Yoga Nidra Dyad
What’s a Yoga Nidra Dyad, why can’t you make a Yoga Nidra script for a dyad, and why are Yoga Nidra dyads so transformational?
Yoga Nidra: The Yoga of Sleep
Yoga Nidra is called the “yoga of sleep” but don’t let the name fool you, it’s actually a pathway to waking up. What you wake up from is the illusion that your life is ordinary, predictable, and broken. What you wake up to is the magnificence of your True Nature, that of Awareness itself. This “waking up” not only makes for transformational personal and spiritual growth, healing, and wholeness, but most satisfyingly helps you to live your current life, rich with joy, clarity, and presence.
Yoga Nidra is a pathway to inquire into and cultivate a tangible relationship with your most eternal and perfect Self, that of Awareness itself. To rediscover your essential Self, one must cultivate greater Awareness by first dis-identifying as all illusory parts of our being, our ego. The ego in this context is any finite, limited, or changeable part of being, e.g., body, energy, thoughts, etc. In other words, your ego is anything that’s not your eternal Self, the part that comes from Source. In Yoga Nidra, another name for the layers of your ego is the maya koshas, a Sanskrit word meaning “the sheaths of illusion.”
Maya Koshas: The Layers of Illusion
Yoga Nidra uses the maya koshas, the sheaths that obfuscate your True Nature of pure Awareness, as the essential tools to illuminate Awareness. This happens because through all the things you can be aware of, you illuminate Awareness itself. Yoga Nidra leads you to be aware of your body, your emotions, your thoughts, etc, the shows you that what those all have in common is that you’re aware of them. Essentially, instead of identifying as the costumes, the changeable and illusory elements like body emotions, thoughts, etc., Yoga Nidra helps you understand yourself as the thing that underneath the costume, Awareness. BUT, since the costumes are part of our existence, we get to put on the costumes again but with increased clarity, purpose, and perspective. Yoga Nidra is an incredible practice that helps you live more fully because you’re more sure of your True identity.
“Great, I’m Awareness. That that still doesn’t explain how one practices Yoga Nidra.”
Well, most often Yoga Nidra feels like a guided meditation where the practitioner invites you to relax and helps you do so by layering your Awareness. In other words, the facilitator invites you to be aware of your maya koshas which are (but not limited to) body, energy/emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and even bliss. Practitioners are invited to merely witness whatever arises in their field of attention (so long as it feels safe and doesn’t trigger trauma), whether by the facilitators suggestion or if it arises spontaneously.
You’ll often start a Yoga Nidra practice with an intention for practicing called a Sankalpa, establish an inner-sanctuary through a brief visualization, then the facilitator will invite you to be aware of your maya koshas by leading you through something like a body scan, then onto your prana layer, emotions, thoughts, etc. all the while practicing merely welcoming, recognizing, and witnessing whatever arises in your Awareness.
This gets a little meta but hang with me …
How Opposites Reveal the Oneness
Throughout the practice, a facilitator may invite the practitioner to be aware of opposites—feeling right hand then left hand, for example. At first, the facilitator invites the practitioner to merely witness the two objects as separate sensations. Then, the facilitator may have the practitioner experience them simultaneously. The part of you that can witness two seemingly opposite things is that which does not exist in the realm of opposites. The part that can feel both simultaneously is the part of your that is the Oneness, Source, Awareness itself. See where I’m going with this??? This action of holding opposites overrides the rational thinking mind, one of the most pernicious koshas—great for studying for the bar exam, terrible for experiencing the realm of Oneness.
The maya koshas such as the mind are illusions because they are changeable, here one moment gone the next. They exist in a realm of binaries, one of this or that, have or have not. What ancient wisdom teaches and what Yoga Nidra helps you to experience (not just theorize about) is that the part of you that never changes is Awareness. It’s also Source itself. So, Yoga Nidra helps practitioners identify as unchanging Awareness rather than the changeable koshas. Read more about how opposites reveal Oneness
Awareness is your True Nature, that which is aligned with and as Source. It’s your most natural way of being. It’s just that we naturally tend to identify as all the stuff that we can feel, touch, see, think, emote, etc. The problem is that all that stuff is changing all the time and can never be the eternal, most real part of our Being, the part that always is. But don’t despair because those parts exist as the best tools we have to illuminate what we truly are, Awareness itself.
“Ok, cool. I can experience myself as Awareness by layered awareness and by negating opposites. What is a dyad again?”
So, a Yoga Nidra dyad is essentially doing what Yoga Nidra is so good at doing, coming to know your True Self (Awareness) though all the objects you can be aware of, but instead of following a facilitator’s suggested layering of objects to be aware of, the practitioner instead indicates what they are aware of in the moment and the facilitator helps them to simply witness those things. In this way, instead of the facilitator leading the practice, I like to think that it’s the practitioner who is directing the show.
Why Dyads Are So Effective
The facilitator’s role is to inquire the practitioner what the practitioner is aware of, invite them to merely welcome, recognize, and witness whatever that is, and track the changeability of those objects. Perhaps the facilitator’s most important role is to keep reminding the practitioner that they are Awareness itself experiencing themselves in the form of whatever they are aware of.
This process of reflective awareness provides an incredible clarity and perspective about any objects which present themselves in a practitioners life, from emotions, events, physical or energetic or spiritual ailments. Essentially, when one knows themselves as Awareness itself—pure, whole, and complete—life’s problems seem to have a finite context. Great insight, healing, and transformation comes readily when someone is presented with their whole and complete Self. This process of clarity happens more readily because the facilitator can help the practitioner follow that which is most present in their field of Awareness, that which is actually calling the practitioner to wake up and pay attention.
Each object in your field of attention is actually inviting you to do one thing and that is to wake up and pay attention. Each object is arousing your capacity for Awareness. A dyad is so powerful because instead of inviting the practitioner to accept this or that into their field of awareness (as organized and deliberate as that method is to promote awareness), instead, the facilitator follows what is naturally and most poignantly asking the practitioner to wake up and pay attention to.
This is huge! It shows us that whatever we’ve been looking for in life is right around us at all times. It’s like having a massive wake-up moment, like a near-death experience or something, where you see the purpose of it all, then go back into your regular life and see all the same stuff but with new eyes. Certainly, not everyone comes out of every session having, “seen the light,” but it’s remarkable how many people experience incredible and lasting transformation from their very first session, either in a commonly led Yoga Nidra experience and especially in a Yoga Nidra dyad.
Why You Can’t Have a Yoga Nidra Script for a Dyad
You can’t make a script for a dyad because there’s no way you could predict what would arise in the practitioners awareness. It takes a broad perspective and understanding of Yoga Nidra as well an intuition and sensitivity to skillfully and compassionately lead a practitioner through a Yoga Nidra dyad.
Would you be interested in learning how to facilitate Yoga Nidra dyads? You can join me Saturday, September 26th from 9 am to 12 pm MDT for a training and practice of doing just this. The workshop will be recorded so you can watch it later in case you can’t make the live session.
You’ll learn:
Why dyads are so effective
How to practice them safely with your clients
The essential guide to dyads, The Yoga Nidra Dyad Roadmap
How to ascertain your student’s needs in the pre-screening
How to use the koshas as tools to affect transformation
The art of reflective Awareness
How to ground and navigate your student’s awareness
How to manage and facilitate emotions
How to help your students process and integrate the experience
Helpful professional, logistical, and tech tips.
This will be a virtual and recorded workshop via Zoom. You’ll have the opportunity to practice dyads with each other in breakout rooms. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask specific questions to your experience after your practice.
The world needs expert Yoga Nidra teachers. Become a masterful Yoga Nidra facilitator by learning Yoga Nidra dyads
Each person who registers will receive a recording of the workshop so even if you can’t make the time work for you, you may register and watch the training at your own convenience.
Counts as continuing education with Yoga Alliance!