Spontaneous Yoga Explained
Spontaneous yoga is not new. It is, perhaps, the oldest kind of yoga. It might be the way the disciplines arose or were gifted to the yogis. It is a practice that crosses cultures and religions.
The traditional yogic way of thinking about spontaneous yoga is that the psyche or mental body creates blockages or densities in your energy field through resistance to what is. We like what is happening to us, what is, or we don’t. We hold too tightly to it, or we try to push it away. It’s not moving anywhere, it simply is what is, but we’re holding or resisting. I’m not talking about skillful action to change circumstance or injustice. I’m talking about internal resistance to things we cannot do anything about. I'm talking about rumination, thoughts or things in your own being, resistance to things that make you you. I’m talking to myself too!
Resistance creates density in your energy field. Energy is both subtle and the physical body.
This resonates with what we know about trauma and the nervous system. There are stuck places in our nervous system from either little t trauma (just the things that we get stuck on, survival strategies and coping mechanisms) or big T Trauma (things that really affected us and changed on the inside).
In spontaneous yoga, we release control of the energy and allow it to unwind those stuck places. It is energy’s nature to flow effortlessly towards your truest, whole self. Once it is released from the control of the mind, energy will start to unwind our densities, our stuck places, the things we pushed away or held too tightly to, the things that are holding us back from the fullest expression of ourselves.
Through practice we start to build muscles of expression, movement, and energy. We try an arm movement that we’ve never tried before. We allow a facial expression that feels untenable or scary. We let sound come out. We build our capacity to be with what is, to be with discomfort, to take pleasure in our own bodily wisdom, to allow the bodily wisdom to guide our action. Then, we can take more and more conscious action in our daily life. We have practice allowing our wise bodies and energy to lead in a safe, brave place. Now, we can take that practice into our lives.
Once the stuck places unwind, the released energy is available for evolution. We can continue to follow the energy to new places in ourselves, our lives, and our communities. We can build a new world together from the inside out.
Dr. Liz explains spontaneous yoga in this excerpt from a live spontaneous yoga class.
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