Greetings and welcome to the February 2015 Edition of the Mastery of Meditation and Yoga newsletter.
Sukhasana For Stress-Relief
Some days the mind is whirring like crazy, spinning thoughts left, right and centre. On these days, a simple yoga posture can provide instant relief. Much healthier than reaching for a beer or glass of wine, or turning on the TV!
The beauty of sukhasana is resting the forehead against something - whether it's a chair, bolster, block, fists or the floor. That resting of the head, whilst in a forward bend, is soothing for the mind and allows all stress in the body and mind to dissipate and melt away.
Sukhasana, or Easy Pose, has many variations. The trick, as always, is to work within the limitations of your body and find the place where you can surrender into the posture. Use as many props as necessary.
Setting up Sukhasana
#1: Find your seat
Placement of the knees and legs in Sukhasana
The placement of the pelvis is the most important aspect of setting up this posture well. You want to be able to easily sit with your legs placed in front of you - they're not actually crossed, but parallel to each other.
Your knees need to be at the same height or lower than your hips. For this to happen, the pelvis has to slightly tilt forward, allowing the thighs to release in the hip joints.
If your pelvis doesn't have much movement, and instead is rolling backward, making your spine round and your knees pop up higher than your hips, you need to sit on a block, blanket or stack of books. Something that lifts your hips up, allows you to find that slight forward tilt of the pelvis, therefore releasing the knees lower to the ground.
#2: Lengthen the Spine
Lengthening the Spine
Your foundation now forms a three pointed triangle - the tailbone and the two knees as each point of the triangle.
Think of your foundation as releasing into the earth while your spine and torso lengthens towards the sky.
It can help to place your hands on your knees and gently press the knees into the ground - gently! - while drawing your shoulders back and down and lengthening the crown of the head up to the sky.
#3: Begin to Fold Forward
Folding forward in Sukhasana
Ok, so I'm actually folding forward in Lotus Pose here, but the principles are the same. We start with Sukhasana, and over time, as the flexibility of your hips and spine increases, we move into Half-Lotus and finally full Lotus Pose. For today though, let's just all stay with Sukhasana.
If you're sitting up on some kind of prop, because you have tight hips, you likely won't have any forward motion at all. In this case, it's wise to place a chair in front of you so you can rest your hands or arms on the chair.
Otherwise, we begin to focus on folding forward. This motion happens from the very pit of the belly - we're not rounding our spine at all, we're moving with integrity from our lower belly, drawing up and out to lengthen the front of our body forward. This is crucial. Don't focus on bending your forehead towards the ground, focus on drawing your lower belly forward towards your heels.
#4: Rest the Forehead on Something
Sukhasana Forward Fold with Forehead Resting
As you find more movement through the forward fold, you want to rest your forehead against something. This is very soothing for the mind. It helps us to feel supported, as if we can fully surrender into the posture.
If you don't have much forward movement, you'll need a prop to rest on - a chair for example, or a bolster. Experiment with finding something that's the right height for you.
If you've got more forward movement, you may be able to stack two fists on top of each other and rest on the top of that. Over time, you can begin to flatten your hands out - first one fist and one flat hand, then two flat hands, and finally your forehead reaches the floor.
In this photo, I've got my hands in a variation of Prayer Mudra, and I'm resting my forehead on my thumbs. This presses directly into my third eye and I love the way it feels.
Once you get all the way into this position, stay for at least five breaths - but preferably, stay for five minutes or so. It is challenging. The legs can burn. The pelvis can feel cramped. The mind can get jittery. Keep your focus on your breath, and inhale into any tight or restricted sensations you can feel. Exhale through any tensions, melting it all away into the earth.
#5: Coming out of Sukhasana Forward Fold
When you're ready to come out of the pose, you an inhale to start, and take your time. Maybe take three or four breaths to come all the way to upright.
#6: Do the same again, but on the other side.
Change over which leg is in front, and begin the same process again. Take your time. No rush. Get the foundation right, connect to your breath, and then move with integrity from the pit of the belly.
Don't expect the second side to be the same - we're always different on each side.
Enjoy!
Top 5 Anmol's Journal Articles:
Often when we read about other people's trials and successes, we can see our own journey reflected back. Here are some of the favourite articles from my journal.
http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2007/07/22/the-day-when-my-identification-with-anmol-mehta-snapped/
Last Wednesday was a day ruled by dark clouds. It was early morning here on the East Coast and I had settled into the early bus on my way to work. I try to get a window seat if possible, as I love watching the world go by, even if it's not a great mountain range or an endless blue ocean. My little desire was fulfilled and soon...
http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2007/05/11/my-time-at-an-osho-retreat-when-my-body-disappeared/
...Osho's meditations are physically challenging. They are designed to break down deep rooted patterns and ignite one's awareness. The meditations use a great deal of breath and movement to force a catharsis of anything repressed, so that space is created within for meditation to occur. During my time there and soon afterwards several astonishing experiences took place. Of these here is one that was particularly interesting and insightful....
http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2007/10/01/the-time-i-met-god-good-news-bad-news/
...I can't sleep on my back and this is my blessing. I can meditate for almost as long as I like in this posture and only very rarely do I drift off to sleep. So as always I was lying there, in the silent, deep darkness, watching my thoughts, when what would be one of the most extraordinary experience I ever had began to unfold....
http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2010/09/13/realizing-higher-consciousness-finding-bliss/
...Lately, overnight, the blessings of divine consciousness have been briefly taking place, inspiring me to stay focused on the only true purpose of life, integration with Cosmic Consciousness or God. So again when last night I felt the familiar blissful encounter with the divine state, I did not expect much more than just a gentle kiss before going to sleep...
http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2009/09/25/helpful-approach-for-hard-times-in-life/
If you have lived, unfortunately you have also suffered. We all come up against hard times in life, which can at times push us to our very limits. Sometimes we wonder when the storm will end and the skies will clear. Well there is a another approach to these storms, besides praying and pleading to the heavens for a reprieve 
, and I want to share with you this helpful technique and my recent experience with wielding it...
Mastery of Meditation and Yoga
