“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” – Anne Frank
Weekly Focus: Pratikpasha bhavana (cultivating the opposite)
Pratikpasha bhavana is the practice of actively replacing your negative thoughts with positive thoughts. With time, this practice becomes commonplace, and allows for positivity and goodness to be consistent in the mind.
Pratikpasha bhavana is a way to help us manage the negative thoughts and narratives that enter our mind unwillingly. This practice should not be confused with outright optimism however, as they are not the same thing.
Optimism is a sense of hopefulness about the future or outcome of a situation, where pratikpasha bhavana replaces a negative thought with a related but different positive thought. Hopeful is a key word here. While optimism relies on having faith or hope, pratikpasha bhavana is a real and actionable practice. For example, if I find myself feeling sad or despondent, I can shift my focus to thinking of people that make me feel happy, or that perhaps resonate a sense of peace and calm. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude can be an example of pratikpasha bhavana.
By choosing to adjust our thought patterns rather than allowing our negative thoughts to define us, we can find a sense of more peace and contentment in our everyday life. When we feel contented, it shows, allowing the best version of ourself to shine and radiate.
Here is a simple practice in pratikpasha bhavana:
- Build an affirmation list — grab a paper and pen and get to writing! Build out a list of positive affirmations. These can range in variety from things you are grateful for to ways in which you want to feel empowered. They might say things like “I am not controlled by my anxiety.” “I am surrounded by loving friends.” “I showed true courage when…XYZ…”
- Make your list visible — post your list of affirmations in a prominent place. Perhaps on the fridge, tape to the bathroom mirror, or right next to your bed. Somewhere you will look each day. You can even get crafty and decorate your list to make it cute and fun to look at.
- Return to your affirmations — when you are feeling consumed by negative thoughts, glance over your list of affirmations. Read through them all and pick 1 – 3 that resonate and create opposition to what you are currently feeling. Repeat those to yourself three times, and come back to it throughout the day. How does this make you feel?
Passive Pose of the Week: Parsva Sukhasana (seated side stretch)
Parsva sukhasana opens the heart space and allows us to look in another direction. Symbolically this is reflective of our ability to look away from the negative in our life and seek positivity.
- Begin sitting in any comfortable seat. You can kneel, sit cross-legged, have one or both legs straight, or even sit in a chair.
- Place the right hand to the floor beside you. Inhale and reach your left arm up alongside the ear.
- Exhale, reach and bend to the right, finding a big side stretch.
- You might walk the right hand a bit further away, gradually increasing the stretch with each breath in an out. OR, stay right where you started if that feels great!
- Use about [3] breaths to gradually enter the pose. Once you come to your most comfortable posture, take about [3-5] breaths more before gently lifting up, and preparing for the second side.
In our yoga asana practice, we are often seeking space in the body. In the effort to get a big stretch on one side of the body, we sometimes crunch up the opposite side. When we come into parsva sukhasana, we can think about lifting up and over a big beach ball to the side of us, rather than simply bending at the waist. To help with this, try taking a strap, scarf or towel between both hands. Reach the strap up to the ceiling and make tension on the strap. Side bend from here, without a supporting hand on the ground. This will limit the range of emotion and encourage and upward lift of the torso before you side bend. You may find it is a little more work as well! After, set the strap down and see if you can replicate that same feeling without the aid of the prop.
Active Pose of the Week: Tri Pada Adho Mukha Svanasana (3-Legged Down Dog)
This asymmetrical pose acts as an inversion getting the head beneath the heart and flipping our perspective. The asymmetry allows for a different way to look at and consider downward facing dog.
- Begin in downward facing dog.
- Step the feet slightly closer together, just inside of hips width distance.
- Lightly grip the mat with your fingertips.
- Inhale, and reach your right leg into the air behind you. Imagine stretching your big right toe away from your left middle finger.
- Hold for 2. -3 breaths and switch sides, perhaps resting in child’s pose between sides.
Do you have a tricky time stepping forward into a lunge from downward facing dog? Try moving through a 3-legged dog with your hands on blocks as well! By elevating the hands you give yourself more room to hug the knee into the belly. Additionally, the blocks allow you to grip and press down, so that you can round the back like a “cat back.” This rounding action gives more space to lift the leg from the floor and pull it up to the top of your mat. You still might need one or two steps, but you might find that you have room to guide the foot a little closer this way. Even if you don’t have trouble stepping forward, using the blocks is great practice for getting a soft landing of the front foot.
Join us in class this week to practice pratikpasha bhavana. See the full schedule HERE.
To get weekly updates from our parent brand, Myriad Fitness + Yoga, follow our weekly podcast “For Time.
