Energetic Me!

Recently I had the privilege of attending a new course at Phoenix Rising in Bristol, VT. It’s called Lifestyle and the Subtle Body, presented by Stephanie Trump-Johnson.

It focused on chakras, their properties and associated energies. Being a student of energy my whole life, it was nice to take another look from a different direction. The course contained so much information, I am sure my brain and body stored it somewhere. But my biggest take away was concerning prana.

As lifetime yoga practitioners and teachers we teach about prana with the breath and the practice of pranayama is breath work.

It was with the practice of pranayama the confusion began for me. As a medical professional I naturally assumed, breath equals life. Then the connection came from yoga training: prana equals life. I jumped to the conclusion, “same thing”.

BKS Iyengar says, ”Prana in the form of breath is the starting point. The suffix ayama means stretch, extension, expansion, length, breadth, regulation, prolongation, restraint and control. Since prana is the energy of life force, pranayama means the extension, expansion of all our vital energy. It carries awareness, is the vehicle of our consciousness.”

What became clear during my time in Stephanie’s class in Bristol, was how breath does sustain our physical bodies, and indeed without it we are not live, but life force is something much deeper. Yes it sustains us physically, but what of our spiritual selves? We are so much more than just our physical selves.

It is easy to assume we can be sustained in a rudimentary fashion by breathing in and out, and moving through the world with little thought for the bigger parts of us that are much quieter, our thoughts, intentions,  our spirits, the highest part of ourselves.

 It is Prana that feeds our spirit as well as the body.  The intentionality of pranayama practice for me went from a breath work exercise to a profound movement of all that is vital around and about me.

 My awareness of how I am connected to all the energy around me began to be more finely tuned, as the subtlety of prana and what it really is, landed more firmly within me.

The magic of intention too, came more clearly into view as I consider prana is all around me and my breath is but the vehicle that draws it in to me. How then can the energy of my intentions not have an impact on everything, as long as I continue to breathe?