In Pantanjali's 8 Limbs of Yoga, the Yamas represent the 1st limb on one's way to attaining "Samadhi" -- experiencing the true Self as opposed to the self that you identify with, the one that you yell at and get angry and frustrated with. It's true--that person you hate sometimes isn't really you! And you can do some things to help that chatter cease. There are 5 Yamas, which, simply put, are healthy behaviors.
My daily yoga practice has helped me realize some of the things that I am just not happy with in my life. I am realizing the more and more yoga I do the more and more I respect my body and my mind, and the more I want to be able to listen to my breath rather than the chatter in my head. I never thought it was possible to turn off the chatter and have a silent moment, but there are ways to get there. One of the 5 Yamas is "Brahmacharya", or self-restraint. Self-restraint isn't just about saying no I won't ever do that again; replace that which should be restrained with something that will better serve you.
Of the 10 things I hate about me--sounds like a movie haha--I decided to attack caffeine. When I fall out of a yoga pose, I start thinking about the cup of coffee I had that morning and that maybe if I hadn't had the coffee I wouldn't have fallen out of the pose. Whether or not the coffee has any affect, I still used it as an excuse as to why I couldn't do something, when just 2 hours prior I was saying I couldn't leave the house without my cup of coffee. I just didn't want to deal with feeling like I had to have a cup, and I didn't want to deal with feeling like I shouldn't have had the cup. Damn coffee trapped me!
So no matter whether you think I'm crazy for over-thinking my coffee consumption, or you think coffee is your necessary morning jolt, or you don't care that you also have these feelings, I decided to do something about it.
This is where replacing a habit with another habit comes in--taking my morning routine that included coffee and changing it to not include coffee and get out of the door before I have a chance to change my mind. The hardest part of changing a habit is the part where you can decide that you can make an exception to the rule. It rarely works! Ask anyone who has struggled with addiction.
Ok, so here we are with coffee. Instead of coffee, my yoga teacher said to try hot water with lemon. It replaces the desire for something hot, moves the bowels, and you can add some honey, ginger, whatever to please the palate. After trying it the first time, I can honestly say also that it made my food taste better too! On day one, as I drank the water, I stared longingly at the french press that I love to use so much. Please just one cup. No big deal. Here I was again, talking to myself about something I felt like I had to have. So I said no to myself, packed up and got out the door, without coffee. At that point I had wasted so much time thinking about coffee that I didn't even have time to stop to get some on my way to yoga!
In yoga that morning, I sat and waited for the teacher. I was a little tired, but it's not like I collapsed on the ground on the way to the studio and the world collapsed around me and I couldn't possibly go on with life. When the yoga teacher did arrive, she greeted us, we chanted, we breathed, she took us through a warm-up, and then she told us to stand at the top of our mats in Tadasana (Mountain Pose--basically standing tall). Standing there, I realized I was just doing what she told us to do, and that's all I had to do, and I didn't need coffee to do it. An hour later we had our relaxation period, and I noticed that not even once did I blame falling out of a pose or feeling crappy on coffee. I didn't even blame it on myself. I just picked back up and tried again. I felt so liberated! Such an easy thing to do.
I have another 9 to work on. Think about the habits you have that mess with your mind. Change your routine, or replace it with something else and see how you feel. Reflecting on the positive change will help your change last.
*daily consumption of yoga has a positive effect on your overall well-being
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Yoga Delicious
Third day of teacher training and my whole outlook is changing from an analytical standpoint to an embodying one. I mean, I thought I was embodying yoga, but now I don't think that I was approaching the text and relaying the message in the right way. Maybe there is not a right or wrong way? In any case, my outlook has changed and the blog will commence as Yoga Delicious.
The name of this blog, Yoga Delicious comes from when one of my amazing teachers during my second day of yoga teacher training was pleased with the effort and concentration of our poses she would say, "delicious!" What a great way to explain yoga. It is delicious. You take it in, you taste it, you swallow and digest it, and then it changes you from the inside out. Just like food. Eat the right food, feel better. Ingest yoga, feel better. It's that simple, because your body will use the yoga you give it in the best way possible. No matter what, there are benefits. You may be wondering, isn't eating just eating, and yoga just yoga?
No, both are much more than that--you must introduce it and utilize it the best way possible. You can't just walk and eat food. You have to sit and enjoy it. Walking and eating a meal on the go, your body will get the same nutritional facts written on the package. But sitting and eating quietly, slowly taking bites of an amount of food that you have served yourself that is just enough, noticing the texture, tasting all the elements to every bite, swallowing, and allowing the food to move freely in your stomach and spread its energy through your body--now that's maximizing the nutritional benefit. It makes you appreciate food, eat until you are just full enough, and the vitamins and minerals that are listed on the package assimilate into the body, and the energy provided by all those things dieters count on to make them healthy are used to their advantage. I bet if you are a dieter and you've plateaued, you will start losing weight again if you take your time to enjoy it.
That's how we need to use yoga. Yoga provides many benefits for the body--stretching, strengthening, relaxing, invigorating. Many people go for only that. Yoga also provides many benefits for the mind--restfulness, calmness, clarity, energy, control. Some people go for that, but maybe only half. The final part that most people often ignore is the spiritual part. In addition to mind and body, yoga is spiritual. To those who can surrender and release the body, use mindful technique without worry of physically executing postures perfectly, listen to their teacher and their bodies, accept the union that yoga brings about the polar energies in the body, ingest and release the life force breathed in and out, they are getting the maximum benefit of yoga. And that's just in a class. Imagine yoga as a way of life, the way it was intended to be 5,000 years ago, applied to the way we live our lives today. The previous 4 blog entries addressed just that...4 easy ways to insert yoga in your life through friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard for the wicked.
Observe with the senses, ingest information and qualities, make the best choices according to your body, notice the change, and reflect to improve. Food and yoga are delicious.
The name of this blog, Yoga Delicious comes from when one of my amazing teachers during my second day of yoga teacher training was pleased with the effort and concentration of our poses she would say, "delicious!" What a great way to explain yoga. It is delicious. You take it in, you taste it, you swallow and digest it, and then it changes you from the inside out. Just like food. Eat the right food, feel better. Ingest yoga, feel better. It's that simple, because your body will use the yoga you give it in the best way possible. No matter what, there are benefits. You may be wondering, isn't eating just eating, and yoga just yoga?
No, both are much more than that--you must introduce it and utilize it the best way possible. You can't just walk and eat food. You have to sit and enjoy it. Walking and eating a meal on the go, your body will get the same nutritional facts written on the package. But sitting and eating quietly, slowly taking bites of an amount of food that you have served yourself that is just enough, noticing the texture, tasting all the elements to every bite, swallowing, and allowing the food to move freely in your stomach and spread its energy through your body--now that's maximizing the nutritional benefit. It makes you appreciate food, eat until you are just full enough, and the vitamins and minerals that are listed on the package assimilate into the body, and the energy provided by all those things dieters count on to make them healthy are used to their advantage. I bet if you are a dieter and you've plateaued, you will start losing weight again if you take your time to enjoy it.
That's how we need to use yoga. Yoga provides many benefits for the body--stretching, strengthening, relaxing, invigorating. Many people go for only that. Yoga also provides many benefits for the mind--restfulness, calmness, clarity, energy, control. Some people go for that, but maybe only half. The final part that most people often ignore is the spiritual part. In addition to mind and body, yoga is spiritual. To those who can surrender and release the body, use mindful technique without worry of physically executing postures perfectly, listen to their teacher and their bodies, accept the union that yoga brings about the polar energies in the body, ingest and release the life force breathed in and out, they are getting the maximum benefit of yoga. And that's just in a class. Imagine yoga as a way of life, the way it was intended to be 5,000 years ago, applied to the way we live our lives today. The previous 4 blog entries addressed just that...4 easy ways to insert yoga in your life through friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard for the wicked.
Observe with the senses, ingest information and qualities, make the best choices according to your body, notice the change, and reflect to improve. Food and yoga are delicious.
Monday, June 27, 2011
If they're wicked, leave them be. If they've sinned, set them free...
Today was my first day of yoga teacher training! But before I get into that I need to wrap up the final piece of advice from my first posting. Plus, I have to brush up on my Sanskrit.
We have talked about friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and now finally, "disregard toward the wicked" (Refer to the first posting and to the "yoga journey" tab so you know what the heck I am talking about).
If you know someone is just plain mean, there is no sense in trying to offer advice; they will just be rude and take it as a way for you to make yourself look better then them. A wicked person fails to see the good in anybody, even good in the good. So let the good remain good, and let the wicked be. Don't waste your time trying to make evil people happy because they will only disturb the peace within you. You must resist giving advice to someone who will only turn around and say "Oh, well aren't you just perfect?" So much for trying to be helpful.
So, what about the sinners? Aren't they evil people? Further along in The Sutras in Book Two, Sutra 20, it says that we should have mercy on the sinners. I flipped back and forth a hundred times reading these two seemingly opposing ideas. How can we disregard the wicked but have mercy on the sinners? Aren't sinners wicked people?
It wasn't until I stopped flipping back and forth and went on a walk with my dog that I was able to really digest this. Wicked, don't bother...Sins, forgiveness. I pretty much repeated it until it just came down to forgiveness and maybe we reach out to people who have sinned because they will ask for help. BINGO!
Catholics ask the Father to tell them how God will forgive them for their sins. Who are those people? Many times, just ordinary people who think they've done something bad. I am an ordinary person, and when I think about my life, I guess I have sinned. Isn't it all relative? I may not pray for forgiveness, but I will certainly reflect on my past behaviors and make sure that I do my best to be a good person now. I am not an evil person. I am just a person that made some bad decisions in life, and I don't think that it is fair for anyone to judge me based on the past. No one is perfect, and if you think back on your life, when have you "sinned"?
What is a sin? Let's switch the word "sinned" with "experienced regret". When have you "experienced regret"? Regret can tear us apart. It rises in the back of our throat and we try to swallow it down, for it only to be brought up again. You can't change the past. You can only improve the present and the future.
Many of us are full of regret. The next time you know someone has "sinned", we can only hope they regret it, and that they will accept our help when we offer it, and remember that we all have regrets we need to let go of.
We have talked about friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and now finally, "disregard toward the wicked" (Refer to the first posting and to the "yoga journey" tab so you know what the heck I am talking about).
If you know someone is just plain mean, there is no sense in trying to offer advice; they will just be rude and take it as a way for you to make yourself look better then them. A wicked person fails to see the good in anybody, even good in the good. So let the good remain good, and let the wicked be. Don't waste your time trying to make evil people happy because they will only disturb the peace within you. You must resist giving advice to someone who will only turn around and say "Oh, well aren't you just perfect?" So much for trying to be helpful.
So, what about the sinners? Aren't they evil people? Further along in The Sutras in Book Two, Sutra 20, it says that we should have mercy on the sinners. I flipped back and forth a hundred times reading these two seemingly opposing ideas. How can we disregard the wicked but have mercy on the sinners? Aren't sinners wicked people?
It wasn't until I stopped flipping back and forth and went on a walk with my dog that I was able to really digest this. Wicked, don't bother...Sins, forgiveness. I pretty much repeated it until it just came down to forgiveness and maybe we reach out to people who have sinned because they will ask for help. BINGO!
Catholics ask the Father to tell them how God will forgive them for their sins. Who are those people? Many times, just ordinary people who think they've done something bad. I am an ordinary person, and when I think about my life, I guess I have sinned. Isn't it all relative? I may not pray for forgiveness, but I will certainly reflect on my past behaviors and make sure that I do my best to be a good person now. I am not an evil person. I am just a person that made some bad decisions in life, and I don't think that it is fair for anyone to judge me based on the past. No one is perfect, and if you think back on your life, when have you "sinned"?
What is a sin? Let's switch the word "sinned" with "experienced regret". When have you "experienced regret"? Regret can tear us apart. It rises in the back of our throat and we try to swallow it down, for it only to be brought up again. You can't change the past. You can only improve the present and the future.
Many of us are full of regret. The next time you know someone has "sinned", we can only hope they regret it, and that they will accept our help when we offer it, and remember that we all have regrets we need to let go of.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
delight in the virtuous
"Delight in the virtuous" is the third key among those I mentioned in the first blog just two days ago. What an amazing coincidence to have just heard late last night that New York will marry same-sex couples! The virtuous are the people that do the right thing, and even more so, go beyond doing the right thing. Virtuous people are heros because they want to be, not because they expect anything in return.
How will you be virtuous in just one day? Here are a few ideas:
1. Donate your time to helping other people.
2. Consciously reduce, reuse, and recycle--not just when it's convenient.
3. Stand up for what you believe in. If someone says something offensive about someone else or other people, tell them you would appreciate them not saying that around you.
As you become virtuous, so you will appreciate virtuous people and continue to reach to be the hero that you can be, and other people can appreciate.
And at least one way today, to take delight in the virtuous, say congratulations to a gay or lesbian person who can now marry in New York!
Friday, June 24, 2011
compassion for the unhappy
Karma. In a negative light, we all know it to be that thing that makes people suffer. They must have done something awful in a past life. Karma bit them in the you-know-what because of what they did way-back-when. And then there's that saying "karma's a b*tch, man!"
Bad karma or not, wouldn't it be nice to believe that someone who has bad karma could become a good person and have good karma in the future? Just because someone is suffering, doesn't mean that we should allow it to happen. If everyone with bad karma walked around miserable and those of us with good karma basked in the light of our own happiness, there would be no chance for better attitudes and kindness to spread over the world.
There are a lot of unhappy people. Maybe you have someone in mind? Call them! Make plans to be with them. Prepare yourself to soak in some of the sadness that you just didn't feel like dealing with before, and when it's over remind yourself that you stepped up to the plate to do your best to make them feel good. Smile, release, and move on.
Maybe you don't have someone in mind. Do yourself a favor and walk around without texting or facebooking or status updating on your cell phone and observe the people around you. Is someone homeless? Maybe this time you can give them change from your pocket. Is someone struggling to carry something? If you aren't in a real hurry you could offer to help. Does someone just have a sad look on their face? You can smile. And while these might be scary things to think about doing for strangers, for people that you wouldn't normally smile at or come into contact with, just see what happens. The worst that can happen is that they refuse your help or don't return the smile. In all likelihood they will. And what do you have to lose?
"Whether our mercy is going to help that person or not, by our own feeling of mercy, at least we are helped."
None of us are perfect and I know I have A LOT of making up to do for my bad karma, but if just once a day you look up and smile at someone who looks unhappy, that might be enough to make a change.
Bad karma or not, wouldn't it be nice to believe that someone who has bad karma could become a good person and have good karma in the future? Just because someone is suffering, doesn't mean that we should allow it to happen. If everyone with bad karma walked around miserable and those of us with good karma basked in the light of our own happiness, there would be no chance for better attitudes and kindness to spread over the world.
There are a lot of unhappy people. Maybe you have someone in mind? Call them! Make plans to be with them. Prepare yourself to soak in some of the sadness that you just didn't feel like dealing with before, and when it's over remind yourself that you stepped up to the plate to do your best to make them feel good. Smile, release, and move on.
Maybe you don't have someone in mind. Do yourself a favor and walk around without texting or facebooking or status updating on your cell phone and observe the people around you. Is someone homeless? Maybe this time you can give them change from your pocket. Is someone struggling to carry something? If you aren't in a real hurry you could offer to help. Does someone just have a sad look on their face? You can smile. And while these might be scary things to think about doing for strangers, for people that you wouldn't normally smile at or come into contact with, just see what happens. The worst that can happen is that they refuse your help or don't return the smile. In all likelihood they will. And what do you have to lose?
"Whether our mercy is going to help that person or not, by our own feeling of mercy, at least we are helped."
None of us are perfect and I know I have A LOT of making up to do for my bad karma, but if just once a day you look up and smile at someone who looks unhappy, that might be enough to make a change.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
friendliness toward the happy
Yoga requires a peaceful mind. There are many ways to get there, but Sri Swami suggests this being numero uno:
You know how sometimes you see someone really happy, and you just want to crush their happiness? OK, maybe not crush, but you aren't happy for them because you wish you were in their position. You make up reasons for why their happiness came to them. The truth is, you don't really know what the deal is. You aren't that person. That person might be practicing the things that you should practice. The following are some things you may have thought that honestly I have either thought or heard someone say, with suggestions on how to look at it differently.
Money
"Well didn't they run into some good luck."
"Mommy and Daddy pay for everything."
"They were brought up in a privileged family."
"Trust fund baby."
"They don't know what it is like to be in debt."
Try "They must have worked really hard to get that! I will work hard and hope to get that some day too." Congratulate them, celebrate their success.
Body image
"They were blessed with a high metabolism."
"They can afford a gym membership."
"I could never be that skinny."
"I don't want to give up the foods and drinks I love to look like that."
"They hardly eat anything."
"Ugh they look so much better than me."
Try "They look really great. I wonder what I could learn about their lifestyle to improve mine." Pay that person a a compliment.
Relationships
"He/She just got out of a relationship, now he/she is in another one?"
"I can't believe how fast they fell in love, there's no way it's real."
"How can she love him/ how can he love her?"
"They'll never last!"
"One treats the other way better."
Try "They look so happy together! One day I will have find a love like that. As long as they are both happy, I hope it lasts." Spend some time with them, gain insight into their happiness.
Why not be friendly toward the happy? Selflessly you make them happy, but selfishly that will make you happy too. When you are happy, you can make other people happy. So next time one of those jealous thoughts comes to mind, do everything you can to dismiss the ill feelings and think, or even say, something positive.
"[cultivate] attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked." (Book One, Sutra 33)This is the first of a few blog posts to address this. The first is friendliness toward the happy.
You know how sometimes you see someone really happy, and you just want to crush their happiness? OK, maybe not crush, but you aren't happy for them because you wish you were in their position. You make up reasons for why their happiness came to them. The truth is, you don't really know what the deal is. You aren't that person. That person might be practicing the things that you should practice. The following are some things you may have thought that honestly I have either thought or heard someone say, with suggestions on how to look at it differently.
Money
"Well didn't they run into some good luck."
"Mommy and Daddy pay for everything."
"They were brought up in a privileged family."
"Trust fund baby."
"They don't know what it is like to be in debt."
Try "They must have worked really hard to get that! I will work hard and hope to get that some day too." Congratulate them, celebrate their success.
Body image
"They were blessed with a high metabolism."
"They can afford a gym membership."
"I could never be that skinny."
"I don't want to give up the foods and drinks I love to look like that."
"They hardly eat anything."
"Ugh they look so much better than me."
Try "They look really great. I wonder what I could learn about their lifestyle to improve mine." Pay that person a a compliment.
Relationships
"He/She just got out of a relationship, now he/she is in another one?"
"I can't believe how fast they fell in love, there's no way it's real."
"How can she love him/ how can he love her?"
"They'll never last!"
"One treats the other way better."
Try "They look so happy together! One day I will have find a love like that. As long as they are both happy, I hope it lasts." Spend some time with them, gain insight into their happiness.
Why not be friendly toward the happy? Selflessly you make them happy, but selfishly that will make you happy too. When you are happy, you can make other people happy. So next time one of those jealous thoughts comes to mind, do everything you can to dismiss the ill feelings and think, or even say, something positive.
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