I just got back from about 24 hours in LA. I "had to" go down for work (I actually did, Spin :: Flow is going to have a small retail component so I had to go meet with some wholesalers). But of course the trip was scheduled in such a way that I could also make it a Yoga safari. I had plans to hit Sarah Ivanhoe's class at Yoga Works on Sunday evening and Steve Ross' class at Maha today, but as we all know, the best laid plans . . . . travel complications had me running late, so I had to give up on Sarah's class and I opted for a studio closer to my Hotel in Beverly Hills.
After a quick web search, I found Earth's Power Yoga which offered a 6 pm heated power class. The teacher was lovely: her body knowledge was amazing, she talked a lot about where one should be internally vs. externally rotating, which specific muscles and connections she was working, she got as specific as to detailing the direction one's pubic bone should be facing . . . huh? She was delightful, the class was detailed and specific, her sequencing interesting, challenging and logical: I certainly felt better after class than before. The stagnant energy of travel was washed away. It was by all means a successful class, but it was NOTHING special.
Contrast that today. Today I had the unbelievable pleasure of practicing with Steve Ross. Steve is a very well known teacher. He came to Yoga from the music industry and is often given credit with bringing modern music into the Yoga studio. It's a genius marriage as music is pure energy and it transmutes pure energy while asana (the limb of Yoga most of us are practicing in the studio) is all about moving energy, waking up Prana, releasing stagnant energy etc…. Steve was a pioneer in understanding how high energy music coupled with Asana helped people elevate their own energy.
This morning I arrived at Maha Yoga in Brentwood for Steve's 11:00 a.m. class. I walk in and I instantly feel the buzz, the energy in the reception area is joyful and light. As we moved into the studio the hum and buzz intesified, and there's Steve, rocking my FAVORITE Steve Marley song ever (I play it in class all the time) "Hey Baby." He's just got this huge smile on his face and his eyes are full of light. He "had me at hello." Then, of course, because it's LA, I look over to my right, and there's Def Jam Records founder, Russell Simmons (the room was set up so I looked right at him). Class starts with Steve Marley, moves into Snoop Dog, includes some Rihanna . . . you get the drift, he's not playing wind chimes and chants. The place is bumping. And you know what? The whole room—all ages, all bodies, all ability levels—is moving and grooving with huge smiles on their faces. Steve barely talked about alignment, actually barely is an exaggeration, he didn't talk about alignment (though I'm quite sure he knows his stuff). The sequencing was super simple, the poses weren't fancy,. . . but it was one of the BEST classes I have ever been to. Really, EVER, and I've been to a lot of really great classes. But I have rarely felt energy like that. I have rarely seen a group of people come so fully alive in a Yoga class. And it's not something you just see with the expressive joy on people's faces, it's something you feel energetically.
Steve's class did exactly what all Yoga teachers should be trying to do: he elevated everyone's energy, he made people feel their own "aliveness", he made them feel buoyant and he brought a lot of joy. Steve totally gets it: he doesn't want his students to sit in class judging their poses, over-thinking alignment, striving for improvement/perfection and in so doing using their Yoga to intensify their type A achievement bound personalities (happens in Yoga all of the time). He wants them to come in to their bodies, let go, feel a little bit more free, a little bit more joyful, a little bit more alive . . . .and you know what? He does it with genius.
So this takes me to the title of this blog post, "The Intangible Factor." The class I went to on Sunday night was every bit as good as Steve's class. From an academic perspective, it was maybe even a little better, but it didn't create any kind of a draw for me, it was energetically neutral to flat. On the other hand Steve has "it." The "intangible." He has the quality to instantly connect with people. His face is open and warm, he's eyes are full of light, he's VERY funny and cracks a lot of jokes in class—he even stuck his finger in my ear to try to knock me off balance. He's a serious Yogi, anything you read about him makes it clear, this is a man who takes his spiritual practices seriously (he's a former monk), so here's this super elevated guy and he's telling bawdy jokes in class and playing Ludacris' "Sugar (Gimme Some)" (when that song came on it simply confirmed that he was "my people"). He is approachable and light. He probably doesn't drink, but if he did, I would definitely want to go have a beer with him.
At one point in class, I had this thought, "I just feel so like me here." I felt my own energy being validated, so I felt myself enjoying the experience of being in my own skin, of being me . . . so maybe that's the "it," the "intangible," the "swagger factor:" he creates the space in which people come home to themselves and realize it's pretty great to think, "I feel like me." The "it" factor can't be created or faked, it's the outward expression of a guy who's totally in his flow, living his Dharma, and helping others to elevate their own vibration. The class literally made me happy all day: I was driving home from Sea Tac tonight, and I put "Sugar (Gimme Some)" on in the car to just to keep smiling and carrying the energy of the class (it worked).
So while the Yoga was uncomplicated and simple, the class was HARD: he had us in standing poses for so long that my entire body was shaking, when I lifted back to down dog the sweat was flying off of my face like spray paint (and it was from my effort, the room was not that hot), but I was having the BEST time. Class was long, 1:45, and I NEVER wanted it to end. I could have stayed all day. I was so in the flow . . . and I swear I'm not making this up, I made eye contact with and received a giant smile from Russell like 10 times, he knew I was feelin' it, because you can't hide that kind of flow.
If you want to read more about Steve http://mahayoga.com/.
A million thanks to the very talented Hannah Wygal, http://www.monsterinvasion.com/, for creating this amazing logo.
So many of my posts have talked about living one's dharma, entering the state of flow, and being happy—probably because I'm aware of how lucky one is to actually move in that direction. So it's totally worth pausing, posting a little blurb, taking note of and being grateful for flowing. I sincerely believe that when we step into our lives and our dharma, the universe responds. So it's with great joy, gratitude and awareness that I'm not doing this alone that I get to announce the creation/manifestation of Spin :: Flow. MFY will be expanding its reach and offerings with a new fusion spinning and Yoga studio. MFY has leased 3000 SF of beautiful space on the corner of 12th and Cherry (right by Seattle U) and the new spin/flow fusion studio will open its doors on approximately Feb 1, 2012.
Spin :: Flow is the manifestation of at least 1.5 years' worth of creative energy. As most of you know, I came to Yoga as an athlete. I spent my childless summer's reaping around the mountains, climbing, and mountain biking and being somewhat "intense" about it all: a happy Wednesday in July involved a quick stomp up to Camp Muir. With children, life obviously had to change: my husband spent more than one night anxiously awaiting my return home from an adventure, and that kind of life simply didn't serve a family. For a while I wallowed around, fully aware of—and a little bit resentful of—my "sacrifice. " Then I found Yoga. All of a sudden all that fire, all that drive could be realized in just 60-90 minutes just miles from home. I was home! I dove in and for a long time all I had time for, outside of my family, was Yoga, learning to teach Yoga, studying Yoga, teaching Yoga and opening a studio . . . . Yoga, yoga, yoga. I was happy and having a lot of fun, I could do the full splits for the first time since I was 9, I could lead a room full of people in a Pranic dance with life, I quickly received a lot of local notoriety and I could stand on my hands . . . FUN. But about 2 years ago I started getting hurt . . . A LOT. I met my new and amazing healing friends: my massage therapist (really the best ever jselements@msn.com), my chiro (also amazing Dr. Sasaki at Functional Health on Madison), and my physical therapist and I learned/worked to recreate stability in my body. I had become so hyper flexible, that I was no longer serving myself; my joints started slipping around and I become very prone to injury. I learned this: there's no point in fluidity and flexibility without stability. In fact, I believe stability must be built in advance of flexibility, or the flexibility can't be supported.
I also believe Yoga can be the PERFECT physical exercise, when taught and practiced properly and balanced: I haven't found a better endeavor for maintaining/accessing a full range of motion in our bodies while simultaneously building strength. I also believe that Yoga can and should be augmented with additional stability creating work, i.e. spinning, running, weight lifting. Spinning and running actually create tightness in the quads and hammies as well as around the hip, knee and ankle joints, this tightness can promote strength and stability, it's tightness that can actually serve us if we then build the flexibility. So with all my injury, I bought a spinning bike for my basement and started running again, while Yoga is still my primary physical endeavor, I balance it out with quite a bit of spinning and running to promote stability and create strength where I over-stretched .
Another amazing thing happened when I went back to running and spinning after years of just Yoga: I took my Yoga with me! I noticed that the breath, body awareness and mental presence to physical effort infused EVERYGHING I did. Running and spinning transformed into a meditation of mental and physical release into presence. I no longer rode my spinning bike watching the TV or the clock, I rode with eyes closed, breath flowing and heart pumping awareness. Same with running, my stride became effortless, I found my flow, and I could go forever . . . I realized that I wanted to bring this experience and this balance into the studio. I wanted to create stability based classes that were taught Yogically—classes in which the teachers promoted awareness and presence rather than competitiveness or striving. I am not a renegade: YAS Yoga in L.A, Soul Cycle in NY and Y Yoga in Vancouver have all beat me to it, but I realized their effectiveness and wanted to bring what they had to offer to Seattle. I visited many of these studios, planted the seed of intention to create it in Seattle, and here we are! Coming in early 2012, a dedicated spin studio with 30 state of the art, brand new Keiser spinning bikes and a 900 SF beaituful studio for flow will provide exactly this vision.
So this is a long story that explains the manifestation of Spin :: Flow. There's another long story about flow and serendipity that allowed this creative idea to actually manifest, I'll save it for another blog. For all of you Madrona efficionados, don't worry. MFY Madrona will stay open. The schedule will alter and the Yoga will be differentiated, but you'll still be able to walk to your classes there ;). Your packages will be good at both studios, but those are all details that will follow. For now, just get ready to spin and to flow.
I also want to give a big shout out to Thomas McCarthy, Jessica Robinson and Don O'Neil. The schedule is being created and some of Seattle's best spinning instructors are on board to compliment the already amazing crew of Yoga teachers MFY provides and another shout out to Tess Tabor, a current MFY teacher, who's leaving years in business and PR to be our new studio manager.
Feel free to contact me info@mountainflowyoga.com or Tess, tess@mountainflowyoga.com, with any questions you may have!
Namaste,
Jaime
A huge thank you to Sarah Tomson Beyer (www.flowmotionstyle.com). In my life as a teacher, a few teachers have crossed my path that have really created the way I teach, live and flow. Sarah is one of them. MFY teacher Madzy met Sarah in Park City when she hired her for privates, Madz brought Sarah to the studio about 3 years ago and it was serendipitous for me: Sarah arrived with all of her flow at a point in time where I felt like my teaching had become rote and stagnant. Sarah taught me all about how to teach from a place of authenticity and enter that state of flow. She rocked my world and re-oriented my path as a teacher: through Sarah I was lead to other master flow teachers like Shiva Rea and more recently Janet Stone. It was really Sarah who lead me to teach flow. Sarah was in Seattle teaching today and I spent the whole day flowing with her amazing energy. Sarah has recently launched her amazing line meSheeky and invited me to be an ambassador for the brand (http://www.mesheeky.com/sheekyluv). Check it out and most importantly seek out opportunities to embrace her flow and learn from her . . . we'll get her to MFY Spring 2012. THANK YOU, SARAH!
Namaste
I had one of those days: we all do have them and we all wish we could put them in a jar and pull them out at will. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and in spite of little sleep, I felt energized, happy, awake and alive. I went to teach the 6:00 a.m. class, and I felt buoyant, joyful, and fully present to teaching. After teaching I went to the coffee shop where I laughed and chatted with the barista. At home my kids cooperated (?!) with the morning routine and were ready for school early. I laughed and chatted with friends in the hall at school drop-off. I went to teach my 9:30 a.m. class, and again, I felt energized, inspired and present. I ran some errands and felt the hum, buzz and energy of downtown Seattle on a beautiful Fall day. Then went back to the studio for my own practice, in which I flowed, completely out of my head, music cranking, nailing every handstand and challenging asana I felt like doing because I was so focused, present and detached. The whole thing was just easy and delightful. I collapsed into my restorative practice a sweaty and exhausted mess, but I hadn't even noticed that I had been working. After my restorative practice, I felt calm, detached, and content. Some of my crazy Rajastic (active) energy was diffused, but the joy and ease of the day continued. So what is that? That's the flow state.
Here's the irony: my day of joy, bliss and flow arrived on the face of some stress. I actually don't generally get stressed or anxious (it's not because I'm cool, it's simply not in my DNA), nor do I live with a lot of fear (again, not my DNA), but I'm on the cusp of some major changes: taking on risk, investing in myself (my Dharma) and the studio and all of this change and progress is landing on top of one of the slowest months the studio's had in a while. For the last few weeks, I've been thinking, "OK the universe is trying to tell me something: pull back, resist change, resist risk, play it safe . . . " It's such a boring and limiting story, but it's also so indicative of human nature—we limit ourselves with these kinds of thoughts all the time. But today was different and I will give 100% credit for my day of flow to my reading last night. I'm currently reading the most powerful translation of the Bhagavad Gita in which Krishna says to Arjuna, "One who shirks action does not attain freedom. No one can gain perfection by abstaining from work. Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any thought of personal profit. The ignorant work for their own profit, Arjuna; the wise work for the welfare of the world. The wise never act with selfish attachment to the fruit of their labor; they give their best in fortune and misfortune alike. Such people act in freedom."
I felt the internal shift as I read these words and I feel blessed that I carried them into my day today. I showed up to teach (the smaller than usual) classes with so much love and gratitude for the opportunity to teach, to share my work, my study, my joy, my Dharma. I hope that every day I can wake up and remember that I've stepped into my Dharma, I'm living life exactly as I want to, that doesn't mean it's always going to be easy, but I know that if I always give my best, remain detached "from the fruits of my labor", and truly love teaching like I do regardless of "fortune or misfortune," I will always be able to flow . . . . and I'm one lucky f*&$ing girl.
Svaha.
The translation of the Bhagavad Gita referenced above is by Eknath Easwaren, it's a book that should be read by every student of Yoga and really by anyone who just wants to be happy and a little more liberated. Happy reading.
I'm in no hurry to come home: if it weren't for my fantastic husband and adorable children, oh yes and of course the studio . . . I could have hid out up here for at least 3 more days. It was such a grounding and restorative weekend, with lots of Flow, a little hiking, lots of restorative Yoga, amazing energy, nature, the mountains and spaciousness for the mind. The energy up at the Conference was so replenishing that even heading into the relative chaos of downtown Estes Park, just 3 miles away, was jarring (it was a Fall festival in town this weekend, so every RV and Midwestern festival seeker was out in full force). I did have to go though because in spite of my efforts to break my worst habits, I cannot (nor do I really want to) break from my addiction to REAL coffee: the watered down, luke warm brown fluid that they served up at the Y simply wasn't cutting it. Now I'm sitting in the Denver Airport evaluating the weekend and I want to share my takeaways.
Good thing it's time to board or I could keep this list going forever . . . I do think I hit the points that really spoke to me, of course if I missed something, you'll hear about it in the next blog.
Namaste
HOLY FLOW! Today was my day. You know, it's amazing, there are about 30 teachers here representing at least 15 different practices: Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Anusara, Therapeutic, Kundalini, Restorative, Iyengar, Power, Flow etc…. no one is right but everyone is right. Right? Here's the thing: different practices speak to different people, how awesome is it that there are so many choices? So FLOW is my practice. I can't help it, take me into the groove, turn on some music and I'm all the way in and all the way out. Detached, engaged, flowing, mindless, mindful. Blissed.
I started my day w/the matriarch of Flow yoga, Shiva Rea (and I use the word matriarch reluctantly b/c she's not that old and looks ½ her age, but she did initiate the creation of all this). We warmed up, we Om'd, we practiced Mandala Namaskars (Sun Salutations that flow circularly around the mat) and we connected to Prana. Shiva's whole philosophy is simply one that I get: flow with Prana. Put me in Warrior II for 5 minutes and have me set a steady gaze over my front hand and I'm out of my freakin' mind as I focus on the suffering of the hold, but put me in Warrior II for 5 minutes and let me flow my arms, have me pulse and connect me into the flow of Prana? I'm in! That's the whole point—the flow of Prana, the movement of energy. Tap me into the source of flow, and I could stay there for 20 minutes. Shiva shared so many nuggets it's hard to choose, but my favorite is one I actually talk about often when I teach. We must move stagnant energy. As Shiva said, "Our recent ancestors spent 80% of their time outside: foraging, farming, working. Releasing stagnant energy." We now spend 80% of our time inside, sitting. It's not healthy. We really need to move our bodies and release all that stale build -up to get anywhere. In the Yoga world, sometimes the athletic practices of Ashtanga/Vinyasa/Power/Flow Yoga get a bad rap. Some people believe these active practices are simply a part of our "do more" society and our fitness obsessed way of being. I couldn't disagree more: how good of a job are we doing when 60% of our population is obese, 15% of our population is addicted, 10% of our population suffers from mental illness… we suffer from un-diagnosable pain, insomnia and FEAR. Are we doing a good job of releasing all the build up? Probably not. When we really do Vinyasa Yoga, with the breath, with the flow of Prana, the way it's intended to be done, it's an incredibly effective practice. Shiva has mastered the art and balance of Prana Flow Yoga.
I carried the energy from Shiva's class right into Janet Stone's class. While a seasoned vet on the Yoga scene, Janet was a new teacher to me. She rocked my world. It was a true flow class, full fire, vigor, athleticism, and FLOW. But most importantly it was full of humor, energy and connection. One of the most profound comments of the weekend came from Janet when we came into Bird of Paradise (a very awkward, bind one leg, balance on the other pose). She said, "If we do not do this from a place of connection, dedication and intention it makes no sense, it's just contortion, it's actually really weird." I laughed hard enough to almost fall out of my Bird, but she's totally right. Sometimes teaching Asana can get rote, we move the body and we forget to move the spirit. She also reminded me of the importance of satya (truthfulness) and ahmisa (non-violence) in a vigorous asana practice. Are we advancing because it's honestly where the body is ready to effortlessly go (satya)? Or is our ego telling us to strive? Are we moving deeper than we should to validate our own story (I'm a Yogi) and risking injury? It's so important to move from that place of connection and intention, to offer it up—otherwise we can become very ego driven in our quest to advance and therefore become dangerous to ourselves.
I spend my afternoon in a two hour Svasana class with Tias Little. Yep, two hours in Svasana. Who knew there was so much to explore in corpse pose? It was actually an amazingly informative exploration of the restorative pose; but I won't bore you with the details.
I finished my evening in Snatam Kaur's concert: long story short, do not spend two days opening your mind, opening your body, opening your heart, releasing bad energy, connecting to source and then go listen to the most beautiful, crystalline voice sing about truth and love unless you're ready for a major emotional release . . . I was supposed to be chanting, and I wanted to, I love Kirtan. But I was too overwhelmed by the sheer perfection and beauty of it all.
Here's my takeaway, the world is FULL of amazing asana teachers, so what is it that makes these people the "Master Teachers?" First of all it's their knowledge, I think they're all fluent in Sanskrit, can name every Hindu god, recite the Bhagavad Gita and list every muscle, vertebrae, nerve etc… in the body. But with time, anyone can learn that, what makes these teachers the masters is their mastery of their own energy, their connection to source and the way that transmute this connection to world. It's their ability to connect with people, to teach truth and love. It's the intangible quality . . . . the quality of charisma, the success of stepping into their own Dharma, embracing their own flow and leading with truth and love.
I'm revisiting Rod Stryker tomorrow and then coming home. I'm not quite ready . . . .
Namaste
What an unbelievable gift to be here at the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park. My adoration of arid mountainous regions and altitude has been discussed in a previous blog, so I couldn't help but smile at the sheer perfection of it as I climbed from Denver to Estes Park last night—on my way into the mountains to think about Yoga, health, wellness, elevated consciousness and spirituality for 3 days without my husband, kids or even a friend. No one else's' energy, no one else's' agenda—just me nurturing my practice.
Today I was gifted with 4 incredible classes. I took two energetic Vinyasa classes and two completely restorative classes. Practicing with the masters is always inspiring. I'll share a little nugget from each class that stuck.
I started my morning at 8:00 a.m. with Seane Corne. At one point in class Seane said, "When half of the world's population is quite literally struggling for food, shelter, peace and safety, it seems like a pretty indulgent life to be on vacation practicing Yoga, but it's important to remember that we're not responsible for anyone else's' karmic journey." I've heard Seane say this before and I love it, I think some times we can feel a lot of guilt and responsibility for the woes of the world simply because we were born lucky. It's important to remember that we're here, at this time in this body to maximize our potential and live at our highest level of consciousness: who knows why so many of us were so lucky to be born free, safe, with plenty of resources, health and energy. Rather than worrying about survival, we get to practice Yoga and elevate our lives. But since our karmic circumstances have provided relative abundance, it's certainly our job to discover our dharma and live as consciously as we can.
I went directly from Sean's class to Baron Baptiste. First of all this was really great for me to practice with Baraon, I've studied and practiced Baptiste Yoga ad-nasuem and Shakti Vinyasa in Seattle. I know his foundational sequence like the back of my hand and I taught it for years, since I had never practiced with Baron himself, I always felt like a bit of a pilferer! It was great to finally stand in his presence and feel his energy come through the sequence I know so well, and his energy is amazing. I no longer teach nor practice much Baptiste Yoga, but I think it's an amazing foundational practice and the cornerstone for Vinaysa. It's a brilliant sequence that Baron's created, it's safe, it's stabilizing, it's strengthening, it doesn't require over-stretching and it's very hard! It's the perfect practice to prepare the body for "the flow." My favorite line from Baron today was, "The most important thing about your practice is that you actually have a practice." Right? To really be effective and to cultivate the ability to practice Yoga mindfully, with breath and presence, it's something that should be done often . . . otherwise we lose the breath, we get distracted by the rigor and it's just fancy and effective calisthenics!
This afternoon, I headed to Rod Stryker for Yoga Nidra. Yoga is Yoga (not just Asana, the 8 Limbs of elevating consciousness and cultivating Union) and Nidra means sleep. So a Yoga Nidra class effectively takes students into an almost trance like state that somewhere between asleep and awake. Nidra is the arena of the subconscious mind, the mind that creates, manifests and is always connected to source. He laughed, as he said "Here's the secret about The Secret . . . . it doesn't work." The reason so many of us are unable to manifest (in spite of the fact that it's entirely possible) is that we are unable to drop the monkey mind, the clutter of the thinking mind, the consciousness we know so well, relate to, live with and are attached to: the state that most of us perceive of as real. When we totally relax the body and surrender the thinking mind, we enter Nidra and create the space to dissolve fears, attachments, clutter. Rod is participating in a lot of leading edge and clinical studies about Nidra, it's now being used to effectively treat PTSD in cadets coming home from battle, insomnia and fibromyalgia. He summed it up when he said, "Most people live in a state of fight or flight. The Yogi gets to transcend it all." The state of relaxation that I achieved in this class, the buzz of the Vega nerve in my forehead and the high that lasted post class convinced me he's right, this class was the absolute highlight of my day and Rod will now be a teacher I seek out.
I finished my evening with a restorative class taught by Bo Forbes (Alice Harper did her teacher training with Bo in Boston). Bo is the most revered teacher of Therapeutic and Restorative Yoga in the country. She's a psychologist, and like Rod she's participating in a lot of leading edge research with the Beth Israel hospital in Boston and working with professional sports teams. We are so inundated with information; it's truly sensory over load. She's teaching people how to ground in, to reconnect with the senses and how to calm the parasympathetic nervous system. Bo's class was very similar to Rod's but Rod's class was a bit more hypnotic, he dialoged as we rested and his message took us into a trance like state. While equally restorative, Bo's class was more about complete surrender into the earth and into the body, no dialog. It's such an amazing and important practice, but one that many of us don't cultivate on a regular basis because "it feels like we're doing nothing." In
this hyper world, it's nice to be reminded of how important it is to do nothing other than restore. It was a completely divine and restorative practice, the perfect way to end the day.
So now I'm back in my institutional room at the Estes Park YMCA (wondering why in this state of relative abundance I didn't stay in one of the beautiful hotels I saw along the river on my way up . . . whatever, detaching). Preparing for restful sleep and another beautiful day tomorrow. I'll post about my classes with Shiva Rea, Janet Stone and Tias Little tomorrow night!
Namaste
This is a totally different kind of post, but I can't resist. I love to laugh. So this week, I had one of our most awesome clients complain about the "extreme heat" in the studio (the studio is 85, sometimes it's it more like 92, it's definitely warm, but not Bikram hot). I've had another very awesome client tell me that he avoids the crowded classes because of the carbon dioxide off-gassing. So I love the heat, I love the studio, but in light of these recent conversations, this made me laugh: this was a posting on Craig's List that a friend just sent me and I laughed out loud as I read it, so I thought it was worth sharing . . .
Yoga mat for sale. Used once. - $1 (Bellevue)
Date: 2011-09-13, 10:32PM PDT
Reply to: sale-cbz7z-2597736393@craigslist.org
[Errors when replying to ads?]
Yoga mat for sale. Used once at lunch hour class in December 2009. Usage timeline as follows:
11:45a
Register for hot yoga class. Infinite wisdom tells me to commit to 5 class package and purchase a yoga mat. I pay $89.74. Money well spent, I smugly confirm to myself.
11:55a
Open door to yoga room. A gush of hot dry air rushes through and past me. It smells of breath, sweat and hot. Take spot on floor in back of room next to cute blonde. We will date.
11:57a
I feel the need to be as near to naked as possible. This is a problem because of the hot blonde to my left and our pending courtship. She will not be pleased to learn that I need to lose 30 pounds before I propose to her.
11:58a
The shirt and sweats have to come off. I throw caution to the wind and decide to rely on my wit and conditioning to overcome any weight issues my fiancée may take issue with. This will take a lot of wit and conditioning.
11:59a
Begin small talk with my bride to be. She pretends to ignore me but I know how she can be. I allow her to concentrate and stare straight ahead and continue to pretend that I don't exist. As we finish sharing our special moment, I am suddenly aware of a sweat moustache that has formed below my nose. This must be from the all the whispering between us.
12:00p
Instructor enters the room and ascends her special podium at the front of the room. She is a slight, agitated Chinese woman. She introduces me to the class and everyone turns around to greet me just as I decide to aggressively adjust my penis and testes packed in my Under Armor. My bride is notably unfazed.
12:02p
Since I do have experience with Hot Yoga (4 sessions just 5 short years ago) I fully consider that I may be so outstanding and skilled that my instructor may call me out and ask me to guide the class. My wife will look on with a sparkle in her eye. We will make love after class.
12:10p
It is now up to 95 degrees in the room. We have been practicing deep breathing exercises for the last 8 minutes. This would not be a problem if we were all breathing actual, you know, oxygen. Instead, we are breathing each other's body odor, expelled carbon dioxide and other unmentionables. (Don't worry, I'll mention them later.)
12:26p
It is now 100 degrees and I take notice of the humidity, which is hovering at about 90%. I feel the familiar adorning stare of my bride and decide to look back at her. She appears to be nauseated. I then realize that I forgot to brush my teeth prior to attending this class. We bond.
12:33p
It is now 110 degrees and 95% humidity. I am now balancing on one leg with the other leg crossed over the other. My arms are intertwined and I am squatting. The last time I was in this position was 44 years ago in the womb, but I'm in this for the long haul. My wife looks slightly weathered dripping sweat and her eyeliner is streaming down her face. Well, "for better or worse" is what we committed to so we press on.
12:40p
The overweight Hispanic man two spots over has sweat running down his legs. At least I think its sweat. He is holding every position and has not had a sip of water since we walked in. He is making me look bad and I hate him.
12:44p
I consider that if anyone in this room farted that we would all certainly perish.
12:52p
It is now 140 degrees and 100% humidity. I am covered from head to toe in sweat. There is not a square millimeter on my body that is not slippery and sweaty. I am so slimy that I feel like a sea lion or a maybe sea eel. Not even a bear trap could hold me. The sweat is stinging my eyeballs and I can no longer see.
12:55p
This room stinks of asparagus, cloves, tuna and tacos. There is no food in the room. I realize that this is an amalgamation of the body odors of 30 people in a 140 degree room for the last 55 minutes. Seriously, enough with the asparagus, ok?
1:01p
140 degrees and 130% humidity. Look, bitch, I need my space here so don't get all pissy with me if I accidentally sprayed you with sweat as I flipped over. Seriously, is that where this relationship is going? Get over yourself. We need counseling and she needs to be medicated. Stat!
1:09p
150 degrees and cloudy. And hot. I can no longer move my limbs on my own. I have given up on attempting any of the commands this Chinese chick is yelling out at us. I will lay sedentary until the aid unit arrives. I will buy this building and then have it destroyed.
I lose consciousness.
1:15p
I have a headache and my wife is being a selfish bitch. I can't really breathe. All I can think about is holding a cup worth of hot sand in my mouth. I cannot remember what an ice cube is and cannot remember what snow looks like. I consider that my only escape might be a crab walk across 15 bodies and then out of the room. I am paralyzed, and may never walk again so the whole crab walk thing is pretty much out.
1:17p
I cannot move at all and cannot reach my water. Is breathing voluntary or involuntary? If it's voluntary, I am screwed. I stopped participating in the class 20 minutes ago. Hey, lady! I paid for this frickin class, ok?! You work for me! Stop yelling at everyone and just tell us a story or something. It's like juice and cracker time, ok?
1:20p
It is now 165 degrees and moisture is dripping from the ceiling. The towel that I am laying on is no longer providing any wicking or drying properties. It is actually placing additional sweat on me as I touch it. My towel reeks. I cannot identify the smell but no way can it be from me. Did someone spray some stank on my towel or something?
1:30p
Torture session is over. I wish hateful things upon the instructor. She graciously allows us to stay and 'cool down' in the room. It is 175 degrees. Who cools down in 175 degrees? A Komodo Dragon? My wife has left the room. Probably to throw up.
1:34p
My opportunity to escape has arrived. I roll over to my stomach and press up to my knees. It is warmer as I rise up from ground level - probably by 15 degrees. So let's conservatively say it's 190. I muster my final energy and slowly rise. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Towards the door. Towards the door.
1:37p
The temperature in the lobby is 72 degrees. Both nipples stiffen to diamond strength and my penis begins to retract into my abdomen from the 100 degree temp swing. I can once again breathe though so I am pleased. I spot my future ex wife in the lobby. We had such a good thing going but I know that no measure of counseling will be able to unravel the day's turmoil and mental scaring.
1:47p
Arrive at Emerald City Smoothie and proceed to order a 32 oz beverage. 402 calories, 0 fat and 14 grams of protein -- effectively negating any caloric burn or benefit from the last 90 minutes. I finish it in 3 minutes and spend the next 2 hours writing this memoir.
3:47p
Create Craigslist ad while burning final 2 grams of protein from Smoothie and before the "shakes" consume my body.
4:29p
Note to self - check car for missing wet yoga towel in am.
PostingID: 2597736393
So I share this at the risk of sounding slightly crazy (for those who know me I think it goes without saying that I'm pretty open to the metaphysical world), but I recently consulted an "Intuitive Counselor" (i.e. psychic) who came highly recommended to me from two trusted and totally normal friends. She knew only two things about me: my first name and my cell phone number. She doesn't want to know anything else, because she doesn't want to be accused of researching her clients.
At 11:00 a.m. I called her for our appointment, after a brief introduction she asked me not to say anything because she didn't want me to muddle or confuse any images that came to her. Then for about 7 minutes there was silence. When she finally spoke she said to me, "You help people find their way and get unstuck, you show them new ways of seeing and you are on the leading edge of life." OK, pretty generic, I agree, but also pretty spot on. Then she said, "In a past life you were a famous dancer. This is the symbol for the teacher; perhaps you use movement or dance to help people get unstuck." Now we're talking. How the heck did she do that?!?!?!!?
She told me very many more interesting things about myself which resonated as true, but I remain totally baffled by that that statement because of its overwhelming truth: being a Yogini, a Yoga teacher and a studio owner—someone who uses movement to help people get unstuck—is my Dharma (living in order with the cosmos and one's pre-determined life's path).
The need to move has been pervasive throughout my life. My mother has told me that I spent my entire childhood dancing, she said that my need to move as a child was so overwhelming that I couldn't make it through dinner without performing a dance in front of the kitchen table: I remember it. I also remember coming home from elementary school and tumbling around the living room for hours in some sort of dance/gymnastics hybrid that probably looked a lot like Yoga and coming to dinner a red-faced, sweaty mess. As I grew older and more self-conscious, I transferred the energy from perpetual motion into athletics as they were a socially acceptable arena for movement and I learned to sit through dinner. Even so, throughout high school and college, anytime you put an open field in front of me, I was guaranteed to start cartwheeling and handspringing my way down the field, much to my friends' dismay. All I can say is I really couldn't help it . . . I really had to move.
So this of course makes Yoga such a natural fit for me. I did Yoga for a long time before I really found the flow. Both Ashtanga and Baptiste Yoga are flow based, so they both opened the door to flow, but when I found the intuitive sequencing and dancelike flow of teachers like Shiva Rae and Sarah Thompson Beyer, I knew I was home. A while back I blogged about my love for the Idaho Mountains and how the first time I visited them I had this overwhelming sense of knowing that I was home, I had the same overwhelming sense of knowing that somehow I was on my path the first time I practiced Yoga in this free and dancelike way. I was not doing the Yoga, I was not straining in the poses, the flow was simply moving through me in this totally liberated and authentic way, I was totally out of my head—released from repetitive thought patterns—and pure life source moved through me. It was, and still is, total bliss for me to move in this way.
And it's also so easy for me to teach this way. I never plan a class, I never plan a sequence. I simply get on my mat and the sequences flow through me. I've had other teachers ask me to create workshops on creating flow based sequences and I honestly have no clue how I could share this information: it simply arrives. It's an unstudied, intuitive and totally authentic experience. So I send them to Shiva and Sarah!
Every day I wake up overwhelmed with gratitude that I found my Dharma and I actually get to live it. I can't believe that I get to spend every day using movement to help people get unstuck. I can't believe I get to spend my whole life moving! Mostly I'm beyond grateful for the AMAZING group of people for whom this style of Yoga resonates. It's only because of their willingness and openness to move freely that I get to teach, that I get to live my Dharma. This week I got an email from a client that said, [When you teach you] "make jokes, expressions etc ... it makes the class more fun and energetic instead of just sort of routine. You're the 'master' at that and it makes all the difference!" To which I replied, "Thanks for the compliment, I LOVE teaching so much, it's easy to be light and fun b/c I'm having so much fun!" I'm in my flow, I'm living my Dharma . . . . I could not be luckier, happier or more fulfilled.
Namaste
Now that I'm in my late 30's and I've had two kids, it inevitably happens about twice a year: I'll pull on a favorite pair of jeans and realize that they're snug. Now I'm a huge believer in radical self acceptance and self love, but what can I say? I don't like it when my stomach hangs over my pants . . . So when the pants are snug, I hop on the dusty scale (which I otherwise ignore) to confirm my suspicions and force acknowledgement of the fact that I've been mindlessly plowing through cocktail hour and dinner with reckless abandon. Sure it's fun, I am hyper social: happiest when the calendar is full and activities are flowing, but this means a lot of food and cocktail centered gatherings, which can mean slipping into mindless and habitual eating and drinking. What I dislike the most about weight gain is not the weight itself (though muffin top isn't pretty), it's the fact that the weight is symbolic of my inability to sit with sensation and practice a little restraint (brahmacharya).
Our human nature is hard-wired to resist sensation. When hunger arises, we eat, when we want a cocktail we drink. For some people, the total inability to sit with sensation leads to constantly numbing ourselves: we feel pain, hunger, craving, longing and we stuff the sensation away with TV, spending, sex, food, drugs, alchohol . . . . pick your poison. Anything to not feel. We don't even think about it. We stuff sensation away, we fill it up. We satisfy our cravings and we don't feel pain, love, connection when we are stuffed full of our poison of choice. Bramacharya is one of the 8 Limbs of Yoga and one of the most misunderstood. Bramacharya directly translates to sexual celibacy. But many modern scholars view it more as harnessing control of "sensory and sensual pleasures that distract us." A recent Yoga Journal article about brahmacharya included this quote, "If we don't realize there's an alternative to being driven by our desires, we don't have any choice in how we act. Our culture does a really good job of encouraging us to indulge our desires and ignore any signals beyond them."*
So this is not about beating myself up or degrading myself because of few extra pounds on the scale (I actually am amazingly finally beyond that), but the painful truth is that when I gain weight it is only because I've slipped into the mindless mode of indulging to fill up, to take the sensations of wanting and craving and stuff them full so as to not feel them. And for me radical self-acceptance and radical self-love does not mean to love the extra pounds, it means to demand the best of myself which is mindfulness and presence around everything that I do.
I look forward to getting to place where the mindfulness never slips (it's a path, I'm on it, it will occur) but for now when I become aware of the fact that my human frailty and mindless indulgences have wrecked havoc on my waistline, I start the process of re-training myself to sit with sensation and practice a little restraint. When I'm really hungry and mindless, I grab a scone at a coffee shop. When I'm mindful, I allow the sensation of hunger to arise and I sit with it without trying to dissipate it. I simply observe the sensation. I let myself feel it without attaching to it or making a false statement like "I'm starving" (cause really,not many of us are starving). Always, and inevitably, the acuteness passes and I can wait until I get home or to a juice bar to fill up on Prana filled foods.
When I am in the mode of mindful eating I'm also acutely aware of the sensation of taking in food. I notice each bite and I allow the food to fill me up. On Friday night I munched my way through cocktail hour with a Kombucha tea and fresh, raw vegetables. By the time dinner came, I was no longer hungry. Mindless me would have taken a giant plate of food and kept my wine glass full throughout dinner anyway, but as I'm in the space of noticing sensation, I put a very small amount food on my plate to participate in the social aspect of dinner without plowing through a giant wine-fueled meal. It's amazing how much less we need to feel full when we are really paying attention to sensation.
I also avoid obsessing: I had cocktails with friends on our beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, and that doesn't mean I somehow failed, I made a conscious and mindful decision to simply enjoy a beautiful summer afternoon and the socializing aspect of the cocktails without attachment or self-degradation.
Asana (physical yoga) is a really amazing place to come into the space of allowing sensation to arise and learning to simply sit with it, resisting the urge to indulge. I see people grip against sensation all of the time, I'll bring students into a deep stretch or a challanging pose and I'll watch their jaws clench, their neck muscles bulge and their eyes pop as they resist the pose and the uncomfortable sensations the pose can create. Or they simply come out of the pose right away, instantly indulging in a craving. I even see people use muscular effort resist the most delicious poses like ½ pigeon or supine twist because they don't even allow themselves to feel the sensations of relief and release. In class tonight, I watched students stress and strain in a challenging pose and said, "it's a Yoga mat, not a battle field." So what happens when we do stop the battle? When we simply let go, breath and allow the sensations of the pose to arise without trying to squash and resist them? We find ease, we find release, and we find peace. As in life as on the mat: allow sensation to arise, sit with it, practice a little self-restraint, breath through the discomfort, breath through the craving and find ease, release and peace.
Namaste
May you feel safe and protected
May you feel contended and pleased
May your body support you with strength
May your life unfold smoothly and with ease.
No one loves a little human drama more than I do. I have to admit, I've spent a life time being "quick to flip" (off other drivers that is); I've spent countless hours having "fights" in my head in which I finally, and spectacularly tell-off someone who's wronged me with some brilliant and well timed insult. I've told my (really awesome) husband that I'm filing for divorce no less than 3000 times. I've dropped the f-bomb in front of my kids . . . I've done, what we as humans, are programmed to do: react to and engage in the human drama which involves quite a bit of ill-serving self righteousness and the belief that we've somehow been transgressed.
For at least two thirds of my life, I had no awareness that this was in anyway wrong or harmful to me. But with a daily Yoga practice, I started to be able to physically feel the energetic harm that this causes. When I lash out in anger towards my children, my chest constricts and my pulse races. When I believe I've been "transgressed" and I engage in the inner negative dialogue, my chest tightens and I feel flutters of ill-ease in my gut. If I ever even noticed these physical and energetic reactions before, I blamed them on others: I believed that it was my children's negative behavior or the transgression of the other that caused me harm. What I now know for sure is that no one else's behavior creates the physiological reactions or the stres; it is ONLY my reaction to their behaviors, my engagement in the human drama, that causes me harm.
I really learned this lesson last year when involved in some legal drama. I was all the way "in:" self-righteous, indignant, and attached. As a result I was stressed, physically, mentally and financially (my amazing lawyer bills at $475/hr!?!?!?!). I could physiologically feel the stress, but again, I blamed this on the other.
In was in the midst of this drama that I read Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope (one of the best, accessible and comprehensive Yoga texts I've ever read). It was in this book, that I learned about the power of forgiveness and the powerful tool that metta mantra is for achieving forgiveness. Essentially it's as simple as bringing your adversary into your consciousness, picturing this person and connecting to him or her then repeating the metta mantra over and over again, directing it to that person. May you feel safe and protected, May you feel contended and pleased, May your body support you with strength, May your life unfold smoothly and with ease. The first time I did this, I found the practice difficult and painful to initiate. As soon as I drew my "adversary" into consciousness, the heart palpitations started, the anger arose. But within minutes of repeating the mantra, the negative energy literally dissipated all of the way. It felt like a miracle. A sense of calm washed over me, and all of the negativity was gone. I could actually see the good in my "adversary" and he no longer felt like an adversary at all. The situation simply became a business problem to be dealt with and managed as such without giving it any undue energy. Anytime anger or stress came back into my consciousness, I repeated the mantra, and it always worked to dissipate the negativity.
I realized the power of the mantra, and I thought, if this works for an adversarial situation, how will it work in the rest of my life? Magically!!!! " You didn't invite me to your party? " may you feel safe and protected . . . . . "You drew all over the white couch with a ball point pen?!?!" may you feel contented and pleased . . . . "You're going to another Husky fundraiser? You played golf yesterday and you work 24/7!" may your body support you with strength . . . "What do you mean you oversold the flight?!?!?!" may your life unfold smoothly and with ease.
Everything in the universe is pure energy, pure light and pure vibration. This is not a radical or esoteric concept: we know via modern physics that everything in the physical world is, at its essence, comprised of electrons and neutrons, or pure energy. So we understand that everything is imperceptibly vibrating at all times at a certain frequency. Whether or not we know this, we feel it. We call it gut instinct. It happens all the time when we meet people, often times we know right away whether or not the other person is a vibrational match. It's a strong sense of knowing that we feel in our core. As I drove into my personal sanctuary Sunday night, in the mountains of Southern Idaho, I was thinking about how powerful vibrational alignment can be with place as well. Just like people, places have their own vibrational frequency, and sometimes our gut instinct or awareness of vibrational alignment, creates an opportunity for connection.
Like many Seattleites, I grew up coming to Sun Valley on vacation, and I always loved it, but I was visiting as a child on someone else's agenda, not as an autonomous adult. In my late high-school/early college years, my parents traded in their skis for their clubs and Sun Valley fell off of the radar. My junior year in college I fell in love with a world-class ski racer and reconnected with Sun Valley. Every relationship, every connection we create has a purpose and a lesson to teach, there are no accidents, and I honestly believe that my ski racer came into my life simply to re-connect me to these mountains.
As I was driving up HWY 20, I remembered my first drive back here as an adult at age 21: I could remember exactly where we pulled off of the road, I could smell the air same as it was 15 years ago and see the same tone of light on the mountains. I could feel the crispness of the cool mountain air and see how the elevation and dry air create a visual acuteness and austerity that we just don't see amidst our Seattle humid marine layer. The reason the memory is so clear is that I was having a moment of awareness: I don't know how to describe these amazingly powerful moments of connection in life that we all have, but I could feel an awesome sense of knowing that in some way I was coming home.
While my relationship with said ski racer crashed and burned, my relationship with Sun Valley has persevered. In so many ways, Sun Valley has created my adult identity: it was here that I discovered my pure love of the mountains and being outside, which lead to years of glacier climbing and avid hiking. It was here that I learned to love mountain biking and that my own skiing advanced from that of recreational skier to competitive ski racer. It was here that I learned that there is nothing I love more than hours alone, outside, up high with my heart pumping and my hair on fire. It was through my connection to the mountains that I learned that when our physical bodies work really hard with a singular purpose, like getting up the hill, we can enter a trance like state of Dharana (singluar focus). We fall into a rhythm with our movements and our breath and the rest of the world falls away. With this clarity of purpose and intensity of effort we pranify (energize) the body and purify the mind. This has influenced the way I teach: in challenging asana classes were looking for those moments when the entire physical body is awake and alive, focused, and working while the mind is clear and present to this effort: moments where we're so engaged in our practice that we achieve Dharana and the world falls away. It is in the challenge that a lot people find this sense of release. And of course this makes obvious the reason for the studio's name--Mountain Flow Yoga.
Ironically many of my major life events have unfolded here as well: while in Sun Valley with the ski racer, my future husband and I connected for the first time on the back deck of Lefty's (a local dive). He told me he loved me here sealing our fate. My first child was conceived here and I discovered my second pregnancy while here. Weird? No, there are no accidents nor coincidences in this universe: the fact that all of these major life events unfolded here was simply a clear indication of my vibrational alignment and synchronicity with this place.
So now here I am 15 years later. Driving in I stopped on 20 and got out of the car simply to smell the desert sage and feel the crispness of the dry mountain air: I've spent the last two days exhausting and challenging my body while exhilarating my mind. After hours alone, on the hiking and mountain biking trails (heart pumping and hair on fire!), I stretch out my sore and aching muscles with a little Yoga--a little pure Mountain Flow.
Namaste
We waste so much time worrying about what others think of us. And it really is a waste of time: first of all, they're likely not thinking about us much at all and secondly, we're unlikely going to be able to change their opinions of us if they are giving us much attention. Self-evaluation based on other people's opinions of us propels us into a state of inhibition and fear. We mask who we really are to conform because of the fear of rejection. "To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people's demands. We have learned to live by other people's points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and not being good enough for someone else."*
Letting go of inhibition and self-evaluation based on others is essential to embracing the flow and cultivating a joyful life. The studio is such an incredibly safe place to practice dropping inhibition. Getting onto your mat and embracing the flow requires us to let go of both physical and mental rigidity. We have to let go of a little self-control simply to move freely in the flow—when we do this, the asana start to flow through us like a dance
In the modern Western world, we've let go of ritual dance, but uninhibited movement has long been essential for human connection and celebration. This movement releases stagnant energy, connects us to the systems of the body and connects us in a flow with those around us. In a very safe way, our Asana practice re-creates this ritual dance. This is actually my favorite thing about teaching Groove Yoga Flow (a dance-like Asana flow with loud modern music), I get to watch the transformation as people drop their inhibition, move freely and joyfully and often with giant smiles on their faces.
So we come to the mat and we practice moving freely without judgment of ourselves or others, we move stagnant energy around and we engage in our own bodies without inhibition. If we do this often enough, it is inevitable that we will take this lack of inhibition off of the mat with us. This is why we call it a practice. It's a place to safely practice embracing the flow and living without inhibition.
It's always a practice and a work in progress to let go of what we believe others think of us, but like fear, we can release it. Releasing the fear of rejection, moving freely, and living without inhibition are essential to embracing the flow: invite song, dance, movement and freedom into your life and practice letting go. Dance like no one's watching because they probably aren't.
Namaste
*The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
Fear was a dominant emotion in my life until I began studying Yoga philosophy. As an environmental sciences major in college, I often felt completely gripped with fear. Constantly studying and evaluating humanity's destruction of the natural world convinced me of the planet's sure demise. This constant state of fear left me feeling off-balance and often very insecure about the stability of human life. These fears worsened substantially post-college when 9/11 struck New York City: I was certain that not only would there be an environmental collapse, but likely a nuclear or chemical one as well. I showed up in the world much in the same way that I do today: I was social and charismatic, I'm quite sure that I appeared happy, and I was. But this was an insecure happiness as I was sure my happiness could be stolen from me at any moment due to outside forces.
One of the most powerful components of embracing flow is learning to live without fear. Living fearlessly is essential for cultivating true happiness: fearlessness is freedom in its purest form. I will make it clear that I'm am not the Buddha: it is a long path and I'm in my infancy, but through Yoga, I've learned a lot about living fearlessly. Yoga has been an essential tool in this transformation. For me living fearlessly has manifested from four key components: 1) cultivating a non-reactive mind through practicing detachment, 2) believing in Karma (fate), 3) accepting the idea of Maya and 4) practicing free-will.
1) Calm Abiding and Detachment
Through my time on mat and my study Yoga I've learned this: the world is ALWAYS in sate of balance, always. For every evil there is good, for all the darkness there is light. We, as physical beings, have chosen this world to live as it is a world of contrasts--both good and evil, and through these contrasts we make decisions about what is right for our own growth and our own path. The evil that we see out there is simply someone else living their own life, burning off their own Karma. It's only a part of our own story and our own drama if we allow the space for it. Living fearlessly requires practicing detachment. When good news comes, enjoy it, when bad news comes, let it go. We know the world is always changing and always contrasting, so why are we surprised when things are bad? When we grip and attach to fear believing things will never get better we participate in the downward spiral and unwittingly promote negativity. A constant state of negativity is simply not possible: the law of impermanence is always at work, and things will always get better. And they will always get worse. We can't control the flux, so we must learn to control our reactions to the flux and our attachment to the highs and lows by cultivating a non-reactive mind. "The act of detachment can and will help you to live a life of fearlessness and joy."*
2) Belief in Karma/Fate
Believing in the idea of Karma has been an amazing tool for releasing fear. I accept that not everyone open to the idea of Karma, and I'm certainly not one to push it (although it is interesting to note that far more people and faiths in the world believe in Karma than don't), but accepting the idea of Karma/fate is powerful for living fearlessly. Yogic philosophy teaches that there are neither accidents nor coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason and everything happens to teach us lessons that are necessary for our own growth--our own Karmic progression. Here's an example of how accepting this idea has released me from a state of living in fear. I've always been completely terrified of earthquakes, literally gripped. Convinced it was the big one, I once hit the deck at Gene Jaurez as the ground started to shake, after totally humiliating myself, I learned that the shaking was only the spin cycle on their industrial washing machine in the next room. Hmmm, GRIPPED. Believing in Karma (fate) has helped me deal with this fear: I now believe that if I am in Seattle and around for the inevitable "big one" it's only because I'm supposed to be. Every time I feel the fear creep in--like when I'm driving on the viaduct--I take a deep breath, and remind myself that perhaps the big one is my fate, perhaps it isn't and it probably isn't for me to decide. It's such a simple concept, it's hard to believe it works, but it does release the fear of the unknown. "Knowing that you are living in perfect alignment with a universal plan requires faith, especially when you do not get what you want. Everything is as it should be. Understanding this allows you to relax and live your life in harmony."**
3) Accepting the Idea of Maya
The ancient Yogis have taught us that the world is an illusion that they called Maya. Modern physics, starting with Einstein's Unified Field Theory, have proven the idea of Maya. Einstein discovered that the entire physical world is simply vibration: pure energy. Everything, at its purest form, is made up of electrons and neutrons, which are nothing and everything, pure energy: mass-less and illusory. Even the rock that we perceive as so real is literally shaking in its boots as pure energy. The complexity of Maya is that the Yogi's never said the physical world isn't real; it's very real, they simply explain that it is as transient to our entire experience as a spiritual being as a dream is to our physical being. Maya is explained s a physical manifestation of collective beliefs. If we accept this Yogic teaching and understand the transient nature of our physical lives, we can let go of the fear of inhabiting this life. Regardless of what happens to us in this physical realm, our true selves, our consciousness and spirit will live on. Accepting the limitless and timelessness of our essence and recognizing that our time on Earth is just a blip on the map or Maya, we are released from living in fear.
4) Practicing Free Will
Finally, and most importantly, we are released from living with fear when we understand the power of living with free will. Nothing is scripted for us, nothing is set in stone. We have free-will and we are our own fate-makers. "Nothing in time and space is meant to be, except for what already exists in the present and all that awaits in the future that will be determined by your ever-evolving beliefs and expectations. Tomorrow is a blank slate."***
*The Yogi in You -- Cameron Alborian
**Wishing: How to Fulfill Your Heart's Desires -- Eliazbeth Harper
***Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Lving Your Dreams -- Mike Dooley
