Yoga to Create Calm

This time of year is filled with so much hoopla, friends, family and fun it is easy to get out of our normal routines and into a space that is less than calm and balanced.  The practice at Good Life Yoga is all about bringing you back into balance.  So what do we need right now? A practice that  supports an inner calm.  How do we get that?  Well, through holding poses a little longer than we think we can and slowing down the pace of class.  Do you think a few well timed restoratives could be useful as well?  There you go.  You’re thinking like a yogi now.   

This week at Good Life Yoga we tackle the busyness of the season with a slower routine on the mat.  We find time to breathe deeply and reset our inner compass to calm.  And just for good measure, we burn off that extra piece of pumpkin pie…now, isn’t that just what you’d expect from your local yoga boutique – and just what you need as well? 

 “Pass the Gratitude Please”

Gratitude takes the form of ‘thanksgiving’ this week.  We share our gratitude for one another at this holiday time and give thanks for all that our life has to offer.   We look back on the year perhaps and recount the many blessings that visited us.  We choose this time of year to reconnect with our loved ones, friends and family alike and share in the bounty and abundance that is our life.  Along with the cranberries and potatoes, I encourage you to pass along your gratitude.  Share a story, make a statement or just say ‘thank-you’ to everyone at your holiday table this year.  Gratitude is the only dish that replenishes itself and offers guaranteed satisfaction on every level.  “Pass the Gratitude, Please”.

As a practice this week, we continue seeing our lives in a state of awe.  It is a miracle and we all have so much to be thankful for.  Of course, on a practical, physical level  we’ll turn up the volume a bit add some  abs and arm work to the sequence  - all in preparation for that extra helping of pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  YUM.

Gratitude

Gratitude is the Attitude of Awe. It is consciously recognizing and embracing the unfolding of your life as a wholly supported interactive gift designed to encourage expansion and joy.

Live in a state of Awe.

Recognize your life as a Gift.

Choose the state of Gratitude as your attitude for life.

Your heart will be full. You will recognize your Greatness.

You will live in Great Fullness

Over the years I have contemplated the state of Gratitude and have compiled here some of my musings. It is my attempt to offer you my current understanding of this state of being. I say current, for the concept of Gratitude is like life, forever unfolding and abundant with rich complexities and marvelous revelations.

When I think of how I feel when I am embracing Gratitude, I equate it with a feeling of being in Awe. The kind of awe you experience in your brightest moments of recognizing beauty, resplendent and seemingly independent of you until you absorb fully that you are part of the beauty – you are the beauty. There is nothing you are separate from.

Gratitude is the intention of recognizing your life as a magnificent, incredible gift. You are awe-struck by the sheer magnitude of synchronicity, love and abundance overwhelming your own life – your breath catches in your throat, your eyes weep with the acceptance of such a gift. Humility and gladness fills you throughout.

Gratefulness is the act of navigating and acknowledging this state of being in Gratitude. How can I embrace this moment; how can I feel the preciousness of this exact moment in time – am I able to embrace the gift that it brings me? Can I in this moment of contemplation of the people, events and circumstances in my life generate a fullness of heart, an understanding that I am so important, beautiful and precious as to deserve the entirety of my life? May I right now feel the great fullness of this moment in my heart?

We choose to embrace Gratitude by offering gratefulness. We use words; we offer service; we speak from our hearts. We place this intention into our practice. Our every pose, every breath is an opportunity to offer our awareness – our recognition that our life is precious.  We say, Thank you. I accept responsibility for this gift and I know that I am supported in making the fullest offering I can. My heart swells and fills the Grand Canyon. My eyes see with wonder the unfolding life all around me.

In a yoga practice we endeavor to remain alert, steadfast, and deeply aware of our connection to the whole, the One, the Universe around and within. We do not deny waverings of the mind, sensations of the body or overwhelming emotions. We accept these movements as part of the natural order of life, as the gifts they are. In our lives we will experience suffering and pain as well as great joy and freedom. It is our birthright to experience life to the fullest. Gratitude is your intention to see all things as opportunity for growth – part of the natural order of life. You are the Grand Canyon: ever-changing, beautiful, complete with every possible emotion, event, and purpose for choosing life.

The world is one place, and it dwells in your heart. As soon as you separate yourself from others, or view your life as independent from the whole, you choose to limit your ability to know yourself as boundless.

This is the paradox: in being boundless we are free to live, feel, contemplate, and hold precious our limited lives as humans. What an honor to be here. How amazing that our births came about.

Show up for your life. Wake up to your life. Own it. Honor it. Take responsibility for it. Walk the connected threads of your heart to the events, people, and places that are your life. See the interdependence, the support and inherent goodness of every smile, tear, tragedy, and joy. All are blessings; make room for them all. Hold their sacredness both tightly and lightly. Hold them and let them expand from within. They blossom with gratitude.

You are fully supported in this moment. So much has already conspired to bring you great joy and great growth. So much will show up to help you, inspire you in this same way in the next moment. Trust in this moment as well as the next moment and all the moments after that. Until the last moment. And even then you’ll not be alone. Never alone. Never separate. Your life spreads out around you and is as beautiful, rocky, multi-layered and awe-some as the Grand Canyon.

Join GLY this week as we hold gratitude in our hearts, our breath and our poses. 

What a sweet word, ‘kindness’.  Even coming out of your mouth the word sounds sweet and gentle.   Kindness.  When we engage in acts of kindness we are really just connecting our own hearts with another.  We can see what needs to be done, or what would serve the moment and we do it.  This can take the form of helping another student put away their props, helping a new student feel comfortable; or offering to help someone pull a can of beans down from the shelf they can’t reach at the grocery store.  Random acts of kindness can lift your own heart as well as others.   I challenge you this week to find something above your norm (and I know most of you are so very kind already) to aid or enhance the experience of life for another.   You do not know how profound your kindness may be. 

I’m reminded of a time awhile ago while standing in the grocery line waiting to check out with a fully loaded cart and a woman stepped up behind me with a few items in her hand.  I smiled at her and asked if she’d like to check out before I did.  I’ll never forget the astonishment on her face.  Her eyes glistened and she softly told me that that was the kindest thing anyone had done for her in a long while.  For me, it was a simple thing to offer.   For her, it reestablished a connection to a world of goodness and to her own beautiful and worthy heart. 

This week at Good Life we will practice kindness for ourselves and others.  Come and enjoy some partner work, backbends and the sweet surrender of Savasana.