Living the 8 Limbs of Yoga: A Modern Yogis Guide to Ethics, Daily Habits, Mindfulness, Meditation and Peace

By Beth Daugherty

In Living the 8 Limbs of Yoga author and Lifespan Yoga® founder Beth Daugherty draws on her extensive experience teaching morals, ethics, daily habits, powerful yoga techniques, stress relief, mindfulness and deep meditation to offer you a simple organized structure for your yoga practice. In this easy-to-use guidebook, you will find:

A practical, modern framework for ancient teachings

Down to earth lessons on blending yoga and normal life

Activities to incorporate yoga in to your day

Skill building exercises to enhance your ability to deal with conflict and stress

Space for jotting down inspirations for improving your yoga experience

Allows for personal reflection, self-exploration and emotional intelligence enhancement

Plenty of room for creativity (in the paperback, eBook users can use thier journal)

Designed to use as an individual yoga student or in yoga teacher training

Groups, classrooms or families can do activities together

Share the fun with your yoga friends!

Living the 8 Limbs of Yoga is your one stop shop to integrating different practices in yoga and meditation into a unified whole.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lifespan Yoga
• Release date: Oct 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9780997019766

Beth Daugherty

Beth Daugherty, M.S., M.A., E-RYT 500 is the founder of Lifespan Yoga®. She is E-RYT500 hour yoga teacher, certified in Children’s Yoga, Yoga for Cancer Patients, Chair Yoga and Curvy Yoga. Beth’s books combine modern research findings with ancient teaching to promote a practical, gentle and meaningful practice on and off the mat. She is also a speaker and Registered Continuing Education provider with the Yoga Alliance. Beth holds a Master of Arts from the University of North Florida, a Master of Science from Cornell University and a Graduate Certificate in Health Administration from the Sloan Program at Cornell University. In addition to her executive management roles, she has enjoyed teaching undergraduate psychology, research design, statistics, and program evaluation. Visit www.LifespanYoga.com for more information. Lifespan Yoga® is a registered trademark to Beth Daugherty, founder of Lifespan Yoga®, LLC.

Book preview

Introduction

I told my yoga students a story about when I moved into a yoga center many years ago and all the new residents were sitting in a circle taking turns introducing themselves. People talked about where they were from, why they left everything they knew and loved to move to a yoga center. They talked a lot about what they did before this move. They talked about themselves and their past. That is how introductions go. Some people shared their yoga life, which was usually very different from their work life. A nurse did yoga for years in her gym. A chef did yoga in his home and ventured to workshops once in a while. A retired woman with cancer did yoga with friends after chemotherapy. A management executive, a model, an injured dancer, a college dropout all taking turns and my turn was coming.

I love a new beginning but the ending I just went through was sad. When it was my turn to introduce myself, I was reluctant to share about putting my stuff in storage, saying good bye and leaving my job. I really had a need to share my present thoughts. I blurted out something like, Even though I have practiced yoga for years, I feel like a beginner. No matter where I roll out my mat I feel like a beginner. I always have these thoughts sitting in yoga workshops. It seems ridiculous but it is true. The program director said, "Congratulations. Welcome to Yoga Sutra 1.1. Now we begin the practice of yoga". (The first word in the Yoga Sutra is atha, which translates to now.)

The 8 limbs philosophy of yoga was outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and later in Hatha Yoga Pradipika. These books explain slightly different approaches to the limbs of yoga, but in both there is focus on the physical functioning of the body, moral development and the mental health of the student. The system is meant for ancient monks and priests to practice, but we can use it as a guide of daily habits, meditations and mindful practices for a modern yogi. The main ideas are as relevant today as hundreds of years ago. The ancient yogis taught these different parts of yoga to their best students to give them freedom, liberation, and a realization of their true self. The program director I mentioned above was introducing me to yoga as a framework for living.

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The 8 limbs of yoga begin with morals and ethics, daily habits, exercise, and a way to ease into mindfulness and meditation. It is a very forgiving system taught as a set of practices in yoga centers around the world for hundreds of years. As a modern interpretation we can view these as different ways to practice yoga. If you are not great at postures, you can work on truth telling. If you can’t get the hang of meditation, you begin with yoga postures. It is hard for some people to change greedy habits, so they try concentration first. There is a lifetime of challenge in these limbs. So many aspects of our being are addressed in this system: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual.

This book is a follow up to one I published in 2016 called The 8 Limbs of Yoga Journal. In that book I presented over 100 pages of writing prompts to help my yoga students learn, practice and live the 8 limbs of yoga with the help of journaling, a very powerful mental practice. My students asked for more explanation, activities and examples of each limb so I wrote this book knowing it is my modern take on a very old system. In this book I have included commentary, stories, activities, challenges, conversations, and easy ways to think about, learn about and practice all 8 limbs of yoga.

Many people doing yoga have a vague notion there is some philosophy connected to yoga but may not be aware of specifics. The first chapter of this book reviews the first limb of yoga. It is a bit long because I detail each of the five moral, ethical and social disciplines considered the bedrock of yoga. These five (also called moral restraints) are the principles that help us all (not just priests) get along and thrive in a community. The first set of yoga disciplines, called yamas, are geared to restrain your negative impulses, to promote civilized behavior and move you along the path of yoga. Practicing these disciplines with your family, friends and the other people in your life will build your character and your community.

The second chapter of this book is dedicated to the second limb of yoga, which includes five daily habits also considered a necessary foundation for yoga. It is not enough to be principled and socially conscious, the second limb offers guidance on personal habits you will practice to clean up areas of your life you may have neglected. These habits are transformational and over time build strong character and change your life. The goal here for modern yogis is to develop positive lifelong habits that are as natural as brushing your teeth each day.

The third chapter you may find very familiar. Here I talk about the third limb of yoga, the postures. There are so many popular yoga posture styles and ways to approach the postures. There are athletic and sweaty styles of yoga. There is yoga done in a chair or a wheelchair. There are styles of yoga that are gentle and some therapeutic. Some are intense and some are easy. I will discuss where some of these popular styles originated and trust you will locate the best yoga style for your life, one that fits where you live and work.

The fourth chapter addresses the foundation of all yoga, the breath and the energy of life. There is no yoga without the breath. The fourth limb of yoga stresses the practice of breath awareness. The breath is central to all yoga practices, no matter which style of yoga. Like the many styles of yoga postures, there are many breathing techniques and exercises to select from for a yoga practice. These are personal to each yogi, can enhance a yoga practice and prepare the mind for meditation.

The fifth chapter addresses the five senses and our ability to control them. As we practice yoga we learn to withdrawal from the stimulation of all the sensory input coming in to our brains. We use the fifth limb techniques and practices to turn down the senses or even transcend them. By learning techniques and practices to turn down the firehose of information flooding our senses all day, we create what I call a bridge to meditation.

The sixth chapter addresses the sixth limb of yoga, concentration. We learn many techniques and practices in yoga to concentrate. This is also known as mindfulness or object meditation. In the sixth limb we always use an object of meditation to focus the mind and prepare for meditation. I will list some popular ones but there are hundreds to choose from.

The seventh chapter addresses yoga meditation, which is considered meditation without an object. This is the seventh limb of yoga and some consider the most difficult. Many of my students tell me this feels impossible to them. In this case we would go back and practice limbs one through six and see if that helps with the monkey mind that is often discovered in the seventh limb.

The eighth chapter discusses the final limb of yoga, known as bliss or peace. All the yoga practices prepare the body, mind and spirit for receiving peace and this limb is really the true definition of yoga. Everything before is just practice. In this state, the state of yoga, you will feel heavenly. You have probably had glimpses of this peace, joy and bliss in your everyday life. Practicing the