![]() The mind starts to quiet in public during times you’d normally feel anxious. ![]() You feel your excuses, energy drains, emotional tangles, and locked mind doors begin to open. As you practice it becomes an amazing experience to feel the mind begin to sort itself. These tools allow us to sort through the mind. Yoga Nidra and iRest can be a part of your maintenance program. Stopping to think or reflect can also be the difference between life and death in a dangerous situation. We often feel like we are being attacked from all sides the moment we have time to rest. Stopping to rest or have feelings at all is perceived as weakness and self doubt. This is all part of our personal narrative and the way we travel through life at such a great speed. It denies our inner peace, sense of wellbeing, security, and clarity. We train ourselves to “be strong,” “survive,” and “keep going.” We drag our bodies around broken, suffering, and exhausted and use it as a badge of honor to feel like we are tough and strong. ![]() It is training ourselves to be ok with just where we are even if that involves discomfort or even serious emotional or physical pain. IRest Yoga Nidra allows our mind to soften around the current state of our body. **This is NOT a promised result of any form of yoga or meditation! Don’t stop taking your meds just because you started yoga. With the guidance of my doctor and the support of family I safely transitioned off my medications for anxiety and depression that had been in my body for 16 years. I dropped my stories and decided to trust the process. ![]() I utilized this science of the mind to bring true feelings of inner peace to my life by making this part of my daily routine. In a little over 3 months of practicing iRest I’ve decreased my generalized anger, anxiety, and sadness and increased my quality of sleep, length of sleep, and overall feelings of happiness and wellbeing. In November of 2018 I attended a workshop with Annie Okerlin and she introduced us to iRest and shared her experience teaching in the military hospital setting. IRest has helped me stay aware and awake to the needs of my children as I struggle with divorce and healing from 15 years of abuse. iRest is the Yoga Nidra format approved by the US Army Surgeon General and approved as ”a Tier 1 approach for addressing Pain Management in Military Care.” Follow these links to listen to an official iRest meditation and learn more. The main form of Yoga Nidra meditation we are using in class is influenced by iRest. Yoga Nidra is a guided form of meditation most commonly practiced lying down and often translated as “Yogic Sleep.” You don’t have to have any experience in yoga or familiarity with the philosophy to practice. If you practice Yoga Nidra or iRest consistently you will experience calm, relaxation, and joy for no reason in as little as 4 weeks of dedicated self study. If you drop the stories and excuses and approach this process like a battle of Self and Mind you will prevail and the fog will lift. Our minds run the show and don’t like that we may question the facts. Meditation can feel impossible when you have a mind that is completely reactive to the world around you. “I don’t have time.” “I’m too busy.” “I have ADHD I just can’t focus!” “It’s NOT my thing.” Quiet?! Sit?! Me?! Before you know it your hand is on your phone, your toes and legs are fidgeting, and your mind has whisked you back to the clutter. I ask you to sit or lie still and suddenly terror bubbles up from nowhere. People quit before they even start because they are afraid of failure.
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