What is iRest® Yoga Nidra?
With Maristela Zell
Who are you? What is really true about you? What defines you? Are you your body (gray hair, short legs, luscious lips)? Are you what others think of you and your reputation? Are you your emotions, your preferences, your political opinions? Are you a composite of all these elements? And is there a part of you that sometimes has no stake in the game and observes the whole show? Like what you are doing now as you observe that you are reading. Assuming that the human life span is indeed a meager 4,000 weeks, as some say, knowing oneself seems like a worthwhile endeavor.
As in many traditions, Integrative Restoration iRest® yoga nidra is a practice of self-inquiry. What does that mean? Inquiring into ourselves helps us identify and separate from the conditioning that often makes us feel incomplete, inadequate, and even flawed. We have been conditioned to avoid pain, seek pleasurable experiences, move away from our dislikes, and pursue our “preferences.” Conditioning influences our responses to life because it affects our perceptions, behaviors, and emotions. It constrains our experiences of others and ourselves. And yet, pain, dissatisfaction, and unpleasant experiences are inevitable, and pursuing only what pleases us reduces our ability to meet life on its terms and prevents us from fully living our capacity to be human. Drawing from the ancient nondual teachings of Advaita Vedanta, iRest teaches us to see through our conditioning by welcoming all experiences (mental, sensorial, psychological) without resisting or getting attached to them. During the practice, we greet these experiences as “messengers” who have vital information for us, information that can open us to authentic responses to life’s challenges.
Research on iRest yoga nidra demonstrates that the practice is effective in reducing stress, insomnia, anxiety, and depression and in the resolution of trauma. During this profoundly experiential practice, we move through layers (sheaths) of physical, emotional, and spiritual consciousness. Without becoming overly technical, these layers include the sheaths of personal identity that foster separativity and suffering. In addition, we explore the layer of joy and spacious awareness of just being.
The practice guides us to shift from thinking to sensing, priming the body to do what it knows how to do – to rest and free itself for healing. When angry, I experience heat and warmth in my face, tingling in my jaw, and my eyes twitching. On the other hand, thinking is conceptual and logical; I can describe the physiology of my anger instead of sensing it in my body. Why does this matter? Current scientific knowledge validates this practice, demonstrating that by registering sensations in the physical layer, we balance the vagus nerve and engage the parasympathetic system that controls the stress response.
But there are other layers to a human being. Feelings, thoughts, memories… We become unconscious of our deeper essential nature by getting lost in narratives, our stories about ourselves, others, and the world. For instance, it is common to experience a sense of scarcity – "I don't have enough [resources, intelligence, attractiveness, success, time, followers on social media, etc.]" and get stuck in recursive thinking. We also get caught up in strong emotions, such as anxiety, loneliness, fear, and despair. The practice also teaches us to observe and register the body sensations and the quality and characteristics of this human experience. And we ask, what have you come to tell me? Is there an action you need me to take in my life? Are you revealing something that could only be revealed to me in this way?
The potentiality of our human experience is that we can move beyond a pair of opposites. The duality we sometimes attribute to experience (good/bad; positive/negative, etc.) results in painful, antagonist inner struggles. When I welcome and hold opposite emotions, feelings, or thoughts in a unified way, I experience my own mental and emotional flexibility and don't feel so disturbed by whatever arises. So, during the practice, we pair sensations, feelings, emotions, and thoughts with their opposites without experiencing resistance.
I was once practicing iRest with troubling emotions surrounding my very traumatizing experience of divorce. As I welcomed those emotions, many thoughts and memories of my marriage came up. I felt invisible, as if I wasn’t made of made of matter but hollowed. Body sensations included perceiving myself as ungrounded, untethered, physically detached, unhinged, and remote. I was overcome with deep sadness and loneliness. The practice guided me to explore these sensations and emotions as I had never before, welcoming and allowing sorrow to pierce my heart. When I inquired into the opposite, my body registered vitality. Sadness, loneliness, and vitality bled into each other, and I experienced a heartfelt sense of consolation and openness. Deeply felt sadness turned into safety as I recognized that my life and I were unfolding exactly the way it should. I could finally attend to the full spectrum of my humanity.
iRest yoga nidra affirms that everything we see, all matter, all form, including you and me, have arisen from the same source that has given birth to all that is. We can never be truly disconnected from it – it is our essential nature. Even if sometimes we forget, we can never truly disconnect from that source, regardless of the pain and confusion we find ourselves in. Attempts to control events, "solve" problems, and strive to make the world fit my model of reality are exhausting. Instead, iRest guides us to "be" with whatever arises, giving it full attention and leading us to move through and beyond it naturally.