"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitment, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open hearted vision of people who embrace life." - John Lennon
I'm sitting here trying to think of a blog post to accompany John Lennon's words, realizing that the quote pretty much sums up what I want to say. This week's classes have focused on the idea of being open to receiving love, and to giving love. Both to oneself and to others. I've also been exploring the concept of fear and how the mind can prevent us from taking leaps into the unknown.
Life is a series of well thought out decisions, and the occasional risk where we've jumped into experiences heart first. Each life event creates karma. Sometimes we hold on to this karma, good or bad, and it manifests physically. Sharon Gannon's quote perfectly illustrates this concept, "You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state"
This is where our physical practice can help us to reveal where we may be holding on to karma in the form of injury, tightness, or weakness. As students move through a practice, they may begin to feel imbalance in the body. A chakra balancing practice with a focus on where students typically hold tension, or experience weakness may be an effective way of releasing karma and opening the practitioner up to the possibility of change or growth.
The practice this week was focused on the bottom four chakras - base, sacral, solar plexus, heart & throat. The intent of the practice was to help students build a foundation from which they can find the courage to trust their intuition, open up to love and express themselves authentically.
Practice:
Balasana
Adho Mukha Svanasana
Anjaneyasana
Plank (front & side)
Surya Namaskar B
Supta Virasana
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (modified, reaching back with one hand to take foot)
Ustrasana
Setu Bandha or Salamba Sarvangasana
Matseyasana
Ananda Balasana
Savasana
The thinking mind hinders us by creating fear. We fear things that might result in heartache, pain, embarrassment, and loss. We often resist expressing ourselves authentically for fear of risking these things. For example: falling in love with someone strikes fear in many because we risk heartache. If we are expressing ourselves authentically, and if we practice self love, we are much more effectively equipped to deal with heartache.
Yoga practice is part of our path to authenticity and self love. The physical practice opens areas of tightness and resistance and closes where we may be weak or too open. It brings balance into the body, and stills the mind. This place of balance better helps us cope with the ups and downs of a heartfelt life. Rather than shutting ourselves off to the possibility of challenge or heartache, our yoga practice provides us with the tools to remain
soft and still in the face of adversity.
I was speaking to a student yesterday about how a regular asana practice has changed his life in a profound way. His interaction with life, in his words, has softened. In my experience , others may interpret this as emotionless and hard. But, as this student expressed - it's not about being hard, it's the opposite. This is contentment: a steady, softened interaction with the world.
"The chemistry of the mind if different from the chemistry of love. The mind is careful, suspicious, he advances little by little. He advises, "Be careful, protect yourself". Whereas love says, "let yourself go". The mind is strong, never falls down, while love hurts itself, fells into ruins. But isn't it in ruins that we mostly find the treasures? A broken heart hides so many treasures" - Shams Tabrizi
namaste
