Author: pmcrose

Yoga and meditation are like foundational elements to the house of my being.

They are processes that help open me to and maintain flexible and strong structural support in the shifting sands of life.

Like a revolving door we see no exit from, we go round and round with certain extremely habitual thought patterns especially with those associated with worry, fear, sadness, or anger.

Meditation and yoga can slow the frenetic spinning of these thoughts and loosen their grip on us, ultimately even to the point we can step out of them, no longer their captive.

As we practice meditation and yoga, we try to find our center or our sweet spot.

With practice, we hover nearer to its vicinity more and more of the time.

However, when we are at a loss to be in its vicinity, we need to keep looking and be patient.

Something new is brewing!

So, after one year of posts (yay!), it’s high time I tell you….

We must get quiet first because it is usually drowned out by a crowd of thoughts.

We begin by watching our breath, bringing our attention to it again and again.

As we grow quieter and quieter, in a moment of silence, from here arises The Every Day Yogi!  

A favorite illustration in the children’s book In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak is Mickey tumbling in a milk bottle–in a free fall, yet mysteriously at the same time supported or suspended.

This is that marvelous and almost indescribable feeling we sometimes have in meditation or yoga–scintillating and uplifting yet falling, held and yet not….

There are times in meditation when stillness averts you.

But then, almost unbeknownst to you, you slip or drop into it.

In all the commotion and activity of life, meditation is like a reset button.

In a moment of stillness, you reset!

Each meditation is a bit like diving off a board, tumbling through one’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations into moments of silence–tumbling freely in a space that somehow at the same time holds us.

When we sit to meditate all too often we want and even try to force our experience to meet our expectations or desires of what we think it should be or we want it to be.

In this way, we obstruct our experience of what is.

Rather, treat each meditation as a unique adventure heretofore unknown.

Let each breath be your guide and support,…

And let go….

You and I are each specialists at being ourselves.

We literally are unique in what we bring to the “game,” in what we bring to life.

Like a gemologist’s tools to cut and polish gems, yoga and meditation help transform us into the most lustrous versions of ourselves.