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jenniferad
47 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 05 2011 : 09:11:37 AM
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Pranayama is an amazing experience for me and I can't put into words how grateful I am to yogani for giving instructions for it.
I am coming home from visiting my family in Canada, and I attended my father's (second) wedding. All my life I have had difficulty speaking in public. This difficulty became even more extreme after I experienced kundalini awakening. A few years ago I decided I simply was unable to speak in public because it made me sick, both before the event and afterwards.
My Dad asked me and my sisters if one of us would speak at the wedding reception. Both my sisters also have difficulty speaking in public, so they asked me if I would do it. If this had happened before I started APY I would have said no. But since starting APY the positive effects on my nervous system have been so profound I decided to say yes, hoping I would get through it without negative effects.
I am happy to share that I was able to speak before about 120 people, on stage and in front of a microphone, and it was a very nice experience. I can't remember everything I said, but I felt happy about it before and after. This is such an extreme change, I almost can't believe it. Perhaps after a while I will even be able to be fully present when speaking publicly. 
I have been thinking and wondering about the practice of pranayama and wondering what exactly it has done to my nervous system. Why was the experience so negative before, and why is it now so different? How does pranayama work on the nervous system, in terms of basic biology?
Before learning about SBP, my spiritual practices were spontaneous and I just kind of went with what naturally happened in my body and being. What happened was that I experienced waves of energy and bliss, but they mostly went from bottom to top, right out my head. I never thought to intentionally focus my attention from top to bottom. My idea was that energy waves went from deep under me, up through my body, out the top, up to the highest and most lovely idea I could imagine--"heaven"--and then that energy would go out and down all around me and eventually be under me in unmanifest form.
So I guess I did imagine the waves of energy coming back down, but it did so outside of my body, and was basically found in all that I experienced "outside" myself. I guess I would have thought before I learned of pranayama that it might have been a little selfish to keep that energy to myself and bring it back down into my body. I wanted to give it away. But now I am seeing it is better to keep that energy circulating in my own body, and it makes me more able to give in my everyday life.
Also, I know that I say the energy is moving in me and out of me, but in reality a wave is just a progressive motion of something that actually stays in place, like when people do a wave in a baseball stadium. They don't leave their seats but the wave moves. I know that is what is actually happening and the substance that is moving is also staying right in place. Energy is being activated and stimulated in a wave along my spine and in my whole body.
While I was home I was near the beautiful Saint John River in New Brunswick. This river is rather special because it empties into the Bay of Fundy, which has such powerful tides that twice a day the flow of the river changes direction. I realized that I grew up next to a river that could be seen as a reminder of the process of pranayama.
Jennifer
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jul 05 2011 : 09:17:49 AM
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Beautifil, Jennifer.
Thanks for sharing.
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maheswari
Lebanon
2520 Posts |
Posted - Jul 05 2011 : 3:50:47 PM
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riptiz
United Kingdom
741 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2011 : 11:24:58 AM
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Hi Jennifer,
I remember visiting the world famous reversing falls in Saint John when I worked on the Irving oil refinery as a young man in 1975. I took a trip on the last day of the ferry to Nova Scotia and back and remember it as a lovely sunny day.
L&L
Dave |
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jenniferad
47 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2011 : 10:52:26 PM
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| Thank you for your responses. |
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effects and physiology of pranayama
