Everyday Warrior

Yesterday while walking along the ocean, the fallen woods called me to play on them and I found myself an experience of the strength and spaciousness of The Warrior. The strength felt is a very subtle inner power.

The warrior may have an ocean of emotions churning within, the warrior allows space for them. The ground the warrior stands on may not be wide or is a shaky one. The warrior has strong grounding through the legs and open arms to receive to the fullest – the breath and from life itself.

Later in the day I found myself contemplating- what does Yoga mean to me?

Yoga is about:

• cultivating positive energy and joy for our daily life.
• dropping the effort and developing the skill and focus for everyday ease.
• building our ability to sustain our productivity and functions for the long term.

The postures and movements may or may not be physically challenging for you. The effort is in the attention to cultivate a long smooth breath, that gives us the ability to be balanced in our body and mind. It helps cleanse the effects of stress and pain, physical and emotional.

The challenge is in maintaining focus of attention where it is required, often true even in our daily life. Yoga trains our mind for that focus, and to meet challenges with clarity & skill.

P.S. This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects.

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I am a yoga teacher …actually I am not.

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “Be present as you make your way”

Question: What do you do?
My answer: I am a yoga teacher.

Just that I don’t identify with that answer ever.

So what do I do?

My true answer:

I create space for people to rest their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and help them access their own clear voice that leads them to their truth and joyful living.

That is the answer that feels true to my heart. When I begin teaching a class my name, different tags of relations and society, our acquaintance if any, all that disappears. I lead you through an experience that is called yoga practice. I help you tune in with your breath, energy, body and sense of being. We take a dip in the pool of Infinite Living.

The practice helps you get clear in your mind, truly knowing and sensing what is going on within. Your time with me is a safe space to allow all that comes up in your body, mind, and emotion- no judgments. It is designed to help you be attentive and listen in.

I help you build skills to navigate through all that and listen to what your truth is and where your joy is. It is not an hour mind vacation after which you walk back into the same stress you live in. You know something about yourself or your life better than before as a result of your own attention. This happens in a group class too.

Do I continue in this relationship, or walk out? How do I find joy in my continuing relationship? Am I content with my current health status and how my doctor is addressing it? Do I quit my job, or continue? Do my food habits truly nourish me? Does parenting really have to be this difficult? How supported do I feel through these life changes and choices? What do I really want? I am worried, I have depression, anxiety, insomnia …

I facilitate these above experiences for you, as you find your own answers. We vibrate together with the joys and tears of transformation as you find your own relationship with yourself. My utmost contentment is when you need to see me less often, for our private sessions because you are now skilled at finding your clear voice and true choice. Your chronic pain has disappeared, digestion improved, or any other body issue addressed through therapeutic focus of yoga.

We are like lone kayakers in this Infinite ocean of the universe. If we are very present with the life currents, then we are skilled at the navigation. We have but this short and sweet vacation on this beautiful planet. We meet with each other, sometimes in happiness and sometimes in misery. Each one of us has our own path to carve through.

I have been blessed with teachers, with whom I continue to hone my skills. I have been blessed with students with whom I can share this powerful work, so I can pass it on just like I received it.

Teacher, student tags are just our convenience. What I do as work is create safe space for your pain, feelings, emotions – no judgment – so you feel positively empowered, inspired and supported through life and choices.

 

 

P.S. Dear wordpress friends, I apologize for my absence on your work, that are my joy to read. I will visit you soon.

Do Nothing

Photo : Vikram Phale “Rest Here”

Choose to often do Nothing
Choose to not play the game
Choose to simply stay & Be
Choose the seemingly insane

Try it
Do Nothing
For an hour
For a day
For a month

For any length of time
Know what really is the fight
Win over that all in the mind
It is the Brave
Who can truly rest on this planet
Their choices are such …

Just Be
Aware
Then watch
Prowess simply becoming You
None of it you feel the need to be shown
Yet you are seen as powerfully grown

 

Who’s breath am I breathing?

Photo: Manish Doshi ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’

Who’s breath am I breathing?
Who’s story am I weaving?
Who’s memory am I churning?
Who’s thoughts am I carrying?

With each breath I take

Who’s life am I living?
Who’s pain am I feeling?
Who’s right to breathe freely have I made my story?
Who is it that I am not left with my own pure breath for myself?

We talk about letting go. And for that process we invite all our stories and all of others’ woes to look at, to be able to let go. And then we look at them and we defend them and justify them and find ourselves lost in them. And the only thing we let go of is our deep, pure breath. Nothing else.

I have found that I imbibe, absorb, feel, sense every thought, feeling, energy around me. I pick up on it very sensitively. At times making my inner life a chaotic tangle of feelings. I have made a personal career out of my life to continually keep cleaning out my energetic closet that sometimes catches the cobwebs of negativity, lies, untruthfulness, facades, envy, jealousy in thought and action directed or not towards me. Most times I am not even aware of any of this actually going on. I just feel horrible inside and I know I am not breathing my pure breath but breathing a heavy air of all that is toxic to me. My breath catches it like a virus. I just feel it.

I have found myself very strong, resilient, having magical perspectives that lift me above any drama and trauma, in the face of the worst. I am unshaken in faith when it comes to threats to the well being of those closest to me and those who choose to work with me. I am undaunted in my intention of creation of a life of possibility and true joy for all of us. I will not give up on my version of a world where we absolutely trust the spoken word, show up as our real self and have compassion for each other.

Yet I end up using tremendous energy to keep my head above the waters of feelings and emotions of those around me physically, virtually and spiritually. I am an empath who feels the hurt behind your need to lie to me, your need to be untruthful to me, to act what you don’t mean with me. Yes I actually feel it and live it until I process it to rise above it.

I know I have done this when I am able to breathe purely, deeply, fluidly, smoothly, softly, leisurely, luxuriously – just pure breath of air that does not carry any charge, thought, feeling, emotion, story attached to it.  I am glad it is becoming increasingly easier, and the beauty of life is pouring in for me.

Do you know what a gift this kind of breath is? Have you given yourself a breath solely for yourself lately? Have you lived a moment purely as yourself lately?

I have dedicated my life to just that – taking as many deeply pure breaths and teaching you to do the same. It is a learning process to be able to let go of the stories. Even the real ones have to be let go, so they actually change.

Let’s breathe space into our stories instead of our stories clinging to our breath.

 

Yoga – My Work & Life

This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnect, an amazing blog by Debbie Roth.

Choosing Teachers/Mentors – My Story

“Grow & Bloom in places that seem unlikely”

As I have explained here, I did not trust my own company for the longest time. Now I enjoy my own company yet I know the significance of having the presence of a guide, mentor, teacher in my life.

A true mentor/teacher holds a clear mirror to your being, reflects your strengths and your weaknesses, without any personal agenda attached.

I say this because I have gone through a good number of teachers and mentors, long term and brief, in my quest (thirst, greed) for more knowledge, more perspectives. I found only very few who walk their talk, live their lessons and lead with compassionate authority.

There are teachers who try to lure by dangling a carrot of some conjured bliss. I could smell these carrots from afar. I have also met those with whom the work began well, I grew rapidly and then they fanned my weaknesses to keep the work going. It ended from my side, not without distress for both parties. I seek greedily, but not needily.

My humanness always saw the other greater than I am. It took me a while to become a person who seeked with clear intention. There is tremendous trust and vulnerability involved in these relations.

When they saw the potential in me, kept it a secret and worse tried to manipulate it to their advantage, it made me confused, sad and furious within, to not know what is really happening in our teacher-student relationship. When they infused fear in me to satiate their egotistic authority of their role in my life, it made me grieve and mourn the end of our relationship.

If I was feeling fearful or furious, it was time to be on my own. The right teachers always showed up next when I was ready.

I have the gratitude and blessings of this lifetime to have some truly amazing mentors/teachers in the present and past. They are true mentors because they know about each other and their significant role in my life. They are aware when I am working with more than one of them parallel, for different reasons. They are not threatened by the other nor is their ego bruised by my choices. I am able to be crystal honest with them. They don’t judge me for what I am yet don’t entertain my dependence on them. They hold safe space for my humanness and facilitate me to see my way clearly.

A true mentor strives to outgrow the relationship with the mentee and empowers you to thrive on your own.

I have never stopped being in touch with this kind. One of my past teacher of Yoga philosophy insists I should never stop working with my current teacher of Yoga philosophy. She even asked me to teach her the new perspectives I am gaining. This to me is the height of humility of a teacher for whom I had very high regard any way.

All the teachers that I crossed path with, helped me become who I am today. They modeled the right and wrong. I love having students who share with me what other sources are being helpful for them. I will never be done growing myself. I teach, facilitate, mentor with joy and freedom. I offer the same to others. We are in this together. I am walking my talk, if you see me ahead of you, just call out to me and I will reach out to you.

Yoga – My Work & Life

Don’t trust yourself too much!

“Crowded Mind” Photo Credit: Manish Doshi – Indian Banyan at Hindu Monastery, Kauai

As precious little humans we are often perpetually running in our minds, with the relentless churning of thoughts. We go through the day, and our lives, one escape after another, and back to the inner running mill of thinking, and more thinking.

“What? Meditation? Do you know how excruciating it gets when I try to sit still with myself? I just want to sleep and not wake up …not to these thoughts …not when I seem to have a knowing that they are not working for me, my thoughts won’t just leave me alone, so I can Think of doing something with my life. There is this stuck tape on repeat … over and over, 10, 000 times! My thoughts are sometimes killing me.”

I confess that the one above was me, seems like a lifetime years ago, and it felt lousy to be that one. If you are that lucky one who doesn’t know what I am talking about, you truly have a gifted life.

I never really trusted myself. Trust was never a part of the foundational paradigm of my living. The gift of that is, it made me into a greedy seeker. Always yearning for a teacher and teachings to guide me. I also lived with a fear of going wrong in some way in life. So I always chose to have a personal check on myself, by having a teacher or mentor, one way or another.

I became aware when enough was enough to stay with my own thoughts alone. I used a lot of Thought Replacement Therapy. That is my fancy way of saying I listened to or read from authors/teachers tremendously.  Reading from masters like Wayne Dyer, Louis Hay and studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, personally with teachers gave me a good influence on my thought direction.

I was still aware of times when my own company was useless for me, while doing mundane chores. Talking to other humans had its own limitations. So I listened to audios to replace my thoughts, particularly the dim ones. ‎

2 major influences on me are Dr. Dain Heer of Access Consciousness and Abraham Hicks.

Dain Heer gave me the childlike lightness in my living. While reading his book ‘Being You Changing the World’ my heart danced with delight, like a kindergartner. The book exactly described how my child-mind worked, before I began, fearfully trying to fit in, in society. We make too many things way more serious in life than required. His audios are a profound and phenomenal work. It basically replaced my thoughts with what would have been my original thoughts. In a language, as refreshing as it can feel to the heart and soul. Gary Douglas and Dr. Dain Heer, founders of Access Consciousness, you helped change my life back to my true self!

When I stumbled upon the recordings of Abraham Hicks accidentally, I felt like she knew exactly how I feel and how I wonder and imagine in my innocent phases, about how this Universe functions. She spoke the Truths from the depths of my being and helped me see why I suffered. She described the exact ways that I had implemented intuitively to fulfill any of my desires and the exact ways I perceive life. What an affirmation! I may easily have 1000s of hours of Abraham in me …OK, that is an exaggeration, but I mean it.

My Yoga teachers/mentors, a longish list from India and US, the audio teachers and authors are an integral part of my Being. I am in deepest gratitude for each of these teachers that appeared for me at exact times that I was ready for them.

When you awaken to your own thoughts and their influence, you find access to the space beyond thought, from where true beauty & joy of living emerges!

Don’t trust yourself too much, if your own company is not being helpful to you. Seek out a book, audio, mentor, teacher for a good Thought Replacement Therapy. I found my trust in myself through them.

I am deeply grateful to those in turn who have used my writings and/or sessions with me to replace their thoughts, successfully creating change in life. I take immense joy in facilitating the journey of awakening, that I have chosen for myself too.

 

Yoga – My Work & Life

Don’t Blow Up your Life

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “New Day begins on Kauai”

In the recent days I have had probably one less than someteen conversations regarding relationships while being true to yourself.

There comes a time in the path of personal transformation when you question every single one of your choices that you seemed to comfortably live with until now.

My simple message is don’t blow up your life and relations entirely in your minds. Stay steadfast in making choices that work for you. Take responsibility for those choices. Give others involved, space to catch up with your new choices. Do it with love for yourself and gratitude for anything that relation has given you until now. This is Yoga of Relationships. With yourself and others. It is a skill developed to continually attain a state of balance, in our day to day life and interactions.

“Don’t Blow Up your Life!” – Chase Bossart, Yoga Therapist

This is important for long time committed relations. Your new found realizations of right or wrong about the relation are yours to resolve. Unless you are choosing to walk out of the relation, your reasons to stay are part of your gratitude and not your limitation in life. If you are receiving something, anything from the relation, then be willing to contribute to the relation. The contribution would be, you going for the change you seek while allowing space for others to be themselves. Keep asking for the truth in your relationship while you keep going for your own truth. Give up the blame, shame, game and the fight.

Go for your own joy while giving others the space to be shaken a bit, or a lot. Hold them in the space of Love. When possible hold them a bit tighter in love. You can do this in your mind, if you don’t actually hug.

This becomes easy only when you are being courageous to choose your own joy and wellness. You don’t need to turn it into a you versus me battle. Carve out small ways of being yourself. Shop for yourself, open your hair, put on make up, cut back on make up, take powerful life decisions to bring change, do what it takes – small and big. Show up beaming with joy, or choose contentment, just for making a different choice.

Begin to imagine how you would like things to be. Then inch by inch, even millimeter by millimeter, start making different choices. If you are confident of making a mile of a change, go ahead do it!

Have kindness for all involved, including yourself. Do things differently than habitual, be bold, convey your truth. Give it time. Keep steady in choosing what makes you happy. Hatred in your heart will not make you happy. Forgive in the name of human limitation. It is a choice for your own peace. Break your own limitation on this. Love is not dramatic or romantic sometimes. It is way bigger. It is something that helps accepting what Is, wholly, and then changing it!

 

Yoga – My Work & Life

P.S. This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects, a wonderful blog by dear Debbie Roth.