HEALING HAPPENS ONLY WHEN RELAXED
Think about this, 90% of all doctors visits are related to stress. Dude, that’s too much. We need yoga more now than ever. Take 5 minutes to feel this mantra and being your healing journey now. Love in all ways, Silvia
Healing is embracing what is most feared Healing is opening to what has been closed Softening to what has been hardened Healing is learning to trust life To experience healing we must relax.
And an open heart holds the key to our healing as an old Agni teaching says, “until we see with the eyes of the heart, listen to the roar of the world through the ears of the heart, and peer into the future with the comprehension of the heart, we can never know a thing, nor will we ever be whole. The Heart unites us all, regardless of our differences, in this common understanding, and brings compassion to our troubled world.”
“…to free the body to experience the power of being…your body is the ground metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence. It is your Bible, your encyclopedia, your lifestory. Everything that happens to you is stored and reflected in your body. Your body knows, your body tells. The relationship to your self to your body is indivisible, inescapable, unavoidable. In the marriage of flesh and spirit, divorce is IMPOSSIBLE, but that doesn’t mean That marriage is necessarily happy or successful. Only when you in truly inhabit your body can you begin the healing journey.”
DO YOU RESPOND OR REACT? HOW TO LESSEN THE DRAMA
I am feeling that vibe from the universe where I can tell folks are experiencing super busy minds but tiredness at the same time. Perhaps its end of summer buzz where we feel an energetic shift taking place and are in the process of making a million decisions for the next month. Well whatever the reasons I thought we'd focus tonight on clearing the mind and relaxing our hearts. Our philosophical focus on the difference between reacting and responding (only one is healing)!
We will begin seated with meditation, then recline followed by some supine poses to calm and relax. After this we will use standing poses to anchor us more fully into the moment. Finally I will guide us through a step by step approach to learning handstand (working at our own pace) so that you can practice this pose safely at home. At the end of practice we will enjoy an extra long final relaxation to bring it all together.
The poses will help us practice making choices. For we are surrounded with choices some more obviously healthy than others. Yoga wakes us up so we can be more present to the choices we are presented and from there we choose to either react or respond. These aren’t the same thing. Reacting is negative and Responding is positive. Which one are you doing?
Reacting is out of control feeling that just eats up our energy where we are too caught up in the details to understand the situation. Examples include excessive worry and anger. Whereas responding in calm and mindful and we are fully in charge of our feelings so no energy is wasted. We see the big picture. “Respond” comes from two root words: Re- meaning Back, and Spondere meaning “To Pledge.”
As a result in this practice we learn about our old ways of reacting, our habits and instead pledge to ourselves to create healthier habits and respond in a quiet way without the drama. In this way we no longer ourselves trigger fight or flight response with every decision and instead remain more calm. The sympathetic nervous system remains easeful and the mind finds quiet. It’s all here for you to discover on the mat. Love the day! Silvia
RELAXING OUR EFFORT: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
JULY 24TH, 2009:
Relaxing effort and fixing the mind on the infinite (asana is perfected). Yoga Sutras 2.47
To me this sutra is about how we relate to the questions and answers seeking in our lives. In class it is that opportunity to stop working so hard at finding answers for life (why things happened in the past as well as reassurances for what is going tO happen in the future) and just be in a state of now. Some psychologists call this “easy speed” This is that place of just pure awareness of the questions of our lives instead of the constant striving for the answers. This is the advanced practice.
A right effort an effective effort and why the poses need not be exotic to effective. I want the poses to be familiar enough that we can find the ease and all the technique becomes effortless so we can be here right now on all levels (emotional, mental, physical, spiritual). So let the poses be the questions, be the breath and unite your focus to breath and move. This then allows us to love the questions as poet Maria Rilke says in her poem:
From "Letters to a Young Poet" by Maria Rilke
I want to beg of you much as I can to be patient
toward all that's unsolved in your heart,
and learn to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms, or like books that are
written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is to live everything.
Live the question now,
perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.
When we find this infinite state then the unknown becomes less scary. We are in the isness of now (as Eckhart Tolle puts it so well). So let yourself feel your emotions around the unknown. Remember all of us are wondering about the future (it’s a trick and delusion of the human psyche). The thing is none of us know the outcome of any given day, the future is an illusion. Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious…” The way to avoid suffering is to learn to be present in the isness and be less afraid of the unknown so we can relax our effort and simply enjoy being here and seeing what is real and beautiful! I love you all, Silvia