Yoga Nidra: Accessibility
Yoga Nidra is a fascinating and transformative practice that can help you with sleep, rest better and deeper, and can even help manage or heal emotional, mental, or spiritual problems. In my Yoga Nidra teacher training I encourage people to make this practice accessible and for some that might mean calling it something different. Maybe the name “Yoga Nidra” would turn off someone who could potentially be interested in the practice.
Here, I share an idea of my encounters with this issue and I’ve come up with some alternate names, many are so bad that they’re good.
I meet a lot of people thanks to my dog.
Australian Cobberdogs are absurdly social creatures and so when I’m with my dog and we are walking the neighborhood or running trails or throwing the ball at the dog park and my dog finds someone he simply cannot pass by (everyone) without greeting, with loving, without pouring his doggie heart to, when he is literally shaking and crying at the feet of his current victim of affection, the person who he has forcefully pulled into his presence with the tractor beams of his puppy love emanating from his big brown uber-cute eyes, as he is quivering with unfettered delight as his most recent best friend is scratching his ears scratched, of course, the humans gotta start to talk. I mean you can only coo over a dog for so long.
So as the conversation starts, inevitably, I see it coming. Sooner or later I know I’m going to get hit with the question.
You know the question.
It’s the default question we all ask, almost unconsciously, when we are trying to get to know someone. We are trying to understand who this person is. We are trying to politely size them up. When we are trying to somehow mentally wrap them up in a bow and place somewhere on a familiar shelf in our mind.
The question: What do you do?
We ask because subconsciously we want to know whether we can trust this person. We are curious whether this new person we’ve just met is a doctor, a doorman, a student, a stunt double, a stay-at-home parent or a stay-away-from-me bodyguard. I don’t know, maybe they are an accountant. But regardless, we all are curious to know, right?
We ask what a person does because that kind of implies their financial and social status— and we like to size people up like that. Gross.
Personally, I feel a far better question is to ask a person what they LIKE to do. This opens the door for a much more interesting conversation.
Fortunately for me, I can give the same answer whether I’m asked what I do (for a living) or what I like to do.
But here’s the problem …
It’s kind of hard to tell people what I do. What I REALLY do I fear they don’t get it, won’t understand.
I tell people, “I’m an author, teacher, and mentor around the subjects of yoga, mindfulness, and wellness.”
“Oh.”
“… Cool ….”
I see the gears whizzing away in their heads as they stand there and try to figure me out. I see them looking for the crystals hanging around my neck. I see them start sniffing for the not-so-faint scent of patchouli. I see them scanning my body to see what a career of practicing yoga has done to my form.
If they press on with more questions, I’ll get a little more specific. I’ll tell them that while I teach a lot of forms of yoga I’m an expert teacher and trainer in a relaxing form of yoga called Yoga Nidra.
Yoga Ninja?!
“What? Yoga Ninja?! Like martial arts?”
“Oh.”
“… Cool ….”
“No, it’s Yoga Nidra. Nidra means something like sleep in Sanskrit, or better said, that interesting place between sleeping and consciousness. Yoga Nidra feels like a guided meditation and is the practice of using systematic relaxation and layered awareness to deeply rest the body. It’s super effective at nourishing the body, the nervous system, and can also calibrate a person’s entire personal and global perspective on life. I call my Yoga Nidra program Waking Up with the Yoga of Sleep because through guided rest practices, a person can wake up from the illusions of limitation and wake up to the truth to their true potential as they celebrate the intersection between their human-ness and their being-ness.”
Then I take a deep breath.
“Oh.”
“… Cool ….”
Often it’s at about this point, I realize that I’ve gone too far. They start looking at their watch and start addressing my dog, telling him that despite his plaintive whimpers and uber-cute eyes, they MUST get going, that they have a meeting happening soon.
A Rose Buy Any Other Name
In truth, I think I lose people at the name.
Yoga Nidra may be what it’s called but when people hear the word yoga, they think stretchy pants and impossible poses and what in the hell is Nidra, anyway?
I think I might be better off calling Yoga Nidra something different. You know, to help people realize that what happens in these sessions is approachable, enjoyable, yet very necessary.
In my Yoga Nidra teacher training program, I teach the value of making the practice accessible. If the name Yoga Nidra would turn someone off and potentially preclude them from experiencing the benefits of this life-changing practice, then perhaps you’d be better off calling it something different.
After all, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
So I’ve been brainstorming some names that I could call this practice and I’d love to get your feedback.
Here goes … (not all of these are winners and some of them are so bad that they are good.
Rested Development
Snooze Fest
The Chill Pill
Relax Shack
Rest and Roll
Restafarian (so bad it’s good)
Relaxed Witnessing
Being Chill
Relax, already.
True Rest
Rest Teacher
Rest Method
Rested Soul
The Rest Guy
Right Rest
Awakened Sleep
Rest Ninja
The Rest Fest
Right Rest
Rest Right
Best Rest
Anyway, those are a few ideas that came off the top of my head.
What are your ideas? If you’re familiar with Yoga Nidra, how would you describe it? Do you have any killer names that would make someone be just a little curious about this practice?
Please reach out, I’d love to hear from you.
