Author: Continue To Breathe

Yoga of a Certain Age

I am of a “certain age”.  I may be post-menopausal, but I am not yet a grandmother.  I feel the age-ism.  I understand the concept of dressing my age.  I have faded away, disappearing ahead of the next generation.

But I want you all to know that on New Year’s while I was doing a fabulous New Year’s Yoga at a studio I had never been to before – I love adventures like that – the cute young twenty something’s next to me on their mats weren’t able to keep up with me. Life is good.  And it keeps going.   I do know what I am doing, and I am doing it.  No, of course I am not competitive.  But let’s face it, life IS comparative.

But before you judge my judgment let’s be clear, I was unable to keep up with the seventy something in front of me.  Oh hallelujah!  Life just gets better!

Corpse Pose Rememberance

For the new year I went to a new-to-me yoga studio in Tacoma.  I truly enjoyed the experience.  It was a wonderful way to start my year.  I found it challenging, but not too much.  The other older woman there was able to do more than I.  Life is comparative and I can’t help but apply that to my yoga practice as well. Her abilities give me something to work toward.   The young ladies next to me were not able to keep up with me.  This gives me something to be proud of.  The instructor was knowledgeable and situationally aware of all the levels of practioners in his studio.  I tried things I’ve not tried before.  I held postures far longer than I have asked others to hold postures for.  In fact my arms hurt from the warrior pose.  It has been a long time since my arms have hurt in Warrior.

At the end of the session we worked our breathing techniques and I always appreciate a strong Pranayama practice for days afterward.  Finally at the end of our Corpse Pose remembrance the instructor rang-sang a deep Buddhist bell.

He gonged lightly once.  I was delighted to hear the tone of my own beliefs outside of my Gongyo practice.  Then he rang the bell repeatedly, growing stronger until the reverb flowed into to the last tone and I was carried mentally into remembrance and reverence for the departed.  My eyes grew teary and my smile peeled my face open in joy.  The instructor started the mallet singing around the bell rim and the solid sound reminded me that I am of the earth and not the other side.  As the tones echoed around the studio I felt myself checking in with my body.  Checking in that all functions are good.  Checking in with the muscles, the cells, the skin.  And the ringing stopped.  I heard the padding feet of the instructor leaving the room.  I rose from the pose and I am still filled with joy.

As I checked in with my body I found that my body responded as a much younger bady than it has in many years.  I do want to do another mental body scan this weekend.  I to feel that same openness in my trunk, my core.  I also would like to scan my esophagus and digestive track as this has caused me discomfort for several years now.

I am thrilled to find this studio and this teacher/instructor.  I will enjoy returning here.

Influence

Meditation is not a prayer.  Meditation is not an asking for anything.  It is a space, an internal space to get clear.  It’s a space an internal space to catch your breath.  I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t told me they are “too busy” and all they want is a moment to catch their breath.

This last month I have been doing fifteen minutes of meditation every day.  There was a week there when these sessions were not getting results.  I wasn’t feeling the love.  This week though I was reminded to add back in the meditative practice of requesting to visit with the divine.  And oh, how she has come in with a to my meditation – warm and thrilling.  In meditation, always ask for the divine to touch you, join you, look upon you.  The warmth of this love is unsurpassed in its wholeness.

I am in love with life.  I am happy.  Every day.  And yeah, not everything goes right, but it no longer seems to matter.  I adjust my view and everything is aligned again.

I admit Abraham and Esther and Jerry Hicks have a lot to do with this current crazy, happy, love feeling.  I give them and their entire support team (family, loved ones, co-workers, you name it) a ton of credit for my good mood.  There is magic in meditation.  Abraham and Esther are proof.  And we humans love our proof.

Before Abraham and the Hicks, I reveled in the Seth Materials, I ate up spiritual teachings of Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Gary Zukav, Shakti Gawain, Benjamin Hoff, the Lotus and Yoga Sutras, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita; you name it I was infusing it into my brain waves.  I eat up TedTalks for breakfast, and enjoy the light fare of Oprah and Deepak – grazing all day long on these delights.  I do and have for a long time surrounded myself with soulful awakening ideology.  All of them are a part of me.

I can’t hold all these thoughts in for myself.  While I want to write them out, share them out there in the universe of already stated knowledge, I don’t want to be just more blather.  Of course I want to make a difference.  We all do, each of us separately want to be the difference in our lives and for those around us.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be poking in each other’s business all the time and offering advice no one wants to hear.  And here I am not sure this is advice I offer, but another point of view.

I love that Source is here to guide me.  I love that I get to stretch my ears to hear and to allow this divine love to flow through me.  May this be the growth we all need and crave and know to be real and right.  May this process be delightful and energizing for each of us that has found our way here as we continue to breathe.

For Starters

I have decided to stay home tonight and write rather than head out for yoga.

I want these posting to be relevant, well-written, insightful and I want to reach those that want to be reached.  This blog, I have been thinking, is to be a yoga teacher primer.  Maybe.   As a newly minted yoga teacher I want to record the journey.  This is the record of my journey.

I love me some yoga.  And meditation is crazy goodness.  I swear, at this time, fifteen minutes of meditation is my new lover.  I am constantly on the look out for a fifteen minute slot to sit in meditation.  And it is sweet surrender when I do.  I am happier, more secure, and confident with myself when I have meditated.

I have heard yoga called the moving meditation, the prayer in motion.  And yes, I have experienced this.  And it IS divine.  It is a full body source awareness.  It is an inner focus on my external body.  It is love, it is divine love seeping into every joint, ligament and blood cell as they are moving and flowing in this wonderfully mundane life.

What I really want to get at is, my goal in meditation is to stop thinking and then to connect with the divine.  My goal in yoga is to allow my body the motion it deserves, and then IT calms down too.

Buddhism lead me here.  Wait, let’s start earlier. Christianity led me to Buddhism.  Buddhism led me to yoga and yoga enforced meditation.  But just to be clear – prayer and meditation are super close to each other.  They are not the same.

While we can contemplate the words of the masters, we can also contemplate no thing.  Contemplating no thing may actually be a more expedient means to our sustained happiness.  It is for me – feel free to choose your path.

Chanting in an ancient unintelligible language actually helped to clear my mind better than focusing on words in my own language.  I kept getting in my own way.  To chant in a dead language and focus on the sounds of the syllables and vowels allowed my head to empty and my prayers to become clear.  My prayers were my heart talking.  My heart speaks more plainly than my mouth ever has.  Things happened, and prayers became answered.  My friend tells me I am very good at manifesting things.  And it is true, most of what I have wanted has come to pass.  I may not be requesting very big things, but I have come to know happiness.  That is pretty huge.

We all strive for happiness.  I’m sorry we strive; happiness is.  Happiness is in recognition; recognition of happiness.  Sustainability is huge.  I myself was not clear that happiness is sustainable.  But it is.  It is sustainable when it permeates everything one holds dear.   I can soak in happiness; steep in happiness; wallow in happiness, speak in happiness and it is sustainable as we expect happiness.  We become mired in happiness and it’s a wonderful place to be mired.  If I am going to be stuck – let it be in happiness.

I have been practicing yoga since I was nineteen.  To gain the designation to be a yoga teacher/instructor/guide is such a thrill.  While I work on my personal yoga, my personal satisfaction and my own awareness, I was able to legitimize my guidance as a yoga instructor.  And a yoga instructor is a whole new journey.  I continue to breathe.

Boy, I hope this blog doesn’t blather on  and on too often.  I just want me some yoga.

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