Coming to Our Senses with Yoga

pratyahara for the modern mama

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Sensory pleasure

“By going out of your mind, you come to your senses.”

-Alan Watts

I absolutely love coffee. Drinking coffee is one of those things that I just do automatically whether I feel tired or not. I look forward to it everyday and seek it out. For me, it’s as much about slowing down or taking a pause as much as it is about getting a little energy boost. I’ve heard a similar sentiment from smokers who reflect on why they smoke.

Sensory pleasure brings a moment of pause. It brings us an avenue to embodiment.

As mamas, our bodies are constantly on demand; mothering is a highly physical and highly emotional job and yet, it’s easy to slip into numbing mode in moments of overwhelm. At least, that’s what I often do when things get to be too much and I’ve experienced other aspects of mom burnout: irritability, insomnia, feeling inept as a mom, and decreasing tolerance for the big emotions my kids have.

Many mamas tend to love coffee because we’re tired and motherhood is demanding and relentless. We might know that we could try other things to bring us a burst of energy or a moment of calm, but it’s often easier to sip on a cup o’ joe or have a beer while we play with the kids or nurse the baby. Plus, the act of drinking a bevarage brings so much lovely sensory stimulation: aroma, flavor, temperature.

What does this all have to do with yoga?

There’s a popular notion that yoga and being present in the moment is all about quieting the mind. That is true, but the work of quieting the mind begins with fully engaging with the senses. It becomes less about telling ourselves what not to do and more about enjoying each moment with full color, texture, scent, sensation, and sensuality.

Yoga is not just a discipline, but a celebration of life.

David Garrigues puts it well in the article Pratyahara: Withdrawing the Senses and Truly Enjoying Your Yoga:

 “We could allow the concept of sensuality to expand into a context that combines the sacred and the physical, and such a combined context could be developed to perfection within an asana practice. In this light the ability to be sensual is an essential part of having a mature, satisfying asana practice. If done with precision and honesty enjoying sensuality could help your asana practice become a great art, a tremendous achievement of skill and craft, a soulful inhabiting of the body to such a degree as to achieve the highest mastery of aestheticism and discrimination.This mastery could then extend to everything you experience.”

I’ve heard too many people say that yoga is uncomfortable because they are not good at it, a.k.a. not flexible enough, strong enough, aligned enough, perfect enough, or focused enough. Let’s clear away all those notions of (not) enoughness and settle into a new paradigm of making yoga enjoyable and rich with sensory appreciation. It will bring so much more calm and balance to us if we approach it that way, not to mention it will be much more appealing to keep up a regular practice since we’ll look forward to it!

How can a mama focus on anything?

As mamas, we are constantly vigilant, especially when the kids are little. How can we practice thoughtful observation of our senses when the kids are throwing cheerios all over the floor? How can we bring yoga practices like pratyahara (one of the eight limbs of yoga) down to earth to fit into our chaotic, distracted lives as modern mamas? If you’re new to the eight limbs of yoga and don’t know much about pratyahara, check out my recent post on the topic here and how it can be relevant to the life of a mom.

We can have a consistent practice of pausing to focus and engage with our senses. We just have to be interested in it, dedicated to it, and creative about our approach. It starts with small, ordinary moments in our day. We don’t need complicated practices and it only needs to take a moment or a minute or two. That might sound pointless and insignificant, but any small thing practiced daily can bring slow change to our nervous systems and moods.

Keep it simple: practice a little cat-cow on the rug instead of a yoga mat and feel the softness of that surface. Listen to ebb and flow of your breath as you round and arch your spine. Watch the way the sun streams in the window nearby and lights up the colors around you. Notice what smells are in the air. Bring all your senses to the most simple yoga pose and it will be worth more than an entire yoga class done with a distracted mind.

Eyes opened, eyes closed

“Every closed eye is not sleeping, every open eye is not seeing.”

-African Proverb

Have you ever been in a yoga class where the teacher directs everyone to close their eyes? For some, closing the eyes just magnifies mental chaos; that’s why, in trauma informed yoga, closing the eyes is never required or even encouraged. If closing your eyes feels uncomfortable or unsafe, you might think that you can’t meditate. I don’t think that’s necessarily true; it just means you either prefer to meditate with eyes open or you’ve missed some steps on preparing for meditation.

There’s a reason that we have eight limbs of yoga; we move from gross to subtle, interactive to introspective, and slowly refine our awareness. It starts with noticing our bodies, emotions, sensations, and thoughts so that we can be more present through our senses. Our eyes are powerful mediators between what’s around us and what’s within us. We can choose to close our eyes to focus our attention inward, or if we choose to remain with eyes open, we can bring our attention to the present moment in some different ways:

1. Find a focus for your eyes, preferably a small point that isn’t moving (sight).

2. Feel your feet on the ground or your sitz bones on whatever surface they’re settled into (touch).

3. Bring your hands to your thighs or on your heart and/or belly, or bring your hands together in anjali/prayer mudra(touch).

4. Consciously engage with your senses. Notice the sounds around you, the lighting and colors, the smells, the feeling of the clothes on your body or the air temperature around you, and even lingering tastes in your mouth (integrating the senses).

Pick two or three times of the day when you can do this kind of sensory appreciation. Let it be playful, experimental. Think of it as a gesture of love towards yourself, others, and the world. You know how you might look into the eyes of someone you love? Let it be like that, full of affection and wonder.

Pratyahara: a bridge between external and internal

“Pratyahara….the movement of the mind toward silence rather than toward things.”

-Donna Farhi

As a mom of young children, I sometimes feel like silence is gold. Occasionally, though, when there’s silence I worry about what the children are so quietly involved in. Sound is definitely a big component of how I’ve been connecting with my kids since they were born, from hearing their first heartbeats at prenatal appointments to hearing them cry for me at night.

And then there are things like the white noise machine, which, eight years into motherhood, I can barely sleep without! My sense of hearing is forever changed since becoming a mom.

There are times, though, that the sounds become noise and it becomes too much: like when my daughter and son are arguing over a toy or one of them is melting down, screaming about some small childhood disappointment.

I sometimes joke that if I created my own prenatal yoga style, it would include some portions of the class where I played the sounds of babies crying and children having tantrums so mamas could practice calming their nervous systems while listening to these oh-so-overstimulating sounds of motherhood. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate yogic training?

It’s very difficult to go from overdrive to complete stillness. It’s like when you step from a noisy bar or restaurant out into the quiet night and the clamor of where you came from still echoes in your ears.

Move slowly on this path, mama. There’s no need to seek perfection, purity, and complete peace when most of your life is chaos. Keep in mind this lovely quote from Nischala Joy Devi’s The Secret Power of Yoga: A Woman’s Guide to the Heart and Spirit of the Yoga Sutras: 

“Entice the senses inward by invoking a gentle light or flame, the sound of your heartbeat, the fragrance of roses, the sweetness of saliva, or a feeling of well-being. Find ways to see, hear, and feel beauty in the delicate world within.”

Think: simple, small, often. These are the things that can transform our yoga and our lives into a sensory wonderland that keeps us more present and alive.

Coffee and the day-to-day

Back to that cup of coffee we were discussing at the beginning of this post…it’s okay if you drink coffee because you’re tired. Life is tiring and sometimes we can enjoy a tasty little boost, but let’s also look forward to finding some movement and breathing practices to bring us energy, calm, and balance. Our senses, bodies, and minds need a ‘balanced diet’ so we should not only get our stimulation from caffeine, but also from other aspects of our life. After all, it’s actually easier to pause and breath consciously for a minute or to do a few yoga poses that take the trouble to brew a cup of coffee.

Whatever you do, though, be present with it by engaging with your senses. It’s okay if your mind wanders or worries - just keep bringing it back to what you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste.

But yeah, extra points for you if you can sit up tall and take a few deep breaths while you sip that coffee:)

Resources on pratyahara and the senses

A few posts I wrote years ago on what I like to call ‘pratyahara play:’

https://urbanyogamama.substack.com/p/sights 

https://urbanyogamama.substack.com/p/touch 

https://urbanyogamama.substack.com/p/pratyahara-play 

A clear, brief, concise article on the the stages of pratyahara:

https://www.yogi.press/home/pratyahara  

Let me know if you find or know of any great resources on this topic! Thanks for reading and I hope you get some time away from the screen you’re reading on to get out in the elements and engage your senses. Also, feel free to share the love if you know someone else that would enjoy this post:)

Just a reminder, I’ve taking a detour from my usual posting schedule. If you check out last week’s post and scroll to the bottom, I explain there what I’ll post before the Summer Solstice, when I plan to get back on my regular posting.