OpenToLife

In her book, "Women Who Run With the Wolves," Dr. Clarrisa Pinkola Estes speaks of "tuz" - or "soul-fire," a passion lit by the embers of the soul. She also writes of the darkness that ensues when a women's soul-fire is neither fed nor tended to. She calls it hambre del alma-the starved soul.

In my counseling, workshops, and corporate coaching I see many women suffering from starvation of the soul. It manifests as confusion, low- or high-grade depression, stuck creativity, fatigue, lack of self-expression, or simply feeling small, very small. Moving through this darkness and accessing tuz represents a rite of passage, an initiation I see many women courageously move through.

The power of yoga to assist a woman through this passage is extraordinary. Yoga is a raft upon which she can descend into the darkness. With asana she can go to the places where her body may ache with neglect, call for attention, or yearn to free its vital energy. With breath and meditation she is able to go to the door of her darker feelings. With a quiet mind and a sense of safety, she enters with compassion for what lies within.

Yoga has enabled me to honor and touch these places, and to assist other women in honoring them too. I recently sat by the bedside of a dear friend with breast cancer. Until her diagnosis, she had never done yoga. But her mastectomy and consequent discomfort on all levels became an opening for me to teach her deep breathing, relaxation, and mindfulness. At the end of one of our sessions, I sat at the foot of her bed in quiet tears of gratitude as she rested peacefully in yoga nidra. My twenty-plus years of practice had made it possible for me to have a felt-sense of her fear and fatigue and to help her find a positive place for those feelings. With the help of yoga she was able to receive them with the forgiving tenderness that her heart and body so deserved.

Many of the women I work with are bewildered as to how yoga will help them find their voices, restore their bodies, and renew their sense of self. I remind them that the effects of yoga don't necessarily show up overnight; it is a process.

We start with something very simple. I ask them to say the words "I am" or "I am here." Sadly enough, some women actually choke. The word "I" lodges in their throat like a piece of forbidden fruit; the word "am" stops in their chest like a life-giving vapor they are too guilty to breathe. They practice the mantra again and again. Then I ask them to find a place in their journals where they can write the word "I" in big, bold strokes.

This is a giant step for women who have been raised in repressive homes or experienced cultural or religious shaming, trauma, or abuse. Their sense of"I" is pencil-thin, reflected in their "barely here" bodies, squeezed voices, or shallow, upper-chest breathing. Many of these women get their sense of "I" from doing, and thus live in a whirlwind of constant activity. With yoga they learn to allow themselves to "just be," building a new sense of "I" upon a foundation of self-awareness.

Once they have gotten comfortable with the words "I am," and played with them in their journals, we practice "Tadasana," the mountain pose. We stand in tadasana and the words become form: a woman lifts her arms, roots her feet, feels the sturdy support of her legs. "I am," she declares. As she raises her arms, I ask this emerging goddess to focus on her personal talents or gifts. As she rediscovers her body, quiets her mind, and connects her breath to her whole self-the shadow and the light-she is able to glimpse her tuz, her soul-fire, there to be used and celebrated.

St. Theresa of Avila wrote that she turned to prayer whenever she felt like a "sail-boat in the middle of the sea with no wind, going nowhere." Oh, the times I've felt this in my life! But I go to my mat, and standing firm in tadasana, I touch my strength. Sitting soft in anulom vilom, I am held in divine comfort. I receive from my practice the reassurance of grace, a sense of something bigger, something more. My soul is fed and I am empowered to live my truth with more "tuz" than ever before.