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February 16, 2011.  We have a CHOICE: As you think so shall you be.  What we tell ourselves is reflected back to us by the world.  How we see ourselves in term of the quality of our thoughts and healthy choices determines how others see us and how the world responds.  We actually are a sum of our choices. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die.  And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."  Or in the song BIG BANK HANK by the Blue Scholars "Whatchya gonna do today?"

The yogic teachings on the mat remind us that within every moment we are faced with making loving choices in how we breath, how we stand, how we act (or react) to a new pose or sequence or teacher. We can walk in the path of darkness or choose the path of LIGHT. We can choose negative thoughts or positive thoughts. We can choose Fear or LOVE. And if we can practice CHOOSING LOVE in every pose then we'll stay with it off the mat. This is the yoga of knowing your heart well enough to choose wisely and from love.  And the fact is that all in all we don't have that long in this earthly body to choose the happiest life ever or as Robert Braul puts it, "Life is short, God's way of encouraging a bit of focus."

And every time I step on the mat I am reminded of this gift of asking myself "whatchya gonna do today", what am I choosing.  I hold to the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." And how do I translate this yoga into the yoga of life? I have been driving what is commonly referred to in Seattle as "the Mercer Weave" and moving across 3-4 lanes of traffic in 2 minutes to get to my exit into the city has been a practice of either choosing loving, positive thoughts (that on-coming traffic will let me cross over) or of expecting the worst and seeing those other cars as out to get me.  The more I consciously choose loving thoughts the better and smoother it goes.  But that's only one small example. We have opportunities every day and in every moment to choose love and happiness.  

The point being that we allow ourselves to keep making our own choices. Sadie Nardini wrote in her book Road Trip Guide to the Soul "Our biggest mistake as humans is to look at our destructive, habitual patterns and think we cannot choose again, because we have fallen prey to the illusion that what we have chosen repeatedly is how we are stuck with being.  You ALWAYS have the POWER - and the RIGHT - to CHOOSE again."  This is why today after some Sun Salutation A (the gold standard) we moved into variations of poses to feel that we can always keep experiencing other choices.  

You might wonder what suggestions I might have for choosing love?  Good news is that the Yoga Sutras tell us.  They actually give us the 4 keys to happiness - how to choose love.  The way to live with an open happy heart is nurture these attitudes in choosing "whatchya going to do today?":

1. Kindness and friendliness to those who are happy
2. Compassion for those that are suffering or less fortunate
3. Respect for those that who embody noble qualities and inspire us
4. Equanimity for those whose actions oppose our values

At first these attitudes that enable us to choose love in all circumstances seem easy.  But applying these in day-to-day life is more challenging than we think.  But all we can do is take responsibility for co-creating our life saying to ourselves "I choose to be happy. I choose love” and let the rest unfold.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

 

 PLAYLIST FEBRUARY 16, 2011

Gobinday Mukunday, Spirit Voyage Artists

Cafe Noir, Akmusique

Song for You, Alexi Murdoch

It Iz What It Iz            , M.I.A.

New People {Empire Remix}, Blue Scholars

Hate It Or Love It (Remix), 50 Cent & G Unit

It Takes a Muscle, M.I.A.

The Fire, The Roots Feat. John Legend

BIG BANK HANK, Blue Scholars

Xoxoxo, The Black Eyed Peas

Waka Waka (Time For Africa), Shakira/Freshlyground

I Know What I Know, Paul Simon

Walk Like an Egyptian, Buckley

Don't Rock My Boat, Bob Marley

Redemption Song, Richard Bona and Michael Brecker

Ganapati, Girish

Don't Give Up, Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush

I Shall Be Released, Buckley

Guru Mari, Shri Anandi Ma

 

DAY  6 BLOGGING 21 IN 2011 ABOUT LOVE.

February 13, 2011.  Day 4 of Love Blogging 21 days in 2011.  Here is a super simple fact about energy: It is attracted to the same kind of energy.  Like energy attracts like energy.  When we breath, feel, live from our heart energy we attract more of the same. And I can prove it.  (Science supports this too.) This is otherwise known as the law of attraction.  And interesting enough when you feel good you are more attractive. Yoga teaches us that our natural state is one of happiness.  We are born that way and meant to live that way.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying life!

A great way to test this out for yourself is to practice SMILING MORE.  This was #11 on my list of 11 Things to Say Yes to in 2011 (an earlier blog posting).  Develyn Steele says, "Smiling changes your attitude, raises your confidence, and makes you more attractive."  Whether you believe it or not smiling changes how you feel.  If you doubt this then start smiling and thinking positive thoughts and see what develops.  You will find that you can't help but have a more elevated attitude (Pratipaksha Bhavana) when you smile or even think about when you were last smiling.  Today we practiced a guided visualization with our left side to experience what it feels like physically to smile with each part of our body. Then we could sense for ourselves how the right and left sides of our bodies felt differently from one another.  From there we used different types of movement (both jala water influenced flow and fire agni) to see what impact both had on our feeling state as well as how planting a smile here in there influenced the poses like plank.

You see smiling affects our emotions because of a body-brain connection.  It triggers scientifically measurable activity in the left frontal cortex of the brain where happiness is registered.  And what is even more fascinating to support this theory of the law of attraction or how we attract similar energy is that of the 44 muscles of the face that allow us to create more than 5000 different types of expressions, each of those expressions will have a unique affect on the way you feel and how OTHERS feel about you.  

When you smile with your heart and with your thoughts you cultivate a naturalness towards positive thinking at the same time. Here's a real life example: I didn't always believe in green lights.  Then I practiced smiling more both on the mat and off.  All of a sudden I started to believe in the possibility of green lights.  From there through the power of positive thinking I started to believe I should receive Green Lights everyday, not just sometimes.  And eventually I grew even more confident and started putting out to the universe that I deserved to Green Light my LIFE.  

That is how profound an impact this practice can have on your life.  I know because it's had this amazing impact on changing my life for the better and best.  I smile more and I laugh all the time and truly I do get green lights. And you can too! Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

PS Join me on retreat this year www.alchemytours.com

JANUARY 31, 2011.  MORE YES! Here we are in the beginning of the year. Eleven months more to go which means there is still plenty of time to set the foundation of YES in your life in 2011.  Let's start by saying YES to a little quiz. First question to ask yourself is (1) are you conscious and alert to your Yes choices?  (2) Do you say Yes more than you say No?  (3) What do you say YES to? 

In Tantric philosophy we start with "yes".  It is our first choice.  We say yes to opening, softening, receiving and lay the way in understanding that YES IS DOING! Or as is written in the Alchemist, "There is only one way to learn, it's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey." You see Yoga is learning to align with nature rather than resisting it or trying to over control it by saying No all the time.  This spiritual practice is about saying YES as the immediate response to life.  Wayne Gretzky is so right on "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."  Yes means taking the chance, risking it all for love, for a happier life, for a happier YOU.  Will you get hurt? Maybe. Is it worth it? YES! So join me in aligning 11 INTENTIONS to 2011, in these eleven remaining months of the year.

So here are 11 things to say YES to in 2011 

1. Yoga, Cycling, Culture and Wine in Tuscany, Italy June 19-26, 2011 or October 16-22, 2011
2. 10 minutes of meditation 5 in the morning and 5 in the evening
3. Practicing patience with the one person you love 
4. Walk or ride a bike for 15 min a day
5. Yoga, Mountain Biking and Adventure in Moab, Utah April 16-19, 2011 or Oct 27-30, 2011
6. Take a Private Yoga Session 
7. Taking a few deep breaths before sending an email, text, or phone call. What is your intention for communication and does it come from love?
8. Start reading the Yoga Sutras (Secret Power of Yoga is one of my favorites!)
9. Get some Beach Therapy. Yoga in Xinalani Mexico Feb 26-March 5, 2011 or Big Island Hawaii Dec 18-23, 2011
10. Practice gratitude daily. Write or think of 3 things you are grateful for each morning or before bed.
11. SMILE more!

Take to heart that doing something is the Yes. And when you decide you are clear on what you say YES to, then everything is there to support you.  It is as is written in the Alchemist "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." At the end of the day what you say YES to isn't even as important as just doing it!  Love yourself, love your day, love your life, Silvia 

 

PS - Join me on retreat www.alchemytours.com or www.silviamordini.com

February 7, 2011.  Carlos Casteneda in his book The Teachings of Don Juan offers a great suggestion for considering what choices to make. To me this is speaking to the heart of the yogic definition of HAPPINESS.  “You must always keep in mind that a PATH is only a path; if you feel you must not follow it, you must not stay with it under any circumstances…any path is only a path, there is not affront to yourself or others in dropping it if that is what your head tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.  Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and you alone, One question…it is this…DOES THIS PATH HAVE A HEART?  Does this path have a heart is the question. If it does, then the path is GOOD; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere, but one has heart and the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it you will be one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong, the other weakens you.” 

Each individual can judge for himself which path has heart for him and invite happiness every step of the way.  Today I am thinking of Yoga as the Science of Happiness. This has me thinking about ancient Yogic writings like that of the Bhagavad Ghita where it talks about  “the only real happiness in life is living with an open, loving heart.”  “It explains the nature of happiness, emphasizing that all those things that are obtained in the world are transitory and if we define success by material stuff we limit ourselves and miss out on life because there is not substitute for peace, love and happiness. At the same time it’s not the stuff that’s the problem the problem is the belief that stuff is the solution to the aching soul.” (Judith Lasater, Living Your Yoga)

This science of happiness we call yoga makes space so we can  is let go of what is negative and stay tuned in to our own contentment.  And the person responsible for being happy is YOU.  Yoga teaches self-responsibilty, non-judgment and seriously radical self-acceptance by accepting the full spectrum of who we are (anger, worry, fear).   The mat is a truth serum that helps us realize the truth and allows us to clear the space for living a more joyful life.  

"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing" — W. B. Yeats

Yoga moves us on only those paths with heart and then we can't help but grow and evolve.  And we leave the mat remembering how happy we really are and even more joy is yet come.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

 

Living, Loving & (most importantly) Laughing

By Julia Jonson Cohn

1/16/11

Our recent weekend of studies delved into The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which are the ancient texts that are more about life philosophy than physical poses. Deep stuff, right? Yes, for sure…  yet, we students spent the better part of the weekend laughing.

One of my many takes on why yoga = happiness is this: Yoga makes me feel great in my physical body, loved and accepted by the people who teach me and practice with me. Add learning life lessons that are “in your face,” but that totally make sense and you have solved another happiness equation. It is a major shift in perception that makes me feel good and able to laugh at some of the silliness in life. Our teacher, Silvia, compared the racing thoughts in our head to a washing machine. How funny, but how true! The washing machine spins and agitates, much like the human mind, until we find stillness and see the quiet inside that already exists.

Fellow student Rachelle Green (btw, one of the oldest souls I’ve ever met and she just graduated from high school) puts it like this: “Yoga has changed my outlook on so many simple things (accepting things the way they are, being happy and grateful for whatever comes my way). If I heard someone say that a few years ago I'd want to punch them in the face, but over the last year I've grown so much as a person and am truly happy. Yoga helps you create the ease that you've always desired in your life.”

By day three we were giddy. Fellow classmate Ric Saquil observed that we were much like old friends at a high school class reunion… and we were.

Laughing is not just fun, it’s important. You have to be able to laugh at some of the garbage that life dishes out and turn it into something, well, better than garbage. I think that happiness turns up wherever you let it emerge. After one of the most awesome weekends I’ve had in a long time, the trickle down effect is amazing… since then, it’s been one great day after another (even with the garbage).

Wishing you immense peace and never ending laughter!

p.s. One of my favorite Sutras is I 33, The Four Keys to Happiness

 

The Heart is the Sun of the Soul - Shine out!

 November 14, 2010 

 The definition of self-conscious is "to be Conscious of one's self as an object of the observation of others."  There are good things and interesting things about this in that every day the way we live our lives we either serve as a positive example or a warning to other people.  We are under some scrutiny whether we like it or not. As Sally Field says,  "It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes." It is only when we allow the good opinion of other people to be more important than our own, that this self-consciousness becomes deeply detrimental to our happiness.  

 As a result of coming to the yoga mat I have grown both more aware of others judgments and less self-conscious all at the same time.  We step into the poses and we are alert to the presence of others but instead choose to focus on ourselves. We do the practice to be more conscious of our innate happiness and go beyond self-limiting belief.  We move and breath with the freedom that only comes from the light within: our hearts dancing with joy, long-held inhibitions vanishing until all self-doubt is erased!

To be honest this process may take more than just one class.

"We live in the most self-conscious society in the history of mankind.  There are good things in that, but there are also terrible things.  The worst of it is, that we find it hard to give ourselves to the process." - Larry Harvey says.  I agree.  The day I knew this enemy of love, self consciousness was no longer driving my life was when I felt the FLOW of the yoga poses and let the breath move me.  I gave myself to the process.  And everything changed.  I started to drop self-criticism along with being critical of others.  The judgment I feared from others no longer had power over me.  And in this video you can see how this translates into movement. 

http://totalbodyyoga.smugmug.com/Other/Yoga-Video/14626334_ctxSf#1088205682_EJPLo-A-LB

The choices I make I now honor as my own. And with every day I get more expert at doing the hardest yoga pose of all....Being Myself.  This is the pose I want you to learn more than any other too.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life, Silvia       

NOVEMBER 12, 2010.  So great to have our Groupon friends CHOOSE US for the deal today and tomorrow!  Tell your friends $30 for 11 classes, 70% OFF regular price.  Or if you have been away from the practice then take advantage of this deal and come back.

I know the the world has been full of financial CONTRACTION.  Well this is our way of putting energy into the world of ABUNDANCE!  We want everyone to practice yoga, we want this in our way to contribute to the world's greater happiness.  Love to all! Silvia

GROUPON LINK: Or go to our facebook page to click therehttp://www.groupon.com/chicago/deals/total-body-yoga?utm_campaign=total-body-yoga&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&c=ednb&addx=skirider@gmail.com&utm_content=standard

PS - Great Holiday, Christmas Gift!!!

OCTOBER 16, 2010.  I along with my partner named our company Alchemy Tours because of the combined influence of the book The Alchemist and the practice of Yoga.  Really Yoga is about taking the personal growth we experience on the mat as a result of this unique alchemy of yoga into making the changes we want in our lives, in our bodies, in our minds, in our hearts.  Anytime you want to transform and move beyond your limitations to me this is the Alchemy of Yoga.  And this what I call the life coaching work I do through yoga.  

Chapter 2 verse 1 of the Yoga Sutras sets forth how the Alchemy of Yoga actually works.  "Tapas svadhyaya ishvara pranidhana kriya yoga."  Translated to mean that yoga helps us transforms ourselves on three levels:

1. Physical Alchemy - Tapas 

2. Mental Alchemy - Svadhaya

3. Spiritual Alchemy - ishvara pranidahana

 

PHYSICAL ALCHEMY

Tapas helps us ignite the changes we want to make in our lives.  It is about the getting fired up, literally heating the body through moving and breathing in the vinyasa

 

MENTAL ALCHEMY

While we are following the discipline of tapas and engaging in physical practice to help move our stuck energy we are watching ourselves.  In yoga we study the self to learn about the self.  (Different than studying what other people to do to try to learn about you, which many of us have tried in other modalities).  Here the mental alchemy is through self-observation.  We witness what is going on in our thoughts, what are we thinking, why are we thinking that (but without over analysis) more like an older brother would look after a little sister.  In this way we are the actor on the stage starring in our life story as well as sitting front row center as the audience.  

 

SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY

As we are doing and watching we let go of the ego of judgment.  We move beyond wanting life to be different and begin to feel the surrender that allows what is being offered to mix together and marinate.  We practice ishvara pranidhana as we trust the universal intelligence that hugs us from all directions to know what it's doing.  And once we find this trust we begin to believe that beauty and goodness are within us flowing nonstop and there is no reason to stop this flow for its natural current is to align with the current of grace that is everywhere outisde us.  Beauty becomes our way of life.  Happiness becomes our natural alchemy.

You see when we come to the mat we are like the Alchemist in his laboratory mixing ingredients.  For us as yogis our laboratory is our mat and the ingredients are our bodies, our poses, our breath, our thoughts and the mixing it all together creates a result every time.  We are always different from the beginning of class to the end.  Whether we want to be or not, we are changed, we are free.  In that freedom is love. Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

 

PS This is why and what lies at the heart of leading Yoga Retreats around the world. I want to help facilitate the Alchemy of Yoga, the changes that YOU want in your life.  And I am convinced we can make amazing transformations in a long weekend, a week with the right facilitation and life coaching.  Join me! Facebook Alchemy Tours.  Set intention for 2011 this December 8-12 Haramara Retreat Mexico.

OCTOBER 15TH, 2010  In simple words, Yoga is the science of happiness.  We walk in stressed out, upset, negative and we leave the practice lighter, refreshed, more positive, in a nutshell, happier!  I can't say that even after all these years, over 7,500 hours of teaching, and gosh who knows how many hours of practice that I fully understand the alchemy.  It's like magic.  

What I do get on some level both intellectual and emotional is that walking in we are like the decorator crab: collecting all these issues, stories, dramas and if we don't let something go we will literally suffocate under the weight of it all.  Maybe we'll still be walking around but we certainly won't be happily human which is our birthright.  The decorator crab does that: it collects all the stuff it finds and keeps putting it on its back until it can no longer swim to the surface and dies under the weight.  The work we do on the mat is about personal growth.  It is making space so we can  is let go of what is negative.

 Every day we have a chance to either have our lives serve as a WARNING or an EXAMPLE to others.  The decorator crab is our warning.  Let's learn something from it.  The opinions or judgments we have of external stuff are just that - they do not impede our ability to remain happy. Happiness is an inside job.  And the person responsible for being happy is YOU.  Yoga teaches self-responsibilty, non-judgment and seriously radical self-acceptance by accepting the full spectrum of who we are (anger, worry, fear).   The mat is a truth serum that helps us realize the truth and allows us to clear the space for living a more joyful life.  And that life is moving forward, with us or without us.  

 "Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing" — W. B. Yeats

Yoga gets us UNSTUCK and then we can't help but grow and evolve. We not longer hold ourselves back from those things that crash our internal hard drive.  And we leave the mat remembering how happy we really are.  We start to celebrate the best parts of ourselves.  And that, is why yoga is the science of happiness.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

"Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted, like the face of a mirror that contains no images. If you want a clear mirror, behold yourself and see the truth." - RUMI

OCTOBER 10, 2010

The mat serves as a mirror for each of us.  The opportunity to let go of anger, fear, stress allows us to open up to our happiest selves.  This process requires we see ourselves honestly. Its easy to stay upset and hold on to grudges and muddy up the picture of what we really feel or who we are.  So this experiment is quite radical if you're used to masking or hiding from your truth.  

There is a Chemistry to Truth.  And we have in every moment a choice about how to influence the balance with the chemicals of our thoughts and our breath.  If you do not breath out fully you are in fact poisoning yourself.  Or if in your thoughts you are self-critical or judgmental this drama is creating a stress and hormones like cortisol are being released.  

Writes Donna Farhi, New Zealander yoga teacher, in Holding Your Breath (Yoga Journal, April 1996): "Stress may be real or imagined. Just imagining a stressful event can reduce inhalation volume. When we are continuously exposed to stress, then the body just forgets to relax." Obviously, the breathing pattern changes, and "it just might become a statement about what happened in the past rather then what is happening to us in the present".

Every exhale, every pose can help us relieve the past and be more conscious of the moment we are living.  You can by breathing wisely and thinking healing thoughts dilute the concentration of the harsh chemicals in your body.  But first the practice of studying yourself, svadhaya, asks that we see ourselves truthfully.  You engage when you hold your breath, where you get overly dramatic for no reason, where you are making yourself TOXIC.  And the diluting can be accomplished through mantra as well, what you are thinking on purpose. A favorite of mine is the lovingkindness meditation:

Think of yourself, offer healing and a way to let go of sadness, anger, worry saying inside:

May I be happy

May I be peaceful

May I be loved

 

Then think of a challenging person, who you need to heal the relationship and say to them inside:

May You be happy

May You be peaceful

May You be loved.

 

Then think of how to influence the chemistry of the world (of which you are a part of) by saying to all people:

May We be happy

May We be peaceful

May We be loved.

The answer to stress, anger you feel towards a situation or a person or thing is not eye for an eye. Fighting is only going to make it more acidic, more poison will kill us eventually.  The only answer is love.  Love dilutes the pain, the worry and relieves us of this toxicity.  And in that truth we see our best most beautiful selves!  Love your day, love your life, love yourself!  Silvia

October 3, 2010:

What is your most common knee-jerk reaction?  Is it impatience, anger, gossip, worry, self-cricism? Well through the mindfulness practice of yoga I want to help you replace all that by choosing happiness as your automatic reaction, response to all things, situations and people.  How do we do this?  The Yoga Sutras tell us.  They actually give us the keys to happiness.  The Yogic model proposes that the four keys to an open happy heart are to nurture these attitudes:

1. Kindness and friendliness to those who are happy
2. Compassion for those that are suffering or less fortunate
3. Respect and honor for those that who embody noble qualities
4. Equanimity for those whose actions oppose our values

At first these four keys to help enable us to retain our inner peace in all circumstances seem easy.  But applying these in day to day life is more challenging than we think. We often fool ourselves into believing we are kinder than we really are and can use this practice to really see where our actions are not aligned with what we believe ourselves to be.  Most of all this teaches us that we are responsible for co-creating our life. We have the four keys to our happiness.  Love in all ways, Silvia

So first step is to create some space. Here at the start of a new month let's just empty and let go of all the grievances, grudges we kept up with throughout September.  As the bible says Love keeps no records of wrongs.

You have a choice.  You can say to yourself "I intend to allow more joy into my life" or "I choose to be happy."  Just five words if you want to keep it really simple!  And notice the power of intention is not placing prerequisites or conditions but just doing it right now.  I know these four keys to happiness seem easy, but applying them to day to day life is pretty challenging because of that knee-jerk reaction, the old way of thinking and doing things.  But you have a choice and can change.  You are happiest when you think yourself happy.  And ultimately you are responsible for co-creating your life.  You have just this one lifetime and there are no do overs. So why not choose happiness starting right now?  I know you can do it!    Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

 PS - We practice Mandala Namaskar 1 (Salutation) to help us see the power of our own choices!

Mandala Namaskar I 

INHALE -- Eka Pada Adho Mukha Svanasana (1 Leg Downward Dog)

EXHALE – Anjaneyasana (Lunge)

INHALE – Parsva Anjaneyasana (Side Lunge)

EXHALE – Skandasana (Transverse Lunge)

INHALE – Ardha Anjaneyasana (Low Lunge)

EXHALE – hands down

INHALE – Ardha Plank (1 legged Plank)

EXHALE -- Chaturanga Dandasana

INHALE -- Urdhva Mukha Svanasana

EXHALE -- Chaturanga Dandasana

INHALE -- Plank

EXHALE -- Adho Mukha Svanasana 

 (To create circular pattern, Mandala, go through series right foot, right foot, left, left)

 

OCTOBER 1, 2010

The resistance to the disturbance IS THE disturbance.  ~ Siddiqui Ray

We all have that feeling of living inside a snow globe and having it shaken up resulting in utter chaos, stuff flying everywhere!  Yeah.  That happens.  Yoga philosophy helps us to see that the stuff flying around is not the problem.  The resistance to the disturbance IS THE disturbance.  We may not be able to control situations or people but we are responsible for how we think about the situation, person or thing.  And if our minds choose to fight which is resistance then we are in effect creating the disturbance.  Does that make sense?

So how do we know if we are resisting life?  Just ask yourself a real, simple question:  “Are you happier today than you were yesterday, last week, last month?” Well, are you? And if you're not then you are producing resistance in your life because the Yoga Sutras say that our lives are constantly evolving towards greater experiences of happiness (if we get out of our own way).  Let me put it like this.  In Seattle in August I was driving my best friends stick shift Element on hilly, steep streets. I was so afraid at times I was going to roll backwards into the person behind me that once I got going I'd be driving around wondering why I wasn't going faster or smoother and then realize I was driving with my brakes on.  (Ok don't tell him ok?)

But the question of resistance is one of whether or not WE ARE LIVING LIFE WITH OUR BRAKES ON.  I know at times I have found this to be the case for me.  Instead of a full blast effort something less because of fear, worry about what others might think or some other equally old story.  And then this practice of yoga wakes me up and I realize that I am holding back and only making it harder.  At that point everything changes and the flow returns and I feel grace carrying me once more on her easy current rather than fighting my way upstream.  So today, take a good look at yourself, where are you living with the brakes on?  And get out of your own way and try easier. It is what you think about your life that either creates the disturbance or lets you move forward gently.  Love yourself, Love your day, Love your life! Silvia

The resistance to the disturbance IS THE disturbance.  ~ Siddiqui Ray

 

*Spaces still left for Moab Nov 4-7, $250 OFF, hope you can join me and Alchemy Tours now or on one of our 10 retreats next year! Friend us on facebook and learn more.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010.  As we began class on our backs, breathing, quieting and just coming to be present I offered the story of the lotus blossom and how it grows in murky, dark, hard-to-grow waters, and has to reach for the light and rise above challenges in order to grow.  WE are the lotus blossom; always reaching and rising through the difficulties and challenges of our lives to get to the light, which is our true happiness.  

And the driver of what moves us in spite of the challenges to grow towards the light is our hearts. But our hearts get dirtied up with all our mental clutter.  On Friday's it seems to often be at its worst.  Our minds are just overly polluted with the worries of the week.  So to practice on Friday gives us that opportunity to free our minds and clean the clutter.

When you think about it our hearts are like a diamond, and the light is happiness, shining through the diamond/our hearts.  The diamond is like our own potential, multi-faceted, shiny, so the light shines through it.    And just like a diamond, this practice is meant to restore our real brilliance. The diamond equals our happiness, and if we can get clean the polluted mind light can shine through us, just like a diamond.   So today, give your heart a break and allow it to let go of whatever you are facing for even just a little bit.  Restore your brilliance and the clarity you need to make better decisions will be revealed!  Love yourself, love your day, love your life, Silvia

PS If you feel like you need more time to devote to cleaning the  mental clutter then join me in Moab November 4-7, 2010 or in 2011 on a Yoga retreat in Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Italy and more! Like Alchemy Tours to keep up to date on great trips!

SEPTEMBER 19, 2010.   

Losing the Past Opens the Future.  It is such a simple statement and rolls up yogic philosophy so easily....and yet not always that easy to put into practice.  Our humanness boasts to us in little mental self talk that of course we can rewrite the past! Why wouldn't we be able to?  But we intellectually know we cannot.  And until we surrender to our own letting go known as vairagya we cannot fully welcome the best future of ourselves.

The past and the future energies cannot fully occupy the same exact space.  How or what happened yesterday is done.  All we have now is this moment and the intentions for the next moments.  Replaying things past only clutters our minds, leaks our energies and prevents us from engaging life right now.  Through physical practice we let go of the old stories stored in the tissues of hurts, frustrations, disappointments and clear the way for our best experiences.  And yoga works all day long mentally and emotionally to help remind us to lose the past, whether pleasant or unpleasant, so the world opens us up to the most magnificent future.

it is up to us not to hold ourselves back, to not remain stuck, but to create the space by letting go that opens the future.

I work on this everyday and I've experienced amazing results. it is still often very hard and sometimes easier but nevertheless always really powerful in letting grace and love flow towards my open heart.  I wish for all us to find the courage to lose the past, and open to your future.  Your best life.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

PS If you feel like you would benefit from more dedicated time to do the serious work of letting go then join me on an upcoming yoga retreat in Moab, Italy, Oregon, California, Colorado, and more!   www.alchemytours.com or www.silviamordini.com

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010.   

In 1948 a study began known as the Framingham Heart Study.  It was the most comprehensive of its kind.  Now 60 plus years later scientists have studied other aspects beyond just heart disease.  One of their findings ins related to happiness theory.  And of the factors studied a key part is that happiness is being connected to other people.  We experience happiness through social connections.  And therefore are very much influenced by clusters of other people around us.  Check this out:  a change in one person effects you and all in the cluster, your probability for increased happiness improves 15% if your most immediate friend is happy, 10% if a friend of your friend is happy, and so on until four degrees of separation. 

They are figuring out and measuring what yogis have known for thousands of years:  happiness is contagious.  

This means everyday we have the opportunity to save someone's life.  You practice yoga today, so you can practice tomorrow.  What you do to manage your thoughts to create happy cells impacts not only you but those around you.  In this way we are creating our world thought by thought, day by day.  And it can be heaven on earth!  Maybe it is.  The sutras spell out that if we are imbalanced mentally, physically, emotionally which means we are not living our true nature - which is naturally happy then we must practice chapter 2.33 Pratipaksha Bhavana.  Engage happy thoughts.  So simple.  It is our Namaste:  Seek the still point where the words "you" and "I" lose meaning, where we meet and merge as one. 

Try this breath meditation when you need to elevate your attitude. And be the change you want to see in the world (Ghandi). Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

 

Inhale: I welcome happiness,

Exhale: I am grateful

Inhale:  I welcome inspiration

Exhale:  I am grateful

Inhale:  I welcome love

Exhale:  I am grateful

Inhale: I welcome hope

Exhale: I am grateful

 

“Heartfelt gratitude really is the fastest way to experience happiness now.  It is impossible to be truly grateful and neurotic; it is impossible to be truly grateful and not happy.”  (Happiness coach Barry Kaufman author of Happiness Is A Choice)

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010.  Some years back I as talking about how yoga helps us to face our fears (remember that first time doing crow pose or kicking up into a handstand or feeling the sensation of pigeon or even just standing still in mountain pose).  After class a student came up and told me I should never talk about fear and if I do she will never come back to class.  Guess how that made me feel?  Yup, I was totally afraid of her. I was afraid of what she'd say or do or tell people and I was afraid of what if one day I forget and she was in class and I said the word what would she do.  I resolved not to talk about Fear at that point because I WAS AFRAID OF BEING AFRAID.  That went on for over a year.  Then the more spiritual reading I did and the more Anusara Yoga became part of my life I realized there was something inauthentic about denying fear.  Anusara teaches us to embrace the full spectrum of who we are, even when we are afraid.

Mariann Williamson says, "Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts." So first thing we do when we come to class is as Baron Baptiste says, "drop everything you know."  From there we heed the sage advice of Yoda in Star Wars, "YOU MUST UNLEARN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED." 

Interesting enough this works hand in hand with what positive psychologist (and favorite Harvard professor) Tal Ben-Shahar's lectures talk about that drills down into this: "to be a happier person give yourself permission to be HUMAN."  Otherwise when we suppress what we feel it creates more problems.  This is what "he refers to as ironic processing, which promises that suppressing an emotion will only ensure its clear announcement later."  Yoga is the science of happiness and encourages us to practice unconditional love for ourselves and what we practice on our own lives we know how to share with others.  You can't teach what you don't know.  You can't live what you don't know.  In great part the reason I teach is to be that spark to explain how yoga works so you too don't stay stuck in non-life affirming qualities of your humanness and realize that once you accept who you are, you can unlearn what you know and expand into your happiest life ever.  I want that for me, and I really want that for you.  Love yourself, love your day, lover your life! Silvia

SEPTEMBER 11, 2010 NEWSLETTER

Salutations Friends on the Path!

This week the hot yoga topic in some circles has been about the marketing of yoga to make you slim and sexy. My first concern as a yoga instructor is not so much about sexiness as it is teaching folks that yoga is really about the Science of Happiness. I know that with consistent, regular practice you will reconnect with what you're feeling, learn healthy stress-reducing techniques (like breathing on purpose), appreciate your life more and generally engage the world in a kinder way. 

As yoga teacher Donna Farhi says, "What the world needs are kinder, more compassionate, generous people." The time on the mat is our opportunity to cleanse the mind of all its distractions that make us less attractive.  And as I often say in class, the biggest obstacle to a happier life is our own busy mind, and yoga is for the mind (which we access through the vehicle of the body). 

Does yoga make you sexy?  Well I guess so.  When we are feeling peaceful and centered our faces do look prettier.  And when we are kinder and move more fluidly we are more attractive.  And the yoga does slow us down to make more heartfelt connections to other people. So if you come to yoga for the mental or physical reasons it doesn't matter you are a complete package as a human being and you will receive ALL the benefits: happiness, sexiness, calm.  And most importantly you will naturally engage more unconditional love into your life!  So love yourself, love your day, love your life, Silvia   

PS Don't forget sign up now for Moab Nov 4-7th, get $500 OFF and next person who registers gets FREE Private with me1

"I am so happy, I cannot be contained in the world; If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me;But like a spirit, I am hidden from the eyes of the world.  For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens." RUMI as translated by Keshavarz

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010.  More than ever I aspire to this feeling of spirit day in and day out. I've tried looking outside myself for this experience, and through my yoga practice I've made time to look within.   As you know, this last month I took it to a new level.  I've had regular yoga teachers that took a month out for their own development every year whether it meant traveling to Thailand to be with their teacher or going on month long silent retreat or just taking a time out from teaching to more deeply commit themselves to the Yoga of Relationship.  So I did all of that this last 31 days.  And I am so happy I did!  I attended an awesome yoga teacher training and practiced many styles of yoga with many, many teachers, I spent time in quiet contemplation/meditation in nature and most importantly I consistently practiced unconditional love for my best friend. I learned how to expand my capacity to be more fearless in loving someone and allowing myself to be loved in return.  This is the trinurti (3-fold) nature of yogic practice like a tripod that needs all three legs to remain standing: study, practice, teach.

I have blossomed so much.

I went into this personal sabbatical with many questions and in some way as a spiritual seeker I was looking for answers.  I return with more questions than I did when I took time off.   What I do know is "I am so happy"!  Making ourselves important and setting aside time to design our intentions is not easy.  It is hard work to still the mind in order to get to that point of asking the questions, it is what Elizabeth Gilbert writes about in her book Eat, Pray, Love, "You cannot see your reflection in running water, only still water."  I can see better who I am, what I want in my life and I am asking better harder questions of myself. 

Why would I put myself through this? Because I want to keep evolving my happiness. A little happiness is not enough for me, I want a lot of happiness and I deserve that today be the best day of my life and I take this to a new edge tomorrow, just like we do in bending our knee in a warrior pose.  And I realized my happiness would remain stunted if I kept repeating old patterns or ignoring what those patterns in my mind or actions are.  As Miss Gilbert writes, "Take care of the problems now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you scew everything up the next time.  And that repetition of suffering - that's hell.  Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understand - there's where you'll find heaven."  Fundamentally this is where Yoga holds our hands and encourages us to be happier than we ever thought we could be by quieting our minds, helping us see the old problems and moving beyond them to our best lives ever.  So thank you dear students, friends, teachers for understanding my desire for personal growth and evolution and as you support me, please know with great passion and simple love I support you in your journey's as well.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life!  Silvia

If you need a break consider joining me on Yoga Retreat in Tuscany October 24-30 or Moab November 4-7, or in December either Pagosa Springs or Hawaii

AUGUST 12, 2010.  I have a full library of books on communication.  As a love anthropologist I am fascinated by why people use certain words versus others to convey the same thing.  And this interest in words has grown ever more engaging as face to face communication has decreased.  And quite frankly my desire to understand has increased as I receive really harsh sometimes downright mean emails on an almost daily basis.  The proverbial "why" is there lingering in the background.(as in "why would someone say that and be so nasty for no reason?")

What I have realized through yogic and spiritual awakefulness is that much of what is behind the angry words chosen is a disconnect to their impact.  I believe that when someone is intentionally hurtful in words they are not completely in tune with the long term impact of what that energy does to the world.

"If we are unconscious of the power of words, we run the risk of creating a noisy disturbance."  - Unknown Author

Getting on the mat makes us more mindful of what we think, say and do.  And when what we are thinking is in alignment with our actions we are in a state of natural happiness.  So today, before you send an email reread it, take a lap, pause and be awake to what you are saying and how you are saying it.  Yup the concern is whether this will take up more time?  YES it will. But that extra 60 seconds will change the world.  And its up to you.

Love yourself, love your day, love your ilfe!  Silvia

JULY 14, 2010:  What if everything you wanted came true?  Could you handle it, would you accept it, how would you know it's real.  Are you still skeptical in your spiritual life so much so that when what you want is being handed to you, you still don't know how to be with so much grace?

The greatest fear is not of what we don't have or of suffering or of pain but of actually being happy. Of getting what we want as a result of living a spiritual life.  It is not easy to grow into spiritual adulthood and live the life of our dreams for then what will we have to complain about? 

If addicted to drama and the voices of complaint or seeing the world as lacking abundance and then one day the results of your efforts of living life as a good person get rewarded then what?  Are you so stuck in the old mental habit of seeing what you don't have that when you get what you want and need you still don't know it and contract?  Only you can grow up.  No one else can do this for you.  Only you can handle the truth (Satya) and know and receive the gifts the universe is offering you.  It is all right here, right now.

I AM EMPOWERED TO APPRECIATE MY LIFE!

Enjoy this mantra and see what is.  Be your beauty today.  Love, Silvia

JUNE 7, 2010.  Who is the most Courageous person you know?  How do they inspire you to be more courageous?  When was the time in your life you were MOST courageous?

All these self-observations and contemplations were the focus of or practice today.  And who doesn’t need more courage.  When I come to the mat to teach my intention for each student is that this practice helps them rise with courage to meet the challenges of their life.  And yes we all face challenges.  Judith Lasater a national yoga teacher, author and a personal hero of mine says, “Courage is the second most important quality to cultivate in life. (Right after love).”   

It is easy to fall into believing the old stories about ourselves and getting stuck.  Or as my friend Sadie Nardini says in her book Roadtrip Guide to the Soul, “Alongside positive change, challenge appears. You will confront old fears, old ways of being, as you drive through to your soul. Along the road to your best life possible, be prepared for delays. There will be potholes, irritating construction, and long stretches of open space where nothing seems to be happening. That’s life, imperfectly perfect. The lag times and frustrations are necessary to hone your discipline and commitment to your path.”

This much I know for sure, that to live life to its fullest means to risk being hurt.  We cannot numb out or check out.  Oh for certain comfortably numb will keep us from pain but we’ll never get to experience the joys of love and passion and excitement and happiness that are our birthright.  Having the courage to really action the secrets of your heart will bring you to your fullest potential.  It doesn’t make it less scary but isn’t the scariest thing not about having the courage to try and fall but more so not beginning to live at all?

Hey I get it.  In April I finally took the risk and mustered up the courage to begin teaching Yoga Retreats.  Does it take me away from the studio I love a little bit (well like 3-4 weeks a year)? Is that scary for me? YOU BET IT IS! But I know that by doing 3-4 retreats per year I not only help sustain the studio but I give myself the chance to try something I’ve always wanted to do.  And that is to change the ecology of heart and mind for my beloved yoga students. 

I come back a better teacher and I have more to offer everyone.  So it’s a choice.  You can use this practice to connect to your own best courage, open your heart and ride the biggest wave of your life or you can stay on shore and risk nothing.  It’s up to you.  May you rise up to meet the courage of your heart! Love the day, Silvia  (I want to honor and humbly thank my teacher Shiva Rea for sharing with me the Agni Namaskar Fire practice we did today that I shared with you, pay if forward...)

 

 

May, 23, 2010.  I have found selling my house an opportunity for continuous spiritual growth.  The last 3 weeks I went without hot water, not even warm water. All I had until yesterday was COLD (no make that Very Cold) water.  The first couple days showering like this was ok.  Not the end of the world, but as week one became week 2 and then 3 it was liking camping indoors except I wasn’t doing it on purpose.  Then with the help of friends finally I had hot water again! YES! I was so grateful. 

During the time my house has been on the market I moved my unsightly microwave to a dark corner of my basement on the ground for that was the only place I could figure to plug it into an outlet.  I don’t rely heavily on microwaving, actually am trying to break myself of the habit 100% but being merely human yes I succumb to its ease. Except during the last 3 months in order to warm anything up I had to travel long and far into the nether regions of my basement to sit on the floor to open its little door and sneak my food in. It was very much like being Alice in Wonderland, I’d be small then once warmed I could grow big again and return to the land above ground.  Not the end of the world, but gosh as each month wore on it became a chore.  This weekend my house sold and I was able to return my microwave back to the kitchen, on the first floor and stand up while using it.  YES! I was so grateful.

Many years ago I was run over by a car by a very sweet apologetic 80 year old man while I was walking from my garage to my townhome after church on a sunny Sunday morning. One moment I was mobile and easily walking, moving, breathing and then next (since the car was bigger than my petite frame) I was lying on the ground.  Eventually through yoga and the love and support of doctors, family and friends I recovered to a place of healthy even beyond what I had before. YES! I was so grateful.

So I have been asked many times over the years why or how did I begin teaching.  The main reason is that I don’t want you to experience having to lose anything and do without in order to get the lesson that GRATITUDE unlocks the fullness of life. As Melody Beattie says and goes on to say “It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  Sometimes all it takes to reconnect to active Gratitude is coming back to the mat to gently remind us of how fortunate we are in this moment.  You don’t have to be without Hot water to give thanks when you shower each day of what a cool blessing it is that you just turn a faucet and out it comes.  You don’t have to loose mobility to realize how awesome it is to walk onto the mat of your own volition.  When I need a simple kick in the pants I return time and again to the words of the Buddha:

Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn't learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn't learn a little,
at least we didn't get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn't die;
so, let us be thankful.

No matter who we are or what our situation is, we can always find something for which we are grateful. It is most often when we work too hard, or stretch ourselves too thin that we have a tendency to feel impoverished which Trungpa Rimpoche called, "poverty mentality."   If unsure just breathe and remember to be grateful that you were chosen to be alive today!  Gratitude is a form of meditation and promotes an elevated attitude to any negative thoughts. This is known as Chapter 2.33 Pratipaksha Bhavana.  A simple favorite of mine is:

Inhale: I welcome happiness,

Exhale: I am grateful

Inhale:  I welcome inspiration

Exhale:  I am grateful

Inhale:  I welcome love

Exhale:  I am grateful

Inhale: I welcome hope

Exhale: I am grateful

My sincere hope every class I teach is that the gratitude meditation becomes part of us and we never have to lose something to recognize how grateful we are to have that person, that situation or that circumstance in our life.  From this point forward say thank you to everyone you meet for every kindness they offer you.  It will change your life!  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

May 10, 2010, Gosh when you think about the biggest obstacle to feeling happy is letting our minds get all dirty with worry, stress, fear (basically all the unhappy thoughts).  If you think of your mind like a load of laundry and yoga is the washing machine we come into the practice to engage our breath which is like the detergent that cleans us on the inside.  Today, how big a load of laundry do you have to do?

Start there.

Then we have a better idea of how much work we have to do in order to Yoga citta vritti nirodhah, to calm the disturbances or dirtiness of our minds.  This is Yoga Sutra chapter 1 verse 2.  If you can engage in mindful movement connected to your breath you slow down and help your mind from being so agitated.  Otherwise, the mind stays in this cycle of obsessive churning and never actually let’s you get clean and easeful in your thoughts. And our thoughts are the predecesors to all our actions as Einstein says.

The biggest obstacle to a happier life is our own busy mind.  Once we access that contented, peaceful state that yoga brings where we no longer struggle in our thoughts then we can actually remember we have the key to our happiness and joy.  Or as Danna Faulds puts it so poetically,

“Within us lie the answers to our deepest questions and the antidote for all our fears.

The divine is not an abstraction – it’s as clear and intimate as a heartbeat or a whisper.

 

No matter how identified we’ve become with mind and body,

we can release the thoughts that blind us to the truth. 

Seek the still point where the words “you” and “I” lose meaning,

where we meet and merge as One.” 

 

May 3, 2010:  At all times you have the potential for great joy in your life.  You just need to find it within yourself and bring it into consciousness.  This understanding is the first step.  If you don't buy into this then what happens for many of us is that we convince ourselves we have to EARN our happiness. And we place all sorts of conditions and prerequisites on ourselves before we can be happy.  

I know about living with conditional happiness.  

I was really good at this from childhood. I would demand that I earned certain grades before I could be happy, or went to a particular college or in college got pinned, engaged, bought a small house, bought a big house, got a great job got promoted to a better job...it never stops.  In the meantime life is just going by. 

Happiness is not a paycheck you have to earn. There are no prerequisites to happiness just like going to yoga class requires nothing more than showing up.  

Once you let this reality set in everything in your life gets easier.  Happiness is the goal of all other goals. It is our birthright and here right now.  Happiness is the purpose of my life!  The universe wants this for us unconditionally.  So go on, be as happy as you want to be...Love in all ways, Silvia

April 13, 2010:  Yoga is funny in that it is a great paradox. We feel this in the physical sense in the juncture point of the waistline where pelvic loop and kidney loops originate. Both draw back the side bodies but the the energy splits up. The pelvic loop draws waist back and DOWN and kidney loop draws the waist back and UP.  Yoga helps us to explore how to live with what the world is offering us and receive it gracefully while at the same time figuring out how to turn what is being offered into an empowered experience.  But this isn't the cliché of lemons into lemonade which is just plain annoying isn't it?   

Nope this is about staying centered within ourselves to a place of great depth and tranquility and remain steady no matter what life has served you today - when you most want to shut down, to remain open hearted by holding onto to that calm center.  And at the same time this is in no way apathetic. We are meant to action our lives and keep evolving towards greater and greater happiness.  

So we have to create an alignment between our desires and aspirations and what's really possible for us today, in this moment.  If what we want and what we do and what we think are out of alignment then suffering ensues.  This life of ours is asking that we learn how to hold and release and reach and expand all at the same time.  

Today, how are you doing? Can you live with what the world is offering you?  Peace in all ways, Silvia

April 11th, 2010:  This week's book I am basing my classes on is called "In the Face of Fear".  This book is described as showing us how to *remain open, joyful and caring, even when life is stressful; *avoid old behavior patterns that only make things worse; *turn difficult time into opportunities for spiritual development; *discover that our true nature is always awake, wise and good - no matter what is happening.

April 11th Theme: How to Keep Ourselves Present (Ezra Bayda)

April 12th Theme: Happiness Training - Joy and Happiness are born out of concentration (Thich Nhat Hahn)

April 13th Theme: Getting the Bottom of Our Stress (John Loori)

April 14th Theme: It would be a pity to waste a good Crisis (John Tarrant)

April 15-18: I'll be conducting a Yoga and Mountain Biking Retreat in Moab, Utah! 

APRIL 9, 2010:  The fourth agreement is ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST.  Don Miguel Ruiz says, "Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.  Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality and other times it will not be as good.  When you wake up refreshed and energized in the morning , your best will be better than when you are tired.  Regardless of the quality keep doing your best."   

That's the part I love the most that our best requires a constant sensitive adjustment.  That it is different moment to moment.  This also correlates to yoga sutra of:  

Sthira Sukum Asanam.  (Effortless effort)  

This fundamental Yoga Sutra of Pantanjali has many interpretations one of which is that the asana/poses should be steady and comfortable. That we find an effortless in life whereby the pose we take (walking, talking, sitting, driving) be so elegant that the body is made more easy and attractive to the flow of prana/breath.  This practice of graceful effort means that some days it might be more difficult and some days it's easy, just like life is filled with joyousness and setbacks.  But the point is to keep going.  Ruiz puts it like this, "If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough.  When you overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself and it will take longer to accomplish your goal. But if you do less than your best, you subject yourself to frustrations, self-judgement, guilt and regret."  

Remember the Story of guy that goes to a Master asks about how long must he meditate to "transcend" or become happier, more enlightened. The most important lesson from this was when Ruiz writes, "You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy and to love. If you can do your best in two hours of meditation, but you spend 8 instead you will grow tired miss the point and won't enjoy your life."  

You see how yogic this is, that we manage our energies all to cultivate our own best happiness right now, right here in the present moment. And as part of this we go easy on ourselves never to a point of exhaustion whereby we might "miss the point" of life.  Some say the highest practice of yoga is this form of radical self-acceptance, "When you do your best you learn to accept yourself. Learning from your mistakes means you practice, look honestly at the results and keep practicing."  

"The best way to say thank you God is be letting go of the past and living in the present moment, right here and now. When you let go of the past you allow yourself to be fully alive in the present moment.  Letting go of the past means you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now." Embrace your life. Let yoga help you learn how to surrender to the happiest life ever!   

"You were born with the right to be happy. You were born with the right to love, to enjoy and to share your love. You are alive, so take your life and enjoy it. We don't need to know or prove anything. Just to be, to take a risk and enjoy your life, is all that matters."   Love to you all. Courage to you all to JUST BE, Silvia  

MARCH 4TH, 2010:

Dear Chicagoland Yogi Friends,

I have the perfect way to warm up this weekend! Join us at TBY to be inspired through laughter, awesome music, wine and chocolate with my good friend David Romanelli, recently written up in the New York Times.  So I've been asked a ton of questions about this weekend so here's the inside scoop:

1. If you're dying to learn how to balance on one finger in a pretzel like position then know we are NOT doing that this weekend.  No super funky poses so that means it is open to ALL Yogis of all abilities. The only prerequisite is a sense of humor.

2. If you want to learn 25 new seriously strict alignment principles then this weekend isn't it.

3.  If Yoga makes you happy, (or for that matter wine or chocolate) and you really just want to have a great time laughing out loud with a bunch of easy going yogis.  Then YES! this weekend is perfect!

Ultimately why I love having David here each year is that he helps create an atmosphere of friendship.  When you get on the ride with David its going to be a good time and we can all use more fun in our lives just like last week where I said Yoga is like recess for Adults. 

My greatest intention for TBY is that it be a place where strangers become friends.  I DON'T WANT YOU TO COLLECT POSES.  I'D RATHER HAVE YOU COLLECT FRIENDS THROUGH YOGA.

So come have some fun, peel off a layer or two of seriousness. I promise, it's good for you! Love, Silvia

 

Yoga + Miracles: Friday, March 5th Time 7:30pm

With Wine, Anything is Possible

This event is perfect for:

--people whose health is always a bit off 
--people who love amazing stories about human potential to beat the odds, overcome adversity, take the bull by the horns, and kick ass!
--people who have been soured by the bad economy and could use a shot of faith and hope

 

Yoga + Eternal Youth: Saturday, March 6th Time 12:30PM

Who Needs Botox when We've Got Chocolate

This is just the right workshop for people who:
--want to embrace aging with grace...not to mention great chocolate
--might have a wrinkle or two on the outside but feel like 32 on the inside (if not 25)
--love to have fun and think serious yoga is for the dogs

Yoga + The Grateful Dead: Saturday, March 6th Time 4:00PM

Living each day as if it could be your last

This event is perfect for people who:
--love THE GRATEFUL DEAD b/c rockin' Dead tunes will play throughout
--need to slow down and savor the moment before life slips through your fingertips
--are squeezing too tight and stressing too much

 

Chocolate- Covered Happiness:  Sunday, March 7th Time: 2:00PM

--Do you feel like you could use more laughter?
--Do you sometimes wanna just say WTF, kick back, and enjoy?!
--Why is it that people in the most primitive and extreme conditions can find happiness while us Westerners struggle to crack a smile?
--Do you just wanna eat more chocolate and everything will be ok? This is a perfect workshop for you!

I can't say this enough: Yoga is not boring!  This practice is inspiring us to make each day memorable.  It is as my teacher Shiva Rea says, "Celebrating being alive is the essence of a spiritual experience." 

When we practice on the mat we are really cultivating the ability to see the sun inside ourselves.  Especially as we practice Namaskars (Salutations).  "One is offering salutation to the divine represented by the sun, as a source of light removing the darkness of a clouded mind and as a source of vitality removing the diseases of the body. (Mohan)  Or as an unknown author writes, "Darkness isn't the absence of light... it's the absence of you."   Yoga helps us to find ourselves in spite of the darkness of challenges and hardships in life.  With every breath we remove the kleshas, which are like 5 lampshades covering up our inner brightness.  This brings us back to LIFE!  With every breath linked movement we allow our mind and hearts to integrate this basic quality of celebration or joy into our very being.  By the time we leave the mat we feel joy infused into every single cell!  So please join me, keep making time to stoke the flame of celebration, make your own mini olympics for yourself each practice! Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

FEBRUARY 7, 2010:  So here's what is at the heart of yoga: Yoga is the practice of revealing yourself to yourself.  Our time on the mat is an experience of pure self-exploration.  And although we often begin the practice with familiar poses or sequences from there we expand and create something unique and never before experienced.  As much as we think we know exactly where we are going, as Martin Buber says, All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. 

I just got a Mac. I’ve been a PC girl up until this point in my life. I have been very afraid of exploring new territory in this way.  I knew it could be better but the mediocrity of how my PC worked was fine.  What’s weird is that I’m not like this anywhere else in my life.  I will happily travel to new places, try new foods, experiment with creative flow of poses, I’ll seek out the next spiritual adventure! But not when it comes to my laptop.  Then I think of RD Laing’s words, “Creative people who can't help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.”

Life is too short to just keep walking on the beaten path. I know I could see more if I opened my eyes to being at the top of the mountain.  Yoga inspires us to reveal our fears or hesitations so we can grow beyond them into new uncharted potential.  The way yoga has changed my life is that it made me realize the briefness of our life as human creatures.  There is not time to waste.  We must keep exploring!

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?” – Richard Dawkins

I believe as Neale Donald Walsch writes, “Every decision you make - every decision - is not a decision about what to do. It's a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do.” I came here to make a difference and trying out new poses on the mat during yoga class gives me the opportunity to explore myself more deeply.  From there I’ve realized anything is possible.

This combined with the support of dear friends, one of whom in particular was vitally important in encouraging me to adventure away from the PC world into Mac land.  They saw before I did my ability to enhance my ways of working, my way of being.  And the decision I made to take this risk is a reflection of who I am in the world, just like trying new or challenging poses in class offers me the same opportunity.  So don’t hold back don’t get stuck in the SMART goals (specific measurable achievable realistic) break free of that crap.  As is written in the book How We Choose to be Happy, “When you step away from the confines of realistic you become an artist painting your own masterpiece, an explorer charting new territories. You are creating new ways of looking at situations; you innovate at work and at home..  It’s impossible to be bored with your life.”  Love your life! Silvia

Namaste Beautiful Friends,

To be happy is DEEP WORK, it is not surface stuff.  And the reality of  yoga is that it helps us explore ourselves to find out as Anthony DeMello writes, "there is not a single moment in our life when we do not have everything we need to be happy."  As we study ourselves the yoga helps us explore through movement a freedom in our bodies and a kind of flowing meditation where we can find peace and tranquility in our minds. This in turn allows our hearts to open to our own best adventure. 

"Exploration really is the essence of the human spirit!"

There is this great story in the book "How We Choose to Be Happy" and the individual being studied for why they are happier than everyone else says this, "I tried my hand at a lot of things. Some of these I liked, some I didn't.  And I have no regrets. The point is, I kept moving. Any one of these choices was far less important than the fact that I just kept choosing. 

I have a philosophy: Any choice can be reversed, but not choosing at all is irreversible."  So this Winter please keep choosing to make time to explore yourself more deeply.  And if you can take a break join me for the Spiritual Adventure of a Lifetime in Moab April 15th (here I am at Arches National Park) or in Tuscany June 20th!! It would be so awesome to take this road trip together.  But no matter what keep finding your own best adventure! Big love in all ways, Silvia

"It's better to have traveled and gotten lost than to never have traveled at all."  -George Santayana

 

FEBRUARY 4, 2010:  Tonight after all these years is my last Thursday night teaching.  I am so deeply grateful for all that you have taught me these Thursday evenings at 7:30pm Level 1 yoga.  I am especially grateful for those Thursday nights where you kept your appointment with the mat no matter the snow (one year I remember it snowed every Thursday for 3 months!) or rain or new best show on tv.  YOU STILL MADE IT!

“Heartfelt gratitude really is the fastest way to experience happiness now.  It is impossible to be truly grateful and neurotic; it is impossible to be truly grateful and not happy.”  (Happiness coach Barry Kaufman author of Happiness Is A Choice)

To be honest if I had to summarize what I’ve tried to bring on Thursday nights when we are just about to give up but still need to crawl over the finish line of Friday it’s been to serve you as a Happiness Coach.  My themes on Thursday’s have always revolved around unconditional happiness (which now I’ve pulled into Wednesday nights starting last evening).  I thank you in every language possible as you know its been my goal to memorize an ever expanding way to say thank you, by the time I leave this earth my intention is to be able to say thank you in at least 50 ways! Here are my favorite 58 so far.  And tonight as part of this practice we will begin a list of 100 Gratitudes…so that we keep this happiness training flowing forever!  Love in all ways to each of you! Silvia   

 

PS:  Beautiful teacher Mary Scudella will start teaching as of February 11^th, Level 1 at 7:30pm.

PSS: I teach Monday 6:15pm Level 1; 7:30p Basics; Tuesday’s 6:15pm Basics, 7:30pm Level 2; Wednesday’s 9:15am Level 1; 6:15pm Level 1; Thursday’s 10:45am Basics; Friday’s 9:15am Level 1-2, 6pm Level 1; Saturday’s 9:15am Basics; Sunday’s 7:45am Level 1-2, 9:15am Level 1; 4:30pm Level 1-2

 

1. Afrikaans (Africa) - Dankie
2. Albanian - Faleminderit
3. Armenian - shur-nur-ah-gah-lem
4. Australian - Thoinks, Moite!
5. Bengali - Dhannyabad
6. Bulgarian - Blagodaria
7. Bosnia - Hvala
8. Burma(Myanmar)  - Jae Zu Din Pa De (Thank you)
9. Cameroon (Duala) - Na som (thanks)
10. Catalonia (catalan) - moltes gràcies [many thanks]
11. Cherokee Nation - Wado (Thank you)
12. Cherokee (Eastern) - Skee (Thank you)
13. Chinese (Mandarin) - Xie_Xie (shieh shieh)
14. Croatia - Hvala
15. Czech – Dekuji (deh'-ku-yih)
16. Danish - tak (tahg)
17. Dutch - dank U wel (dahnk you well) (formal: thank you very much)
18. Estonia - Aitäh
19. French - merci (mehr-see')
20. French - Merci Madame - Thanks (to a woman)
21. German - Danke schoen (literally: nicely thank you, outdated)
22. Greek - Efharisto (ef-har-ris-tou')
23. Hawaiian - Mahalo
24. Hebrew - Toda raba (thank you very much)
25. Hindi (India National Language) - Dhanyavaad
26. Hindi - Shukriyaa
27. Hungarian - Köszönöm (kuh'-suh-nuhm)
28. Icelandic - Takk (informal)
29. Indonesian - Terima kasih (teh-ri-mah kah-sih)
30. Irish (Northern) - Nice one bro'r, or Cheers mucker!
31. Italian - Mille Grazie (a thousand thanks)
32. Japanese - Domo arrigato
33. Lithuanian - Achu
34. Luganda (Uganda) - Waybale (Thank you)
35. Paraguay (Guarani) - Aguije (ah-we-JAY)
36. Philippines - Maraming Salamat (thank you very much)
37. Polish - Dziekuje (dsyehn-koo-yeh)
38. Portuguese - Muito Obrigado (Thank you very much)
39. Qatar - Shakkran
40. Romanian - Va multumim frumos (great thanks)
41. Russian - Spasibo balshoye (big thanks)
42. Scottish - Cheers
43. Slovakia – Dakujem (deh'-ku-yem)
44. South Africa - Dankie ("Dung-Key")
45. Spanish - Muchisimas gracias (thank you VERY much) - to someone who was useful to you.
46. Sundanese - Nuhun
47. Swahili - Ahsante (ah-sahn'-teh)
48. Swedish - Tack (tahkk)
49. Tahitian - Maururu
50. Thai - Khop Khun Mak (Thank you very much)
51. Tibetan - Thuk Ji Chhe
52. Turkish - Tesekkurler ( teh-sheh-keur eh-deh-rim)
53. U.S. & Canada - Thank You
54. Ukranian - Dyakuyu
55. Vietnamese - Kam ouen
56. Wales/Cymru - Diloch yn fawr (thank you very much)
57. Yugoslavia - Hvala
58. Zulu - Ngiyabonga

Favorite passage about gratitude in book, Be Happy by William Holden. May this inspire your life as it has mine! Love and light, Silvia

1. Proactive gratitude – Gratitude is conscious reaction to things, people, situations, and outcomes that you deem to be good or positive.  This attitude of gratitude is mostly reactive. That is it exists because something happens first.   But PROactive gratitude is based on a decision to enjoy something BEFORE it happens.  Mantra:  I intend to appreciate and give thanks for today, no matter what happens. 
2. Unconditional gratitude – Gratitude based on a faith that everything that happens or doesn’t happen in your life is for your own best interests.  That we live in a purposeful universe.  Life is always for you; it is never against you.  It is a fact that blessings sometimes come wrapped in fear, pain, and tears.  In choosing to practice unconditional gratitude you are choosing to trust the process, to honor your feelings and to place your faith in an outcome of inevitable grace.
3. Gratitude as spiritual realization – Gratitude stems from revelation that you are what you seek.  This type of gratitude is based on deep spiritual realization that you are created perfectly, and that everything you have chased after and longed for – love, happiness, peace, is already yours.  It is therefore a homecoming and a chance to finally rest.  This real gratitude is based on a thanksgiving for your true identity. It teaches you that happiness does not leave its source.  In other words, happiness does NOT COME AND GO; what comes and goes is your awareness of happiness.  It also teaches you that what is truly valuable already belongs to you.  

FEBRUARY 3, 2010:  I went back to read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and what I was focused on today as I prepared for Yoga Teacher Training focused on Inversions and Arm Balances was where she writes, “You must be polite with yourself when you are learning something new.”  This could be applied to any situation whether it be a pose or a relationship with our partner.  That we be polite with ourselves and see each situation, each moment as new so we grow our insight.

It is easy to let ourselves believe that doing only what we like (same old thing) will make us happy and doing what we don’t like will make us unhappy.  Yogic philosophy would have us understand that this is too narrow a definition of happiness and that it actually sets the stage for unhappiness because our degree of contentment becomes based on something outside ourselves.  For instance, if our partner does exactly what we want (meets all sorts of conditions) then we will be happy. Or if we have chocolate then we are happy, or if we lose 5 pounds.  However true happiness is UNCONDITIONAL.  This is defined as a state where we find contentment in any situation (tough pose, stuck in traffic, our partners moodiness, no milk in the house, illness, job loss). 

So on the mat we meet poses that are our nemeses.  We actually make ourselves face our discomforts to come to terms with why we don’t like something. Is it fear, or worry or embarrassment?  And how do we respond:  ignore them and don’t try, approach them timidly, get overwhelmed, get angry, blame the pose?  What is really going on?

I promise, if you practice yoga you will learn to find more effective ways to face the challenges of your life. (You know the nemesis moments, your dislikes).  YOGA IS A STUDY IN HOW YOU DEAL WITH DIFFICULTIES IN YOUR LIFE.  That’s it.  And can you make peace with what life is trying to teach you?  Lessons in patience, in humility, in acceptance?

If we don’t apply this then we will continue to live imbalanced lives thinking that true happiness alludes us because it is only as a result of doing things we like (or having our family members or partners or bosses or colleagues do it all our way.).  Essentially what’s strong will get stronger (our ego) and what’s weak will atrophy.  We need this practice now more than ever! Mostly because the world is not a game of solitaire, this is a group activity. We share this space ship we call Earth with a lot of other creatures and the sooner we stop blaming others for the quality of our life the sooner the whole world will become MORE POLITE WITH ITSELF.

Love yourself, love your day, love your life, love everyone in your life! Silvia

JANUARY 29, 2010:  9:15am & 6pm Class Themes Today were an opportunity to learn how to use the Psychology of Victory to get passed your Stuckness.  Believe it, our thoughts are "trainable" to focus on what we want in life - what you think creates your reality.  The world is not created “out there somewhere” and then experienced by us, it is first experienced inside us then that is what is reflected back to us.   

“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives” (William James)   

This gets pretty radical.  Albert Einstein suggested that we cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.  So there is this idea within that that “the world has no sadness in it, only people thinking sad thoughts.” (Spiritual Solutions to Everyday Problems)

How this happens is we have to think something, do something or as Einstein says “nothing happens until something moves.” So in vinyasa flow yoga we move and breath in alignment with our internal energies.  We are not stuck our humanity is that of flow.  Valerie Hunt in her book, Infinite Mind of the Human Vibrations of Consciousness writes, “Motion is more natural to life than non-motion – things that keep flowing are inherently good.” What interferes with FLOW will have detrimental effects.” So the conclusion is that when we stop our flow and as a result of fear or worry or past experience stop the flow we get stuck and this can certainly have negative effects physically and emotionally.  Last week Yahoo News reported a story on January 20^th titled “Experts: sitting too much could be deadly”

To embrace the flow means we are hugging in to a psychology of victory! That we see we can evolve to ever greater happiness. We have a choice to keep aspiring and growing beyond our fears.  Of course we will hesitate but we need not make war with life, that is the ultimate stuckness.  Instead take these words to heart from Vivekenanda, “observe the blossoms of the fruit trees. The blossoms vanish of themselves as the fruit grows. The apples do not get into a deep conflict with the blossoms that are in their designated space on the branches of the tree.  There is no anger, no fear, no battle between the fruit and its blossoms. As the fruit grows the blossoms disappear.”  Allow yourself to life yourself to higher energies and keep flowing, life is too short to remain stuck another moment….as Saint Teresa of Avila advises, “let nothing disturb thee, let nothing dismay thee, all things pass.”  Love in all ways, Silvia

 

 

JANUARY 26^TH, 2010:  To learn to be intimately present to oneself is at the heart of yoga for this practice is a study of oneself.  Kornfield writes, “to learn intimacy is not an easy thing. Growing up in a culture marked by our wounds and longing it is hard to be present.” This is repeatedly true on a day to day basis.  To just stay awake to one’s life and be present is difficult.  In this practice we did a million poses just once to see if we could be totally present in that one time shot to the best of ourselves.  No repetition, just one time, that’s it. Then on to the next pose.  This is the actual pace of life. We don’t get to do any moment over again. We only get once chance to live to our fullest in that singular moment.  It is living to our fullest potential that yoga inspires within us.  And maybe, just maybe we realize through this practice that life is how we spend our dash.  And quite honestly, as the loss of two beautiful yogi friends reminds me….it goes all too fast.  So wake up! Create the reality of your life right now and then really enjoy it….love your day, love yourself, love your life! Silvia

Here is the poem given to me by a loving student that I read at the end of class. It is by Linda Ellis, titled THE DASH:

 

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not how much we own;
The cars, the house, the cash,

What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left,
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,
And more often wear a smile
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

JANUARY 24, 2010:  The healthy link between yoga and weight loss is not so much only about normalizing weight as much as it is about sustaining weight loss.  But first yes, one of the most effective and ancient ways of promoting health and effecting transformation is to practice yoga, especially poses, breathing and meditation. Increasing research in the fields of health and well being indicate that the stress-reducing effects of yoga practice are significant and powerful in normalizing WEIGHT. And as Judith Lasater writes, “We no longer have a choice about including practices in our daily lives that create health and spiritual growth. If we want a world worth living in today, as well as one worth leaving to future generations, we must take responsibility to create health in our lives, as well as to support others as they choose healthier lives for themselves. It is up to each of each of us to lovingly transform the world simply by first transforming ourselves.”

Through the practice of yoga, we can begin to feel connected to ourselves, to our body’s rhythm, our breath, and our emotions.  We can tune into how we feel about ourselves and to what degree our eating is emotionally based.  According to studies the number 1 &2 reasons for weight gain is emotional stress and habit.  And then once we’ve gained the extra weight we get dissatisified which may develop elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn ENCOURAGES stress-related eating (known by scientists as FOOD-SEEKING BEHAVIOR). Which results in more weight gain which may fuel more stress and stress–related eating.  Gosh that’s the pattern?  Yup. 

I hope this class helped to make sense of some things. And that you will join me again week after week to maintain this awareness and learn to be the best YOU possible!  With love in all ways, Silvia

 

So how does the Yoga work?  Here’s a quick summary we talked about in class:

• Yoga burns calories by doing poses and breathing techniques which make metabolism more efficient (food + Oxygen = fuel)
• Yoga is proven to fight stress (and lower cortisol levels). Cortisol makes conversion of calories into fat (especially fat in the abdomen) more efficient.
• Yoga helps us see clearly. Before you can change something you have to acknowledge it for what it is which can be a problem (Study 1992 New England Journal of Medicine study looked at obsese people who considered themselves resistent to diets they told doc’s they exercised and limited calories but when asked to keep a food journal the patients had on average underestimated their food intake by 47% and overestimated their exercise 51%  (They were tricked by their own minds)
• Patterns (samskaras) – the behavior grooves we dig through repeated actions.  Many people who overeat are on autopilot.  Yoga helps us be mindful of the moment, which helps us notice and savor our food instead of gulping it down. 
• Also the mindfulness helps us realize when we are not hungry but simply eating out of habit or emotional neediness.
• Consider this (relapse rate on most diets is 100%).  If you lose one ounce/day that’s almost half a pound/week which = 23 pounds in a year.  To lose an ounce/day you’ve only got to burn about 250 calories more than you take in. (Breath how it works)
• Many people view food as the enemy. Yoga view of food is that it is a manifestation of the divine, a gift from God.  In the Upanishads, food is equated with the divine force in the universe, Yoga would say food is one of life’s great pleasures.

 

JANUARY 24, 2010:  Gosh during the Winter it gets just a tiny bit more challenging to maintain the internal fire of enthusiasm.  Ok to be honest it’s more than just a little hard.  It is just out right challenging.  I’m cold and surrounded by snow what is physically easiest is to CONTRACT.  This is the exact reason why during this time of year here in the Midwest we must try harder to remain enthusiastic and light up our lives from the inside.  By this I don’t mean reflect on how great summer was or day dream nonstop about Spring for those things take us out of the present.  The only time we can be really happy is now.  Heed the advice of the Alchemist, “Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man.”

 

Happiness is a direct experience of enthusiasm.  It is what we show on the outside to the world about how we feel inside.

 

This speaks directly to a favorite quote from the Alchemist, “There was a language in the world that everyone understood. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.  We are riding the wave when what we think and what we do are done from love with great enthusiasm and vigor.  This happens when we are living in “the present.” 

So there is a way here to use the challenge of Winter to help ourselves feel more alive!  It is in this way that the emotional challenges of life are an opportunity to feel more human.  “Even sadness opens a hidden doorway into being more alive! Just as anger can be a doorway into strength, even sorrow can trigger humility, and other profound spiritual emotions.”

This is why I so strongly encourage us to gently attempt these postures. I know you might say to yourself I can't do them but I’d rather have us face the discomfort of experiencing ourselves as beginners then get stuck or trapped in endless repetition of what we already know whereby our enthusiasm for life diminishes.  You see when we give up in the face of challenge, we cheat ourselves of the immense satisfaction that follows from building any skill into understanding. It is not how or when we accomplish something it is that sense during the process of enthusiasm in just trying our best.  Today, don’t wait until Winter is over to radiate joy and become interested in your life.  Do it now.  Life is too short not to stay engaged with ourselves.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

JANUARY 23, 2010:  “When you are more receptive to life itself, the more wonderful your life appears to be.” (Robert Holden)

Today we talked about coming to the mat to shift our energies towards what we want more of in our lives. To use the poses and the yogic breathing to let go of the struggle of focusing on what we don’t want.  Really the shift happens when we let go of fear.  What would happen if we actually get what we want to receive? Then what?  When we are used to focusing on the drama of negative even that can become easily familiar. But it won’t make us happy. 

May this practice help each of us remove the obstacles to our true seeing. To help us all be more receptive to the wonders of our lives.  Peace to all, Silvia

JANUARY 21, 2010:  This is the year and decade we stop analyzing everyone else around us trying to figure out who WE are by what other people do or don't do.  The first chapter, first verse of the Yoga Sutras: “With humility and an open heart and mind we begin the study of Yoga. This study is using the Self to study ourselves first.” 

"The proper study of mankind is man." (Alexander Pope) from my new book News of the Universe (Poems of Twofold Consciousness chosen and introduced by Robert Bly). That's what we do in yoga.  We are when we come to the practice essentially making a commitment to get a PhD in our own Humanness.  Nischala Joy Devi says "As students of life we often need to look at where we have come freom to see where we are going. Our present position has been determined by the past - all those crossroads where we made decisions, each path we've taken that brought us to our life as it is."

Blaming other people for the choices we've made or how we came to be what we are won't help us evolve towards greater happiness. We have to accept accountability and just look inside.  Rumi writes:

"If you're lugging a heavy bag,

don't fail to look inside it

to see whether what is inside is

bitter or sweet.

If it's really worth bringing along,

bring it;

otherwise, empty your sack

and redeem yourself from

fruitless effort.

Only put into your sack

that which is worth bringing."

When you think about it what do you keep lugging around that is weighing your life down?  Unless you start looking inward and stop blaming others for the quality of your life, it won’t change for the better. Maybe in the past you thought “I'm not something enough” to do this important work of self-exploration and self-discovery. BUT NO MORE. Be honest with yourself: you are young enough, old enough, smart enough, rich enough and you have enough time.  If it is really important to you to set positive intentions for yourself you have to slow down enough to look inside.  Take to heart the words of Rumi:  "There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. O traveler, if you are in search of That don't look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.”  Yes, SEEK THAT.  In the new year, a time of setting intentions just remember this – it is near impossible to set an intention for your life until you study yourself and where you’ve come from first.  Otherwise it’s like trying to get a PhD when you haven’t finished First Grade yet.  And in this PhD program, there are no grades, it is simply pass/fail.  And this subject (YOU) is not one you want to fail at.  Life is too short to fail at being you.  So starting today get real, look at your life, study yourself as you really are and ignite the beauty of who you are yet meant to be! Love in all ways, Silvia

 

JANUARY 13TH, 2010:  Yoga is about wholeness, healthy & vital living in the body, mind, & spirit.

The foundation for this is based on fundamental yogic philosophy written in the Yoga Sutras Chapter 1.30 to Chapter 1.33.  The sutras speak about the potential imbalances we may encounter on the physical, mental and emotional levels.  They obscure the knowledge of our true nature, which is happiness.  Offered are various ways to prevent these imbalances as well as ways to regain balance if lost.  They show why the peaceful path is often like walking on the razors edge. The most practical advice teaches how to “informally” integrate these suggestions into everyday life in addition to the “formal” practices of doing yoga poses, breathing techniques and meditation. 

The Yogic model proposes that the four keys to an open heart and calm mind are to nurture these attitudes:

1. Kindness and friendliness to those who are happy
2. Compassion for those that are suffering or less fortunate
3. Respect and honor for those that who embody noble qualities
4. Equanimity for those whose actions oppose our values

At first these four keys to help enable us to retain our inner peace in all circumstances seem easy.  But applying these in day to day life is more challenging than we think. We often fool ourselves into believing we are kinder than we really are and can use this practice to really see where our actions are not aligned with what we believe ourselves to be.  Most of all this teaches us that we are responsible for co-creating our life. We have the four keys to our happiness.  Love in all ways, Silvia

 

NOVEMBER 12, 2009: A sweet friend turned me on to the website www.thefuntheory.com The site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as FUN is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better. They present on the site why don't folks do more of those things that we know are good for us. And if we make those things fun can we get folks to change their behavior? The answer this initiative sponsored by Volkswagen is presenting is yes. Go to their website to see how they got folks to take the stairs instead of the escalator and other playfully brilliant examples! Caution this site will make you SMILE.

The yogic teachings remind us that within every moment we are faced with making healthy choices in how we breath, how we stand, how we act (or react). We can walk in the path of darkness or choose the path of light. We can choose negative thoughts or positive thoughts. We can choose Fear or LOVE. And if we can make choosing LOVE fun then maybe, just maybe we'll stay with it.

When you come to class this is offered to you in the form of Vinyasa yoga where we are moving at the pace of breath, dancing, laughing, sometimes singing but all in an effortless effort to enjoy the experience of yoga which we know is healthy for us. From this my hope is that we can live our lives the way we practice our yoga: choosing the path in the light in spite of the challenges life puts in front of us. Today, choose FUN, and in that choose LOVE. Wishing you a day of healing, love and light, Silvia

OCTOBER 25, 2009:  "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think...WOW I can't believe I'm here. This is so wonderful!" (Leslie Darin, Historian) Thank you to all those that are young at heart that share this attitude.  I want to bow humbly to 57 year old nurse yogi that had a brilliant conversation with me after class yesterday afternoon. She had broken her neck in freak running accident but 10 years later was on the yoga mat, young in spirit, beautiful in her energy. Thank you for inspiring me!

 

“To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, it’s all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.” (Artur Rubinstein) Seriously isn’t it amazing we all woke up today breathing and

 

When I started practicing what I had heard was that Yoga was said to be the fountain of youth. That we are only as old as our spine is flexible. I was completely intrigued thinking how could this be?  Well on our birthday’s different yoga traditions actually celebrate by moving the spine. Some lineages do as many Sun Salutations as the years you are old, other traditions do the same number of backbends as you are old.  Well to cover all my bases, I do both.

 

PART 1:  How does this practice help you stay young, LIVE YOUNG?

Take a moment to write down 3 times in your life when you have felt the most alive.  Skiing, exploring a new city, quiet of nature, being with another person… Why is that you felt so alive? Were you completely focused? YES! You were completely engaged in the experience, you were in the flow which means you were in the present moment.  You could fully appreciate all that was taking place without being totally distracted by past or future.

 

PART 2:  How do I LIVE YOUNG every moment?
Answer:  Is to practice active appreciation.  The Dalai Lama says “The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.”  Find something amazing about what is happening right now.  Take what is ordinary and turn into something extraordinary whether it is your Downward Dog or drinking a cup of tea.  I fully believe every day can be turned into something special.  Recently I celebrated Christmas in October.  Why not?  Why do we have to wait for December why not bring the feeling of the holiday spirit a little sooner into the year?  You see we can take any situation and find something to appreciate.  Happy people are aware of this and put it into practice.  Happy people really aren’t any different that the rest of us, they just live in the present and have gratitude for whatever is being offered.

 

Yogic teachings tell us that our natural state is one of happiness.  So when we talk about yoga as the fountain of youth it is maybe because happiness feels lighter, brighter and more youthful. There appears from the inside out a radiance or inner body brightness that glows outwardly.  It is true, we are as young as we feel.  Why not feel happy?  It is never too late, we are never too old to believe in the possibility of things.

 

For a long time I wanted life to be different than what it is.  This put me in a state of stuckness asking repeatedly “why did that have to happen, why are things like this” or it made me fast forward life trying to get away from what is and put it behind me.  Either way I started missing years of my life. I was missing the moments.  In the book “How to Choose to be Happy” it is written “It’s a physical fact that no matter what happened an hour ago, a week ago or what might happen in a year happiness can ONLY be felt now in this moment.”  Or as the Buddha says “The secret of health for both the mind and body is not to mourn the past, not to worry about the future nor to anticipate troubles but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” 

 

Once I figured that out my face softened and I felt lighter, younger and more ALIVE.  I made a conscious choice from that point to LIVE YOUNG. Why not?  Love to you, Silvia

 

 

OCTOBER 22, 2009:  Today I am thinking of what does it mean to SUCCEED IN LIFE? This has me thinking about ancient Yogic writings like that of the Bhagavad Ghita where it talks about Success saying that “the only real success in life is living with an open, loving heart.”  “It explains the nature of success, emphasizing that all those things that are obtained in the world are transitory and not ultimately success.  If we define success by material stuff we limit ourselves and miss out on life because there is not substitute for peace and love. At the same time it’s not the stuff that’s the problem the problem is the belief that stuff is the solution to the aching soul.” (Judith Lasater, Living Your Yoga)

 

So the question is how do we enjoy our worldly success and yet not identify with it.  How do we make healthy choices that are not “only” influenced by our material desires from our head but also from our hearts?  On the mat the yoga is our teacher revealing our mental habits.  Do we try to “acquire” as many poses as possible like new shoes? Do we get more enamored with a fancy pose, like a fancy car or can we be really happy with the specialness of fundamental poses?  As you make choices in the poses you can judge for yourself your own decision making process and how it applies off the mat. 

 

Carlos Casteneda in his book The Teachings of Don Juan offers a great suggestion for considering what choices to make. To me this is speaking to the heart of the yogic definition of success.  “You must always keep in mind that a PATH is only a path; if you feel you must not follow it, you must not stay with it under any circumstances…any path is only a path, there is not affront to yourself or others in dropping it if that is what your head tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.  Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and you alone, One question…it is this…DOES THIS PATH HAVE A HEART?  All paths are the same; they lead nowhere. Does this path have a heart is the question. If it does, then the path is GOOD; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere, but one has heart and the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it you will be one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong, the other weakens you.”

 

Each individual can judge for himself which path has heart for him.  Where paths cross there is union; where they run parallel there is peace, provided that each path loves and honors the other.  Man must be free to make his own mistakes and learn from them what he can. Love is his guide.  Love listens to its own needs.  Society is replete with rules, regulations and guidelines to finding love and social acceptance. Often man is so taken up with what others believe or will think or say, that he stops listening to what HE believes, thinks or says. Love listens to its own needs and appreciates its own uniqueness. It abhors the fact that men are becoming more and more the same, so that it will not be long before the only way he will be identifiable as an individual will be through his social security number.” (Leo Buscaglia)

 

How easily do we share our energies in class with fellow students, sharing in our success in a pose by encouraging everyone else too? Or sharing our ease or the sound of our breath to inspire others breathing?  In the book Love by Leo Buscaglia he talks about sharing like this.  “Love shares with others. What purpose of knowledge if it isn’t offered? What good is love that isn’t freely given? Love is always active sharing. If one has love to give, he may impart it to all the world and he will still have the same love he started with. We never lose anything by sharing it, for nothing is ever solely ours to start with. In fact, love acquires meaning only as it’s shared.”

 

So no matter what we acquire Success is living in a state of such graceful openness we want to share and celebrate that which comes from our hearts!  And the abundance we grow in our hearts comes from choosing those paths with heart.  It’s not about money. Ultimately success is our willingness to enjoy life and life in balance and love.  Or as Judith Lasater says “ LOVE, NOT WEALTH, IS SUCCESS. A big embrace to you all! Silvia

 

OCTOBER 20, 2009:  “You can’t run after contentment it has to find you, all you can do is try to create the space for it. Pay attention to what you can let go of” to create that space. What I think Judith Lasater is talking about as is interpreted by the Yoga Sutras is to drop our heavy expectations. You know those expectations that weigh us down because they are so unrealistic and not even about what we personally want. What is our own truth. 

 

So you guys we can begin right now paying attention to our own enjoyment or CAPACITY to enjoy life:  The Yoga Sutras say “enjoyment is the sweetness of noticing your life right now – smell, taste, feeling, sensation”  What do you want that is meaningful to you?  Well ok then can you simply put that out there as a gentle intention allowing it to come to you instead of pulling at it. Also can you receive it if when it does find you it doesn’t exactly look like what you expected?

 

I put out to the universe what I wanted in my life a little over a year ago.  I thought I was ready to receive it no matter what especially since I consider myself pretty open-hearted and open-minded. But then when what I dreamed was finally offered to me I had that initial moment of “hey that’s not exactly as I wanted it because there is too much distance and some aura of complexity involved.” Come on! But the thing is I’ve learned it is exactly in the way I needed to receive it.  The universe totally knew what was best for me and delivered to me the situation that was the healthiest. And I’ve never been happier.  If I had turned my back on what was right in front of me because it didn’t totally match my strict expectations I would have missed out on maybe the best experience of my life.  How sad would that have been?  And how often have you done that?

 

Equally we learn what letting go of expectations is not:  which Sean Corne says so well, “Well what it isn’t is trying to rewrite the past, we can learn something (even from those that have hurt you or things that didn’t go the way you wanted them to) and move on.”  So today really use the practice to quiet your mind by paying attention to what extremes of your expectations you can let go of.  And most importantly can you try to release your mind from constantly wanting your situation to be different.  There is no reason to make war with what you feel, see or experience.  You have the freedom to open your heart to what you might be missing by relaxing some of the armor like expectations that can form around you

 

In closing here is one of my favorites quotes from the book Immunity to Change is “Happiness is really freedom from unhappiness.”  So join me in softening our expectations so we can find the:

·         Freedom to be happier than ever before

·         Freedom to try new things

·         Freedom to meet new people

·         Freedom to make happy failures

·         Freedom to not play it all so safe

·         Freedom to do the unexpected

·         Freedom to just see what happens

 

Love to you all, Silvia

OCTOBER 11, 2009: Play the edge, play life to win your life, don’t stand back.  As Steve Jobs says, “Stop worrying about whether or not you look foolish to your neighbors or friends or family members.  We only have one chance each day to live out this moment.  So don’t settle, stay hungry, stay foolish.”  Ok you guys that in a nutshell is what Yoga has taught me. 

 

We have only this one chance to win at our own lives so why wouldn’t we wake up to this sooner rather than later?  Engage some of what the yogis call Tapas and take action making happiness and enjoyment of our lives the most important not for when we retire or have more money or kids are older but right now.  Why wait? The edge is that which reminds us we are breathing right now into the best moment possible for it’s the only one we know of for sure exists. That’s how it works, one breath at a time.  "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

 

If you think about looking back at your life what will you regret? Trying more or trying less?  I can assure you none of us will be patting ourselves on the back for staying afraid, averse to risk, playing it safe, aspiring to mediocrity.  I mean think about it you simply can’t see what’s on the other side if you don’t walk up to the edge and peer over.  And if you don’t feel anything what’s the use of living a half life comfortably numb counting the days for it to be over? 

 

So starting today, don’t just wait for it to be over.  DON’T SETTLE. STAY FOOLISH.  Big love, Silvia 

 

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. DON’T SETTLE.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:  No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

 

OCTOBER 10, 2009:  Today law of attraction: positive attracts positive. So no matter what the world is offering it is our choice to be happy. Sally Kempton says, "It is actually possible to feel happy regardless of how the world is treating you, or how horrible your childhood was or the fact that all your friends are more successful than you are, you can beven be happy when you’re failing something or when you’re sick.”

 

You see we create the world in our 60,000 thoughts per day. The world isn’t created out there and then experienced within it is experienced from the inside out.  Einstein talks about the most important decision we make is whether we see the world as friendly or hostile. If you expect the worst you will attract that energy. If you have a positive expectation then positivity draws more things that are positive.  So you choose!  Love the day, Silvia

 

“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”  - John Milton in Paradise Lost

 

September 24, 2009:  This week we've been focusing on Mantra meditation in celebration of the Fall Equinox which offers us a highly opportune time to Release the old, Reflect on what we want and Receive support from the universe to welcome the new chapter of our lives.  It's been my experience that as much as we are all seeking to love others and be loved actually allowing ourselves to Receive has a learning curve.  Just like happiness is a learning curve.

 

Monday we focused on the Mantra "I Am Ready for Change" really letting go of the old stories, wounds, hurts, worries, fear of this last part of our lives.  We also worked on saying to ourselves early in the week “I Am Grounded in Acceptance” based around this contemplation of whether we are running away from our life or can we find the courage to face our difficulties and joys with equal acceptance.  Only once we accept can we really do the work of creating. We continued the week with the Affirmation "I Create My Reality" where it was time to be honest with ourselves and Reflect on what we truly want in our lives and which direction we wish to go next. 

 

Today our affirmation is "I Attract Amazing People." This represents our ability to receive support and love from other people as we allow ourselves to evolve towards greater experiences of happiness. And I assure you we are readier than we ever have been to receive and be happy.  I know this and more importantly you know this because in class when we breath more deeply into ourselves it feels wonderful! You guys, this reflects our willingness to breath in life, to be more conscious, more present, more receptive.

 

So today, just say to yourself I Attract Amazing People and do that for the next week as we transition into Fall, see what happens when you wholeheartedly welcome joy, love and happiness into your life!

 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining me on the mat on Thursday's. Love to you all!  Silvia

 

 (PS I welcome your stories of how this affirmation made a difference!)

 

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009:   It has been my personal experience that when we grow up under the paradigm that we are "born imperfect, flawed" then we create this mistaken belief that we must earn happiness.  That we have to do, achieve, complete something (everything) before we can BE happy.  The doing of stuff comes before the being happy. We can convince ourselves this just means we have a strong work ethic or we are really helpful to our friends. But it doesn't matter because happiness becomes a by product of our effort.  It is essentially saying that we don't deserve happiness unless we can prove we are worthy of it.

This makes happiness unnatural, and certainly not democratic (only for the elite that can work themselves to death).  It is really saying that we have to EARN happiness just like a PAYCHECK.  No pain no gain mentality.  The biggest application is that we have to postpone being happy until we've put in 60+ years or working and can retire...then we finally have proven our value and can get the reward of happiness. 

HAPPINESS IS NOT A PAYCHECK. 

Once the reality of this sinks in, your life is transformed forever!  May you be happy as you want to be, as happy as you are!  Love and light, Silvia

 

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009: 

SEPTEMBER 12, 2009:   What is anxiety?  Doctors say it is sadness or fear.  So how do you disappear it? 

 

Well through my practice what anxiety feels like to me is going to pieces.  The remedy has been reconnecting to my center so that I can again find Peace. Peace is bringing the pieces back together.  Now for a long time I looked outside myself for the answer to anxiety. After I was attacked over 15 years ago I suffered from anxiety attacks, panic attacks and I was afraid of everything. I felt like I was going to pieces. I lost my center and this is no way to live.

 

I would have paid any amount of money, done anything, gone anywhere to find a relief. But through yoga this last 15 years I discovered no one can relieve anxiety for us.  Peace is the opposite of anxiety. And we ourselves have peace within us at all times.  This seems almost impossible to believe at first because the last thing you want to do is sit with yourself when anxious. 

 

In yoga we can go into the quiet of our own stillness and healing, facing the fear of anxiety. Or it will overtake us.  Anxiety is only the surface of the mind, we must go deeper through our tissues, into our heart and we DISAPPEAR IT FROM THE INSIDE OUT.  We can vanish it like light being shed in a dark room.  In yogic terms Asmita are the outer layers that we remove to reveal the inner wisdom from our heart. 

 

Anxiety is of the head

Peace is of the heart

 

There is no greater expression of happiness than peace.

 

I am here to say that if I can do this you can too.  Your life is a work of art waiting to reveal itself!  “In yoga we are both the masterpiece and the artist painstakingly working to uncover the hidden work of art that is within all of us.” (Secret Power of Yoga book)  If you are experiencing anxiety in your life please give this practice a chance to help you look within to pull back to your center.  May you peaceful, may all beings everywhere be peaceful and FREE!  Love you, Silvia

SEPTEMBER 5, 2009:    Om is the Name of Narayana, the flame of truth.”

 

OM NAMO NARAYANAYA

 

This mantra is said to take the sayer to sublime spiritual realms where spiritual questions are answered and great TRUTHS are revealed.  The word for truth in Sanskrit is Satya.  In India the even hold a universal truth ceremony called Satya Narayana Puja.” (Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashely-Farrand)

 

We started class in seated meditation and I sang this mantra so we could all feel the vibration and set the tone for using the practice to delve deeper into revealing our unique truths. I know this concept is not “new” to you.  I too grew up with the idea of honesty. But the way I learned it was fear based this presentation of Don’t Lie or you will get into terrible trouble, no one will like you and you will be sent to a horrible place. As a kid this gave me nightmares and I can tell you I was a very good kid but I didn’t really need to be scared into embracing honesty.

 

So as an adult in my more mature spiritual practice I often dedicate my meditation to the basic TRUTH of my life.  I sit and attempt to “get real” with myself.  It started years ago with just the question “what is real” as I tried to figure out where in my life I might downplay things or where I might overexaggerate stuff.  Through this observation I found the middle path, the truth.  And each day along this path I say to myself “I AM STILL LEARNING” these are the words Michelengelo spoke at the age of 87 and my friend Liz gave me to wear as a bracelet on my left wrist, the receiving side of the body.    

 

This idea of still learning has helped me hold myself more gently.  It has allowed me to be more honest about who I am, what I need, what I feel. It helps me to look at old mistakes, times of self-neglect and even old hurts so I can move forward more honestly but always with love and more love.  Fearful intentions don’t work for me.

 

Spiritual Truth:  TRUE HAPPINESS REQUIRES HONEST SELF-REFLECTION. THE MORE HONEST YOU ARE WITH YOURSELF, THE GREATER HAPPINESS YOU WILL EXPERIENCE.

 

A great exercise I offer you from Robert Holden who wrote Be Happy is this:

 

1. Self-Awareness. You will always feel like something is missing, you will always feel inadequate until you learn to know yourself better.  Life isn’t about getting more it is about being more of who you really are.  Authenticity is the perfect antidote to split desires and to negative comparison. And the more real you are with yourself, the more you will realize what you really want.  This is important because as Eric Hoffer put it “You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.”
2. Self-Acceptance.  For as long as you do not accept yourself, you will always want more than you have.  If you will not accept that happiness is your true nature, you will search for happiness for the rest of your days.  And if by chance you discover some happiness, you will not let yourself enjoy it unless you have learned to accept yourself.  The fact is, more of anything or everything will not be enough until you choose to be happy. 
3. Self-Accountability.  If you think something is missing from your life, it is probably you.  The idea that something is missing in your life, in your relationships, in your work is a projection. This projection is based on the fact that you are not fully present.  True happiness requires you to participate fully in your life now.  Do a self-inventory based on three questions:

1.)     What am I not being?

2.)     What am I not giving?

3.)     What am I not receiving?

 

 So today my dear friends please take time to reflect on your own truth and through this may you find the greatest happiness within your heart! Let’s imagine a world where everyone is living as themselves and that world is bright with no more war or conflict just pure truth and love.  Sat Nam (in truth and light), Silvia

 

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009:  Namaskaram Yogi Friends,

What a great practice today!  For bringing your best self I thank you.  As you know we focused on Om Namah Shivaya.  I shared the story of how last week I brought a friend to their first Kirtan. Om Namah Shivaya was their favorite song.  So this inspired me to share more with you today, starting by singing out 108 rounds of this mantra. 

Om Namah Shivaya mantra uses the universal elements that govern each chakra: earth, water, fire, air, and ether. 

 

That’s all the chakras are: just the elements that you know exist rolled up into various energies of our bodies.  The syllables of Na, Ma, Shi, Va, Ya help the chakras to better utilize the fundamental elements that predominate in the chakra.  When we sing, hear or think this mantra we bring into balance all the chakras, all our energies.

 

This mantra also reminds us of our innate Perfection.  That we are born perfect (siddha) and whole.  And our only job in this lifetime is to remember how AMAZING WE ARE!  The thing is, you have always been perfect and what you are experiencing through your journey is the removal of all the external layers you’ve carried for a long time known as kleshas.

 

This brings us back to our true nature, which is JOY.  Even Abraham Lincoln says “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  If this knowing comes from a man known for his dark depression then I am sure we can all find a way to understand this about ourselves.  Carl Jung once said, “your vision will become clear only when you can look into your heart.”  So Om Namah Shivaya brings us back to our selves, we actually remember better how happy we are on the inside in spite of the challenges that might surround us.  Put another way by great Indian Philosopher Pantanjali, “When you are inspired, all your thoughts break their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” 

 

All I am asking each of you to do is believe in your own GREATNESS and capacity for ever increasing happiness.  Leo Buscaglia writes in his book Loving Each Other “Joy and happiness are simply states of mind, it is strange that some of the happiest people I have ever known were those who seemed to have no particular cause to rejoice.  They were simply happy.  They seemed to have in common a singular courage, a willingness to risk, to fail and to let go, a believe in themselves, a wonderful resourcefulness, and a trust in their creative uniqueness.” 

 

Be your best self today, OM NAMAH SHIVAYA!!  Big love, Silvia

 

AUGUST 18, 2009:  I remember as a little girl loving the story of Sleeping beauty.  I wasn’t so into Snow White, that story freaked me out. And Goldilocks was too much unlike me so I couldn’t relate. But Sleeping Beauty, I understood.  Now I tried living my life literally to this story, waiting for my prince to come, to get married and have all my problems solved.  That didn’t work out so great.  The prince was there but problems remained or grew worse.  So for me the practice of yoga taught me that there is no prince (as in another person coming to make us happy, saved, peaceful, etc). We are the lover and the beloved in yoga. We use the poses to and breath to wake up our sleeping limbs and awareness. 

Yoga kisses us awake one way or the other.

 

Stephen Levine in the book Be Happy puts it like this:  “Most of us live life half unborn”  It is an in your face way to phrase this concept of what we call in the yoga sutras “remembering the self” Vairagya (Chapter 1.15 for reference).  Remembering is waking up to who we really are and how we want to live our lives.  And quite frankly you have to ask yourself don’t you want to complete your birth before this ride is over?  As Gabrielle Roth writes about in the book Sweat Your Prayers we are giving birth to ourselves.  YESSS! To see some folks that are totally awake check out this clip that inspired me today:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpacvA_ZQQc 

• So right now in this moment what will it take to free up your life? 
• On a scale of 1-10 how resistance are you to life? 
• Are you afraid of what others will think of you if you start to live life on your terms? 
• Are you afraid of being happy?

Well it is not too late, as long as we are breathing to begin to remember it can be better.  Even the Buddha said, “it doesn’t matter how long you have forgotten only how soon you remember.”  And for how much you’ve forgotten well let the poses tell you that.  As it says on page 26 in the book Secret Power of Yoga (a translation of the Yoga Sutras, “We are all in a constant state of grace, yet how often do we remember?”

Starting today let’s be more awake to every moment.  You have the power to change your life!  Love yourself, your life, you day! Silvia

 

AUGUST 15th, 2009: 

“Happiness Prayer”  (From the book Be Happy by Robert Holden)

Dear God,

So far today I’ve done all right.

I haven’t gossiped.  I haven’t lost my temper.

I haven’t been greedy, moody, nasty, selfish or narcissistic.

And I’m really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed,

And from then on I’m going to need a lot more help.

Thank you.

Amen

We have another 24 brand new hours before us says Thich Nhat Hanh!  And again a choice to choose happiness.  The more you choose happiness the more you see the potential for happiness that is all around you.  You find happiness because you choose happiness.  Emerson said words to the effect that everyday when we make our bed we have a choice to make up our minds about the kind of day we’re going to have. 

 

Yes, in every moment there is a choice, sometimes our choice is to choose happiness other times our choices block happiness. The good news is that the more you choose happiness the easier it gets.  But how?

 

BE PRESENT

 

Could it be that easy?  Yesssss!  Begin now by asking yourself:  How can I enjoy this moment?

The more you are wiling to enjoy the moment the more beautiful each moment of your life will be.  Essentially you are choosing life. And Jon Kabat Zinn says that the more you say yes to life, the more life will say yes to you!  And if you think about it life only happens one little moment at a time. So put yourself into the smallest things you do.

 

The bigger goal is simply to SHOW UP and BE PRESENT.  Be authentic.  Be you! (Or as Russell Simmons puts it in the title of his yoga inspired book “DO YOU”)

 

So starting in this moment remember to enjoy the miracle of existence today, appreciate your breath and in that breath choose happiness.  Love you all, Silvia

 

AUGUST 14, 2009:  The skills of abundance and resentment are mutually exclusive.  You must choose one or the other. You cannot have both.  You can either be angry, seeing life as lacking or you can choose to see how plentiful are the good things you have to be grateful for.  We are never going to run out of happiness.  There is no finite amount.  So we can wish everyone happiness.  In the book Be Happy it says, "When you wish happiness for another, You wish happiness for all, And you wish it for yourself."  This is at the heart of one of my favorite chant/meditations:

 

Lokaha Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu! (translation below)
May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and freedom for all!

 

So essentially it is as Einstein asks us, “Is the universe friendly?”  How would you respond?  Do you see life as happening to you or for you.  On a regular basis do you talk about life being against you or for you?  And the most wonderful thing is that even if you are happy right now you can still be 100% more happy! Or if that seems like just too much to embrace what about playing the 10% game as suggested in this same book by the author?  Try it, you’ll love it!  Enjoy, Silvia

 

10% GAME:  ASK YOURSELF IF YOU CAN BE…

10 Percent More Accepting

“Today I will be 10% more accepting of myself of others and of my life”

 

10 Percent More Receptive

“Today I will be 10% better at receiving help, love and support from others”

 

10 Percent More Honest

“Today I will be 10% more honest with myself and with others”

 

10 Percent More Authentic

“Today I will be 10% less edited and 10% more real”

 

10 Percent More Trusting

“Today I will be 10% better at recognizing how life supports me”

 

10 Percent More Grateful

“Today I will be 10% more grateful for everything that is happening my life right now”

 

10 Percent More Open

“Today I will be 10% more openhearted”

 

10 Percent More Present

“Today I will be 10% more open to the idea that I really am in the right place at the right time”

 

AUGUST 12TH, 2009: 

How do you know if you are happy?  And if happy what makes you happy?  When’s the last time you had a conversation with a friend or family member about happiness? Hmmm, I know interesting huh?

In Yoga the practice of self-study is known as Svadhyaya it is one of the Niyamas or fundamental philosophical tenants of the practice.  How this applies as we breath and move is through the relationship we have with each pose.  Just like we can observe how we relate to people in our lives (past and present) because every relationship has a purpose. All of this to help us better feel our TRUTH so that when chaos surrounds us we are able to remain grounded 

 

HAPPINESS IS THE WILLINGNESS TO CHOOSE THE TRUTH

 

I have a lot of books on happiness, my newest one I love is “Be Happy” by Robert Holden.  So during the course of the practice today I offered for your contemplation questions related to Happiness and our Mothering/Fathering Influences.  The right side is the solar or masculine side, the left side of us is the feminine or lunar.  So we played this out between right, left all in a practice to arrive better to the TRUTH of our center and learn more about ourselves.

 

So think about this:

 

·         Your relationship to happiness is influenced greatly by your family’s story about happiness

·         Your family story is about how your family expresses its joy

·         What is your mother’s definition of happiness?  What is your fathers definition of happiness

·         How does your mother’s definition of happiness influence your life?  How does your fathering influence impact your life?

·         When is your father happiest? 

·         When is your mother happiest? 

·         Growing up what did your mom (or mothering influence) teach you about happiness? 

·         What did your father teach you about happiness?

·         Who is the happiest member of your family?

·         Who is the unhappiest member of your family?

 

I hold dear this from Robert Holden, “The joy of relationship is found in deep acceptance, in unconditional love, in really seeing each other, in valuing each other, in offering mutual support, in showing appreciation, and in giving trust. Happiness is found in loving the truth in people.”  Observe your TRUTH and you change your life.  Love the day, the night, your life, yourself!  Silvia

 

AUGUST 2, 2009:  How we THINK about ourselves, our world and other people is more important to our happiness than the circumstances of our lives.  The Yoga Sutras put it like this, “what we are looking for in everything is JOY. But joy is within you. Look for it in your own heart.”  So turn your eyes around and look inside right now and let yourself be as happy as you want to be. REMEMBER JOY IS WITHIN.  HAPPINESS IS NOW.

 

Now I clearly remember the first time I heard this teaching.  I didn’t understand it.  I thought happiness was based on getting good grades, getting engaged, getting married, getting promoted, getting more money, getting new house, bigger house, etc.  I was in a constant state of acquisition that felt like I was treading water using up all my energy to get more stuff rather than celebrating life in the moment. 

 

Another way to think about this is what the yogis called bliss-counsciousness.  That when we wake up and start celebrating our lives we find that inside each of us exists unlimited potential for love, truth, compassion, joy and courage.  We create our own reality and all we have to do is celebrate life! 

 

 “The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”  John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost

 

Time on the mat is where we have the opportunity to recognize our capacity for happiness. This is really the first step in yoga. It reminds us that the universe intended for us to have a joyous experience on this earth right now, no waiting and without any prerequisites to be met. So today may you feel the shakti power of being present to the happiness inside you that is then reflected in being awake to the many blessings in your life in your external world. Or as Rumi says, "hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you." 

 

And what if you aren’t feeling this inner ecstasy?  Then practice Gratitude.  For gratitude is the antidote to negative emotions a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry and irritation.  The world’s most prominent researcher and writer about gratitude Robert Emmons, defines it as “a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness and appreciation for life.”  He’s saying celebrate your life regardless of what challenges you face.  Sally Kempton puts it like this, “It is actually possible to feel happy regardless of how the world is treating you, or how horrible your childhood was or the fact that all your friends are more successful than you are, you can even be happy when you’re failing something or when you’re sick.” 

 

So join me on the mat to awaken and illuminate the joy within your heart.  Celebrate and heal your life and you change the world!  Love the day! Silvia

 

 

HAPPINESS MEDITATION:

Close your eyes and remember a time when you felt really happy. Then take yourself into that moment, see if you can get a feeling sense of yourself in the situation. Stick with it until you actually feel happiness, then remove the details or memory of the scene and just keep the feeling. Find the place in your body where the feeling is centered then let it fill you up.  Sit with this feeling of happiness. See if you can hold it. See if for this moment you can let the happiness beocme your primary feeling. This is a glimpse, however small of your TRUE reality.   (This meditation is from old issue of Yoga Journal Magazine)

 

JULY 28th, 2009:

I wonder to myself today, What Does Happiness Look Like? 

Does a person look like a living smiley face t-shirt?  Is the face of happiness curiosity?  Does happiness look like enthusiasm for learning?  Does someone have to be outwardly cheerful or could they be quiet and gentle or both?

 

What do you think?

 

Bottom line we have all been programmed by our life experience to think about what happiness looks like.  The practice of spiritual awakening means we are alert to our own ideas and where they are faulty and where they are true.  What blocks our happiness are our own mistaken beliefs about what happiness is or isn’t.  Things like: (1) happiness being out there in the future when really it’s right now; (2) happiness comes if we change our situation or the people around us, nope we can waste all our energy trying to rearrange the world but what makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you but what you think inside your head, happiness is an “inside job”; (3) the belief that if everything we want, all our desires are fulfilled then we’ll be happy when in reality happiness based on anything external (a piece of chocolate, a desired weight, getting a raise) even if experienced will only offer a flash of emotion but that is not the same as happiness since it comes from how we think about what we have.

 

So this means that more is not better.  To be happy is deep work not surface stuff. 

 

So if we wish to attain lasting happiness we have to be ready to drop our false beliefs like stuff above that we see as facts.  Then we will move out of the darkness and away from our fear.  Our greatest fear being that many of us are actually afraid to be happy.  What happens then if everything you want you realize you have?  Anthony De Mello says, “Actually there is not a single moment in our life when we do not have everything that we need to be happy.”

 

The yoga sutras and spiritual study all say the same thing.  Check out a favorite book The How of Happiness to learn more.  Love you, lover yourself, Silvia

JULY 22ND, 2009: 

Let go of it all. Just remain in the center

Watching, and then forget you are there.” 

-Baba Hari Dass

 

I’ve been meditating on what it means to be “centered” and as much as I often think about this in terms of finding one’s center for me its become more a matter of keeping to my center.  When I first started yoga I didn’t quite know what it meant to be centered quite frankly I hadn’t ever even thought about it. I just got on the treadmill of life and just kept pushing myself to achieve and move on from stage one to stage two, excellence in High School, transferred into excellence in College and then trying to keep this going in the corporate world as well.  I was just going going going, almost like I was running around center but never pausing long enough to really be there.  Asleep or working a million hours per week (or playing hard) were the only two speeds I knew. 

 

Then through yoga and quiet time of self observation (svadhaya) on the mat I started “To Know Thyself” as Socrates put it.

 

It started as all spiritual practice does, not looking for answers but simply trying to ask better questions.  So I ask you take 3 minutes write down what does CENTERED mean to you?  To me it means balance, peace, happiness, a oneness with others instead of a tug of war, compassion, patience and most of all BEING PRESENT.

 

It is that “isness” of now that Echkart Tolle writes of in A New Earth.  Or in the Yoga Sutras the hope for all beings to find and hold happiness knowing this is only possible in the moment.  So meditate on the words of Jack Kerouac:

 

Not with thoughts of your mind, but in the believing

sweetness of your heart, you snap the link and open the

golden door and disappear into the bright room, the

Everlasting ecstasy, eternal Now.” 

 

Take time on the mat to be here now, to find and hold onto your center that place of sweetness where we feel the sacredness of living in oneness, one family, one heart, one love, one soul all in the light of center.  Hold fast my friends and keep making those sensitive adjustments to keep returning to center moment by moment.  Love you all! Silvia

 

JULY 16th, 2009:  The very first principle is opening to grace.  We invoke the idea of expansion – to be alive in joy!  The beating of our hearts reminds us that there is this constant opening and contracting pulsation.  The yoga teaches us to wake up to this pulse.  "…you can live a whole lifetime, without ever being awake" —Way of the Peaceful Warrior

 

The door of happiness does not open away from us:

We cannot rush at it to push it open.

It opens toward us and,

Therefore, nothing is required of us.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) Denmark

 

I found yoga intriguing because it was like this.  It was unconditional love. None of us have to meet any pre-requisites to practice. We just show up ready to expand.  We open to grace and see that the door of happiness is constantly opening toward us. I shared in class a story of a student I had with a frozen shoulder as they lacked trust in others, in life, they find themselves in a state of contraction choosing not to open to healing from others.  This only worsened a condition that if they had allowed the door of happiness to open towards them they would have seen many were standing there to help them.  I want us to learn from that so we can make a better choice. 

 

Fully Alive By Dawna Markova USA 20^th century

I will not die an unlived life

I will not live in fear

of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid, more accessible,

to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom

and that which came to be as blossom goes on as fruit.

 

Are you choosing to see the open doors available to you? Or do you look around your life and see yourself as a victim of the universe attracting further drama?  Do you have an addiction to the closed doors which represents itself in life as inability to re-regulate?  Let go of dramas of your life of the hurt feelings.  Forgive and begin again to see the doors opening towards you!  You see the thing is this is nothing we have to seek out.  The door of life and love is always opening towards us.  Love you all, Silvia

 

 

JULY 3, 2009:  At the beginning of July I’ve always had this feeling of making a fresh start or new beginning - like we are on the threshold of something greater.  Maybe I feel like this because it is my birth month and our birthday’s are like our own new year’s eve or maybe because we’re exactly halfway through the year.  I’m not sure really.  I just know that I intuitively want to think about the choices I’m making.  I use this time to face my fears and celebrate my accomplishments.  In the Alchemist it says “It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the master work.  Now, I'm beginning what I could have started ten years ago.  But I'm happy at least that I didn't wait twenty years.”  The important part is to begin again, just get started and take a small step.  None of us are being asked to jump off a cliff, this is a practice of millimeters that eventually builds quiet momentum.

 

As you breath and enjoy this holiday weekend make time to set an expectation for your life this next half of the year.  Are you on the right path so far?  And whatever you decide just know we are all evolving in the direction of happiness. It is our right.  Freedom and the pursuit of happiness is your destiny!  It is like what’s written in the Alchemist, “Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”  And when you need time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go join me on the mat where you’ll always discover you have the power, the heart and the energy to achieve anything you want!  Love the day, love your life! Silvia

 

JUNE 15TH, 2009:  In Tuscany I felt this great sigh of relief, delight, joy and peace all at the same time.  From this ahhh feeling I focused my intention on learning or relearning the art of enjoyment. Now I thought I was pretty good at it already but being there showed me I still have a long way to go on my Masters degree in Pleasure. Just like yoga, practice helps. I found bliss in celebrating simple but amazing meals without hurry. I became more present to the quiet beautiful moments: I joined others as we applauded the rising of the moon at night. And isn't this what life is all about? (Read guest blogger Chance's views on Being Present below). 

 

Now you should know my Father was born in Italy so I know firsthand that the Italian people have a deep respect for the philosophy of enjoyment. This is the idea of IL BEL FAI NIENTE which means "the beauty of doing nothing."  Remember this passage from Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love "Generally speaking, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.  Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.  Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused but that's not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment.  Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today.  Of course we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure.) Americans don't really know how to do nothing. 

 

But against the backdrop of hard work, il bel fai niente, has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. You don't necessarily have to be rich in order to experience this, either.  Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich."

 

So ask yourself how do you define pleasure? Enjoyment? Joy?  Are you living life “self-specific” or still making everyone elses opinions more important than your own?  For when you live life on your terms you find the flow. You step into the currents of grace.  Rumi says, “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”  For many of us Savasana is that first experience of il bel fai niente.  It is as Sarah Powers described her first savasana, “naptime, that she experienced an unusual peace, which she pinpointed to an absence of longing, it was clarity with joy underneath, and she decided she had to come back to yoga, that it would be hard but hard didn’t mean bad.”  So I hope you join me on the mat to find the clarity of heart that will move your spirit to enjoying your life more!  Love in all ways, Silvia

 

 

May 28, 2009:

 

Dear Friends in the Flow,

 

Have you ever thought about it?  I have. 

Will practicing Yoga make you rich?

 

And if yoga as is written in ancient texts shows us how “Living from your authentic truth releases your vital energy in the world so you are the fertile expression of yourSelf - not an illusion - which has no real energy to grow.”

 

Well then will HAPPINESS MAKE YOU RICH?

Think about it if you are happier then you are more creative and productive at work, at home, in life.  And the feedback loop works pretty well here, there is a causal relationship between how happy we are at home with how we perform in our work place.  And if something is out of sync we get in our own way. Spiritual practice teaches us that Life is always evolving in the direction of happiness if we can learn how to stop sabotaging ourselves.  Yoga provides us that opportunity to REBOOT.  We get on the mat to cleanse the mind so we can see more clearly and be the most fertile expression of ourselves in the world.  Through this practice energy slumps or stuckness or stagnation is cleared and the flow of more creative loving energy expands.  When we are our happiest our energy flows and abundance in the form of currency, love, and peace increase. 

 

So tonight surround yourself with positive vibration, meet other friends in the flow and as John de Kadt from his CD “This Rhythm is Not Mine” sings “Feet fingers tapping toes...move your bones where the rhythm goes...dance your dreams...discover what your body knows"  Join me this evening at 7:30pm Level 1, let’s all Get Rich in Love and Life!  Yours with blessings, Silvia

 

 

  

MAY 23, 2009: 

At times I have felt defeated by life.

All I ever wanted was to be peaceful, happy and free.  But I had this idea even with spiritual seeking “let me figure it all out then I’ll practice it.”  But that’s not the way it works.  We are not going to get all the answers we seek about the challenges of life.  This procrastination could be applied to any part of our lives. Today I am examining it in relation to happiness.  So here’s the thing, if we think something has to happen before we can be happier then we’re always waiting to be happy as opposed to being happy right now.  If you fool yourself to believe that you have to understand all the reasons for WHY you are not happy you get stuck in the unhappiness.  There is something to be said for forgive and move on from past to present. 

Stop procrastinating the time you have by coming up with reasons not to be happy.  This is not only self-defeating to you but does a disservice to the world, to your family, to your community, to fellow human beings.

So learn from my trials and errors:  Don’t lose any more time trying to figure out or solve the mystery of unhappiness just live more right now.  How?  First thing, just feel more. Anything – sadness, anger, love, joy, frustration.  All of it.  The more you feel the less you fight against the feeling and the greater the capacity to accept yourself.  So this is the second thing, love yourself as you are without apology.  Please stop putting prerequisites on your own acceptance (if I lose 10 pounds, get a new job, finish a marathon, etc).  Spiritual growth is not about self-improvement otherwise as we all know we’ll never be good enough (just like we’re never quite done with the work on improving our homes). Instead spiritual maturity is unconditional love towards our lives as they are offered. 

I used to be a destination junky.  Then I read Jon Kabat Zinn’s book titled ‘Wherever you go there you are”.  I woke up to the fact that waiting to be happy until I was somewhere far away never really worked.  I still had me and how I felt about me no matter how exotic the location or distance from my office.  I had to face myself honestly and say, “I am hungry for love.”  Just as Mother Teresa spoke, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”  I felt that hunger. 

The hunger cannot be quenched by buying stuff, or by other people loving you, or going to cool places it has to be some internal shift of self-recognition that moves us to self-acceptance.  As soon as I started loving myself I wasn’t starving anymore.  I knew I had plenty.  That was the first day I made a commitment to my own healing.

So I ask you, how much do you want to live a healing lifestyle?  Only you can make the choice to choose love and happiness moment by moment.

Of course in my heart I want you all to find that this practice saves your life TODAY as it does mine daily. I want you to love yourself more and in turn feel how loved you are by the universe herself.  As Sutra 11.42 reads “when at peace and content with oneself and others (santosha) supreme joy is celebrated.” You hold the key to your own happiness.  Question is do you have the courage to take time today without delay to fall in love with yourself more deeply. Are you ready to celebrate?   You are everything, you have all you need to be happy.  Let’s not waste another moment!  Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

MAY 14TH, 2009: When you think about it doing what feels good should be pretty easy.  Two of my friends at dinner last night were sharing stories of their kids: 1) her son was on stage in second grade and front and center put his hands down his pants until he caught his Mom’s eye and realized I probably shouldn’t do that here. But he had a point, it felt good to him so why resist. 2) Another friend’s daughter as a tiny tot at dance recitals liked to lift her dress all the way up over her head. No fear, no doubt, just felt good to do it so why resist. 

Yet as adults if feeling good is natural then why do we stay in hurtful relationships, jobs we hate, drive commutes that make us nuts, live where we don’t like the weather, edit who we really are for the sake of our neighbors?  Why do we resist life’s natural inclination to move us towards happiness?

Can you imagine the energy you’d have if you stopped resisting life and lived without apology, without any embarrassment whatsoever?  So when you come to the yoga mat I urge you to stop over thinking and begin feeling more.  For if we are to live more authentic lives and begin to realize how Futile Resistance really is it has to happen from the inside out.  Have the courage to acknowledge the person standing in our way is ourselves. 

 

A friend recently gave me the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield and the author starts off by talking about those activities that elicit Resistance including but not limited to: “Any health regimen; any program of spiritual advancement; any program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit; Any act of ethical courage – including the decision to change for the better some unworthy patter of thought or conduct in ourselves; any act that entails commitment of the heart.” Well, if you look at the list that’s pretty much what yoga touches upon in every class. 

 

So for me the question is then what is resistance?  Sadie Nardini writes “Resistance happens any time we stand in the way of our own forward momentum. We block ourselves from real happiness, love and fulfillment in countless ways.  There are the obvious ones, such as self-doubt, but also the more covert, including procrastinating, rationalizing and engaging in drama.  Resistance is the destroyer of dreams. And we must weaken its power over us or it will paralyze us.” 

 

How do we address our resistance?  It is the first principle of Anusara yoga, to open to grace.  We soften, we say Yes, we expand into the flow of love.  Otherwise when we resist or fight life we stop ourselves from LOVE, we stop the flow of all good things coming into our lives and instead build up walls.  This spiritual practice takes down the walls so we can align again with love.  Through love each and every one of us has the power to TRIUMPH over resistance!

 

What is resistance?

Pressfield says its invisible yet it has the power to distract us, prevent us from doing our life’s work. He calls it the enemy within. You know the one that is obsessive, constantly worried, filled with anxiety, overthinking. It is fueled by fear and we feed it the more afraid we are of admitting our fears. I believe it is most often fear of being really happy that is at the heart of resistance – at least this is what I’ve found in my life.  Ask yourself, if everything you ever wanted came true tomorrow, how would your life be different?  How would you live?  Resistance is felt as UNHAPPINESS. This is why it is the enemy of love. If you are honest with yourself are you standing in your own way today of being happier, more peaceful more in love with life? 

 

To overcome resistance in the body we have to stop forcing, fighting or holding ourselves back.  Instead practice from softness, desire, gentle courage and resistance is futile in the face of you Being Love, Being Beauty, Being Happy! What am I suggesting?  At a minimum I am promoting you get RADICAL! That you start a revolution from inside to overthrow the invader of resistance because it is NOT YOU.  Will this be scary? Yes. Is that reason enough not to do it? You have to decide the life you want to live. For me the answer is easy, I want to be peaceful.  And by facing what scares me I am starting a revolution I’d like you to join within yourself.  Love to you all, Silvia

 

MAY 12, 2009:  I had this illuminating conversation with an old returning client this morning.  They had been away from yoga for 6 months and were coming back today to take one class.  I bow to their quiet courage to begin again. The first step towards changing your life is the most difficult. I know this.

 

At the same time you guys I asked why not make a bolder decision and see themselves of deserving of one hour per week from this day forward, whether it’s yoga class or a cup of tea or reading a book. From my heart I tried to encourage them to see that they are deserving of at least this I am sure they didn’t believe me (yet).  Because the gosh honest truth is that if you want to STOP THE NOISE in your head and find clarity, more importantly MAINTAIN mental and emotional clarity well you need to make a commitment of more than one hour every 6 months. 

 

It does take courage to change your life.  And no matter how badly I want it for you. You have to do it yourself. You must take action.  This is karma.

 

You must stand up for your rights as Bob & Ziggy Marley sing. If there is anything worth committing to it is your right to be peaceful and happy.  It is your choice.  Rascal Flats in this utube clip below puts it like this, “I hope the day comes easy and the moments pass slow and each road leads you to where you want to go and if you're faced with the choice and you have to choose I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_zi4OxJpY0&feature=related

 

The key thing here is to make the commitment to yourself to turn inside so you can stop all the EXTERNAL NOISE long enough to realize what changes we want, which choices, which roads mean the most to us.  I truly hope we can all find the courage within ourselves to heed the advice of the Yoga Sutras that ask us to observe within our hearts are we  “running away from the life we’re afraid of or are we running towards the changes that bring about the peace and health we want instead.”  STOP THE NOISE, get on the mat. Make healthier choices through your courage to change! Love yourself, Silvia

**Rumi says STOP THE NOISE**

APRIL 29TH, 2009:  I called today’s class DRUNK ON LIFE.  What I mean is “How do we stop trying so hard to control all outcomes and instead appreciate what life is offering.”  To be honest I have not been intoxicated on any sort of external substance for fifteen years.  When I started my spiritual practice I didn’t want it or need other stuff.  Don’t get me wrong, do I enjoy a chilly corona or nice glass of wine? Absolutely! But it means on occasion with awareness.

I don’t need anything more than being high on self-love to feel drunk on life.  Love is my drug.  

Is it easy to continuously self-generate love in what is an often chaotic sometimes mean world?  No it’s not really. But we must.  We have a choice: we can choose hate or we can choose love; we can choose anxiety or we can choose peace; we can deny happiness or we can choose to be happy; we can choose 4 beers or we can choose 1.  We can choose to be drunk on life or give up on seeing ourselves deserving of love.  We can choose to say "ok" is enough or we can choose to say YES! to life.

How do we do this?  Yup that’s always the question right.  Well as Rumi writes, “Sit be still and listen because your drunk.”  We come to the mat to remember to remember we are responsible for loving ourselves first and foremost.  The practice reminds us that we are already DRUNK, we have this amazing potential to be happy every single moment.  We can be in love with life drunk on our human experience WITHOUT external stimulants.  And when we send this message of love to the universe -- it answers back.  It's so simple:  Love life and Life will love you back!  So please join me tonight at 6:15pm.  Let’s get drunk together J  Love your day, Silvia

 

April 14^th, 2009:  My totem recently changed, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the space of surrender. In the practice it is the space of OM.  It is not the ending or the beginning but the space between. This is said to be a sacred space, right before the unknown.  When we come to class, class itself is the space of om. It is in between work and home or doing and being.  Om itself means unlimited, untapped, universal human potential.  We get the opportunity to live in that space between our breaths.

 

Space itself equates to time.  Of which we have ample amounts.  I used to say Time is Big, still like that, but also like the feeling of saying that we have ample time.  So today take your time (on the mat or not) to be inspired.  Ask yourself: “What are my passions” “When am I happiest” :What would make me happier” “What do I really want”

 

In the practice today we breathed in, we breathed out and then we held the breath out in every pose. This helped us to slow down and appreciate what it is we really need to be in order to be in love with our live’s.  As we know from the law of attraction as my friend Sadie Nardini says, “we attract the people to us who reflect the relationships we’re having with ourselves.”  If you say what relationship??? That’s it exactly, you have to make space in order to have the relationship to yourself.  The whole practice is designed to help us promote self-love.  This means loving ourselves unconditionally. Once you figure this out you realize the universe wants to love you back, spirit loves you, nature loves you and then you are free of all mental tortures.  Ultimate freedom and surrender is yours!

 

Well it makes sense. Now the question is how do you surrender enough to slow down and meet yourself.  If you’re in a funk what do you do to get back to loving yourself?  One way is to chant 50 Om’s which is said to remove distraction and makes the mind serene, light and focused.  All you have to do is relax your mental space, regardless of the tone of your voice and repeat the Om with feeling. This brings us into that place of absolute consciousness where we realize we are infinite and love is ours each moment! Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

 

 

APRIL 10TH, 2009: There has been a lot written about how yoga can help modulate the stress response.  A great article in Harvard Mental Health April 2009 edition goes into wonderful detail about this. Key points made from this article include "yoga practices can reduce the impact of exaggerated stress responses and may be helpful for both anxiety and depression. By reducing perceived stress and anxiety, yoga appers to modulate stress response. This in turn decreases physiological arousal - for example reduicng the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and easing respiration. For many dealing with stress yoga may be a very appealing way to better manage symptoms. Indeed, the scientifc study of yoga demonstrates that mental and physical health are not just closely allied, but are essentially equivalent."

So what this says, which yogis have known, is that we practice yoga today to help us manage the crisis we might face tomorrow.  It might seem weird to think of ourselves preparing for challenges but it makes sense that the best time to prepare for a crisis is BEFORE it happens.  In class we try out various poses to create sometimes stressful situations (for instance a new pose, a pose with lots of sensation, transitions from pose to pose) and we observe how we respond.  We practice responding to the crisis in other words.  So then we can diagnose ourselves in our own crisis management. How would you do?

Do you lose hope when faced with something new? Do you respond to trying and failing with self criticism, do you give up? Do you get mad at the pose, at the teacher, at God?  It is easy to give up hope.  But the sobering reality is that if we give up, we are mentally and physically impacted.

Einstein says, "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."  The worst thing we can do is lose hope, stop risking living our lives fully become fearful or worse yet apathetic.  Apathy is the enemy of love.  And yet in these sometimes trying times so many of us have lost hope.  So consider this "To lvoe is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."

I understand, I used to have the false belief that if I "did life right" everything would be smooth sailing and I'd be protected from anything bad or unpleasant.  Then my Dad died suddenly trhough hospital negligence, then other family members became sick, my corporate job was in jeapordy.  And I realized everything we are learning today is preparing us for tomorrow's crisis.  Yoga won't stop stress.  It will help us manage stuff that happens to us.  There lies the difference. And it asks that we have the quiet courage to remain hopeful above all else.

An unknown author writes, "May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trails to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough HOPE to make you happy."  So dudes, breathe HOPE because you know without a doubt that your YOGA practice will prepare you for any difficulty you face!  With humble love and enormous gratitude, Silvia

 

APRIL 8TH, 2009:  I came to the practice because of pain in my body but what has kept me coming back for 15 years is the relief this practice gives my mind.  I was always a good kid, so I never was given a forced time out but I like the idea. Maybe I didn’t have to get a time out because I gave them to myself. When I needed to I’d go chill out and rest.  I like time outs.

So when you come to the mat, give your mind a TIME OUT from having to figure everything out.  Tell yourself for this class or even just a few minutes “you are not going to solve any problems or think about anything stressful.”  Even right now at your desk while you read this join me in a virtual TIME OUT. 

 

Take a big breath, draw your shoulders back.

·         Inhale Peace, Exhale “I am Worthy”

·         Inhale Patience, Exhale “I am Great”

·         Inhale Love, Exhale “I am Present”

 

We all need time out’s.  Otherwise we can overwhelm ourselves on purpose with the vast amount of knowledge we take in every day.  Knowledge is important but it is not enough.  We can know everything and still be unhappy. You can know all the facts and still be miserable.  Information is not sufficient for a happy life.  If it was we’d all be blissed out all the time and no one would stressed out.

 

The answer is to take the time out, open your heart and feel the moment, feel your breath instead of only engaging your analytical mind.  I want you to understand the practice but more importantly I want you to feel the energetics.  Happiness, true happiness, is an inside job. It lies deep within us (regardless of whether or not all the surface stuff is going smoothly or falling apart).  Take the TIME OUT and you’ll find you will love your life more!  With great affection, joy to the world within you! Silvia

APRIL 2 2009:  One of the first things we do to begin class is often take a comfortable seat.  It is on purpose.  There is a point to how we sit so as to improve the ability of the body to breath better.  Then we bring our hands together, palm to palm in prayer. This is known as Sankalpa Mudra or Anjali Mudra.  Mudra means gesture of commitment.  We are doing something with our hands on purpose.  There is a point to Sankalpa Mudra, it is our opportunity to set an intention, a dream, a wish, a vision.  Really when we set our intention it is setting an expectation of ourselves.  There is a point to our practice.  And each time we rejoin our hands we remember to remember the promise we made to ourselves as to how this time for us is meeting our expectations. 

It is like a commitment ceremony at the start of every class.  And every breath will deepen your commitment to your intention on and off the mat.

 

The key thing to know is that there is a point to it all.  Even when we don’t understand why things are happening in our life we can rest assured as Sadie Nardini says, “alongside positive change, challenge appears.”  Yup.  So what is the greater point to spiritual practice?  To help us PAY ATTENTION.

 

The Yoga Sutras say “enjoyment is the sweetness of noticing your life right now – smell, taste, feeling, sensation” This is the answer to why pay attention, in that we don’t get to do today over again.  Therefore as a result of your intention you can observe your progress towards the promise you made to yourself. And know you have come a really long way already before you even step on the mat.  So once we realize that the point of the practice is to pay attention, to be present we stop trying to redo the past.  We see we are here and now just all doing our best in appreciating how precious life really is.  So tune in, love your life and trust in the process.  Love to you all! Silvia                                                                                                       

 

MARCH 31, 2009:  I have often asked myself the simple but powerful question, "Am I more afraid of being happy or more afraid of Fear itself?"  How would you respond?

I can tell you that for many years of my life I have been more afraid of being truly happy.  Why? Becaues really being happy day in and day out requires COURAGE, PERSEVERANCE, HOPE, INNER STRENGTH and most of all SELF-LOVE. The messages of "I'm not really worthy" or "I don't have time" or "I'm afraid of being hurt again" can show up at any time even in the most spiritually mature person.  It's easier to give in to the conditioned response of Fear than face ourselves and change our mental habits.

Yoga offers us a safe place to get strong, mentally and physically.  It can help us view our habits and make the change from within so that we choose happiness over fear.  And then it is a continuous practice.  If you really want to be happy it requires your committment from this day forward.  In a way it is like deciding that we want to "Marry ourselves".  And part of the vow we take is to promise to at least try to be happy each and every day. 

Believe me, its not always easy but lasting happiness is only found a day at a time anyway.  So I know you can do it.  Face your fears and let LOVE make you strong!  Wishing you your own best strength and courage, Silvia

 

MARCH 25, 2009:  Now as Spring has started is the perfect time to go back into training if you stopped along the way this Winter.  What training you ask? Well, HAPPINESS TRAINING.  That's what I like to call Yoga.  Just like if we were training to run a marathon happines takes practice and training. 

Now although the two have a lot in common where they diverge is that if you practice, then run the marathon it is completed. With happiness training, the training never ends.  It lasts a lifetime!  Why do we need training in happiness? Because most of us don't wake up happy every day.  Even science says that our braings are wired to look for what's wrong. According to Martin Seligman in the book Authentic Happiness this is known as the catastrophic brain.  He goes on to say that in neurological testing humans viewing unpleasant images showed activity in the primitive parts of the brain. Humans viewing pleasant images showed activity in more recently evolved parts of the brain.

So we are at the the cutting edge of our evolution!  The great news is that you can start training anytime.  In the words of Lama Yeshe, "it is never too late. Even if you're going to die tomorrrow, keep yourself straight and clear and be a happy human being today. If you keep your sitatution happy day by day, you will eventually reach the greatest happiness of Enlightenment."

So join me on the mat for continued practice reversing the negative stories we tell ourselves and strengthening ourselves with a positive life perspective.  As Thit Nhat Hanh says, "people deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try to see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?"

May all beings be happy, loved and peaceful! JAI! Silvia

 

MARCH 20TH, 2009:  On this beautiful first day of Spring I wish you love!  I am deeply inspired by my favorite poet Rumi.  "For Rumi, to be alive is to be a lover" and all great spiritual teachers say this same thing.  (Quoted from Washington Post 2008).  Yeah, that's right.  For me yoga opened the door to living life more fully.

This is that idea that  if you love life, life will love you back!  Rumi puts it like this, "Come to my side I will open the gate to your love."  Living life prior to fifteen years ago I dreamed of peaceful love but it was like I couldn't find the door or window to unlock to really experience it.  My yoga practice showed me that doors, windows, gates are open everywhere welcoming me to love more.  I was feelng like what Rumi writes, "I yearn for happiness, I ask for help."  Yoga helped me as I hope it helps you feel more, LOVE more.

But over the last fifteen years there have still been days where I have to be reminded not to contract but like the buds of Spring expand and grow.  Rumi's words hold great meaning when he writes, "Today, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.  Take down a musical instrument. Let the BEAUTY WE LOVE be what we do."  It is easy to face hardship and stop making music, stop making love with life but "we cannot go back to sleep, you must ask for what you really want." (Rumi)

I just wish someone would have told me that being a lover of life takes raw guts and quiet courage.  I know that now and I hope in every single class together I can inspire you to cultivate your greatest inner strength and courage to shine out.  I will tell it how it is, living happy, peaceful and loving will ask you to step in with both feet and make a full blast effort.  The great news is that this is the perfect time right now to fall madly in love with life!  So join me on the path and let's flow together!  BIG LOVE, Silvia

 "Wake up lovers, it is time to start the Journey!
Let us kiss the ground and flow like a river towards the Ocean.
It is best to travel with Companions on this Jouney.
Only love can lead the way."

 

MARCH 17TH, 2009:  “The trick to juggling is determining which balls are made of rubber and which ones are made of glass.”

I love folks that have jovial, bright attitudes about life. No matter how down things get they are able to see the uplift in any situation.  I am one of those people. Well, let me say it like this, Yoga has helped me become one of those people who have this “bounce back factor”. 

 

So I ask you today what is your BOUNCE BACK FACTOR?  Do you look for the uplift in situations or get pulled into negativity and stay there?  Do you bounce back, reregulate, recalibrate quickly or not so much?  How long do you stay mad? How long do you stay upset or sad?  Do you let something unexpected ruin your week, or your weekend, your anniversary, your vacation?  If you are not yet a bounce back person, the answer could be as easy as practice more yoga! 

 

Why does this work?  It’s the big MO.  Each small victory in not freaking out or getting out of whack for less time is exciting and lets us take larger steps to our highest best self.  Each little victory creates momentum.  When you throw a ball you need momentum to make it go farther right? Well its like that.  More bounces, less effort.  As I always say WE GROW GREAT BY DEGREES.

 

Now the bounce back factor also requires that we see ourselves as co-creating with the universe as well as recognizing that true happiness is an inside job.  Basically its like this what we say to ourselves on the inside is what we see on the outside. The world is not created out there and then experienced inside us. It's the other way around. What you see on the outside is the reflection of what you've created on the inside through your thoughts. what we say to ourselves on the inside is what we see on the outside. The world is not created out there and then experienced inside us.

 

Especially essential in promoting a stronger bounce back factor is accepting that there is NO SUCH THING AS FAILURE.  There is only experience and observation of our experience.  We just can’t get bogged down in fear or negativity. "Don't move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move."  Thit Nhat Hanh says, “People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong.  Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”

 

Ultimately bouncing back is like the practice of contentment not for wimps.  We have to engage some tapas and put some effort into it, just like throwing a ball.  So together, let’s practice and you will get stronger, more steady, and your ability to bounce back will improve exponentially!  GO BIG, LOVE BIG, DREAM BIG!  Silvia

MARCH 16TH, 2009:  The first week of the year I passed out raffle tickets and during meditation I asked what single word came to mind.  That would be the focus of our practice and our intention for the year.  So tonight we checked back into this.  How are we doing? 

For me the word on my life ticket was FREEDOM.  This means a number of things to me such as:

• Freedom to be happier than ever before
• Freedom to try new things
• Freedom to meet new people
• Freedom to make happy failures
• Freedom to not play it all so safe
• Freedom to do the unexpected
• Freedom to just see what happens

So as you close your eyes and turn inside to your most loving self what sense of freedom to you experience in your breath right now?  The breath, the air element that of the fourth chakra. This is the heart chakra and perhaps that’s why one of my favorites quotes from the book Immunity to Change is “Happiness is really freedom from unhappiness.”  What does FREEDOM mean to you?         

 

Ultimately freedom means that we are living on purpose or as Robin Sharma writes, THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS A LIFE OF PURPOSE.  Everytime we come to the mat we have the right and freedom to explore ourselves more deeply.  This cultivates an intimate connection with who we really are and can we live with what life is offering us right now.  For its about whether life gave us what we wanted today but the fact we have the freedom to respond rather than react. We don’t have to struggle, fight or become disappointed.  We can empower ourselves to make the experience (even if it is painful).  In the book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma writes, “People who study others are wise but those who study themselves are enlightened.  Those we are truly enlightened know what they want out of life, emotionally, materially, physically and spiritually.  Clearly defined priorities and goals for every aspect of your life gives you direction.  The real source of happiness is stated in the word Achievement – lasting happiness comes from steadily working to accomplish your goals and advancing confidentily in the direction of your lifes purpose.

 

Here’s the coolest part!  You get to choose your life’s purpose.  And you can readjust as your intentions evolve.  So take to heart the words of John Wood from another all time favorite book “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World” who writes, “If you are thinking about making some adjustments in your life my heartfelt recommendation is not to spend too much time thinking about it. Just dive in. I know that all kinds of practical considerations make this advice difficult to embrace. The need for advice from friends and family, and the desire to write a business plan. I am not saying you should not do any of these things – just that you should not spend too much time on them or you will lose momentum.  The biggest risk is that a lot of people will try to talk you out of your dream.  The world has too many people who are happy to discuss why something might not work, and too few who will cheer you on and say, “I’m there for you.”  The more time you spend navel gazing, the longer you give those negative gravitational forces to keep you in their tether.  So sometimes, it’s really important to just dive in.  If there is something out there that you want to do, don’t focus on the obstacles. Don’t ask for permission.  Just dive in.”   FREEDOM MEANS YOU CAN DIVE IN TODAY! Wishing you courage to do so, Silvia

 

 

MARCH 15TH, 2009:  We began with a type of meditation called Japa, repetition of a mantra.  This has three stages and it begins with choosing a mantra.  As the focus of our practice was answering the question for ourselves, ARE YOU HAPPY, we used Anandamaya Namaha. 

However any variety of mantras can be used for meditation in japa meditation.  No matter the mantra its sacred sound can help us move through three stages of japa practice which are:

1.  link the mantra sound with the flow of breath

2.  next let go of the breath and focus your attention on sounds of the mantra alone

3.  as the mind becomes familiar with the sounds of the mantra it will naturally begin to pulse more quickly and effortlessly. This then turns it into ajapa japa as the mantra gains momentum.  It becomes like a pulsation of energy.

 

We used Anandamaya Namaha as our japa. This translated means "We observe & celebrate the bliss, the state of happiness held within us!"

 

FEBRUARY 25TH, 2009:  Tonight we talked about how yoga reveals our true nature, which is that of JOY!  We all have the right to be happy, to be loved, to be peaceful.  There are no conditions to meet or pre-requisites.  Do you believe you deserve to be happy?  Most of us come into the practice not really buying this completely, or at least that's been my experience this last 15 years of practice and teaching. 

So how do we move from a state of disbelief to believing the best is possible, joy is here for us?  The role of the teacher mentor is that of someone who wants to facilitate helping you rediscover your fullest potential.  I see in you your greatest capacity for love and peace. I will believe in you until the day you believe it for yourself.  Then we will celebrate this together!

The best explanation of the teacher's role is from Donna Farhi who puts it like this, "the teacher mentor assists the birthing of the student's dreams, visions, and hopes, and most important, what the student has not yet dared to imagine.  A mentor moves the student from disbelief to belief and in the process continually affirms the student's self-worth."  I want to make your learning easier by sharing with you all that I know. Now I can only make part of the journey with you. The deepest places you must discover within yourself are places only you can travel.  In the meantime, I will do my best to make the journey FUN, PLAYFUL, INSPIRING and SAFE.  That is my promise.  I love you all my dear students.  Peace, Silvia

*Reference Yoga Sutra 1.40

 

FEBRUARY 23, 2009:  My teacher Shiva Rea says, "The teachings of yoga include a view called parinamavada, the idea that constant change is an inherent part of life.  Therefore, to proceed skillfully with any action, we must first assess where we are starting from today; we can’t assume we are quite the same person we were yesterday."  So when we step into the current of grace how can we manage to do our best – no more, no less, keeping in mind that doing our best is never going to be the same like our breath.  The Yoga Sutras suggest each pose be Sthira Sukham Asanam, steady and pleasant. More importantly in the incessant changing stream of life can we just keep trying?  The more you practice yoga the more you will respond YES!

 

The great thing is that when we DO OUR BEST then we give no reason for self-judgement, blame, guilt, negative self talk of any kind.  There are no regrets. 

 

To me doing our best is kind of scary.  From a western view it pulls us into that “no pain, no gain” mentality that life must hurt.  But that’s not it at all.  Doing our best means we are living our lives fully, in the present moment with enormous intensity because we want to be good to ourselves.  We want to make life all it can be aspiring to co-create with the universe for our optimal productivity.  Doing our best makes us connect to our innate happiness!  Why? Because it demonstrates our LOVE for life!

 

LOVE IS ACTIVE,

YES IS ACTIVE

DOING OUR BEST IS ACTIVE (INACTION IS THE WAY WE DENY LIFE)

Today we keep making the soil of our souls more fertile by contexualizing through asana practice the theme of "Always Doing Our Best.”  I hope this inspires you to make sensitive adjustments as you enjoy each and every breath.  All of this to make the space for the dreams you wish to hatch come the first day of Spring, March 20th!  My dear friends you were born with the right to be happy and as Deepok Chopra suggests why not then make Happiness the Goal of ALL other goals, and just do our best with this.  Please love your life, don’t let another breath pass without making it your best breath.  Love to you all, Silvia

FEBRUARY 13, 2009:  It is really impactful to think that we have been chosen to breath today on purpose. That not everyone got picked to breath and so in a sense we won! the lotto of all lotteries.  The most fundamental cause for gratitude is life itself!  I start every morning with a gratitude meditation that is pretty sijmple:  you say to yourself "I am grateful for...." then fill in the blanks for a few minutes or however long you comfortably can.  Two of my favorite inspirations about gratitude are below for you to enjoy!  Peace out, Silvia

“Gratitude is confidence in life itself.

Gratitude gladdens the heart.

As gratitude grows it gives rise to joy.

Like gratitude joy gladdens the heart.

We can be joyful for people we love,

for moments of goodness, for sunlight and trees,

and for the breath within us.

And as our joy grows

we finally discover a happiness without cause.

We can rejoice in life itself, in simply being alive!”

 —From “The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindess, and Peace” By Jack Kornfield

 

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  ~ Melody Beattie ~

 

 

FEBRUARY 7TH, 2009:  BE HERE NOW is not new and it is really quite simple in theory isn’t it?  We all know we can only live one moment at time yet I really didn’t put this into practice for more than half of my life.  There were various traumatic events, including losing my Dad suddenly when he was only 59 years old, that served as “wake up” calls for me.  My intention in teaching the life philosophy of yoga is that it doesn’t really have to take tragedy or health crisis or emotional crisis to figure this out.  I don’t want you to have to learn this simple lesson the hard way as I did.  So I write and teach to “exhaust every little moment” (Gwendolyn Brooks) to help others realize life is GLORIOUS!

 

The words of Thich Nhat Hanh spoke to me, he says it like this:  “We have an appointment with life, and that appointment takes place in the present moment. If we miss the present moment, we miss our appointment with life, which is serious.”

 

I get it.  If we put more value on our oil change appointments, dental appointments, business appointments, hair appointments than we do on our life appointment something is amiss. We aren’t really living life.  John Lennon says, Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans.  Dude that’s it.  So a favorite inspiration I handed out in class this morning is below so you can all enjoy and remember. Life is now.  Keep your appointment!  From my heart, Silvia

 

 

From A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen, 2000

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.  Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at your desk, or your life in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your HEART.  Not just your bank account, but your soul. 

 

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.  But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broken, or lonely, or when you’ve gotten back the check X ray and it doesn’t look so good. 

 

Take a moment: Think about your resume, your resume of heart.

 

So I suppose the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: GET A LIFE.  A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.  Get a life where you pay attention. Keep still. Be Present.

 

Get a life in which you are not alone.  Find people you love, and who love you.  And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.  Each time I look at my diploma, I remember that I am still a student, still learning every day how to be human. 

JANUARY 21, 2009:  So let’s begin. Take a few deep breaths. As you inhale, inhale peace and wideness into the nervous system. As you exhale, breath out the memories of your day. Do this several times until your brain becomes calm and centered, and then relax deeply. What happened today is now in the past.  In life change is constant.  There is a beginning, middle and end to everything.  We see this as we enter a new day in the history of our nation.  Things are always dissolving, dying, being born.  And if we are lucky enough to wake up sooner rather than later we can stop taking even a single day for granted.  

 

"Attend the birthing of the radiant light within you"  - Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

 

So for your contemplation I asked the following two questions:

Q:  If you had all the time, money, and energy you wanted, what would you do?

Q:  If you were dying, what would you wish you had done that you are not doing now? Why aren't you doing it?

A lovely California teacher, Max Strom says it like this "Yoga inspires change. It's a tool to help you drop negative habits and adopt helpful ones, to embrace whatever the present and future hold, I believe you must assess what you're hiding from and be willing to change. To me Vinyasa yoga has been a great way to release some of the tension in my life so I could transform my body, and learn to be present.  While doing so I transformed my mind to be more flexible too.  And have learned healthy ways of meeting lifes changes, especially not letting tension consume me.  For what is tension if not resistance to change.  

 

We have an opportunity here to make a difference in the world as Ghandi says “to be the change we wish to see”.  Or Woodrow Wilson, 28^th President of the United States said it like this, “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

 

Get to the mat, use it as your personal laboratory to safely test out for yourself changes in the way you respond to stuff.  Like responding to challenging poses with kindness, non reactiveness, laughter, compassion, non-judgement, and ultimately acceptance.  This then translates into how you live, interact and relate to your external world.  Know that without a doubt your time on the mat is bringing about the peace we all aspire to – you are changing the world!  Or as Michael Franti (Power to the Peaceful, Spearhead) says “One thing that yoga has taught me is that the rate at which the world changes is exactly the rate at which I change”

 

RIGHT ON!  ROCK ON!  BE ON!  Silvia

JANUARY 20TH, 2009:  Happy day to all of us!  I am inspired today by the world’s events and wanted to share with you what my friend David Romanelli says he learned from Obama Phenomena.  Don’t forget David’s new book “Livin the Moment” is released soon and he’ll be with us in March for weekend workshops. 

Lesson Learned from Obama Phenomena:  Enjoy Life (By David Romanelli)
In the past, we looked for a leader who could fight wars, debate politics, and boost the economy. And all those thing are of absolute and vital importance. But on par with those strengths is a new requirement for a leader based on the information overload inherent to the modern day: the ability to emanate joy, relaxation, and spiritual wealth.

Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple, recently published “A Letter to Barack Obama.” Following is an excerpt:

• “A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

JANUARY 19TH, 2009:  I was reflecting on what it means to be balanced. So I looked up Balance in the thesaurus and it said:  stable, steady, together, middle, centered.  The opposite is unbalanced, unequal, uneven.  I might say that this describes freedom too. Coming together. 

So today in honor of Martin Luther King let’s honor this balance and freedom to deeply commit ourselves to coming back to our essential nature which the sutras say is JOY.  Now this at first might seem difficult but we must take the first step, or as MLK Says, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

 

FREEDOM IS FOR US NOW. 

 

In every age and every generation, men have envisioned a promised land. Some may have envisioned it with the wrong ideology, with the wrong philosophical presupposition. But men in every generation thought in terms of some promised land. –Martin Luther King.  This promised land is freedom and yoga teaches us that it is here right now inside us.  All that is necessary to find it is to love peace, to allow yourself to feel more and think less.  Take to heart the words of Joseph Campbell who said, “Life is not about the meaning. It’s about the feeling.”  Even science can measure the infectious nature of positive emotion on ourselves and others.  So on the mat practice feeling the poses.  For when you come from a peaceful and relaxed feeling, you are one step closer to the promised land, to FREEDOM.  And ultimately you regain your joy!  Now will it be easy, not always.  Will we encounter challenge, of course.  But keep on going and heed this advice from George Bernard Shaw who said, “Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.”  Wishing you your best courage!  Peace, Silvia 

JANUARY 19TH, 2009:  Yoga was a kick in the pants for me when I started and even today.  If there are moments of doubt I get on the mat and boy do I remember that I am co-creating with the universe. I am responsible. 

So I start each day with a gratitude meditation as I lay in bed. It's simple, active, present tense:  I INTEND TO BE HAPPY, I CHOOSE PEACE.  Then I make my bed (have since i was a little girl, even when I traveled for corporate job would make my bed in the hotel). It was a ritual where I could meditate and consciously decide I was going to have a great day.  It put my life on the right track from the start.

Anais Ninn puts it like this, "we see the world not as it is but as we are."  You create your own reality.  If we complain we draw to us negative things because we put out negative energy.  So we can learn not to complain. We extinguish negativity with love and joyful thought.  Its the difference between what an author said is waking up and saying, Good morning God! or Good God, it's morning."

But this requires that we show up.  That we move in the direction of our purpose. Even Woody Allen said, 80% of success in life is just showing up."  Yup.  So let's get on with our life from the moment we awaken.  (1) start with meditation, the power of intention (2) create healthy morning rituals to set the tone like making your bed (3) go to where life is happening, get out there and (4) don't be afraid of being creative in how you engage your life.  Start now and see your life blossom!  Peace to you, Silvia

 

DECEMBER 28, 2008:  The words to a song a friend sent me included, I am the biggest fan of you (or something like this).  So I thought about it, what am I the biggest fan of?  And I'd have to say I am for sure the biggest fan of FUN!

How do I make fun? Yesterday as many days, I ate dessert first. I tell myself jokes all the time, I died part of my hair violet red for no reason (just makes me giggle), I wear sundresses in the winter (over pants and with a sweater of course), I do what I love, I surround myself with brilliant, funny people, I only watch life affirming tv or movies, I read inspiring books.  The list goes on.

Interesting enough, children laugh 300 times or more per day while adults laugh an avearge of 17 times per day.  We clearly have lots of catching up to do according to Heather King.  When it comes to yoga it is as my idol Judith Lasater says, "yoga practice is important but not serious. Practice is too important to be serious."  RIGHT ON!

So today may you feel the shakti power of being presnt for the many blessings in your life so that you can know greater happiness. Or as Rumi says, "hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you."  Take from this that you can practice life with elegance and joyfulness just like you appear luminous in your poses. Take this brightness into each moment. 

Really recognizing our capacity for happiness through the power of our hearts is the first step in yoga.  We use the practice to go withing the hidden chambers of our hearts to find our most joyful true selves.  It's just like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  So join me on the mat to dance like there was no tomorrow!  Keep your spirit burning brightly, learn to take your troubles lightly, count your blessings daily, nightly (Linda Elrod).  Happiness knows no bounds! Love, Silvia

NOVEMBER 26TH, 2008:  This day before Thanksgiving let’s share one or two sweet things that you experienced today, tasting, seeing, feeling…with yoga we can be like the bee going flower to flower to drink in sweet nectar from various experiences. I encourage you to grow so comfortable with yourself that you don't need my permission to try different poses, different expressions all in a way to help you replenish anywhere within you that has been restricted from sweetness.   

 You deserve it!  And the better you feel the more you see yourself worthy of sweet treats and experiences the more peaceful you become.  In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, "If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace."  Today, don't deprive yourself of sweetness instead feed your cravings for a sweet and tender kiss, a chocolate, a pose, a food.  Try it all!  With a heart bursting with good things, Silvia

 

NOVEMBER 25, 2008:  My favorite Rumi poem begins: "Come for today is a day of festival, Henceforward joy and pleasure are on the increase. Clap hands, say, 'Today is all happiness, from the beginning it was a manifestly fine day.”

If we were going to run a marathon we would likely do some training before the day of the race.  So it is with yoga, essentially it is HAPPINESS TRAINING.  We get to explore or get a taste of our best selves on the mat and having tried it out on the mat we then bring that best selve into the world.  It is a real awakening to our potential.  The training pays off in that yoga is a practice that than delivers results into our LIFE PRACTICE. 

The worst thing we could do is be couch potatoes from life living in what Donna Farhi calls a state of "spiritual amnesia".  The happiness training of yoga restores our sense of wholeness where we feel more awake and again live life with humble appreciation for its enormous gifts!  Yours, with blessings, Silvia

NOVEMBER 15TH, 2008:  Last night watching again the movie Indestructible I am deeply touched by Ben's desire to find inner happiness in spite of what is happening to his body that is out of his control. The Yoga Sutras speak to this directly. 

Sutra 1.30 The perception of our true nature which is JOY is often obscured.  AND Sutra 1.24 The divine consciousness is self effulgent like the SUN.  We are self effulgent like the sun!

Now what interests me the most about Happiness is that we aren’t going to run out of it.  There is no HAPPINESS LOTTERY with only an occasional lucky winner.  Yoga teaches us that joy is the true nature of each of us.  So today and moving forward we no longer have to limit our perspective of happiness or decide only some of our family members get to be happy and the rest don’t. Everyone can be joyful.  Here’s the challenge, can you wake up every morning and choose to be happy?  Can you face conflict and choose not to get totally upset.  And if you do get upset, can you choose to feel happy again?  I say YES!  But it takes practice and what we practice we strengthen.  So keep planting positive thoughts at least as often as you refresh your email or check voicemail.  And as an at home practice try this Happiness Meditation:

Close your eyes and notice your breath entering and exiting. Count 10 deep breaths and then relax deeper into your seat. Allow the breath to move freely in and out. Move your awareness to the word "HAPPINESS".  See it printed on the back of your eyelids. Hear it spoken by your inner voice. Feel it connected to your breathing. As you breathe in say "HAPPINESS"; as you breathe out say "WITHIN". Repeat with each breath: "Happiness - Within". Continue this breathing meditation for a few minutes.

Just five minutes into your meditation notice a shift in your attitude. Maybe you can't put your finger on it but it's definitely there. You realize that you feel better, you feel happy just because you chose to. It's within you all the time. So when in doubt: BREATH HAPPINESS – WITHIN.

NOVEMBER 14^TH, 2008:  My favorite Rumi poem begins: "Come for today is a day of festival, Henceforward joy and pleasure are on the increase. Clap hands, say, 'Today is all happiness, from the beginning it was a manifestly fine day.” It reminds me of when we were kids and we’d clap our hands together to celebrate ourselves spontaneously. How great was that!  To clap and celebrate ones own life is yoga!  The Dalai Lama puts it like this when he says “the roots of all goodness lie in the soul of appreciation for goodness.”  When we symbolically clap hands by saying nice things to ourselves through our thoughts we are appreciating our goodness.  Healthy self-esteem comes from seeing our own gifts, unabashedly celebrating them thus making today a day of happiness, a really fine day.

If we seek our happiness outside ourselves it sets us up for disappointment.  Or as Dr Wayne Dyer says "Every moment that you spend upset, in despair, in anguish, angry or hurt because of the behaviour of anybody else in your life is a moment in which you have given up control of your life."  So join me in clapping hands every day (even at the end of a yoga class!)  My hope is that if we can let go of our pretenses we will be able to more easily share the amazing beauty and humor of our real selves. Just try it, spontaneiously express your joy and appreciation for your life by clapping hands, I’m sure it will make you smile!  Love Big In All Ways, Silvia