Wherein my guest, a yoga instructor and writer, answers three questions and shares one (sometimes more than one) pose that yogis and writers will find informative, intriguing, and entertaining.
Question 1
Which came first, your yoga or your writing?
Definitely, writing. I was storytelling from a young age, entertaining groups of friends at lunch or recess and captivating my family’s attention at as many weekend gatherings as possible. I also couldn’t get enough time to listen to stories. I wanted to sit around the table with the adults and eavesdrop. At my grandmother’s house, I tried to stay up late with my aunts and hear their dating escapades. By third grade, I wrote poems and made up stories regularly. I was passionate about books and collected them from an early age. Now that I am an author, editor, and publisher, books are my career.
My yoga practice began when I was thirteen and a teacher introduced it to us after school during cheerleading practice. I can still vividly recall my first time doing yoga—we were in the library and the lights were dimmed. She asked us to notice our breath, and she introduced the postures, mountain and tree among others, but I liked those two the best. I was intrigued and asked my mom to buy a book for me about yoga, The Sivananda Companion to Yoga. I began to practice on my own with the book as my guide. Luckily, Sivananda Yoga incorporates four paths of yoga, so even in the beginning of my practice, I learned about postures (asana), breathwork (pranayama), diet (vedanta), and meditation (dhyana). It would be years later before I truly understood it and incorporated everything into my practice and reached out to teachers in person. And still, the practice of yoga is so broad that I often thought I fell short and knew very little. Throughout my twenties, I watched VHS tapes and practiced yoga as if it was an aerobics class. I didn’t take a studio yoga class until I was in my thirties. And, I was forty when I graduated as a 200-hr registered yoga teacher.
Question 2
Are you primarily Hatha, Bhakti, Karma, or other?
I teach Hatha style yoga, as well as yoga and writing workshops. However, my personal practice is still in alignment with the first book I used as a guide and is a combination of those four yoga focuses from Sivananda, so Jnana and Karma yoga are my primary day-to-day practices if I am practicing as I want. Self-evaluation and devoted learning (Jnana yoga) are so important to me, and that is wrapped up in my service to nonprofit organizations, people who seek my help, and bettering my community (Karma yoga). The spiritual and physical aspects of yoga are inseparable for me.
Question 3
Choose one of the 8 Limbs and tell us how to use it to improve our writing.
Ohh, I like this question. I’ll choose the first, the Yamas, the vows, and specifically, I’ll focus on the fifth vow, Aparigraha, or nonattachment or not hoarding.
Writers will often stop themselves from working on a project because they don’t think it’s good enough, they think someone has already written something similar, they want to protect themselves from rejection or criticism etc etc. The writer stops herself again and again. This is not the right use of energy and hoards the creativity and the ideas.
The fifth vow, Aparigraha, asks that you use the ideas you’ve been given, you write them out and see them through to the end, and then you submit your work and share it. To snuff out your writing from ever seeing reality is certainly not the right use of energy. Aparigraha asks that you direct your energy to nonattachment in the result, only focus on a higher purpose, and as a writer, that’s the message in your story, book, or poem. You are not attached to the result. You let the writing go from your mind to the page, and then you find a path from your page to the public.
Pose
If you had to limit your practice to a single asana, which one would you choose?
Savasana makes all the difference in my life and practice. Savasana, or corpse pose, is commonly practiced at the end of studio yoga classes and is often called final relaxation posture. And, to me, this places relaxation as a state of being most often overlooked and devalued in yoga studio classes and something to be used as a reward rather than as a part of the practice. Perhaps, savasana is viewed as “easy” in a negative sense by some, but true relaxation isn’t what our culture often defines it to be. In savasana, I actually accomplish a lot. If I permit myself, I go through a tension and release process from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. Naturally, stretching takes place as a result. I move on to focus on my body’s internal organs, systems, and processes. During this time, I also give gratitude to my body. I meditate and try to let go of attachment, even concerning my practice of postures, Aparigraha again. For this reason, savasana reveals a lot (Jnana yoga) that helps me to become a better person…and my body gets much needed peace. With no other posture can I practice all that I do in savasana.
About Shana Thornton
Shana Thornton is the author of four works of fiction, RIPE FOR THE PICKIN’ (2022), THE ADVENTURES TO PAWNASSUS (2019), POKE SALLET QUEEN AND THE FAMILY MEDICINE WHEEL (2015) and MULTIPLE EXPOSURE (2012). She is co-author of the self-help creativity book, SEASONS OF BALANCE: ON CREATIVITY & MINDFULNESS (2016).
Shana is a 200-hr. registered yoga teacher and combines yoga and writing in many of her projects. She created and is a series editor for the BreatheYourOMBalance® yoga book series.
She is the Founder of the Clarksville/Montgomery County African American Legacy Trail (2019).
For more information, visit https://www.thorncraftpublishing.com
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Mrs. Thornton’s writing skills and articulation show through her thoughtful answers. I agree, Savasana is a wonderful pose and always helps with re-entering the “world.” 🙂