I don’t know what it was, or why it was so amazing…but WOW!!! I met and talked Emily (good friend from Teacher Training) into doing Colin’s hot class instead of the regular temp class. I was a little worried myself as last week class took a lot out of me. To be honest…I’ve been a little frustrated lately…can you tell?
The two of us were front row, kissing the wall aka the HOTTEST spot in the class.
The room was packed, as always. Colin’s somewhat of a celebrity I think. He’s definitely my favorite!
We started the class and something changed within me. I noticed myself aligning my postures, and being more conscious of what I was doing. I was able to release, expand and deepen my poses. I was even able to hold dancers….entirely! This is the pose I want to do so well in, but fall out of EVERY time. Today…I held it. I was able to even go a little deeper and still manage to hold it. After we released, I actually let out a laugh! To me it was a breakthrough! From then on, every pose I took deeper, and then when it was incredibly unbearable for me, I took it deeper, and concentrated on softening and my breathing.
I FEEL GREAT!!! What a wonderful way to start my 4 day weekend retreat!
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others” –Nelson Mandela
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Couldn't of said it better myself...
I'm goin for the gold
My heart is in control my mind is on succeed and I am in the lead
Don't buy into the schemes
The science or stratege
Just giant and you tease brings triumph and belief
I'm reliant on redeem inspired by the green never tieing off of tig never defiant to my team
Never lying on the thing until I'm lying on the thing hooked to wires and things I'm a die as a king
If I don't do it now I'm a try it again and when I do accomplish it I'm a try it again I'm a riot insane I'm a lion my mane hangs down to my strings and they're tied to the game I stay dry when it rain I'm tried of the fame got everything to gain and I'm proud of the pain
The pride and the plain the wise and the strange the not by the sane besides we're the same
Whose guiding the train whose flyin the plane whose drivin the lane who dies when it bang who fires when it bang who lies in the aim two lives in the drain who crys when they sang you hide but you can't you hide but you ain't
I advise you to thank you'll find what you can't
Revive what you taint survive what you paint super-size what you shrank the fries and the drank
Admired as a saint defined by my rank combined with my strength my time and my length I'm a iron out the kinks yes I'm on the brink and in the eye of my wink I'm a retire in the bank
Victory consistantly train all year to be the enemy's misery no stress visibly neither does it enter me I think positively you can't harm me mentally not physically not spiritually you'll never get rid of me I am the epitome of this is what you did to me nothin's what you did for me
Nothin's what you give to me I take whatever I'm visualing now break all of the limiting now shake all of the gimicking
The fakery the trickery nurse how sick is he worse I'm sickening I'll be at the finish line first how quick is he I'm a make sure they mention me for the next century
I ain't with the bickering I'm full of dignity I'm full of energy pull out the inner me or bull after dinner meat I stood in the winter heat it could be the end of me but good be defending me
I'm allergic to cheatin and I hate failure and I'm in love with achievement above and beneath it a hug when I greet it my eyes on the prize and I love when I seek it done with the speakin begun with the
Preachin now pray until I am one with the deacon now play until I have won whatever we win I play until I have won and then I re-win
And I'm no quitter cause I'm a go I'm a go I'm a go getta
Yeaaaaaaah!
Lil Wayne
"I'ma Go Getta"
Tha Carter III
My heart is in control my mind is on succeed and I am in the lead
Don't buy into the schemes
The science or stratege
Just giant and you tease brings triumph and belief
I'm reliant on redeem inspired by the green never tieing off of tig never defiant to my team
Never lying on the thing until I'm lying on the thing hooked to wires and things I'm a die as a king
If I don't do it now I'm a try it again and when I do accomplish it I'm a try it again I'm a riot insane I'm a lion my mane hangs down to my strings and they're tied to the game I stay dry when it rain I'm tried of the fame got everything to gain and I'm proud of the pain
The pride and the plain the wise and the strange the not by the sane besides we're the same
Whose guiding the train whose flyin the plane whose drivin the lane who dies when it bang who fires when it bang who lies in the aim two lives in the drain who crys when they sang you hide but you can't you hide but you ain't
I advise you to thank you'll find what you can't
Revive what you taint survive what you paint super-size what you shrank the fries and the drank
Admired as a saint defined by my rank combined with my strength my time and my length I'm a iron out the kinks yes I'm on the brink and in the eye of my wink I'm a retire in the bank
Victory consistantly train all year to be the enemy's misery no stress visibly neither does it enter me I think positively you can't harm me mentally not physically not spiritually you'll never get rid of me I am the epitome of this is what you did to me nothin's what you did for me
Nothin's what you give to me I take whatever I'm visualing now break all of the limiting now shake all of the gimicking
The fakery the trickery nurse how sick is he worse I'm sickening I'll be at the finish line first how quick is he I'm a make sure they mention me for the next century
I ain't with the bickering I'm full of dignity I'm full of energy pull out the inner me or bull after dinner meat I stood in the winter heat it could be the end of me but good be defending me
I'm allergic to cheatin and I hate failure and I'm in love with achievement above and beneath it a hug when I greet it my eyes on the prize and I love when I seek it done with the speakin begun with the
Preachin now pray until I am one with the deacon now play until I have won whatever we win I play until I have won and then I re-win
And I'm no quitter cause I'm a go I'm a go I'm a go getta
Yeaaaaaaah!
Lil Wayne
"I'ma Go Getta"
Tha Carter III
Are you ready?...
Since Colin mentioned to me that he thought I was scared, holding back, not trusting myself, yoga has been that much harder. We met on Thursday before class because of an email I wrote to him asking him to please explain how to I can “fix” this. We talked a lot about the relationship I have with myself while I’m doing yoga. Am I able to surrender? Let go of the aggression? Soften? Trusting that when I’m ready, the teacher will come to me.
This frustration and anxiety has led to me to question my own journey. Am I on the right track...or wasting precious time? Should I have done this now? Or waited until I got the surgery on my feet, as I do feel this is a BIG restrain to my personal goals of being able to surrender during yoga. It’s not that I’m scared...it just HURTS sometimes. I don’t mean the hurt when you’re stretching a muscle; I mean the pain that comes from bone on bone crunching. Over the last 27 years my body has transformed and grown into what’s comfortable and easy, not necessarily what’s right. I’m learning to move all these bones and muscles into places and postures that work with others, and not so well with mine. This is when I get angry and frustrated. It’s so effortless for me to do Dancers pose while wearing stiletto’s then it is while barefoot.
Finding that peaceful relationship with myself has been hard, as mostly I’m angry with myself! WHY are my feet so messed up? WHY can’t you (myself) just do it? Does it make that much of a difference? This is where I see myself looking to others for that competition. She/He can do it...why can’t you. This is NOT where I should, OR want to be.
To start with, I need to build a relationship with myself that allows for modification. I might not be able to do a particular pose “correctly” but as long as I’m expanding, lengthening, and getting what I need from it then I’ll be on the right path. Obviously this is easier said than done. I’m not the “modification” type of person. To me, it’s all or nothing. My way or the highway. This isn’t a good quality to own up to...but it’s me, and the more I’m able to acknowledge it the more I’ll be able to work on altering it.
“To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else…”
This frustration and anxiety has led to me to question my own journey. Am I on the right track...or wasting precious time? Should I have done this now? Or waited until I got the surgery on my feet, as I do feel this is a BIG restrain to my personal goals of being able to surrender during yoga. It’s not that I’m scared...it just HURTS sometimes. I don’t mean the hurt when you’re stretching a muscle; I mean the pain that comes from bone on bone crunching. Over the last 27 years my body has transformed and grown into what’s comfortable and easy, not necessarily what’s right. I’m learning to move all these bones and muscles into places and postures that work with others, and not so well with mine. This is when I get angry and frustrated. It’s so effortless for me to do Dancers pose while wearing stiletto’s then it is while barefoot.
Finding that peaceful relationship with myself has been hard, as mostly I’m angry with myself! WHY are my feet so messed up? WHY can’t you (myself) just do it? Does it make that much of a difference? This is where I see myself looking to others for that competition. She/He can do it...why can’t you. This is NOT where I should, OR want to be.
To start with, I need to build a relationship with myself that allows for modification. I might not be able to do a particular pose “correctly” but as long as I’m expanding, lengthening, and getting what I need from it then I’ll be on the right path. Obviously this is easier said than done. I’m not the “modification” type of person. To me, it’s all or nothing. My way or the highway. This isn’t a good quality to own up to...but it’s me, and the more I’m able to acknowledge it the more I’ll be able to work on altering it.
“To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else…”
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Dark night of the soul
“Dark night of the soul" sounds like a threatening and much to be avoided experience. Yet perhaps a quarter of the seekers on the road to higher consciousness will pass through the dark night. In fact, they may pass through several until they experience the profound joy of their true nature.
Many seekers would encourage the dark night experience if they knew what it was. However, to one engaged in the dark night, suffering seems unending. While the term dark night of the soul is used broadly, its general meaning — in the field of higher consciousness — is a lengthy and profound absence of light and hope. In the dark night you feel profoundly alone.
You can’t fit in…
You, as a genuine seeker, have gone through many significant phases as you progress toward higher consciousness. Your faith is strong. You have kept loyal companionship with fellow seekers and perhaps you have already found a special teacher. You’ve experienced indications of the reality of higher consciousness and yearn to be more deeply in communion with it. You see the principles of a higher power at work in your life. Yet, all in all, you find yourself somehow painfully on the outside. You feel caught between your old way of living, your old tendencies and associations, and this nebulous, unreachable realm of higher consciousness.
You try to be good, and often you can’t. You try to be loving and find at times your heart is hard like stone. Sometimes your projects fall down around your ears. You keep struggling and still you don’t break through. You understand the path is one of joy and yet your life seems to have been barren for a month or two, perhaps longer. Where did that early joy and zest go?
Hanging on…
Up to this particular time there was joy, there was delight. But now there is only a hanging on, a dogged hanging on. You persist because you can’t conceive of going back to your old way of life. That seems impossible now. That would be like going to prison, living as if with a transorbital lobotomy. A number of your friends in the fellowship of this great path know what you are going through for they have been through it themselves. They feel the main thing to do is encourage you to go on. They know if you keep it up and do not quit you will succeed. They know if you quit you will be a self-reject and will return to the old life, forever a foreigner, being neither at home with it nor at home anywhere else. They recognize that your own higher self, out of love, is lifting you up into its embrace.
You feel totally alone…
Your night is a very difficult time. While others may one day envy you for the marvelous growth you experienced in such a short, intensified period, you will, because of the pain of your experience, always feel profound compassion for those whom you one day see going through a similar night.
Being caught between the old way of life and the new possibilities, your sense of alienation intensifies. Your sense of inadequacy and not knowing what to do next becomes gnawingly constant. You feel you would do anything to get out of this state, yet it is only your ego which is keeping you in it. However, this insight is impossible for you to grasp while going through your long night. The dark night is a very private matter. The person in the dark night is generally able to function quite well despite inner suffering. Often your acquaintances never suspect that you are going through the dark night — they probably do not even know what it is. Only people close to you — especially friends along the path — can recognize your pain.
Enters midnight…
Alone, and not wishing to be, unable even to express yourself to others, you enter midnight and the greatest intensity of the dark night. Here you have finally come to the time of sovereign solitude. In this precious time, which has no apparent prospects of love or happiness, you clearly perceive that nothing in the outer world has proven adequate to heal your condition. Nobody, not even your dearest friends and loved ones, can make you whole. Even if they have tried, and love you enough to try loving you forever, they can’t give you peace.
Clearly, there is nowhere to turn. There is nothing to be done. All actions you considered have been tried. There is nothing to think, nothing to feel, nothing to do, nowhere to go. It seems you have to accept this defeat — or, you can persist in struggling against it. For awhile longer, you go about thinking, feeling, and doing other options that occur to you. But you realize in the midnight of your soul that you have tried every option you know of.
The Peace comes…
Then, it happens. A holy presence comes into your room — sweetly, softly. You feel it filling you. Your mind is filled with mellow or bright light. Your heart, your still heart, is permeated with peace. This peace moves through your body like a cold spring of mountain water. It flows in your spine, your brain, and under your skin. Everywhere!
Also, this presence, this comforter, moves like a breeze across your arid mind and numb heart. Then, or a few days later, the fire of joy begins to smolder. Here, abiding with nothing more to do, your ego drops away! Your ignorant, arrogant, fearful sense of self falls away from you. You stand in light — a new being, a free being — transformed.
Your ego sense…
Believe it or not, that’s what the dark night is all about: transformation. Your ego, your limited sense of self, your inadequate complex of ideas about who you are had to be dissolved. Your ego was, you begin to see, eclipsing higher consciousness and your true nature. Your old sense of self was inadequate to your new hopes and proper state. Your suffering intensified because of a major misapprehension. You were too used to thinking of yourself based on inputs from your previous experiences in life. On and on through life, you gathered information and responses from the world which indicated to you what kind of person you were and are. These superficial units of related inputs became integrated in what is called the ego — your sense of self, your sense of who you are. As long as you allowed this inaccurate or only partial sense of who you are to dominate, you could not know or abide in your true nature.
Your ego sense is so powerful — you invest it with so much of your thought and feeling — that your attitudes of life become based on an egocentric perspective. The ego gains a progressively greater foothold on your entire life because your basic attitudes about your existence and essential nature are strongly linked with ego.
Attempts of the ego…
As you progress toward higher consciousness, your ego may not be humbling and daily transforming itself. You may, instead, have a highly developed ego which is sure that it is causing the events of higher consciousness to unfold bit by bit. Your ego, after all, can be very interested in the attributes of higher consciousness, in meditation and association with enlightened beings. Your ego feels gratification and satisfaction in moving on down the road toward higher consciousness. Finally your ego has found something it cannot do and, in the dark night of the soul, it becomes totally convinced it is inadequate. It cannot deal with your suffering or the fulfillment of the heart’s yearning. Nothing it can do, think, say, buy, or travel to, will in any way suffice.
The dawn of a new life…
You, in passing successfully through the dark night, enter the realms of higher consciousness. You’ve been cleansed of the most deep-rooted sickness: your ignorance of your true nature and your inadequate, often totally wrong opinion of who you are. You now cease your inner conflict and abide serenely in your true nature. The night is over. The dawn of a new life in higher consciousness transforms your bleak life of the past few months into one with a heavenly nature. You have been delivered of the intolerable bondage to ego.
Henceforth, you will walk the earth seeing others a fresh, living a new life, and abiding in your true nature. You have become a son or daughter of higher consciousness. Now your words and actions will be attuned with your true self. Now you express inspiration and comfort.
The dark night has passed. It is over.
Many seekers would encourage the dark night experience if they knew what it was. However, to one engaged in the dark night, suffering seems unending. While the term dark night of the soul is used broadly, its general meaning — in the field of higher consciousness — is a lengthy and profound absence of light and hope. In the dark night you feel profoundly alone.
You can’t fit in…
You, as a genuine seeker, have gone through many significant phases as you progress toward higher consciousness. Your faith is strong. You have kept loyal companionship with fellow seekers and perhaps you have already found a special teacher. You’ve experienced indications of the reality of higher consciousness and yearn to be more deeply in communion with it. You see the principles of a higher power at work in your life. Yet, all in all, you find yourself somehow painfully on the outside. You feel caught between your old way of living, your old tendencies and associations, and this nebulous, unreachable realm of higher consciousness.
You try to be good, and often you can’t. You try to be loving and find at times your heart is hard like stone. Sometimes your projects fall down around your ears. You keep struggling and still you don’t break through. You understand the path is one of joy and yet your life seems to have been barren for a month or two, perhaps longer. Where did that early joy and zest go?
Hanging on…
Up to this particular time there was joy, there was delight. But now there is only a hanging on, a dogged hanging on. You persist because you can’t conceive of going back to your old way of life. That seems impossible now. That would be like going to prison, living as if with a transorbital lobotomy. A number of your friends in the fellowship of this great path know what you are going through for they have been through it themselves. They feel the main thing to do is encourage you to go on. They know if you keep it up and do not quit you will succeed. They know if you quit you will be a self-reject and will return to the old life, forever a foreigner, being neither at home with it nor at home anywhere else. They recognize that your own higher self, out of love, is lifting you up into its embrace.
You feel totally alone…
Your night is a very difficult time. While others may one day envy you for the marvelous growth you experienced in such a short, intensified period, you will, because of the pain of your experience, always feel profound compassion for those whom you one day see going through a similar night.
Being caught between the old way of life and the new possibilities, your sense of alienation intensifies. Your sense of inadequacy and not knowing what to do next becomes gnawingly constant. You feel you would do anything to get out of this state, yet it is only your ego which is keeping you in it. However, this insight is impossible for you to grasp while going through your long night. The dark night is a very private matter. The person in the dark night is generally able to function quite well despite inner suffering. Often your acquaintances never suspect that you are going through the dark night — they probably do not even know what it is. Only people close to you — especially friends along the path — can recognize your pain.
Enters midnight…
Alone, and not wishing to be, unable even to express yourself to others, you enter midnight and the greatest intensity of the dark night. Here you have finally come to the time of sovereign solitude. In this precious time, which has no apparent prospects of love or happiness, you clearly perceive that nothing in the outer world has proven adequate to heal your condition. Nobody, not even your dearest friends and loved ones, can make you whole. Even if they have tried, and love you enough to try loving you forever, they can’t give you peace.
Clearly, there is nowhere to turn. There is nothing to be done. All actions you considered have been tried. There is nothing to think, nothing to feel, nothing to do, nowhere to go. It seems you have to accept this defeat — or, you can persist in struggling against it. For awhile longer, you go about thinking, feeling, and doing other options that occur to you. But you realize in the midnight of your soul that you have tried every option you know of.
The Peace comes…
Then, it happens. A holy presence comes into your room — sweetly, softly. You feel it filling you. Your mind is filled with mellow or bright light. Your heart, your still heart, is permeated with peace. This peace moves through your body like a cold spring of mountain water. It flows in your spine, your brain, and under your skin. Everywhere!
Also, this presence, this comforter, moves like a breeze across your arid mind and numb heart. Then, or a few days later, the fire of joy begins to smolder. Here, abiding with nothing more to do, your ego drops away! Your ignorant, arrogant, fearful sense of self falls away from you. You stand in light — a new being, a free being — transformed.
Your ego sense…
Believe it or not, that’s what the dark night is all about: transformation. Your ego, your limited sense of self, your inadequate complex of ideas about who you are had to be dissolved. Your ego was, you begin to see, eclipsing higher consciousness and your true nature. Your old sense of self was inadequate to your new hopes and proper state. Your suffering intensified because of a major misapprehension. You were too used to thinking of yourself based on inputs from your previous experiences in life. On and on through life, you gathered information and responses from the world which indicated to you what kind of person you were and are. These superficial units of related inputs became integrated in what is called the ego — your sense of self, your sense of who you are. As long as you allowed this inaccurate or only partial sense of who you are to dominate, you could not know or abide in your true nature.
Your ego sense is so powerful — you invest it with so much of your thought and feeling — that your attitudes of life become based on an egocentric perspective. The ego gains a progressively greater foothold on your entire life because your basic attitudes about your existence and essential nature are strongly linked with ego.
Attempts of the ego…
As you progress toward higher consciousness, your ego may not be humbling and daily transforming itself. You may, instead, have a highly developed ego which is sure that it is causing the events of higher consciousness to unfold bit by bit. Your ego, after all, can be very interested in the attributes of higher consciousness, in meditation and association with enlightened beings. Your ego feels gratification and satisfaction in moving on down the road toward higher consciousness. Finally your ego has found something it cannot do and, in the dark night of the soul, it becomes totally convinced it is inadequate. It cannot deal with your suffering or the fulfillment of the heart’s yearning. Nothing it can do, think, say, buy, or travel to, will in any way suffice.
The dawn of a new life…
You, in passing successfully through the dark night, enter the realms of higher consciousness. You’ve been cleansed of the most deep-rooted sickness: your ignorance of your true nature and your inadequate, often totally wrong opinion of who you are. You now cease your inner conflict and abide serenely in your true nature. The night is over. The dawn of a new life in higher consciousness transforms your bleak life of the past few months into one with a heavenly nature. You have been delivered of the intolerable bondage to ego.
Henceforth, you will walk the earth seeing others a fresh, living a new life, and abiding in your true nature. You have become a son or daughter of higher consciousness. Now your words and actions will be attuned with your true self. Now you express inspiration and comfort.
The dark night has passed. It is over.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
What must the caterpillar do, so that it may one day fly...
Last night was packed...and VERY hot in Colin’s class. I can only guess it’s either because of the -20 weather, or those new year resolutions. In any case, it made for a difficult practice last night.
At the beginning of class we discussed when the world throws you a curve ball do you consider it a test? A test of faith? A test of character? A test of strength? Or, do you look at it as an opportunity? An opportunity to expand, believe, fortify.
Colin brought it to my attention after class that he thinks I’m scared. That I don’t always believe in myself and as a result not being able to go deeper, further or strengthen. You can imagine the anxiety this gave me. My yoga teacher, the one who decides if I pass or fail...and ultimately decides whether or not to offer me a position at his studio. I stood in front of him like a sad, very confused puppy.
“Really??!?!?...no I SWEAR, I’m not scared, I BELEIVE!!!!”
We continued to talk about what he meant. He could obviously tell he had hit something inside me, and I was upset. What I really value about Colin, is that he doesn’t sugar coat anything. He’ll tell you exactly how it is, and make sure you understand it. My favourite part was when he asked me if I considered myself “girly” in difficult situations. At first I didn’t know how to take that. He explained that he notices when I’m in a position/posture/situation I get anxious, and I step back. I’m scared to go into the realms of the unfamiliar. Push my boundaries. Be uncomfortable. I’m more likely to think the universe is testing me rather than giving me an opportunity to expand. He expressed that when the “girly” side takes over I don’t believe that things will be ok and work themselves out...good or bad. Rather, I should find the “diva” in me and have FAITH! I agreed with him to a certain extent. In some things I am scared. Yoga being one of them. Some poses and postures HURT when I go deeper, and there have been times when I have taken a step back. I also feel a little halted by the condition of my feet as I’m not able to do some of the poses. Now that I think about it, maybe I agree with him completely. Although I’m a strong woman, I have chosen the easy path over the uncomfortable/unknown path more often than not. NOW I have anxiety! How do I get over this? How do I trust myself, have faith that everything will work out? Colin said for him it would be more of a prayer to the universe.
My New Year’s resolution: TO HAVE FAITH!!! Look at every situation I’m in as an opportunity to expand and see that I’m limitless.
It’s funny how he “noticed” this. We’re on our backs during class. Our left leg was straight above us, and our right leg was planted flat on the ground, thighs pushing down. The strap was wrapped around the ball of my foot, with the ends in my hands (shoulders on the ground) Colin asked us to “Barbie” our foot. Toes expanded and pointed towards ourselves with the ball of our foot pressing up to the ceiling. If you played with Barbie’s for a LONG time like I did, this “Barbie” foot makes total sense to you. I felt like my leg was on a spring and I had to work very hard to keep it in to my body and straight up. Mind you, it was also nearing the end of the 90 minute class. Colin came over, grabbed my right thigh and planted it into the ground. His shoulder was against my leg pushing it back. I can’t tell you how amazing this felt. At the time I was too busy welcoming the stretch and endorphins rather than remembering to focus and continue to root my leg down. After class it was my comment to him about how it would be great to have someone there with me during my entire class to help you align, root and deepen. This is where he noticed the fact that I don’t believe this CAN and eventually will be done on my own....oops! My bad!
At the beginning of class we discussed when the world throws you a curve ball do you consider it a test? A test of faith? A test of character? A test of strength? Or, do you look at it as an opportunity? An opportunity to expand, believe, fortify.
Colin brought it to my attention after class that he thinks I’m scared. That I don’t always believe in myself and as a result not being able to go deeper, further or strengthen. You can imagine the anxiety this gave me. My yoga teacher, the one who decides if I pass or fail...and ultimately decides whether or not to offer me a position at his studio. I stood in front of him like a sad, very confused puppy.
“Really??!?!?...no I SWEAR, I’m not scared, I BELEIVE!!!!”
We continued to talk about what he meant. He could obviously tell he had hit something inside me, and I was upset. What I really value about Colin, is that he doesn’t sugar coat anything. He’ll tell you exactly how it is, and make sure you understand it. My favourite part was when he asked me if I considered myself “girly” in difficult situations. At first I didn’t know how to take that. He explained that he notices when I’m in a position/posture/situation I get anxious, and I step back. I’m scared to go into the realms of the unfamiliar. Push my boundaries. Be uncomfortable. I’m more likely to think the universe is testing me rather than giving me an opportunity to expand. He expressed that when the “girly” side takes over I don’t believe that things will be ok and work themselves out...good or bad. Rather, I should find the “diva” in me and have FAITH! I agreed with him to a certain extent. In some things I am scared. Yoga being one of them. Some poses and postures HURT when I go deeper, and there have been times when I have taken a step back. I also feel a little halted by the condition of my feet as I’m not able to do some of the poses. Now that I think about it, maybe I agree with him completely. Although I’m a strong woman, I have chosen the easy path over the uncomfortable/unknown path more often than not. NOW I have anxiety! How do I get over this? How do I trust myself, have faith that everything will work out? Colin said for him it would be more of a prayer to the universe.
My New Year’s resolution: TO HAVE FAITH!!! Look at every situation I’m in as an opportunity to expand and see that I’m limitless.
It’s funny how he “noticed” this. We’re on our backs during class. Our left leg was straight above us, and our right leg was planted flat on the ground, thighs pushing down. The strap was wrapped around the ball of my foot, with the ends in my hands (shoulders on the ground) Colin asked us to “Barbie” our foot. Toes expanded and pointed towards ourselves with the ball of our foot pressing up to the ceiling. If you played with Barbie’s for a LONG time like I did, this “Barbie” foot makes total sense to you. I felt like my leg was on a spring and I had to work very hard to keep it in to my body and straight up. Mind you, it was also nearing the end of the 90 minute class. Colin came over, grabbed my right thigh and planted it into the ground. His shoulder was against my leg pushing it back. I can’t tell you how amazing this felt. At the time I was too busy welcoming the stretch and endorphins rather than remembering to focus and continue to root my leg down. After class it was my comment to him about how it would be great to have someone there with me during my entire class to help you align, root and deepen. This is where he noticed the fact that I don’t believe this CAN and eventually will be done on my own....oops! My bad!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)