Yoga Therapy and the five bodies.
It all begins with an idea.
Yoga Therapy is deep, it’s expansive and it sees the bigger picture. The concept of the five bodies is a foundation of Yoga Therapy and in this post I’ll chat casually about these bodies and how we may use them as a framework for supporting your health and well-being, using anxiety as an example.
In it’s nature, Yoga is holistic. The google definition of holistic is ‘characterised by the belief that the parts of something are interconnected and can be explained only by reference to the whole’. The medicine definition is ‘characterised by the treatment of the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the symptoms of an illness.
I find ‘holistic’ therapy as a concept interesting. When did we begin separating things? Why would ‘holistic therapies’ be classed as alternative when the laws of nature prove that interconnectedness is one of the absolutes.
Anyway. Back to the five bodies.
Where more mainstream, modern therapies such as your talking therapies have been focused on cognition and the mind, Yoga Therapy perceives the mind as only one of five body’s, and cognition only one component of the mind. The Yogic System works with the Panca Kosa model (pronounced Pancha Kosha), and even though the body’s are split into five to help our black and white minds conceptualise, they all actually merge into one.
You could think of these as five dimensions, five realms, five body’s. Separate-ish to understand them, but all weaving in and out of each other, influencing each other and merging to create one human. You.
Physical body
Energy body
Mind body
Wisdom body
Connection body.
Here is a very very brief summary with some reference to anxiety. The physical body is everything you’d imagine and see if you opened a typical anatomy textbook. Your muscle, bones, organs, hormones, nervous system, the physical aspects of your senses. In the case of anxiety, experience on the physical level may include nervous system dysregulation, fast heart beat, panic attacks.
The energy body includes the breath and the subtle body that permeates the physical body and the space around you. You can think of this as flow, frequency, subtle energy channels (nadis) and energy centres (cakras). In the case of anxiety, experience on the energetic level may include imbalances in the energy system such as excess, unharnessed energy in the mind.
The mind body is where thoughts, intellect, judgement and cognition occur. These can include both helpful, and unhelpful mental habits. In the case of anxiety, experience on the mind level could include overthinking or excessive ruminative thoughts.
The wisdom body is the intuition or an intellect which breaks the barriers of the logical mind, intuition can be felt differently in each unique human. In the case of anxiety, experience on the wisdom level could be feeling fearful of things when there is no actual threat, which clouds your ability to see the reality of the present moment.
The connection body, is often called the ‘bliss body’. This is ones connection to life, to a sense of awe or to the divine. In the case of anxiety, living in a fear response could hinder ones ability to feel connected with the wider web of life.
Bring to mind a large Oak tree. ‘When an individual is suffering, the roots of the tree are often made of fear. When one lives from a place of fear… this foundation for perception affects how one moves through life. Imagine if the individual instead had roots constructed of unwavering faith, trust, strength, expansive thoughts and feelings, and joy… The tree would grow in a very different fashion.’ - Amy Wheeler in an excerpt from Yoga Therapy, foundations tools and practice.
Reflection
take a situation you are facing in your life at the moment, investigate how it is presenting in the five dimensions of physical, energetic, mental, intuition and connection. Does this give you a wider understanding?
