What is Yoga Nidra?

Yoga nidra is simultaneously described as a holistic practice, a meditation process or a state of consciousness, depending on the context.

It is an ancient practice which takes care of all layers of the self including:

• the biological, physiological body

• our energy levels and our vitality

• our psychology, our mental and emotional processes, our personality

• our spiritual health, spiritual connection and spiritual wellbeing.

Yoga nidra was originally used as a path for Self Realisation or for Union with the Divine.

In fact, the term ‘Yoga’ can be translated as Union with the Divine.

Another rarer translation for the word Yoga is ‘Awakening to All That Is’, ‘Awakening to the Interconnectedness of All Things’. *And then the word ‘Nidra’ is usually translated as ‘deep sleep’.

So, it’s like a play on words:

Awakening through the practice of deep sleep.

And in the practice of Yoga Nidra, you lie on your back with eyes closed, although this position can be modified if you have some kind of injury or health condition which prevents this.

But traditionally, Yoga Nidra is practised lying supine and you simply close your eyes and listen to the voice of a guide who takes you down through the layers of the self into a state of deep relaxation where your brainwaves slow down and replicate the state of deep sleep.

However, during the practice of yoga nidra, you are actually still awake. Or at least, that is the intention.

The body is put to sleep. The mental activity is put to sleep, the thoughts and emotions and the personality are put to sleep. But we remain awake.

Because it replicates the state of deep sleep, sometimes in the beginning, people tend to fall asleep whilst practising yoga nidra. This is usually sleep that they really need if they’re in a sleep-deprived state. But with continued practice and perseverance, we learn to stay awake.

So, why would we want to stay awake as we take ourselves down into a state that resembles deep sleep?

Well, that is where we usually encounter, what is described in ancient traditions, as our True Nature.

According to these traditions, our True Nature is a state of deep happiness and unshakable peace. And we usually encounter this state of bliss every night during deep sleep. (Not REM sleep or light restless sleep, but deep sleep).

The only problem is, when we wake up afterwards, we re-encounter all our worries, all our anxieties and all our physical ailments.

Everything that we forgot while we were in the state of deep sleep, we remember in the so-called waking state and we forget the deep happiness and peace that we enjoyed in deep sleep.

So, yoga nidra is a way of staying awake while we encounter the happiness that we usually enjoy in the state of deep sleep.

When our ego personality is put to sleep, we are able to awaken within the Divine.

It is like these two parts of the self cannot co-exist.

We often can’t remember what it’s like to be happy when we are in our egoic state.

And similarly, we can’t remember our misery when we’re in that deep sleep bliss state.

So, the practice of yoga nidra is a way of cultivating the happiness and peace of deep sleep whilst still awake and bringing all that healing and rejuvenation that we get in deep sleep with us into our waking life at a conscious level.

And it has enormous benefits on the physiological level, and the psychological level, in terms of rewiring the brain's habitual negative programming and in terms of soothing the nervous system.

So, it helps to regulate our body’s processes in all ways, whether that be hormonally or in relation to our brain chemistry or our nervous system or psychologically and spiritually.

You can find guided Yoga Nidra meditations on my YouTube channel, Spirit Restorative:

https://www.youtube.com/@SpiritRestorative

If you haven't practised yoga nidra before, you may like to try out the guided meditation in this video.

FAQs about the 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment

What are the 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment?

The 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment, which is a holistic program for reducing stress and alleviating anxiety, is inspired by the structure of 12 step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Original Six Steps of AA

The first 12 step program, pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous, was originally just 6 steps. These were:

1.         We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.

2.         We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.

3.         We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.

4.         We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.

5.         We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money or prestige.

6.         We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practise these precepts.

These 6 steps were later broken down and expanded into 12 steps.

Although the 12 stages of Serene Empowerment are similar in format to the 12 steps, the content and context are somewhat different.

The first 6 stages of the Serene Empowerment program are about healing our relationship with our self. Stages 7 to 12 concern, amongst other themes, our relationship with others.

Why treat conditions like anxiety and depression as if they are addictions?

We normally define addiction or addictive behaviours as having a compulsive need for a habit-forming substance such as alcohol, nicotine or heroin, for example.

We also may define addiction as having a compulsive need to perform a particular activity such as gambling, online gaming or shopping in order to get some kind of high.

We don’t normally define anxiety as an addiction because it’s not a guilty pleasure or indeed any kind of pleasure at all. It doesn’t bring you to a high and there is no short-lived payoff.

However, we can also define an addiction as something that we just can’t stop doing, no matter how hard we may try. So, if you can’t stop worrying or having anxious thoughts, for example, then in that sense, anxiety can be described as a kind of addiction.

As I said in a previous blog post: Why are negative thoughts and emotions are addictive:

“Just as our body becomes accustomed to the taste and flavour of certain foods and craves more of the same, our body also becomes accustomed to the “taste” and “flavour” of certain thoughts, feelings and moods – even those that we view as being negative.

The body/mind complex can become addicted to certain feelings - pleasurable or painful - and then the cells of the body cry out to be fed with more of that emotion…”

Why is it called 12 stages and not 12 steps?

Steps, States & Stages

Steps are like instructions. They can make up a formula or a recipe. You follow each step and hopefully attain a successful outcome.

A state of mind is usually temporary or fleeting. For example, you can be in a peaceful state of mind for a few days when you’re on holiday or on a retreat. Then when you get back home and have to return to work, you may enter an anxious state of mind which may last until the weekend when you have a couple of days off.

I see stages as being more permanent. A stage can be described as an understanding that you come to embody. It is a continual and ongoing way of being rather than just being a temporary mood or state of mind. The 12 Stages aim to bring about sustainable transformation.

The statements for the 12 Stages are not instructions or steps in the sense of being a recipe for success. The statements are also not really affirmations. They are more like realisations that you move into as you progress with each stage of development.

The titles of each stage are more like Truth Statements. Truth statements can be described as something that we already know to be true or that we are committed to bringing into our experience.

Read the truth statements for the 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment in full.

Why use spiritual methods to deal with stress and anxiety?

The 12 Stage program of Serene Empowerment is not affiliated with any specific religion and it’s not a religious process.

However, it is a spiritual program in the holistic sense. This is spirituality in the sense of having a deep connection with the Natural Source of Our Being, the part of our consciousness that existed before we were born and that will continue to exist after our body has expired.

Just as we have a physical, emotional and mental part of the self, we also have to include our spiritual self as part of who we are. This Essential Original Spiritual Self has never been hurt, never been scared, never been traumatised and can be a reservoir of wisdom and healing when we learn how to connect with it.

Just as we need food to nourish our bodies, we need our spiritual resources to nourish our minds and give us an innate sense of wellbeing.

When we ignore or neglect the spiritual part of ourselves, we’re ignoring the most important part, the part that gives us strength, power, innate wisdom and inner healing.

Why our negative emotions and thoughts are addictive

Just as our body becomes accustomed to the taste and flavour of certain foods and craves more of the same, our body also becomes accustomed to the “taste” and “flavour” of certain thoughts, feelings and moods – even those that we view as being negative.

The body/mind complex can become addicted to certain feelings - pleasurable or painful - and then the cells of the body cry out to be fed with more of that emotion and, more often than not, the mind will oblige.

This is how we can become addicted to thinking worrying thoughts, angry thoughts or anxious thoughts which can present as long-term anxiety or depression.

When we think, it triggers our emotions and then chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) carry these messages to every cell in our body. The cells can become addicted to these chemical messages (generated by worry thoughts, angry thoughts, shame thoughts etc.) and want to be constantly fed with them.

The Pain Body

Spiritual teacher and writer, Eckhart Tolle often talks about what he calls the pain body.

The pain body holds all our pain, hurt, hate, anger and also collective human pain. The pain body needs to be fed with emotions such as hurt, anger or hate. So, in order for it to be fed, more emotions like that have to be generated. So, we end up looking for narratives, stories, justifications, reasons to create these emotions to feed the pain body.

He describes thoughts as life forms that we identify with. When we identify strongly with certain thoughts, they create certain emotions that feed the Pain Body.

The pain body is formed of grievances and holding grievances nourishes the pain body.

When we become aware of or our habitual thoughts, when we are not embodying or identifying with them or seeing them as our identity but merely observing them, we manage to separate ourselves from our thoughts. And that is the first step towards releasing our grievances and our addiction to painful thoughts and emotions - the realisation that although you have certain thoughts and emotions, those thoughts and emotions are not you. They are something you have. They are not who you are.