In celebration of our internal selves & Groundhog Day

This week's discussion is about groundhogs (a.k.a. woodchucks). Why groundhogs? If you have lived in the northeast U.S. and Canada at anytime of your life, or seen the Bill Murray movie, you probably know that Groundhog Day occurs this week: Thursday, February 2. The mythology behind Ground Hog Day is that a groundhog comes out of its burrow to help determine whether spring will start earlier than expected. Many of us who live in the warmer climates mostly don't really care as much about Groundhog Day since our weather operates on a very different schedule.

So What do Groundhogs Have to do with Yoga?

You may ask, what do groundhogs have to do with me or yoga for that matter? Do I really care? If you care, that is your decision, read on if you are curious.

These gigantic squirrels are native to northerly areas in the U.S. and Canada. They are famous for burrowing deep underground for their winter hibernation. The deep burrows keep them warm so that they can have a peaceful hibernation without physical distractions.

Groundhogs are a metaphor for what we do with yoga asana, meditation, and Yoga Nidra. We do something similar, in that, we don't actually burrow into the ground, but we burrow into ourselves, our inner beings, to better nurture ourselves. This inner exploration is an equivalent to the groundhog's burrow.

Like squirrels these large rodents spend the rest of the year hoarding food for their eventual winter hibernation. Yoga practices can enable us to store nurturance into our reserves so that when exposed to the wide world, we have energy stores to deal with whatever comes our way.

Yoga is more than simple exercise. It is an inner journey where we can learn more about ourselves by burrowing down to profound depths, physically, mentally and spiritually. Using movement, breath and stilling the mind are the things that we hoard like acorns stored in our internal burrows.

Burrowing deep into ourselves brings awareness. These actions help our bodies learn new or restore old neural pathways. Expanding or strengthening these neural pathways are important as we age and our bodies change (Sullivan, et al., 2018).

The deep burrowing of this internal journey is what makes yoga so unique as a practice and much like the nourishing survival nature of groundhogs.

References & Further Readings:

National Geographic (n.d.) Animals/Groundhog

Sullivan, M. B., Erb, M., Schmalzl, L., Moonaz, S., Noggle Taylor, J., & Porges, S. W. (2018). Yoga therapy and polyvagal theory: The convergence of traditional wisdom and contemporary neuroscience for self-regulation and resilience. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 67.

Wikipedia, (n.d.). Groundhog