Nov 20, 2012 |
I’m not a real crafty kind of gal. I wasn’t born with that gene most girls have which gives them the desire to knit, sew, or scrapbook. But, I recently got the opportunity to get a little crafty with a do-it-yourself (DIY) form of mantra creation, courtesy of Wade Imre Morissette, that I just have to share.
Indie-pop recording artist and yogi Wade (brother of Alanis) recently graced Cleveland’s Chagrin Yoga with a weekend of classes, and I was fortunate to get to attend two of them. In his Saturday morning class, Wade walked us through how to tap into our vijnanamaya kosha, otherwise known as our wisdom kosha or wisdom body. When we allow ourselves to quiet the mind and listen to our wisdom, it has some pretty cool stuff to tell us. The problem is most of us never take the time to listen to this wise inner teacher who really wants the best for us.
So, by gazing inward with silent meditation, we each tapped into our wisdom and created our own DIY mantra. Why use someone else’s mantra when you can create a personalized mantra, one relevant to your life, one that will ultimately be more profound? I gazed into my place of knowing (in my case it’s my heart, but for you it may be your navel or your gut), really listened, and since I’ve been somewhat neglectful in paying it a visit, my wisdom body was ready for a nice long chat. Believe me, I got several messages, but I listened to Wade and zeroed in on one word to be my mantra, the word that would be most relevant to my life, the one that captures what I’m longing for. Guess what my word was?
Letting go of my fears and embracing LOVE.
Having a heart full of LOVE, courage, and confidence.
LOVING the work that I do and making my dreams come true.
LOVING others. LOVING myself.
I AM, LOVE!
We then took this mantra and weaved it into our asana practice. As we breathed in we silently said, “I am,” and as we exhaled out we said, “our word.” What a powerful way to bring grounding and mindfulness into the practice by invoking our very own inspirational mantra into the breath. I am, LOVE!
To quote Wade, “Everything you need is inside you.”
I can’t believe I’ve been ignoring my wisdom body for so long. Wade explained that this inner wisdom is always there for us; it never takes a vacation. I kind of like the fact that my wisdom body is a type-A workaholic, and I’m going to start dipping into this wellspring of wisdom all the time. In fact, I’m digging my mantra so much that I’ve started to use it off my yoga mat as well.
This last week my entire playlist was dedicated to Wade with cuts from three of his albums, Strong as Diamonds, Sargam Scales of Music, and Maha Moho: The Great Delusion. Here’s one of my favorites, “I’m Alive.” Take a look/listen and see Wade busting out some kick-ass yoga poses and dance moves in this video produced by my good yogi friend Eric Tabora of Cleveland Groove!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A16YQm_tqjI[/youtube]
If you’re looking for some great yoga class playlists cuts, I highly recommend:
“Ganga River” and “Mahadeva Shamba” from Sargam Scales of Music
“Shine On” from Strong as Diamonds
“Inside” from Maha Moho: The Great Delusion
I also took my classes through their very own DIY mantra creation and the very same breath flow that Wade taught. He taught us that by invoking this word, it’s setting a tone for your life and your day. We breathed our mantra in during each asana and into every cell of our body.
Want to get a little crafty today? Tap into your wisdom kosha, create your very own mantra, and then take it into your practice and own it!
![When The Lights Go Out…In The Yoga Room]()
Nov 13, 2012 |
Don’t you just love that moment in yoga class when you’re a big sweaty mess and the teacher turns the lights down? It symbolizes that class is almost over, it’s time to slow down, and there are just a few more asanas until…savasana.
If it’s been a spirited yoga class, one where your energy is just about completely drained, this crossover from light to dark is an oh so welcome relief, almost a blessing in disguise. On the other hand, I have taken classes where I am so in the moment that the lighting cue has pleasantly surprised me, and I think, “Wow, I can’t believe class is almost over. Time flies when you’re finding your bliss; I don’t want it to end!”
I had both of these sensations last weekend in a one hour-and-a-half, hot and sweaty class led by Canadian kirtan and indie pop-rock musician and yoga teacher Wade Imre Morissette. Wade took the packed hot yoga room at Chagrin Yoga through a vigorous vinyasa flow class titled Summon Your Power. This humid room was so full of powerful intentions swirling about that, at one point when I took my camera out to capture a few pictures for the DDD, the lens on my camera was completely fogged up.
Wow – it was hot in that room! But, I still enjoyed getting an assist in a drop back.
Wade’s friendly, soothing voice and simple yet precise cues sprinkled with humor took me to a place of bliss, and when those lights went down, I got an overwhelming feeling of relief: “Aahhhh, class is almost over. You made it!” As much as I didn’t want the class to end, it couldn’t have gotten much sweeter than when Wade serenaded us all through the dark into a soothing savasana.
The Premature Lights Go Down
Those last few moments of class spent in darkness should always be peaceful, quieting the mind. A few more long, deep stretches or twists should be reserved for this moment, preparing the class for savasana.
Sometimes this is not the case, and the instructor pulls a premature lights go down. I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this. You’re in class, you’re tired, the instructor turns down the lights, you get yourself psyched up for savasana, and then the instructor gets the class back up into a standing pose or starts doing core work. My first thought is always, “What the heck? The lights are down; this is not the time or the place for stomach crunches!”
Call me old school, but seriously, when those lights go down, it should be followed by one to two mellow supta asanas that flow right into good ‘ole savasana and some soothing savasana music.
Setting the mood
Time for confessions: When I first started teaching yoga, I have to admit there were many times I forgot to turn the lights down. Yes, I was denying my students those blissful last few minutes of class in the dark. Thankfully, I remember to do so now, and I’m always mindful not to pull the premature lights go down.
I sometimes wonder what students who are completely new to yoga think when I turn the lights down near the end of class. I’m sure I’ve raised quite a few people’s angst levels when those lights take them from a safe bright place to a dark room full of strangers. When I first started practicing yoga, I don’t remember this ever catching me off-guard, but I would love to hear from any of you that have had an interesting first-time story about this. How did you work past the anxiety and sink into the experience?
Do you have a favorite when the lights go down moment? Please leave a comment and share your story!
And on that note, I’ll let Steve Perry and Journey take us out with his version of “When the Lights Go Down.”
[youtube]http://youtu.be/3RzgH9x4-Vk[/youtube]
Nov 6, 2012 |
Do you feel like your pitcher of energy is never quite full? Do you feel like you are spilling out your energy, creativity, and time in such huge amounts that you never let the pitcher fill back up?
Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to take a few minutes every day to be alone and just recharge? Hell, better yet, wouldn’t it be incredible to take a whole week for the purpose of spiritually recharging?
In the book, Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh describes just that. She took a week away from her family and responsibilities and spent it alone on an island. During this week she penned beautiful observations about the stages of a woman’s life, and in her book she offers up many nuggets of wisdom, one of which is taking the time to be alone, to connect with your inner core, and to feed the soul. If you’ve never read this book, I highly recommend it.
“If women were convinced that a day off or an hour of solitude was a reasonable ambition, they would find a way of attaining it. As it is, they feel so unjustified in their demand that they rarely make the attempt.”
Why is it that we feel it’s OK to fill every second of our days with work, chores, email, voicemail, carpooling, volunteering, and endless distractions, but have a hard time penciling in a few minutes to be alone, time just for us? “Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week, and each day. How revolutionary that sounds and how impossible of attainment.”
Anne didn’t know it, but she was basically promoting the concept of us gals taking a solo yoga retreat. Forget the hubby, leave behind the kids and dog – we’re talking about a week of pure uncluttered bliss where you can disconnect and find some solitude in order to regain your true essence. A week to still the mind, feed the soul, and relax – and if it’s done on a tropical island in the Caribbean, all the better!
This is one of the primary reasons why I planned my Beach Yoga Bliss yoga retreat in Aruba. I’m one of those constantly moving women who need to take a week off to decompress, recharge, and reconnect to my bliss.
Are you in need of refilling your pitcher?
Has your creativity gone dry?
Do you feel you’ve lost connection to yourself and to others because you don’t have enough energy left over?
Figure out how to find some quiet time alone for yoga, meditation, or just silent contemplation. Perhaps that’s just time you set aside to read, listen to music, or be outside in nature – and it doesn’t have to be a week; it can be a few minutes every day. Anne didn’t just mean physical solitude, but more so spiritual isolation.
“What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive.”
Anne writes in the book that the shells she picked up on the beach to take home will serve as a reminder to try to be alone for part of each year – for a week, or for a few days – and for part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes in order to keep her core, her center, her island quality. If she didn’t do this, she feared she would have little to give her husband, her children, her friends, and the world at large.
Ask yourself, do you take time for yourself each day? It shouldn’t be impossible. Figure out how to carve out a few minutes, hours, or days to feed your spirit, still your mind, find some solitude, and be good to yourself. I can’t think of a better investment of your time. To quote Anne, “There is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious.”
Beach Yoga Bliss in Aruba
Join me this April 22-27, 2014
- Twice daily yoga & meditation in gorgeous beachfront settings with Maria Santoferraro
- Stand-up paddle board lesson and yoga class
- Plenty of time each day for quiet solitude, journaling, and self-renewal
Come by yourself or with a friend to join together with an awesome community of yogis. Complete details about this beach yoga retreat may be found at The Travel Yogi website.
Oct 31, 2012 |
It’s book review week on The Daily Downward Dog, and this time I read the male version of Eat, Pray, Love. Although Brian Leaf didn’t get to eat his way through Italy or travel to the yoga meccas of Bali and India, he provides a funny, testosterone-fueled, gastronomical yoga journey in Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi.
I have to admit, it was a real treat to read about Brian’s early forays into yoga, especially his description of being the only (and probably first) man to sign up for yoga at Georgetown University back in 1989. He describes a time when yoga was practiced on a towel – before sticky mats were even invented – and he had a giant laminated poster of Dharma Mittra demonstrating 908 yoga postures on his dorm room wall (can you say yoga geek?). It made me yearn for a time when yoga wasn’t quite so commercialized.
After college, Brian took off with a friend for a cross-country spiritual quest to find the yoga of his dreams. Along the way, he has some very cool yoga experiences, including one time at a Grateful Dead concert where he channeled the blissful energy of Jerry Garcia and a powerful out-of-body experience during a sandstorm in the White Sands National Monument Park. The chapters that cover their road trip are fresh and funny, and Brian is not afraid to poke fun at himself in the quest to amuse his readers.
Check it out – this book has a trailer – how cool is that?!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcYFYjnU9Cw[/youtube]
Beyond the wit, Brian is also gifted at demystifying yoga with down-to-earth and to-the-point explanations of the yamas and the niyamas, ayurveda, and his distillation of the seven keys to happiness, some of which include:
Do yoga. And if you already do yoga, do more yoga. [Amen, Brian!]
Follow your heart.
Speak and act from your true self.
I’m a big fan of treating health issues with natural remedies and physical activities like yoga. The cool thing about this book is that Brian is living proof that yoga heals. He has successfully used the practice of yoga and ayurveda to help cure his colitis, ADD, and a host of other neurotic issues.
I was not as enamored with the second half of the book. It covers a ten-year period of Brian’s various yoga teacher and holistic healer trainings coupled with his quest to deal with his inability to express anger (that part just seemed a tad whiney to me). Quite frankly, I kept trying to figure out how the heck he funded all this training without ever holding down a full-time job. Brian, this useful information would be extremely enlightening for those of us hankering to continue our yoga education.
Despite this missing plot point, I still recommend Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi. Put down those yoga textbooks you’ve been reading and take a real American yoga road trip. It’s a refreshing departure to read about yoga from a male perspective, get an inside look at ’80s style yoga, and have a few laughs along the way!
Check out the official Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi website, they have a fun video contest going!
Beach Yoga Bliss – April 6-13, 2013 – Join Me in Aruba!
Oct 29, 2012 |
It’s no secret: I love writing about yoga! That’s why I started The Daily Downward Dog. So imagine my curiosity and delight to read a book that is completely devoted to writing about yoga. In Writing Yoga, Bruce Black has penned a beautiful guidebook on how to keep a journal about your yoga practice.
The book is part memoir and part writing guide, and I love all of the personal stories Bruce tells about his early yoga practice. From the embarrassment of walking into his first yoga class with his shoes on, to the exhilaration of coming into headstand for the first time, I could easily relate to his yoga journey. It made me wish that I had kept a journal during the early days of my yoga journey, but then I realized that many of my yoga experiences (or what I like to call yoga victories) have actually been captured here on this blog. Here are a few links to some of my early “yoga journal entries” that I am so happy that I took the time to record; now I can revisit them to see how far my yoga journey has taken me.
Boat Pose Mind Games – An important lesson on how to make it through boat pose. I loved reading this one because it made me realize how strong my core has become and how far I’ve come in my practice.
Favorite Savasana Moments – This is the story of a memorable experience during savasana.
Amazing Yoga Moments – An early yoga victory with tripod pose was fun to read, especially since I can now do tripod headstand and many other headstand poses.
My official yoga journaling began when I started my yoga teacher training. If you have not started to journal about your yoga practice, I highly recommend it. Writing down your yoga experiences can help you deepen your practice and understanding of yoga, and it is fantastic way to record and celebrate all those little victories you experience on the mat. It can also be used to record and work through the challenges you encounter on your yoga mat. If writing about your yoga practice alone doesn’t appeal to you, try using your journal to record all the brilliant ways you take the teachings of yoga off the mat and into your life.
Don’t worry if you typically clam up when faced with a blank page of a journal; Writing Yoga will fill you with inspiration, and each chapter offers writing exercises to get you on your way. Bruce covers a lot of ground and central yoga themes like moving past fear, finding your balance, learning to breathe, and listening to your voice. I found myself underlining many passages in the book and gained inspiration for quite a few yoga class themes. In fact, last week I used portions of the chapter about trusting the process in my yoga classes.
“One of the most difficult things to learn in life is trust—trust in yourself and in others, trust in the process of moving frompose to pose, trust that you’ll find what you need in each moment. If the practice of yoga has taught me anything, it’s that learning to trust isn’t a possibility, it’s a necessity if you want to reach your full potential.” – Bruce Black
This chapter is all about listening to your body and trusting what it tells you. During practice, we must always listen to our bodies and trust to know when to back away from a pose that’s too intense or a position that’s too challenging. We also need to trust our bodies and have confidence, knowing when we can move our bodies deeper into a pose.
Here is a portion from this chapter that I highlighted and will be using when I teach beginners classes:
“When you walk into a yoga class for the first time, not knowing anyone, not knowing what to do, you have to trust in whatever inspired you to take that first step, and then you have to take the next step and the next, trusting in the process of discovery. This abiding confidence in the process of life unfolding demands a certain amount of faith in yourself. You need to be willing to take risks, to make mistakes, to fail. Trusting the process gives you the ability to overcome setbacks and obstacles and, rather than despair, take joy in discovering the next step and the next.” – Bruce Black
And this is certainly one of the lessons we get from yoga that can be applied to pretty much every other part of life.
I think one of the reasons this chapter resonated with me is the statement Bruce makes about how we sit at our desks for hours, most of the time with aching necks and shoulders, and just ignore this pain. We don’t listen to our bodies and trust that they’re trying to tell us something. Our bodies tell us to get up, move, stretch, and breathe and are probably kicking us in the ass for not finding a more ergonomically correct way to sit. I ignore these pleas from my body every day. What about you? Are you listening to your body both on and off the mat? Close your eyes, take a good listen—your body has something to tell you.
Do yourself a favor and go out and buy yourself a journal (or open up a blank document on your computer, or create your own blog) and start writing about your yoga practice. I highly recommend picking up Writing Yoga as a companion guide. It’s full of unforgettable yoga stories, quotes, and inspirational exercises to capture the memorable moments of your yoga journey. There’s even a little surprise at the end of the book. I’m sure I will be writing more about this fine book in the future.
Fellow yoga journalers, what inspires you, what have you explored in your writing, and what are your favorite entries? Please leave a comment below to share about your experience in keeping a yoga practice journal.
