Yoga nidra, a game changer
Written by Astrid van Wesenbeeck, May 2022 (you can send Astrid a message here)
Yoga nidra found me via former YogaMoves teacher Anja Mosselaar. For a long period of time I joined her hatha and nidra classes at the Sint Janshovenstraat (in the romantic attic in the building next door) on Sunday evenings. Anja taught classical yoga nidra, with visualisations like red cubes and triangles. I often fell asleep, or drifted into a hypnogogic state and I always felt reborn when I biked home. I am convinced that what impacted me the most and what did its work on a deep level during the meditation, was the Sankalpa, the heartfelt desire. In the first class I had no idea what to do. I never had connected with that question in my life before, ever. I played with several resolutions and learned to listen to bodily responses. Did body say yes or no … or was there indifference? Many times I couldn’t feel anything at all. But via the art of listening with patience I learned to let go of my personal agenda and desires to get somewhere, and to surrender to …yeah … to what? I have no idea!
But I felt I needed more of yoga nidra and luckily I found James Reeves and his delivery of iRest Yoga Nidra on yoga platform Ekhart Yoga. I was touched by the protocol, the language, and more important: via the meditations I felt a deep respect for each aspect of history that had settled in my body, in my nervous system and in my brain. Through iRest I encountered an invitation to welcome in old pain and trauma, sometimes by letting related feelings and emotions arise spontaneously, sometimes by actively inviting them in, and very often by just resting without any intention. After a while I noticed that it was not a changing world that made my life more bearable and interesting, but a changing inner landscape.
I applied for the iRest Certification Program to deepen knowledge and practice and found a solid ground for further inquiry. During the certification program I dedicated a lot of time in inquiring into inner resource and how to use inner resource for people with severe child trauma. Inner resource is a felt sense of safety, ease and wellbeing that is always present in our being. However, when thoughts, emotions and feelings keep us busy all day long this innate sense of okey-ness may have moved out of our sight. In an iRest yoga nidra Inner Resource is one of the foundations for the practice, it gives you a safe ground to connect with when anything pops up that is overwhelming. In my inquiry of Inner Resource I found books like “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk and “The Polyvagal Theory” by Stephen W. Porges, and they made me realize how profound the iRest protocol is compiled and constructed. How important it is to navigate through responses of your nervous system in loving awareness, to be with difficult bodily sensations, and to learn the nervous system, the body and the brain to find its natural, innate resilience.
Are you eager to learn more about (iRest) yoga nidra? Read the other blog posts about it, but, more fun, come and experience this beautiful practice in the studio. Check the schedule 😊!