical body, breath, and mind. Over time we start to feel the sense of inner freedom, free from the impacts of stresses and tensions.
Essentially, the more we can work with the body using the specific techniques
of Hatha Yoga, the more we become aware of the more subtle aspects of ourselves, and we awaken to our intuition and higher states of inner knowing
and guidance.
What is Restorative Yoga?
Restorative yoga is another form of Hatha Yoga. Restorative yoga asanas are designed to support the physical body and nervous system. And with the help
of breath practices, the body moves into the 'rest and digest' nervous system response. It's like a moving meditation, so Restorative yoga uses props to support the body. When the breath is the focus, the mind becomes calm, thoughts become more optimistic and supportive of our desires.
What is Pranayama?
A simplified overview - Pranayama is a precise science which "provides
methods to understand the essence of prana and to guide it within oneself". Prana roughly translated means energy or vital force. The motion in creation. The word prana assumes the quality of 'livingness'.
Pranayama practices involve the control of the breath to feel and understand the flow of energy in the body. Current daily living stressors and worry use maximum prana so our pranic fields become exhausted and discharged. This can cause fatigue and inefficient body processes such as digestion and circulation, creating anxieties and worries and the cycle keeps self-perpetuating until we decide to remedy this by recharging our pranas. Pranayama practices recharge and replenish the pranas through breath practices such as Khumbhaka or Natural Breath practices.
What is Kundalini yoga and what are kriyas?
Kundalini as talked about by Swami Satyananda, is the basis of tantra and yoga.
Kundalini Yoga is a series of practices based on combined breath, asanas, mudras and mantras. The practices can range from very simple, and highly effective, to quite complex. Which is all subjective to a yogi's experience of course. These simple practices can be added to your daily routine. They include pranayama (breath practices), mudras (psychic, emotional, devotional and aesthetic gestures), bandhas (energetic locks) and simple asanas - in combination they are known as kriyas.
Jai Dev, one of my yoga mentors, likens Kundalini Yoga to being 'the householder’s yoga'. There is no requirement to study or situate yourself
in an ashram to experience the benefits directly.
These practices are designed to stimulate the flow of life force energy, or prana. within the physical body, increasing a sense of vitality, clarity and energy and with consistent practice build our ability to feel good more often. Every time we practice we are recalibrating our energy and vitality.
When we incorporate these practices, all forms of yoga, into our daily lives, we naturally become more centred, experiencing more calm and vitality and life challenges become less overwhelming. We gain a clear perspective.
Kundalini Yoga kriyas are a lovely way to complete a Serenity Session. The practices activate our subtle energetic fields and enable us to feel more self-care and love, inner strength and contentment.