You Have Such a Beautiful Practice

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Photos via Pinterest.

It is such a powerful thing to thank the person on the mat next to you for sharing their practice.

“You have such a beautiful practice,” I’ll say. "You're so strong and focused in the poses."


“When you did Bird of Paradise, I was inspired to go a little farther in my pose.”


“Thank you.”


Coming together to practice the poses is a gift. 

Thank you, fellow yogis, for showing up on your mats.

Playing the Victim

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Photos via Coffee and Yoga and My Morning Coffee on Tumblr.

Sometimes I fall into this cycle of playing the victim.

This happened recently when I was having intense low back pain. I’d be standing at work, or driving in my car, and be completely overwhelmed. What did I do to deserve this pain? When will it end? I just want to be back on my yoga mat! This isn’t fair!

I felt helpless to my own situation. There’s nothing I can do to make this better.

Then, last week, I started actively pursuing healing for myself and it was uncanny, how quickly I felt better.


Seeing my doctor and chiropractor is helping to rule out the possibilities. Seeing my reiki healer is helping to release fear and attachment to the physical pain. Choosing to eat better, to go for walks, and to get more sleep is helping my aching body to heal.

Talking it through with people I love is helping me to remember I am not alone.

The reality is that there are things that I am doing to make it better.

It’s getting better, and will continue to.

The reality is that I have a choice in how I react. I can choose to see myself as beautiful, perfect, and healed. In fact, I can step into that reality right here, right now and let things be OK as they are.

Instead of playing the victim and living in the fear, I choose to love myself. To heal.

Shavasana: Final Rest

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Photo by Justin Kral.

In shavasana all effort and all determination fall away. The body lies in stillness.

We are not the body, which is subject to death, but rather we are the unborn, the unchanging. The death of the body invites us to come back to our true nature, which is consciousness.

This letting go of artificial identification with what is impermanent is shavasana.

Shavasana, when done properly – as the letting go of everything – shows us what we truly are. Both the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita state that the pure existence, pure awareness, pure being that is left at the end of the body is without beginning and end.

It cannot be cut by knives,
It cannot be pierced by thorns,
It cannot be burned by fire,
It cannot be drowned in water.
It is eternal, the true self.


This post is an excerpt from Ashtanga Yoga: Practice & Philosophy by Gregor Maehle. Namaste.

No Mud, No Lotus (On Suffering, Injury and Tattoos)

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Through my struggle, I am developing compassion.

My back has been hurting again this week. I think it became aggravated during a chair twist, one I demonstrated while I was teaching. I wasn't careful, and now there’s pain again.

I've been frustrated. I cried about it. My ego showed up, saying, “What did I do to deserve this? Why me?”

But I choose to breathe. Today I invite patience, calling upon my yoga practice.


I read recently that you can tell you've been practicing yoga for a while – that it’s working – when you notice that you’re a little slower to anger, a little more aware, that maybe you can laugh when something unexpected or uncomfortable comes along.


I think about my beautiful sleeve of lotus flowers, each of them a reminder of some pain I’ve been through.

“Most people are afraid of suffering,” Thich Nhat Hanh says. “But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower grow. There cannot be a lotus flower without the mud.”


I am in the mud, and I am the lotus.

All is exactly as it should be.


I consciously choose to adopt an attitude of gratitude for what this experience of back pain is bringing me: new appreciation for my body… new appreciation for those who support me…and a chance to step away from my mat and let my teaching be my practice. 

To see my students with adoration, and to have an intention of helping them stay safe in their yoga—good alignment, careful, integrated movement.


I even have plans to develop a class for people who are dealing with injury, and for those healing back pain. 

I have plans to use the next few months to study anatomy, to dive back in to my teacher training curriculum and expand my understanding of how each pose affects the body. And to start fundraising for my next training. 

I may be off my mat, but I am still actively involved in my yoga practice.

 

Longing, loss, devastation… they make way for repair. They are the mud that creates the beautiful, graceful lotus.


I invite the fullness of healing. I invite patient awareness. I invite growth. This, too, shall pass; in fact, this is already exactly as it should be.

Wanderlust Festival at Squaw Valley

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Photos by Ali Kaukas, via Wanderlust.

Are you Wanderlust-ing this year?

Wanderlust is my favorite yoga and music festival. I went to Squaw Valley last year and absolutely loved it.

I took classes with Dharma Mittra and MC Yogi, hula hooped with Shakti Sunfire, and had a blast wandering around seeing performers, eating delicious food, and listening to great music.


At night, the party came to life when Quixotic, Gramatik, and Moby played live.

This year’s lineup is amazing, too, and I’m really excited to go!


It’s crazy reflecting on the past year and how much has changed… and how much I’ve grown since I was at Wanderlust for my first time…


Since I took Dharma Mittra’s workshop last year, I’ve been eating vegetarian. (Well, pescetarian :)


Last year I attended the festival as a yoga student. Now, I’m a yoga teacher, too.

Then, I walked into the fest with one friend. I left for home with a handful of new friends from Tahoe who I’m still close to. This July, I’ll be attending among dozens of yogi friends, fellow teachers, and members of my local community. It is an amazing feeling to be so plugged in here in California!



I’m feeling very grateful and excited about Wanderlust this year. Will you be attending? XO


 PS You can read about my experience at Wanderlust 2013 to get an idea of how it was... amazing!

Wholeness Over Happiness

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I had an amazing conversation last night with a person who I really love. We talked about how often we see

people shy away from ‘negative’ emotions

, and how it’s so much easier to let them go when we allow ourselves to experience them.

“They wash over you like a wave,” I said. “And

if you fully embrace them and allow yourself to

feel

what you’re feeling, it’s so powerful.

If you’re sad,

be sad

. Allow it. It’s amazing what happens when you actually do that.”

He nodded, and we both smiled. “And then the fear or sadness or whatever passes,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“And it makes that moment when happiness returns

so

much better,” he said. “It’s such a

relief

and so beautiful when you feel good again.”

How powerful it is when we allow feelings to exist as they are. When we acknowledge what is. When we remember that we are never alone in our experiences, however painful they may be.

This quote I discovered on

A Cup of Jo

said it brilliantly, too:

I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don't mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It's a really odd thing that we're now seeing people saying "write down three things that made you happy today before you go to sleep" and "cheer up" and "happiness is our birthright" and so on. We're kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position. It's rubbish.

Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are.

H

appiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don't teach us much.

Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say, "Quick! Move on! Cheer up!" I'd like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word "happiness" and to replace it with the word "wholeness." Ask yourself, "Is this contributing to my wholeness?" and if you're having a bad day, it is.

—

Hugh MacKay

You were made to be real not perfect! I was too!

Softening

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Photos via Pinterest.

I’m reading Yoga for Real Life by Maya Fiennes, and I love this quote she includes from Yogi Bhajan:

“Even you just lean slightly in the right direction, you’ll get some benefit.”


This leaning starts with our intention. What am I holding in my heart—softness and openness? Or bitterness?

I can soften, inviting greatness. I don’t have to struggle. I can lean peacefully in the right direction, noticing the difference it makes not to obsess over perfection.



And I can start now.

All Bodies are Beautiful

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Video via Kickstarter.

I love this project, and I can so relate to what Taryn, the creator says:

"Women and girls are constantly held back and lead to believe they’re not as good as they should be. Why? Because every day we feel we’re being judged on our appearance and how far away it is from an unachievable ideal.

Lose weight, reduce wrinkles, fight cellulite; we’re constantly told to fight a battle to be someone other than who we are."

With Embrace, Taryn seeks to explore body image and encourage people around the world to shift their thinking. What a beautiful story, and a beautiful goal!

In yoga, we seek to embody our bodies -- to connect with our own physicality, to nurture, to release, and ultimately to love our bodies.

I encourage you to check out the Body Image Movement, and I hope you'll truly hear me when I say: you are beautiful.

Namaste.

Finding Inspiration

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Photos via Sweaty Betty.

Where do you go to find motivation on the days when you feel uninspired, burned out, and tired?

Life moves quickly. In the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling spread thin. I find myself saying yes to projects I know in my heart I don’t really have the energy for, making plans on days when I’d rather spend time solo, regretting both.

It helps when I make time to be still, in silence. Wisdom makes its way through. In the moments of discovery and clarity, I am at peace.

I am allowed to be imperfect.

I’m working on loving myself even on the days when I feel tired, or self-critical.

I don’t have to wear yoga clothes and roll out my mat every day. Maybe right now it’s OK to have too many projects and to feel spread thin. This won’t last forever, and I can choose to make positive changes. To set new habits.

In the same way that I approach a challenging posture, I can approach life with fierce determination.


Loving myself is its own practice. Learning to be comfortable in my own body, whether I’m ready for a night out or I’m just wearing yoga shorts and a sports bra at home. Finding ease. I release the attachments that do not serve me.

Dharma Mittra says: When you are quiet, you see everything with love.

I keep coming back to these words on the days when I feel overwhelmed and scattered. When I do slow down, when I am quiet, I see the beauty that’s been sitting there all along.

“Freedom does not come from a checklist, and a ‘zero inbox’ is not a life aspiration.
If liberation is a chore, it’s not really liberation.
You can’t contract your way to freedom.
You can’t punish your way to joy.
You can’t fight your way to inner peace.
The journey has to feel the way you want the destination to feel.
Let me offer this again, in reverence to your life force:
The journey has to feel the way you want the destination to feel.
And again, with respect to your potential:
The journey has to feel the way you want the destination to feel.”
- Danielle La Porte, posted on Mystic Mamma

Be Here Now

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“When you learn to be with now-ness, guidance becomes an ‘And now’ experience, rather than ‘What next?’

“In being fully present, you serve more fully and experience the gifts and teachings of what you do. 

 

“With self-acceptance you participate with an open heart, a certainty that you belong in beauty, in sacred awareness of being. Now-ness is where all participation begins and ends and is renewed in each turning of the wheel.


“Now-ness is the path and the destination, and so you are always and already here.”

~Loren Cruden (found via Mystic Mamma)

Using a Block During Yoga

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Photo by Justin Kral.

Using a block during yoga class can help you deepen your practice, whether you’re trying a balancing pose you've never done before, or feeling a posture in a new way by finding integrated alignment.

Photo via Boforbesyoga.

A block can also be used to build strength, like if you’re holding one during a warrior pose…

…or even to encourage the body to relax, the joints to open, and the muscles to release and lengthen, like in supported savasana.
Photo via Shop Half Moon.

I love using a block in Warrior III, and Balancing Half Moon.

You can even try standing on a block for Tree pose, to play with improving your balance.

Photo via The Daily Bandha.

Or placing a block under each shoulder during Chaturanga Dandasana, to feel the alignment in the shoulders. I also highly recommend using a strap around the upper arms, just above the elbows, when you’re learning this pose!

Photo via Hearts Expanding.
Photo via Pinterest.

If you’re looking for a block to use for your home practice or a sweaty vinyasa class, I highly recommend Kulae’s cork yoga block. The block has great traction and is eco-friendly.

Photo via Kulae.

If you’re doing a more relaxed, non-heated practice or a yin class, I recommend JBN Woodcraft’s handmade wood yoga block. These are so beautiful – handmade in a variety of types of wood, including maple, sappelle, and cherry. You can have a custom engraving made, like the “Bhakti” text seen here. These blocks are a bit heavier but perfect for keeping around your home in your own sacred space. They’d make a lovely gift for your favorite yogi friends and teachers, or even a nice piece to put on your at-home altar, if you have one!

Photo via JBN Woodcraft.


Do you have certain postures you’re working on with a block? 

Manduka Yoga Mats

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Photos by Justin Kral of Kral Studios.

Yoga mats matter. Not only because they lay a foundation under our hands and feet when we practice, but because the way they’re produced can have a big impact on the environment.

I have a new favorite mat: Manduka’s LiveON yoga mat. Their team was kind enough to send me one to try out and I’m absolutely in love with it.

Here’s why:
  • The no-slip grip is incredible, better than any other mat I’ve used before.
  • The mat is lightweight but still provides a lot of comfort. It’s amazingly cushiony for only being 5mm in diameter.
  • I love the color! So fun and spring-y.
  • The mat is made out of 100% recyclable PLUSfoam material. After using this mat for a long time, I can send it in to PLUSfoam and they’ll make it into new products. As they say, they’re “putting landfills out of business.” Amazing! 


The LiveON yoga mat is perfect for my at-home practice and for when I do yoga in the park (it’s ideal for non-heated classes). I highly recommend checking out this mat as soon as it releases – you can sign up here to be in the loop when it goes on sale in June 2014.

Thanks, Manduka, for living up to your promises as a sustainable company – and for your generous sharing of this yoga mat! I’ll be practicing on it for years, I can already tell.

Manduka is more than eco-conscious yoga gear. Way more. We are joyology – a study in living. Our { mission } starts on the mat. --> I couldn't agree more! :)

Indie Spiritualist: A No Bullshit Exploration of Spirituality (Book Review)

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Photos via Indie Spiritualist website and on Facebook.

“You were born to be real, not to be perfect.”
- Chris Grosso, Indie Spiritualist

Being true with ourselves is so important. This has been surfacing again and again in my life lately: how, at a very deep level, yoga is a practice of being real.

 For all its fancy postures and esoteric spiritual practices, yoga is, quite simply, a way of tuning in to what exactly is happening in the present moment. 

 I may be on my mat, in a posture (asana), feeling what it feels like to breathe (pranayama). Or maybe I'm choosing to treat others with kindness (ahimsa) in a moment where I want to react in anger.

 Yoga helps us detach from needing everything to be perfect, and instead just to feel, to allow, to explore, to truly connect.

I recently received a copy of Chris Grosso's book, Indie Spiritualist and it's one of my new favorites. Chris explores what it really means to be honest with ourselves, to let go of the darkness of a broken past, and to heal.

 He says:

True spirituality embraces all of this [life]: the beauty that is almost too much to bear, as well as the paint hat leads some to the brink of insanity. It’s all grist for the mill. We practice our asanas and mantras, prayers and aspirations, and that’s great; but are they serving to strengthen our identification as a “spiritual person” or to help us release our identification with that illusion, and in the process deepen our exploration of more than meets the eye?

I like Chris' down-to-earth approach to exploring what it means to be human. Following his story, I really connected with the idea of him as a seeker, someone wanting to grow, and let go. And his path is not easy -- he falls down, he feels hopeless, he messes up -- but, ultimately, he chooses to keep going.

I was very inspired by his honesty, and the way he embraces all of his experiences (including the road from addiction to recovery) with an open heart.


If I am to be truly responsible for myself, then I have to accept discomfort and acknowledge the aspects of myself that scare the shit out of me and make my heart sink, because this is where the true healing can begin.


These were two other passages that really resonated:

 The gift of desperation
“I was blessed with what the twelve-step fellowships call ‘the gift of desperation,’ which means that I’d hit such a rock bottom that I was finally able to surrender. I had nothing left to hold on to, and nothing holding me back. I was completely bankrupt in every sense of the word – morally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically – which allowed me to completely let go. In turn, letting go allowed for true inner spiritual growth to begin.”

The fear behind the fear
“As I kept moving forward with my recovery, I began to explore the reasons I was so scared to look at the things that sucked in my life—self-loathing, fear, emotional scars, and other baggage. I began to see clearly the futile nature of fear behind the fear. And herein lies a perfect opportunity to explore why we’re scared to take an honest look at the unpleasant things in our life (besides the obvious fact that they’re unpleasant). And more importantly, to figure out what we can do today to begin making even small steps toward changing that.”

Thank you, Chris, for sharing your story, for choosing not to hide, and for being true to yourself. Namaste.

Leverage Your Life (A Guest Post by Sponsored Yogi Justin)

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Photos courtesy of Justin.

Am I living up to my highest potential?

This is a great question for spring time, when the earth itself shows signs of renewal, vital energy, and awakening. 

Every day is a new opportunity to invigorate your life, and notice what opportunities surround you. Today I have an inspiring post from sponsored yogi Justin on ways to fulfill your potential by leveraging the tools you have, including a yoga practice.


Leverage, or the use of something to its maximum advantage, has been coming up in my life recently.  

The concept first came up when I took a workshop on Thai Massage recently. If you aren't familiar with that form of massage... picture you and your massage therapist getting into all sorts of pretzel like contortions and at the end of the hour you will feel exactly like a Bavarian Pretzel: soft and yummy. 

What I learned in the workshop was that the various stretches are not used to induce a sense of intimate awkwardness, but to always leverage body weight. Body weight, not body strength, is used to massage the muscles to maximum effect with minimal effort. 

After 25 minutes of tossing my partner Molly around and giving her an amazing massage with a group of 50+ people surround us, she asked, "Wow, aren't you tired?" The honest answer was, "No." I wasn't tired because I leveraged my body weight and my muscles didn't have to do much except get a nice stretch. 


This past week I took a five day coaching course so that I could improve my career and my relationships. One of the surprising things I learned was that if I wanted to easily improve in those areas of my life I needed to work on my communication skills. 

Communication skills are leverage for improvement in other areas of my life. If I focus solely on career and relationships it will require a lot of effort. I'm effectively performing a Swedish massage on my life...things will improve, but it will be exhausting. 

What does this have to do with Yoga? Why am I posting this on a yoga blog, other than because I took the Workshop at a yoga studio? 


Well...What is yoga? It's a practice where I have to communicate with myself. 

I need to listen to my body, understand it, and sometimes ask it to do things it doesn't want to do. If I can't do that with myself, how well am I going to do that with a friend, a partner, a sibling, coworker, or boss? Probably not very well. 

If I take a more intensive yoga workshop or do 1 on 1 instruction then I WILL be asked to do something I either don't want to or physically can't perform and I be forced to communicate that to the instructor or I'll be communicating with a doctor or therapist. Either way I'm communicating with other! 

Yoga is not just yoga; yoga is leverage for your life.


This is so true! Thanks, Justin, for your wise words. Hope you yogis are making time to leverage your lives and spend some time on your mats this week! 

Relief for Sciatica Pain

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I've had a couple days with sciatica pain this week. Here’s how I’m dealing:

Coming to my mat at home. A gentle, slow-moving yoga practice serves me right now, and the pace and energy of a power vinyasa class is too much.

Frog pose and double pigeon feel amazing. Warrior poses and revolved triangle, not so much.

Awareness and patience. I build these through meditation.

Massage. It can be painful, but there is a lot of release. I work with some fantastic massage therapists and I’ve been consistent with my foam roller and tennis ball for on my own, too.

Reiki. Energy healing works wonders!

Rest. Perhaps most important on this list: remembering to make time for me, to be in stillness. Healing takes time.


Have you ever had sciatica pain? What helped?

True Beauty

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Being beautiful means believing in yourself. Trusting your inner wisdom, even as you take risks. Beautiful is throwing convention to the wind, and doing it your own way.

This week, I chopped off a bunch of my hair—I went for it, even though I knew it would be different than any style I've had before. And I love it! I feel sexy and unique and playful.


Beautiful is saying YES to opportunities that come your way.

This week I said YES to the chance to teach yoga at my home studio, Leap Yoga in Folsom. I’ll be sharing an hour of asana with my wonderful community and I am thrilled! My intention for the class is to humble myself, to be willing to be seen, and to have fun.


Beautiful is being dedicated to the soulful practices that allow you to love others.

This week, I’m spending time on my mat, meditating, reading, and remembering to take time for myself, even as I serve. In all I do, I seek peace and balance.

In this moment, I feel beautiful. And I think you’re beautiful too!

Teaching Yoga with a Humble Heart

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Photo by Cait Loper Photography.

Teaching yoga is a gift. I am so humbled by witnessing a student experience the practice.

That peaceful look at the end of class, it lights me up inside. Sometimes I’ll watch a yogi laying in savasana, no wrinkles in his forehead, the slightest hint of a smile at his lips, and it hits me: I’m doing what I am here to do. I am sharing what I am meant to share.

Yoga is such a gift. I can’t hold onto it. I can’t create it. Even my own practice: I must let go of it.

As I teach, I strive simply to offer myself in service, allowing myself to be seen, encouraging my students. I’m really not doing anything; I’m just helping students get out of their own way, and that’s where the shifts happen.

When we show up over and over again, we are bound to find success.

Practice and all is coming is how Sri K. Pattabhi Jois said it.

Dharma Mittra says, With constant practice comes success.

Thank you, students, for coming to your mat. Thank you, teachers who have gone before me. I bow humbly to you, in gratitude. I bow to the students whose paths will cross mine.


Namaste.

Radiant

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I feel joyful today. I spent last night dancing, and it was just what I needed... releasing what does not serve me, laughing, watching people let loose, smiling at the way we all feel the same happiness.

Today I had a reiki/massage session with my healer. I hula hooped in the park. I took a restful nap. And now I'm sitting at the patio of my favorite cafe, enjoying a coffee and sandwich and the way the sunlight feels.

Days like today, I feel radiant with gratitude.


As I walked in to order my coffee, I had this vision of myself sitting on a patio somewhere in Europe, listening to the sea as it moves, the sound of Spanish being spoken. I could picture what it would feel like to open my laptop among strangers, sitting down to do the same thing I'm doing now in a place that is unfamiliar and beautiful.

Walking cobblestone streets, in and out of cathedrals. Being barefoot on the hardwood floor of a new yoga studio, bowing namaste to a teacher whose accent makes me smile. Eating food I've never tried, giving hugs to people I've never met, gathering experiences I will never forget.

Life is beautiful, and precious. On days like today, I love all of it. May I continue to be a blessing to those I meet, and may I continue to travel freely, riding the breeze that is this human experience.

Namaste.