How Yoga Nidra Changes Your Negative Thoughts Into Positive

Hi and welcome!

My name is Em and I am a yoga nidra teacher.

I teach ancient rest practices for life-changing rest today.

So how does yoga nidra help you to change negative thought patterns into positive thought patterns?

To answer this from a yogic philosophy perspective,

We need to understand what exactly is a negative thought.

So negative thoughts are a blend of these three properties.

Number one,

Vikalpa,

Which is the opposite of sankalpa,

Your positive heart's intention or desire that guides your practice.

Vikalpa,

On the other hand,

Is the unhelpful stories that we tell ourselves about the world or even ourselves.

Vikalpas are things that we don't really know to be absolutely true.

So for example,

A vikalpa might sound like I am not good enough or nothing ever goes my way or I will never be able to.

And an example of one of my own vikalpas is that when I became ill with a nervous system disorder,

I couldn't even stand up for more than five minutes and I remember just thinking I will never be able to do gardening again,

Which is something I loved but I couldn't see that I could do this again.

And yet last year I grew and harvested 20 different types of fruit and veg so that is a very clear proof that vikalpa was untrue at the time.

So you will know if a thought is vikalpa because it will cause you feelings like doubt or feeling stuck like I felt,

Even confused or even embarrassed actually.

So these are the properties of vikalpa.

Number two is samskaras.

These can be translated as little grooves in the brain or in modern neuroscience they're considered to be neural pathways that use your past experiences to make meaning about your present and your future.

These pathways can be helpful or unhelpful.

And number three,

Vasanas.

These are often called or deemed to be the fragrance of past experiences.

They are connections of samskaras or wired together neurons that create our tendencies and our desires.

And these are the things that are responsible for reflecting on the future,

Worrying about the past and they can pull us out of that present moment awareness.

But these cause our automatic responses,

Our habits and then this really dictates whether you are generally pessimistic or generally positive.

So I'm sure you can see how this links in.

So how can yoga nidra help you to change these negative thought properties into more positive patterns?

Well an important part of the answer to this is that in yoga nidra we don't try to stop thinking negative thoughts altogether by replacing them or trying to shut them out because this has really been shown not to work to be honest.

Especially if you have some deeply ingrained beliefs and as a personal anecdote I have tried to push away negative thoughts and that really led to emotional repression or even just not believing the thoughts.

So in short it didn't really stick and I didn't feel any more positive.

So instead of doing that yoga nidra actually changes the wiring of the patterns.

So over time the unhelpful wiring that causes these negative thought patterns gets rewired into much more helpful patterns and therefore your negative pessimistic outlook ends up falling away and instead is replaced by a positive and hopeful outlook.

Before I get into how yoga nidra actually does all that,

Here are some of the actual experiences shared by the community of people practicing yoga nidra with me.

You can pause the video to read each one and I really would recommend it because they are evidence of the life-changing effect that yoga nidra can have on your body mind.

So how does yoga nidra actually change the wiring of the patterns to have these profound effects on your outlook on life?

So if you've been practicing yoga nidra with me for a while you will already be quite familiar with setting sankalpa which is your heart's desire,

A positive usually an I or I am statement of positive intent that really guides your practice and has some meaning for your life.

But what if you're setting your positive heart's desire,

Your sankalpa,

And yet you're still experiencing these negative thoughts either about the sankalpa or even your life?

Well this is where in yogic philosophy the vikalpa comes in.

Vikalpa is sankalpa's opposite but vikalpa is ungrounded leading to doubtful narratives about our lives and scattered thought patterns but sankalpa is the absolute opposite so it's a grounded heart's desire that is purposeful and when you consciously plant it during a yoga nidra it gets planted almost like a seed in the subconscious mind to bring about growth or intentional rewiring which can align our heart and our mind to grow more steadiness,

Ease and balance.

It's a tool that really refocuses the mind towards what we want in life and for me aligning with my sankalpa really feels like my body mind is remembering that ah yeah this is the the direction and it's within that moment of remembering that it really becomes so obvious to me how my vikalpa may have blown me off course.

It really feels like my awareness is now widening and showing me how stuck in the weeds of vikalpa I'd been.

So I'd be interested to know if you might relate to this from working with sankalpa in a yoga nidra practice or if this seems to resonate for your life.

In yogic philosophy samskaras leading to vikalpa are located in the subconscious mind where vikalpa,

Samskaras and even vasanas are stored.

So yoga nidra can help because it is a journey through the layers of the being and include techniques that reach the subconscious mind or in yogic philosophy the thought body.

You will know you're in this stage because you can witness thoughts,

Visuals and sensations as an observer without becoming emotionally drawn in either way.

You simply notice and this is how regular practice of yoga nidra can actually rewire the neural pathways to be less stress reactive because you're simply resting back and noticing and so this can help you rewire your neural pathways and feel more balanced and contented.

So yoga nidra has been studied a lot in recent years and I've linked these studies on my website if you'd like to take a look but the studies show that during yoga nidra the brainwave states accessed are linked to neural rewiring and the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain.

These are conducive to feeling more positive chemicals such as gaba,

Serotonin or oxytocin but to recap them yoga nidra changes negative thought patterns into positive thought patterns by changing the wiring of these.

The samskaras and the vasanas that create these negative thought patterns are rewired and replaced with an intentional sankalpa,

Your heart's grounded desire that pull all parts of the mind into the same more positive and much more aligned direction.

And if you're ready to practice yoga nidra or save a practice for later have a look at my library of free practices and until you're ready to practice with me again take care.