There are so many things to love and value about Power Vinyasa Yoga I would not know where to begin. The knowledge of breath, mind, body is so limitless.
While writing my book about it all, I thought of those of you who want that book done NOW. I thought "If they are that hungry, why wait?"
So, if your hungry, whether you do yoga or not, or want to try it but forgot, or maybe you do but you never knew WHAT you were suposed to get out of it? I thought I would bring the 5000 year old bread winning knowledge to YOU and we break off a piece a time. Ideally, because all my yoga has given not just my body strength and flexibility but truly brought me way way WAY into deep mental and emotional rooted healing, moving me towards wholeness and empowerment that gives more deeper, richer meaning to my LIFE's value.
Now Ya see, I grew up the oldest of five kids. Later, four more bros and a sister came in through my stellar step father. Trust me, big families? Anyone out there who comes from them knows it is deeply ingrained in you to SHARE. I have deep roots from that to NOT be a hoarder, or be selfish. I am not sure how to be.
I am not a hoarder, and what I know has helped me personally, as I grew more confident I began to stop teaching yoga as just exercise and began to teach it from a place of deeper knowing, It was met with empowering so many students with a sense of true powerful wisdom to click and create an AHA! oN and off their mat.
So, whether you do yogah or not, I could give a shit. If this transformed me, and so many of my students over the years , why would I keep that on reserve FROM YOU?
Yoga itself means "YOKE" and yoke means BRING TOGETHER.. Vinyasa means "flow" or that withOUT barriers and obstruction.
On a yoga mat, we usually learn into our first few down dogs that there IS a barrier that is blocking us from TOTAL flexibility.
Hence, we feel the slightest physical resistance, and if we don't know that the exhales will release muscle tension FOR US, we immediately TIGHTEN MORE. It makes sense, not a one of us feel comfortable with discomfort. The mind goes into a huge story of pain and angst and creates more of the same. Hence, that is also where we begin to want to check out of our bodies, want out of the room, etc..
Is that not true of us all? In our life, when the heat is ON, we want OUT! If we have someone coming at us with attitude, or upet, we go into putting on our armor and yelling louder back, defending. You get the jist.
Yet, yoga teaches us that whether your plugged in fully to your own body, or checked out, your body is always still feeling the effects of your thoughts and your feelings..
The truth? Simple. There is no true separation of mind and body. On some level, in and out of yoga class, we DO KNOW THIS.
If we are stressing out, we are not thinking about our bodies, and what we are doing to em, but our bodies try to get our attention by tightening up, a tight chest, a stomach tied in knots, a heart ACHE?
Anything I share with you? Like I said, YOU ALWAYS ALREADY know. YOUR OWN LEARNING from me will be your deeper personal wisdom REmembered.
So, very often it takes a bit of time to get the body to flow and move freely through the practice. If we are more in our heads than our bodies, and our thoughts are creating any angst, irritation, upset, sadness, distraction, fear, anxiety, then it impedes the FLOW of UNobstructed, FREE flowing FLUID, calm, easy breath. When our breath gets WALLED off, we actually get MORE reactive, therefore less able to focus on taking SIMPLE ACTION in the present.
That breath going M.I.A.? Simply walls us off from getting badly needed oxygen to the lungs and brain.
What happens when we can not get air? We panic. Here is a trick I taught myself, ( you should know I spent most of my life experiences were rooted in DEEP rooted panic, I spent most of my life holding my breath, and spent most of my junior year of high school breathing into a paperbag!) NOW you see why I want you to get all this far sooner than me? I am not interested in watching you suffer, and besides your energy is meant for far greater things than panic, and fear and anxiety, YOU HAVE FAR MORE VITAL PLACES TO BE than trapped in your own mind and also body.
So, if you want a way out, my insights might get you to see how EASY your cage could have been unlocked!
IF ever you can NOT breathe?? BREATHE OUT first.. Carbon dioxide and emotional tension has built up to EXCESS that is DAMNING UP the flow of oxygen for your lungs and brain. If you can not get air , you will fight for AIR, and you will always be STUCK IN SURVIVAL MODE, and STUCK in places in your life that you probably also need to break free from, but are afraid to make a move.
If you can not get out of survival mode, you will never be able to THRIVE truly or find the life your soul knows IS readily available to you.
I am here to get you BACK OUT ON THE ROAD OF YOUR LIFE.. all this keeps us stuck in our own traffic otherwise.
SEt the breath free to go, and your INhale finds YOU! The slower, deeper breaths you take, and AN EVEN BIGGER focus on letting GO? Instantly, the mind begins to get present again, and the body moves away from fight or flight.
For the majority of us, especially with the way the globe has been going these days, it is MORE normal to CHRONINCALLY and constantly be upset, stressed , anxious, worried, about something or other. Our breathing is more active in SHORT and shallow.. and when it comes to OXYGEN for our bodies? MORE IS MORE..
The more short and shallow breathing, we never truly take the air INTo our bodies, so our focus is also JUST NOT THERE either, meaning we are never really that INTO what we are doing. We are more apt to be distracted, more apt to become REactive, our body postures are more apt to express DEFENSE. If we are in defense, we will look for excess ways to control, all are coming from a place of fear and a ready for FLIGHT.
We become and live mindlessly. We will struggle with an ability to show up for our work, our activities, our ANYTHING and EVERYTHING from start to finish. We will have one foot in and one foot out!
WE lack a sense of a true feeling of grounding in our own legs and feet, hence a floaty feeling or going through the motions and on the outside, it shows a lack of presence, or attention or interest in the moment in front of us.
Lack of breathing? a learned response from earlier luggage of life going dow from stuff our minds or hearts had a hardship handling creating a half lived life.
If That then should shine a lot to you on why you get MORE stressed, more uptight, more fearful, more anxious. I shed light to you on this, OUR THOUGHTS are roots to the FEELING felt in our body. If those thoughts are creating any angst? Well, our head chatter gets so big and literally puts us in fear based flight or fight or anger.. It simply steers us further away, and more engaged we are in our frazzled or upsetting or fearful or angry thoughts, the more a story based on fear deeply gets RErooted into the mind, and the nervous system.
The more upset, and the whole time, our bodies are getting the brunt of it. We simply become more DISengaged we are from our bodies. Yet, our bodies are reacting constantly, by manifesting as physical and emotional tension, over time, cutting off the flow of our vitality, and wearing down the immune system, and creating illness, and over a lengthy period of time, disease. All tension in the body is mirroring one important thing for us all to sit up and WAKE UP and take note!
The thinking mind in stress is shutting off the breath. If it shuts off the breath, it puts our mind in a deep freeze of MORE strife and deep freeze of oxygen, having a way to flow into the body! Yet, not breathing also cuts us off from being present to FEELING. The breath is our bridge to climb down from our heads and BACK INTO OUR BODIES. When our breath checks out , we are CHECKED out. Period!
When our thoughts are not flowing towards peace, ease, calm, our breath is not there either, hence OUR lights are ON, but we are truly NOT home.
Fear checks us ALL OUT of our bodies, we stand looking the part, but inside only we know if we are there or not.
Think of the times, your doing what you love? Your so living in the present moment, fully there, fully engaged, and ALIVE. and you know what? There is no strife and the breath is freely flowing for you too. There is no need of a internal fight to get air, simply because there is no fight outside you.
The battle creating the real war for our bodies, or our lives? It is INSIDE us before it is ever outside.
Yoga also teaches us that our body parts have NO interest in NOt supporting the other. I do not see body parts REFUSE to make something easier. THe spine for example holds deep wisdom. It knows if it stays strong, it EMPOWERS the core. If the core is drawn into the body, and considered a bridge to link the upper and lower limbs together, then the spine feels more at ease and does not have to work overtime to keep the body stable and upright. The core muscles drawing into the body give deeper support to the spine, and also gives it a lift! The quadraceps know first hand if the hamstrings are not as strong, it is because an excessive amount of tension is keeping the back side of the thighs from being able to move the leg with more freedom. The hamstrings being tight then puts excessive pressure on the quads to become more of the "workhorse" muscles. However, when students take a forward bend, and simply engage the front of our thighs and pressing them into the back of the thighs, the hamstrings FEEL MORE SUPPORTED to RELEASE the deep tension they hold. Once we engage the legs more fully in that forward bend? The upper body begins to pour itself forward off the hip hinge to truly release the spine. Why? Simple. The upper body feels the pillar of strength from the bigger muscles of the legs, and with that stability, the upper body can relax a bit and move towards freedom to really let go.
Yet, Is that not true of all of us on the planet though? When we really truly feel the mental, emotional, or physical support from someone who truly loves us UNconditionally? It brings TRUE and total deep peace to the mind and heart and from there? We can loosen our grip, let go of such a need to control, and we can do the deeper more courageous work to not grip tighter, but LET GO. With stability, we can lean back, we can go into places we ourselves are resisting because we are simply quietly silently afraid to go alone?
The body feels exactly that same way. In yoga, it is stability of mind to body, the power and anchor of being present, and the true knowing that with a foundation of stability, we experience freedom to let go and go beyond the stuck places we stay because of fear. The stiffness in the body is not really in the body. The stiffness is FIRST in the mind that then sends a tight feeling into the body and the body stiffens as the effect.
Yet, regardless of how disengaged we become from our bodies, they hold the deeper wisdom to teach us the power of coming back together. Aligning WITH the breath, and letting the body move and make its way from pose to pose.
SImply put, in Vinyasa yoga, the body knows alignment and stacking of our joints is a collective effort that will ENHANCE flow. ie: Knee over ankle, shoulders over wrists? That simple COLLABORATIVE effort of joints connecting and lining up as a team, make the practice itself A BREEZE! When the breath is there leading, not only does it lead the way for fluidity to show back up, for softening of tight muscles to show up but it also is a serious anchor for the mind. Mind AND body in sync? Head bowing to the heart? FLOW , effortless...
Well, a lot LESS like work anyway.
Well, over time, all that body wisdom taught me that there should be NO separation from EVERYONE being able to access a bunch of this yoga perspective that would make LIFE ITSELF easier! Truly, there is no real separation between any of us. Different bodies, different haircuts, different levels,YES! ABSOLUTELY,yet everyone of us knows fear, anger, sadness, lonely, bored, restless, edgy, resistance, stuck, drama, happy, healthy, sick, broke, some level of abundance, sleepness nights, heartbreak, loss, death, birth, lost, found, vulnerability, ego, upset, a bad dream, our first love, separateness and union ..... you get it...
So, here I am..
After all, When you feel you landed some serious wisdom to help you in your life, like yoga whispers "SHARE THIS" "Don't be selfish." Yoga is meant to move our ego of us out of the way, so we can open wide and expand and deepen our knowing by sharing it with others. Where we can share ourselves bigger with others. Guess what? I will go so far as to say, it is OUR obligation to SHARE and light a path for others. So, selflessly I share...
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