Keep Calm, Yoga On: No worries

Keep Calm, Yoga On: No worries: I'm on Lesson 8 in A Course in Miracles.  The book found its way into my hands a few weeks ago and I'm completely immersed in it now...

No worries

I'm on Lesson 8 in A Course in Miracles.  The book found its way into my hands a few weeks ago and I'm completely immersed in it now.  Today's lesson is "My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts." Part of the exercise is to close your eyes and observe your thoughts: "I seem to be thinking about..."  Each time I've done this today, I've found a continuous stream of thought entering my mind.  Some thoughts involved worry or discontent, others happiness, others anticipation.  Its amazing the amount of useless thoughts that enter into our minds. I say useless because thoughts of the past (worries, fears, concerns, even those of happiness) serve no purpose.  What has happened in the past is over and done. And to talk of the future is even more unnecessary because there is no future. An interesting concept, which I was also baffled by when it first came to me. But, the future is only our mind projecting something that is not there. The future hasn't happened yet.  When it does, it is no longer the future, it is the present.  This brings up the concept that Time does not exist, which is why in yoga practice, we are so often saying, "calm your mind, be present." The present is the only place in which you can be.  But its the mind cannot grasp this.  Its that "Monkey Mind," the phrase that one of my yoga colleagues coined, that takes us on trips to the past and into the future.  When the mind is calm, the present is possible. While we live in a world that requires us to plan ahead, learn from our mistakes, and get to places at appointed times, being aware of and accepting the present moment, quiets those thoughts that preoccupy our minds and cause us undo stress and worry.  There are no worries.

Yoga mind

We know that yoga is so good for the mind, body, and soul but we usually associate it with an asana practice (in other words, doing poses).  Here's a little tidbit I read this morning in Fitness Magazine that reminds us of the benefits yoga can have on the mind:

"New research shows that hitting the mat for just 20 minutes boosts cognitive performance more than running. This may be because guided movements require more concentration and make you focus on the moment...the meditative exercises are mentally engaging and help you develop awareness and keep distracting thoughts away."

If your work involves sitting in front of a computer or at a desk most of the day, you're likely spending a good deal of your day slouching, rounding your back, and hunching your shoulders.  Taking a few minutes to open up and stretch out is well worth it and will make you feel noticeably better.  So on your lunch break today take a little yoga break and re-energize your yoga mind and body :-)

Some poses to try:
Forward folding bend
Downdog
Warrior II
Triangle
Tree pose
Cobra
Bridge
Child's pose

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of our greatest gifts.  It is a defense mechanism that can do no harm.  It can only heal.  Forgiveness is the greatest defense against even the most atrocious acts.  In forgiveness there is love, and nothing is greater than love.

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.  If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you.  Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.  The good you do today, may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.  Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.  Give your best anyway.  For you see, in the end, it is between you a God.  It was never between you and them anyway."    ~Mother Teresa

Everything is OK

When I began my yoga teacher training, we did an activity where we were asked to respond to the statement, "Who I am is..."  Many of my answers revolved around things I do or how I wanted to be seen.  Or how I wanted to see myself.  When I sit down and think about that statement now, the only answer I can find is Who I am is Me.  There's a song on a CD that was given to me and one of the lines is "I am who I am, that is that."  How obvious!  How can I, or anyone, be anything other than we are?  It has found its way into my life as my mantra.  It popped in there one day while I was running and it hasn't popped out since, and that was at least 3 weeks ago.  It reminds me that not only am I who I am, but what is, is what is. Everything that is happening in our lives are supposed to be happening exactly as they are.  Even the most difficult and trying events are meant to be loved and accepted because, as Eckhart Tolle says in one of my favorite quotes, "How do you know this is the experience you need?  Because this is the experience you are having at the moment."

Life is so much more pleasant and joyful when you accept it for what it is.  There's no such thing as a "wrong" decision.  Any choice you make is the choice you were intended to make.  The path it takes you down is the path you were meant to go down.  There's nothing wrong with wondering what would have been had we made different choices in our lives, but its unnecessary and energy consuming.  It causes worry and fear and often times regret.  None of these feelings are necessary though, because right now, everything is exactly as it should be.

A close friend shared the following poem this weekend. This is a beautiful way to live life. Enjoy, be joy, and just be...

This is My Life

by William Stanley Braithwaite

To feed my soul with beauty till I die; 

To give my hands a pleasant task to do; 

To keep my heart forever filled anew 

With dreams and wonders which the days supply; 

To love all conscious living, and thereby 

Respect the brute who renders up its due, 

And know the world as planned is good and true- 

And thus -because there chanced to be an I! 

This is my life since things are as they are: 

One half akin to flowers and the grass: 

The rest a law unto the changeless star. 

And I believe when I shall come to pass 

Within the Door His hand shall hold ajar 

I'll leave no echoing whisper of Alas!

Guilty Pleasures

Candy Corn.  That's mine...at least during the fall.  In the spring it turns to jelly beans.  Apparently my pleasures are very seasonal...there's also red wine in winter, white in the summer.  I'm well aware that candy corn is made up almost entirely of sugar and corn syrup and a handful of other things I can neither spell nor pronounce which means my body is no place for these mystery products to be going.  Nonetheless, when the season rolls around, clean eating be damned!  As a very health conscious person, I've always felt guilty about putting something so artificial in my body. But did I stop, or even attempt to stop?  Not really.  What I have come to find though yoga though, is that its not about self-denial or the denial of all things pleasurable.  Yoga isn't about eradicating ourselves of our imperfections, or making ourselves into a perfect human being.  No such thing exists.  We are only human.  Its about awareness of our imperfections, mindfulness, and moderation of them.  Its about bringing them into our consciousness. Instead of mindlessly eating handful after handful of candy corn, I've made it into a little evening ritual that takes place in the fall.  We have one bag of candy corn in the house.  Every couple of nights as we sit reading or watching TV, I sit down with a hot cup of pumpkin spice decaf tea and a small handful of my delightful candy corn.  I eat it very slowly, almost letting it dissolve in my mouth.  Between each piece, I take a sip of tea.  This little ritual has transformed a guilty pleasure into blissful experience.

There is pleasure. And there is bliss. Forgo the first to possess the second. Buddha

A Change in the Weather

Tinted Trunks, photograph by Stephanie Funke

I suppose for mid-October we're experiencing exactly the type of weather we should be in Iowa.  But after about 3 weeks of the leaves turning brilliant shades of red and orange while still maintaining sunny skies and 70-something degree weather, fifty degrees and rainy takes its toll.  As I was driving to my bootcamp class this morning at 5:00 in the cold, dark rain, a heavy cloud settled over me.  It seemed like it was summer five minutes ago.  At this hour, the birds would be chirping and the sun beginning to rise.  Another season had passed by in the blink of an eye.  When I arrived at the gym, I took up a conversation with one of the tennis instructors who was there for an early morning tennis drill.  As we were lamenting about the gloomy day, she said jokingly, "The funny thing is, in a few months we'll be celebrating a day like today!"  How true!  That dreary cloud that had settled over me suddenly lifted as I remembered that I have the choice to make today gloomy and depressing or beautiful and comforting.  And so do you.  Everyday we have that choice.  We can make the worst of something, or, we can change our perception and accept things for what they are.

The yoga sutras talk about changing one's attitude towards situations rather than hoping or trying to change the situation itself.

When presented with disquieting thoughts or feelings, cultivate an opposite, elevated attitude.  This is Pratipaksha Bhavana.  (11.33) 

So for example, if someone does something that annoys you, take that negative feeling and turn it into something positive.  At the supermarket the other day, the cashier was rather unpleasant.  It was easy to be unpleasant back, but instead, I looked for a positive.  This was as simple as noticing that she had eyes an incredible shade of green.  Of course, I didn't say anything to her because that might have sounded weird, "You have the most beautiful eyes"??  But its not necessary to say anything.  The positive energy created by noticing something positive took my attention away from the negative and calmed me. She even cracked a smile and told me to have a nice day as I was leaving. Its such a simple little thing that you can use everyday.  Try it today when someone annoys you.

Puppy love

This is my bulldog, Meatloaf.  For the past two years since our daughter Maggie was born, he has probably received entirely too little attention.  I'm always busy, busy, busy.  Busy with the baby, with work, with chores, with errands.  Suddenly, I realized that life is passing by.  The baby is not a baby. She's two.  Tomorrow she'll be in high school and the next day she'll be leaving home for college.  Meatloaf is 5.  He's about half way through his expected life cycle.  Time simply cannot continue to just pass.  So today, Meatloaf and I went for a walk, just the two of us.  While Meatloaf sniffed (and marked) every single tree, fire hydrant, and sign post in sight, I took in the sunshine, the breeze, the smells of the leaves and fresh cut grass.  I listened to the birds and the cars and the lawnmowers.  When it was silent, I listened to the silence.  Silence is quite calming.  Listen for it in between the noise.  Without the silence, there would be no sound.  As we continued our walk, I realized how very grateful I was to find joy in such simple pleasures, and that it was my dog that reminded me to find it. Dogs are such wonderful companions.  They don't judge, they don't gossip, they don't care what you look like or the mistakes you've made.  They love you for you.  If you have a pet, give it some love today.

Climbing the Mountain

Do you remember the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle?  There’s a movie version of it that my two year old, Maggie, loves to watch and its paired with a couple of other stories by the author including one of our favorites, Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.  In it, a father brings the moon down to his daughter by climbing up a mountain to reach it.  Maggie is now completely fascinated with the moon.  She climbs up the steps in our backyard, reaches out her arms to the sky, and jumps up and down saying  “I can’t reach it!  Too far away!”  

I sometimes feel like we are all living our lives like this.  We are constantly climbing one mountain or another trying to reach something bigger and better than what we have right now.  There’s nothing wrong with having big dreams and goals.  There is something wrong with letting those goals remove you from the present.  Hard work, self-discipline, and goal setting are all great attributes and things that we have to do in our everyday life.  But we also have to live, now.  I firmly believe that life will happen and it will happen exactly as it is supposed to.   This is why we all have nothing to worry about.  Deal with situations when they happen and be mindful of the moment you have right now.   I’ve sometimes watched in frustration, as my daughter would stop to pick a dandelion, splash in a puddle, or pick up pieces of gravel and roll them around in her hand.  Let’s go, let’s go, I’d think, quit playing with everything you walk by.  I caught myself thinking this very thought just a few days ago while walking Maggie home from daycare.  I suddenly became aware of just how much I have to learn from her.  

The beauty of the innocent mind of child is a phrase I’ve heard before but it became pointedly relevant in my own life as I watched Maggie take in every little smell, sound, and texture in the short two-block walk home.  A child is such a mindful creature, full of curiosity, excitement, and wonder.  Each day now, I make it my intention to invite some of that child-mind back into myself.   Enjoy the moment you’re in.  It’s all you have.