Sandra Sammartino - Yoga Fiction: Yoga Truth: Transmuting Wounds, Walking Into Your Self

March 2014

ISBN: 9780992164508

Learn the PRINCIPLES of Yoga.

PRINCIPLES of Yoga apply to ANY Yoga system.

POWER of Yoga rests in YOUR hands.

TRANSMUTE your body, mind and emotions.

SELF-GROWTH expands forever

No matter limitations, circumstances or age.

Yoga as a way of life.

www.sammartinoyoga.com

To all of my students, who courageously stepped into their bodies and felt the transformative nature of spirit.

With dedication love and appreciation.

Its not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent.

It is the one most adaptable to change. Charles Darwin

My marriage ended in 1971. I was thirty years old, and an emotional wreck. The pain from behind my left eye, extended down through my shoulder, into my hip, and it ended in my little toe! The neurologist said this was impossible.

However the pain was there and it made me nervous. I couldnt sit quietly or even read a book. He prescribed muscle relaxants and then my family doctor recommended Valium.

Terrified, I sought my mothers advice. When she suggested Yoga (it had calmed her nerves) I registered for the local class and learned various Asanas (Yoga positions). They elongated my muscles and soon I was feeling CALMER and more CONFIDENT than I had in ages.

Around the same time, I met spiritual teacher, Jack Schwartz. He taught classes at the local university called Voluntary Control of Internal States. I signed up, hoping to control and heal my body without medications. Soon I was learning a method he called Creative Meditation.

Following Jacks instructions, Creative Meditation put me in touch with the sensations and feelings in my body. Also, imagery, associations, direct messages and insights, invoked through Creative Meditation, gave me a deeper UNDERSTANDING into my life, in spite of my ongoing anxiety, pain and confusion.

For instance, when an exciting opportunity at a budding television station came my way, instead of rushing to accept the invitation, as was my usual pattern, I sat down, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Following the steps outlined in Creative Meditation I simply asked myself, Should I take this job?

To my amazement an inner message whispered, This work is too demanding. Your children need you. I was dismayed, but quickly realizedeven though there would be less money, there would be more timefor Yoga and for my children.

THAT MOMENT CHANGED ME FOREVER.

Contacting the wiser part of myself flooded me with a sense of personal power. In this case, once the decision was made, I felt more peaceful, my children were happier, and I never once regretted my decision.

I began relying more and more on intuitive states gained through Creative Meditation to forge the direction of my life. I stopped worrying about what other people thought about me and, instead, trusted in my own INSIGHTS to guide my work, play and love life. I even began to teach Yoga.

Although I was still grieving the loss of my marriage, I was stronger and my children were happier. Staying true to myself and to my own way of being in the world, I felt more AUTHENTIC and my life became more meaningful.

Creative Meditation naturally transferred into my Asana practice. Sometimes, after closing my eyes, breathing deeply and stretching; deep feelings, intuitive flashes and psychological insights SPONTANEOUSLY bubbled up. They seemed to pop right out of my muscles!

Once while stretching through the tightness in my upper back my breath became heavy and hot tears burned down my cheeks. I sobbed for my lost dreams, broken family and fractured self. Just then, intuitive flashes told me what really happened between my husband and myself compared to what I thought had happened. I was overcome with anger.

Afterwards I noticed, the PAIN down the left side of my body DIMINISHED, and my intense fear of being alone with my children DIMMED.

The connection between my body and emotional states stunned me, while the information I received emboldened me. Expressing these insights to my husband and others, I felt an even GREATER SENSE OF SELF.

Experiencing the POWER of Yoga, for myself, encouraged me to share what I was learning with my Yoga students. We used the altered states that Asana provided to contact deeper feelings, needs and views. Seeing my students prosper in my classes and in their personal lives spurred me on.

After practicing and teaching Yoga this way for several years, I engaged in a more physical form of AsanaIyengar Yoga. Practiced with eyes wide open, it focused more on muscular strength, rather than on inner sensing. My muscles got bulkier and more defined; however the intuitive states I had grown to rely on in my subtler Yoga practice grew distant and harder to reach. Then they left me all together. I had fallen out of heaven and didnt know why. Later I realized, coarse muscular bodies inhibit energy flow and therefore inner sensing.

Asana, once so enlightening, was now an addictive, demanding practice. A slave to my body, I needed it to feel good. This seemed contradictory to the freedom one usually associates with Yoga and I seriously considered quitting altogether.

To the rescue came Yoga teachers, Rama Vernon and Angela Farmer, who synchronized the practice of Asana with breath flow. Focusing on breath, rather than brawn, my body became more GRACEFUL and the WISDOM of my body, as expressed through images, insights, intuitive flashes, direct messages, hunches and inspirational awareness, returned. My inner world was once again filled with information, confidence, and most of all, a sense of safety.

This was the early 80s and under Ramas direction, my students and myself organized several American Yoga Conferences called Unity in Yoga, which later evolved into Yoga Alliance, the American governing board of Yoga. In those early days teachers from all over the United States Canada and even Europe, arrived to present their views to eager students like myself.

I was attracted to the techniques, no matter the system, that could transport what lay in my UNCONSCIOUS mind into my CONSCIOUS awareness. This laid the foundation for my current beliefmy body is a vehicle to receive wisdomdriving me closer to my AUTHENTIC, true self.

Around this time, I met Eleanor Leatham. Eleanor created healing sounds with her voice, called TONING. When Eleanor toned me, deep emotions burst forth through my sighs, groans and tears. Afterwards a flow of energy pulsated through me. It felt nourishing and whole.

Eleanor said, Unexpressed anger, sadness and grief get lodged in our bodies and discharging these unconscious emotions restores energetic flows. Free flowing energy is called Chi in Chinese medicine and Prana in Yoga. The Yogis believe that Prana embodies all animate and inanimate objects. Free flowing Prana develops an experiential awareness of what Eleanor called inspiration and some people refer to as their soul.

After this, Prana was a vital part of my Yoga practice. I looked for and developed Yoga techniques that could release