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.

The Loving All Method

In my recent blog post, Restoring Peace of Mind During Crises, I said that we are empowered when we fully accept the circumstances, events and situations that we cannot change. This is because emotional resistance creates more suffering on top of any stress and anxiety that we may already be experiencing.

We may feel powerless when certain circumstances arise (like global pandemics or political crises) that directly impact our daily lives but there is a power in accepting things exactly as they are rather than yearning for the way we would wish them to be.

This is an act of surrender to what is, rather than passive resignation or giving up hope and it is an act of surrender that can actually reduce our stress levels.

“Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.”

— Aldous Huxley

Normally, we tend to be consumed by our personality-mind which is the part of us that is always hurt or stressed or worrying about something. But, as I said in the previous blog post, one of the ways we can attain or maintain serenity in a crisis is through our ability to connect with our Essential or Original Self. This is the Self that has never been hurt or wounded and who exists in a state of total peace.

The Loving All Method, as taught by spiritual teacher, Michael Langford, is a stepping stone towards being able to maintain a peaceful untroubled emotional state, no matter what sort of turbulent situations we may be experiencing in our daily lives.

The Loving All Method is an unusual “meditation” practice in that you can do it while you are engaged in other activities and while you are going about your business during the day. You don’t have to set aside a special time to carry it out. It is a living mindful practice.

In summary, the Loving All Method involves accepting and embracing everything you experience exactly the way it is.

This includes accepting, allowing and embracing all your thoughts and emotions exactly as they are.

However, accepting and allowing all your thoughts and emotions does not mean acting or making decisions from a place of fear, stress and worry. It is just giving yourself permission to feel exactly what you feel.

The more completely you accept whatever it is you are feeling, the easier it is to eventually let that feeling go.

The Loving All Method also includes accepting and embracing your body exactly as it is, whether or not you have a diagnosis or health condition and whether or not you perceive yourself as being overweight or too skinny or too tall or too short.

It involves accepting what you see and accepting how you feel whether or not you like what you see. And it involves emotionally accepting everything that happens whether it is pleasurable or not.

There is a certain emotional freedom in allowing yourself to feel your negative emotions completely. But once again, it is not emotionally freeing to react to others via your negative emotions or to make any decisions (big or small) from that emotional headspace.

In the beginning, if you can’t accept and embrace the good, the bad and the ugly things you may be experiencing in daily life just as they are, he says you can initially practice the Loving All Method by just emotionally allowing everything that you experience to be exactly the way it is.

After about a month, Michael Langford says that you can practise emotionally accepting everything you experience just the way it is.

Then after that, you may be ready to begin practising embracing everything that you experience exactly the way it is.

This practice involves being present to everything that occurs without trying to escape. In any case, our situations will still be there whether we emotionally accept them or not.

Practising the Loving All Method doesn’t mean that you don’t protect yourself when you’re in danger. It just means you accept and embrace the circumstances of having to protect yourself.

He says, “If someone were to try to punch you in the face and if you would normally duck, you will also duck while practicing the Loving All Method. Loving the fact that someone is trying to punch you does not mean you will not duck. You also love ducking to avoid being punched.”

“Acceptance is the initiator for change and the first step of transformation.”

— Diana Whitmore

Practising the Loving All Method doesn’t mean that you don’t change the things that need to be changed. When you need to change something, you embrace having to change it.

He emphasises that the Loving All Method refers only to our emotional responses to circumstances, not to our external behaviour. We emotionally accept what is happening rather than emotionally rejecting it. But if there is something we need to change or do and it is within our power to do so, we do it.

For example, if an injustice occurs, we emotionally accept that an injustice has occurred. But if it is in our power to rectify that injustice, even though we have emotionally accepted it, we still work towards undoing that injustice. We emotionally accept negative things that happen but if we can simultaneously put them right, we do so.

Energy that was once used to emotionally resist and reject circumstances can now be used to correct and solve situations or our perceptions of these situations.

You can get the full description and practice instructions of the Loving All Method from Chapter 12 of Michael Langford’s book The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss which is available at this link: http://www.damienboyle.com/page23/files/TMDMTEB.pdf

Restoring Peace of Mind During Crises

What is Serenity?

The dictionary defines serenity as the ‘state of being calm, peaceful and untroubled’.

The famous Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr asks that we have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference between the two.

Often it takes courage as well as serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the things that are beyond our control such as traumatic events that occurred in the past, unexpected situations like the sudden outbreak of a global pandemic or political crises that have direct consequences for our personal lives.

Changing the things that we have the power to change in our daily life is sometimes less stressful than having to accept that there are other circumstances and situations that are beyond our control.

I sometimes feel that the solution lies in the reverse: in being able to allow and accept the idea that unexpected situations will sometimes conspire to disrupt our best laid plans. Being able to allow, accept and even embrace this idea is a step towards eventually gaining that state of being calm, peaceful and untroubled.

Our Essential Self and Our Surface Personality

Our surface personality and identity are made up of our character traits, perceived strengths and weaknesses and how we define ourselves (for example, by race, job title, gender, ethnicity, nationality, family relationships, health diagnoses, physical appearance and so on). This is the self that feels pain, hurt, stress, anxiety and turmoil (as well as fleeting happiness when things go well).

Our Essential Self is the Self that has never been wounded, never been hurt and exists in a perpetual trouble-free state of calm, serenity and peace. It’s the Self that we always have access to but many of us don’t know it exists. This Self lives in a state of pure awareness and acceptance (otherwise known as unconditional love). This Self is open to all experience, is aware of all experience and it transcends all experience. It is a state of being where no judgement and no resistance exists.

On the other hand, our surface personality lives in a state of constant judgement and resistance. The surface personality thrives on drama and, although it may look to “fix” itself or improve itself, it can never really be fixed because its default mode is fear.

But our Essential Constant Self doesn’t even need “fixing” or healing. Our Essential Self heals.

Some traditions call this Self, the Witness or the Observer. This Self has been the only constant part of our identity. It was around when we were a baby. It was there at the age of four. Ever present during our adolescence, twenties, thirties and it is continually present now. It was present before we were born into a physical body and it will continue to exist after we leave the physical body.

The key to serenity is being able to contact, experience and be consciously aware of this Constant Self, this state of pure awareness and acceptance. First you make contact, then you experience it, then you learn to be consciously aware of it all the time and then, you become it.

A lot of our energy is spent on resisting things that are beyond our remit to change. It is often futile, frustrating and depressing. Resistance to what is creates suffering on top of the actual situation that is going on.

However, when we accept that we feel helpless, frustrated and depressed about situations without acting on these feelings and we give ourselves permission to feel frustrated, helpless and depressed without judging or condemning ourselves, this is a first step that will eventually enable us to transcend these feelings and move closer to the Constant Self and the state of calm acceptance, serenity and peace.

The mind can choose to focus and identify with the problems of life or it can choose to focus and identify with the Sacred Space that is our Essential Self through which problems can be solved.

We can’t deal successfully with problems from the level or the consciousness where they were created (as Einstein said). When we view our problems through the lens of the surface personality, they can seem insurmountable. But when we view life through the lens of the Essential Self, clarity and inspiration results and situations can be healed.

Why Use Spiritual Solutions to Manage Stress and Anxiety

The 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment is a process that I’ve developed which helps to ease the anxiety that sometimes stops us from performing or functioning effectively at work, socially or at home.

As the pressures of modern life increase, finding healthy ways to deal with our anxiety and stress is more vital than ever.

Anxiety doesn’t just stop us from enjoying life or from performing effectively but it can also be exhausting, draining, paralysing and unfortunately, totally addictive.

At its worst, ongoing anxiety can lead to mental health problems and, of course, it’s well known that stress is one of the biggest causes of physical ill health and disease.

A holistic and spiritual approach to addressing our issues of anxiety and stress is often the crucial missing piece or missing peace.

But by spiritual, I don’t necessarily mean religious. This is spirituality in the sense of having a deep connection with the Natural Source of Our Being. The innate essence of strength, healing, power and wisdom that’s within us but which usually lies dormant and forgotten.

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.

The 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment has been inspired by the 12 Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous. But because the focus is on easing anxiety, it adopts a slightly gentler approach.

It’s also based on universal spirituality and it’s a simple path designed to reduce anxiety and stress levels one day at a time.

With the 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment, you focus on a single stage for say a day, week or month. As you choose.

With the book, Serene Empowerment, you can follow the daily guide which takes you through one stage a week. Each stage focuses on one particular topic. Each day revolves around an exercise, thought for the day or a recommendation to keep you focused and on track.

The ultimate aim of the 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment is to help reduce anxiety. Your life may still be busy. You may still have pressurising deadlines. You may still have to face challenging family circumstances but you’ll gradually gain the inner resources, strength and power to deal with these situations as they arise. The circumstances of your life may or may not change but you will be transformed and better able to deal with it through a renewed connection with your Self and your own inner resources and authentic power.

The 12 Stages of Serene Empowerment offers a complete and structured path to guide you back to your native sense of wellbeing. Plus, it’s a path that you can follow at your own pace and fit around your lifestyle and commitments.

If you’re inspired to dive into the Serene Empowerment process right away, it’s available in paperback or as an eBook in most online bookstores.

See book in store.

Amazing Peace

Sometimes we tend to think of "peace" just as quietness, calm or boredom.  We tend to equate peace with the absence of excitement or with simply being relaxed.  Or we tend to equate peace with death as in RIP.

But there are other meanings of peace.  

Peace is not just a case of deep relaxation or being in tranquil surroundings.  Peace can be a state of mind.  

You can be at peace in the middle of tumultuous surroundings, chaos, noisy environment, a war zone, if you are connected to your inner peace.

This state of inner peace is not just a case of feeling supremely “chilled out”, deeply relaxed, mildly detached from everything or indifferent apathy.  

This Peace with a capital P is not only the absence of anxiety, stress and turmoil but the Presence of Love, Confidence and Trust, a transformative Peace that generates power and strength. 

It is a Peace where you feel safe to be your Self, no matter what you are doing or where you are or what circumstances you find yourself in.  You feel completely safe to express and radiate the Presence of Power and Love.  And therefore those who come into your presence for those moments, let down their defences and feel safe to be who they are.  

It is a Peace that is not only the absence of war and conflict, but a Peace that will give us a sense of purpose and direction, be the centre from which we operate and be the Guiding Star in our lives.

To sum up, Peace is power.  It is a state of grace, confidence and trust.  

Peace is also our stepping stone to experiencing happiness and well-being that is not dependent on our circumstances.  

The best and deepest type of happiness is happiness for no reason.