Super Health
I am attending a Super Health training this weekend, which is a yoga-based treatment for addictive behaviors designed by Yogi Bhajan.
Yogi Bhajan came from India to the US in the 1960s and began teaching Kundalini yoga and meditation to Americans seeking spiritual fulfillment. Yogi Bhajan saw that the majority of Americans were addicted to some type of substance, whether it was alcohol, prescription pills, relationships, work, etc. He then was on a mission to see how much a mind-body-spirit approach could work to help people reduce their dependencies on these behaviors.
Yogi Bhajan found that a blend of Kundalini yoga, meditation, counseling, and nutritional changes could have amazing positive effects of those who were addicted, and thus Super Health was born. There are now Super Health centers around the world providing help for addictions, emotional disorders and stress.
I am learning not only the philosophy of Kundalini yoga, but some pretty amazing techniques that can be used both in and out of session to help regulate emotions and decrease undesirable habits. I am excited to utilize these methods with my clients in conjunction with DBT to increase effectiveness.
We all use external stimuli to feel better, or to escape, and often these patterns get imprinted and ingrained. We then start to feel like we have to do those things to feel ok, and that's when the problem gets going. One of the main reasons that the Super Health philosophy cites as a reason we use external stimuli, like drugs, smoking, and/or food is that we are often disconnected with spirit.
This is the reason many addiction treatments all around the world stress that building or rebuilding our spiritual life is crucial to recovery. It's also why so many people get turned off by treatment. We have such an all or nothing relationship with spirituality in this country, so we often feel as though we need to be really religious, going to church, reading the Bible, or else we just don't believe in anything (and often shut ourselves down from exploring a spiritual life that feels right to us).
In my mind, the middle ground is where we have to find our own spiritual path, our own connection to the Universe, God, Higher Power, however you want to call it.
The benefits cited by Super Health of Kundalini yoga include:
balancing glandular secretion
strengthening the nervous system
ridding the body of toxins
changing the chemistry of the blood and food metabolism
balancing neural patterning
The Kundalini mediations help people remain calm and non-reactive under challenging situations and to increase clarity in thinking.
Kundalini yoga really focuses on breath work and how to use our breath in so many ways to decrease physiological stress. We have already done some really interesting techniques that I have never seen before in any other yoga classes.
One of the meditations is designed to change unwanted emotions to a positive state of mind. I wasn't feeling bad when I started, but I did notice a very positive set of sensations during and afterwards. It was very calming and grounding. Looking forward to learning more today and sharing more with clients and on my blog!