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April 4, 2011.  As an adult I started yoga because I got hit by a car. It was part of my physical therapy.  I love the physical part of yoga. And for a long long time that was all I knew.  And I'll tell you I still love sweating and moving and breathing.  I have never gotten "past that" nor do I want to evolve to a point where I can't enjoy the movement.  

As a more experienced yogi I eventually found out from my teacher Shiva Rea that Yoga is for the Mind.  Who knew? (Well ok if you did, I didn't)

So how does this work exactly if the practice is so physical? Well scientists agree that the best form of exercise is that which involves learning complex movement, including balance and coordination.  That sounds like yoga.  Western science also goes on to say that MOVEMENT provides physiological release that we need to bring our body back into balance while at the SAME time it is also good for our brain where moving helps form more connections between the neurons in our brain.  Other benefits of learning coordinated movements which in yoga we call Vinyasa Krama include: improved mental well-being; increased neurotransmitters; mood regulation; anxiety control; ability to handle stress better; better socialization; ability to better process more information; enhanced attentiveness and improved ability to choose appropriate responses. 

Of all those benefits and ways yoga helps the mind I like appropriateness the best.  I struggled for a long time as an overly sensitive person in appreciating how not to over-react to what others did or said.  Yoga calms my mind and makes me better able to not take things personally (Rule #2 in Miguel Ruiz book The Four Agreements).  I make better decisions when the noise in my brain quiets after practicing yoga.  I need the yoga to impact the ventromedial portion of the frontal lobe of my brain!

Studies show we have too much brain power.  We easily catastrophize and react rather than respond.  When I am on the mat learning, following, trying out a sequence of physical poses and coordinating my breath into that movement I somehow learn how to sequence the thoughts in my mind when not in a pose.  And it's true the primary motor cortex and cerebellum which coordinate physical movement also coordinate movement of thought.  In yogic practice we have then 3 movements:  physical movement (and inside that isometric movement as well as action) and pranic movement (breathing on purpose) and also thought movement.  One impacts the other and managing one fluidly teaches us how to sequence the other.  So that's the scoop, just as we order physical movements in something like Sun Salutation A or Dancing Warrior 1 (which we practiced tonight) we learn how to best order the sequence of our thoughts for thinking our best lives ever. Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia 

Sun Salutation Series A – Overview

Start standing at attention, bringing awareness to your body and posture.  Feet rooting down, inner edges of feet together, lift sternum upward, pull belly in (abdominal lock called uddiyana banda), tilt pelvis pointing tailbone down slightly, knee caps pulling up, inner thigh spinning outward, engage quads and press leg bones down, pull shoulders back relax them away from ears sliding shoulder blades down the back, head centered, ears over shoulders, neck neutral, gaze soft and relaxed

Dancing Warrior 1

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

EXHALE -- Place foot down, prepare foundation for Vira I

INHALE -- Virabhadrasana I (Warrior 1)

EXHALE -- Chaturanga Dandasana

INHALE -- Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward Facing Dog)

EXHALE -- Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog) (Repeat #1-5, left side)

*DW courtesy of my teacher Shiva Rea

December 31, 2010.  As I reflect on this past year, which was one of intense personal change one of the things I am most proud of is making a pilgrimage to Moab, Utah twice.  Both times to help nourish my spirit and connect to the quiet sense of adventure that exists for all that visit Moab.  For a while I forgot what it was like to make adventure.  This was the year I remembered again.

And that is really at the heart of yoga.  This practice helps us remember to remember.  We all sometimes experience spiritual amnesia.  Getting on the mat is that reminder of celebrating life and enjoying this time in this body on this earth right now. 

Edward Abbey writes in one of my favorite books about Moab titled Desert Solitaire "Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards." 

I will never again put my heart in a safe deposit box, I'd rather take chances in love, in life, in traveling and even in my poses so I can be a more active participant in driving my best life forward rather than sitting in the backseat waiting for it to happen.  I will until my last breath run and cycle and yoga and explore and discover the small victories that exist in taking pleasure in life! And I hope if you have learned anything from your yoga that you will find this true for yourself as well.  Love yourself, love your day, love your life!  Happy New Year, Silvia

PS Join me on an adventure with Alchemy Tours www.alchemytours.com or visit my website to keep up with upcoming retreats www.silviamordini.com

OCTOBER 19, 2010 When I learned that we all don»t mature at the same rate in all aspects of our lives at the same time a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders! Up until that point I believed that everything was supposed to mature at the same exact rate. And I felt some sense of failure that I couldn»t be like everyone else. Earlier in my career while in the corporate world I had financial maturity but was physically immature (poor eating, sleeping habits, workaholism) and I was in adolescent spiritual maturity and emotionally in grade school. Then yoga found me and I took a breath and asked myself "what is maturity?" And does maturity mean the same thing as perfect?

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present." - Anais Nin

This whole time, up until that point, I was expecting that my physical, mental and emotional maturing was meant to be the same everywhere. And I thought life was often moving backwards. But life doesn»t move backwards. The sun that rises today will not be the same sun that rises again tomorrow. Even when we feel like we aren»t making progress we are always maturing on some level, just not everywhere at the same time. To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. - Henri Bergson

So what does it mean to mature? I believe that this means when we are aware of our physical, emotional,and spiritual needs and can make the sensitive adjustments to determine what is necessary to maintain a healthy balance in our lives. Now this is like an umbrella definition but maturity the yoga sutras tells us are like layers working on multiple dimensions. These are the layers or koshas of ourselves. Think of Russian dolls, our physical layer or kosha is the outer most one, then we travel through our breath layer pranamayakosha and keep going inside deep into our hearts and spiritual maturity.

Three of these layers can be thought of as:
1. Physical Maturity


2. Emotional Maturity/Mental Maturity


3. Spiritual Maturity

What is Physical Maturity? Do you know what your body needs to be healthy in terms of oxygen, food, sleep, quiet time away from the tv? If yes then these are like a sort of destination and therefore physical maturity is the easiest to measure our progress. On my annual physical where I score 99% I know with proof how I am doing. Do you understand your physical nature and use your humanness in a positive way? Treating your body like a temple.

What is Emotional/Mental Maturity? Well there are two levels: with yourself and with others. That saying where instead of saying "it got lost" we evolve to that place where we take responsibility and say "i lost it." We no longer blame other people for how we feel. As yoga teaches we create our world from the inside out. And as we mature we tame our own thoughts and take responsibility for living from love and moving away from fear. Emotional maturity is where we want to self-heal and self-comfort rather than waiting for someone (knight in shining armor) or something (alcohol or chocolate) do it for us. We start to do the work of becoming more expert in our own humanness and as a result have healthier more honest relationships with others.

What is Spiritual Maturity? To be inspired is to be "in spirit" with the blessings around us. It is something we can see exactly. So what do you mean to "progress spiritually?" What does spiritual maturity look like? Is there a destination or goal to spiritual maturity? To me to mature spiritually is to ask better questions. Not that we get all the answers but we are wiser and more grown up in the questions we pose ourselves. We are willing to SEEK. Or maybe that»s it, spiritual maturity is to embrace your role as a seeker. And you won»t see the result, it is like all great things something beyond the mind...things like faith, hope, love.

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.