Choose To Make More Beauty

Being on modified bed rest has been a great opportunity (looking for the good) to go through old yoga notes. Yesterday I was reading my notes from the Anusara-Inspired teachers gathering in Tahoe during Wanderlust, during it John Friend said, “Every day we get to choose to make more beauty, to make more light, to bring more love into the world, or not”. This really stood out to me. We have a choice! Meaning we can choose to bring more beauty + light + love into the world or we can choose to bring more ugliness + darkness + hate into the world. I hadn't thought about the flip slide of this before. I just thought laa dee daa I am bringing more beauty into the world. I didn't think that all those times I don't feel good, don't hold the door open for someone, flip someone off driving, make rude judgemental mental comments in my head at the market, gossip with friends about someone, be in self pity, or just leave the house in a bad mood. In all those examples I am choosing to negatively impact the world we live in and share.

This made me think about emissions. We are all emitting energy all the time, it is often called our aura or the energy field that surrounds our body. Think about what it feels like to be physically close to someone who is happy and how it makes you feel to just being near them. Now imagine what it would feel like if that person was sad, or angry. The energy they are emitting and you are experiencing just from being in their field is drastically different. In this way just by choosing our attitude we are choosing to either add more love + joy + enthusiasm to the world or we are choosing to add more  hate + sadness + angry to the world. (Not to say we should never experience these feelings it is healthy to experience the full spectrum of emotions but not healthy to stew in it... another topic for another post.)

When I think of things that emit in a way that brings more beauty and love into the world I think of the sun, artists, flowers, happy dogs, color full leaves, rainbows... when I think of things that pollute the world I think of smoke stacks, cars, oil spills, garbage, cigarette smoke.... Which do you want to be? I want to be a bright flower that makes people smile + feel better.

WHAT ARE YOU EMITTING?

 OR...

This simple yet profound teaching has struck a chord in my heart and now I am so much more aware every time I open my mouth to speak (or sometimes too late, and I notice it after I have already spoken...change comes at first with awareness).  I am a big fan of the gratitude practices, of writing in my journal, often at night, a list of things I am grateful for. I do this especially when I am feeling sorry for myself. Well I am starting a new practice! A Shri (beauty) practice! I write down how I added beauty + light + love to the word for the day. It has been making me feel really good to look at the list and brings happiness to my heart as participate in creating a happy earth for all. I invite each of you to become more conscious of the ways that you contribute more beauty to the world each day.

Look, touch, speak, and breathe beauty!

Definitions:
E·mits: To give or send out (matter or energy).
pol·lu·tion: The presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects.

Aim= Perfectly Imperfect

Ive been thinking about vrikcrokti (dont know the correct sandsktrit spelling). This term means slightly brocken. We are all vrkcrockti, somwhat brocken, imperfect. I did a lot of striving to be fully perfect for a long time and then punishing myself for my like of perfect perfection. Now I work on embracing the fact that that I am not perfect nor will I ever be perfect. Instead I strave to be imperfectly perfect. I understand that I have trouble areas but I can embrace my whole self and enjoy the playfulness of life during the fun times and through the challenges. A good friend of mine used to remind me the best I can be is human. When I feel myself getting mad at Kim I remind myself of this. I also remind myself that my friends, lover, employers, family, eveyone can only be human, that we all make mistakes, we all have things we are working through. My life goal is no longer being as perfect as I can be so the world, others and myself can give me the stamp of perfect approval. Instead I am aiming for a life playfully lived full of compassion, kindness and laughter for myself and others.

In praise of imperfection let your spirit soar, sprial and skip

life is a grand and sacred adventure dine in! Leap forth!

Take risks, go ahead, fall flat on you tush, alot

it is time.

No more doubt and self denial

no more wasted time worrying,

sitting on the side lines wishing you were playing

a secret revieled

we all tumble sometimes

getting muddy can be fun

learning to summersalt and stand up

blossom like the wildfloer you are

take this moment

this opputninity now

transform you life into one that is dynamic, sparkeling, guttsy, fully alive!

by the way perfection is over rated, and if you havent noticed NOT AT ALL POSSIBLE

there is beauty in asemetray

we are all alittle goofy, uneven, vrikcrokti (slightly brocken)

take your regeal seat in the galaxtic family

have fun, have fun, have fun

get over your own self sabatage

the world is waiting for you

 

 

 

 

have fun, have fun, have fun

get over your own self sabatage

the world is waiting for you

I was inspired by a poem that Amy Ippoliti shared on yogaglo.com



Thank You

I have been reflecting on my experience in yoga. I have been practicing for 7ish years, I have been teaching for 6ish year (I started my teacher training so quickly after finding the practice and I always used to be embarrassed about that but I am learning to embrace my shame).

6 months ago I decided to take a break from all my teaching jobs because I felt like I wasn't in an appropriate space to serve my students. I had a "breakdown" and admitted the truth to my self and my loved ones that i had an eating disorder and started working with a treatment team. Since all that I have been really resistant to my blog. I wasn't ready to tell the truth about the situation thinking maybe I would tell "the world" in a few years down recover.

This disorder which I was so angry about and disappointed in myself actually has become a blessing. Fir the past 6 years I have been really studying yoga and trying to understand the teaching, but through this recovery process I have learned so much about myself, life, and God. Before I could just barely comprehend some of the teachings of yoga and through this weird invitation I am learning to feel the teaching of yoga through my body and heart.

In a few posts ago I was so scared to do my "quick summary" of some of these big events in my life and I haven't received much feedback, but all of the feedback has been supportive and I am so thankful to all of you.

I am learning we all have shame and things we arnt proud of but the more we are secretive about our shame the more it can grow and stop some of the wonderful invitations life has to offer.  I am thankful for me (few :)) readers and my loving and supirotive family and treatment team

yoga= skill + action. Dont just react choose how to respond!

One thing that was reaffirmed for me over the weekend with john friend was the power of yoga. That what we do on that mat can help us make huge shifts in our life. Our practice can help shift our perspective and gives us tools to not just react and fall into our habits/addictions but instead to choose how we will respond. Yoga helps us make these shifts by fostering awareness, intention, and skill.
We all have tendencies. We all are inclined to react to situations in certain ways. Just think how you react when a car cuts you off…Our reactions are our tendencies which become habits that can become addictions. For example, when you get sad your reaction is to have a cigarette. This reaction soon becomes a habit and the more you do this habit the more likely it is it will turn into an addition. If we cultivate awareness we can notice our tendencies. We can begin to observe that when we get sad our tendency is to have a cigarette. But instead of reacting and going with our tendency we can skillfully choose how we want to respond which can reinforce our intention. Maybe skillful intervention includes taking deep breathes, reciting mantra, going on a walk, journaling...
What is important is that we don’t just throw away the habit; instead we shift the energy so we can turn it into something productive that helps up lift us. That helps make us a better person. Our tendencies are based off a reaction that was triggered by an emotion, which was a reaction to some stimuli. Our tendencies are triggered from these reactions, smoking a cigarette was just one example other include alcohol, over eating, under eating, taking out your emotion out on someone else, self pity/hatred, gambling… The main negative emotions that trigger these tendencies include sadness (I am not good enough), anger (you are different then me) and fear (I want to control everything, and I am afraid of loss). The more we cultivate our awareness the more we will be able to notice when something triggers one of these emotions and then we can start to notice what tendesnisies we have based off these emotions. If we can witness these emotions and learn how to be with them we can shift them with our skill and our intention. Yoga gives us the skills to choose how we respond instead of reacting out of instinct, habit, or addition. When we choose how we respond we can shape our life and use our actions to make us a better person, more generous, more patient, more companionate, more stable, more uplifting, more calm, more grounded….

We can start building our ability to notice our inical reactions and tendencies in our yoga asana practice. What happens when you come into a pose that you are awesome at? What happens in a pose you can’t do the full expression of? What happens in warrior two? What happens in pigeon? What happens when you hold a forward fold for a longer time? If we start to notice the feelings that arise in a pose for example anger, fear, sadness. Then we can begin to follow that emotion and see what tendency it trigger, drifting off with thought so you don’t have to be with it, or facing fire with fire and trying to dominate the pose, telling yourself you suck. When we notice this we can instead of reacting out of our tendency we can choose a different way (love, patience acceptance and compassion). One that helps us shift our life for the better. Our yoga practice allows space for “rocking shits in our self and everyone around us” (JF)
Look at your tendencies:
• Where do you tend to physically place yourself in a yoga room?
• Where does your mind tend to go in each pose?
• How do you tend to react when someone cuts you off in traffic?
• How do you tend to feel when someone says something nice about you?
• What is you reaction when someone you love yells at you?

my notes and thoughts from saturday morning int/adv. with John Friend

Here are some of my notes and thoughts from the inter/adv. workshop with John Friend at The Shop in Park City (I am very greatful to Leslie S. who recommened me transcribing my notes so I dont end up with another notebook of messy handwritting)
John Started the class by asking for questions...
Someone asked the question:
“How would you teach abdominals without interrupting the apana vayu (downward moving energy)?"

John responded by saying that most people (especially in the west) consider the core to be the rectus abdominis “six pack”. But really the core is the vertical channel that runs through the core of our body. It is from this subtle vertical channel that our physical body is building upon. This subtle body can be thought of as an etheric double. The core of our body, this energetic channel isn’t just vertical and straight has spanda (pulsation of prana).

We talked about how we don’t have anything in our body that is perfectly straight. Everything has a curve like our spine. Our spine can hold tons of weight if you use good alignment which holds the natural curvature of the spine for example in sirsasana. But if you were to straighten out the spine and then make it weight bearing that would be very unsuccessful. So cool. When John was talking about this I was thinking about how straight is similar to perfect. If you have a curve and you want to make it straight, you want it to move in a way toward perfection. However, john was pointing out that perfection isn’t straight. I feel like in my life I strive for perfection but this reminded me that perfect is never straight we become not perfect but more fully our self when we align with our uniqueness, our curves and the curvature of our spine.

Back to the original question. Most people (especially in the west) think of the core as the rectus abdominis, so they really work that area which makes the front of the belly tight. This tightness will pull the tailbone under. But people also tuck there tailbone under so their booty doesn’t look as bad. When you tuck the tail bone under like this you make your back flat which hurts the ligaments between the discs which can make you more prone to disc problems. Fun Fact: L5 SI is the most commonly injured dist for this reason. This tucked action and flattening of the back causes prevents the energy to go down and ground toward the earth (apana vayu). This disturbs the downward flow of energy and causes energetic and physical constipation, agitates the nervous system, feeling unsure, unconnected, anxious, nervous, ungrounded…

(I was so immpressed that this question guided the whole asana practice. We worked strongly on open to grace and inner spiral and outer spiral so we could feel the grounding quality and the flow of apana vayu while created dimond strength of the core)

“when we line up with life the beauty happiness”

We then talked about where the soul is located body?
How some philosophers say it is in the head, but when you take that view the head becomes superior and everything bellow the head becomes inferior (reminds me of how a lot of people think and act)
John said the soul is located in our pelvic area and that in fact the word sacrum comes from the word sacred. John didn’t say this but I think it is very interesting that the sacrum (5 fused vertebra) resemble a downward facing triangle, a symbol that shows from the divine to the embodied.

We are:

Divinely manifested

Embodiment of the supreme

Breath Awareness:
Focus of the floor of the pelvis. As you inhale notice what happens do you feel an expansion or do you feel a contraction? As you exhale notice what happens, do you feel an expansion or do you feel a contraction?

If the energy is moving “correctly” the inhalation should case the pelvis to expand and the exhalation should cause the pelvis to contract.

muscularity and Flexibility...stability and freedom

On Wednesday night I went to a bouldering rock climbing completion that was put on after the outdoor retailer show. It was great I watched the women’s and men’s bouldering finals. It was insane to see these incredible and beautiful climbers. As I was driving to the completion I was very interested in seeing their level of flexibility since I assumed they were likely to be very muscular. Watching I could see there were a few climbers who were very muscular and stable. They could hold on to those tiny holds, but the holds were very spread out and some of these strong climbers didn’t have the flexibility/freedom to make the reach with their arms or legs. I also watched climbers who were very bendy and flexible they could through their leg up but didn’t have enough strength to make the move. However the majority of the climbers had this fantastic balance of strength/stability with flexibility/freedom. These climbers were a delight to watch. I could clearly see that the climbers who were balanced in stability and flexibility had the opportunity for the most freedom (they had many more options available to them for solving the problem), they also expressed the most shri (beauty) and they moved with grace. It was a magnificent experience.
In our practice on the mat we want to develop stability, strength and physical integration (muscular energy) but we want to balance that with expansion, flexibility and freedom (organic energy). Watching the climbing completion reminded me of the importance of balancing out our self when we practice on the mat so we don’t get so muscular and so stabile that we are unable to express our freedom, but at the same time we don’t want to get so loose and flexible that we are no longer safe and supported.

This was the focus of my class this morning at Flow Yoga. We worked on creating strength and flexibility in the shoulders and in the hamstrings. I reminded the students that finding this balance is very personal. We all bring something unique to our mat…our self! For example, I am very flexible and I have been working for over a year to bring more stability and strength into my poses. When I do a forward for like paschimothanasana (seated forward bend) I could just lay and rest on my legs but if I do that all my freedom and shakti escapes my body so I need to contain it by bringing more strength (muscular energy) into the pose, by scoping my tail (outer spiral) bone and rounding my back. On the other hand my husband is more muscular so he wants to focus on extending our and lengthening (organic energy) he wants to emphasis sticking the sit bones toward the back of the room (inner spiral) and the heart toward the front of the room.

The class was really fun. The students were rocking it with great studentship, dedication, and even some laughter.