From the beautiful, Yulia Azriel:
Many of my students and clients have been curious to learn more about the transformational power of the practice of Yogic Sleep (“Yoga Nidra”). So, I decided to write this article to bring more understanding to the spiritual and scientific aspects of this ancient tantric practice that has a potential to completely change your life.
For me personally, Yoga Nidra has been incredibly powerful and transformational. It has helped me release spontaneously many of my fears, insecurities, anxieties and childhood beliefs that I wasn’t good enough.
Every time I go to Yoga Nidra, I feel like I enter a sanctuary within myself, which is free of mental chatter, free of worries of the future and frustrations of the past. Not only do I enter the most blissful state that I have ever experienced, I also notice that my every day interactions with people and circumstances become infused with more love and compassion. I notice that I handle challenging situations with more ease and trust.
What is Yoga Nidra?
The literal translation is “Yogic Sleep”. However, it is not the unconscious sleep of nighttime. It is a dynamic and unique state that combines alert awareness and deep relaxation. While ordinary sleep can renew the body and refresh the mind, Yoga Nidra has the ability to unleash the power of your deep subconscious.
On the most basic level, Yoga Nidra relaxes, rejuvenates and renews the physical body. It also empowers you to eliminate unconscious obstructions and energetic blocks that prevent you from living your life to the fullest. Through regular practice, Yoga Nidra enables you to effortlessly realize your intentions and achieve an integrated state in which your body moves towards self-healing.
Yoga Nidra works by immersing your brain in the healing rhythms of the alpha state and eventually the even deeper theta wave state. Here, you simultaneously access the power of the logical left brain and the intuitive, insightful right brain, and align your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to restore the body and mind to homeostasis. This is a state of oneness, where you tap into your own source of intuition, creativity, health and abundance beyond the ego-mind and have access to healing on a physical, mental and emotional plane.
The Stress Solution and the Biological Basis of Yoga Nidra
Stress is the biggest problem of modern life. It has been estimated that stress is the underlying cause of as much as 80% of illnesses. Stress comes in many forms, many of them are so much a part of our routine that we fail to recognize them as problems. These hidden stressors continually barrage us, and cumulatively they result in a wide range of health issues, including premature aging, degenerative diseases, insomnia, indigestion, high blood pressure, heartburn, addictions to alcohol, drugs and tobacco, and more.
While physical tension can be eased by stretching, exercise or massage, subtle tensions are difficult to recognize and even harder to release. Amrit Method Yoga Nidra is a unique method that goes below surface tensions to release and transform stress at its deepest level. As a result, a practitioner spontaneously releases self-destructive unconscious fears, beliefs and habits. Your life begins to synchronize with your intentions because you no longer fight yourself.
Yoga Nidra is the single most powerful tool that can help you rebuild your health and renew your life.
Yoga Nidra is practiced in a comfortable lying down position. You are guided through a series of breathing exercises and simple instructions. Some of these include visual imagery or a scan of the body, which occupies the mind and prevents it from becoming involved in the usual mind-chatter that absorbs our ordinary consciousness.
Once your body is relaxed and your mind is calm, all energies are focused on the Third Eye, the inner sanctuary located between the eyebrows.
Modern science now confirms what yogis discovered thousands of years ago: that focusing on the Third Eye reactivates hormones located in the pineal gland in the center of the brain. Studies confirm that the pineal gland hormone, melatonin, is a powerful agent in helping prevent illness, retard premature aging, reduce stress, induce more restful sleep, boost the immune system, and promote healing.
With the removal of all surface and subtle tensions and entry into deeply integrated space, you simultaneously enter the state of communion with the divine, luminous, radiant, omnipresent presence.
The Psychology of Yoga Nidra
Stress caused by our individual, unconscious conflict-creating patterns is built into our psychology as well as our biology. In psychology, this represents the vast complex of habits, patterns, belief systems and self-concepts that control our lives and prevent us from living joyously and fully.
These karmic patterns form a compelling force that regulates your actions, forms your self-image, shapes your perceptions, impacts your health, structures your beliefs and personal biases, and creates mental and emotional barriers. Karma is at the root of what we perceive as our problems, although it may take on many forms. All human suffering is caused by conflict created by our personal, conditioned and biased reactions to the impersonal nature of reality.
Karmic debt is triggered through our interpersonal relationships, but has nothing to do with the person or situation that initiates our karmic reaction. Instead, karma lives in the form of our reaction to that person or situation. The karmic pattern arises in our reaction which is activated by the specific karmic “button” pushed by someone else.
Yoga Nidra focuses on removing the button, which causes the reaction rather than the person who pushes the button. The Amrit Method of Yoga Nidra enables you to uncover and alter the deepest karmic patterns hidden in your subconscious. Removing such subconscious energetic blocks can connect you with self-regulating and self-restorative powers.
The Spirituality of Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra is neither purely logical nor psychological. It initiates a quantum leap beyond the intellect, and operates from the domain of trust, faith, love and compassion. It transcends the linear dimension of logic, reason and memory. The purpose of this ancient practice is to reactivate the harmonizing power of our subconscious, pranic intelligence.
Deep-seated karmic tensions can only be banished when you penetrate unconscious inhibitions, blocks and limitations in the subtle bodies. This means you are bringing balance biologically, psychologically and spiritually.
Yoga Nidra empowers you to go into deep states of relaxation, access the seed of karma, and resolve it by burning the seed. It has the potential to heal past traumatic interpersonal relationships, empowering you to release your vital energy held hostage by blame, anger, guilt, jealousy, hatred, fear, and attachment. This process unfolds with the awakening powers of the third eye.
Yoga Nidra is the master key for self-transformation. It can be used to initiate the power of the soul and to turn your hidden, inner potentiality into reality.
To experience this beautiful and powerful practice for yourself on September 12th 2-4 pm, join me for:
Blissful Rejuvenation Secrets:
A luxurious 2-hour retreat from your “too busy life”
During this retreat you will:
• Receive blissful self-massage with yoga therapy balls
• Rejuvenate and rebuild your energy stores
• Experience the essential peace that resides within
• Accelerate healing power of your physical and emotional Self
• Cultivate a new relationship with your body, mind, your friends, and your life
Discover one of the easiest and most effective meditation and mindfulness practices.
Saturday, September 12th
2 – 4 p.m.
Namaste Temple @ 111 E. Kirkwood ave
Price: $40 (Early Bird Special $30 before September 7th)
Find out more here!
To contact Yulia Azriel at Gentle Heart Yoga & Wellness:
yulia@gentleheartwellness.com
(317) 908-9077
facebook.com/gentleheartyogawellness
About Your Rejuvenation Guide:
Yulia Azriel, M.S., RYT 200, inspires students to trust their bodies, relax deeply and connect with their innate vitality and joy. Her calming presence and gentle approach provide a safe space for students to heal and grow. Discovering the holistic approach of yoga has been one of the most transformational experiences of her life. Yulia is a certified Yoga teacher and Yoga Therapist in the Integrative Amrit Methods, Pilates instructor & Reiki healer.