Alter Ego

A significant part of the human journey is constructing and reconstructing the Self. Yoga is well suited to this lifelong practice as it folds together awareness, being pushed to your edges, alignment with universal principles, and embodiment.

Many layers of ego identity create a sense of Self. These identities are constructed and deconstructed throughout our development. The Chakra system provides a helpful roadmap for these layers of identity.

Like any infrastructure, it takes time and effort to establish, maintain and repair. We can be largely unconscious of this work, but extremely reliant on it, and subject to the delays and hassles that arise when sections of it are incomplete.

Chakras are the hubs along this infrastructure. Each chakra, based on 1000s of years of insightful observation and contemplation, is associated with a part of our body. Anodea Judith, PhD, a therapist, wrote Eastern Body, Western Mind, a valuable text connecting the Chakra system with Western psychologies and with a human's physiological development.

We spend years developing each ego identity, from birth to death.

How the world treats us, and how we interact with it, shapes these developmental stages. Traumas can lead us to over or under-identify with an ego identity. For example, we can over-identify with our social identity (the Rebel, the compulsive helper, the Entertainer) as we try to adapt who we are based on how others react to us. At times we may under-identify with an ego identity, failing to see our Archetypal nature (the Queen or King, the Distant Father, the Hero[ine]).

I find this roadmap offers unique insights into student's posture and movement patterns. A student may be disconnected from their pelvis, not breathing there, or unable to know how to feel what is happening in their body. This could be under-identification with the sacral chakra. Their sacrum may be twisted, counter-nutated or over nutated. Balancing the sacrum with good alignment, protecting it in twisting poses, and strengthening the muscles that support it with gentle backbends are literally embodied ways of integrating this chakra.

Integrating the sacrum brings the lumbar vertebrae (3rd chakra area) and the pelvic floor (1st chakra) into better balance. The hip opening poses used for these tasks are famous for the emotional releases that can unexpectedly arise during or after them. Suddenly, feeling is available.

A maturing yoga practice takes us beyond the foundational hip opening phases into the complex and subtle work of balancing the delicate cervical vertebrae and navigating how the shoulder girdle should move. This 5th chakra area houses the egoic layer of the roles we identify with: the Parent, the Spouse/Partner, our career and avocations. It's easy to over- or under-identify with these identities. Being a parent may consume you, or you may downplay your hobby ("I'm not a 'real' artist.") Finding your voice, refining it, as well as allowing silence are embodied aspects of this chakra. Mantra, the ujjayi breath, kirtan and sitting in quiet meditation all challenge this area to grow.

Yoga class and Mac Talla are two guided practices to exploring, repairing and integrating these ego identities. In yoga we use alignment to stop the habitual compensations that allow us to bypass these vital centers that need our attention. The poses shift our center of gravity, direct our energies, and transform us using the heat of our practice. Savasana allows us to feel our newly repaired internal infrastructures; the breath moves freely when our granthis/obstacles are attended to.

Mac Talla offers an arena of near total freedom, contained by safe boundaries. Like an ice skating rink, you can go anywhere, gliding, attempting new maneuvers, stumbling and catching yourself, or clinging the wall as needed. In Mac Talla, you may be blissfully unaware of the infrastructure repairs happening, as the music's rhythms, the beat and the heat your create pull you along. You may also choose to dive deeply in, expressing all that your body has had to contain for so many years.

Both practices are ultimately liberating. The final chakra, at the crown, is transcendence, dis-identification with the constructed self and integration with all of creation. As Dr. Judith cautions, we cannot skip ahead to this layer; there is a price to pay for our avoidance. While it may feel unlucky, the body shows us the layers we need to attend to, through aches, pains and postures.

Therapeutic Yoga shows us how to address these imbalances. The chakra system offers a simple map. And Mac Talla offers us a cauldron for these alchemies. A great place to start is by reflecting on our own ego over- or under-identifications (see the chart above). Let me know what you discover!