Through the Lens of Suffering: Why Yoga Helps Heal Despair and Trauma ~ by Margaret McBride

… Through the lens of those suffering from despair, anxiety, PTS, trauma and other ills, we can all learn – or be reminded – how and why yoga helps.

I believe yoga helps because it focuses on being present to what is and what our body feels. Most importantly, yoga gets us into our body and the present moment – where we can find comfort in our own breath, sensations and skin. Breath, movement, meditation and yoga nidra (among other yoga practices) support what is needed for healing from depression and trauma. …

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Yin & Yang: A New Approach to Yoga for the Military & Beyond ~ by Unyong Kim

In Taoist philosophy, Yang and Yin describe two harmonious and opposite energies, which remain in constant dynamic balance: when yang energy waxes to its maximum, the seed of its opposite, yin energy is sown, which then waxes to its maximum, while its opposite, yang energy wanes, until the seed of yang is sown with the maximized yin. …

• Yin is associated with the receptive, feminine, deep, spiritual, restorative, while Yang is associated with the active, masculine, surface, worldly, challenging.

• The military is perhaps one of the most yang institutions in our culture, which is experiencing the birth of the yin element.

• Mindfulness meditation and yoga are two very yin practices, which bring balance to the stresses arising from an excess of yang energy.

• On a macro level, yang cultures such as the military, give rise to seeds of yin practices like yoga and mindfulness.

• On a micro level, individuals with forceful, clenched approaches to living, give rise to their own need for centering breath and mindfulness, moment to moment.

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