Competitive Yoga

When I found yoga many, many years ago - I was surrounded by no one. With the help of VHS taps and a few books I practiced at home, alone, at least once a day. I would day dream of the day I could go to a "real" studio and study under a live teacher. It was the dream, and one I couldn't wait to fulfill.

Now it's many years later and if you walk down the street of any major (or minor) city you will find yoga everywhere. In studios, in ashrams, in gyms, in apartment complexes - yoga is main stream. If we lived in India I can guess accurately it would be very different, but here in the old United States it has become the "it" exercise to do.

Do you yoga?
Where do you yoga?
What are you wearing when you yoga?
Who do you yoga with?

I like to call this "Competitive Yoga."

I am 100% against competitive yoga, or competitiveness in general. Just like I can guess accurately without ever have visiting India that the yoga scene is very different than here - I can guess accurately that when being competitive in a practice like yoga - you are setting yourself up for failure.

If you MUST be competitive, complete only with yourself.

The practice of yoga exists to help you connect with yourself - the word translates as "to yoke". Combining the breath with the movement of your body and the chaos of your mind - it brings all of your frayed parts back together and units you as one person. By challenging yourself, you can open up new avenues into your life, release past baggage, and expand your wings.

By competing with others you set yourself up for frustration, the need for approval and a long bout of life where you will be angry, aggravated and most certainly - never happy.

Don't be fooled by the glitz and glamor of this over saturated yoga market - be pulled in by the teachers who care and want to help guide you on to your path to find your true self. Let go of the "who, where, why, when, how" and concentrate on the you.

There is no judgement in yoga - only release.

Change

Life.

If there is one thing we can count on it's change.

The color of our hair. The car that we drive. The place that we live. The people we call "friends".

Change displaces the things we swear we know and some we didn't even realize was there. It is the current of our stream. It is the jucieness that weaves in and out of everything and just like change to life, juicy to change is a constant too.

But while juicy change can some times be fun - it can also bleed you dry.

Pulling the essence of ourselves from the bones of our lives until we don't know who we are. Doubt creeps in and then its nothing but long wakeful nights trying to figure out what you did to deserve fate that was brought upon you.

How you are wrong.

You are being punished for your mistakes.

And then... there it is... you are bad.

But that's not true. You're not bad, you're not wrong, you didn't do anything - you're human and humans mess things up. They say the wrong thing and forget to listen and get flustered and scared when things begin to change.

When we let doubt creep into our lives, into our heads and into our hearts we quickly forget the one thing we should always remember - who we are.

Who are you?

I bet you're amazing and even more, I know that you are. Don't let those juicy moments of change become some burden of doubt. Don't let it take you from you - because you're here for a reason. We all are. And yes, maybe at times seeing that reason clearly is harder than finding the proverbial 'needle in a hay stack' - but underneath all of that baggage is you.

Beautiful, smart, fun-loving, perfectly perfect you.

Spend this week celebrating you. Loving you. Being you. And know while change is a constant, your essence is too.

~Namaste

The Journey

Life is a journey, time passing by us woven into the bridges that connect one portion of our life to the next. Sometimes we look moments we loved so dearly and lift them up so high we create a fear of letting go, convincing ourselves if we do, all the joy and love in our lives will slip away or bad moments are destined to repeat themselves.

These fears can cripple us, stopping us from moving forward, discovering the people we are destined to be.

When we hold onto those moments, a wall is created, separating us from the rest of the life we were intended to have. An island is formed and we sit in that memory as if it were the present while the rest of the world spills forward onto the next destinations. We can no longer search for anything, because to hold something new, we must let go of the old, making room in our heart and soul for change.

We must evolve into the next version of ourselves, one that is stronger and more diverse than the last.

Appreciating an idea, or a moment, adds layers to our lives, guiding us forward along the path of our life. Each step brings us into the present allowing us to be the person we were born to be. A person that loves themselves and others, regardless. A person that can see beyond the boundaries of their limitations. Someone that knows what the answer to “are we there yet” really is.

Are we there yet? It is true, the journey is more important than the destination. Just as it is important to be moving on that path and not trapped in an opinion, memory or fear that moving forward will bring sorrow and death, because the answer is no. If you’re reading this, then no, you are not there yet and that means you still have time.

Let go of the things that are holding you back: the past, resentment, anger, fear. Look at them from a different angle to get perspective, accept the situation for what it was and keep moving. Life will take you to the end regardless of what you did or didn’t do on your journey, you may as well enjoy yourself along the way.

The moment you finally let go, is the moment you are truly free.

Let Go

Living in a fast pace world builds stress, compounds problems and teaches us how to move past issues before they have ever really been dealt with. We are inundated with facts, images, sounds, smells - our senses so over loaded we can't even decipher between two objects, let alone emotions and what is worse is we have grown accustom to looking at life like this and accepting it as how life is meant to be.

But it's not.

The more items we put into a bucket, the heavier it becomes. Items on top begin to crush the items on the bottom - some times crushing those items, rendering them useless. Broken shards of yesterday crunching and pulverizing into a fine powder that coats every other item around it.

This is what our lives become when we don't take the time to stop and deal with the life we have. The clutter becomes a distraction and the dust of a past life holds us in place - we can not be the person we were meant to be.

Memories and traditions of yesterday, muddled with odds and loose ends leave pot holes in our lives that trip things up, create doubt and bind us to something that should be long gone.

But when we stop, when we relax, and I mean truly relax - face the issues, accept what we need to and find the closure to move forward our bucket becomes light again. Empty space is  left to be filled with new experiences, memories, ideas and life.

Letting go doesn't mean failure, forgiving yourself doesn't make you weak and living for today really is the easiest way to open your heart.

Love - love yourself enough to lighten the load of your life. Love yourself enough to understand it's okay - being human is very much okay.

Slow down or even stop. Turn off your phone, computer, television, satellite radio and listen to the ambient sounds around you, or better yet - listen to the ambient noises inside of you.

Know that sometimes physically doing nothing is the right thing to do and simply let go.

Breathe-in "Let"

Breathe-out "Go"

~Namaste

Bhumisparsha Mudra & Letting Go

Normally, we limit the meaning of perceptions. Food reminds us of eating; dirt reminds us to clean the house; snow reminds us that we have to clean off the car to get to work; a face remind us of our love or fortable or familiar scheme. We shut any vastness or possibilities of deeper perception out of our hearts by fixating on our own interpretation of phenomena. But it is possible to go beyond personal interpretation, to let vastness into our hearts through the medium of perception. We always have a choice, we can limit our perception so that we close off vastness, or we can allow vastness to touch us.
~Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa speaks of how to find magic, and in doing so he shows us how we limit the magic around us through perception. We wake up every day ready to walk our own path but are quickly discouraged by our own perception of what life is or what life should be.

Life shouldn't be anything - it just is.

He continues to explain that when we learn to see all sides of the situation, the reality of this world, we can then just be. We are no longer fighting the world we have arrived.

Bhumisparsha Mudra

"touching the Earth"

More commonly known as the Earth Witness Mudra you come to sit with your legs folded, straight spine, placing your left hand on your left knee, fingers pointed towards the ground (or touching as shown in the above [inverted] image), palm inward towards your body. Your right hand is placed on your right knee with the palm facing up and open like a bowl or a cup.

It is said that the Buddha held his hands like this to summoned the Earth as a witness to his transformation from Siddhartha to becoming the Buddha.

A grounding mudra, one hand connect to the Earth, which is connected to everything and the other begging to the world. Showing the world that it is easier to give and to receive when you're hand is open and willing to help and be helped.

When we become grounded and connected with the Earth and the world we can begin to see other perceptions of situations we may normally only have one idea about - like love.

With red colored hearts and babies dressed with bows and arrows, falling in love is an adventure in itself, but quickly we come to learn what love really is. So many say they love "unconditionally" but then follow-up the statement with comments that place conditions on that love.

'If my grades are better my parents will love me more.'

'If I dress a certain way, my boy/girlfriend will love me more.'

'If  make more money...'

Our perception of what love should be opposed to what love is can be a hard pill to swallow. Understanding to love someone or something may mean loving things that are difficult and trying. By grounding ourselves we learn to head toward enlightenment, to see past our preconceived notions and our limited perception, connecting with the earth to extend out past the small real we preside in.

Take ten minutes to find a quiet corner coming to sit in meditation in the Bhumisparsha Mudra. Once you have found a comfortable position, soften your eyes and your belly, breathing in the world around you, and exhaling your doubts and fears. Using a simple mantra of "Let go":

On your inhalation "Let"

On your exhalation "Go"

By learning to let go, to be grounded, to be connected and willing to give and receive the things you need in life you will alter your perception bringing you closer to finding you and unconditionally loving you.

Your pose of the week: Child's Pose

Placing your arms extended on the mat out in front of you, with your forehead touching your mat, child's pose is a welcome pose in any practice. It's merely one breath away waiting for you to find your breath, help ground you and most of all help you to let go.

Allow yourself to be the person you are inside and not a perception of something less than that.  Honor yourself. Love yourself.

I can't wait to see you on the mat.

~Namaste