YOGA IS SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS!
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
SECOND AGREEMENT DON'T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY
APRIL 6, 2010: The second agreement is not to take anything personally. Don Miguel Ruiz explains this, "Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world. If someone gives you an opinion don't take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up. You eat all their emotional garbage, and not it becomes your garbage. But if you do not take it personally, you are immune to it."
This is one level of understanding so on the mat we let everyone do their own yoga. We don't worry about whether someone next to us can do a deeper variation of a pose, it's not about us. They are practicing their own yoga and we should focus on our own yoga. Now the other level of this experience is as Ruiz says so well, "even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily truth; therefore, you don't need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally. We have a CHOICE whether or not to believe the voices we hear within our minds. The mind can also talk and listen to itself." So be careful and choosy about what you listen to in your own mind. Let go of the old stories that don't serve you that hurt you that keep you from being more of your potential.
What we experience if we Don't Take Things Personally is, "you avoid many upsets in your life. Your anger, jealousy, and envy will disappear, and even your sadness will simply disappear if you don't take things personally. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."
And of course it always comes back to LOVE. "If you keep this agreement, you can travel around the world with your HEART completely OPEN and no one can hurt you. You can say, "I love you." without fear of being ridiculed or rejected. You can ask for what you need. You can say yes without guilt or self-judgement. You can choose to follow your heart always!" I love all of you and hope you can embrace this agreement to love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia