Yoga scratches where it really itches

You know that feeling of having somebody scratching your back, and finding that spot that you can't really reach yourself, and to which you need to guide them a little while until they find it - but then when they do, you just go "ahhhh". On a deeper level, that's what yoga can do to you, and it can reach to places where virtually no other things can reach.

The yoga technique of neti - something that often really feels like it reaches that spot you cannot get to in any other way - and softly caresses away the irritation that has bothered you. Picture from here.


My father was, just like me when I was younger, sometimes having problems with allergy, and a running nose. He used to carry a handkerchief around, and was blowing in it like crazy. But then, one day, he discovered something that changed that around to some degree: a salt-water mini-injection up into the nose. And then, when we one day talked about why he liked it so much, he said something like: "when I blow my nose, I feel like I am trying to affect a target that is really not where I am working, but when I do this, it feels like I am much closer to hitting the target - to applying the technique to where the problem actually is".

I knew exactly what he was talking about, of course, having discovered the yoga nose-clensing technique neti many years before that - and realized that the pharmacy-driven "nose drops" of which he was taking, was just a sort of primitive precursor to this more comprehensive, and quite wonderful, yoga technique.

However, that story is actually just an example of a more general phenomenon, of which I was reminded today. How yoga - in so many ways - has a wonderful ability to provide techniques that really get to the essense of the problem. Techniques that are not just applying a lot of force (like blowing your nose really forcefully) and applying that force quite far from the actual source of uncomfort (the place in the nose that you would like to clense). Instead, yoga has techniques that are just like the running salt water from the neti pot: they are extremely comfortable, very soft and gentle, and gently just caress, clean, and open up the tensions and "dirt" that you feel disturbing you. And after you are done, you feel a wonderful sense of openness, an ability to breath, and how new energy has come into your system (to be frank, this happens already from such a simple thing as a neti, but yoga's techniques of course also go much deeper than nose-cleansing).

In a way, this is a little bit comparative to the difference between the traditional medicine approach of looking at symptoms - and bringing them back to normal levels at the expense of you losing your balance even more - and yoga's philosphy of dealing with the underlying imbalances and disturbances that have hindered the body from feeling truly good and balanced. Say for instance that you feel stressed, and are having trouble sleeping. Then you might take some chemical compound to artificially make you less stressed and tensed. However, no matter if that chemical is alcohol or a drug, that compound will make you less stressed at the expense of also making you move away from your true balance. Both alcohol and medical drugs will not directly make you less stressed, they will make you numb, and at the same injure your brain and liver - and thus produce the sensation of less stress. In contrast, if you use yoga techniques, you will target the physical, mental, breathing patterns that both represent the manifestation constitute the cause of the problem, and thus really make a difference that is truly positive. In short, yoga has the ability to scratch you where you really itch, and not just make you so numb so you no longer feel the itching.

Under this tree, in a nice little park in London, I have spent a couple of really useful hours this afternoon doing yoga.


The reason why this analogy came to me today, was that I today have had a day off in my travel period. So far, I have been to London, Paris, Barcelona, Eindhoven, Oxford, and now London again - where I at last have a much needed day off. Therefore, I today took the opportunity to visit a park that lies nearby to where I am living, and then spent some 2-3 hours doing yoga under a tree in that park. And during this yoga session, I could feel so many of those itching spots - first in my body, and then in my breathing, and then in my mind - that I have been longing to scratch for days now, and that I at last managed to reach.

So, in some ways you should be careful with trying out yoga - you might just get used to being scratched at places that noone else can reach for you. However, the benefit is of course also that you, yourself, always will be able to scratch yourself at these places. That you will raise your bar for what feeling good really should feel like. And if you do things soundly and harmoniously, there are in reality no negative side-effects to this type of yoga-scratching.