what we resist persists,.... getting unstuck.. from INside the yoga teacher's view..

from the pages of my book... "I spent my whole life running from pain, be it physical, mental or emotional.. ...



Physical tension compromised of all the other sports I did & wanting to waste NO time stretching when I could be lifting , running , boxing or ANYthing else instead... mental from the inner critic in my head, and emotional from childhood trauma and just the shit that went down that I just did NOT want to FEEL thank you VERY much. I used near every vice in the world to numb, escape, essentially NOT feel.. I ran miles and miles to stay far away from pain, therefore my pain?a huge part of me, that I could not accept.. I stayed and strayed far away FROM myself..I numbed myself through food, I chose shallow relationships on purpose so I never really had to let anyone go near or get near my own heart. IN the end???"I made it my job to love others and put so much time into all that, that I ate up the clock with loving OUTSIDE so that no one came or got that close to me. NOt on my watch. Power yoga taught me one simple thing. What WE RESIST PERSISTS.. That it was AVOIDING pain that was creating my suffering.. NOT feeling it..I was scared to death to go near that part of myself, to be vulnerable. Vulnerable and admitting the truth to yourself IS HOW we get brave enough to go towards what we are all fearing.. or feeling bad about. FEAR lessens and when you go into what you feel that is HURTING.. your vulnerablity is your essence and strength.. is where you retrieve back a piece of power and will PUSH YOU THROUGH with soul force, not bullying our way through.. Meeting ourselves where we are at is acceptance, none of us have to LIKE what is happening, but accepting it means oNe thing. WE STOP JUDGING and FIGHTING it.. and that is the gateway to heal.

WHat is brought to light becomes light..having gone through my own fires, and WALKING through them I feel I am more than qualified to speak to you.. Hey, God will use the flimsiest resume.. The deal is this, the thing we are afraid to do, feel, go towards?? IS what we will always be up against in mind too..
Not going towards it is what will keep it chasing our mental tail.. Not to mention, it will be what we LOSE power over to..
In truth, I was reminded of it again tonight...
Sorry, did ya think I was SO above anything or you these days? Nah, guess again.
I am what you are.. A TRANSFORMATION in progress..

Plus, it is good to think you mastered something only to have the universe toss it back at you again to see how that mastery thing is whipping itself up.
;)

Tonight, in my own practice, I found myself in a place that I had not been used to for a long time. Normally, having had built a discipline of this practice, meditation etc from the ground up, to create a solid foundation I normally have ZERO problem climbing down the mental staircase and being totally present with my practice, my body, breath, aligment, and the class itself. Yet, tonight ALL OVER THE PLACE..

For those of you who are not throwing down regular downdogs? (No worries, I am not reserving anything for ONLY those who do. YOUR acceptance whether you do downdog or not is not a concern to me. YOu only have an all access pass!!!)

So, anyways.. tonight, I was all over the place on my mat.. Now , many do not get how this whole yogah thing works! Well, when we can not find physical balance, it is because we are disconnected from the body, pose, life as we are in our heads to much.. The mental calm is guiding the rest.. ONly for me.. there was a pretty deafening mental Metallica concert in my head that seemed to want to bang on a drum all the live long day..

I was feeling like anyone else would be about it. FRUSTRATED.. ANNOYED..
Like I said, I am NOT that different from YOU when you have something ruminating through your mental closet.. No doubt it is just as difficult to be fully paying attention to the thing in front of you..
Try as we might to PUSH it OUT of the mind, yeah right!!!

Eventually, feeling so OFF..I just stopped.. I just laid down on my bed, and thought "Man , what the heck is my problem??"

Hint, if you ask , you will get an answer..All the sudden, my body was able to give me a message.. Our bodies communicate to us through feeling, that is the only way they know how..
My body was in pain. Plain and simple.. Physical pain, but when I probed deeper and finally it came to me. I was in pain and conflict and torn up about something else in my heart. My head knew it too, and the two seemed to mirror each other.
When I just finally STOPPED fighting. fighting being so off balance, the practice feeling hard in a way it normally does not.There in was the answer.
I was in pain, and therein lied my journey THROUGH it..

I suddenly just laid there quiet enough, and closed my eyes, and asked WHAT was tieing me up, what was consuming me that was so awful , it was seeping into my practice, my day , my driving down South last week.

There in the dark I knew. When I finally allowed it to come up from the surface , I began to feel my eyes well up, and hot tears stung my cheeks, and then just a whole baby back of sobs...

Yet you know what? When I finally remembered what this practice taught me, that it was the way to bring myself some relief, hence breathing room.
Repressed emotions by the way, not dealt with??

They NUMB US.. They close OFF the vital energy of a loving heart. We become emotionless instead. WE think we are doing ourselves some big favor, in truth, take it from the girl who ran all the time so she could be anywhere but in her emotional landscape was actually begining to create an emotional dead zone..
Let's face it, NO ONE wants to hurt..
But as REM says, "EVERYBODY HURTS SOMETIMES"
If you want to get through that time a bit faster, then GO TOWARDS IT..

From a spiritual perspective, aka metaphysical level, (emotional reasons and blocks for our phsical stress , tension, sickness etc..) Tension is just an energy block, be it physical, mental or emotional...
EMOTIONS are described as ENERGY IN MOTION.. except when we get dropped off an emotional cliff, it takes our breath away and we just move into survival zone instead, just getting through the motions..
The body sets this up for a mechanism we can employ when going through any sort of experience where REALITY JUST BITES..
The breath is walled off when we are so hurt, scared, stressed, etc.. The breath walls off on purpose..

NOT breathing , NOT FEELING or severely LIMITING our feeling about what is happening.. Sometimes, we just shut down and shut in and close off or squeeze our eyes shut and without even being aware, we wall off our own breathing too. So, that if it hurts, or it is painful, or bad, at LEAST we don't REALLY feel the truth of JUST HOW MUCH.

So, what occurs is the body is all encompassing and understanding that it is the MIND that won't go towards it. In truth, the body has the superior wisdom to know if this is not addressed, WE AINT GETTING BEYOND IT..

I did not any of this mind body stuff back then.. UNTIL yoga. I was the one MOST in pain, and yet MOST disconnected from the understanding that my LIFE experiences , past or the ones in front of me, were creating my PHYSCIAL fatigue, my depression, my anxiety, my tension, my getting sick all the time.
I was sick and tired truly the most when I was in the MOST UNhealthy, UNsupportive relationships.
Worse? So were my kids!!!!

So, now I can share some of this with you, whether it is kinda embarrasing or not , because when we KNOW BETTER , we can DO BETTER..

So, in hopes of sharing my trainwrecks, all the stuff I avoided, and would not face or admit or get help for.. I blocked my own physical health too.

Feelings are felt IN the body, no one says "I THINK I have a heart ache, or stomach ache or headache..
IT IS FELT..

What we FEEL is how our body, (hence the intuitive voice INside us) that is only ever looking out for us, and what would be good for us , and will keep us safe on a practical level, but also keep us getting to the RIGHT stuff of life is a voice we basically have been taught to shut out.. We tune more into to OTHERS, we ask everyone else for their suggestion, opinion , advice..
We began doing this as children , seeking grown ups to guide us. Some did a great job and their words really steered us in the RIGHT direction, MANY were so lost themselves, and we learn that later when we end up in some bushes in our life..
What is it we ALWAYS say in the end?? " I KNEW IT, I knew I should have done.. gone... said yes, said no etc..
"I just had A FEELING"

Is the language we all use right? I just had a "SENSE" . I just had a FUNNY FEELING that I should NOT xyz.... Something INside me said listen to my gut, listen to my heart"

Yet , we spent a majority of time turning the volume DOWN, yet we feel it or hear things inside or have a knowing loud and clear..
PAY attention to that if it keeps occuring, pay attention to something you feel or keep thinking about over and over..
THAT is your internal compass trying to steer you and guide you.. To keep you safe, or keep your where you should now be..

BY the way, maybe if I expose my own ego here, you might undertand me better when I say..or ask you..
HOw much time have we thought or felt we should do XYZ? ONLY to have our inner critic, which is also largely birthed by the one most influential in your life instructing you, NOT rooting for YOU to be your best, succeed, be happy, do anything THAT major etc..

TURN THAT VOLUME DOWN, not your own heart and gut sense..
WE were all born with that internal compass, and what I have learned and researched constantly?

The internal compass is our higher self , all knowing , leading us in the RIGHT direction... It is the voice within that is meant to be our very best friend. If we tune into it, we will know to begin to trust it..
IT looks out for us, and it keeps us moving towards what would make us thrive, and be happiest.

WE MUST deal with what we won't feel, because if we won't feel , we stay DISengaged from the higher knowing part of ourselves..

Close off the energy in one place, it will want to find another way OUT..
TRUTH always wants to RISE above, we make ourselves UNneccessarily sick when we deny it.
IF we won't admit it to us, we wil NOT admit it to another..
I did not want to admit I was suffering , I was in pain.. Because I could not go near it with a yardstick, but it chased me around my whole life instead.. I would NOT be able to EVER begin to get beyond it either..
Back then, or tonight...

TOnight, having remembered all this SIMPLE mind body wisdom, I realized my PHYSICAL pain, was also created by blocking my feelings from coming through..
From ignoring them, trying to do my old same old thing, shoving them aside..
Shutting myself off, keeping myself EXTRA busy
ANYTHING to not go there..
Only here is the secret no one informed us in a health class..


TENSION, creates RESISTANCE. and not facing or feeling our pain blocks off the flow of our mental , emotional , physical well being..
WE can do all kinds of stuff in the meantime to avoid it, bury it, etc LIKE I WAS..
BUt all we are gonna do is STAY STUCK WITH IT. probably nearly every minute of time..
HENCE NO FREEDOM FROM IT..

and NO FEELING , yet, still it sits inside trying to PUSH itself up to the surface of our bodies, our hearts our minds...

IT is ALL CONNECTED you know .. well, NOW you do..
NOt dealing , we block it... blocking it is like a huge river that now has a big damn obstructing the river from flowing..

The energy in our bodies is the very exact same. When we will not feel our shit, it blocks off the emotional energy. When we won't recognize that , we numb ourselves, and there is your STUCK ENERGY..
WE think the pain is the problem..
It is NOT .. the pain is not the thing that hurts most. THe pain itself or the thing on our mind, inside us the most is INFORMATION from the body about why YOU FEEL the way you do..
WHen it feels ignored, it GETS LOUDER.. it raps HARDER, it pushes , pokes, prods and wants OUT..
Ignore it long enough, and by the time it is dealt with, usually the IMPloding finally EXPLODES. It is far bigger issue, not because it IS that big a deal, but because the pain builds bigger INside , and wants OUT.

Once we get that, we can begin to understand , if we block off our feelings all the time, we are setting up for a constant DAM of energy flow our bodies need to keep alive and to stay healthy..

When there is to much obstruction in the way from what is and has not simply been dealt with???
Take it from me . LEARN from me.. The body gets so exhausted, and worn down. HOLDING the truth of pain IN is what actually takes a LOT of energy from us, VITAL energy we need..
It is simply the equivalent of clenching our bodies so tight. Eventually, we MUST lset go, surrender the CLENCHING, the BALLING UP, the SQUEEZING and HOLDING IT ALL IN..
because we become sheerly exhausted by all the time we spent HOLDING it in. when we are doing this, we hold our breath in too..

TEnsion being held and not handled with care, BEGS to free itself from US..It is our mind, our closed off angry heart, etc. that WON"t let go..

It is the MIND in the WAY of the body..
When really the body says "hey, let's just face this, lay it down, admit it, grieve, surrender etc..

SO, tonight being reminded so STRONGLY of what I only live , speak and breathe in my teaching..

Tonght, the yoga teacher had to lay down her frustration. It was just ONE practice, why get so worked up. Yoga did not care what was happening, in fact YOGA energy says BRING iT..
Yoga and the spriritual practices seem to say "I KNOW YOUR TRUTH, YOUR BODY WON't LIE. I KNOW your struggling , come anyway etc..
Yoga taught me to be ALL ENCOMPASSING, not all or nothing like I was so rigidly conditoned , therefore always coming or going..

To go towards my pain with an easy mild mannered approach as though it was my own children's pain.
I began to cry, and then I cried harder, and I admitted to myself what hurt so much. Then, after some heavy ass sobs, some snot ;) , and the deepest tears held at the root. I found my tight shoulders and hips let go..
i felt space in my lungs for me to breathe again, I felt space FROM what was troubling me deep down the most. I felt SPACE to think and feel something ELSE as it did not consume me so painfully anymore..
NOthing changed, but EVERYTHING had , I HAD changed..

I had laid down the need to dive back into much more emotional eating, dive back into a super whirlwind of activity to NOT feel to NOT have the time to SIT STILL and BE , I laid it down, laid me down, got the answers inside, cried a good bit if time. and then, the intensity of it let go of me..

because my mind and heart STOPPED FIGHTING.
IN truth, I make it my job now to embrace what I feel.. IF I won't go towards MY feelings with any love or compassion or gentlenes? Damn staight I am NOT going to be able to feel anything close to that for what is paining you..
If I won't go towards MY own emotonal discomfort.what makes you think I could possibly hold a bigger space than others would FOR YOURS..

If I won't FEEL, then I have lost the ability to FEEL period, intuiitive guidance included..

THINK LESS , FEEL MORE..
Ps.. If you were raised by someone who spent years AVOIDING , or DENYING, or using anything to GO Towards their stuff..
THey sure could not teach you anything different..
They may try to SAY anything, but INSIDE we FEEL the difference...

Bring back YOUR FEELING HEART..
As soon as you go towards the thing your mind fears most? THERE IS NO FEAR.. and we see it is more a JEDI mind trick the EGO plays on US..
When there is NO fear based thinking, there is NO fear FEELING, when there is NO fire of fearful thinking and feeling, there is NO EXPERIENCE That occurs to VALIDATE FEAR..

WHen there is courage to go towards the doors we won't open, and finally we do, POWER is returned, CONFIDENCE and feeling OKAY with A PART of ourselves that was only SHUT OFF or we stayed tuned OUT too??

Means we STOP fighting discomfort, and EMPOWER ourselves and not some vice that will only be a short term relationship from US , we learn to be more all encompassing of ALL OUR FEELINGS< not just our "good happy easy ones"..

Yoga , SElf love, teach UNconditional .. and it teaches us COURAGE does not mean we only go near something when the fear is gone.. THE MIND WILL RUN THAT STORY OF FEAR and ANGST ALL DAMN DAY into our sleep!!!
COUrage , TRUE courage is to be able to face that part of ourselves that cries out to inform us how our body is holding up. If we ignore that feeling, we might lose THE OPPORTUNITY to get info to us BEFORE we get so sick instead..

If we ingore that part of us, then we DISS US..

and that will have us going through life feeling everyone else has a lack of regard for our feeling. Everyone else is not supporting our feelings, or acknowledging them...
THE BUDDHA said "YOUR MIND IS CREATING YOUR WORLD>. YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS are creating YOUR LIFE..

YOU FEEL FOR YOU. first, YOU support you FIRST, YOU acknowledge YOu first, then it stops being so painful if others don't , or you will see that PEOPLE OUTSIDE YOU WILL MIRROR YOu..

I had NO plan a few hours ago to write to you and share this. I had NO plan of sharing my pain with ME..
I also was wiped out for the last few hours, then the crying gave me energy and a more settled feeling BACK..
Avoiding pain, numbing out, denying truth, is not how I can roll anymore. EVen if it slaps me in the face, kicks my emotional heart to the curb, PRETENDING to myself is not an option..
Yoga taught me TO GET REAL..

and besides, once you found a taste of something better, YOU NEVER WANT TO GO BACK TO THE OLD WAY.. OLD LIFE..
I felt REnewed after crying and just surrendering..There was an intensity that lifted itself, a more settled feeling in mind. SETTLED MORE IN MIND and HEART..
MORE RELAXED IN BODY, and BREATH comes IN and OUT easier too. WHy? Simple.. NOTHING ABOUT the mind is IN the way of it..


NEW was it indeed.. after all, the way out is THROUGH..
BLOCKED ENERGY no longer a noose around me..
FREEDOM...
BE FREEDOM. KEEP THE FLOW GOING... and begin to VALUE your own feelings, like em or not.. if they are YOUR FEELINGS, and you won't acknowledge them? YOU won't acknowlege you, so who else will? YOur feelings are of value, because YOU are of value..
Period, the END. Where did we get it , everyone else's feelings matter and we spend countless hours doting on theirs, and scratching us off the list..

Yet, the thing is ? What I learned ??? FEEL FOR ME MORE.. FEEL MORE HEART FOR ALL, NOT LESS..
Usually, the missing piece here is we first VALIDATE US , and then we move into a bigger space of understanding having been slighted etc..
What is blocking your path IS the path.. and we can not get far past it otherwise... no matter how much we look the part, or pretend..
Who better than ME to know?
I FEEL YOU..
PS. Feel free to get a hold of me and TAKE ME WITH YOU when you wish not to face it alone.. TOgether , we go where we would NOT go alone... and I already FELT and LIVED MOST EVERYTHING..
IF I am not running scared from my experience or pain. I can HANDLE YOUR OWN to EMPOWER YOU to go there too. Somtimes, we just need some back up from one who has been near his or her own similar..
Like I said, we aint different..

NOT REALLY..

What is brought to light BECOMES LIGHT..
AIm
LOve AIm