A MILLION WAYS TO LOVE A MILLION WAYS TO LOVE YOGA By Tiina Palva & Sofia Damén 16 incredible stories entrusted to Tiina Palva and Sofia Damén Our motivation for writing the book What does A Million Ways to Love Yoga refer to? A Million Ways to Love Yoga is a project of passion that two people began out of their unconditional love for yoga. The book sheds light on what yoga is really all about. It will teach you things that modern apps or the Nintendo Wii game will not, and provide you with an insight into what yoga truly entails in our modern lives. Our aim was to unite passionate yoga practitioners by sharing their fascinating stories and presenting them visually in the form of a book. The idea was to inspire as many people as possible about the brilliant benefits of yoga, and thus obtain happier, healthier lives. Contrary to so many other yoga books, our intention was not to write an instruction book on how to practice yoga. We preferred to write an inspirational book to share the tangible benefits of yoga and to awaken people s interest in yoga, not just as a form of exercise, but as a means of improving our daily lives. So many of the emotions that we feel on our yoga mats can be very hard to explain. Yet, our goal was to also capture those deepest emotions that yoga is able to evoke in us. These real, ordinary people told us their exceptional stories and we listened carefully. Trying to explain what yoga is, based on our interviews, is very much like explaining to someone how music should make them feel or which music they would enjoy listening to. This is what A Million Ways to Love Yoga is all about. We are not asking you to believe in yoga but to experience it for yourself! We embarked on our book journey in October 2013 when we decided to write down our own yoga paths. While writing and reading our stories to each other, we noticed the multifaceted perceptions that we had of yoga! This is where we got seriously excited! We became hungry for more and set about contacting other yoga practitioners and teachers. The book project quickly took on a life of its own. The people we met took notice of our honest, humble interest in yoga and wanted to help us on our amazing path of yogic adventure. Soon it became clear to us that there were a million fascinating stories about the practice of yoga to be told, and this was beyond our wildest dreams. Finally, after a year s hard work writing, re-writing, arranging photo shoots and designing the layout, we are very proud to present sixteen extraordinary stories of authentic and passionate yoga practitioners. Each person s love for yoga is very personal. The relationship that we have with our yoga practice is very similar to the one we have with our all-time favourite song, a song we never tire of no matter how recently we last heard it. It may be your mind that makes you turn the music on and your body that catches the beat and starts to dance, but there is no doubt that it s your heart that embraces the experience of listening to it. And when you dance, it has nothing to do with how you look, but everything to do with how you feel. What is for sure, it reminds us of life at its best, an adventure faced without fears and doubts, upon which we can discover our true selves. Even though it is the same song every time, when you mix it with whatever you are feeling, it can often be a different experience. And when you focus, you are able to discover the small nuances of the catchy melody that make you want to re-live the song again and again, as always and like never before. Just like a great song, your yoga practice somehow gets under your skin, transforms you and suddenly things just fall into place. At best, yoga practice can, just like a great song, lift our spirits and make us believe that anything we set our mind to is possible.
mindful strength INTERVIEW WITH JUTTA NIALA Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. - Thích Nhâ t Hanh. Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life Throughout our lives, we have grown to believe that strength is something very hard and masculine. However, if you give it more thought, which do you feel is more powerful, the tangible or intangible, masculine or feminine, physical or mental? When we talk about strength, what kind of strength can actually bring us closer to what really matters in life? Were we wrong all the time to focus on our physical strength and material belongings instead of investing in our inner strength? Jutta Niala, 44, has experienced many times that it is the intangible, feminine and mental qualities, such as our thoughts, attitudes and emotions that actually seal our destiny. Simply by getting to know her inner reality, Jutta was able to overcome her goal-oriented nature and cease making endless demands on herself, demands that had driven her to the verge of anorexia and burnout. No wonder Jutta bursts into tears ˉ yoga, officially characterised as when she tells us that Vijñana "practising from inside, has changed her life. It has given her the tools to connect her body and mind, given her peace of mind and permitted her to face herself in a tender and loving manner. However fragile Jutta might have been earlier in her life, today Jutta strikes us as a confident, strong and balanced person who knows what she wants out of life. Jutta s story teaches us that a peaceful approach can be dynamic and that a soft movement ˉ yoga, Jutta is like a feather, can be powerful. When doing Vijñana a feather that starts dancing gently in the air with soft, simple movements, yet requires careful fine-tuning of its complex structure. The movement is so slow and yet it knows all the tricks for travelling far. Stay tuned for Jutta s story that enlightens us to what it really means to be strong on the inside. 49 Jutta Niala Yogic Path In every life there comes a time to turn the page. When Jutta turned 25, she decided to get a grip on life and made a decision that for many seemed questionable. The decision, however, was a crucial one that made her who she is today - a strong, balanced person who knows how to take care of herself. After experiencing a minor burnout at a job in Finland, she decided to travel to Asia, guided by nothing but her instinct. While travelling, Jutta met a man. The couple fell in love and moved to Israel. For Jutta, this meant starting a new life and leaving everything and everyone she knew behind. Now, looking back at 44, she feels very grateful for her decision. In Israel, Jutta was faced with an enormous change in lifestyle and she had a lot to take in: a new Jewish family, unfamiliar traditions and a foreign language. Very soon after arriving, she also gave birth to a baby boy and became a mother. During this turmoil, Jutta heard about a woman named Tamar Nachsoni (Tami) Vijñana yoga 50 Jutta ˉ Niala
who was teaching yoga nearby. She saw it as an answer to her prayers, as she was longing to balance her mind. When she entered Tami s tiny but cosy studio she experienced a strong sensation of coming home. It is hard to describe what it was that made me feel like that. It was everything combined. It was Tami s way of teaching yoga, her approach to yogic philosophy and the connection we had right from the start. It was as if we had always known each other. Something really resonated with me deep within. I think it was also the fact that it was the first time I had had the chance to take a deep look inside. Although Jutta s baby was only six months old, she knew she had to make time for yoga. Tami s Vijñana ˉ yoga class provided her with a revitalising break from her new duties as a member of Jewish society and those of motherhood. As the years passed, Tami persuaded Jutta to apply for Vijñana ˉ teacher training held by the respected founder of Vijñana ˉ yoga, Orit Sen-Gupta. At that point in her life, Jutta made a conscious choice to postpone her plans to have a second child and put all her efforts into being accepted onto this prestigious teacher training course. She knew that it would take her forward on her yoga path. After three years of practising with Tami religiously for 2-5 hours a day in the Israeli heat, Jutta passed her training with honours. Finding her inner voice was key to passing she explains, as not everyone had made the required journey within. Jutta also wrote her final thesis in Hebrew by hand at the end of the teacher training. She states that Vijñana ˉ yoga enabled her to truly find and make use of her whole potential. Even learning Hebrew became so easy for her, that she could have almost sworn that she had lived in Israel in her previous lives. HEART OF YOGA EXPERIENCE PEACEFUL MINDFULNESS BEATS PHYSICAL STRENGTH Jutta is someone with a warm, open heart which she is not afraid to follow. It was her intuition that took her all the way to Israel to learn about Vijñana ˉ yoga and this then became her life s mission. Furthermore, Vijñana ˉ yoga was able to transform Jutta from a fast but vulnerable flying machine into a durable and well-balanced feather that patiently perfects its movements. Jutta has recently established her very own Vijñana ˉ yoga studio in Helsinki. It is called Olo-Tila which translates as a state of being. When Jutta found Vijñana ˉ yoga, she felt as if she was coming home and that is exactly how she wants you to feel when you visit her studio. For Jutta it is important to help others feel good in their body through yoga. She is always completely present in her classes and focuses on every movement, big or small, empowering everyone in the room to concentrate and let go of their thoughts. Vijñana ˉ is known for its conscious approach to asanas. When you really put your mind to it, you can actually achieve more by doing less. Vijñana ˉ yoga is the perfect blend of slow, conscious motion and physically challenging postures. It is a mixture of peacefulness and real action. The key to making delicate movements ˉ is having a deep connection between your body and mind. Vijñana ˉ yoga uses insightful mental images to guide the mind. It is all about doing meditative, physically demanding yoga postures with an intense focus on what is happening deep inside, and avoiding bending too quickly in extreme positions. It is about mindfully sensing the muscles that are harder to find, learning to do less and yet achieving more. At 5 a.m. Jutta gets up for her yoga practice. For the following two hours she is in her own world of serenity and peace. The world of Vijñana ˉ yoga has become increasingly important in Jutta s life as she herself has experienced ground breaking benefits over the years. After all these years, I m still able to find so much depth inside me through my practice. The space just keeps growing inside me. Jutta got divorced when her youngest child was only two and a half years old. Being able to balance this conflicting situation in which her children were involved was truly tough for her. At the time, yoga was like a bridge taking me across a ravine to a safe place. Yoga very concretely provided her with a space and time where she had permission to just be, where no-one, including herself, would judge her. For a moment she could feel she had been granted permission to let go of the heavy burden she was carrying. That way she could regain her strength. At that time, yoga felt like an angel to me, guiding me towards wholeness. 51 Jutta Niala Jutta Niala 52
yoga memory Top Tip Take time for yourself As a child, Jutta recalls rarely having engaged in any kind of sport and having been afraid of doing cartwheels with other children. Later, as a teenager, she developed anorexia. Jutta says that gaining the ability through Vijñāna yoga to harmonise her body and mind, allowed her for the first time in her life to feel comfortable in her own body. Many asanas along her Vijñāna yoga path have been daunting, but each and every time she managed to look inside and make her mind and body work together. Finding your own limits and learning to respect yourself is one of the most important challenges in yoga. When we learn to listen to ourselves, we are also able to say no more often. The principle of non-violence (ahimsa) that yoga teaches also applies to how we treat ourselves. In Jutta s experience, Jewish women in Israel invest more time in their own well-being than Finnish women typically do. Finnish women tend to put everyone else s needs before their own. Women often say that they don t have time for hobbies, but then admit that their husbands and children do. Taking time for yourself, to restore your energy supply, is important. As the old saying goes, when the mother is happy, the whole family is happy. Jutta stresses that it is also a signal of strength if you are able to say out loud that I, as a mother, need time for myself, and that you should dare to take time to care for yourself. That is true inner strength, she says not blaming yourself for taking that precious time! I can t emphasise enough the inner potential that we all have. I used to be so distant from my own body and what I m able to do today is a miracle. If I can connect my mind and body and do the demanding asanas, anyone can. Inversions were really scary for me in the beginning. All the emotions that surfaced and the subconscious fear were so powerful that they actually enabled me to overcome barriers that existed only in my head. Ultimately, the desire to discover was stronger than my fear, and my body began to silently find a way to proceed with the demanding asanas. These moments have meant the world to me. Overcoming my limitations, to find courage deep within and a sense of letting go of my fears, have been very significant moments on my path. 53 Jutta Niala Vijñana yoga 54 Jutta ˉ Niala
It s better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else s life with perfection. - Bhagavad Gita -