Loving Energy Flow Yoga was todays class choice. Perfect.
First of all, a room full of OM'ing people is one of the most beautiful naturally harmonized sounds my heart has ever been graced with. Second, my intention today was to be loving, to look in the mirror and smile instead of scowl. Not just open and relax my jaw but turn it ever so slightly upward.
And third, we did a lot of noticing and I had a bit of a hay day...
The first place I draw my attention toward in every class is - my armpits, and to be honest they didn't smell awesome. I quickly got over it, I'm not sure if those around me did. I will just take this moment to petition for more natural body scents (instead of perfumes) and I wish it was more acceptable - but that's a different blog all together ;)
The second thing I noticed was that I am really into purple right now. This may seem like a pretty apparent thing to not notice, since purple is a pretty vibrant colour - but as I peered down, in the first down dog of the day, the realization jumped out at me like someone that was hiding behind a corner. I noticed my bra, pants, sweater and mat were all purple (all purchased on different occasion)! I would say specifically that my purple of choice is "indigo". And now a moment brought to you by Chakras: Indigo is the brow chakra colour. It's connected to the unconscious self - the third eye. The qualities of the brow chakra are; intuition, understanding, fearless, idealist and fulfilment. Since I was nursing and being extra aware of my wounded wing (shoulder) I felt like this was a very intuitive noticing of the fearless me that appeared as I kicked up to handstand yesterday. What I feared most had happened, I fell, and although I am sore - I survived.*Insert fist pump* I was also dealing with a lot of anger yesterday and perhaps being a little too idealist about how my practice should have been going. So, is it a coincidence that I was suited up in my purple super-heroine suit? I think not!
Once I finished high fiving myself for being so awesomely purple, I noticed I was holding all kinds of tension in various spots of my body. I began having fun breathing into those places and sending them lots of (purple) love. Tara then had us stand and as she changed the song to something up beat she told us to shake our bodies out in a dancelike rhythm awakening the prana energy. She suggested we close our eyes and allow our bodies to move however we needed to, without judgement. My instinct was to start a stomping kind of tribal dance but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt so self conscious! I could feel the tension taking over and me quickly shutting down my urge to be, well...silly. The little kid inside of me wanted out so badly but I forced her back in where to me, it seemed safe. Maybe next time I told myself.
After class, I was harassed by a barrage of self-inquisition.
What happened to fearless Grace who could kick up in inverted poses she had never done before?
Who knew what she would do if I let her out?
Would I be able to stop her from taking over?
What would that look like...would it be so bad?
Where does our inner child go to die?
Can she be resurrected?
Who took her there?
When and how did I let this happen?
This was a new kind of fear for me. Letting the silly kid have the wheel.
I had no idea that there was this childlike part of me that I had restrained. I felt sad. Again, like so many (if not all) practices before this one, I felt the tears welling up inside and creeping out the corners of my eyes.
I don't have answers for these questions and frankly I don't give a crap if I ever find them. All I know is that I feel complete and utter joy when I see my children BEING - happy and free, and I am going to take a page from their book - from the book that still lives within me. I am going to dust it off and open it up. So if you see me skipping down the street, doing tribal dances in yoga, performing random cartwheels for my own delight, or just plain old inexplicably acting silly - feel free to join in! Fun is not only a choice but it's the general natural state of desire, and that's what I noticed today.
First of all, a room full of OM'ing people is one of the most beautiful naturally harmonized sounds my heart has ever been graced with. Second, my intention today was to be loving, to look in the mirror and smile instead of scowl. Not just open and relax my jaw but turn it ever so slightly upward.
And third, we did a lot of noticing and I had a bit of a hay day...
The first place I draw my attention toward in every class is - my armpits, and to be honest they didn't smell awesome. I quickly got over it, I'm not sure if those around me did. I will just take this moment to petition for more natural body scents (instead of perfumes) and I wish it was more acceptable - but that's a different blog all together ;)
The second thing I noticed was that I am really into purple right now. This may seem like a pretty apparent thing to not notice, since purple is a pretty vibrant colour - but as I peered down, in the first down dog of the day, the realization jumped out at me like someone that was hiding behind a corner. I noticed my bra, pants, sweater and mat were all purple (all purchased on different occasion)! I would say specifically that my purple of choice is "indigo". And now a moment brought to you by Chakras: Indigo is the brow chakra colour. It's connected to the unconscious self - the third eye. The qualities of the brow chakra are; intuition, understanding, fearless, idealist and fulfilment. Since I was nursing and being extra aware of my wounded wing (shoulder) I felt like this was a very intuitive noticing of the fearless me that appeared as I kicked up to handstand yesterday. What I feared most had happened, I fell, and although I am sore - I survived.*Insert fist pump* I was also dealing with a lot of anger yesterday and perhaps being a little too idealist about how my practice should have been going. So, is it a coincidence that I was suited up in my purple super-heroine suit? I think not!
Once I finished high fiving myself for being so awesomely purple, I noticed I was holding all kinds of tension in various spots of my body. I began having fun breathing into those places and sending them lots of (purple) love. Tara then had us stand and as she changed the song to something up beat she told us to shake our bodies out in a dancelike rhythm awakening the prana energy. She suggested we close our eyes and allow our bodies to move however we needed to, without judgement. My instinct was to start a stomping kind of tribal dance but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt so self conscious! I could feel the tension taking over and me quickly shutting down my urge to be, well...silly. The little kid inside of me wanted out so badly but I forced her back in where to me, it seemed safe. Maybe next time I told myself.
After class, I was harassed by a barrage of self-inquisition.
What happened to fearless Grace who could kick up in inverted poses she had never done before?
Who knew what she would do if I let her out?
Would I be able to stop her from taking over?
What would that look like...would it be so bad?
Where does our inner child go to die?
Can she be resurrected?
Who took her there?
When and how did I let this happen?
This was a new kind of fear for me. Letting the silly kid have the wheel.
I had no idea that there was this childlike part of me that I had restrained. I felt sad. Again, like so many (if not all) practices before this one, I felt the tears welling up inside and creeping out the corners of my eyes.
I don't have answers for these questions and frankly I don't give a crap if I ever find them. All I know is that I feel complete and utter joy when I see my children BEING - happy and free, and I am going to take a page from their book - from the book that still lives within me. I am going to dust it off and open it up. So if you see me skipping down the street, doing tribal dances in yoga, performing random cartwheels for my own delight, or just plain old inexplicably acting silly - feel free to join in! Fun is not only a choice but it's the general natural state of desire, and that's what I noticed today.
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