Living Yoga with Laurel

Have you ever found yourself wishing you had more —more time for yoga, more money, more info (internet), more friends (electronic or real live ones), more experiences, more postures, more travel, more time?? We live in a world whose mantra is MORE. More is better!  If we only had more of this or more of that, life would be grand!

But the wisdom of the yoga teachings tell us something quite different!

More implies that what we have right now is not enough.  That what we have and are is somehow inadequate —a condition which our bodies are hardwired to view as a threat to life itself.  The problem of scarcity – not having enough time, possessions, experiences,  self-confidence, etc.,  creates a toxic burden on our system known as stress.   Things aren’t okay. This sets off the limbic system and ignites the fight, flight or freeze response.  Cortisol levels go up.   Belly fat forms.  Anxiety and worry increases.  The quality of our sleep and digestion suffers.   We get cranky.  We are in such a hurry to get MORE that we miss the beauty of the moment, here and now.  We forget to stop and smell the roses.

What’s worse, is that the constant pushing ahead for MORE–whatever that more is—– clutters up our energy body. Think of your mind. Your thoughts.  Your emotions & beliefs.  In yoga, the subtle energy body is believed to be the underlying substratum upon which our physical body grows,  made up of more than 70,000 pathways thru which energy flows.  When we have a  belief that MORE is better, the belief repetitively drives our thoughts in a compulsive way.  We don’t have time to spend with the kids.  We don’t have time to meditate.  We speed on the way to yoga class just to get there in the nick of time—holding our breath the whole way!  We wish we could clone ourselves, but in lieu of it, we show up physically for one thing, while our minds are oft somewhere else.  We split ourselves up inside.  When we are always hurrying on to the next thing, we miss the fullness of what’s happening here and now.  Which leads us to feeling empty, and searching for MORE of something!

As much as we’d like to believe that all of the internal machinations of our MORE! madness are invisible to the physical world, they are not.  Internally, when we get cluttered up with obsessive or repetitive thoughts, we effectively clog the pathways that energy travels with junk.  We subsist on a mental diet of junk — thoughts that are addictive, repetitive and not good for us.  What’s more, according to Rabbi Wayne Muller when we neglect rest — whether mental or physical—he says that “With few notable exceptions, the way problems are solved is frantically, desperately, reactivly, and badly.” (Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest)

One way we can rest physically, mentally and spiritually is through Cleansing the mind-body-spirit.  Cleansing reduces our thought production, slows down our activity, and gives the body a chance to rest, recharge and rejuvenate.  If you’ve every done a cleanse before, you’ve had a first hand experience of this.  If you haven’t, you don’t know what you are missing out on.  There is nothing quite like it.

Please join me April 15-30 at Pai Yoga for a Super Cleanse, (last day to register is April 10).  This is a “super” cleanse because it works super fast,  includes 10 super foods, and teaches you how to utilize the super 8 limbs of yoga to clear the mind-spirit of excess junk.  You’ll end up carrying around LESS—less stress, less physical weight, and less emotional baggage. And, you’ll walk around feeling MORE satisfied with your life and MORE in tune with your authentic self, feeling uplifted and light hearted!  Sign up now for Top 5 Reasons to Super Cleanse.

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence…[and that is] activism and overwork.  The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.  ….The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace.  It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.” —Thomas Merton

This past week, my yoga practice has taken a magic step forward. On monday, I tried to go into a backbend from standing. I crashed on my head the first couple of times, until I integrated that I needed to keep my arms strong, and then, it just clicked. It felt very easy. I had only tried with someone helping me before, but it’s such a great feeling to do it on my own. This started an interesting thought process for me. I have absolutely no fear of backbends. I am ready to explore, push my limits, try new things. I just feel comfortable and strong, and I really enjoy the feeling of being in a backbend. Starting from my feet could seem scary, and it was a little at first, but I had no hesitation about facing this fear, and it was easily overcome. I have had the opposite experience with headstands and handstands. Now, I can do a headstand in the middle of room. I have finally managed to find my balance. But I still feel some fear and tension. And as you know, I have been struggling with handstands too. I know my body can do it. So, it made me wonder what kind of emotions I associate with backbends and handstands that make me have such different experiences. One of my friends suggested that going into a backbend from standing means starting from a very grounded posture, standing on my feet. It’s familiar and safe, and this gives me the strength to go for it. It’s quite a different story for handstands. And so, I started to think about it all, and I would be curious to know what you think.
The amazing thing is that I haven’t found the answer yet, but on friday, for the first time, I managed to kick up to handstand at the wall. That morning, I just set my mind on facing my fears and doing it. It took many many times kicking up. But with each time, I could feel it getting closer. I just knew it was going to happen. I could feel my handstand coming to life, becoming a reality. And it happened. It was such an amazing feeling, not just standing on my hands, but finally having overcome something that I have been dreading and struggling with for so long. It made me feel like I can do anything now!! It was something that I saw as a huge mountain that I had to climb, a huge obstacle. And now that I am on top of the mountain, this obstacle doesn’t look so big anymore. I will keep this experience in mind each time I am faced with an obstacle that seems too big for me. I will remind myself that the obstacles are only as big as we make them, because when we are on the other side, they really don’t look so big anymore. It’s the idea we have of something that’s scary, not the thing itself….

Reposted with permission from:

Anne Devismes, 2010 Yoga with Laurel Teacher Traininee (200 hr)

Dear Laurel and my fellow 500 YTTs,

After our session last Saturday I was thinking about a metaphor for how I felt. Cooking is a big part of my life so I naturally thought about how I feel when I know I have to cook dinner. If the fridge is full when I open it, I get inspired; but if it is empty my brain goes into spasm (just like overworked back muscles). A day of being in your company does for my yoga what a full fridge does for my cooking!

Naturally, cooking for foodies is harder than cooking for people who don’t know the difference. It’s also a challenge to cook for people you don’t know. I never feel stressed cooking for my family or best buddies (some of who are crazy foodies). I know that they love me whether my meal is great or not. They are the kind of guests that bring a dish and ask to help out, or share how they make something I’ve got simmering, inspiring me to experiment the next time I make that dish.

Saturday I felt nervous about teaching. In my opinion you guys are yogadies (foodies) so there is the pressure to perform, and whats more I don’t know you very well! How could I relax and have fun? I realize that I have to get to know you better and that takes time; and that I have to let go of what you think of me as a teacher, but that takes confidence, the very confidence I am trying to get by doing this 500 hour training!

As a freshman in college I used to get really nervous about exams. Then, my sophomore year, I met a friend who taught me how to organize a study group. Frequently for midterms a professor would give the class 5 possible essay questions (one of which would appear on the test). As a freshman I would have stayed up to the wee hours several nights in a row writing all 5 myself. As a sophomore I would get 4 classmates together and divide the questions, planning to meet the next night w/ 4 photocopies of each assigned essay to share. Then all we had to do was memorize. It worked like a dream. That’s kind of how I see our group. We haven’t had time to get to know each other but we’ve got a tough class to pass. We can go off on our own and even compete against each other or work smart by sharing. This saves time and effort and you actually end up learning more since people tend to have different strengths and weaknesses.

Now, you are getting to know me….I like to eat, I like to cheat, and I like to sleep….. ( I’d rather not say “cheat” but it rhymes better than “share”) Over time I hope to become a friend to each of you. I hope that some of my favorite dishes might become yours, and that yours might become mine. I hope that you may take my favorite dishes and make them better. I hope I can do the same. All the while having a good time.

Looking ahead to the next two years I know that we will share a lot together and along the way we will all become better cooks. And that’s important because it is the food which initially brings people to our table, but it is the company, conversation and sharing, the real pleasures of the table, that will make them stay.

Namaste,
Maria