Shit

Theme: concealment and revelation. Look for the good. 

Antidote: "The Gold is found in the shit." -Carl Jung 

I believed when I was a child, life was full of rainbows and pots of gold. As a teen i found out this wasn't the case I fixated only chasing after that which made me feel good and avoiding anything that made me confront the darker, messier parts of myself. This turned into a path of addiction and unhappiness. 

Now as a women I know life isn't all good or all bad. And it is through engagement of our shit (as Mr. Jung puts it) that we experience the revelation of our true Self and of our truth. Walking the path of recovery has been tremendously hard and has put me face to face with my biggest fears.  Has made me sort through messy situations of my past that I tried so hard to numb and avoid. The gold that has been revealed is compassion. Compassion for myself and compassion for my fellows. Now when challenges come up wether it is inter personal or an injury I know that it is through engaging the challenging situation that revelation happens. And revelation is one of the greatest joys in my life. The reminder that I am whole, worthy, good (in this moment) and a part of Grace!

Many traditional yogic practices try to help us rise above the murky water of the unconscious and renounce the darker forces within us.  In Anusara and non-dual Tantra we actually choose to go into the darker realms because that is where the gold really is. We don't focus on our breath and avoid our injury we dive into the injury and in the process we learn more about ourself and find healing. This is the invitation of Tantra to dive into the muddy water to find the gold from the inside out.

 I forget when I am in the shit that this is where the gold is. But once I am through it (and sometimes it takes a while) I can look back and see how much gold I was able to mine during that experience. For example 12 years ago I was a professional slope style snowboarder on a path toward the Olympics and I broke my back. I was told I might not properly walk again. This sucked! I was heart broken. But that experience lead me to yoga. Which not only healed my body it helped me face my anger, sadness and addiction and has brought me into so much healing. Talk about striking gold! 

Another great thing about Anusara and fellowship is we can remind each other to look for the good even when things are hard.  Life is not full of pots of gold but it sure is full of challenges and messy situations. If we can change our perspective to see the shit as an opportunity  to find gold we will be very rich. 

We ended class with a nice meditation: softening and breathing out our resentment and hurt with our exhale and bringing in lightness and forgiveness for ourself and others involved with our inhale. Because we can see that our challenges have turned into some of our biggest blessings. 

Universal principle of alignment emphasis: shoulder loop. Focusing on arm bones going back and bottom tips of shoulder blades pressing into heart i.e melting heart

Props: 2 blocks, 2 blankets, strap 

Sequence:

Warm up 

Cat/cow 

Sun B with Lunge arms in cactus 3x muscle energy and then move finger tips and arm bones back as elbows and bottom shoulder blade tips come forward to lift heart. 

Basic

AMS 1 min timed 

Supta heart over blanket roll for passive shoulder loop 

Crunches active kidney loop

Supta heart over blanket roll passive shoulder loop with active kidney loop 

AMS 

Dolphin 1 min timed 

Harder 

High runners lunge twist 

Parsvakonasana 

Trikonasana 

Anjaneyasana 

Upright L handstand prep at wall 

L handstand 

Handstand

Pincha 

Pigeon quad 

Pigeon mermaid or full eprk 

Apex 

Fish 

Fish with arm rotation 

Bridge 

Shoulder stand 2 blankets 

Cool down 

Childs pose 

Twist 

2 blankets supported shavasana 2 blocks for under forearms to help arm bones flow back