Overcoming obstacles with Ganesha
Yoga and Yin with the Hindu God Ganesha.
It is said that Ganesha is the God of obstacles. The actual obstacle and the way through the obstacle.
In Yoga there is several obstacles that comes into mind. It can simply be, that you think you can’t do it maybe thinking, you are not flexible to do yoga. This one is fairly easy to argue against, yoga is for everyone and if you don’t try, you don’t get better. Practice gives your a deeper experience what your body can do and can’t do.
There is two other obstacles that is worth to mention here,
The first one is the tension you feel when your body is stretched to its ability in that moment, felt in the fascia, tendons, joints, muscles and ligaments. This tension, is a tension you might be able to work with, by doing yoga and slowly it will loosing over time.
The second one is the obstacle when the body can’t bend any further due to either the bone meets another bone or simply flesh on flesh. This is called compression, this obstacle is harder to work with sometimes, but your mind can lead you to find a way around this obstacle. Maybe your body and bones isn’t meant for the lotus pose, you could be highly flexible when it comes to twists instead.
Both of these are necessary for the body to function in the every day life and protects the body from moving into something that will cause it harm.
The art of these two is how you mentally work around them and how do you solve the obstacle? Are you the person who pull, pushes and forces your body into a certain pose or are you acceptive of the limits that is giving to you and able to stay focused on solving this over a longer period of time?
What happens inside you when you are in a pose and you realize that this might take longer than expected? How do you speak to yourself? Do you get irritated and annoyed with this long process or are you able to be soft and calm?
Personally, I have had a really difficult time with yoga. And this comes from a person who has taken over 800 hours of Yoga teacher training. I have to admit, that I hated my first Yin class and I did not see the result I wanted, I didn’t understand how it was supposed to work, now here I am teaching it. When I started Yin yoga, my body was craving it, I just didn’t want to go. I was recovering after the loss of my boyfriend in 2016, I wasn’t able to do want I used to do and it turned out that my body needed me to stay with Yin, most likely for the rest of my life. I do not regret this journey at all. I accept it as a part of me and my story. I now look back at my first Yin training, with the thoughts of acceptance of overcoming trauma and being able to move the trauma out of my body, instead of letting it be and travel with me. I would not be the person I am today, without practicing yin yoga and yoga on a regular basis.
Yoga has taken me on an absolutely amazing journey, I have learned more about life throughout Yoga, then I have from my school years. I have had the opportunity to travel to the east, met so many interesting people. The most important knowledge I have gained, is the inner journey and learning to be and feel enough deeply within. For me, this couldn’t been done, without physically sitting down, staying still and deeply connect with myself. I still have oceans to learn and journey through.
If you would like to know more, reach out and I can show you a way that will open many doors for you.
Much Love and light
Penelope
