Week 1 Yoga Teacher Training – Rishikesh India

It still amazes me how the goals I set come to fruition. Goal setting is part of our trainings and I know, if it is done properly, it works but somehow I’m still always amazed.

I reached a milestone birthday on 4th January 2018, one that many years ago I didn’t think I would see because a palm reader had told me I wasn’t going to make it past my 37th Birthday – I was 14 at the time.

I wish that I had learned NLP, Time Line Therapy(TM) and Hypnosis in my late teens as it would have saved me a lot of heartache. After studying these techniques, I now know that we are the creators of our future and only we can determine what will happen or how we approach it. Unfortunately, until we learn otherwise, we take on beliefs of others which can have dramatic and negative effects on our life.

Needless to say, now that I create my own future, I welcomed in my milestone birthday and my goal for my birthday (rather than a party) was to travel to India to do a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training School.

That all sounds great, except I had never done Yoga before. Actually that’s not quite true, I had done about 3 classes in my lifetime. Talk about pushing well outside my comfort zone!!

I flew out of Australia on 6th January, after a small celebration with my beautiful family for my birthday and arrived in Rishikesh (the Yoga Capital of the World) on 7th January ready to start my 28 day course on the 8th with Om Shanti Om Yoga School.

I will expand on goal setting in a later post so you can get an insight on how to set goals so you reach them consistently.

I am very grateful for my life and I feel very fortunate in many ways.

In my mind, going to a Yoga School near the Himalyan Mountains, I had pictured nature, serenity, fresh air and quiet and accommodation to match. And then we arrived in Rishikesh! Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed, still thinking we had been dropped off at the wrong place. Then we were shown to our accommodation which in Australia probably wouldn’t make 2 stars and the bathroom smell was quite overpowering! I was miles outside my comfort zone but adamant that I was going to see this through.

We started the Yoga Training Course with an opening ceremony, chanting, red dots on forehead, offerings to the Gods, more chanting and this went on for 2 hours and seriously I’m thinking WTF!! have I done!!!! And then the Yoga started. Why doesn’t anyone tell you how hard Yoga is???? It is extremely physical and my body hurt in places I didn’t even know existed!

I am glad I hadn’t done any Yoga as the best part has been learning from Swami Dinesh how to do it properly. There are people in the class who have been practising Yoga for 10 – 15 years and they say they had never really experienced Yoga like this.

After the first 6 days I do feel stronger as now I can do some of the poses that I couldn’t on day 1 and a slight improvement in flexibility. I still can’t sit for long periods but it too is improving. Can you believe that I haven’t sat in a chair since I left New Delhi. Everything is on the floor, even eating, well the sitting part of eating – we do have a coffee table size table to rest our plates on.

The wonderful thing about what I am learning is that it is similar to what we teach in NLP, Time Line Therapy(TM) and Hypnosis. It is all about the mind, body, soul connection and that if we understand our physical, mental and emotional self and bring to consciousness what is ailing us, we then have the ability and capacity to make changes.

As part of the Yoga Teacher Training we are also learning Yoga Philosophy, Body Anatomy, Meditation, Chanting, Pranayama, Yoga alignment and we are doing 3 hours of Yoga a day. Our day starts at 7am and finishes at 7pm with a few short breaks. As of tomorrow we start 4 hours of Yoga. (I didn’t have internet or power yesterday to upload this blog so I can say that my body is very tired today and yes, I’m bitching and moaning and yes sympathy would be nice <smiley face>)

Yoga is about 3 main things and if these 3 things are not present you are not experiencing Yoga – you are only doing the mechanics of it.

  1. Karma – take action and DO good
  2. Giyana – continue gaining knowledge and wisdom of self and world – THINK Good
  3. Bhakti – Selflessness, zero “I”ness, give back and help humanity – BE kind

Great philosophy on how to live our life.

The definition of Yoga given is : If you want the change then be the change.

Yoga is union – union of everything. Our conscious and unconscious mind.

Yoga is control – control over:

  • our senses
  • our thoughts
  • time
  • money

Our thoughts are the root of all as those that have studied with us know. Yoga teachings say you have to bring everything to consciousness and not pretend that you are perfect because this is impossible and this thinking is not in line with Giyana. When things come to consciousness then you can let them go. Yoga philosophy says this takes years and sometimes a lifetime but we know with Time Line Therapy(TM) becoming aware of our negative thoughts, outdated beliefs, limitations we can clear them in 5-10 minutes. I still believe Time Line Therapy(TM) is THE BEST TECHNIQUE if you want to accelerate your success. It doesn’t have to take years.

Yoga is balance / equilibrium

  • between sad & happy
  • cold & hot
  • Right brain and left brain
  • Social life/spiritual life/work life etc
  • (you get the picture….)

NLP and the presuppositions of NLP or our guiding principles, cover a lot of this and we talk about the Law of Polarity – which means if you have any type of problem – physical, emotional, mental, you also already have the solution within you – the flip side of the coin, the balance. It’s not possible to have one without the other.

Time Line Therapy(TM) helps us get in control of our thoughts and senses, release our limitations or outdated beliefs, our negative emotions and dis-ease.

Who takes breathing for granted? I know I did before I come on this training. We breathe, it’s an automatic function, we don’t have to think about it. I WAS SO WRONG!!! And again this brings me to the importance of understanding your body and the mechanics. Once we know how it operates (become conscious of how it works) we can then consciously make changes for self improvement.

Our breathing is made up of four steps:

  1. External Hold
  2. Inhalation
  3. Internal Hold
  4. Exhalation

During the Internal Hold is when the exchange of the two gases takes place i.e. Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen. This is also known as Internal Respiration or Tissue Respiration.

Normally our internal hold is not long enough so we are left with CO2 in the body and we exhale some of the much needed oxygen which means the exchange of gases is not optimal for the body.

Becoming conscious of our breathing is paramount to good health and energy. This is why Yogic Breathing is important to learn.

My brain is working overtime and I am loving it!!!!!!!

Looking forward to being home to share some of these exciting revelations with you.

Next week’s blog will be about how we affect our Chakras with Yoga and NLP and if our Chakras are weak how it affects us physically, mentally and emotionally.

That’s all for this week if you have any questions about this blog or want more information please mention it in the comments or send an email to [email protected]. Until then…

Be your own light.

Cheers

Cherry

PS – after you eat, lay on your left side for 5-15 minutes to help with digestion. More on this in another blog.

PPS – my apologies for the formatting.  My techie stuff is limited here 🙂