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Instant
first aid for negative feelings!
Yoga offers direct routes to emotional control through
Pranayama or breath control. It is established clinically
that alternate nostril breathing balances the Hemispheres of
the brain and Autonomic Nervous System and other types of
Yoga breathing.
Elevate
mood and provide energy. It is, however, best that such
techniques are learned by direct tuition from a Yoga
Teacher.
Note the
following comment from an article by:
Aaarti Sood
Mahajan and R. Babbar
Department of Physiology, Maulana Azad Medical College, New
Delhi.
"The
different types of Yogic breathing procedures affect the
ANS. Right nostril breathing activates the sympathetic
nervous system and increases the heart rate. Alternate
nostril breathing brings about a balance in the ANS
(Shannahoff 1993). Kapalabhati practice showed an increase
in the low frequency band and decrease in the high frequency
band of the heart rate variability spectrum indicating
increased sympathetic activity " (Raghuraj et al 1998)."
The Raja Yoga and Gnana Yoga traditions offer much
instant relief and indeed this article is about such an
approach and a "Western Yoga".
My friend,
Swami Divyananda Saraswati, is fond of quoting Sri
Aurobindo's statement:
"Most of
our lives are lived in empty agitation"
Often that
is the way we feel in our daily lives - and possibly much
fuss about nothing!
Michel de Montaigne, in the 16th century, wrote:
"My life
has been full of tragedies, most of which never happened"
Nothing has
changed in 400 years and we can still become the victims of
self-engendered turmoil that exhausts us. I have found it
very useful to consider a particular Western therapy for
directly tackling the source of self-induced agony. This
system is the Western equivalent of Gnana Yoga and Vedanta.
There exist exercises in both Gnana Yoga and Vedanta by
which we can haul our misperceptions, or Maya, up on a leash
by sheer reason.
I have
always maintained that Psychotherapy is Western Yoga
and what I am about to share with you I do not ask you to
agree with but please experiment with this material - you
will feel more positive, walk taller and maintain focus and
direction by trying these principles.
The place
to start is by realising we often have false ideas
concerning ourselves and our expectations about life. These
concepts or premises about living, if accepted as true,
create emotional havoc in daily life.
The
psychologists say "we progenerate our psychopathologies",
meaning that the neurotic or incorrect attitudes that we
adopt are learned as children, from our parents, teachers
and the cultural influences under which we live. The real
horror is that we often teach these emotionally destructive
ideas to our children in turn.
Another way
of expressing this is that unless we are careful we may
merely exist in the shadow of our parents.
The
American Psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis, developed a now
well established school of therapeutic intervention, called
'Cognitive Therapy' or 'Rational Emotive Psychology' in
which common fallacies are identified and rigorously
challenged. If you get something out of what I am sharing
with you may want to get his classic "A New Guide to
Rational Living' (Paperback, Wilshire Book company, USA)
A wonderful
internal freedom can result when we recognise and
consciously reject these false premises and in so doing
begin to enjoy a life devoid of self-torture and endless
recriminations.
I have
permission from Wilshire Book Co. to quote his Fallacies and
I have selected nine of them for your consideration. I have
extracted them from my Mind Magic Kit Appendix 3, Llewellyn
Publishers USA.
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