> We need a new age spiritual awakening, like bridging the gap in language between religion and science
I'm always a bit hesitant about that. While I totally agree and use many of these strategies myself, I can see that it's not for everybody. And I don't blame people for that. It's one way, not the way. I don't want to force religious or spiritual beliefs on anybody. Though frankly they could be a bit more open about it instead of immediately shutting me down as a science denier or heathen.
> we may have to be open to looking at controversial works such as Carl Jung
He, I actually subscribed to r/Jung recently ^^ though I still have too much reading ahead of me to go ahead and make my reading-stack even larger. There's still like 5000 pages unread hhhhh… Currently diving a little into Stoicism through Marcus Aurelius first. Parallel going a bit into Yoga to keep my body on track.
Any works by Jung you can suggest?
> Also talking about trauma
Hell yes. This society is built upon centuries of abuse and abuse is central to how the current world works. Colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, psychiatry, cisheteronormativity, education systems, punitive justice systems, poverty, exploitation, wage labor,…
It's all just a flaming piece of abusive shit and we need to work through that. I'd argue these things cause or primarily contribute to 99% of mental health struggles.
I’m not sure if this is exactly what you’re looking for, but I read Yoga Anatomy by Leslie Kaminoff this year and it really helped me understand poses more in terms of anatomy.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1450400248/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf_t1_VuRmFbZWDRCNT
I'm glad to see that my fav yoga app has the most upvotes! Yoga Studio used to be the sole reason I owned an iPad, it's only been on Android for a few months. If you're an absolute beginner, you even have great sessions that last 15 minutes, great way to get started. Even just 15mins/day is enough to get you started into seeing benefits, making you want to go for longer sessions.
There's also the awesome book Yoga Anatomy
The bandha yoga books look awesome! I just spent some time looking through the Vinyasa Flow book on their website and it looks extremely helpful. I started yoga about 4 or 5 months ago and I gotten Yoga Anatomy by Leslie Kaminoff and though I like it and it's pretty cool, there are a lot of terms that many people might not be familiar with if they haven't taken an intro anatomy class. Those arrows on the 3D images make all the difference! I am putting this on my list of "next books to get"
When you’re done with all that, give Yoga Anatomy a look!
This is my new favorite yoga book: Yoga Anatomy
I have a feeling this particular book could become my yoga bible.
Right now, I'm a total newbie but I picked up this book: https://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Anatomy-Leslie-Kaminoff/dp/1450400248
I'm 9 pages in so far and there is some super useful information, some "philosophy" that the Italian yoga studio conflicted with, so take this book with a grain of salt. I'm definitely on the hunt for answers as to "why is this pose the pose that it is and what in our anatomy is it helping and what systems are at play"
I joined r/yoga also which is helping to kinda get a greater understanding of it, but again, I'm taking some things with a grain of salt lol
Because I had hormonal imbalance issue, I was suggested cupping from the Italian yoga studio, so I looked into that, and then that set me off a path to study Eastern/Traditional Chinese Medicine. I'm looking into the emotional organ (like, anger manifests in the liver), and pressure points, etc etc just to see a holistic view of the body and treatments (both Western and Eastern). I'm just googling the TCM stuff but I figure I'll go to a library in the next few months to learn more.
This has all been within the last month of my life, so I think there's a lot of info out there to parse through, I don't think you could go "wrong" with anything, but I'm definitely going on the whole "take what you like and leave the rest" approach to everything.
A lot of redditors recommend videos, but I cannot stress enough how much more valuable a solid foundation with a good instructor is to starting off. So many yogis in my classes start off with videos and it is hard to get out of already developed bad habits. I did the same thing, and it took me a solid 6 months to re-learn the correct way to do even the most basic poses.
If you live in a larger city, lots of yoga studios do an introductory deal, usually around $30-50 bucks for the first month. After that, drop the studio, read a book about form and what specific muscles are activated during poses, and then move to videos. For books, I highly recommend Yoga Anatomy or Ashtanga Yoga.
Another redditor recommended Leslie Kaminoff's Yoga Anatomy and I highly second that.
if you want to know the musculature behind it, this book is decent: