One Moment in Time

I love what this article says about attachment. It's not just in yoga practice, but also in things that shows up in daily life.  In regards to my yoga practice, I've been finding that there are certain poses that are difficult now.  I get agitated over this, but I keep going. I acknowledge why I feel agitated and then it moves through me and I continue with the practice.  

Since a big shift has happened in my life, I've been wanting to find more time for yoga practice and also "me practice." The "me practice" is not just yoga, but other mindfulness-based practices that I've picked up over the years in my various trainings. I want to embrace each moment when things come up for me, no matter how scary it may be.  It's a way of being. It is what is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(From Yoga Journal Daily Insight)

As the Buddha said, impermanence is the nature of the human condition. This is a truth we know in our minds but tend to resist in our hearts. Change happens all around us, all the time, yet we long for the predictable, the consistent. We want the reassurance that comes from things remaining the same. Yoga philosophy offers an alternative to these tendencies. It is to embrace the powerful truth: the power of living in the unchanging, eternal present.

We can even look to our yoga mat to watch the attachment pattern play itself out. We often find ourselves attached to a never-ending process of "improvement" in our asanas. They do improve quickly at first—in the beginning, we are on a honeymoon of discovery; we grow by leaps and bounds in ability and understanding. After a couple of decades, however, our poses change much less. Oftentimes, we can no longer practice certain poses because of age or injury, yet we feel agitated because we assume that the poses of our youth should be the poses of our middle and old age.

What gives life its juice is the ability to mourn anything fully and simultaneously know it doesn't ultimately matter. In other words, we can live to the fullest when we recognize that our suffering is based not on the fact of impermanence but rather on our reaction to that impermanence.

After the Laundry, the Laundry

http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/1248

Polishing the Mirror

http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2523

Connecting with myself

Wow, it's been a crazy month! Lots of stuff, growth and projects. Over the past month, I've realized how important it is to really take care of yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. A month ago, my friend from college passed away suddenly. It was a very surreal experience for me, my husband and the friends I reconnected with at the funeral. Even though it was a sad time, it was also celebration time. Celebration of life! This friend really moved a lot of people in different ways.

Before this happened, I had decided to cut back on my massage school classes to give myself some space and a break. I decided it was time to really connect with my emotions and my needs. As I've been doing this over the past month, shifts and changes have occurred and I don't feel the resistance. I moved through whatever it was that came up and to just, be with myself; give compassion to myself; give myself time to process and rest. Of course, we all get into bad moods and I sure let myself be in one about a week ago. But it's good to acknowledge that it's happening and choose what to do next. I chose ease and joy. So I dug into my toolbox and did some breathing, yoga, talked to people or had some alone time. These were things that I would never do for myself in the past. I used to feel I always had to keep pushing and pushing through. It's okay to do that to a point, but I needed to check in with myself on those occasions when frustration or anger would occur. I would say to myself, "Hey Liz, what's going?", "How do you feel?", "What do you need?". Sometimes I wouldn't know the answers right away, but that's okay. Perhaps, it was about accepting what is and not getting myself tangled up with it, which would create more tension.

We did an exercise in class last night and it was to answer the question, "Who loves me?". one of the people I wrote was ME! I appreciate myself for connecting, being, accepting, feeling, needing, caring, and loving myself. In the past I never had a lot of self-confidence and now I can say, and believe, that I do! What a ride!