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Yoga and meditation open the door to exploring who I am in ways I never dreamed possible.

In so doing, I will come to recognize you too, and smile.

Yoga and meditation have helped me throughout stressful situations to not become madly driven by the demands at hand.

The practices have kept me better focused on being compassionate and balanced in situations that might have otherwise triggered compulsive stress responses.

I have found consistent yoga and meditation a mainstay of support during my 36 years as a teacher and 23 as a parent.

This is yoga in action–keeping focused on constructively helping others and me no matter what the stresses, and staying more centered, balanced, and loving amidst it all.

I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT SILENCE!

[Drop microphone.]

 

In yoga, find areas of the body to stretch into, dormant recesses of resistence.

Breathe into them and create space in them.

Breathe life into them!

Rewaken!

 

Offer compassion to confusion.

Disarray has its own disorder that often defies understanding.

Breathe and stretch into it with a loving heart knowing this is how things grow.

I practice yoga and meditation to bring a sense of calm and a quieter and more centered presence.

We are stars wrapped in skin–the light you are seeking has always been within.  

—Rumi

 

Meditation and yoga can help us see and feel our inner passions as inspirations for action.

These passions and their inner fire attract our being like a moth to light.

They delight and uplift our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls.

As marvelously complex beings, we can create so many amazing things with these passions.  We can develop skills to give them finer expression.

With courage and conviction, we can dare to share our inner light and bring it forth to the world to shine like beacons of our humanity.

Experiment:  What would happen if I acted as if grace was always supporting me (even when things go “wrong,” in the face of everyday problem)?

Results forthcoming: I will do my part, and then see what arises or what comes.  I will remind myself over and over, “Grace is supporting me….” and then be open to…

Effort can only take you so far.

Trusting grace is like a slo-mo open-chested dive.

Exhilarating!

Anxiety is fighting the fall and is fruitless, like trying to stop or slow it down by grabbing onto thin air.

Trusting grace is acknowledging that it holds you suspended, as though tumbling freely, yet somehow miraculously held by something other than you.

With this in mind, you can smile and let go to the dive!

We are always in flux–our heart beating, cells growing/dying, breathing, thinking, moving….

I do yoga and meditation to tend my being.

The saints and great yogis speak of final attainment, but to me there’s only improvement, attempts at it at least, efforts to care for, to tend this being.

We do change the world one being at a time, our own.

This is what we have to bring to life.

As children, we are more open to the flow.  Somewhere along the way, as we learn to manage ourselves and our lives, we unwittingly cinch down or close down on it.

Yoga and meditation help reawaken and in time gradually open and attune us more and more to this flow of life.

Respect the Earth that gives us so much.

Nurture it, sustain it.

Value all that it gives us–soil, food, water, air, minerals… beauty–waterfalls, deserts, jungles, mountains…

And thank it with our good stewardship–

With giant outstretched hands,

With love and compassion like we have for our dearest ones,

Our most precious ones!