Emotional Yoga: How the Body Can Heal the Mind [Paperback]

Bija Bennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 27, 2002

Drawing on her extensive training in yoga therapy, dance, and meditation, Bija Bennett has created a groundbreaking yoga program that takes full advantage of the body-mind connection. Based on the classical eightfold path of yoga, Emotional Yoga offers a broad range of simple body-mind techniques that can positively affect our emotional well-being, including the dynamic interplay of movements, breathing exercises, meditations, lifestyle skills, rituals, gestures, and healing sounds. Each technique is presented in a way that is true to Bennett's background in the tradition of Viniyoga, which allows the reader to adapt the program to his or her specific needs.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Healing Power of Emotions Good Medicine

Emotions are physical, not psychological. Scientists are beginning to understand this now. Emotions act as a bridge between our bodies and minds. Each of us is a psychosomatic network, but this doesn't mean that whatever we are experiencing in our bodies is not to be taken seriously -- quite the contrary. Psychosomatic means that our bodies, minds, and emotions are intimately intertwined. As we alter the awareness of our emotions, we automatically alter our physical state. Managing our emotions is now considered a form of disease prevention. If we heal our emotions, we heal our bodies. Scientist Candace Pert in her landmark book, Molecules of Emotion, says, "Mind doesn't dominate the body, it becomes the body -- body and mind are one." So, if we suppress our emotions, what happens then?

Western culture has been built upon the belief that reasoning is far more important than emotions. For more than 350 years, rational interpretations of behavior have urged us to believe that the judgments of our minds were the key to our actions. Descartes' cogito ergo sum -- "I think, therefore I am" -- elevated thinking to sovereign status. But on every level, including neurobiology, thinking can never be divorced from feeling. There is a profound connection between our emotions and our decisions, between our feelings and our logic, between our brains and the depth of our experiences.

In the East, too, there is disregard, often contempt, for emotions. Eastern spiritual traditions favor a contemplative, detached, dispassionate ideal often confused as enlightenment or nirvana. Great value is placed on the ability to withdraw oneself from all but minimal involvement with the world. Even the stereotypical view -- the serene yogi sitting in exalted meditation -- warns against the distracting power of emotions.

But emotions are not disruptions of an otherwise calm and reasonable experience. They're at the very heart of our experience, determining our focus, influencing our interests, giving meaning to our world. Feelings stir us. They are our inner barometers, our God-given orientation system. Emotions provide us with our most basic communication network within, helping us connect the incidents, the relationships, and the experiences that make up our lives.

Our emotions and our health are intimately connected. Moods and attitudes directly influence our bodies. Unresolved, distressing emotions that linger are toxic and a risk factor to health. But when emotions are acknowledged, understood, and expressed, they are as valuable as any healing intervention available. By getting in touch with our emotions, both by listening to them and directing them through our body-mind, we gain access to the healing wisdom that is our natural and biological right. Once we make a conscious decision to enter our body-mind's conversation, we can heal what we can feel, and this is good medicine.

In truth, "real life" occurs only when we feel deeply. It happens when we allow ourselves the adventure of nurturing our feelings of pain and fear as well as our feelings of pleasure and joy. As we engage in this play of feelings, we move through a range of emotional experiences. Our controlling, logical structures fall away, and a wondrous spontaneity arises from within, bringing real transformation and change. Feeling is an art, a rare art. But it must be practiced.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (August 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684862778
• ISBN-13: 978-0684862774
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Approach to the 8 Limbs, May 20, 2004

By 

CPTScott - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emotional Yoga: How the Body Can Heal the Mind (Paperback)

Bija Bennett has a unique voice in her interpretation of the 8 Limbs of Yoga and overall I found it was valuable food for thought. This is a book that many Western practitioners of yoga might find speaks to them in very clear language. This book focuses on the more viceral emotional elements of Yoga as a practice that is not only based on the postures.

Though this is not an in depth manual for learning the physical postures, it does have some sequenced practices that can be used for different purposes (such as energizing, or tonifying etc.). Her asana practice sections are very sound incorporating dynamic movement (where you move into and out of poses several times with the breath). This stays true to her viniyoga roots (she is a student of Gary Kraftsow I believe who is the most well known teacher of Viniyoga in the west). Viniyoga is a practice taught by TKV Desikachar (which was developed by Deskachar's father T. Krishnamacharya who was also the teacher of B.K.S. Iyengar, P. Jois and others).

I particularly like her section on Pranayama. It's simple and concise and very user friendly. You can apply the techniques quite easily whereas some books on Pranayama are a bit "long winded" :)

Also, she has a section called "An Emotional Walkabout" which is a series of questions that relate to her eight limbed approach and I think it is very helpful. It helps you work through any particular situation you may be dealing with.

Basically you really look at whatever you are dealing with from various angles (there are options within each eight steps so that you can use that which is most suitable to your situation) and the purpose is that it helps you really integrate the situation in a skillful "real life" way. This may be used to come to grips with (perhaps accepting) something you are dealing with or it may be used to let go of unskillful emotions regarding something. This lets you integrate it, learn from it and move on from it.

Anyway, If you are interested in giving yourself another way of looking at the deeper practices of Yoga, then I think this would be a very worthwhile book for you. Bija Bennett definitely has a distinctive personality and perspective to this ancient practice.

Also recommended are Stephen Copes "Yoga and The Quest For The True Self" (and his companion CD's "Yoga For Emotional Flow" which are excellent), Darren John Main's "Yoga and The Path of The Urban Mystic" and Donna Farhi's "Bringing Yoga To Life". All the previous books are not on asana but rather the internal practice of Yoga.

Namaste

16 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yoga at its finest, September 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Emotional Yoga: How the Body Can Heal the Mind (Paperback)

Bija Bennett has an amazing gift for healing hearts and minds by using the ancient tools of yoga. "Emotional Yoga" is a book that should be on everyone's bookshelf. In today's troubled times, Bija Bennett has the answers we all have been seeking.

1 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like new., August 24, 2009

By 

Theodore Bassett "bookie" (Evanston, ILi) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Emotional Yoga: How the Body Can Heal the Mind (Paperback)

I rec'd a mint condition book. I saw the author in person & she's learned her lessons well. tb