Disease can only take hold in the female body when her Shakti energy is impaired and runs counter to the rhythms of Mother Moon. - Maya Tiwari
Why Women Turn to Yoga - Finding Balance in a Demanding World
1. The Weight of Modern Expectations on Women:
We all come to yoga for different reasons. We seek increased strength in our muscles, openness in our tissues, spiritual understanding, and healing.
As women in Western cultures, we have been sold the belief that we can do it all: raise a family and run a household, work, and be a lover, friend, sister, and daughter. We work to maintain our responsibilities and the health of our families, easily neglecting and often struggling with our own well-being.
2. How Yoga Offers a Path to Self-Understanding:
As we practice yoga, we soon realize we have stumbled upon a path that offers tools to find balance, promoting deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationships to everyone and everything around us. As a complete system, yoga promotes health and, through us, the health of our families and the earth herself.
The Physical Benefits of Yoga for Women's Health
I. How Asana and Meditation Improve Circulation:
Information on the benefits of asana (postures) and meditation on women's health is abundant. The increase in circulation that occurs with asana and meditation increases blood flow to all tissues, cells, and channels of the body. Increased circulation removes metabolites and residue from tissues, bringing oxygen, vitamins, and minerals; providing fuel; cleansing; healing; and improving function.
II. The Role of Prana and Nadis in Women's Well-Being:
Regular yoga practice and deep, relaxed breathing maintain the smooth flow of prana through the Nadis, or energy channels, which flow in and around the muscles, organs, and tissues. The Nadis hold prana as it circulates in our bodies. The smooth flow of prana, oxygen, and nutrients is essential to the healthy function of our body and mind.
Shakti - The Feminine Energy at the Heart of Yoga and Ayurveda
A. Understanding Shakti as the Primordial Feminine:
Throughout Eastern philosophy, we find images of the divine feminine. She represents images of creativity, nourishment, and protection. Sometimes fierce, always loving, the goddesses of the Eastern pantheon provide a more complete picture of the divine's essence - a more complete picture of our essence as women and the divine spark as it resides within us.
In yoga and Ayurveda, we look to Shakti, the primordial feminine, as a focus in women's health and self-care.
B. Sadhana Practices That Awaken and Restore Shakti Energy:
In her book Women's Power to Heal, Maya Tiwari maintains: Shakti contains the rhythm and memory of the Mother Consciousness. Shakti is carried in its active state in the womb of every female species in the universe. Through the powerful essence of Shakti, women are appointed the direct emissaries of the Divine Mother.
Asana and various sadhana, or practices found in Ayurveda and Tantra Yoga, help foster awareness, integration, and healing through work with Shakti energy.
Lunar Rhythms and Women's Health in Ayurveda
i. The Connection Between the Menstrual Cycle and the Moon:
Women of all ancient cultures look to the rhythms of the moon to guide and inform their daily rhythms. Our most obvious connection, but one to which so many of us are disconnected, is found within our menstrual flow.
In its most balanced state, a woman's moon time follows a predictable rhythm, reflecting the movement of the moon, occurring with gentleness and ease. We ovulate with the full moon, a time of luminescence, juiciness, and energy, and bleed when the moon is dark, its energy at its opposite peak, a time for rest and simplicity, to draw within.
ii. Moon Salutation (Chandra Namaskar) - A Practice for Every Phase
The Moon Salutation, or Chandra Namaskar, is the sister vinyasa to the Sun Salutation, Surya Namaskar. Moon salutation is cooling, calming, restorative, and grounding. It can be used as a ritual or sadhana, a gentle remembering of our connection.
Yoga for Hormonal Health - PMS, Menstruation, and Menopause
A. How Moon Salutation Eases Menstrual Cramps and PMS:
When practiced from ovulation to menstruation, the moon salutation gently facilitates the smooth flow of prana and air in the channels and tissues, alleviating menstrual cramps and symptoms of PMS.
B. Cooling and Calming Practices for Menopause:
When practiced slowly, gently, and rhythmically, it cools the flushes of menopause and soothes and calms the nervous system.
A Naturopathic Perspective - Yoga, Herbs, and Ayurvedic Nutrition
I. Drawing on Ayurvedic Wisdom in Clinical Practice:
In my practice as a naturopathic doctor and yoga instructor, I work with women of all ages living with discomfort and illness. As a woman and human, I have been caught in cycles of imbalance, pulled between life's seemingly endless hectic demands and desires, wanting to somehow find balance and health.
II. Simple Daily Practices That Transform Women's Health:
Drawing on the wisdom of Ayurvedic medicine and yoga, I have guided others in and experienced the magic myself of simple adherence to the rhythms of the earth and the moon. Also, practices including yoga, herbs, and proper nutrition have transformed our collective and individual experiences of being women.