Author: pmcrose

See the photo above of our exhausted and overwhelmed kindergarten teacher. She has found a way to restore herself after a day of Halloween activities and a party with a throng of buzzing overly-excited 5 years olds.

Legs Up the Wall!

The handiest and easiest of poses–against a wall, a bed, or a couch… on a yoga block or a bolster or cushion.

Just kick those legs up and breathe, and the rest will happen. Get out of the way with your expectations and interpretations, and let whatever stress and emotions that have accumulated come to surface and wash away to leave you more refreshed and centered.

So next time life has you up against the wall and you’re feeling overwhelmed or overly stressed or just dazed and confused, kick your legs up the wall. Help restore your sense of well-being.

Yoga instruction is replete with foot, arm, and body adjustments for alignment.

However, missing from much instruction are the most significant alignment cues–how to align energetically with the heart, with love.

Not that physical alignment is not vital to safety in poses and feeling the energetics of a given pose.

But aligning ourselves with love is the ultimate yoga pose with its unique and wonderful energetics.

May our practices continue to keep us safe and strong and align us more and more deeply with love–the ultimate yoga pose to explore.

A key component, often overlooked, for any yoga class or practice is setting up a safe space–physically to avoid injury and energetically and emotionally so we feel safe and held. A safe space leaves us free to explore, to open to what is happening at this time for us, and for the possibility of transformation.

In this safe space, freer of threat, we can calm down and grow quieter; literally our amygdala can relax. We can enter a safer, more serene space.

Over time, as we practice more and more, we can learn to carry this safe space with us, to recreate it in new situations–in conversations with friends and even in chance encounters. We can share it with others.

In this world that often feels unsafe, we can spread and share the sensation of this safe space and all the benefits to our well-being it can bring.

Welcome to yoga–on and off the mat!

At the heart of yoga is the power of love that flaps a butterfly’s wings and keeps the hummingbird abuzz, the universal life force, that which moves us all.

Bzzzzz!

What if we were just blobs of the life force experiencing the life force?

And each of us a unique creation fashioned and being fashioned out of and by this force?

And what if our yoga and meditation practices help us know more about this blob and all blobs, how we are as we are beholding this miraculous mystery of this creation?

What if we are just blobs?

The sutras and great teachers of yoga and meditation tell us of a happiness, joy, bliss, and compassion beyond any and all circumstance that exists in this very moment and in all moments, right under our very nose.

The practices begin and help maintain a physical and energetic conversation with this state of realization. In fact, the practices are this conversation, one that can be truly transformational in how we live and see the world.

Join me in having this conversation.

It’s a good one!

When we begin our yoga or meditation practice, we most likely notice our usual swarming thoughts buzzing away.

However, as we continue our practice, these thoughts begin to hone in on their source and, often unbeknownst to us, they begin to settle.

At points, maybe just for a moment here or there, or if we are fortunate for longer, these once swarming thoughts may remerge with their source, leaving us in silence.

We all experience this cycle. We know this pattern well, from swarming to greater silence, practice by practice. Through this process, we feel better, refreshed, more resilient.

From swarming to silence… and back to swarming again, only to return again, and again.

When we are well-rooted in the practices, we have very good growth potential.

As we practice, we deepen and spread our roots in that which is common to us all, the universal energy or the Self. We deepen our interconnection, our love, compassion, and joy.

Now that’s something certainly to root for!

In this day of social media, influencers are everywhere. They effect, or at least try to effect, our choices–how we see ourselves and life. They have a lot of… influence!

Yoga and meditation can align us with the best of Influencers, one that uplifts us and centers us in greater joy, deeper happiness, compassion, and love.

This Influencer can be visited anytime we choose to practice.

So why not pick an Influencer that helps our life in the deepest of ways helping us be more deeply happy, that improves how we live for ourselves and others?!

Yoga and meditation, a regular steady practice, keeps us in the regular company of this best of Influencers.

They say light is good for us. It can lift our mood, help us grow happier. Too much darkness, and we are bound to be glum.

The same can be said of our inner light. It can lift our mood and help us be happier. It can bring a smile to our lips as well as kinder words. It can give us more compassionate vision and center us more in love.

Our inner light can bring light to our darkness and to that of others, helping us work with it more compassionately, more lovingly.

Yoga and meditation can help open us to our inner light, the Light we share with all beings. The practices can open us to greater love and compassion and help us not only be happier, but it can shine through to others around us.

There’s nothing like light therapy!