"What Makes Your Heart Sing" a playshop with Tiffany Wood

My heart feels so full of joy after taking Tiffany Wood's "What Makes Your Heart Sing Playshop" at The Yoga Center. This is the first of a series of 5 or 6 workshops she will be offering at The Yoga Center each workshop focuses on each universal alignment principles.

Yesterday we dove into the first principle: set your foundation and open to grace. I absolutely loved Tiff's approach to help each student really feel 1st principle in his or her body and heart. She helped us create our own joy and humility, she helped us dive into the things that make us happy to see at the core what brings us joy is our underlying oneness we share that pulsates with joy.

She is such a skilled teacher of weaving a theme. The whole class she encouraged us to think of what makes our heart sing. Things that I thought of where: my husband, my dog, family, the garden, yoga, sunlight, love, smiles, hugs, snowflakes, biking, relationships to name a few.

Half way into the workshop Tiffany also offered a dialogue meditation partner work (I guess you could call it). We partnered up and asked the question. "What makes your heart sing" the partner responds "_________ makes my heart sing." the listener then says "Thank you. Why is that important to you". ".........." this is 1 level down, keep going down and you will get to this sweet soft place of connection and love.

Here is my dialogue with my partner Jenny

Jenny: "what makes your heart sing?"
me: "The relationship I have with myself"

Jenny: "Thank you, why is that important to you"
me: "Because it has improved so much and that is a really good thing"

Jenny" "Thank you, why is that important to you"
me: "Because it sucks being at war with yourself. Now I feel like I am on the same team with myself and that feels fabulous"

Jenny: "Thank you, why is that important to you"
me: "Because when I am in good relationship with my self I feel this deep connection to my heart."

Jenny: "Thank you, why is that important to you"
me: "when I feel love and softness for myself my relationship with the whole universe feels more full"
Jenny: "Thank you, why is that important to you"
me: "because it reminds me how silly it is to get wrapped up in my own drama, get to tied up in the mind. When I treat me with love I remember that life really is a pulsating ball of bliss there will be challenges in life but when I am in a good relationship with myself my ability to align and recognize the goodness in life becomes much easier"

This conversation was scary but fabulous to have as the words came out of my mouth in not the best sentences but levels and levels down I found a place to rest in my heart.

(Just got home from a mountain bike ride with the family. Both my my dog Dharma and my husband Tyler made my heart sing)

Transplanting

I am really enjoying my job. I get to be outside in the garden where I care for and am grounded by the earth.

The other morning I was reading out of my Language of Letting Go book by Melody Beattie and I found a passage I really enjoyed and wanted to share:

"One day, my mother and I were working together in the garden. We were transplanting some plants for the third time. Grown from seed in a small container, the plants had been transferred to a larger container; then transplanted into the garden. Now, because I was moving, we were transplanting them again.

Inexperienced as a gardener, I turned to my green-thumbed mother. “Isn’t this bad for them?” I asked, as we dug them up and shook the dirt from their roots. “Won’t it hurt these plants, being uprooted and transplanted so many times?”

“Oh, no,” my mother replied. “Transplanting doesn’t hurt them. In fact, it’s good for the ones that survive. That’s how their roots grow strong. Their roots will grow deep, and they’ll make strong plants.”

 

I love this. I often think that big changes in my life make me weaker. If I am not aware my attitude can shift into a place of defence "I need to have my gard up". That attitude does not bring me much job instead it constricts me. However Beattie reminds me that changes are OPPURTINITIES to make us stronge. This feeliong makes me expand. 

Change is the only constant = we constintly have oppurtiniteis

Catch up

Life is so great. Pause for a moment and feel your heart with gratitude.

 

Life is also busy...more coming soon

quick summary of some blogs I have been wanting to write but haven't had time:

• Tuesdays yoga class, awesome. felt very confident. was very creative in sequencing to help students feet there chest expand...lots of broadening of the collar bones referenced forth of July and the fireworks. Fireworks expand during celebrations. We practiced celebrating our self for who we are, just as we are.
• Feel like I am becoming a stronger person on so many levels: a yoga teacher, yoga student, gardener, wife...this is the result of really taking care of myself, ultimately I think the relationship I have with myself has gotten stronger+compassionate and as a result everything is better.
• Had a great fourth of July went on an awesome mountain bike ride with my husband and dog.
• Fun fact I learned in the garden about transplanting plants that remind me the struggles make us so much stronger.

Oneness

The last blog I wrote was about a class I took from Chris Timmins where he talked about life being a mix of adventure and ordeals and the importance of attitude. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. There are really hard times in life. People are faced with many ordeals whether it be a physical injury, or a mental state like depression. I am also reading Sally Kemptons awesome book Meditation for the Love of it.

A girl friend of mine is going through a hard break up and has been feeling very depressed lately. I reminded her that past the pain there is still Awarness try to remember that rather then focus on the attachment to the personal identity. She responded saying "that is the hardest thing to do, be with no thoughts in my mind". When she told me this I went to grab Sally's book.

This has gotten me thinking of a class theme idea: Can you cultivate this connection to your Awareness as you move through the practice. Can you notice that no matter what pose you are doing whether your experience is more enjoyable or less enjoyable the back drop to that is this Awareness. Can you notice that "you are intrinsically divine  even in your flawed humanness"

So yes on or off your mat you might experience intense sensation, maybe you feel angry or scared, or alone but "if you can remember that divine energy, pure Awareness, God-ness, is present even in the midst of your fear, anger, and depression, it becomes easier to let the feelings come and go without clinging to them" (Sally Kempton: Meditation for the love of it 118)

 This is still hard for me to grasp especially going through hard times. But I have had personally experiences where I can feel the Love and bliss deep inside of my being in the midst of personal drama.

Be with what is. A great class from Chris Timmins

Went to Prana yoga and took a class from the very talented Anusara inspired teacher Chris Timmins. Tim focused on Attitude from the three A’s of Anusara. He referred to a quote that said life is full of both adventure and ordeals. He reminded us we don’t have to make every moment an adventure we can just be with what is present in our life (or our yoga pose) whatever it is.

Some highlights from the class:
Chris knew I was soar from gardening and incorporated in some fantastic psoas stretches using the wall as a prop.
We also partnered up and did an assisted twisted triangle that was phenomenal. The yogi grabs on to the partners calf and hand and can manually get more length and deeper into the twist.
He offered a great neck stretch done laying on your back pre savasana.
He gave some great essentail oil and light head massage that felt heavenly.

I loved it my great is full of gratitude for Chris and his wonderful teachings.  

Summer Solstice...Side bodies long

On Tuesday it was summer solstice and I taught a yoga class at Avenues Yoga in Salt Lake City Utah. I reminded the students that summer solstice is a time for found healing. A time to let go of what isn’t serving you, face challenges and make actions to move forward.

I talked to the students about a very common way we collapse in our bodies which you could call “side bodies short”. This is like shrugging your spine, it is the opposite of standing up tall and proud. We worked on side bodies long which is an aspect of first principle, open to grace.  We had lots of fun during the class as we stretched our side bodies in some very innovated ways. I also frequently had the students pause with the eyes close and notice how their inner body felt. If the inner body feels lifted and bright even when paused that is evidence that what they were doing in the pose is training their body to hold itself with more ease and brightness.

I think I was a mad scientist in a past life because I love having a problem that I want to find a solution for. For example lets say the problem I want to solve is holding length in my side body. Then I try out different experiments, like maybe I isometricly push down more here to see if I can expand more here, maybe I just learn to one side, maybe I stretch my leg out to the side and spread my toes.… here comes the important part… You have to observe the results and then adjust your equation according. I remember my multiple experiments learning how to do a vinyasa in a way that didn’t irritate me shoulder and through trail and error my technique and my shoulder have improved.  

Got a little off track, In conclusion the class was really great and it was a pretty great turn out. My husband also practiced on Tuesday and I asked if he had any comments or suggestion for my teaching and all he said was “your heart chakra seems like it has gotten a lot bigger, all class your heart looked like it was shining”. Hearing this for sure made me heart shine.

Allergies reminding me of pre-yoga life

This week my allergies have been awful! My nose is so congested I can barely breathe through it. Because my nostrils are not working I have been breathing or panting through my mouth. This is not fun. Breathing through my nose is a calming experience and breathing through my mouth causes so much discomfort it reminds me of my pre- yoga life of being a mouth breather. Before I started yoga at age 17 I could not breathe through my nose regularly. If I did it would be for a few moments followed by an opened mouth gasp. I remember so many down dogs after having completed a vinyasa where I would catch my breath as quietly as possible. But somewhere into the practice my breathing pattern changed. No I always (unless I have allergies) breath through my nose with ease.

Looking at the brighter side…what a great reminder of the many ways yoga changes my life