Autumn Lotus Yoga

Okay, last two of the Forrest Yoga Mentorship Program conference call questions from this past weekend.

4) Are you making a conscious choice to feed your heart in your life and while you teach?

Best thing I do to feed my heart is to take the time each day to practice.  Beloved Husband can tell on those days I have given my mat time low or no priority.  Like, during the moving in process… he pointed out quite firmly that, for everyone’s sake, I really needed to get my a$$ back onto the mat.

Best thing I can do to feed my heart when I teach is to breathe.  I’ve taught without breathing & it is just awful.  Get lightheaded, can’t focus, feel panicked & stage fright-y & it is just Bad Bad Bad for everyone.

5) Sometimes, having a connection to your heart just isn’t in the cards for the day.  Do you criticize and batter yourself then?

Yeah, that’s a tricky one too.  Somedays, that whole being connected to feeling & heart & frankly being in my own skin is damn hard or impossible.  it’s funny how we can end up being horrid to ourselves over not being in feeling, which is a sure-fire way to stay out of it, because who wants to live with that kind of crap? 

As Heidi reminded us, best thing to do then is teach from where you are.  Live from where you are.   That can in fact become the theme of your practice or class — working with anxiety, or pain, or numbness.  Being disconnected is a part of human experience & part of one’s process. 

Off to a day out in the Florida sunshine!!  Yeah, it’s tough to be me…

Continuing on — I think these are really worthwhile questions to put out there, to ask & answer & try & be honest about.  So,  questions 2 & 3….

2) When you are teaching (or practicing) what does it mean/how does it feel to connect to your heart?

As Heidi reminded us, teaching from the heart means being authentic, present, compassionate with yourself & your students, & in feeling.  Adding a caveat from me – It doesn’t mean being a pushover, being drippy & sappy all the time or faking squishy niceness on days it isn’t there.  It’s talking to students from where I am.  Putting my hand on my heart & breathing into that can really help, as can  consciously breathing in whatever I feel & speaking from that truth.

3) Are you taking on responsibilities in your life or your teaching that create shielding in your heart?

I’ve heard Ana speak on this a number of times.  If you/one/I am trying to take responsibility for someone else’s happiness, it just doesn’t  work.  It builds shields & resentment.  No one can do someone else’s work for them.  And if I’m taking on too much, as Heidi also said, I just feel overwhelmed & teaching (even practicing!) starts to feel like a chore.  Drawing appropriate boundaries with the people & tasks in life actually frees the heart.

Last two tomorrow!

As promised, here’s a few thoughts on the first question from yesterday.

1) How does yoga feed your connection to your heart?

For me, from a Forrest perspective, yoga literally connects me to my heart by helping me feel stretches across the chest, between the ribs, at the sternum.  And by feeling chest muscles turn on in poses like Dolphin or chatauranga.  And also by getting my pulse going & heart pounding.

Also, yoga slows me down, giving me time to feel if I’m breathing or not, to feel the lifting & opening of the area in front/side/back of my heart with each breath.    It makes me aware of when I’m closing down the heart by rolling my shoulders forward & slouching.

On the next layer in, yoga gets me feeling & noticing when I’m checking out emotionally.  When I can’t physically, literally get my breath into my heart, or it feels like there is a knot at my breastbone, or I can’t feel love for something as simple as my pets… that’s a sign I’m not connected to my heart & need to get the heck back on my mat, or take a deeper breath.

I’m thinkin’ next question tomorrow…

This past weekend, Heidi hosted a FY MP conference call.  She asked some very good thinking/feeling questions.  I’d like to pass on the Q’s first, then some of my thoughts on A’s tomorrow.

1) How does yoga feed your connection to your heart?

2) When you are teaching (or practicing) what does it mean/how does it feel to connect to your heart?

3) Are you taking on responsibilities in your life or your teaching that create shielding in your heart?

4) Are you making a conscious choice to feed your heart in your life and while you teach?

5) Sometimes, having a connection to your heart just isn’t in the cards for the day.  Do you criticize and batter yourself then?

Breathe on that for a little while.

A week out from the move & I can finally feel change in my bones.  And it has me asking some good questions, ones I stopped asking for a little while & am glad to return to.

What do I want for myself?

Who do I most want to be?

How do I feel & how do I want to feel?

These past six months I’ve focused on healing my back, my relationship with yoga, & continued work on my relationship with food.  I found an unexpected home studio, one that I didn’t plan for, but fell in love with in the end.  The next stage is upon me though, & it’s time to change.

Goals don’t work as well for me as questions.  We can fail to achieve goals, but questions are just avenues to explore.

There is a new blogger sending thoughts into the world these days.  My friend Tara is working on the 21-5-800 project (5 days a week, 800 words, 21 days) and I really love her writing.

http://tarainlimbo.blogspot.com/

In other blogger world connections, I have named my little trouble tweaky spots in emulation of Kai over at Reluctant Ashtangi and her gremlin Nitara.  (http://reluctantashtangi.blogspot.com/)  These aren’t injuries (Ganesha willing but just places I watch & work on during practice alot.  The right shoulder tendency is Frank, low back is Ethel, left hip flexor is Murray.  Moving lower, my knees are Lion & Tiger & the left ankle is Bear.  (Lions & Tigers & Bears, oh MY!  

This is making my relationship with these areas much kinder, lighter & more nurturing rather than just me getting p’oed at what I have seen as the weak links in my physical chain.  Naw.  Turns out Fred, Ethel, Murray & the Lions/Tigers/Bears are my friends and teachers!!  Thank you, Kai!!

Why do we resist when we try to do something nice for ourselves?  When we try to change, or heal, or take a class or a walk or do our practice or eat a salad, when we know it’s the best possible thing? 

Heidi articulated a fascinating line of reasoning on that conundrum this weekend, and I’ve condensed it below. 

Fact: We say to ourselves horrid things we’d never say to others. 

Fact: If/when someone does in fact say something horrid to us, we internally put up a block, a hardening, resistance born from anger and pain. 

Logic: We say horrid things to ourselves. We harden against those who say horrid things to us.  Therefore we block, and resist ourselves. 

Even when we’re trying to change & do something wonderful, there’s a feeling of — “Why should I trust the neighborhood bully???”

It takes time to change that.  To stop, first off, being horrid to yourself.  And then to ease off the years of built-up self distrust & slowly release the resistance.