Lighten Up With Yoga...

In your yoga practice visualising images of light within the body can lighten your mood and help you to shake off that tail end of winter slump. This week in class we've used a few simple ways of introducing images of light into our practice, and I will describe some of them in this post.

• We begin the class lying on our mat in the relaxation position and we visualise the spine as a column or pillar of light. Then throughout the practice we keep coming back to this image whilst sitting, standing, and in various yoga poses. In Mountain Pose (Tadasana) we visualise the spine as a pillar of light that extends from the base of the spine stretching way down into the earth below, and extending from the crown of the head way up into the sky above. 
• Also during the session we use a simple meditation phrase combined with the breathing. The phrase is "love and light". We use this phrase in two ways. Firstly, we silently say "love and light" each time we inhale and each time we exhale. Secondly, we silently repeat the phrase at the end of the inhale, before we breathe out, and at the end of the exhale before we breathe in. During our practice we then combine this with our asanas using simple repetitive movements and the phrase "love and light". 

In my own home yoga practice I've found using the above techniques really sweetens up a practice and is joyful and uplifting. When teaching the techniques I've observed a quietening of the class, and a calm, peaceful atmosphere seems to arise. I've also noticed that visualising a column of light at the spine seems to improve students natural sense of alignment in the postures. The techniques also give us a subtle way of working with Ajna, the third eye chakra, whose element is light. Working with Ajna chakra improves intuition and develops a clarity of inner vision. 

The practice below is one I developed myself at home over a few days of sessions focusing on the Ajna chakra and visualising images of light. The notes below were originally for my eyes only as an aide memoire to remind me of what I'd done during the session. So please excuse their unpolished nature, but hopefully they will remind you what we've  been doing in class this week. 

NB: a note on abbreviations. Where it says "AK"  that means- hold the breath in at the end of the inhale. Where it says "BK" it means - hold the breath out at the end of the exhale. So "AK love and light" means hold the breath in and silently repeat "love and light".