231CHAPTER 11
ON THE MAT: FORMAL YOGA PRACTICES
FOR SELF-REGULATION AND ENGAGEMENT
The Anchor Spot:
Please put your hand mindfully
on your anchor spot,
your heart or your belly,
breathing in, breathing out.(Kellie Love, Aliza’s Yoga Teacher)
It’s like having a safe haven in your pocket.(Zarida, Aliza’s Mom; Aliza and the Mind Jar, Bronx, New York; Love, 2015)Yoga means connection. You are truly practicing yoga when you connect with your self.
The anchor spot is a term used in children’s yoga to guide students in finding a point
of inner connection. To anchor is to find a connection that keeps you from drifting. With
boats it’s a heavy metal object. In yoga, it’s a place within. The anchor spot is your heart
or your belly. By placing your hands on your heart or your belly, you add an external
feedback loop (i.e., your hands to your body) to your internal feedback (i.e., the internal
sensation of breath and heartbeat). Closing your eyes, you can bring your awareness to
the internal and external sensory experience for your breath and heartbeat. It is a won-
derful self-soothing technique. In this way, the ability to calm and soothe comes from
your own settling down and turning inward. Students feel empowered as they are the
source of their own self-regulation. Like Zarida, Aliza’s mom said in the video “Aliza
and the Mind Jar,” having an anchor spot or the ability to turn inward for calm, “It’s like
having a safe haven in your pocket” (Love, 2015; see vimeo.com/119439978). This is the
connection of yoga.
I find it fascinating to see how hard it is for us humans to stay connected and present.
Baptiste (2016) suggests that being fully present can be scary for us. The trauma special-
ists agree that for some of us, it can be downright terrifying to be fully present (Levine,
2010). As a default we disconnect. As adults we model checking out, reacting, and losing