Proprioception

Image by Hanna Witte for Unsplash

Proprioception

“Self-observation without self-judgment is the highest form of spiritual practice.” Swami Kripalu

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Proprioception is the sense of knowing where your body is in space. Sensory receptors within muscles, tendons and joints transmit proprioceptive signals to the nervous system to create a representation of body position, movement and acceleration.

I have practiced/taught yoga for over thirty years, beginning with classic yoga asana, (poses), & pranayama, (breathwork), and gradually shifting into a Divine Feminine form of this ancient practice. It is said that Parvati, the Indian Goddess of power, energy, love & devotion was yoga’s creator, and instead of measuring her experience against any standard, or resisting coming out of a pose for anything, she spontaneously experienced postures, thus, creating a connection to the Divine that is powerful beyond describing because women are the givers of life.

In the words of Carolyn Myss, “You don’t need all the rituals and rules. All you need is to honor your truth.” Practice today can be an honoring of our awareness in every moment, indicated by a proprioceptive knowing of our bodies. This is an intuitive practice, a life-changing practice, a woman’s practice. The Divine Feminine’s Shakti energy is the principle of life arising from deep feminine wisdom. As we feel our feet balanced against the earth and move from our bellies, a self-directed practice emerges wherein we are empowered to connect to our True Self in fluidity, healing, and sacred reverence for ourselves and all beings.

As a yoga teacher I consider myself a ‘sower of seeds,’ to use MC Richards words as she described herself and her art. I create a welcoming atmosphere of curiosity about, commitment to, and an honoring of, the vast expanses of life that exist within and around each of us.

Rather than a competition with ourselves or others, a striving to improve ourselves, or an attainment of anything beyond how we exist in any moment, yoga is a calling to the practitioner to listen closely to the body’s wisdom, to understand where our bodies are and how they want to move. In fact, yoga is not necessarily a physical practice at all, but one in which our bodily experience leads to self-realization, love and peace.

As I move through my life, I notice where I am, what I am walking on or towards, how it feels to live in my body, what sensations I experience, and how all these things affect my daily life. Below is an excerpt from a published essay, (in Awakening the Divine Feminine: 18 Stories of Healing, Inspiration, and Empowerment, compiled by Laura J Cornell, available on Amazon), which illustrates what I mean by this statement.

>Practicing Transcendental Meditation for 20 years and reading Yoga Journal regularly, inspired me to start a yoga practice, and so the next class I signed up for was Kripalu Yoga. It was held in a high school gym and taught by a man by the name of Hari. In our first class, he demonstrated “meditation in motion,” a practice in which a yogi/yogini allows their body to move into and out of postures without conscious intention. I’d never seen anything like it, and I was mesmerized by his introverted reflexive flow of enstasy; this is, what it feels like to stand inside of one’s self. It felt like a homecoming. In that first class I practiced Therapeutic Touch on myself and gained relief from a long-standing ache along my spine. I left class that evening high on love, for my new experiences, for taking care of myself, and for the growing and learning I was doing.

I attended every class in the session, and after it was over, Hari extended the class by teaching in a student’s apartment. By this time, it was summer and quite hot in Pennsylvania. This student’s apartment was on the 5^th floor, and we practiced on a beautiful Oriental wool rug in her living room. Oddly, there was no air conditioning, and soon after we began, I was sweating profusely and feeling weak. I told myself to keep doing the poses, but then I began feeling light-headed. When I thought I might faint, I finally complained about the heat. Hari scowled and admonished me to “let go of your desires and judgment and continue with the practice anyway.” I simply could not relate to what seemed a narrow, confining, mind-over-matter approach. I wanted to listen to my body, to be directed by what I felt, not be told by an outside ‘authority’ what to do. Surprising myself, I rolled up my mat and walked out of that class! Later, in mulling over everything that happened that evening, journaling about it and talking to a few special friends, it dawned on me that letting go of thinking I should do what Hari said was a dissolution, a death, and listening to the voice inside myself was a birth. This was the beginning of the transition into my understanding of the Divine Feminine as the inner guide of my life.<

Self-understanding is the first, and lasting step in coming home to ourselves, and proprioception is the most powerful way to accomplish this.