Yoga “to unite”
Psychology “the study of the soul”
In my search for holistic healing and health, I have come to land on the beautiful merging of two traditions that are both aimed at understanding and illuminating the human experience. In my opinion, these two pathways towards human knowing fit together so well that there is no need for an ampersand; Yoga Psychology.
I have been a student of psychology since 1992 and have a deep appreciation and passion for this relatively new approach, or scientific study, of the human condition. Since its modern beginnings in the 1800s with Wilhelm Wundt and William James, the scope of psychology has blossomed into a complex network of diversified fields focused on both understanding, as well as mastering, the experience of this human journey. Currently, the field of psychology is growing faster than ever, and many trends point to the increased demand of psychologists.
Although modern psychology is taking center stage as the study of people, it has only been around 200 years. Whereas philosophical interest in the human condition dates back thousands of years. Yoga is one such philosophical and experiential path that dates back over 5000 years ago.
So how do these two paths converge? In my experience the overlap is most apparent in the inherent desire of both traditions to improve the human condition. Ancient yoga texts, such as the Vedas, Upanshads, and Yoga Sutras, explore and examine ways to overcome human suffering by increasing consciousness, stilling the mind and incorporating practices or “experiments” that lead to a state of enlightenment and freedom. Within the realm of humanistic psychology, this yogic ideal of enlightenment is similar to Jung’s view of individuation and Maslow’s view of actualization.
To be very clear though, I never once encountered yoga in my academic studies of psychology. I eventually found yoga years after my graduate studies when I began my work as a clinical psychotherapist and became engrossed in helping people find wholeness and wellness. In my ongoing search for teachings and practices for healing, I eventually stumbled on an essential yet overlooked piece of the human experience; Energy.
It flows all around us and within us. It is so very essential and subtle that we most often overlook its necessity. Like fish swimming in an ocean that remain unaware of the water that surrounds them, we are often unconscious of the power of energy around us. Even more importantly for healing and health, we don’t remember it is also power within us.
The cost of not recognizing or nurturing energy is that we become disconnected from the source of our life essence. And in that disconnect, we end up floating aimlessly around the river of energy surrounding us. Eventually, without awareness of this energy element, we get knocked into the banks of that river, feeling either overwhelmed by chaotic/excess energy or depleted by rigid/stuck energy.
I have come to believe that our awareness and mastery of energy is essentially one of the most important factors in human well-being. And yet it is continually an overlooked element in Western medicine, namely because it is difficult to quantify and study.
As a results-oriented psychologist, I eventually realized the necessity of infusing my work with this energetic element of human existence. As I sought wisdom and research in the realm of energy, I eventually landed on the teachings of yoga in the year 2002.
I remember the very moment when I experienced yoga as a tool to unite mind/body/energy into the present now. And I have been following this path of weaving yoga psychology together ever since.
To unite or join the body with mind with energy.
To yoke the wholeness of our essential human nature.
This is a true study of the soul.
“There is a vitality. A life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you, into action, And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
~Martha Graham
