One recent rainy Sunday, I couldn’t go outside so I spent a lot of time practicing shoulder stand.
I couldn’t go for a hike. I was cooped up inside. Shoulder stand just seemed like the right thing to do that day.
To my amazement, I wrote about six blog articles that day. The words just flowed out effortlessly afterwards.
Last night, I set up my yoga room with two folding chairs, a foam wrapped with a Mexican blanket and a yoga mat in the middle.
My resolve is to practice shoulder stand every day for a month and just see what happens.
If you read B.K.S. Iyengar in Light on Yoga, he glories in the many benefits of sarvangasana, or shoulder stand:
“The importance of sarvangasana cannot be over-emphasized. It is one of the greatest boons conferred on humanity by our ancient sages. Sarvangasana is the mother of asanas. As a mother strives for harmony and happiness in the home, so this asana strives for the harmony and happiness of the human system. It is the panacea for most common ailments. There are several endocrine organs or ductless glands in the human system which bathe in blood, absorb the nutriments from the blood and secrete hormones for the proper functioning of a balanced and well developed body and brain.”
You could spend a month juicing every day and see what happens. You could go gluten-free for a month. You could listen to relaxing music in your car every day on the way to work. You could exercise daily, meditate every night before bed, take off work early on a regular basis, go to bed on time, drink half your body weight in ounces of water, practice forgiveness, say a prayer before each meal.
There are so many simple but profound steps to take in natural healing that will really go a long way to making a person much, much healthier. I am going to push the button of sarvangasana every day. I will let you know what happens.
By setting up two chairs, you can begin with setu bandha (bridge), transition to sarvangasana (shoulder stand), bring your legs over your head onto the second chair for halasana (plow) and then go back and forth and back and forth, keeping yourself in your inversion.
Lillah Schwarz, my yoga teacher, encouraged me to practice shoulder stand every day. She says it will totally change your body chemistry. I am about to find out!
As I was practicing my shoulder stand this morning, I meditated on the fact that holistic healing gives us so many great tools. Fitness. Nutrition. Natural healing.
If you really want to be radiantly healthy, I have so many great tools to tell you about. Just keep reading this blog!
