YOGA I - REFLECTION

Write a 3-4 page electronic document. Explain in detail your answers. Enhance your reflection
with pictures or artistic visuals. Upload the FILE to your e-portfolio under Tab Gen-ed: Sub
Tab: Yoga I. Make sure to check your draft for errors in sentence structure and spelling before
uploading. This is a required assignment. This assignment is worth 30 points. It must be
uploaded by MIDNIGHT the last day of class. Answer the following questions:
Questions:
1. Do you feel like your yoga asana and meditation practice has helped your level of well-
being? List three effects and which practice(s) helped you for each.
a. I think that overall my yoga/meditation practice this semester has improved my
appreciation for life as a whole. Before I started my practice I was very uptight
and stressed with work, school, relationship, and money problems. With my
practice I have been able to manage these areas of stress through reflection and
maintenance. It has made it so I view situations from many angles instead of my
everyday ways of thinking; I have developed a sense of self control meaning I
have began to budget my spending, and maintain my attitude towards things.

2. Have you noticed that your stress levels have been easier to control as a result of your
practice? Please explain specifically what youve done to control your stress, and how
the practices have helped.
a. Before I started a committed meditation practice I was easily stressed out. This
manifested through my interactions with my coworkers and friends. I was always
angry and unappreciative; I had a solid lack of understanding. Because I was
unable to make meaningful connections with coworkers and friends my stress
levels increased. But through yoga/meditation I have been able to come face to
face with some of the things that were holding me back from making those
connections, or from being an understanding person. I have been able to accept
each moment for what it is, and try not to cast judgment on moments that do not
fit my standards. In those moments where I do feel stressed I have been able to
implement breathing techniques to help calm my nerves. First I start by taking
deep breaths in filling my stomach all the way up to my chest and hold for a few
second and release pushing all the air back out. After about 5-10 of these I can
feel my stress levels decrease dramatically, and I am able to combat my next
task.

3. Has your physical health improved during this semester as a result of your practice?
How and in what ways? Be specific.
a. Before I started this class I was not able to touch my toes while stretching, I still
am about 1 inch away but it has been a dramatic increase from the beginning of
the semester. Aside from my flexibility I have noticed that my arms and shoulders
started to gain more tone and definition to them even without me having a solid
workout routine. At the beginning of the semester I had a slight irritation in my
 lower back causing me to always need to try and twist it out, I have had very little
trouble with this area after being able to lay into the area in childs pose, I would
lay in this position for an extended amount of time at the end of my practice just
to stretch it out more.

4. Has your emotional health improved as a result of your practice? How? Are you less
reactive? What happened in those specific situations?
a. During this semester I feel as though my emotional health has sky rocketed.
Before the class started I did not know how to manage my emotions at all, I
would avoid them at all costs because they caused me discomfort. And
throughout my practice I was able to identify those areas where I was not
allowing myself to actually feel my emotions. A large example of this would be
after me and my girlfriend decided to break things off. Instead of facing my
emotions I would push them to the side and not allow myself to actually feel the
pain I was going through. During one of my meditations I focused on the negative
feelings I had towards the breakup, and past relationships and I had an amazing
experience. I allowed the feelings of sadness, guilt, anger, and disappointment to
take over my emotional being. As I did this I breathed into the feelings, and as I
kept breathing they got stronger and stronger until I was completely
overwhelmed with the feelings. At this point I realized that I had not felt these
emotions fully and that it was good for me to sit in this state for a few minutes.
When I felt comfortable with the time allotted, I switched my attention to not
feeling the emotions but letting them drip off my consciousness. In order for me
to escape the flood of emotions I imagined I was in a shower, and with the
running water I rinsed my body of all the negative emotions I was tied to. This
was probably the most significant meditations I have experienced so far.

5. What effects have the yoga practices you've learned and practiced had on your energy
levels? List the three most important and state why you think they helped.
a. My main practice I have incorporated is meditation, and it has had an effect on
my energy levels in a few different ways. First immediately after a session I feel
much more calm, focused, and vibrant. I can sometimes feel myself radiating
energy, this usually happens after I have done a deep mediation or opening of a
chakra. I have also developed a habit in the morning before I go to work or
school to stop before I get to my car, breath for a minute and take in the morning.
This has had a big positive effect on my happiness and mood through the day,
being able to put that smile on in my heart and appreciate the morning is a huge
bright side to my day and it helps keep my thoughts in a positive light.

6. Have your relationships to family, co-workers, and others changed as a result of your
practices? Explain how. Please be specific.
 a. Almost all relationships in my life have been affected by my meditation/yoga
practice. A good example of this would be the relationship I have with a coworker
of mine. I was always concerned with what he was doing, because most of the
time he would not work or do things very lazily. It started to make me build a
dislike and bitter attitude towards him, but with meditation and mindfulness I have
been able to reverse the ways in which I handle his work ethic. I have started to
talk in a more positive light and instead of patronize him for mistakes I ask him
for favors that would in term benefit us both. It increases his productivity and
teaches me how to further delegate workload.

7. Has learning about basic nutrition changed the way you select food, or changed the
foods you eat? In what ways?
a. I am not the greatest when it comes to the foods I eat. I have however tried to
incorporate more vegetables into my diet. I never used to eat vegetables at all
but I have tried to have at least one serving of vegetables a day. I do stop myself
all the time when I am going to out to eat and think about what I could replace my
main dishes for a healthier choice. But i still find myself eating on the run the
majority of the time.

8. Is taking better care of your physical body by consuming more nutritional foods
contributing to your overall health and well-being? If not, why not? What specific things
have you noticed that are improvements?
a. I wouldnt say that I have made big enough changes to my diet to see changes in
my health related to food. Although, incorporating a yoga and meditation practice
has had good impacts on my health, on average during any given school
semester there would be at least two times that I would get really sick. After
starting a consistent practice, I have only gotten sick once this whole semester
and it was as bad as it normally is. I usually get bed ridden for a couple days but
this time I was still able to function and maintain a good level of energy.

9. Do you feel like you think before you speak more often? Has what youve learned about
ahimsa (non-violence) helped you be a kinder person? Why or why not?
a. I feel as though I have always been careful with my words, but after practicing
mindfulness and meditation I have realized I used to talk a lot. I was always very
subjective to my emotions so they would speak for me in a lot of situations, but
now that I am aware of them I can allow myself the time to feel what is happening
and then base my reaction on more processed information. I was always very
aggressive with my demands, but I have changed drastically from being an
aggressive person to really trying to understand others positions.

10. Do you look forward to your practice, or struggle finding time for it? Why and how has it
been a pleasure? Or what do you think are the real reasons behind your struggle?
 a. I find myself daydreaming about my next session more often than not. I try and
find time between classes to sneak in a ten minute session, or I take a break
from my homework to relax and allow my mind time to process information.
There are a lot of times that I get very excited because I take my matt and
blanket to different nature locations and do a very formal meditation, these days
were by far the best days of my semester. I was able to completely relieve myself
of all stress and worries and made it much easier to continue in my everyday
grind.

11. In what ways has learning about the Kundalini Yoga system and the energy body
complemented your yoga practices or your understanding of yoga practice in general?
a. Learning about all the parts of Kundalini Yoga has given me a very different way
to think about yoga and meditation. The ways that you can connect the different
parts if its in meditation practicing different pranayamas, focusing on a mantra,
or doing different asanas to activate different energy levels is amazing to me.
Learning about all the connections between these tools has given me a variety of
ways to implement them into my practice. I have played with different breathing
techniques, poses, and hand positions in order to get a different flow of energy in
my body. I can say that I still dont fully understand the implications, but my
understanding of how it works for me has greatly increased.

12. How has learning about the energy/astral body and the chakras changed the way you
think or feel about yoga?
a. When we started to learn about the chakras and their power and control over our
body I really started to test these in my practice. I have done some chakra
opening and activation exercises and it is amazing to me how big of a difference
it makes in my everyday life. After doing a navel chakra yoga/meditation practice
I was shocked to start to see immediate changes in my life, I started to see
opportunities open for me that I didnt even know I wanted. I dont exactly know
how to explain it but it was like the universe was giving me the exact things I
needed in order for me to achieve my deeper goals. After doing this chakra
balancing practice I also started to see my karma speed up. I feel as though I can
watch each moment unfold from the next revealing all reactions to my actions. So
I have to be careful and watch the things I do and promises I make during my
mediations because I know that if I dont follow through the universe will let me
know.

13. Is yoga more than just a physical exercise for you? Explain why or why not.
a. I use yoga as a tool to get my mind and body full in tune with each other. When I
want to have a very deep and in touch mediation I will start with a 30 minute yoga
session, where I stay focused on breath and poses, this helps me focus in on
those areas of tension in my body so when I get into my mediation they are
 already worked out, loosened up and ready to relax, clearing the mind of even
more distractions.

14. Explain the most profound or important insights that you have realized from your
meditation practice.
a. Some of the most growth I have had in my life has resulted from my meditation
practice. As I have already discussed this semester me and my girlfriend decided
it was best for us to not be together. During this time I allowed myself the time
and space to dive deep into my mediation practice, it was my way of figuring out
the places in which we went wrong in our relationship. And by doing so I think the
most important thing I gained from that is the ability to actually feel my emotional
reaction to the things that happen in my life. Being able to identify the places
where she and I were not compatible and letting myself feel either guilt, sadness,
anger, or regret to those situations. This gave me the ability to reflect and make
decisions on how I wanted to move forward after feeling these ways.

15. Have you found yoga to be a deeper or more interesting study than you thought it was
when you first started class? Why?

a. I think the material that we covered in this class was far from what I expected it to
be like. I originally thought that we would be doing a very straight forward stretch
routine and that would be it. But the overall implications of this course to
everyday life and wellbeing are way more than what I had expected. I think it is
very interesting how yogis can implement the universe and energy into the
practice, activating different areas of energy through different poses and breaths.
I can honestly say once I started to see the direct impact of m practice I was
blown away, and it still blows my mind the more and more I continue to do it.

16. How will you integrate or use what you've learned about the yoga practices as you go
forward on your life's path?

a. I will continue to use yoga and meditation to help shape my life, and to help me
develop into the person that I want to be. I will use the techniques I have learned
to help me in high stress, anxiety, and pressure moments. I will continue to use
yoga and meditation as a tool to guide my actions on a daily basis. Using chakra
opening techniques to help me find balance in all realms of my life, including
possibly connecting to a spiritual side of myself that I have not yet experienced. I
look forward to seeing how much of an impact yoga/mediation can have on my
life.