Yoga Nidra is is both a practice and a state, and much different than your average meditation experience. As a practice, it is generally an experience that lasts between 45-60 minutes.
Why?
This is a rich, purposeful, integrative and powerful guided journey into your subconscious. And, it includes all eight limbs of yoga.
For that reason, in my yoga nidra program, each stage of this multi-layered practice is the focus one module at a time. We are differentiating each phase so you can know them intimately, yet also keep in mind that they are inseparable. With that in mind, this program is set up to be an embodied experience of Integration.
Here is a short-ish Yoga Nidra to get a sense of what this practice feels like.
What is Integration?
Integration is the result of an authentic and inclusive intimacy with oneself. We experience a detailed differentiation of what makes us unique as we relate with all parts of ourselves with a radical sense of inclusion. This form of integration is a necessity on the path to harmony and optimal health.
Our ability to regulate our emotions, relationships, attention and behaviors is dependent on integrative fibers of the brain facilitating coordination, rhythm and harmony. Our psychology is in our physiology. An integrated and harmonious heart and brain allow for an integrated and harmonious life and relationships.
One of my favorite integrative reminders comes from the work of Daniel Siegal, a pioneer in the work of integration. He says, "[integration] is more like a fruit salad than a smoothie."
What does this mean?
Rather than thinking we are to blend our complexity into one-ness, instead, consider that integration is including our complexity and recognizing one-ness in all of it. Integration is what allows us to experience the range of human emotion without getting stuck in our triggers or over-identified with the contents of consciousness. That is truly the key, to notice what's stuck and practice un-stucking ourselves. And yoga nidra facilitates this integration.
Join me in this journey as we learn to honor the non-dualistic nature of existence: the pure light that is the essence of Consciousness AND the fractals or kaleidoscope (or maya) that form our individual existence and creates the reality and illusion of separation.
