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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

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

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

 

 

NOVEMBER 23, 2009: This practices teaches us that YOU ARE ASKING FOR WHAT YOU WANT THROUGH YOUR DOING. This life we are living right now is NOT as participants. This is not a passive endeavor where life is being done to us. Instead it requires active living where life is being done FOR US.

This is behind the idea in yoga of Tapas. Tapas helps us to take action to fully participate and be awake to our lives. To be active means we must articulate our intentions and practice with a solid determination to hold true to our dreams and visions for ourselves. Through yoga which is a system for mental, physical, and spiritual health we have full, democratic participation. On the mat we don’t even have to push ourselves to excel, all we have to do is show up and do the practice as best we can with full hearted effort. Just take part in your life make it active, keep it active and forget about the over perfecting it.

So where in your life have you been less than active or just plain stuck? I can tell you I came to realize this week for me it is in my extended family Thanksgiving. I am still at the kids table which I never want to leave. I’ve lost two cousins to the grown up table already through the years and don’t want any more to go. At the grown up table a lot more is expected of you. You are required to be more active so I’ve been hanging back. Now I like the kids table with my adult cousins, its cool, its casual. But this year I am thinking I might ask my Aunt and Uncle who host Thanksgiving for the Mordini’s every year about what I can help with. Now don’t get me wrong they will have to take me kicking and screaming away from the kids table when I’m ninety-five and not a moment sooner but I can still take a more active role.

You see this practice readies our bodies, hearts and minds for the deep work of active living. Yoga gives us the energy and clarity we need to create the lives of our dreams. And I’ll tell you as we go into the home stretch of the year and need the yoga the most, that’s exactly when many of us will fall away from active practice. Well that’s not good enough. To receive the benefits you have to keep showing up and doing the work. Living in alignment is not passive. Just like conscious breathing is not passive. We have to breath on purpose. We have to live on purpose. Life is active, Love is active. On the mat when we inhale we prepare, as we exhale we deepen our pose. Off the mat our active living requires we inhale fully and as we exhale we wake up to the best parts of ourselves moment by precious moment. Join me for more yoga, stay active. Big love! 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