MyLifeYoga

All of us have felt the magic of yoga. It is likely, if you are reading this article, that you are a believer. I am. I know the powers of yoga and have dedicated my life to helping others discover this power.

And I know that the magic of therapeutic yoga reaches into lives of people in diverse populations. Those with physical ailments, traumatic injuries, emotional imbalances or mental upsets can all come to realize the healing potential of yoga and its ability to empower them.

I have heard of football players bowing their heads in namaste, angry young men in drug rehab surrendering in savasana (corpse, or relaxation pose) and prison populations finding solace in yoga. I personally volunteer with Gabriel Halpren at Yoga Circle when he teaches young adults who have many forms of developmental disabilities. I have seen them transformed as Gabriel brings them into the world of yoga.

But autistic children? I must admit that even I wondered how–or if–autistic kids could find some peace on the yoga mat. My friend Tanya Sugarman is a drama teacher at the Lincoln School in Evanston and a longtime yoga practitioner. She told me of the difficulties in getting a small group of autistic children involved in drama and her decision to instead introduce them to yoga. She had already received the approval of the children’s main teacher, Karen Mahoney, and was busy getting mats donated and developing an appropriate sequence of asanas. I wondered how the program would work out.

Research asserts that autistic children are often withdrawn and self-absorbed, being more interested in objects than people. They are often engrossed in stereotypic behaviors and may show rage if these patterned activities are interrupted. How, then, would they respond to the demands of doing yoga postures? What would motivate them to stop their behavior patterns and listen to specific instructions on how to move their body? Could they be still long enough to benefit from savasana? Continue reading →

A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down the supermarket don’t get pissed off and buy someone else’s product instead.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using some high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighing less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” – he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should’ve been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before it, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

“Oh, that — one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang”, says one of the workers.

This story came to us via e-mail. We do not know the source of the story or even if this is a true story. But we love the story because it provides us with a metaphor that illustrates the power of simplicity. Many times we get lost in jargon and complexity while the answer stares us in our face, waiting for us to get off our high horse. In yoga we look for complexity where simplicity works just fine. We wish to study complex sutras and esoteric text while neglecting our simple practice. Let us keep in mind that complexity eventually unfolds to simplicity and that we are better off waiting for the process to happen on its own.

Larry Sherman

My discovery was that I am a Food Addict and these particular foods create a craving in me similar to the one I had when I used drugs and alcohol. I don’t eat any processed foods, I make everything from scratch. It is not as hard as it seems. It is really quite easy once you get the hang of it.

What was the role of yoga in your weight loss?
I weighed over 550lbs when I started. I could not physically do any exercise: I could hardly walk or climb stairs or even sit up for long periods of time. It was an exertion to even breathe. After I lost the first 50-70lbs I wanted to do something and I met a yoga teacher who told me I could do yoga at my current weight of over 500lbs and she would help me. Yoga taught me many things: when I got into distress in a pose I was told to calm my mind and breathe and concentrate on the breath instead of my mind. So when I felt like eating, (usually because I was upset about something) I learned to breathe and concentrate on my breathing and find peace of mind. When I did this I found that I would feel peace instead of distress and didn’t have to eat over it. Also I learned that when I am uncomfortable in a pose that I could work through it mentally and actually become comfortable with feeling discomfort. So when life gets uncomfortable I don’t run from it, I work through all I can do at the moment and work through the mental discomfort like I do to deal with the physical discomfort on my mat.

Did you go to the gym (besides doing yoga) when you were losing weight? If so what was your exercise program? Continue reading →