{"id":38,"date":"2011-04-07T00:37:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T04:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/?p=38"},"modified":"2011-04-07T00:37:46","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T04:37:46","slug":"book-review-stories-from-the-yogic-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2011\/04\/book-review-stories-from-the-yogic-heart.html","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Stories from the Yogic Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several years ago, I was contacted by Lisa Cherry<\/a>\u2014a woman feverish with a book idea.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been in\u00a0 that place before, and so we began a conversation.\u00a0\"\"<\/a> She had been physically ill and credited much of her healing to an intensive yoga practice.\u00a0 Her story resonated with me\u2014as yoga helped me shift my life purpose from focusing on self-centered goals to learning to love and serve others.\u00a0 We both agreed that the true power of yoga went far beyond reshaping our bodies\u2014in our experience, yoga was a means to alter your entire perspective, your whole life.<\/p>\n

Fast forward several years and what seemed like hundreds of edits later.\u00a0 Voila! The book, Stories from the Yogic Heart<\/a> was published earlier this year and my essay, entitled, \u201cFinding my Perfect Self,\u201d was included in the anthology, amongst stories from yoga luminaries such as Sting<\/a>, Russell Simmons<\/a>, Sonny Rollins and Sharon Gannon.<\/p>\n

I was amazed at how many of the essays in the book focused on yoga as path to healing physical illness.\u00a0 My story was focused on healing my psychological and spiritual dilemmas\u2014but as someone who has rarely been sick or injured, I haven\u2019t had much exposure to how to harness yoga to wrestle with disease or kick-start the healing process.\u00a0 Those stories inspired me to continue my practice\u2014so that I can utilize yogic breathing and asana to come to terms with aging, illness and physical death in future decades.<\/p>\n

There were other stories that caught me off guard. Sharon Gannon<\/a>\u2014the co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga<\/a>\u2014wrote about how yoga had not only helped her recover from an injury, but also helped her realize that her aspirations for the world first had to take root in her body.\u00a0 Yoga taught her that being an activist wasn\u2019t about seeking revolution outside oneself.\u00a0\u00a0 So she began to practice her beliefs in her own body\u2014living her values in the way she walked, ate, danced, slept and spoke.<\/p>\n

Zo Newell\u2019s essay focused on how her introduction to yoga helped her survive hundreds of electroconvulsive (shock therapy) treatments as a teenager who was institutionalized by her parents.\u00a0 Rather than becoming disembodied during this difficult period, yoga practice helped her stay in her body, and to preserve her equanimity in a situation where many others would simply lose their minds.<\/p>\n

Yet another story focused on how yoga practice helped a mother find hope after giving birth to a premature baby who weighed just over one pound! Her practice gave her the tools to bring peace into her body instead of giving in to her worst fears.\u00a0 And it helped her connect with her sick child\u2014so that she could send strong vibrations of love as her daughter struggled for her life in an incubator in the NICU.\u00a0\u00a0 Yoga was also the tool that helped her manage the vicarious suffering inevitably felt by parents of a special needs child during her tumultuous life.<\/p>\n

By the time I finished the Stories from the Yogic Heart, I felt as though my personal story was rather ordinary.\u00a0 Yoga had opened my mind and heart\u2014but now I could see that it had the potential to do so much more.\u00a0 The book was a reminder that at it\u2019s best, yoga helps us to look deeply within .\u00a0 We might not like what we find, but when we allow ourselves to see it\u2014plainly, accurately\u2014we can begin to work with it.\u00a0 Healing begins when we turn towards, rather than away from, our dis- or un-ease.<\/p>\n

As I reflected on the book, and my small contribution to it, I felt an overriding sense of hope.\u00a0 My story ends with the realization that advanced yoga practice isn\u2019t about holding complicated postures with our bodies\u2014it\u2019s about learning to harness the power of our hearts<\/em>.\u00a0 After reading nearly 30 essays that echoed the same theme, I could see how yoga would catalyze an important movement in human history–as millions of newly opened hearts cannot help but transform the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To order a copy of the book, click on this link<\/a>, email <\/strong>yogicheart@gmail.com<\/a> or call 1-416-554-YOGA.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several years ago, I was contacted by Lisa Cherry\u2014a woman feverish with a book idea.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been in\u00a0 that place before, and so we began a conversation.\u00a0 She had been physically ill and credited much of her healing to an intensive yoga practice.\u00a0 Her story resonated with me\u2014as yoga helped me shift my life purpose…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1,5,9],"tags":[20,18,21,12,14,13,11,17,15,22,19,16],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-by-taz-tagore","category-full-potential","category-yoga","tag-jivamukti","tag-lisa-cherry","tag-mariel-hemingway","tag-russell-simmons","tag-sharon-gannon","tag-sonny-rollins","tag-sting","tag-stories-from-the-yogic-heart","tag-taz-tagore","tag-yoga-2","tag-yoga-book","tag-yoga-practice"],"yoast_head":"\nBook Review: Stories from the Yogic Heart - 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