YOGA

Expert: Sarah Bates, MA, RYT-500, always thought more was better. As she thrashed through life, with a keen devotion to education and physical activity she always kept busy. It was not until she found herself living with fibromyalgia and she subsequently renewed her devotion to yoga that she learned an important lesson: to be at peace, you must stop fighting and let go. Today Sarah has her Yoga Teaching Certificate from the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco and is the proprietor of The Yoga Mat in Santa Monica, California.

Sarah Bates was raised in a Quaker home, which made her accustomed to and comfortable with the practice of meditation. When she moved to San Francisco in 1992, she found herself living on a very noisy corner in the middle of the city and decided it was time to reconnect with her meditation background in order to help her sleep better at night. She started practicing yoga – but not with the passion she would later come to know. It wasn’t until 1997, when she was injured snowshoeing, that the fibromyalgia (diagnosed as “fibrosites” back in 1986) hit her hard. After a year in bed and a bout on crutches, she decided to give yoga another try. Sarah’s first steps back to yoga were baby ones. She began by lying on a mat and doing only the simplest moves. It was at this point that she realized that yoga is not about acquiring any physical skills, but rather it is about become aware.

Recently Americans have been drawn to yoga as a way to keep fit, but the initial idea behind the practice of yoga was to encourage a deep sense of mind-body awareness. At its inception 6,000 years ago, yoga’s sole purpose was to experience spiritual enlightenment. In Sanskrit (the ancient language of India) “yoga” translates as “yoke” or “union,” which describes the state of “being in union with the divine.” Through Yoga, the mind-body connection creates a relationship with one’s own pure, essential nature. Sarah explains that yoga helps to remove the obstacles that will prevent the spirit from moving through the body. Balancing your body, feelings and thoughts allows you to be more conscious – which gives you an overall greater awareness and feeling of peace.

Most yoga classes today concentrate on the many varieties of hatha yoga, a physical discipline which usually focuses on asanas (postures) and breath work, in order to prepare the body for spiritual pursuits. Yoga postures work on all parts of the body and can involve gentle, balancing, dance-like, or acutely physical movements. Sarah studied in San Francisco with Judith Lasater, who teaches “restorative yoga” involving supported postures (using blankets and pillows) and breathing techniques designed to help heal the effects of chronic stress.

When practicing yoga one can become more knowledgeable about themselves. As you quiet your mind through the still of a posture, your consciousness is raised. Over time you learn how to keep a positive focus and you begin to notice changes in your overall well-being. As you learn how to do conscious breathing, using your whole lungs, you can visualize the oxygen getting deep into the tissues of your body. Sarah suggests that, as you relax in a yoga posture – breathe in, accepting life’s realities as they are; and as you exhale, let peace spread throughout your being. The result is pure joy!

Reprinted with permission of the National Fibromyalgia Association from “Fibromyalgia AWARE”, September-December, 2002