Advantages to Savoring the Small with Erin Moon

I’ve been a teacher since 2005 and continue to be a deep, deep learner. There is no limit or no end to what I can learn in this practice. I am sharing this with you today specifically because I like to know how things work; it’s probably why I enjoy anatomy so much. 

Curiosity helps me find focus; it helps me dive deeper. 

It builds up the concentration muscles. When I took my certification in applied positive psychology, one of the things of the many that we learned was a whole unit on savoring. If you sat down and actually savored every bite of your meal, it would be a deep, deep mindfulness practice.

Savoring was one of the units that emphasized for me how the practices of yoga and the long, long traditions of yoga from India have and can build out our fundamental, broader perspective of what it is to live and to connect to our deepened true selves. This has allowed me to participate in my life in a deeper and more full way. 

“Yoga [is] the process of reconnecting and regaining the ability to find happiness from within. To start this process, we need to focus. Our practice gives us that.”

—Shanna Small, Director of AYS Charlotte. 

So why get curious and savor the subtle? 

Specifically, when looking at the pranayama technique and asana, why would we dial everything right back down? One of the reasons is that yoga is the process of connecting and regaining the ability to find happiness from within to relieve suffering. To start this process, we need to focus.

We need to learn the tool of focusing, and the practices of yoga give us that. Concentration, in regards to yoga philosophy, is Dharana. It is one part of the Eight Fold Path. The idea is that Dharana, concentration, leads to Dhyana, which is a state of meditation. So one is a practice, and one is a state.

Each time the mind evades you, runs here and there, and you bring it back; that is called concentration. Concentration is trying to fix the mind on one thing. Meditation is when you have tried and are successful.

— Swami Satchidananda. 

I love this quote because it gives us an idea, just a place to start. 

The practice of yoga teaches us that when we learn/train to focus, we have a greater chance of knowing our true selves. Asanas and pranayama practices bring steadiness; both move vigorous and subtler. If we are leading ourselves toward the state of meditation (the deepest knowing), then yes, we need to know ourselves under stressors, and we also need to get used to ourselves/be with ourselves in the quietest, subtlest Dharana practices, too.

The fastest and easiest way to start moving better and feeling better is to make changes in the nervous system. — Source: P4 Guide to Better Movement. 

Sometimes getting subtle, or sometimes getting big, with our bodies in our asana, can help us actually help us find Svadhyaya (self-study) to observe if what we experience is a positive or negative stressor. 

Not all stress and stressors are bad. 

It’s all about the story. Our perception of a stressor categorizes it, and this changes how we are in relationship to it. If we don’t know the story, then we don’t get to make a decision about the story; if we don’t know what set us off, the story just happens. 

• Positive stressors: brief increase in heart rate, mild elevation in stress hormone levels. 
• Tolerable stressors: serious, temporary stress response buffered by supportive relationships.
• Toxic stressors: prolonged activation of stress response system in the absence of protective relationships. 

The parts of your brain that control movement are linked to the parts that control thoughts, emotions and sensory perceptions. — Source: P3 Guide to Better Movement. 

The key takeaway from this is that the better you feel, the better you move; the better you move, the better you feel.