what does yoga look like?

I often find myself reminding students “yoga isn’t about what you do or what the pose looks like, it’s about how you are in the pose, your state of mind and whether you are breathing. It's not WHAT you do, it's HOW you do it!”
  
Yet I find that, as someone who subscribes to a number of yoga-related media and who has many friends in the yoga community, I am constantly inundated with beautiful – utterly perfect – photos of someone or another effortlessly nailing an advanced posture. Numerous photos per day flood my ‘walls’ and ‘feeds’ alerting me simultaneously to both the stunning nature of this physical practice, as well as my decidedly inadequate status as a non-perfect, lumpy, and short-hamstringed individual.  

What gives? Are the only people out there in yoga-land made of rubber bands? Do they actually roll out of bed looking stunning before sunrise and get to the beach warmed up and ready to strike the pose just as a pod of pink dolphins begin to frolic in the background? 

What does yoga really look like?  

Your yoga. My yoga.  

The yoga that awaits me as I drag myself, half awake, to the mat each morning, with matted hair, and daggy gym shorts. The yoga that yawns my joints into motion through creaks and cracks. The yoga that still challenges me to accept where I am and not to ask for the moment to be anything more than what it is – perfect imperfection. 

The power of our practice is not always something that everyone can see through an instagram filter. 

More often, it is a slow and silent intimacy – that moment when the mind, the soul, and the body connect. Aha! HERE I am.

Here is my yoga tonight, in pictures – the fidgets, the fumbles, the falls, and the freedom. 

I want to see your yoga and share to inspire others. Do you dare to have your photo here? 

Does the so-called "yogic journey" necessitate an instagram account? a hashtag? a facebook page?

As i practice into the body of my yoga, does it need to be on display to be loved, to be true, and to be worthwhile? Why do I struggle with my ego each time I see a handstand photo online?

(How can I even write this? So many people who i love finding art in their asana. Do i betray them?)

Do i betray myself if i never shine as bright as them? If I never achieve asana-greatness will I never be a yogi? Am I not trying hard enough?

What does it mean to be a yogi?

Do I need to have long legs, supple hamstrings, and colourful eco-friendly tights?

Is that one rung on the ladder to G-d's golden treehouse? 

If I become a yogic body will i come closer to a yogic mind?

I can't find G-d in that.

But then these days I don't even want to try. I just want to practice being this.

This. Being.

How can I love it more?

I ask. I feel. I navigate emotions like captain ahab. From a pile of bones sitting on a floor. The rising and falling of waves.

I am the white whale.

This isn't even a yogic journey. Because, really, "yogic" doesn't mean anything. It's just a word. It's just the way I'm expressing coming back to myself. But it's nothing really. It's so simple, it's not even good or bad. It's just becoming more right where i am. 

I think on that journey everything becomes more and more like love. Each moment is of utmost importance. In each encounter i meet a soulmate. 

The journey is so vast it includes all of life, yet so simple it becomes narrowed to one task. The practice of peace. 

Asana robs me of peace when it stirs my ego. Asana draws me into peace when it shows me the ever-changing nature of feeling, breath, circumstances. 

When I practice with the intention of peace, Asana is just another way I love myself.

the life-giving power of corpse pose

Savasana is the time when we acknowledge the impermanence of our yoga practice. It is the transition between the end of the practice and the re-emergence into our worldly life. 

In Savasana we lay ourselves out like a corpse signifying the death of the practice. We keep the mind steady and the body still. We practice non-attachment. Non-attachment to our asana practice, non-attachment to our thoughts. We practice non-attachment to what has just happened and what is about to happen. We are still and centered and alert in this present moment. We let everything go, retaining only the breath.

The death of the practice.

We are not in mourning at this death. This death is energized with the power of our practice, the movements of the body, the intention of the breath. As we spread the mind and body onto the floor, that intention rises. It hums, it vibrates, the energy of that union with our higher selves.

And, like the corpse of an animal feeds the earth it lays on, in our false death we feed the earth with our energy.

When we send our intention outwards our Savasana becomes a powerful giver of life. It is, at one level, an important resting pose after a challenging practice, but on another level it is a powerful way to share the energy we've created within the room and beyond.

The subtle power of Savasana comes from the recognition that, like everything in existence, our power will fade, our bodies will pass away into the ground, we will receive energy, achieve goals, climb to the top. We will fall along the path, we will sometimes not get what we want, we will fail. 

There is a continuous sharing of energy that flows through us all and through the universe. We are always receiving energy or giving energy. 

In Savasana, we honor the recognition that there will be a time for us to shine, but there will also be a time for us to stand back, step down. When this time comes we give our strength and energy to others freely and openly. It is their turn to play, to acheive. It is our turn to wait in stillness.

My Savasana practice has taken on this significance. When I lie in Savasana I relax and gently fill the room with my energy, sending it to others in the room and in my life that may have use for it now. Then I begin again, fresh, with the acknowledgement of Namaste.

As I embrace the "death" that is crucial to giving life, at least symbolically/energetically in my yoga practice, I am reminded of the wise teaching of many who encourage us to live as though each moment could be our last. 

Wasn't it Robin Williams who said in Dead Poets Society "we are food for worms".

And Carlos Castenada who wrote, "Let each of your acts be your last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will your acts have their rightful power."

When we see the moments of our life through that lens we understand the precious precarious power in each drop of life. We don't fear death. We know all things pass away. It is all part of the cycle, giving life to the next and the next and the next.

I believe Leslie Kaminoff says it best:

“Every pose that you master you’re going to lose. Except one: Savasana.”


 

The book that knew me: Reflections on Baron Baptiste’s 40 Days to Personal Revolution

As she looked into my eyes, a rush of memories came through my mind spontaneously. All of the lessons, the challenges, the failures and losses, and the happiness and peace of the past two years rose up within me in that one moment.

It was the last meeting for our ’40 Days’ group and we had been given an odd (and somewhat uncomfortable) group exercise. We were told to stand facing another person and to look into their eyes. As we did so we were instructed to tell them about our experiences of the last 40 days, in silence, using only our eyes.

As I passed through all the stages of awkwardness and discomfort that you can imagine an exercise like this would entail, I began to really look. What I saw, as I peered deep into the eyes of my fellow 40-dayer, surprised me. All of the struggle, the growth, and the joy that had often left me feeling alone in the world – I saw these in her also. What I saw in her eyes was, in fact, myself.

This is what the 40 Days program does. It brings people together to grow.

My first time participating in the program was two years ago. Everything involved with the program felt foreign then. The daily yoga practices and meditation, the concepts in the book, the suggestions about diet – everything was a new and challenging experience.

I remember some very significant “aha!” moments during that first time around.

One, for example, was when the group leader asked the question, “how much of what you are eating is food and how much is actually a food product?”

Until that point I hadn’t put much thought into what I ate, but that single question changed everything. From that moment of clarity I changed my eating patterns entirely and haven’t looked back.

Another moment of realisation came during one of my daily meditation sessions.

I had never meditated before and often found my mind racing uncontrollably, but on that day, out of nowhere, I asked the question, “who would I be without thoughts?”

As I asked the question, a space seemed to open up somewhere inside me. For the most blissful moment I became separate from thought and just existed in being.

That experience taught me that the world won’t fall apart if I don’t constantly hold it together with thought. I realised that my identity doesn’t have to be defined by my thoughts and that I can choose whether or not I want to buy into them.

So much change took place during that first 40 Days and, looking back, I see it as the definitive point at which I started to steer my life in the right direction. It was the bridge between doing yoga and being yoga.

I became much healthier physically. I dropped toxic relationships and toxic patterns. I opened my eyes to what I wanted my life to be.

Doing the 40 Days Program for the second time this past year was like coming home. My thrashed and ink-marked book felt like an old and cherished friend as I pulled it off the shelf and tried to reinsert the first 26 pages in their proper order. The changes that took place this time around were less visible to the outside world but just as palpable within.

There is always something more we can learn about ourselves. We can always get to a deeper level. That is why this program (or any dedicated and continuous practice like this) works, regardless of where you are on your path.

And, like I saw in that woman’s eyes that day, underneath our unique personal struggles we are all seeking the same healing. This healing is equally available to all of us.

So, if anyone asks me about the 40 Days to Personal Revolution program, there is very little I can say about it. You need to experience it to know.

For me it will always have a special place in my heart, like a first love. It is the book that knew me when I didn’t know myself. It reached inside me and pulled the real me out of the shell I was stuck in. I will forever be grateful to the 40 Days and to Baron Baptiste for opening my eyes to love.

Gratitude and love to the beautiful Yoga Loft in Newcastle NSW for sharing my story on their monthly newsletter! Love you guys!

yoga, in 4 "easy" steps

My journey with yoga has been a winding road.

Almost always uphill and around many unknown bends and dips, it has been a difficult and treacherous path. 

As I look back to myself two years ago when I started on this journey, I know that I am essentially the same person today as I was back then, only with layers upon layers of sadness, anxiety and emotional baggage removed.

This is a brief summary of how yoga changed my life in 4 “easy” steps.

As I prepared to write this article, I was recalling the various stages of evolution in my yoga practice. It wasn’t long before I realised that each step of my journey was actually one that I had taken before, recycled in another form. I recognized a pattern of 4 repeating steps.

Maybe you have noticed them in your own journey…

They are: 1. Challenge, 2. Recognition, 3. Humility, and 4. Love.

Here is a little bit of how it played out for me since the beginning.

Challenge. I need to do something to get myself out of the house! I need exercise. Sitting in a desk all day and in front of the TV at night, I am watching myself slowly grow fatter and lazier! Can’t stand the gym and it’s too cold in winter to get outside, maybe I’ll check out hot yoga. It seems like it could be a bearable form of physical activity (seriously though, I hated exercise).

Recognition. Yoga is showing me some hard truths about myself. My body is so tight and asleep. I feel like an old lady! An unhealthy old lady.

I hope no one is watching me try to prop myself up on two blocks in half-pigeon pose. At least I can kind of blend in if I stick to the back of the room and only ever wear black!

I think this teacher is a bit strange. She keeps telling me to “move energy.” Not sure what that means, nor am I sure what the point of “om-ing” is. It makes me feel like a fake and I have to stop myself from laughing! I can’t even seem to close my eyes for 5 minutes in Savasana, let alone “observe” and “detach from” my thoughts like she says.

Humility. I don’t really care how good I am at these poses anymore or what I look like. I am enjoying yoga so much! I can’t believe the amount of improvement I am seeing, even from one class to the next! My body is capable of more than I thought it was! Who would have thought all the weird positions I could get into?!

Love. I feel strong. I officially LOVE this practice! It’s all I can talk about to my partner and anyone who will listen – the new positions I got into that day, how the sound of the om resonates through my body, and just how nice everyone is at the studio. I feel at home on my mat, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel at home in my body.

I learn to breathe.

Challenge. The more I build my life around yoga, the more I can see what I am doing in my life and on my mat. I can feel when I’m tired in my body and in my mind. I recognize how different foods affect my practice. I notice days when my mind is racing a million miles a second and others where I feel calmer and more focussed.

I am tuning in to myself. I can feel it. I can feel the yoga in the other areas of my life.

I stay in the hard poses (and close my eyes in Savasana) even when it feels impossible. I understand that the only limitations I have are the ones I create for myself.

I decide I want to be a happier and healthier human and I can see what needs to be changed to accomplish this. I take my first careful steps.

Recognition. All hell breaks loose. I am a mess. I’ve changed but my life hasn’t kept up and now everything has fallen apart. My relationship, my job, my goals – I question everything. I lose everything.

I see so many mistakes I’ve made in my life that it’s almost unbearable.

I question myself. This is not who I want to be.

I lose myself. Who am I?

I crash into despair and depression. Yoga keeps me alive.

Humility. I poke my head out from under the blankets of shame and fear.

I am still here.

My flaws are all exposed and raw, but I see no other choice than to keep living. I decide not to repeat certain mistakes. I decide to begin fresh. I decide to forgive those flaws.

Like falling out of a yoga pose, I get back up and try again. I am only human after all.

Love. I forgive myself. I see my flaws daily and catch myself in old behaviours but now I understand them. I see them as they’re happening and I smile in gratitude and recognition.

I know it’s OK.

I begin to see everyone I encounter as flawed also, and in their flaws I recognize a beautiful vulnerability.

I feel high. I feel invincible. I feel love coursing through me. Everything is OK in the universe.

Challenge. Believing I’m invincible and wanting more peace in my life, I try to mend fences with my ex-partner. So much old hurt and pain surface. I know I’m in a better place than I was before, but I can’t help feeling anger and blame for everything that’s happened. I am most angry that I allowed him to knock me out of my state of grace.

Recognition. I see how upset I am and I don’t like the person I see. I don’t like the things I’ve said and the way I acted. I fall apart again.

Humility. I begin fresh again by deciding to forgive. I realise I still have a long way to go on my path to healing.

Yoga provides the spiritual guidance I seek. I feel connected to myself, to others, and to a higher power through my practice. I decide to study and to learn and to be patient with myself. I am an empty cup.

Love. I see the beauty of it all. The fullness of life flows through me. Yoga is a delicious celebration.

Challenge. I visit home and am confronted by the ghosts of my past. They still see me as I once was. I wonder which person is really me.

I return to my new home but I feel separate – separate from myself and separate from the world. I still drag myself to yoga class but it has lost most of its meaning for me. I go through the motions.

Recognition. I wonder about the purpose of my life. Where should I be and who should I be? I don’t feel at home anywhere, even in my own body.

I am so f#%ked up.

I fall apart. Again.

Humility. I see quicker now and it’s easier to forgive myself for my flaws. I open myself. I empty my cup again.

I decide to let intuition lead the way. I decide to keep my feet on the ground and keep my flaws on display.

In allowing my vulnerability, I begin to feel strong. From this place I push my limits and touch places I haven’t before – in life and on the mat.

Love. I am in a more real place. And by real, I mean true to myself.

I feel strong. I am courageous and I put mySelf out into the world. People see me and I see them. I love them all regardless of how they perceive me. Life feels like a game and I want to play!

…and so it continues…

The yoga asanas are a physical practice that bring us through these stages of recognition in our bodies, but my yoga, my true yoga, is a practice that grows my life holistically through stages of clarity and chaos.

Through the cyclical pattern of expansion and contraction, birth and death, I come closer to my internal home.

The patterns, attitudes and beliefs that I don’t need die away one by one, and out I come each time, fresh as a baby, a snake shedding its skin.

My yoga journey is a cyclical motion of my soul spiralling ever outward from my body, and my focus spiralling ever closer to my heart centre.

Love,

R

PS. Thank you to the Yoga Loft, Newcastle for sharing my story with your community!

lucid dreaming [poem]

smiles in rearview mirror

fedora over beach hair

bouncing down urban road in

red pickup truck

nose ring yeah i'm cool

folk tunes stampin stereo

red light guy in next car 

looked over i swear be cool

windows rolled right down

but that was just a dream

yoga star om expert 

sweating thru anti-corporate

tank and coloured crops

smiling thru pain and 

posing each moment for Yoga Journal

hair tossed carelessly

elegant earthy top knot

waterproof mascara

breath perfection alignment perfection

but just another dream

cute blonde office girl

tucked neatly behind desk 

smiling hiding

long finger nails tick tak typing

little wink for the silver-haired 

executives patriarchs

dressed up just enough 

but not too much

so sweet so quiet so dumb

but yeah it's just a dream

book and bag on arm

a poet on the beach

wind blowing thru pages

don't look distracted girl

fedora makes a second act

not worried where sand sneaks in

looking out to vast blue ocean

believing she understands

beauty and love HAH

what's left after the dream?

life is a playground. tag, you're it!

My plan is to play through life!

Play through work. Play through "responsibilities." Play on holidays. Play through the smooth times. Play through trouble. Play through sadness. Play like a child, laughing, trying, flailing and falling, growing silent in concentration, using my mind to solve a problem and sharing. Helping others, everyone is a potential friend, and asking for help. I know I don't know everything.

I never want to strive to "work hard" again. I vow to no longer listen to those who tell me that success in life is achieved by working really really really hard (as though I must suffer difficulty and strain to be worthy of success!). I want to work soft. I want to work gentle. I want to work easy. I want to work playfully.

When something takes me in a flurry of interest, I want to get caught up in it, involved in it. I want to be passionate.

I don't plan to beat myself up for anyone or anything anymore. I don't want to fight. I like to play nice. This is my one beautiful life and I plan to love all of it.

A lofty goal. (at least you can see I'm not without ambition!)

Play is a way of interacting with the world that sees everything and everyone as inherently on my side. We are all friends in a schoolyard. We play different games and in each game we play different roles, but it's always just for fun. Nothing is so serious because this too shall pass.

Have you ever looked at your corporate job and thought, "these guys are taking this game waaaay too seriously"!? They are fighting and being rude. They talk to their mates as though the organizational structure is a real thing. They hurt themselves by getting stressed out and neglecting their health and their loved ones!

Can they not see that life is made of tiny moments of ecstasy? Can they even feel ecstasy any more?

But I don't hate the player nor the game! I say, if you can find a game you want to play, get into it! Enjoy! Sweat! Push your limits! But only for the love of it. Only if you can feel your soul delighting as it pours forth through you into the task. If you wake up at 2:30 am grasping for your phone so you can record the dream-load of ideas that was just gifted to you and email your future self at the office ("oh what did I mean by "create pyramid spreadsheet for Alberta possums" anyway?????").

Yes, do it for the love of it. Else, don't put your attention to it at all.

But my process of play doesn't just extend to the workplace. I am playing while I drive my pick-up truck (yes, that's me singing and smiling with the breeze in my face). I am at play when I hang the washing (getting immense satisfaction from using the least number of pegs on the most number of clothes), and when I cook (talking, of course, to the carrots and eggplant as I chop, "you little guys are going to join the other veggies in a yummy curry now and be loved and enjoyed by us all!").

But play isn't really about turning everything into a game. It is more a quality of being that invokes lightness, curiosity, and good humour. 

Play says, "I am open."

As in, "pass the ball, I am open!" "What do you want to do tonight? I am open!" "What do you think about this first draft? I am open!" "How can we resolve this issue together? I am open."

I am open to receive. I am open to feel. I am open to you. I am open to life in all forms that it shows up.

So waddya say? Wanna play?

Love,

R

"I, in humility" write this little note

This is a practice I got into, I don't even know how, during a yoga practice a while back.

It is so easy to get caught up in the chattering of the ego - the voice in my head that tries to convince me to judge myself and other people, to compete, to be perfect, to act a certain way, etc etc. 

I notice this in my yoga practice when I feel a bit wobbly in tree pose or my standing leg is burning through the longest balancing sequence known to God or man! The mind goes "come on, you could do this yesterday!" and "if you can't even do tree pose what kind of yogi are you?"

One day, out of nowhere really, I started to repeat what has become a mantra for me in my yoga practice and now in my life. I find that it quickly brings me back to my centre essentially by returning me to my sense of humour and lightness. 

This mantra goes, "I, in humility"

That's it, there is no ending to the sentence in words. It is given meaning by the action I am doing. For example, "I, in humility" *stand on one leg and look upwards*. "I, in humility" *attempt this unthinkable feat of strength in my burning leg*. 

Or, "I, in humility" *type these words*. "I, in humility" *attempt to communicate with the person I am with*.

When I invite humility into my practice with these words I am reminded that I am human, both strong and flawed. Perfect and vulnerable. Thoughtful and playful. 

I find that the result is usually first that I laugh at myself for taking myself so seriously. Then I am less hard on myself, my mind stops racing, and magically, whatever I'm doing becomes 100% easier and more enjoyable. It's like shrugging my shoulders and saying, "so what, I'm only human."

Why do I bring this up? 

Good question... I am searching for the answer...

I suppose I am bringing it up because in my own journey of personal growth, I am finding that there is a vast difference between sharing your own experience with someone and speaking from a soapbox, advising them of what they should do. I have been on both ends. I have both given and received unsolicited advice.

If I am being really truthful and honest with myself, I know only one thing about you. I know nothing about your history, your spiritual path, your desires, the other people in your life, all of the moving parts and endless dialogues you may or may not be running in your own mind. Even if you've told me, I can't know what it's like to be you.

The one and only thing that I know about you is that you are the same as me.You are a dynamic bundle of energy, growing, shifting, looking around all the time for the next experience, great or small. If I allow myself the pleasure of standing back and looking at (capital) You, what I will see is utter beauty unfolding before my eyes. I will see an incredible capacity to form opinions, make decisions, take action, be wise, exhibit qualities I didn't know you had, be unpredictable, and most of all, be human. 

To give advice from a soap box is to miss seeing that truth and beauty. 

So in my interaction with you I wish to stay in my humility, because only from there can I see the truth of the radiant being you are. 

When I apply the mantra to my interaction with you, "I, in humility" trust and know that you will find all the answers you seek; you will get where you are going; you are ok. The I who is in humility sees things as they are. 

"I, in humility" watch you dazzle the night sky with your shining light. "I, in humility" recognize the light that also shines from within me. "I, in humility" exist in this world as the only thing I know how to be ....me ...not you ...Me.

Love,
R