Moving on Up

So i decided its time to retire this blog and restart after the amazement of teacher training. i want a fresh place to write where i feel comfortable letting the entire world and my students read my musings. SO this blog is to be no more.

... i'm moving back to http://dancingyogini.blogspot.com as the official bloggidy blog for my yoga journey. see ya there!

Anxiety and Affirmation

Anxiety. like i can't take a full breath, or really breathe much at all. i'm counting hours in the days and days in the months and months in the year and years in my life ... the conclusion is that there aren't enough. time keeps stealing my life away and i can't seem to catch up and keep up.

i'm headed away again next week for part 3 of todd and ann's teacher training and i'm all sorts of getting worried over it. this is totally NOT like me. for the last week i've even been getting worried before going in to teach classes. to the point of feeling like i'd rather burst into tears and run screaming from the room than face the loving and supportive students that have come to be with me.

i could list all the reasons i'm feeling anxious. there are plenty that i'm aware of and probably more that i'm not. but what's the point? dwell on the problems -- solvable and insolvable -- or move towards solution. and what is so strange this time in 'dealing with' the tight chest and drowning feeling, instead of trying to swat it away or sweep it under the rug, i'm actually trying to embrace it. i'm trying to invite it to tea to sit with me and just be here as a part of the big picture that IS me these days. having anxiety over for dinner is incredibly uncomfortable. it is NOT the most fun emotion to hang out with. (could i please have that blissed-out feeling back?) but it is real and it is here and i'm just trying to be dynamically still in the midst of it.

what i've found so far is that aside from making me want to eat all the sweets in the house and do some random impulse shopping, anxiety isn't SO terrible. i know the reasons for it, i take steps to alleviate those problems and otherwise i just let it be. i'm actually using it as a wake up call that i need to swing back towards taking care of myself.

meditate

practice yoga (even restoratives!)

pranayama

journal

connect with friends

take a long hot bath or shower without the baby at the shower door

sleep, even go to bed early

and constantly, every moment, every time i can... affirm myself.

i am perfectly imperfect just the way i am

there is nothing more i need to be

this world is more beautiful with me in it

i am doing all i need to do

i am teaching just the way i need to teach

i am progressing in my teaching at the perfect speed

i will overcome the teaching edges that stress me out right now in my own time in the right moment

i shine my bright light

i offer love to everyone including myself

reading these i take a slightly deeper breath and feel the love of Grace move through me. i remember my heart is connected to a great ocean of love that i have physically felt before. my chest is still tight. i still feel that i can't go on. but i know i can and i will. i know the practice will break through this place of uncertainty. and like everything, i know this emotion too will pass.

Lonliness

It is building, this local Kula. slowly but surely the anusara community here is getting started. hard to get started without an actual certified teacher, but that isn't really stopping us. i like knowing i'm not the only one around here who loves Anusara. who is eating it up and can't get enough... it feels a bit like and addiction to the alignment the theming the Tantric philosophy... and the heart-opening wildly loving family.

and that's where i feel a bit lonely. our family is small and only loosely banded together and the part that i am a part of... i am in the lead. i am the teacher. i am the mother. i am the guide. it is an honor. and it is lonely. i've often thought of john friend and wondered if he experiences this feeling. that no one can quite be in his place and share with him. that there is no one to take him under their wing and offer to him all that he offers to others. who opens his heart and blows his mind? i know the students do, but it is in a different way, a different capacity.

i miss being a part of a regular class, with a regular teacher that i look up to and adore and wonder about. that shares love to me as a child is loved by a parent. i miss having other students that are my friends that i laugh with and watch movies with and share long nights out to dinner and then dancing or other wildness. things are not as they once were. i know my YTT teachers do love us, but there is so much intellectual learning and not nearly enough practice happening at YTT.

and so i realize, though i've been in my (slowly growing) kula here and i've been in my YTT kula and so in the heart of Anusara. in the back pocket of one of my favorite teachers even. i'm over due for a hit of the love. i'm over due for a big rockin weekend of practice practice practice, expand expand expand and LOVE it UP! thankfully i am scheduled to practice with john next month. and i've made my plans for the future to keep myself connected and plugged in to the merry band, to even take my place as a part of the merry band.

i'm ready ready ready. enough learning and thinking and planing, time to DO!

AH - HA!

the other title to this post could be: OH, so that's what Grace is

i had an epiphany moment the other night while i was being yoga nerd and making flashcards for my YTT test. i was studying the immersion manual and came to the (very brief) part about Grace. According to John Friend "Grace is the power of revelation" i have read those words many many times. i have been taught that very idea many many many times in many many many ways, yet the other night it was totally different. like being hit with a baseball bat of reality and suddenly something changed. i GET it.
Grace is a POWER. it doesn't have power or use power it IS the power. so Grace is not some noun that uses her influence on the word. Grace is actually that moment when you realize something or you learn something new when... it is the power that makes that new learning possible, or makes the ah-ha happen. it is a power that reveals a truth that was previously hidden. it IS THE POWER. like friggin' magic.
i got really excited about it. i am really excited about. even taught a pretty good Open to Grace themed class that sunday.
and since then i've been thinking more about it. right now i'm imagining Grace to be like 'the Force' from Star Wars. it exists all around it is an invisible but undeniable power and some are more skilled in attuning to it than others (but probably all can be taught). the big difference would be that the Force is a power of the mind, and Grace is a power of the heart. either way it is about moving into the flow of the pulsation of life and staying there by attuning moment to moment. the better you get at attuning the better able you can tap into the power and use it to your advantage... to the advantage of the whole world.

and that's what it feels like to me today. i'm opening to a whole new world... powered by Grace.

Vinyasa Krama

The mantra that has been repeating in my mind over and over in the last few days is this: "Finish the vinyasa" in essence... finish what you started. i have tendancy to get very close to the end of something and then go off on a tangent leaving the first project almost, but not quite complete. but lately, without asking my mind has been suppling the thought... finish it. if you aren't done, Finish what you have started.

Vinyasa is translated many ways.. breath and movement, a type of class. etc. broken into sanskrit they say it means Nyasa - to place, Vi - in a special way. Vinyasa - to place in a special way. i does not mean move quickly through a bunch of postures while breathing, though it is often taught that way. but there is another deeper vinyasa definition that comes to mind when i think of my mini-mantra, that of vinyasa krama. krama is the steps one takes to place in a special way. that is, HOW do you place in a special way. it is having an intention then how do you get to the goal you have set. it can be applied to the yoga practice, and more importantly, as with everything yoga it can be applied to life. according to an article from yoga chicago.com it is the 'intelligent sequencing of a personal yoga practice designed with a specific intention or goal.' and 'it is as simple as deciding what to make for dinner or as daunting as deciding a new career - then taking the necessary steps toward achieving that goal.'

i notice that as my yoga practice becomes more organized, more efficient, more productive, more life-affirming... my life is improved. my life becomes more organized, more efficient, more productive, and in general happier. i start to remember to 'finish the vinyasa' and to even limit the projects i set out to complete in a day so that i can be more effective and actually finish what i start. this organization brings a sense of ease and space in my life that is not present when i am trying to do too much and not actually completing anything.

the mantra came to me a few years ago when i did my first teacher training and then slipped away. now, again i'm in teacher training, again i'm organizing my life to fit in my yoga practice and the mantra has returned. an unexpected and subtle benefit of the practice. finishing what i start... completing the vinyasa becomes another way yoga transforms my life day in and day out.

The Body Speaks

just finished practice

it amazes me how the body holds onto things and only lets you know what is going on when it feels safe to do so. for a while now i've been out of sorts in my left hip. that translates into a tightness on my whole left side and it doesn't do much to help my right shoulder. my entire body is trying to compensate. in my practice i've been trying to open that hip, to open that left side, but nothing much seems to help. today i used muscular energy and my body kept leading me in and in and in. and i think i've found it. my tailbone is in the wrong place. it is ever so slightly off to the left. as i worked hard in my legs i couldn't quite get it to move back, not the way i can often pop the SI joint into adjustment. so i kept at it, kept trying and finally just decided to rest. knowing there is more work to be done but nothing more for today, i put myself into savasana. there in corpse pose i was drawn back to the birth of my daughter. all of the emotions (ones that i didn't even feel that day) came back too, with a softness and an opening. and i knew then, that my misalignment happened during the birth and i never got back into place. hopefully, letting the emotions, joyful and sorrowful and fearful, flow helped soften the pull of the muscles and ligaments and will help move my tailbone into alignment again. life is better when i'm aligned. but either way, i am amazed that on this rainy cloudy cold morning when i didn't really want to practice at all, just going to the mat took me to a place of such profound insight and deeper awareness, not just of my body but of my whole life. after some practices, you are never the same.

Coming Home

The yoga is like coming home for me. It's like turning a corner after a long road trip and seeing the place most dear. then walking through open doors into the embrace of long loves.. and some days they're baking chocolate chip cookies and serving cocoa too. but sometimes it's like going home when no one is there. when the place is quiet and empty and not only that, it's dirty and tired. sometimes i can't even find the street the house is on.. i'd like to say i keep searching on those days but i'm likely to either roll up my mat and 'forget it' or stumble through nothing poses as i ponder my toenails and pick at my clothing.
and i'm supposed to teach people?
but maybe that is the lesson. when you first come home after that first semester away at college you are suddenly hit with the knowledge 'i don't live here anymore.' but you don't really live at college either. you are hit with the uprootedness of life. we are always uprooted. and in our society so disconnected from our truly divine nature.
yoga is that chance to plant roots. to try to go home for real. home to the back pocket of the universe where we can cozy up and bathe in the love and warmth that comes with the knowledge that we truly are whole.
these days as i struggle in the first moments of motherhood i remind myself this life is a journey, this home i'm creating for my child is a warm safe holding ground for exploration until we all return to the heart of the divine. and i remind myself i too, am divine. even in my most difficult and challenging moments
I am a Goddess