I just spent the weekend at the Yoga Journal conference in NYC. All I can really say is, wow. I am full of mental information and physical transformation and spiritual vibration. I wanted to share especially about Patricia Walden’s class, “Cultivating a Fierce Heart and Willpower.”

An Iyengar teacher who has been studying yoga since the 1970s, Walden has such an enormous amount to offer. Yesterday she taught on how to create confidence and inner stability not by force, but by allowing the inner self to come through, to have a “willpower that comes from the heart.”

Some ways to do this that I got from her class:

1) The body is a mirror of the mind and vice versa. You don’t have to be a yogi to know that good posture shows confidence. But the idea that good posture can actually BUILD confidence, is something I’m finding really helpful. Slouching creates “density” and “darkness”; lifting up “creates light and warmth.” Press your spine into your sternum to rise up and drop the shoulders. Let your heart rays through.

2) Even gentle backbending poses can help build courage and boldness.

3) Inversions–and this includes just folding at the waist and hanging over your legs–can help you conquer your fears.

4) You can reorient your brain’s mood by looking up. Looking downward brings the mood down; when you’re in need of a lift, try simply looking toward the sky.

Has yoga helped build your confidence or ease your fears? How?

[Image via: http://www.yoga.com/www/patriciawalden/About%20Patricia.html]