Category Archives: DYMC

Support Equals Release

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By Swami Samvidaananda

In almost every yoga class, I say, “Support equals release.” It is a key principle of Svaroopa® yoga. 

The support you receive in class takes many forms. The plaid blankets are the most obvious, and colorful!

We fold and roll and stack and tuck blankets in wherever you need them most.  We give you blocks, a strap, or a chair. Your teacher excels at knowing how and when and why to provide you with a prop. 

The props meet your body where tension is holding it back. When you lean into that support, your deep internal tensions let go. Support = release.

You’ve been carrying those tensions for so long.  Sometimes you are so used to holding them, you don’t even know you have them. Then you do a supported spinal-opening pose, and the tensions let go. It feels so freeing!

In my very first Svaroopa® yoga class, I didn’t understand the purpose of the props. I had done other styles of yoga, where your only prop was a sticky mat. I didn’t think I needed any.  Begrudgingly, I let the teacher give me one blanket roll for Shavasana, yoga’s relaxation pose.

The more poses we did, the more I warmed up to using the props — blocks under my hands in Lunge, blankets under my belly in Half Frog.  I was open to using them because I felt better and better. 

By the end, I felt so amazing that I was on board with whatever props the teacher wanted to give me! I hadn’t actually ever felt that way at the end of a yoga class. It wasn’t just relaxation.  It was bliss.

With Svaroopa® yoga’s core-opening poses, you can experience not merely relaxation, well-being and renewal, but bliss. It’s the bliss of your own Beingness, which yoga calls your own Self.

Your spine is a doorway to the inner depths of your Beingness. When you release the deep tensions in your spine with these precise, supported and deceptively simple poses, you open that doorway inside.  And the experience of your own Self is inherently blissful.

I taught Seated Side Stretch the other day. After one side of the pose, I asked the students to describe the differences between their two sides. One student had a look of utter surprise and joy on her face. All she could say was, “Wow!” Though she didn’t have the words for it yet, she was experiencing her own Self. 

This is the gift of Svaroopa® yoga. And it begins for you by accepting the support of those ubiquitous plaid blankets.

Yoga Therapy

Yogic Pathway to Healing

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By Swami Shrutananda

After her first class, a new Svaroopa® yoga student shared, 

I feel a wholeness now. Why am I going to a chiropractor and a therapeutic massage therapist? This yoga is a pathway to healing.

She signed up for another yoga session. She had come to see if yoga would help with pain in her knees and a frozen shoulder. It worked immediately. Her knees felt better. And she had more shoulder movement.  

Practitioners of other therapies can be excellent at their profession. Yet you may find you feel better for only a short time. Then your pain returns. Soon, you are seeing your therapist again. Being stuck in this repetitive cycle is painful physically, mentally and emotionally.

Finding a Svaroopa® yoga teacher is the key to ending this cycle. You learn poses that heal.  You are inspired to come to classes. You are empowered to practice what you have learned at home. This will save you from a life of constant pain. 

How does this work?  Instead of treating symptoms, Svaroopa® treats the underlying cause. You can’t heal your shoulder by working on your shoulder.  You can’t heal your knee by working on your knee. Painful areas are in poor condition because of spinal tension. It’s like these areas of your body are dying on the vine.

Svaroopa® teachers are experts at releasing spinal tension. In a Svaroopa® class or individual session, we sequence poses in a way that releases your spinal tension from tail-to-top. Your whole spine decompresses.  

Spinal decompression improves your whole body.  As soon as you release your spine, increased circulation, enervation and life energy flow into your body’s painful areas. You feel better immediately.

You need a yoga teacher to teach you how to release your spine.  Trying to learn poses from a video, or even on Zoom, is only marginally effective. You get the most by having a yoga teacher physically in the room with you. 

Svaroopa® teachers are highly trained to meet your body where it is at. The teacher tailors the poses to your needs through customized props, alignments and adjustments.  This personal attention propels your healing. 

How can you cooperate with your own healing process? Come to a class once a week to release the tensions you layered in from a week of life.  Coming twice a week enables you to get ahead of life’s stress on your body.  You don’t merely add to your benefits — your healing is exponentially deepened. Then with home practice you are on your way to feeling better and better.

You can’t attain such a change on your own. The best teachers inspire and motivate you to come to class. They teach, inspire and empower you to stay consistent with home practice. They give you something you will have your whole life. Do yoga. Do more yoga. Come to class. Come to more classes. Sign up today. 

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Three Yoga Miracles 

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By Barbara (Girijananda) Hess, Yogaratna 

Interviewed by Agnes (Aikya) Hetherington 

I supported three students in profound healing through their Svaroopa® yoga practices as well as their receiving Embodyment® Yoga Therapy sessions.  

The first was a colleague in her twenties. Our job setting was new to her.

Overwhelmed by stress, she cried everyday.  When she learned that I teach yoga, she soon started attending my Svaroopa® yoga classes.   

Before long, she enrolled in my three-week series “Ease into Meditation.” Then she enrolled in the Mandali Travels “Deepen Your Meditation,” a program taught by an Ashram Swami. She has continued deepening inward with Sutra Studies as well as a daily home practice. She has learned how to access inner peace and bliss.  

All this has transformed her. “I no longer worry about stuff. I know I can keep my mind on a short leash,” she says. “I feel different around my friends. I don’t complain all the time.”  

I was honored to be invited to her wedding a few months ago. From her new husband, I heard that she said, “I need to meditate and repeat mantra,” when she was agitated before the ceremony. Throughout the whole wedding, she was glowing and calm.  

The second miracle is a client with two replacements of the same hip and neuropathy in her feet. She has returned to normal activity including walking without an assistive device!  

I gave her weekly Embodyment® sessions, taught her Ujjayi Pranayama, and recommended a pose sequence for home practice. Besides the dramatic improvement in her surgical hip, she also gained sensation in her feet.

She had had neuropathy for two years. At a recent appointment, the neurologist said, “If this is working, keep doing it.” 

Another of my co-workers is my third Miracle Story. She was having panic attacks in the course of supporting her mother, who was in hospice. In private sessions, I taught her Ujjayi breathing in Shavasana. With weekly private sessions, she anchored securely into her twice daily Ujjayi practices. The panic attacks ended.  

Our Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation guides us in opening to our Divine Essence within. Encountering these teachings, she could see herself being a strong divine daughter. She felt much more present with her mom during her transition.   

Now this colleague continues coming to my yoga classes. While staying loyal to her Christian beliefs, she embraces the experience of her own Divinity. 

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Living in Ease

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By Swami Satrupananda 

More reps. Heavier weights. Longer distances. This is what we’ve been taught will give us physical health. 

You get more by doing more. You push your body further and harder. You push through the pain. Grit your teeth and bear it.

And then once you’ve pushed your body as much as you can, you rest. You’re exhausted and maybe even in pain. You rest so that your body can heal from what you’ve done to it. 

Is there another way? 

Yes! Svaroopa® yoga starts with the resting. We begin every class with Shavasana, yoga’s relaxation pose. Lying on the floor, you prop your legs up, which supports your lower back. You put a blanket under your head. You rest and settle.

Your teacher then offers you a Guided Awareness: “Become aware of your toes, all ten toes, all at the same time . . .”

In this relaxation pose, your physical tensions melt away. As you are guided through being aware of your own body, your mind settles. Your mind slows down. You clear away the physical and mental fatigue of life. 

Your class continues with an ease-full breathing practice that builds your reservoir of energy. The yoga poses target muscular tension in your spine. For this release, you move your body into easy angles. You prop your body with blankets and blocks. And then you soften into the pose. 

Even in the standing poses, you soften into it. The goal is not pushing further and trying harder. Instead, the purpose is to open up to an ease of being in your own body, which is health-full, bliss-full and powerful.

Our classes end with Shavasana, and you experience the Guided Awareness again. This practice is so important that we do it twice. And you need the practice! You need the practice in resting, in settling into an easy state of being. 

At the end of Shavasana, students sit up.  As their teacher, I ask for comments. Their most common feedback is feeling peaceful, relaxed and full of energy all at the same time. 

Yes, that is the way to live — all the time! You can feel that way too, by practicing Svaroopa® Yoga.

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Always Amazes Me

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By Phil (Krishna) Milgrom

Over the years, many of my students and clients have testified to the healing power of Svaroopa® Yoga and Embodyment® Yoga Therapy. It’s magical. It always amazes me.

A new yoga student wrote:

After two weeks, I can now get out of bed without my back killing me. I had been intent on buying a new mattress. You saved me plenty!

Another new student also reported that after a few classes her back pain had vanished. It had been nagging her almost constantly. She was finally able to sleep “wonderfully well.”

Hearing testimonies like these after classes, I have sometimes responded with a joke. I say our yoga studio’s closet is full of crutches — left behind by other students. But it’s really no joke: these wonderful practices really work.

Recently, a student asked us for help. She hadn’t attended classes for a year or so. She read about Embodyment® Yoga Therapy on our website. There we explain how Overlap Healing through Embodyment® Yoga Therapy sessions works. 

This series is recommended when you’re feeling “stuck” physically, emotionally or even spiritually. She said her dad died several months back and this was exactly how she’d been feeling since.

She was definitely stuck. She had been suffering from severe joint pain. Her right hip was especially bothersome. She was losing hope. She said she needed help getting back to her Self. 

For her first Embodyment® session, she could barely walk into our studio. Yet, immediately after, she felt tremendous improvement. She was smiling again. She was able to walk back to her car comfortably. By the third session, she had absolutely no pain. She said, “This was nothing short of a miracle!”

Since her Overlap Healing series, she has been practicing the Magic 4 regularly and remains pain free. She has found her “old Self” again. 

This miracle is simply the Svaroopa® Sciences at work. They constitute a systematic methodology validated and based on evidence. As one of my t-shirts says, “Science: Because you can’t just make it up!”  

Yoga Therapy

Krishna’s Embodyment Webpage

A Series of Yoga Miracles

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By Kelly (Kushala) Sharp

A recent client has experienced a series of miracles. When they came to me, extreme sciatica pain was making it hard to walk. Plus, they were facing surgery because of a severe carpal tunnel flare-up. Their pain management required Advil three times daily, and they felt desperate.

In less than a month, they were scheduled for a three-week “trip of a lifetime.” So we created a custom Overlap Healing series and got busy. Overlap Healing is a sequence of daily Svaroopa® Yoga Therapy sessions, followed by sessions at wider intervals.

Within a three-week period, this client had 12 sessions. In their third — a mere two days after the first — they could walk without pain. They said it was a miracle. A week later, they reduced the amount of daily Advil. By the 12th session, they had stopped taking it.

And that carpal tunnel flare-up? By practicing Hastasana (Hand Thing) three times a day, my client recovered feeling in their hands. Taking only a minute, this pose offered immediate relief.

The client cancelled their upcoming surgery. They left on their trip armed with a Svaroopa® yoga practice to do every day (maybe twice a day). Yoga therapy supported change from the inside out.

To be honest, they exceeded my expectations. For their return, I had planned some Overlap Healing sessions to help them regain any lost ground. But much to my surprise they didn’t lose a lot of ground.

On their trip they had done their yoga and maintained the powerful openings received through yoga therapy. This worked even while doing lots of tourist activities that required exertion.

My client came home feeling great and returned to weekly yoga therapy sessions. When they noticed a little decline in how they were feeling, we scheduled a few sessions within one week.

My takeaway from this is that it doesn’t take a lot extra to make powerful and permanent changes. Sometimes a little extra is all you need!

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