Archive for the ‘self help’ Tag
Book review: Træk Vejret (Breathe)
Filed under: book, review, yoga | Tags: boost your brain, breath, death, health, meditation, self help, yoga
Leave a Comment I came across a book by Stig Åvall Severinsen which I really think deserves an English translation. If you saw The Big Blue back in the 80′s and still wonder how a person can build up the physique and will power to hold the breath for such a long time YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK ! In the Big Blue there are some references to yoga techniques and to my knowledge this is the first attempt ever to go through this in such an scientific way !
Inspired by the Big Blue I decided that pranayama, breathing exercises from yoga was really something I wanted to go deeper with. To my surprise I discovered that retention of the breath came without effort after Nadi Shodan. I followed the ratio given in Prana Pranayama Prana Vidya and slowly over several months I gradually increased the ratio. I simply did not feel the urge to breath as frequently as I do normally. At first I was a bit scared by this fact and I was scared that my brain would get damaged by the lack of Oxygen. As well as counting the nadi shodana I counted the time I performed this natural breath retention afterwards. I did not really believe my counting was accurate because I simply did not think it was possible to hold the breath for such a long time without being an elite athlete. To make sure I was counting on a correct speed I took a loud clock and I counted in my head at the same time as the clock was ticking. After 2 minutes I was excited about how easy this was. I noticed movements within the body but I continued. I passed 6 minutes and now I was really chocked I had the fear that I will actually die from this. Aft
er 7 minutes I stopped and it took quite a long time for my breath to get back to normal.
In my life there were a lot of things that really took energy and focus and I remember this moments of breath retention as really peaceful and it was like I was recharging my batteries in some way. During this period it was extreme how many things I was able to deal with at the same time. My personal belief is that I would have been totally burned out in this period if it was not for the Nadi Shodan. When I look back at this period I amazed how good timing it was. My father was going through a very though time and I visited him a lot, my girlfriend since 2 years decided to leave me, I had extra responsibilities on top of my study at university etc. Some years earlier just one of these things would have got me totally paralysed. I totally admit that this was a very emotional period and I cried many evenings etc. but it was like I got extra power to go through this from the Pranayama.
Now several years later when I read this book I understand what processes actually happened in my body and the fact that the author is named Stig makes it extra intense since that is also the name of my father. had I read this book at this point I think I would have continued with my practice but back then I had a lot of worries that it was dangerous what I was doing etc.
This book made me interested in taking a seminar with Stig and learn about the special techniques he talk about in the book ! As always I recommend learning yoga and breathing techniques from an experienced teacher.
books mentioned in this article:
Prana Pranayama Prana Vidya by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati
Træk vejret by Stig Åvall Severinsen
my way of teaching yoga
Filed under: diary, teaching, yoga | Tags: exercise, self help, teaching, yoga
Leave a Comment I have recently started to teach yoga and that made me think about my philosophy and who I am. I was in my twenties when I discovered yoga and I have been doing the asanas and pranayamas for 11 years now. In the beginning I was eating in Indian restaurants in Sweden and I went to Hare Krishna sometimes to take part in their dancing and singing as well as my daily asana program. I went to longer residential courses in Sweden were the teachers were dressing in orange and it felt like they were trying to recreate an Indian ashram in Sweden. The singing was in a language I did not understand and the whole thing about changing your name to an Indian one felt a bit strange. I think there was a reason why I was born in Sweden and in the yoga teaching seminar I participated in recently it all came clear to me. I should only teach the techniques I have a long experience with. So what I teach is pranayama and asanas since that is what I do pretty regularly and have had good experiences from.
For a period I did yoga only and I was a vegan. Now I am back to a state where I eat meat once in a while, I do training with weights in the gym and I run on the beach. I listen to trance music and dance spontaneously when I feel like it. I like to read about technology and science as well as yoga books. Nothing has to exclude the other. I have come to more accept the person I am and in the same way I hope I can accept my students. I want to teach asana and pranayama because I felt a great help from this in my life. I went through my last year of university study with the help of yoga. I think without it I would not have been able to handle all the situations that came up in my life during that time.
I have great respect for people who chant regularly and live as strict vegetarians and I understand why people wear orange clothes and change their name but at the same time I do not live like this and it would be fake from me to teach about it. If you want to go more in depth in one of this areas I am happy to provide you with addresses to ashrams who teach this for example.
When I teach I have my normal clothes on and that could be everything from a strict shirt to jumper of a random colour. For practical reasons I want the yoga room to be clean and have fresh air. I want my student to wear loose and not so tight fitting clothes so they can move with out problems when doing the asanas. Realistic goals from my students is to sleep better at night, to have a relief in their back-pain, to be able deal with their everyday with awareness and clarity. I would like to teach people in their homes or at their work place because I see yoga as a natural part of life. If a whole office department learn yoga techniques and do it together for 10 minutes before lunch that becomes something natural. At the same if you get the routine of doing yoga for a short period at home each day you will clearly have benefits but the risk of going for a long course far away from home is that you feel alienated when you get back home. If your husband/wife see you doing yoga a short time at home there is nothing strange about it. If one person in a relationship goes on a long course the other person maybe feels left out and have all kinds of strange ideas of what a yoga course is.
The benefit of starting with a short program in your natural surrounding is that you gradually feel more aware and there is no risk of going to fast and getting very strong experiences when you are not ready for it.
I think there are some myths about yoga. I am not a doctor and I will always recommend people to see a doctor first if they have some serious illness. It has been proven that the immune system can become stronger with yoga and that can help in cure of cancer but I will never give the advice to trust yoga only. Yoga will not make you a superman and rather it will make you aware of your weakness as well as what your strength is and you will see reality for what it is.
The natural state of our life is relaxation and activity. yoga is focused on the relaxation part as I see it and I do not think I need to teach you how to stress and work more 
But like with yin and yang , black and white, good and evil. They all need each other to exist and in the same way it is essential with relaxation for your body to be able to handle the 100 hour work week as an investment banker. Sure you can work all the time for a limited time but the big risk is that the body will tell you to relax in a very abrupt way by presenting you with a total burn out where you can not work even if you need to. Please reply with questions if there is something you wonder about
The only way to success
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: exercise, gratitude, running, self help
Leave a Comment Are you like me and have a some scars from when you tried to master the art of skiing and skating when you where a kid. How did we finally manage to get down the slope in one piece ? We tried and fell and tried again. We saw some older guy who really could skate well and we wanted to be like him. Then we get older and we start to think like “I could never write a book “. But how did the now famous writers start their career ? More than one of them talk about how they sent their material to a publisher who politely said it was not good enough. Did they give up ? No they tried again. Like a child who learns to walk they tried and tried again. Every “mistake” is a step in the right direction. With every mistake we also get to learn a tiny bit more of how it is to actually walk successfully. We set out to run because we know it is healthy. It is raining outside and it is cold. We get a pain in a knee after 2 kilometers and we are really disappointed that we cannot run as fast as the guy we saw in the commercial for running shoes. We are also disappointed because we wanted to run for 5 kilometers. What about if we are grateful for the 2 kilometers we ran ? Will that not change the whole scenario ?
rant: why white people fail at yoga
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: meditation, new age, pseudo-scientific, rant, self help, self-help books, self-improvement, yoga, yogi
Leave a Comment I am sitting here drinking a cup of coffee which for certain is not ayurvedic and before that I had a big meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken. If you are a self declared yoga guru you have probably passed out by now. I wonder, how the hell could I stay true to a vegan diet for three years !?! fast food with all the magical ingredients , which is just strange names to me since I do not have a doctors degree in chemistry, taste great ! Ok I failed miserably according to the yoga books. Eat in moderation ! Vegetarian food is the best for yoga ! etc. But what does all that mean ? If I eat meat and lots of it should I just avoid doing yoga altogether ? I have been starving myself on a vegan diet and for sure my body was light and I could do some semi advanced knots and hold my breath for quite a long time. The only thing it led to in my case was social isolation. You get invited to a dinner and you cannot eat anything they are serving and you are boring because you do not drink. They do not invite you again, what is the point in cooking for somebody who does not eat ? By the way I stopped the holding breath excersises when I read that you actually kill braincells by not giving them enough oxygen. Enlightment in all honour but to function in this world I need what is left of my brain. Expect on my last work were I could have left it at home without noticing. But what is the point with all these excersises ? No matter what we do we have to shit, eat ,sleep and pay the bills. No meditation I have done so far have actually put any money in my bank account. It have been a steady stream of expenses to course after course. For some the whole spiritual journey is a linear one but where does it end then ? I mean if you go from eating meat to just lentils what is the next step ? You meditate 24/7 and eat a spoonful of rice each month but what then ? I see these yoga guys who can make a human knot out of themselves and I wonder why they do it ? no matter how much they try, Mister fantastic in the fantastic four can still do it better. OK I admit it i will do some yoga before I go to bed tonight. Just a little bit I promise. No mister fantastic just some breathing exercises. I have already burnt all the bridges to enlightenment but I have very vivid dreams when I do some relaxing before bedtime. I do not need to rent a movie. I have horror movies in 4D every night. It feels like I am in the middle of the battleground and when I am scared it is for real. I never understood people who take drugs like LSD and stuff. Take a couple of yoga courses and I can assure you that your dreams will be very strong and clear and if you really get into it you are even able to control the dreams at night. Imagine that you can choose your own destination in dreamland. You want a date with Jenna Jameson you got it ! But this is something they never advertise about in the yoga ashrams etc. Tantra sex were you meditate for hours together with your loved one. How exciting is that ? i think in general dreams are largely underrated. I mean in a dream you can do whatever you want. In an instant you can have the house you want and drive the car you want. You wake up and there is no bill to pay. I am just rambling I know but it is late and I am about to see a movie. It is called “walk the talk” and it is about a self help guru who have to re valuate his life. In general I think it is easiest to be a self help guru if you have inherited a fortune and live alone. As soon as you actually have to deal with the real world no words will help you unless you are willing to walk the extra mile. Oh no I quoted a self help guru by mistake in the last sentence. I think there are more people who have succeed who have have never opened a self help book. Writing a self help book instead of reading one is the first step to success or at least that is my theory(tm). What does all the self help books give you ? you get more egoistic and selfish ? Read some help others books instead. I think this world would be a much better place if we actually spend our time helping others. But I guess that is what mothers, firefighters, policemen, dads etc. have been doing all the time without having the time to write a book about it.
peace to you all whoever you are.
At an early age I got interested in Buddhism and the prince who left his kingdom in the search for truth. How can I apply this story to my own life ? to be able to sit I took up the study of yoga. Is there a contradiction between yoga and science ? Sure we can get a theoretical understanding through books, but without the experience we are stuck. Why is it so hard to practice non-violence when the mosquito is landing on my neck ?