Spring an oppurtunity to change our perspective

Spring is just around the corner/ week!!

 

It is normal as spring approaches for people to do spring cleaning. Tidy up the house, closets, and garages with things accumulated over the winter. Boxing up or getting rid of clutter that they don't need anymore. Well that is what I am doing but not only for my apartment but for myself removing false beliefs, habits, negative self talk that are not needed. One of the ways I am trying to do with is with a daily practice of 5 mins in sirsasana (headstand) followed by balasana (childs pose) and a seated meditation. I do this because spring cleaning is about shifting our perspectives. It is no longer cold winter we are moving into sunshine and flowers! So every day as I do my inversion I am physically changing my perspective and then I continue that in my seated meditation and hopefully I take it with me as I go through my day. Maybe I loss it but it doesn't matter because the next day I will do it again, and maybe I can hold onto that new perspective longer.

Happy almost spring to you!

meditate in a train station

Yesterday I took a class from Jennifer Ellen Mueller at Prana yoga in trolley square slc ut. It was really fun taking a class from JE, she was my first main teacher from whom I learned so much and did my first teacher training with at flow yoga/sonic yoga. Anyways at the end of the class in savasana she mentioned something that I had heard her say many times before (but was something I needed to here in that moment), that she learned to meditate on the subway in NY. In the subway there are people talking, laughing, yelling, alarms going off, phones ringing, trains passing… She compared this to the constant activity that is always going on in the mind, there are always thoughts coming and going, alarms going off…. She also mentioned how it feels to go to the top of a mountain experiencing silence, solitude, and peace. We need have the ability to create that same silence within the hussel and bussel of life.
The idea of being secluded in the mountains, in a cave, in an ashram is very much that of a renunciate like the yogis in ancient traditions who left behind their worldly possessions and the metaphorical train station to live in silence, and solitude to practice pranayama, meditation and asana..

One think I love about tantric yoga is that it is the yoga of house holders who work, have families, pay bills. This is the yoga I try to practice but lately I have been isolating myself like a renunciate. JE reminded me that when we face challenges, and when life seems so overwhelming. That IS the invitation of yoga.

May I view the challenges and chaos in my life as opportunities and invitations to drop into my heart, into the moment, and find peace, clarity and stillness. May I find the eye of the storm the place of stillness in any tornado I find myself in.

"A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; there he is like butter on water, and not like the easily-diluted milk of unchurned and undisciplined humanity. To fulfill one's earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing instrument of God." (Yogananda, Autobigraphy of a yogi,p. 222)

Morning Class with Wayne Belles

I am one happy lady. I just got back from taking lovely Anusara certified teacher Wayne Belles at The Yoga Center (4689 S. Holladay Blvd). This is a new weekly class he will be offering! I have a lot of papers to write but I want to quickly share what I learned today.

Wayne started class by talking about transformation. He said if we even look at how our poses have transformed since our first Anusara class. I really enjoyed it when he said that it takes a long time to transform some of our poses but that is what is so great. If we learned the poses and the refinements quickly we wouldn’t learn as much. He also said toward the end of the class that it is when we plateau in our practice, when the fireworks stop and the honeymoon stage is over. That is when the real practice begins. How inspiring. When we sat in the beginning he said notice the breath and I loved this. He said when all those wonderful thoughts come into our mind about our life simply bring your awareness back to the breath. When I first started practicing I thought the thoughts and the chatter in the mind that needed to be overcome and dominated in order for us to experience the stillness (a classical yoga view) now I know that I don’t need to overpower then and shut them off but I can just be with them. But I loved Wayne’s description that they are good. Just like we are intrinsically good. But we can still shift our attention back to the pauses in the breath.

Highlights that are helping me transform my practice and life:

• Uttanasana: we worked on knowing when we are hyper extending and when we are not. I always thought I hyper extended in uttanasana so I kept a slight bend in my knees. Today we learned a trick where if we feel the behind our knees, the eye of the knee. It should feel soft, if we hyper extend the back of the knee becomes very hard.
• AMS: I have been feeling like my arms are wonky in down dog. Remember the base of the arm has an inner rotation to it and the upper arm has an outer rotation and the eyes of the elbows should gaze “softly” at each other.
• AMK: handstand work. How fun, thanks to Leslie mentioning she wants to hope up. I have been working alot on handstand but I have been feeling a little blocked with my feet. I had been flexing them really working the pinky toe edges back. Wayne reminded me that I want to floint them. Floint = Barbie feet. Not pointed but not flexed, pinky toes still pulling back.
• Urdhva Danurasana: the first urdhva we did Wayne yelled Kim arm bones back. I tried I thought I was doing it. When I came down Leslie (The Yoga Center owner, and soon to be certified) mentioned that I need to extend my heart more to the front of the room. I went up again and Leslie applied resistance to my legs so I could actively reach my heart forward and she pulled my shins in the other direction. How amazing. I tried to pull my arm bones back and my heart forward. It definitely felt different more open. Then Wayne came over and pulled my more into shoulder loop. How amazing I was working with two lovely teachers and I felt so wonderful in urdhva. Then I got to try it again on my own. Not the same bliss is being supported by two others but feeling better.

Wonderful class , looking forward to my Tuesday mornings. Come join me J

Papers to write

Kim

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?

Manipura Chakra

We start our yoga practice by taking a seat and reflecting on our self in silence. From this place we set an intention, which in some way allows us to connect more fully to our heart.

Then we move into the physical asana practice where we move from one pose to another. As we do this physical practice, we begin what I call, the cycle of remembering the heart. In this cycle we forget about our intention/heart, and then with compassionate awareness we notice that we forgot, and then we connect back to our intention/ heart. When we connect back to the intention we don’t just hear the words in our head but we invoke the feeling tone of the heart that brings a reassuring deep peace and a connection and remembrance to our inherent goodness. This cycle happens for every yogi no matter how advanced, the only difference is a beginner yogi might have longer periods of forgetting their intention and an advanced yogi maybe quicker to notice when the intention has slipped away or they may even be so aware that they can catch when the intention begins to slip away but hasnt completely left. This is the practice of remembering the heart.


In the classes I taught on Wednesday, one was an all level class at Flow Yoga SLC and a Level 1 & 2 class I taught at The Yoga Center we focused on the manipura Chakra. I will also be continuing this theme for my Friday classes. The manipura is the third chakra which in Sanskrit means "city of jewels." It is located in the solar plexus, navel and digestive system. It is where we get our sense of self and where we draw our personal power, discipline and passion from. When we hold an asana we find the strength and vitality to stay in the pose from this energy center. This chakra is not only important because it helps us connect to our full potential and our own strength, but it is also important because it sits below the anahata chakra (the heart chakra). The chakras build off of each other in steps, if you don’t have a developed connection to your manipura chakra you won’t have the capacity or strength to connect, open, and share you anahata chakra. So not only do we draw on this fiery chakra when we need more physical strength and endurance throughout practice, but we also use the strength, discipline, and passion of this chakra to continue to come back to our intention and to remember our heart.

So in my classes this week we energetically focused on cultivating our connection to our manipura chakra finding our discipline and passion so we may deepen our awareness to the cycle of remembering the heart and have the strength to continue to connect to our intention and hold space for the energy of our heart.

Asanas physically in this class we build up fiery heat through:
•Surya Namaska 5-10X
•Chaturanga tune ups (i.e. good old pushups…with alignment and breath)
•Jumping forward from AMS (we took AMS at the wall finger tips a little less than one hand print away from the wall, good foundation in the hands, shoulder loop, inner spiral thighs, scoop in the tail bone, toned belly…then hoop! Working to get the sit bones to the wall. This is great it teaches you how hard you have to jump to get the hips over the wrists without worrying about filling over)
•core work and abductor strengthers
•AMC (handstand 3 ways…L at wall, heels at wall, heels at wall to bent knees working our way to full hand stand)
•Parsvakonasana
•Virabhadhasana
•Reverse wirabhadhasana
•In this class physically there were times when the students were asked to dig deep and call upon the power of their manipura chakra…while smiling of course.
•I also continued to ask where are you in your cycle of your heart felt intention? Are you very aware of it and immersed in the feeling tone, have you forgotten about it, are you bring your awareness back to it…remember no judgments just awareness.

I think next week I might be feeling the anahata chakra since we have been building up the personal strength to move more deeply into the heart…

Suggested mantra meditation: Ram is the bija (seed sound) for this energy center. Repeating this sound out loud releases a vibration sound energy that helps you connect to the region of the manipura chakra. So simply repeat….Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram…find your own internal rhythm.