My new anthem

By way of Lisa, by way of Suzanna. You girls rock.

Enlighten Up!

Now this looks fun to me, mixing yoga and skepticism!

the current

This path of being a yogi in the modern world can be a lonely one. There’s no correlated, prescribed path – just one person at a time attempting to carve their own trail and keep their eyes wide open at the same time. It is an adventure to be sure, and a courageous and playful way to live – but it is not a common approach to life.

Living like a yogi means paying great attention. It means not talking smack about those around you. It means finding the most healthy solutions to your issues in life. It means being willing to listen, willing to be honest in the deepest sense of the word. It means approaching what others view as trials and struggle as the ultimate guru, a playful teaching moment. It means living without optional suffering to the best of our ability. It means learning to be comfortable with discomfort. I value and appreciate the friends and teachers in my life who understand and share this approach to living, and with whom I share this journey. While the universe seems to be taking a turn towards greater consciousness, I still find that for much of the time I feel alone as I try to incorporate living as a yogi with this very material, ego-gripped culture.

I don’t say this because I’m sad feeling alone, necessarily.  It’s just that sometimes I wonder if I’m sane. Add to my questionable sanity, the fact that I was raised Mormon and am linked to the religion in a tribal way forever-more, and things start to get interesting.

Mormonism is like this:

Mormons – for the most part, swim together. It’s like a school of fish that instinctively know which way they’re going, who’s on the inside, who’s on the outside and how to work together for the benefit of the group. There are so many wonderful things about moving in the group, especially when you really like the fish you’re swimming with.

As a Mormon, I used to struggle against the stream, so to speak. I did my best to stay in formation with the group but I often did so begrudgingly. As a yogi embracing the depths of honest living, I’ve had to make some changes in my relationship with the church. I don’t embrace anything begrudgingly anymore. I find myself off on my own more often than not. As challenging as it is, I think I’m becoming a stronger swimmer off on my own.

More on Enlightenment

Take a minute to listen… this is good stuff.

enlightenment

“Enlightenment is not a process of learning, it is a process of unlearning.”  — Dr. Kat Domingo

What is optional?

I decided it’s time to lose that baby weight once and for all (because my baby is now 4 years old!) and realized that I needed a little help. I’ve lost that fire in my belly and thought Dan over at trivalleywellness.com would be a good personal trainer fit for me. Well, so far he’s great, he knows his stuff, he’s safe and effective. And, even though I’m in relatively good shape and rarely get sore from all of that yoga, he has found muscles I didn’t know I had. Yesterday I was so sore that it was hard to move at all!

So today I was back for my workout. It was all good and when I was deep in focus trying not to DIE, Dan mentioned that I’m stoic and he can’t tell when I’m almost burned out – apparently I’m not complaining enough. (ironic, I know) I was laughing and just trying to remember that SUFFERING IS OPTIONAL!

Can I cling to that thought form? Pain isn’t optional, discomfort isn’t always optional, but suffering IS optional.

Right?

respect

“To the extend that we honor all aspects of ourselves, we remove revulsion, self-hate, horror, and terror from our lives. As whole human beings we are the creates of the greatest complexity on this planet. Respect for this complexity includes our insisting on acceptance of the inconsistent and incongruous.”

– Theodore Rubin

What was that New Year’s Resolution?

Oh yea. Damn it. Courage. Gotta work through the fear.

Something New

The problem with my life, is that I need something new to do. Something more exciting, more fun, more enriching to come my way. Would somebody ask me to take on some huge monumental project or task please? ‘Cause I really need a way to fill up my time!

Whew! This year has been THE BEST. I am so grateful for everything that has come my way. I’ve had the chance to meet some amazing people, start up some really cool projects, and line myself up even more closely with my life’s purpose. Really, it’s a great position to be in to wake up in the morning and realize that if I’m going to get everything done today, some things will have to come off of the to-do list. (you know that list, the one I can never find and never follow?) The even cooler thing (is cooler a word?) about The List, is that almost everything on that list are things I love doing. Considering that, I find that I don’t want to take things off of it, which creates a bit of a problem from time to time.

The beauty of it is, that I’ve learned to say NO. It’s been a huge lesson for me to just say no to things I don’t feel in alignment with. The hard part about it is that everybody else has an opinion about what I should do or not do! It’s been a huge experience of growth for me to listen to my soul and let that wisest part of myself decide what I will and won’t participate in. When I do listen, it makes saying no the easiest thing in the world.

So now I live in a (mostly) world of Yes’s that seem aligned with my heart. Now I find myself deep in tapas, working to just step out of my own way. My natural humanity seems to be the only obstacle in front of me now.

In the past, my yoga practice has been focused primarily on the limbs of the yamas, niyamas, asana, pranayama and dhyana. I have to admit that I kind of poo-poo’ed the 5th and 6th limbs of pratyahara (withdrawing the mind from sense perception) and Dharana (concentration) as practices that I would get to later. And, as yoga tends to do, those limbs have organically unfolded themselves at my feet in exactly the right moment.

I’m realizing that in order to get out of my own way, it’s time to embrace withdrawing from sense perception and make love to concentration. What’s an extremely creative/ADD girl like me to do when the universe is calling out for more concentration? Reign it in, baby!

Maybe this will help:

For me reigning it in, structuring it, creating a consistent rhythm in life and staying in synch with THE LIST (cue the scary music) is a yogic practice of great effort. It’s coming along as with most other yogic practices, but for me this particular practice has been a lot more clumsy and a bit less joyful.  I’ll be looking for ways to inject joy into the mystic journey of THE LIST as I go this week. When it’s all said and done, it all has to be done.

Maybe that To Do Tattoo isn’t such a crazy idea after all?