Could Yoga really empower you enough to conquer your worst fears? Very few people are able to overcome fear, without a serious effort. Fear holds us still, stifles our progress, and distorts our view of reality. Worse yet, some of our fears stem from childhood - whether they are rooted in reality or not.
Yoga offers every practitioner the gateway to self-realization. This newfound awareness allows anyone the opportunity to help focus his or her mind. In turn, a focused mind can separate fact from fiction - much easier than a confused mind.
This Yogic formula is a logical and rational method for determining imagined fears from justified fear, but fear can take on many different forms. Phobias, panic disorders, and anxiety attacks, are various types of fear, which are commonly stress related.
Every day, we fear poverty, the loss of a job, or the loss of a relationship, but sometimes there is no real danger or logical reason for feelings of intense fear, which can take a toll on our health. Our imagination can be a powerful tool toward success in life or the creator of panic attacks, without reason.
Yoga offers many solutions for stilling the mind. The first of these is Pranayama (Yogic breath techniques). Breath is the primary link between mind and body. One of the first techniques Yoga students learn in a class is natural breath.
For adult Yoga students, this means unlearning the short "half breath," which most adults unconsciously practice from the diaphragm to the mouth. Natural breath can be started as an inhale (through the nose), at the bottom of the lungs, expanding upward through the chest, and finally finishing as an exhale through the nose, while the stomach collapses, at the same time.
This same breathing technique can be commonly observed in infants. During natural breath, the stomach expands during an inhale and collapses during the exhale. When adults relearn this breathing technique, the positive result of tranquility is often felt within minutes. Some adult Yoga students start to feel consistently more relaxed after a short session of natural breath.
This is just one of many Yogic methods, which can be practiced for better mental focus and to still the mind. The benefits of focusing the mind, through Yoga practice, are unlimited. Yoga offers a "chemical free" option for people to empower themselves and move toward accomplishments, success, and achievements.
However, the origin of a solution, to overcoming fear, lies in the individual's desire to take action in his, or her, best interest. If a person chooses not to help him or herself, no solution, not even Yoga, will help.
Worry, fear, stress, and anxiety, are ingredients which work together to drain life energy from all of us. If we allow worry, fear, stress, and anxiety, to control our lives, we can create a negative cycle of energy which will shorten our life spans. Yoga offers solutions to all of these problems - without side effects.
Copyright 2007 - Paul Jerard / Aura Publications
1. Fear and insecurity are synonymous. When we feel insecure, we naturally become concerned and spend great portions of time, energy, thought and money toward establishing external security. We focus on acquiring and protecting our sources of persons, food, shelter, sex, money, possessions, prestige or any other external factors which will help us feel secure.
2. This type of thinking and living is often, by necessity, ego-centered and maintained at the expense of others. We do not feel secure enough to love and give, but need to take. When such a psychology permeates our social and national psyche, it can lead to conflict and war.
3. When we feel insecure, we seldom feel the confidence to try something new; we tend to stick to old habits and familiar ways. We fear the new and the unknown. Our lives become stale, boring, habitual, meaningless and without growth. This boring, habitual kind of life leads to inertia; a waking sleep, a living death. Much time and energy are spent on satisfying our security addictions and there is little or no energy left for emotional, mental or spiritual growth.
4. Fear is also the cause and result of a feeling of vulnerability and mistrust. When we feel insecure, we feel threatened by unfamiliar situations or people, thus explaining the development of racial hatred, religious intolerance, and international tensions and war. We mistrust each other and act in defensive and often offensive ways in order to protect ourselves from the imagined danger.
5. When we fear, our reason is nullified and our imagination runs wild, creating the worst possible scenarios, which are usually far from the actual reality.
6. Perception is distorted and we misinterpret others? intentions and actions. When our reason is sufficiently overcome by a panicking imagination, we are moved to prejudice, narrow-mindedness, anger, hate, and in extreme cases aggression, violence, cruelty and war. Even in cases where we do not get carried to such extremes, our relationships usually suffer. It is not possible to be open and loving when we are insecure and fearful.
7. Such irrational behavior reaches its climax in the mob mentality. When many human beings gather into in a large group, their mentality often tends to be reduced to that of the lowest of the group's members. This can be likened to a chain, which is as strong as its weakest link. Large groups of people are not much different in their instinctual reactions from herds of animals and flocks of birds. If one panics in fear, all follow. We often hear of hundreds of persons injured and even trampled to death at soccer matches, demonstrations, and other large gatherings.
8. Living in fear means living with a constant underlying tension. There will be frequent secretions by the adrenal glands as unfamiliar persons and events will cause alarm and elicit the "fight or flight" response. This is exhausting for the nervous, immune and endocrine systems. The pituitary gland and hypothalamus are thrown out of balance, and the immune system becomes run down, setting the stage for a variety of physical and mental illnesses. Health and happiness flee from fear.
9. Perhaps the most unfortunate result of fear is that it acts like a magnet, literally attracting to us to the very things that we fear the most. Fearful thoughts are like magnetic waves which subconsciously interact with the world around us, attracting to us those exact situations and experiences that cause us to be frightened. If we fear thieves, we increase the possibility of encountering them. The same would be true of dogs, cockroaches, spiders, etc.
We do not, however, create the death of a loved one by fearing that. We do not create the others? reality.
Attracting what we fear is actually very useful for our growth process because it forces us to face and become familiar with the things that we fear, which is the first step towards overcoming them. Many of us have discovered by experience that our fear of an event had been out of proportion to the problem actually created by that feared event, and that our fear was entirely unnecessary.
10. Fear is also our greatest obstacle to moving forward in our lives. Every fear is like a closed door that prevents us from researching, growing and developing in many aspects of our lives.
We will investigate the causes and solutions to fear in the remaining sections of this series.
Both Jackie & Robert Elias Najemy are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jackie has sinced written about articles on various topics from Yoga Practice, Anger Control and Yoga Practice. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500, is a co-owner and the director of Yoga teacher training at: Aura Wellness Center in, Attleboro, MA. He has been a certified Master Yoga teacher since 1995.http://www.riyoga.com. Jackie's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.
Robert Elias Najemy has sinced written about articles on various topics from Self Esteem, Dating and Romance and Web Development. Robert E. Najemy, author of 25 books and life coach with 30 years of experience, has trained over 300 life coaches and now does so over the Internet. Become a life coach.Over 600 free article and lectures at. Robert Elias Najemy's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.