Feel Good. Live Well.

Serve and Support Your Strength

The point is, you ‘look’ around inside and sees what would serve the whole; what would strengthen the whole.  The strength is there, we just have to look for ways to reconnect with it.  Sometimes that means bringing in more muscle energy and sometimes that means allowing for more organic. 

As a teacher, I look for ways for you to find additional strength by cueing alignment principles that serve the flow of big energy.  Many times, I layer on instruction starting with the largest most dynamic pulsation of muscle and organic energies.  Then I move on to the expanding or inner spirals and outer or contracting spirals.  And then from there, I cue the loops.  Depending on the journey planned for the day, I cue on certain alignment principles more than others.  Every time, the end result is a fuller experience of the pose for you.  There is more of you to enjoy, move with, breath with and adore.

Off the mat when we look for ways to reestablish connection to the big energy through better alignment our lives become less stressful.  We accomplish more and with less effort.

We are powerful amazing beings and even more so when we use everything to our advantage.  Take advantage of all your strength this week at Good Life Yoga.  Look for longer held poses and an opportunity to find a stronger you.

Measuring Goodness

“I think we can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves what we resist and who we exclude.  I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create and who we include.”

The ending line to one of my all time favorite movies, Chocolat, conveys a message of expansion and creativity at the heart of Goodness.  I love that.  And the movie.

Anusara yoga is a practice of recognizing goodness, supporting it and creating more.  Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zone with a willingness to serve this radiant Goodness in ways that may not be easy.  It’s not easy to help a stranger, or to include a difficult person in our daily kind thoughts.  It sometimes takes effort to create opportunities for goodness to flow.

It’s not easy to practice challenging poses, or to meet the business of the mind with patience and compassion.  It’s not easy to embrace the fullness of what we are and harder still to embrace it in others.  Goodness flows when we are willing to embrace the best of ourselves along with our limitations.  Goodness flourishes when we create space for kindness and compassion to flow both on the mat and off.

What will you do this week to expand and create goodness?  How can you expand your heart to include more kindness, compassion and ultimately more joy?  What will you do to offer more goodness in the world within and around you?  I can’t wait to see you this week and find out.

Transitions

How well do you live transitions?  What are the tendencies of the body and the mind when between two things?  Can you settle into the moment or do you push through to find the next activity?  If an activity has been highly charged, do you ‘discharge’ during the transition, i.e. laugh, discount the activity, or feel a tad off balance?  Remaining in a constant state of awareness or presence during transitions takes skill – and that takes practice to develop.  There is power, knowledge and connection to your greatest self in these in between spaces.  And that makes them highly prized and worthy of your attention.  This week we cultivate the skill of staying present during transitions. 

Off the mat we find ourselves continuously between two things.  Some are minor, like being ‘at work’ and then leaving, being with friends and then being alone.   Some are major, like moving from one house to another house, being between two jobs, being separated from a significant person either through divorce or death.  What is common about these transitions is that the space holds power.  We either step consciously into transition or it has the potential to overwhelm us.  Think about the major transitions you’ve already been through in your life…these times were ripe with every possible emotion from great joy to intense sorrow; from absolute clarity and certainty to utter confusion and fear.  Here is a space that holds both the reassurance of OM and a panic attack.  It is an exhilarating place of pure potential to say the least.   Staying balanced, focused and in the flow of the big energy is a worthy endeavor while in transition.

This week we cultivate full presence during transitions from one pose to the next.  Our learning comes from what we find as our tendencies during transitions.  And then we decide if these tendencies serve us any longer.  

Come to Good Life Yoga this week and find yourself in the in between spaces….

Recharge

We are half way through February and I am noticing a distinct drop in energy level not only for myself, but for you all as well. 

Sometimes it’s useful to slow down and recharge.  The long winter months take their toll on our physical, mental and emotional bodies.  Think about the gear you have to put on just to go outside.  Throw in the extra shoveling, difficult driving conditions, abundant gray skies and this can all add up to an unhealthy state of being.  Not to mention that we will be moving into our snowiest month yet – March in about two weeks.  Whew.  No wonder many of us are a bit frazzled around the edges and unusually tired.  No worries: Yoga to the rescue!

This week we replenish the coffers, slow down and nourish our entire self with, forward folds, hip openers and a few restoratives.  For many of you this is good news.  February is a tough month to slog through and sometime you just have to take a step back and reconnect with the big energy.  Step in to Good Life Yoga this week.  We have just what you need.

Kriya Shakti – Divine Action

There is only one more ‘A’ in Anusara to discuss!  We’ve gone through Attitude and Alignment and now we explore Action.  As Attitude answers the question of ‘why’ we do yoga and Alignment answers the question of ‘how’ we go about it; Action answers the question of ‘what’ is actually in movement.  We look toward the Universal Principles of Alignment and we find two major energies of pulsations:  Muscle and Organic.  These two energies are continuously coming together to create balanced action.  Contracting energy meeting expanding energy and the two are hopelessly in love (okay, Valentine’s is coming up, I couldn’t resist the metaphor).  They are attracted to one another in a continuous state of pulsation.  These pulsations occur naturally in the body.  Think of your breath moving in and then out; your heart beating; contracting and expanding.  Even your cells are aspirating.  Everything in the Universe pulses.  When we step into the flow of this pulsation we align with the action of the Divine or Kriya Shakti.

This week step into class and find yourself immersed in the Universal pulsation of Kriya Shakti.  Together we will find the optimal balance of Muscle and Organic energies to enliven our experience of the Divine.

Jnana Shakti – Divine Knowledge

Iccha, Jnana, Kriya – are all aspects of the divine that inform the practice of Anusara Yoga.  Anusara yoga celebrates 3 A’s – Attitude, Alignment and Action.  Last week we dove into ‘Iccha’ – Divine Will and the energy of intention that establishes our Attitude.   This week, we explore Alignment and the divine’s desire to know itself.  In the tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness, the divine chooses self-knowledge.  It knows that it knows.  How does it know?  This is the question that is answered in Alignment.  Self-identification of all of our parts and aligning them in such a way that they glorify the whole is how we practice our yoga.  How we place our hands, how we align our hips – where our shoulder blades are placed on our backs.  The underlying reason for such grand attention to alignment is the aspect we call Jnana – the divine’s desire to know itself. 

How does this support our practice and our life?  When we know how to align ourselves for optimal flow of energy, our bodies, minds and hearts heal and thrive with vitality.  Anyone who has ever had an injury simply go away through a quality yoga practice knows that good alignment heals.  In alignment, energy sings through the whole spectrum of being.  In our yoga practice this week, we step into the energy of knowledge – Jnana Shakti and explore all 5 main Universal Principles of Alignment – Open to Grace, Muscle Energy, Inner Spiral, Outer Spiral and Organic Energy. 

 Iccha Shakti– Divine Will

Why do some people thrive on the underbelly of life, imbibing in their complaints and suffering while others choose to see the set of circumstances inhabiting their life at the moment as an opportunity to celebrate diversity, growth, expansion and indeed joy? 

Attitude.  It’s a bugger, but you have the choice in each and every moment to select your own platform of experience.  Funny thing happens when you choose to see life as an unfolding of experiences designed to create growth, expansion and joy.  You cultivate happiness.  You open the door to understanding.  You elevate the moment into the big scheme of things and see patterns.  You reawaken to the greatness of your life.

In Anusara yoga, Attitude relates to the first Universal Principle of Alignment; Open to Grace.  It is the power of this intention, that we call Iccha Shakti, or Divine Will.   Our willingness to open to our Divine nature sets the attitude from which we choose to see our life.   The quality of heart we engender in any pose is a direct reflection of our Diving Will.  Iccha – think ‘itch’ is our desire to over and over again go back to the center of ourselves and discover that it is indeed all good.  We choose to reflect this will, this attitude in everything off the mat as well.  Life is not a problem to be solved; it is recognizing that every moment you live is given to you out of the deepest love known.  It is an offering of joy, expansion and growth.  See it from this vantage point and transform your world.   Listen and acknowledge the Iccha Shakti within you and reawaken an attitude of greatness.

At Good Life Yoga this week we contemplate Attitude and the power we have to establish our own paradigm for happiness.  We will still struggle with poses and be challenged by our continuous yet sometimes helpful mind – but we will do so with aplomb.  We will open our hearts to Grace and allow Iccha Shakti to reawaken our passion for living as if every breath mattered and every moment were a shining gift of her presence.   All this and some deep forward folds and twists – ah, it’s good to be You.

Step up to your life and claim it.  You have this life and this life only in the form that you are. So, take advantage of it.  Take up your courage and boldly move into the greatness of yourself.   So many times we have been uncomfortable standing in the light of our own divinity.  We have made mistakes, said some untruths; turned our world or another’s upside down. We lost sight of the power to make good choices.  We forgot, or chose not to ask for help.   It takes true courage to step out of the shadows and see the beauty and light that is your great self and reclaim it as your own.  Yes, you are that one that has made all those misalignments.  And I’ve got news.  You’ll do it again. Your skills will change and you’ll get better and better, but there will still be those days…Gather your courage and get up and do it again.  Step in and reclaim the beautiful parts of yourself.  Acknowledge the rest as part of the big learning curve of this lifetime; a necessary, part of this lifetime.   You can stand in the midst of those misalignments and identify them as the parts to your entire sum, or you can stand courageously and see the whole of your shinning self.   You’ve got courage living and dwelling in your heart.  Put it to use.  Get bold.

At Good Life Yoga we cultivate and explore courage.  Yes, drop back backbends, could be on the docket.  I know I promised backbends last week; however, the truth (Satya) of it was the energy to sustain what I had planned did not materialize.  With this warmer weather, perhaps our systems won’t be so tapped out on just trying to stay warm, we’ll have some energy left over to devote to backbends.  Ah, January in Minnesota…

Satya:  The essence of Truth

What is the essence of Truth?  What is the essence of anything?   It is itself through and through; distilled down it is the very nature of the whole.   The whole remains true to itself because it knows its own essence. ‘Sat ‘– meaning ‘is’ – the ‘isness’ of being true– this is Satya.  The second Yama, Satya, reminds you that deep down, the very essence, the ‘beingness’ of yourself is supreme goodness.  Knowing this, we practice allowing the very essence of our self to shine throughout the whole of ourselves.

Choose to align with your essence.  Look at what is false or incongruent.  There may be negative thoughts that run counter to this recognition.   Experiences from our past may run counter to this essential truth.  We have been told mistruths about ourselves.  We may have even believed them.  Satya sheds light on these falsehoods and asks us to remain true – truth full - to our own essence.

What does it feel like to be truthful in your asanas?  You fill them out completely.  Leaving nothing behind, pushing nothing forward harder than you can hold – you don’t spill out, your muscle and organic energies are in balance.  You work the pose from the inside and not try and conform to some ‘ideal’ you mind has about what this asana ‘should’ look like.  The pose remains true to your capability.  Your mind is relaxed, expansive; your breath is clear and refined.  In that moment your essence shines through to the whole of your being.  Satya reigns supreme.

In our asana practice this week we will practice standing in our own truth.  We will look clearly at ourselves and see what lies within.  We’ll let go of any thoughts, past experiences, and attachments that do not support this shared truth.  Expect backbends and powerful poses to support your growing truth fullness.

Aspire to Greatness

What attitude will you choose for 2010?  I can guarantee you that many unexpected and wonderful things will happen to you this year.  And I can guarantee that you will be pushed into new, uncomfortable territory as well.  But what one defining attitude will you bring to both situations?  What will drive you to get up in the morning, put your feet to the floor and step forward into the day no matter what is happening?   Your aspiration to embrace your Greatness.

The day needs you.  Your life, right now, playing out breath by breath needs you.  Needs your full cooperation; your attention, your full devotion because  you  matter.

There is only one you in this world.  You live only one moment at a time - Infuse the moment with your aspiration for greatness.  Choose this year to live fully.  There’s no more time to wait.

When I was young, my childhood friend best friend, Vita, had a plaque on her bedroom wall that I memorized:

“I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it.

Didn’t choose it, can’t refuse it, but it’s up to me to use it.

I must suffer if I lose it; give account if I abuse it,

I have only just a minute but eternity is in it.

-author unknown

What will you do with your eternal minute?

Give it life.  Give it support.  Infuse it with your aspiration for greatness.  Come to the mat this week and find your passion to breathe fully, life fully and give this life its due.  It’s 2010.  Let’s do this thing.