Why Do We Dream?

Why do we dream about our ideal selves, our distant purpose? Maybe a more useful question would be: Why is our purpose distanced? What purpose does our distance serve?

We have responsibilities, that's for sure. So why does our responsibility to pursue our passions take a backseat? I choose the reliable comfort of the daily norm to hold on to safety. (Hold on, you only live once... we choose a daily norm?!)

What if instead we all pursued what made us come alive? Would we be generating more authenticity? If we create truly honest relationships with our dreams, what does that say of our relationship with everything else? Who would you be without your self-imposed limits?

True honesty with the self has the potential to relieve so much of the aching we hold on to. Your honest hard work is enough.

BACKSTORY:

Wonderful Rocket Yoga class in NYC lead by Scott Schwartz (who snuck a video of us. If it feeds curiosity, I'm in the last shot)

This is me below. (HI!) My best friend and yogi inspiration has been dreaming of scorpion pose, so we decided today is the perfect time to dive deeper. With an open imagination and the receptivity to working hard, Maggie's going to find her scorpion. First comes the dream.. Next, we follow the imagination of living out our purpose, and finally pursue hard work. Through a lot of fear and falling, we lock into the connection to our truth. This holds true for scorpion, and for life. Trust the process. Asana is a powerful metaphor to be studied.

Becoming Disoriented

It may be an opinion, but handstand seems to be a big deal in the yoga world. Like if you unlock handstand, maybe you're "good" at yoga or something...

This is why I think handstands are a revelation...

Handstand allows me first to be okay with being disoriented. Upon beginning handstand practice, I didn't know how to hold myself up, which was unsettling. Feeling incompetent, I was experiencing instability in a new dimension. In a yoga class, I can put my body in warrior poses and feel successful. Handstand isn't as straight forward (at first).

If I'm okay working in a place where I'm disoriented, I am trusting I will find my own true center: my core in balance. Also, by falling (a lot), my perceived failure won't distract me from becoming oriented. Falling doesn't affect me any differently than balancing; it just is. I can continue exploring in both situations.

In my life, sometimes the direction my studies/work/relationship/ is taking is entirely foreign. Sometimes the explanations around me don't compute or translate in my life or my body, but I can show up willing to be lost, and at the same time willing to be found.

The Power of Grounding

For a while I was looking for ways to deepen my practice and energize it. Where to turn... coffee? Nuts? Something? The answer was way more obvious and simple than I was admitting;

I always practiced on my mat, it seemed like the normal solution. After some reading, "Moola Bandha - The Master Key" by Swami Buddhananda, I began to recognize what I was really looking for: The energy of the Earth. We know it's simple to harness; it's transmitted through touch, dirt to skin. So here's what I learned...

The root Chakra is associated with the Earth and being grounded; stable. A balanced Mooladhara Chakra (located at the base of the spine, the root of the body) serves as the foundation for the rest of the body's energy. In practice, once I felt the mud, grass, and leaves beneath my feet, under the nails of my fingers, I felt something new in my body. I found new energies opening up and infusing my body. I went from feeling stagnant to adventurous...

Another awesome thing I learned being outside is that being under the sun heats the body, yes, but it also brings life and inspiration! The sun stimulates growth in all of nature, including us. It does the same to a yoga practice!

I started practicing outside based on a friend's suggestion, and after some reading on the Moola Bandha I was suddenly doing things I never thought I could! I was standing on my hands... I don't know how to do that... except I do? GET OUTSIDE, you might learn something new! DO IT! :)

INSIDE AND OUT

It's been said many times that beauty is on the inside and out; it exists in darkness and in light, pain and pleasure, imprisonment and emancipation. Why then practice, literally do yoga, only indoors or outdoors? To elaborate:

Why only practice yoga on the inside of your body (physically embodying posture) but not outside (embodying purpose in action)? So we use this as a metaphor for the literal: Why only practice indoors and not outdoors in the elements?

Our natural instinct is to seek balance in life.
When we fall in love, we find someone who balances our excesses and deficiencies.
When we practice, we look to create balance in ourselves; this is how we benefit every relationship in our lives when we take the conscious step, the sacred step (or "vinyasa" in sanskrit), onto our mat.

This idea was born of a vacation...

A friend from Yoga Teacher Training recently visited me on vacation in Rhode Island. Beach yoga! We began practicing in the sand; a first for me. Using a new foundation for understanding such as sand created the opportunity to approach the practice with a whole new perspective and consideration.

Instead of grounding into a yoga mat, I was now gripping the Earth's shores with my hands. The ground isn't so stable; flat stable surface was created by man. The Earth has a softness to it. So to use the sand required a deeper awareness and attention, which actually allowed me to explore a posture that's more difficult for me. The result?

Holding handstand longer!

Maggie's backbend variation, and my handstand on Bonnet Shores Beach, RI

But alas, vacation ended. It's so easy to want to practice constantly with someone like Maggie around! When the time comes to roll out the mat and no one's around, aka my home practice, it's way harder.

BUT HERE'S THE AWESOME PART...

Maggie taught me to bring my physical practice everywhere; inside and out, just as we both believe yoga is a physical practice that takes place inside the body, as well as a way to live life outside of the postures.

giving Maggie's wheel a beachy adjustment

so the journey continues...

Inside

 and out ;)

For your consideration...

When you step on your mat, do nothing but create more love - so that when you step off your mat, you do nothing but create more love. <3 Namaste

Humble Beginnings

We all have humble beginnings; as infants, our mothers would change our diapers, wipe our drool, burp us until we well... we were just adorable. A mother's love is unconditional. She didn't wait until you were full grown to love you;
so why wait until the practice looks a certain way to love it?

Embarking on a new journey often means everything seems like an obstacle. The truth is, our perception is what makes the journey either worthwhile, or total hell! For example, I was blessed with really tight hips. It took me years to sit in lotus, even with a daily practice. It was the releasing and opening that taught me more about myself than being handed the posture would have. I slowly watched how I deal with discomfort, when I want to give up, why I'm giving up, etc.

The way we do one thing is the way we do everything; running from a stretch is the same mentality we hold when we run from our fears and responsibilities (though you very well may be a rockstar who deals with things head on, in which case, yeah GET IT!).


You don't need to have every pose; create the ones that make you happy!


Pictures are fun, so here are all the beautiful people who I did Yoga Teacher Training with! This is our family :)

Why do you push yourself? & in what direction is that push leading you?

Practicing at home vs in a studio can facilitate very different experiences. At the studio it's easier to stay motivated because of the energy that's working to our benefit all around us. The thing that many people will say is that they see others in a beautiful posture and they want to get there, so they don't give up.

Eventually, hopefully, we turn so far inward that it doesn't matter if we're in a studio or at home; it's the same yoga.

Studio practice can be a wonderful tool that allows us to connect to each other while home and self practice allows for a unique intuition to guide the soul. In a studio, when someone around me is breathing really well, it encourages me to stay linked to my breath, no excuses. If they can do it, there's no reason I should be cutting myself off from life and oxygen. If I feel myself running on empty and giving up, I know I'm only encouraging others to give up. We have to keep going! It's only a moment, and it could change someone else's. When we push ourselves, we inspire others. Life's about inspiring others.

Personal side-note: for a long time my practice was about achieving and striving for perfection. I wanted something to show for my blood sweat and tears. Type-A and all that jazz. It sounds shallow because it is. The yoga helped me realize that this was how I was leading my life, not just my practice. Yoga allowed me to break free of the habits I was making myself a victim of. Lately I've been playing around with taking extended breaks from my practice, and I found this:

If we're growing because we seek perfection, it's not growth for the right reasons. Perfection doesn't exist, and if we're chasing it, what is the destination other than a lonely island of one?

Connect, breathe, ommm <3

We're never entering a pose, we're creating it. 

Each time we step on the mat it's a fresh start. While we're creatures of habit, we recognize that fresh, while scary, is exciting. We like being successful, so we tend to return to the places we know we can flourish. Mountain pose: nailed it! Turn it upside down into handstand... maybe not so familiar, but fresher and more likely to teach us something.
Take kids for example: While they may find they absolutely love hide-and-go-seek, they know they can't use the same hiding spots each time they play. What worked once may not work again. A habit of using the dog's toy pile for security may have the exact opposite effect because they've used that solution before. Translated to relevant terms, if we go through the same variations each time we practice, we're creating a rut where we keep finding ourselves hidden. Why go through life hiding? We can find ourselves on our mats if we just push past the desire to "be good" at it all. ((If we study any one phenomenon here on this Earth, we can learn about every other thing. Children, adults, plans, animals, anything.))
When kids play, they're not just passing time. They're evolving and absorbing. Soaking in the fruits of our labor happens the instant we make a choice that serves our breath and our intention in the present moment. Instant karma. Staying present to the stimuli we are taking in now allows us to choose learning over comforts. These choices don't just affect our own experience, because the impact reaches our person, and then we reach others in our lives with that energy. All stemming from that one choice grounded in the willingness to explore and capacity to be fearless. If we can do it on the mat, we can do it anywhere. In fact, big changes on the mat are often a reflection of big changes off the mat.
We're powerful beyond our wildest dreams, and if we take that fresh step, we can create a fresh world. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." - MK Ghandi

Because pictures are fun, here's a happy (lion) baby!

Take on the consciousness of the pose! You are a warrior. You are a happy baby. A lizard. A crow. You are a bird of paradise. You are everything. Every pose, every emotion and every being. We are all part of the same creation, living with and interacting with the same environment. So hum - I am that. That I am.

For the record, babies actually do this. And they LOVE it. You're not a hiding child, you're a (happy) lion! And if you haven't uncovered it  yet, start looking for a fresh perspective! The dog toy pile smells bad after a few minutes anwyay.

O hayy