Influencing our energy and emotions is vital in stressful moments. Through Pranamaya kosha, our energy body, we can learn how to regulate how we feel, respond and bounce back, with grace and ease.

I just moved house this weekend, and listening to, and taking care of my energy body’s needs, is vital to resilience, wellbeing and energy levels.

So this morning when my alarm went of at 6 AM, exhausted from moving house and all that goes with it, instead of getting up, I listened to my body. She cried loud and clear, “STAY IN BED. Only get up when the heaviness of body and grogginess of mind had dissipated”.

Therefore I had to miss some of my yoga practice, and not do the dynamic practice I was yearning. But instead meet my body where it is right now.

It’s vital to be as honest and attuned, because body awareness, that soft, gentle tuning into our bodily sensations again and again, helps us sense what our body really feels, needs and lacks.

Most of us spend most of our lives ignoring and overriding our body’s needs and desires.

The other day when a heavy roll of paper fell on my toe I screamed out loud in the shop. All the people in the shop turned to look at me, I admonished myself with, “Don’t exaggerate, it’s probably not that bad.” When I got home and dared to look, it was swollen, red, blue and purple, and broken.

The norm is to be tough.

Under all our hectic-ness our vibrant calm, dynamic stillness, radiant intelligence pulsate. When Pranamaya is healthy, we’re confident, curious and creative. We create wellbeing by knowing how our vital body feels, what it needs and which practices will most benefit it now.

So what’s Pranamaya Kosha, how do we regulate our energy and emotions through it?

Pranamaya Kosha Is Our Vital Body

Prana is the Sankrit word for life, soul and breath. Maya means made of, and Kosha, explored in the last article about Yoga therapy, is one of our bodies, or diverse sheaths of living. So Pranamaya Kosha is our body of energy, life, breath and soul.

Cultures all around the world have a name for this concept. The Chinese call it Chi, Ki in Japanese, Mana in Polynesia, Baraka in Islam, the Trinity in Christian, and Rauch Adonai in Hebrew. The embodiment of fullness, power and source of all creation. It’s the creative expression of the divine moving, breathing and living through us. The movement of Life. The breath of life itself.

This active life force takes diverse forms while remaining complete. Streaming through and connecting all channels of life through our breath, transformating through movement. The elements of space and air allow freedom of expression; changing and re-connecting.

Vitality is in Our Breath

This breath of life is symbolised the world over as wind, breath, mind and spirit, because it conceals, is transient, fleeting, yet powerful. A force of change and transformation.

Our fist act when we come into this world is to breathe. This breaks open our lungs, which were closed sacs previsouly. Without this act we don’t live. And our last deed is the release of our last gasp of vitality.

In our vital body, life energy streams, cascades and fills our vessel. Moving and flowing through us. Our breath is universal life force replenishing us through rest and play. To live and move fully. And the nostrils are the entry point for our life energy.

So just by breathing fully, deeply and consciously we wake up and fully engage that Pranic body, our vitality. We can completely empty of lungs and clean out all that stale air. Rid ourselves of anything old, unwanted and outgrown. But usually we don’t give it much mind, energy or life.

As adults we have a lung capacity of four litres, most of us only breathe in 250ml per breath cycle. I’ll let your imagination run wild with the consequences to our health.

And just as bodies of water stagnate, or dry up, our channels of energy, neglected or overused, causes our energy, emotions and vitality to do the same. Our life energy needs to move, flow and find new channels to express itself, live fully. This affects our emotions, moods, mind state and experiences.

Emotion is energy in motion. For more on this read Emotional Empowerment.

Easily Regulate Energy & Emotions

Mudras, mantras, chakras and pranayama all affect our energy body directly.

Mudras; hand gestures, redirect energy flow from our hands into another circuit, a proactive statement we choose to embody. Mantras engage the mind, and redirect energy circuits of thinking and focus into new channels and patterns of thoughts that counter our present mental habits. Pranayama, the most direct way to influence energy flow, can uplift, ground, expand, concentrate, heat, cool, enliven, or even, dampen ourselves if we choose.

An experienced teacher seasoned in self-practice, self-development, mindfulness and Ayurvedic principles, can guide you in finding what practices will most benefit your specific needs, desires and ability.

With all of these, finding the right practice according to our needs is key, and usually the hardest part of any practice. Body awareness, knowledge and honesty are so vital to our energy and emotions. Because when we know what we feel, and where we want to get to, we can choose the right practice.

Clarity is Power.^[1] The more clear you are about what you want and need the more likely you’ll achieve it. So Yoga forms practiced with intention, conscious breath and embodiment of the form, also are pathways to transforming our emotions and energy flow.

Ask These Questions to Know What Your Body Needs

So, first and foremost, is to find out what your body feels like, how it got here and what will move it in the right direction.

1. What quality does it have? Is it heavy, light, open, expanded, wired, dissipated, gathered, flowing, stagnant, or does it have different qualities at the same time?

2. Will that flow change of it’s own accord, does it need an opposite quality to balance it out, or do you need to go with the flow and surrender to it, move at it’s pace?

3. And where do you want to take yourself, in the next hour, day, week, month?

From this clarity you can use the tools and teachings of Yoga to take you to the next level.

Then we can choose the right practices for it.

So meeting my body, feelings and mind state where I am, is the essential indicator as to what practice I will do each time I get on the mat. Like Judith Laster says, “Come to the mat with a question mark.”
So lets get body aware. There’s intelligence in that beautiful body of ours, always speaking.

Our desire’s are our souls language to move us in the direction that will not only benefit us, but all who cross our path.

Let’s breath fully, and take a deep plunge into life energy. Let’s clear our Pranic circuits and create new ones that are life affirming, soul inspiring and daring greatly.

Love to our body’s wisdom, vitality and connection of our life energy,