moksha: the song. it's like melodic freedom

Got this from a music-manic friend of mine. It's inspiration for today. Instrumental post-rock (whatever that means) interpretation of the Sanskrit term for freedom, or liberation.

The band's called Caspian. The song's called Moksha.



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Yoda was right: there is no try, only do

Five yoga tricks
1. Stand on your head.
2. Balance your body perpendicular to the floor, standing on one leg.
3. Sit cross-legged for half an hour, motionless. Ignore any discomfort.
4. Transform pain into simply sensation.
5. Raise energy from the base of your spine out the top of your head.

What they all have in common
Yoda. The idea that our limitations are all in our head. Sure, I've heard the argument that accomplishing advanced yoga poses is just about alignment. But how do you get yourself to try them in the first place? We gotta get outta our heads. How do we do that? We let go.

It's not a matter of trying. We can't try not to think--that just brings our attention to our thoughts. It's a matter of letting go of our thoughts, our fears, our resistance and doubt. It's a matter of letting ourselves sink into that deep peace and strength that is always there inside our hearts.

It's not trying to stand on our head; it's letting our deepest inner strength carry us straight. It's not a matter of trying to do Warrior III; it's letting our trying and striving to balance go and just being in the moment of each breath. It's not trying to transform pain; it's letting go of our perceptions of it. And it's not trying to work our base energy centre so our Kundalini can rise; it's letting go our our ingrained thoughts about our physical body's limitations.

As for sitting still for half an hour; I know it's about letting go, too--but I'm still working on that one.

Interesting that 'Yoda' is so much like 'Yoga'--or am I the last one to notice this?

yoga for pain relief

Did you know chronic pain is often, a lot of the time, not even related to anything causing actual physical pain? I didn't.

Here's what else I didn't know, but Kelly McGonigal, (Ph.D.--don'tchaknow--and RYT), author of Yoga for Pain Relief does:
- chronic pain is a learned, overprotective body-mind response
- the mind and body amplify your present pain, in a misguided attempt to protect you from future threats
- your nervous system begins to stand on guard, extra sensitive to even the tinsiest bit of pain
- neuroplasticity--our nervous system's ability to learn in response to experience--makes any response we practice more likely
- SO, drum rolls please, practicing a different, non-ouch, response, means we can actually feel less pain (I think)

Kelly's book is a must-read. Read it and share the tips with people in your classes, your mom, your grandma, your BFF. Get it, keep it, lend it out.

Available
Amazon.com

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life: waiting patiently

Your life is waiting for you
in the moments outside of your routine
~ SARK

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the unemotional yogi: master or myth?

Emotions and Yoga: BFFs or Enemies?
"It is not a great thing to feel nothing. I know there are so-called yogis, gurus, and masters out there who shrug and say, "It doesn't matter," who can do things like get into and out of a relationship with no feeling...but this does not mean enlightenment. This means they are closed."

My Ayur Vedic doctor and friend Shiva (or Dr. Varma to those in the biz) said this to me the other day. Shiva's been telling me something along these lines since I first met him over two years ago. I nodded each time, wondering why he was mentioning it.

Slamming the Lid
And then, finally, it hit home this week. I believed this, am still caught up in this way of thinking. Somehow, somewhere along the lines during my teacher training, I came to understand that non-reaction was "yogic", that being able to shrug and say, "It is what it is," or "Ah well, that's the cycle of life," was important. I remember reading a book by Iyengar, where he talks about why he didn't cry at his wife's funeral; it was because to cry would just be to give over to the petty human experience, to cry in self-pity, and not for her, to lower down to the level below the soul. So I began to work on that.

Here's what my method was: anytime something hurt me, or disappointed me, or made me mad, I would shrug and say, "It's okay," or, "It is what it is." Here's what that did to me: It denied all those feelings--those honest, integral human experience feelings. It slammed a lid on them. So they boiled under the surface, unacknowledged and unreleased. And my body reacted with anxiety--one of my great teachers in life. As Shiva says, my body was saying, "No, why is she shutting down?"

What a Load of Hooey
Because it's not yogic to not react, to shrug and say, "It's okay." Yoga is union, is opening to the connection with the greatest love in our own hearts. How can we love if we're not open to it? How can we be open to anything if we're always shutting down?

I definitely don't have all the answers, but one thing I know is this: I'm not slamming the lid on anymore, no matter what any yogi, even Iyengar, has to say.