Stretch Into Your Body Glove

“A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves.” — T. Guillemets

Your body is like a glove.

You can stretch into your body glove to become all that you’re capable of.

I was reading the book … And I Breathed: My Journey from a Life of Matter to a Life That Matters, by Jason Garner.   In it, he shares the insight that yoga helps you stretch into your body glove, and you can use yoga moves to become all that you’re capable of.

I’m a big believer that the right metaphors can empower us, and I really like the body glove metaphor.

Yoga is Not for Everyone

If you don’t see the value, you won’t do it.   And that’s exactly where Garner was coming from.

Via … And I Breathed:

”I hadn’t done the yoga not because I was lazy or because it looked lame.  I didn’t do it because I didn’t see the value.  It appeared to be a waste of time and so I skipped it like all the other waste-of-time things people had tried to make me do in my life.”

Yoga Helps You Stretch Into Your Body Glove

What changed is Garner’s Guru helped him think about yoga in a brand new way.  Like a body glove.

Via … And I Breathed:

“’Yoga,’ he began, ‘is one methodology allowing you to stretch into your body, your body glove.  It’s like a glove or a pair of shoes: if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t serve and if it doesn’t serve, nothing works well.  I asked you to do downward dog because it’s the same exercise almost every animal does.  Dogs do it after getting up from every nap.  Stretching into the body glove enables the occupant of the body to fully utilize the body.”

Yoga Helps You Get In Touch with More of Your Body

It’s easy to lose touch with part of our body that we don’t use much.  Yoga can help us breathe new life into all the parts of our body, that we haven’t used in years.

Via … And I Breathed:

“’Yoga has been developed over thousands of years to help you get in touch with those places in your physical form that generate emotional sensations, which in turn produce thought.  It is getting to those places that allows us to ultimately have not only a body that fits, but a life that fits.  When the body and the life fit, neither one of them disrupts your ability to have a clear sensation of God at all times.  So in the midst of yoga we get into postures, we have movements and, equally important, we breathe consciously.’”

Yoga Can Be a Smart Thing To Do

Yoga’s not lame.  In fact, you might say it’s pretty smart.

Via … And I Breathed:

“All of a sudden the lame yoga postures didn’t seem so lame.  In fact, yoga sounded like a really smart thing to do.  I listened as the guru continued.”

Downward Dog Releases Compression in the Organs

It’s great for people, too.  The Downward Dog pose can help us decompress our organs and give them some breathing room.

Via … And I Breathed:

‘I asked you to do downward dog because there’s a relationship between the glands and the organs of the abdomen and this relationship is effective when there is room for the glands and organs to relate.  Inverting the body in downward dog releases the compression that takes place throughout our lives by sitting and standing.  This increased space allows everything to move and function effectively.

Paint the Aura Helps Your Energy Flow

The Paint the Aura pose can help us expand our energy in less limited, and more unlimited ways.

Via … And I Breathed:

“’Also, I asked you to paint the aura.  Kirlian photographs of the bodies of living creatures show there is an electromagnetic field that surrounds every one of us.  This is what is known as the aura.  When you do that exercise to paint the aura, you are actually spreading your intention into this electromagnetic field through the nerve endings in your hands.  Each of our hands has 72,000 nerve endings, the same number in each of our feet. 

Reflexology is a therapy that utilizes this fact.  It knows that these nerve endings connect to all of the glands and organs throughout our body and that we can affect those glands and organs by massaging the nerve endings.  By the same fact, in reverse, we can affect the space around us by allowing the energy coming from our glands and organs through those nerve endings to be painted into the surrounding space.  This may sound like woo-woo, but it is as real as a surgeon’s scalpel.’”

While we’re on the topic of yoga, let me share a few of my favorite yoga quotes:

“Sun salutations can energize and warm you, even on the darkest, coldest winter day.”

— Carol Krucoff

“Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one’s being, from bodily health to self realization. Yoga means union – the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of one’s actions.”

— B.K.S. Iyengar

How does your body glove fit?

Does your body glove fit your life?

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Image by Matthew Ragan.