Sun Salutations: Accessing Flow

It’s said that the yoga poses - asanas - were originally created to prepare our bodies to sit in meditation.

Most of us have not achieved the enlightenment necessary to sit still, breathe, and calm our mind. The poses are accessible portals to the present moment. When we feel our muscles working hard, it is not really possible for our mind to get stuck in the clutter of the past or in anxiety about the future. The poses provide the scaffolding and support for experience.

And in the first few minutes of a yoga practice, we have tools to help us come into the space and time of the present moment. We settle into Child’s Pose. We ground our feet and hands, feeling our way into our bodies in Downward Facing Dog. Next, we hang in ragdoll -- still with our eyes down to our mats. We take baby steps toward coming up to standing and taking our place on our mat, in community.

The sun salutations are all about accessing flow. They are the opportunity to move. To connect breath and movement. To begin to experience yourself. How does it feel to inhale and reach up? How does it feel to exhale and bow low? We just move. Each on our own mat.

For me, the sun salutations are a way of breaking through obstructions, blockages. What do I let obstruct me? This is where I really feel it. If my breath doesn’t flow -- there is stuckness -- it is like feeling heavy, trying to flow through molasses. From food, if I’ve eaten too recently or too much. Or just a sign that I am depleted. Get rid of the stuckness, and come into the flow. Breathe and move.

A few years ago, I committed to a daily practice of yoga. About halfway through the year, I stopped being in alignment. I wasn’t doing anything especially mindfully -- rushing to yoga and rushing home, shoveling food. Old habits start to creep in. Numbing through eating and trolling the internet. Being at the studio was becoming a bit more social than zen. I found myself gossiping on my mat before class started. Out of balance.

And then I was given a gigantic sign. A tear in my cartilage that made me step back from my mat for a month. A tear, right front and center. Right at my heart. I healed, and also realized it was time to shake things up a bit. The break from asana was the opportunity I needed to get right to the thick of yoga.

Being in a flow is being in the sweet spot, engaged with what ignites us, awake. Sun salutations are about getting energy and breath unstuck, trusting the process, and unfurling ourselves out of contraction into openness.

You can really either be fully in the pose or you can be in your head. Our body reminds us how to be in the flow of the moment. And how to be at home in our bodies. Notice the difference as you shift to be-here-now.