Before I get stuck in to some of the interesting ideas within yoga philosophy and psychology, I wanted to give a brief (!) overview of both. As mental health awareness week draws to a close, I hope this post also illustrates the benefits both yoga and therapy can have on mental health, and urge anyone struggling to know there is help out there, and that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
“Yoga is a journey of the self, through the self, to the self”
~The Bhagavad Gita
So, what is yoga?
A better question might be – what isn’t yoga?! Yoga is generally thought of as being the physical practice – your yoga class, whether that’s ashtanga, vinyasa flow, Bikram or Iyengar. However, yoga is much more than this. Patanjali, thought to be the codifier (though not the creator) of yoga, wrote that: “Every aspect of our motivation, cognition, behaviour, our breathing, our sleep, our dreams – is yoga”. The postures (asanas) are just one part of a much wider whole. Yoga is a philosophy, and a way of life.
In his sutras, Patanjali wrote about about yoga’s ‘8 limbs’. The 8 limbs (ashtanga) are said to be a practical guide for anyone to live the yogic lifestyle. These 8 limbs are: Yama (our attitude towards others), Niyama (our attitude towards ourselves) Asana (the physical ‘yoga’ postures), Pranayama (breathing exercises) Pratyhara (conscious withdrawal of our outer senses), Dharna (concentration), Dyana (meditation) and Samadhi (enlightenment, self-actualisation, or total ‘oneness’). The ultimate aim of yoga is to achieve the last limb, samadhi. The root word of yoga, ‘yuj’, means to join, or union – samadhi is union with our true selves, union with one another, union with the universe. I’ll be explaining the meaning of each of the 8 limbs in more detail in future posts.
Yoga is also about finding happiness (ananda). This is achieved through finding our true self (atman). This is not the discovery of a whole new person, but rather, to uncover the real essence of ourselves that was always there. In our day to day life, this can be obscured by our thoughts and feelings, as well as by ‘stories’ we tell ourself about ourselves and about others. These stories (“I’m not good enough” “No one really likes me” “What if I fail?” “If only I was funnier / thinner / richer”) are self-limiting, reducing our capacity for joy, and creating stress and suffering for ourselves. We are only confined by the walls we build for ourselves.
‘Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah’. This is the second of Patanjali’s sutras, his first description of what yoga is. The Sanskrit translates as – Yogas (yoga) chitta (consciousness, the mind) vritti (activities, fluctuations or changes) nirodhah (regulating, channelling, stilling). In other words – yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. So, through yoga, we can start to calm our ‘monkey mind’, and see past all of the unhelpful stories we tell ourselves – the worries, the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘shoulds’ – to see our true self, that was there all along.
What is psychology?
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens”
~ Carl Jung
Psychology encompasses an infinite array of topics, but put simply, psychology is the study of human behaviour. Why do we do, think, believe and say the things we do? Psychology looks at our personalities, our habits and patterns of behaviour, and the impact of nature verses nurture. It also explores how we perceive others, the wider world, and ourselves.
Sometimes our various life experiences can lead beyond day to day stresses and develop into mental health difficulties. This happens more often than you may think. A recent study in the UK found 1 in 4 people had a diagnosed mental health problem – meaning there will be many more people struggling with their mental health in one way or another, who have not been to see a professional or received a diagnosis. Psychology, or therapy, is useful for understanding what led to these difficulties, helping people to understand that it’s normal to feel this way (what is ‘normal’ anyway?), and establishing together a path to recovery. One of the most important parts of therapy is building a solid, trusting relationship with a therapist, and feeling comfortable enough to voice your fears, concerns and experiences, and having those experiences validated. Research has demonstrated time and again that it is this relationship that is the main catalyst in helping people make positive changes in their lives, rather than the type of therapy.
Through therapy, the most valuable outcome we can hope to achieve is a greater understanding of ourselves. Humans are predictable creatures, and we generally have set patterns of responding to certain situations. For example, in a tense situation, you might tend towards being defensive, aggressive, or avoidant. You might have a few negative, recurring thoughts that pop up on a regular basis, regardless of the situation. It has been suggested that we actually have a very small proportion of new thoughts each day. These thinking and behaviour patterns develop as a result of multiple influences, including our upbringing, our environment, our personality and our relationships. By developing a greater understanding of ourselves, we can:
- Break out of the patterns and the stories that are less helpful to us
- Connect to alternative, more helpful and empowering stories about our inner strength and resilience
- Have more agency and awareness about how we feel, think and act in future, instead of unknowingly (or knowingly) falling into the same traps we set for ourselves.
You may have already noticed overlaps between yoga and psychology. Both are in the pursuit of health, happiness and discovering what we truly want, think and feel. Both aim to alert us to the suffering that is self-inflicted, and help us to find ways of avoiding it in future. Some psychologists and other health professionals have already noted the mental health benefits that yoga provides. Initial research has been positive – yoga has been shown to create an alternative to our stress response (‘fight or flight’). Through yoga’s combination of mindful movement and breathing, a ‘relaxation response’ is created. Both yoga and meditation have even been shown to change the very structure of our brains – for example, reducing the size of a part of our amygdala, the area of the brain used for processing threat, fear, anxiety and stress. Noticing the positive effects yoga has had both on myself and others led me on my own journey to train as a yoga teacher, in order to use these positive effects within my own therapeutic practice.
At the crux of both yoga and psychology is the idea that experiencing suffering in our lives is inevitable. We will all experience loss, fear, sadness, separation, anxiety and death at some point. Neither yoga nor psychology can change that (believe me, I’ve wished for a magic wand to take people’s problems away countless times!). But what it can change is to help us avoid the additional suffering that we create for ourselves. By changing our perspective, our outlook and the way we react in situations, we can generate our own inner peace, regardless of what is going on around us. “Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event control your emotions”. So maybe we don’t need that magic wand after all? As the authority of the magic world (J. K. Rowling) has said: “We don’t need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already”. Sometimes, we might just need a little help in seeing it.
This introduction to yoga philosophy and psychology may have left you with more answers than questions – but I hope to answer them for you in future posts. Any particular thoughts or questions? Leave a comment!
The Yog Travelogue 