Body, mind, and spirit. In an ideal world, each would be precisely attuned to the others, operating in perfect balance with one another. But more often than not our minds tend to dominate, overpowering the yearnings of the spirit and the whisperings of the body. That’s why we do yoga. In yoga, we use the external self as a gateway to the internal self. We sweat, breathe, twist and balance with such intentional focus that our mind is forced to release us from its vice grip, if only for an hour. By the end of class, we’re so physically exhausted that we can no longer get in our own way — we let go completely and enjoy a few blissful minutes of savasana. 

In the yogic tradition, the physical postures of yoga (known as asana) were intended as a preparation for meditation. And if you’ve ever experienced a particularly juicy savasana, you can easily see why. When we train ourselves to focus on the body, we cannot help but quiet the mind, and in doing so, allow ourselves access to something deeper. In other words, asana uses the body as a bridge between the mind and spirit. And that’s what makes the body such a rich resource for information about ourselves. 

When I was 19 years old I fell in love for the first time. It was all-encompassing, intense, and fraught with drama from the start. I was so swept up in the passion of it all that I discarded the drama. But there was one thing I couldn’t discard: at the exact same time the romance began, I started breaking out into full body hives. This had never happened to me in my life, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. Doctors were of little help, prescribing creams, sympathy, and not much else. All I knew for sure was that my whirlwind love affair was quickly punctuated by full days spent writhing on my bed in misery, my whole body covered in painful, burning swaths of red, swollen skin. I felt disfigured and completely out of control. 

It seemed incongruous at the time that falling in love would be coupled so closely with the worst physical pain I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t until much later I realized how apt that timing actually was. The relationship turned out to be deeply destructive. The intensity I’d initially felt swiftly turned from intoxicating ardor to consuming anxiety. I wish I could say the hives ended when the relationship did; but the truth is it took years before I could get what had turned into severe eczema under control. I never discovered what exactly triggered it that first summer. But I don’t think its synchronicity with my first love, soon to be my first heartbreak, was an accident. On some level my body sensed, and reacted to, a deep uneasiness hidden beneath that first flush of excitement. My body anticipated the emotional pain that my mind and heart were not ready to acknowledge. 

"The body never lies.” - Martha Graham 

Now, the truth is, I may not have been able to avoid that heartbreak no matter how well I’d tried to listen to my body’s warning cries. But on subtler levels, our bodies are trying to communicate with us all the time, to share the information it’s intuiting about our emotion and physical needs. It warns us when we’re overworked, dehydrated, or uneasy about a problem we don’t want to face. If we’re willing to look, it will show us where we’re contracted too tightly and where we’re stretched too thin. Where we need to get stronger, and where we need to surrender. 

But being attuned to these signals is another story entirely. Our culture prizes mind over matter, and most of us have conditioned ourselves to keep a safe distance between ourselves and our
bodies. We exercise with loud music blocking out the sound of our breath, ignore the instinct to take a nap and drink coffee instead, eat sugar for energy when we really need water. So the process of moving the body intentionally — neither muscling through it, nor giving up the instant it gets uncomfortable — can be a revolutionary act. The sensations the body provides when we move through our yoga practice can tell us so much. In what postures or transitions does the breath flow easily, and where does it sharply break off? Where do we start to feel irritated in a pose, where does our mind start to wander, where do we berate ourselves? By simply noticing these things, we start the process of tuning in, of learning the language with which our spirit communicates to the mind through the body. Once we do that, though...the journey has just begun. 

As we go deeper, we learn that just as the body is intuitive about what’s happening in the present moment, it can also act as a road map through our own histories. Muscle memory stores experiences, emotions, habits, fears and traumas — many of which we have no idea remain within us. Consider the natural physical reaction to shock or bodily threat: clenching the fists, pulling our knees into our chest, hunching the torso to guard ourselves in a fetal position. Then consider how vulnerable it is to lie on the floor with your hips splayed open, or to reach your chest forward while pulling your shoulders back. You’re exposed... and so are your emotional and energetic blocks. It can feel scary, uncomfortable, and even painful. But this is the work. 

"The part can never be well unless the whole is well." -Plato 

The word “yoga” literally translates as “union,” which makes sense when you realize that the goal of the practice is to bring all parts of ourselves — physical, mental, and emotional — into conversation with one another. The body is the first and most tangible place to start that process. But to truly converse with the body, we must do so with kindness. When we stretch our leg and the muscle screams out from tightness, that’s when we breathe more deeply into it, not curse ourselves for being inflexible. After all, if we can’t treat our own bodies with compassion, non-judgement, and open-mindedness, how can we hear what it’s telling us? And how can we bring those qualities to anything else we do or anyone else we interact with? This is the path to self-awareness and self-love.

​So go ahead, stretch that hamstring, even — no, especially — if it hurts. You might just learn something. 

About the Author:  Marissa Goodhill Meet Marissa Goodhill.  She is our newest URY teacher and Blog Contributor and we are happy to have her.   Marissa is a Los Angeles based screenwriter, storyteller, yogi, and dog mama.  She believes in the transformative magic of yoga, the strength of the human spirit, and the timeless power of storytelling to foster empathy, compassion, and connection where we need it most.  She also believes in baked good.  All the baked goods.