courageous flow workshop summary

I just got home from teaching a Courageous Yoga Workshop! At Lifted Life Yoga Center in Alpine, Utah.

Courage comes from the French word that translates to mean: live in your heart. This reminds me of the last line of the Anusara Invocation: Niralambaya Tejase. 'Tejase' means illumination, and radiance. Tejase doesn’t necessarily mean light but is the essence of the light. This shininess prevents us from being in darkness. 'Niralambaya' means not based on any external circumstance. It just is, it always is. So together Niralambaya Tejase means this inner radiance, this inner illumination of the heart is always present, no matter what is happening around us! I love this line; it is so reassuring isn’t that!? And it is just like courage, when you have courage, when you are in your heart, you are bright and in the inner radiance.

When we are courageous, when we live in our heart, it is like we are living from this place of inner brightness. However there are some qualities that we cultivate in our life that shield and block out this inner light. The illumination doesn’t go away; remember Niralambaya means it is always present. These qualities just make it harder for us to connect to. It like a light switch with a dimming feature, if you dim the light all the way the light is still on its just not as bright. These qualities that can dim our inner light include fear, tension, stress, negativity, anger, and judgment.(Everyone has specific qualities for themselves, these are ones I work with). As we surrender these qualities our inner radiance becomes more apparent, to both ourselves and others.

We can then start to cultivate qualities that will enhance our inner illumination, inner brilliance. Some of these qualities include strength, openness, joy, love, compassion, patience, confidence, and trust.(Again everyone has their own specific qualities that they resonate with, these are ones I like to work with). These qualities allow our inner light to be more shinny, more radiant, and more beautiful.
So this was the theme of the workshop. We paused and contemplate what qualities we need to surrender and cultivate in our life to help us live more in the heart, in our radiance. I love working with this theme in a asana class, because the poses offer a great template for life outside of the mat. For example we held some lunges for awhile at the end of class, everyone was tired and it was hard, it was a challenge. What a great opportunity to surrender fear, tension, anger and work at cultivating openness, energy and joy within the challenge.

It was fun fun fun, light hearted and full of smiles! Thank your beautiful students.

xox Kim