Greet Your Life and every Pose with Sweet Gratitude !

Open your heart to the great magnitude of your life and all the great beings sent to be with you.  The intention this week is focusing gratitude for the events and people in your life that help you see without a doubt that you are fully supported on every level.  These can be small or large events – strangers or people near to your heart – they can be in your past or in your present.  These are people and events that shaped your view on life, who chose to support you, love you, guide you, cherish you, nurture you, or just put up with you when you were less than your stellar self.

These are the people and events that made you laugh, cry, grow and  take pause to deeply connect with the miracle of your life.  Recollect all the amazing events sent to startle you back into in to the mystery; the grand miracle of support offered you every moment.   Open your heart and pour out some love and greetings to the fullness of your life.  May each pose and every breath be an offering of sweet gratitude for every heart beat of your life.

Shraddha – Trust in the Practice – Faith in the Process

Shraddha is the Sanskrit name for faith or trust.

This week we are reminded that the practice of yoga can be a sacred experience.   We have a choice to practice with Shraddha or without.  With Shraddha, with this faith or trust that everything is a form of divine goodness every attempt we make on the mat is an expression of that goodness and is therefore never wasted.  Without, it’s a pose; it’s all muscle and bone and no heart.  I choose Shraddha.  I choose to practice with faith and trust overflowing from my heart. 

When you step onto your mat you are trusting in a practice to take you to a place of equanimity, peace or at the very least to a place where you feel a little lighter in spirit.  You have faith that you will find goodness, and you do, as it runs through you in every form that you are - your breath, your heartbeat, your experience of the pose - the imbalance – your steadiness, everything is a form of divine goodness.  It is Shraddha that allows you to make every experience a sacred experience of yourself.

Hip, Hips and Forward Folds

I know you were expecting a “hooray” to follow hip, hips.  And you’d be right in the sentiment.  Hip openers are the feel good poses for most every body.  At some time or another, we’ve all had “tight hips or hamstrings”.  What does this mean?  It means that our hip flexors, groin area and hammies are bound up and need some attention.  All the gardening, running or general office chair sitting that we’ve been doing lately can add up to a lack of freedom in our lower body.

This week we work on opening up the pelvic floor and hamstrings with hip openers.   In addition to increased flexibility, hip openers and forward folds as a general rule help to ground the body’s energies.  Many of us have been affected by all the wild spring winds lately.  Soothing to the system are poses that calm those fluky energies and bring harmony to the physical and energetic self. 

Get set to learn about alignment principles that govern forward folds and hip openers:  Anusara yoga’s inner and outer spirals are your best defense against limited motion in the lower half of the body.  Come on in to Good Life Yoga this week and we’ll straighten everything out for you.   Freedom of movement and balanced energy is on the way!  (Okay:  hip, hip hooray - couldn’t resist)

 Honor Your Human Form

We are spirit and body.  Neither is better than the other, however, in this society we tend to acknowledge the body with negative regard.  It is not what we want somehow.  This ‘food body’ is cumbersome, messy, painful at times and not at all gloriously beautiful.  Or is it?  Can we truthfully acknowledge the incredible opportunity our body has afforded us?  Can we look at this home to our spirit as in every way sacred too?  What holds us back from this? 

 In the Tantric philosophy that informs our practice of Anusara yoga, we endeavor to see the body as an equal to our spirit.  We choose to see its beauty and wholeness. Set your perspective this week to completely, and truthfully acknowledge the sacredness of your own body.  Complete with warts and whatnots.  It is divine in every way.  It shares the truth of your being.  It is your partner for this life.  This week we honor it accordingly.

Iccha:  Divine Will

Everywhere you look spring is bursting through.  The high green energy crackling in the buds and new leaves cannot be denied.  This intention to be alive, free and creative comes from our desire or divine will to be.  Iccha, the Sanskrit name for this, is aligned with one of the three A’s of Anusara yoga:  Attitude.  It is our attitude that fuels our practice.  We choose to set our feet a certain way, we choose to open our heart to our own magnificence.  Held within this Iccha is the power to be full .  In that moment, in that breath our potential bursts forth in a multitude of  high energy green.

This week we celebrate our capacity for Iccha.  Our pure potential cannot be denied.  Happy spring everyone. Please remember to sign up for our Celebration of Spring workshop taking place May 16.