Naples Yoga News - Private Yoga, Yoga for Men

NAIKAN -JAPANESE 'GRATITUDE THERAPY'
by Monique Danielle, freshairyoga.net"

For those who want to try something really powerful, there is a very intensive form of ‘gratitude yoga’ in Japan it is called, Naikan. Many yogis participate in a Naikan program in order to lay the foundation for a daily ‘gratitude yoga’ practice.

NAIKAN (byChristan Whelan)
To learn more about gratitude yoga, let’s take a brief look at the traditional Japanese psychotherapy practice, Naikan, “Even though humans are cared for in numerous visible and palpable ways by others from birth, they still tend to systematically forget the many acts of kindness they have received.

Naikan addresses this issue through a structured meditation on just three questions:
1. What did I receive?
2. What did I give?
3. What trouble did I cause?

Beginning with the focus on one's mother, the Naikan client sits in front of a white “byobu” or screen from 6:30 a.m. until 9 p.m. for a period of one week engaged in a relentless recall of memories from birth to the present moment. The meditation is divided into three-year segments punctuated by five-minute visits every few hours from the Naikan therapist who asks just one question: “What did you examine?”Besides these brief interviews, Naikan tapes broadcast into one's room during mealtimes provide the only other external stimulus. These testimonials are passionate narratives of people who have discovered through Naikan the buried treasures in the invisible world of their own hearts and emerge from the Naikan “practice” with a cleansed attitude that drastically improves their psychological state and social relations. In the case of incurable diseases, at least the spirit of the person, if not the illness itself, can be healed through the cultivation of gratitude. If one can manage to survive the fatigue, boredom, and resistance that constitute the first three days of Naikan, then vivid memories begin to well up and flood the consciousness. By the time one has itemized the expenses parents have incurred from a diaper count through college tuition, the notion of a self-made man or woman seems a convenient but absurd fiction. For everything in one's existence is necessarily “okage de” to someone or some thing.”

NAIKAN RESOURCES
1. What is Naikan?
2. The Importance of Self Reflection
3. How to Practice Naikan Self Reflection
4. Examples of Naikan Reflection