We always know what it is we want but we don't always know the way to it.
We don't know how the solution will come to us and so we get stuck. Most of the time I find that it comes to me in a way I never could have predicted or expect. It's found in the least unsuspecting places, and sometimes it is not found at all but rather slaps you in the face - hard. Sometimes I straight up miss it - and it floats right by while I'm looking in the other direction.
I went to *yin for the first time today. I had no idea what it was or what I was signed up for. We spent the first few minutes stretching our necks, I mean really stretching them. I found myself wanting to hurry through the stretches to get to the "good stuff". Who cares about neck right, I mean they only attach our heads to our bodies eh?
Little did I know what was next...
Laying. Stretching. More laying and stretching followed by sinking and melting and releasing - all that I didn't know I was holding and holding on to.
My mind started to get chatty. I refer to my mind as "Chatty Mother (Friggen) Kathy".
It started out mild and costumed - slowly revealing it's true self. Before I knew it, I was thinking about what poses we would have already done in a Power class. How sweaty I would be and how whatever we were doing here - opening up our shoulders, laying on the mat - was not "work". I kept thinking "this isn't hard enough" and then we rolled over to the other side....
Hello shoulder ligaments! I didn't know you were there nor did I know you were angry with me for not being opened up enough!?!
I realized that I had this ideal of "hard". That doing something hard meant throwing yourself full throttle into crazy bendy twisty poses, pushing yourself past your limits and building strength.
I think it's totally appropriate for this type of yoga to be called "yin". We cannot be strong without softness, without flexibility.
There are so many ares of my life where I am inflexible. So many time that I get stuck, that I hold tight to something or someone for dear life. I think that I fold and flow graciously into change but really it's only the preconceived kind of change that I envision/fantasize about in my mind. On the other hand, the "curve ball change" that you don't always see coming is not so much flowy and graciousness for me. I failmiserably to see my inflexibility in certain areas. It's hard for me at times, to see other peoples opinions and how what drives and motivates each individual person is so different (especially when it is opposing to my own). I thought I was open, (an open person & open minded) but my body shows me that in many ways I have a long long way to go.
Going with the flow sure sounds easy if I have a map of where the flow is taking me, hopping in the boat and going with it and having no idea where that flow is taking me is a whole other story.
It's called a need for control.
As we sunk into each pose I felt tension I forgot/never knew existed. I felt twinges, tingles and pulls that made me catch my breath. Fear boiled over the surface and flowed through my veins like a scary new drug. I realized that although my yoga practice had been focused on building strength, I had forgotten that strength cannot exist without flexibility.
Hard means so many things. Hard doesn't always mean working hard, it may mean to do some hard ass allowing. Frig allowing is hard!
Interlude: Examples of allowing:
Letting someone else finish speaking before I cut them off with my oh-so-important opinion, allowing my kids to make a sloppy mess, allowing someone tocut sneak in front of me in traffic, allowing myself to be angry, allowing myself to be tired, allowing myself to cry haaaard, allowing someone to tell me I hurt them, effed up or that I'm just not RIGHT!
It was hard for me to be still, sink in and feel sensation. It cracked some things in me that I had been ignoring, dismissing and just plain old unnecessarily living with. It's interesting to explore the things that at first glance we don't think we like - is there something there that we need? Is there something that we have been searching for or asking for, that we didn't have any would look like this?
Pushing to our limits, stretching our comfort zones or creating a new edge can be scary.
Delving into the sensation we feel when we try something new, experience "pain" or discomfort gives us --- wait for it ---- faith.
Faith is what I found when I sunk deep into pigeon (see picture). I had faith that if I created some space to just chill out and feel what was going on - it was going to be OK. I found solace in this faith that it would not last forever and that I could trust myself to know where my edge was and squeak past it ever so gently and (with great difficulty)compassion. Faith is knowing that you will never be thrown anything you can't handle, that there is something bigger going on (whatever you believe in) and each puzzle piece we are given is essential even if we cannot see the big picture yet. Often times we put the piece into place and think "how did I not know that it went there?". Perspective is only granted to us once we dive down into the deep end, go into the darkness and feel our way around in sheer and utter panic. Faith is knowing it will all make sense so all we need to do is hold on tight and throw our hands up in the air (and wave them like we just don't care).
Honouring your limits, thanking them and then dipping your toes in a little further is what strength and growth are all about. Growth is one of the scariest most painful things if we stiffen up and don't slide into it flexibly, allowing ourselves to go slowly with care and love. There are countless things that I said I could "never" do, become or move past. So many things I said that I couldn't stop doing. It was hard and it sucked to try to break old beliefs, patterns and habits. But shit, what opened up for me when I moved beyond them was true freedom.
At yin today, Laura said "notice where you are holding, and then let go and melt into it".
I thought I was melted...and then at the bottom of the bowl of liquid butter I saw a hunk that was still solid, stubborn and refusing to soften...so I turned up the heat and melted moooooooooore. I had no idea I was holding anything at all. I didn't know that I could get softer, stretch more and accommodate myself in a loving way.
Growth and change are inevitable, ya?
We never quite know what it's going to look like or how it we will evolve through it. Holding on to the past, or trying to hold ourselves right where we are...will eventually break us down.
I am not the mother, partner, financial coach/advisor, friend, daughter or sister that I ever was before. Neither am I the one I thought I was, would be or could become. I could never have predicted any of the events, people or uncontrollable circumstances leading up to this vast and profound self-transformation (or that yoga would give me answers about who I am meant to be).
I could never have known what would happen when I let go of who I thought I was meant to be, that I would shed my hard shell, bloom and blossom into such a bright version of myself. I had this ideal of who Grace was but I had no idea how to get to her. She was always just beyond my reach. Once I let go of how I was going to get to her, the path that would lead me across the ocean started to show up one unexpected little stepping stone at a time.
I know this seems like it's about yoga, and well it is. But yoga is about life. I cannot draw a line in the sand between yoga and life because it's just all a part of the beach.
Life is a beach. Dig your toes into it.
Key words that I carry with me on and off my mat:
Extra curricular reading ~
*When I asked Laura about yin she said:
"Yin doesn't really have a definition other than the fact that it is in opposition to yang. It is usually a quiet practice focussed on longer holdings of postures. There are very few yin postures because of the specifics of the safety of the postures (like Shauna mentioned). For example, it is safe to do most passive hip openers because of the nature of the joint. If I taught a hamstring stretch in yin, there is a much higher probability that people would get injured. The postures need to be passive and relaxing to ensure the student gets the most out of them but they also need about 80% intensity so that work in the connective tissue is being done. Some modern leaders in Yin yoga include Sarah Powers, Paul Grilley, Bernie Clark, and I did my training with Mark Laham.
The style is challenging because it is more meditative and in opposition to our "type A" culture. The cells in our body actually begin to realign after we've held a pose for a minute so yin increases flexibility and also improves the mobility of our major joints."
(You ever wonder what Laura does while we have our eyes closed in sivasana? Hahahah!)
Another Yin explanation that I liked as well:
**"What is Yin Yoga? This question is asked a lot by students who have been practicing yoga for a while but have never come across this particular challenging style. Simple answers such as "It is the balancing practice for your yang style of yoga" or "It is yoga for the joints, not the muscles" are not overly satisfying. If students haven't heard of Yin Yoga, they won't know what a yang style of yoga is. And isn't all yoga good for the whole body, including our joints? To really answer the question and get to know Yin Yoga requires a fuller explanation. This part of our journey provides a deeper look into Yin Yoga and begins with an explanation of what it is, how it evolved, and its benefits for the whole body mind.
Yin Yoga has the same goals and objectives as any other school of yoga; however, it directs the stimulation normally created in the asana portion of the practice deeper than the superficial or muscular tissues (which we are calling the yang tissues). Yin Yoga targets the connective tissues, such as the ligaments, bones, and even the joints of the body that normally are not exercised very much in a more active style of asana practice.
Suitable for almost all levels of students, Yin Yoga is a perfect complement to the dynamic and muscular (yang) styles of yoga that emphasize internal heat, and the lengthening and contracting of our muscles. Yin Yoga generally targets the connective tissues of the hips, pelvis, and lower spine.
While initially this style of yoga can seem quite boring, passive, or soft, yin practice can be quite challenging due to the long duration of the poses. We can remain in the postures anywhere from one to twenty minutes! Yin and yang tissues respond quite differently to being exercised. You need to experience this to really know what Yin Yoga is all about. After you have experienced it, even just once, you will realize that you have been doing only half of the asana practice. "
Source: http://www.yinyoga.com/ys1_0.0_what_is_yin.php
Yogis out!
:)
We don't know how the solution will come to us and so we get stuck. Most of the time I find that it comes to me in a way I never could have predicted or expect. It's found in the least unsuspecting places, and sometimes it is not found at all but rather slaps you in the face - hard. Sometimes I straight up miss it - and it floats right by while I'm looking in the other direction.
I went to *yin for the first time today. I had no idea what it was or what I was signed up for. We spent the first few minutes stretching our necks, I mean really stretching them. I found myself wanting to hurry through the stretches to get to the "good stuff". Who cares about neck right, I mean they only attach our heads to our bodies eh?
Little did I know what was next...
Laying. Stretching. More laying and stretching followed by sinking and melting and releasing - all that I didn't know I was holding and holding on to.
My mind started to get chatty. I refer to my mind as "Chatty Mother (Friggen) Kathy".
It started out mild and costumed - slowly revealing it's true self. Before I knew it, I was thinking about what poses we would have already done in a Power class. How sweaty I would be and how whatever we were doing here - opening up our shoulders, laying on the mat - was not "work". I kept thinking "this isn't hard enough" and then we rolled over to the other side....
Hello shoulder ligaments! I didn't know you were there nor did I know you were angry with me for not being opened up enough!?!
I realized that I had this ideal of "hard". That doing something hard meant throwing yourself full throttle into crazy bendy twisty poses, pushing yourself past your limits and building strength.
I think it's totally appropriate for this type of yoga to be called "yin". We cannot be strong without softness, without flexibility.
"In Chinese philosophy, the concept of Yin-Yang, literally meaning "shadow and light," is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn in relation to each other (...) Many natural dualities—e.g., dark and light, female and male, low and high, cold and hot, water and fire, earth and air—are thought of as manifestations of yin and yang (respectively).Yin and yang are not opposing forces (dualities), but complementary forces, unseen (hidden, feminine) and seen (manifest, masculine), that interact to form a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects as light could not be understood if darkness didn't exist, and shadow cannot exist without light. Either of these aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object depending on the criterion of the observation. The concept of yin and yang is often symbolized by various forms of the Taijitu symbol, for which it is probably best known in western cultures." - Wikipedia
There are so many ares of my life where I am inflexible. So many time that I get stuck, that I hold tight to something or someone for dear life. I think that I fold and flow graciously into change but really it's only the preconceived kind of change that I envision/fantasize about in my mind. On the other hand, the "curve ball change" that you don't always see coming is not so much flowy and graciousness for me. I fail
Going with the flow sure sounds easy if I have a map of where the flow is taking me, hopping in the boat and going with it and having no idea where that flow is taking me is a whole other story.
It's called a need for control.
As we sunk into each pose I felt tension I forgot/never knew existed. I felt twinges, tingles and pulls that made me catch my breath. Fear boiled over the surface and flowed through my veins like a scary new drug. I realized that although my yoga practice had been focused on building strength, I had forgotten that strength cannot exist without flexibility.
Hard means so many things. Hard doesn't always mean working hard, it may mean to do some hard ass allowing. Frig allowing is hard!
Interlude: Examples of allowing:
Letting someone else finish speaking before I cut them off with my oh-so-important opinion, allowing my kids to make a sloppy mess, allowing someone to
It was hard for me to be still, sink in and feel sensation. It cracked some things in me that I had been ignoring, dismissing and just plain old unnecessarily living with. It's interesting to explore the things that at first glance we don't think we like - is there something there that we need? Is there something that we have been searching for or asking for, that we didn't have any would look like this?
Pushing to our limits, stretching our comfort zones or creating a new edge can be scary.
Delving into the sensation we feel when we try something new, experience "pain" or discomfort gives us --- wait for it ---- faith.
Faith is what I found when I sunk deep into pigeon (see picture). I had faith that if I created some space to just chill out and feel what was going on - it was going to be OK. I found solace in this faith that it would not last forever and that I could trust myself to know where my edge was and squeak past it ever so gently and (with great difficulty)compassion. Faith is knowing that you will never be thrown anything you can't handle, that there is something bigger going on (whatever you believe in) and each puzzle piece we are given is essential even if we cannot see the big picture yet. Often times we put the piece into place and think "how did I not know that it went there?". Perspective is only granted to us once we dive down into the deep end, go into the darkness and feel our way around in sheer and utter panic. Faith is knowing it will all make sense so all we need to do is hold on tight and throw our hands up in the air (and wave them like we just don't care).
Honouring your limits, thanking them and then dipping your toes in a little further is what strength and growth are all about. Growth is one of the scariest most painful things if we stiffen up and don't slide into it flexibly, allowing ourselves to go slowly with care and love. There are countless things that I said I could "never" do, become or move past. So many things I said that I couldn't stop doing. It was hard and it sucked to try to break old beliefs, patterns and habits. But shit, what opened up for me when I moved beyond them was true freedom.
At yin today, Laura said "notice where you are holding, and then let go and melt into it".
I thought I was melted...and then at the bottom of the bowl of liquid butter I saw a hunk that was still solid, stubborn and refusing to soften...so I turned up the heat and melted moooooooooore. I had no idea I was holding anything at all. I didn't know that I could get softer, stretch more and accommodate myself in a loving way.
Growth and change are inevitable, ya?
We never quite know what it's going to look like or how it we will evolve through it. Holding on to the past, or trying to hold ourselves right where we are...will eventually break us down.
I am not the mother, partner, financial coach/advisor, friend, daughter or sister that I ever was before. Neither am I the one I thought I was, would be or could become. I could never have predicted any of the events, people or uncontrollable circumstances leading up to this vast and profound self-transformation (or that yoga would give me answers about who I am meant to be).
I could never have known what would happen when I let go of who I thought I was meant to be, that I would shed my hard shell, bloom and blossom into such a bright version of myself. I had this ideal of who Grace was but I had no idea how to get to her. She was always just beyond my reach. Once I let go of how I was going to get to her, the path that would lead me across the ocean started to show up one unexpected little stepping stone at a time.
I know this seems like it's about yoga, and well it is. But yoga is about life. I cannot draw a line in the sand between yoga and life because it's just all a part of the beach.
Life is a beach. Dig your toes into it.
Key words that I carry with me on and off my mat:
Open
Hold
Edge
Melt
Softness
Stillness
Strength
Absorb
Compassion
Balance
Pigeon picture with facial pose bonus:
Also my favourite quote today by Miss Laura Martini that she picked up in her teacher training -
"let your thoughts float through your mind like leaves floating down a river" -
Extra curricular reading ~
*When I asked Laura about yin she said:
"Yin doesn't really have a definition other than the fact that it is in opposition to yang. It is usually a quiet practice focussed on longer holdings of postures. There are very few yin postures because of the specifics of the safety of the postures (like Shauna mentioned). For example, it is safe to do most passive hip openers because of the nature of the joint. If I taught a hamstring stretch in yin, there is a much higher probability that people would get injured. The postures need to be passive and relaxing to ensure the student gets the most out of them but they also need about 80% intensity so that work in the connective tissue is being done. Some modern leaders in Yin yoga include Sarah Powers, Paul Grilley, Bernie Clark, and I did my training with Mark Laham.
The style is challenging because it is more meditative and in opposition to our "type A" culture. The cells in our body actually begin to realign after we've held a pose for a minute so yin increases flexibility and also improves the mobility of our major joints."
(You ever wonder what Laura does while we have our eyes closed in sivasana? Hahahah!)
Another Yin explanation that I liked as well:
**"What is Yin Yoga? This question is asked a lot by students who have been practicing yoga for a while but have never come across this particular challenging style. Simple answers such as "It is the balancing practice for your yang style of yoga" or "It is yoga for the joints, not the muscles" are not overly satisfying. If students haven't heard of Yin Yoga, they won't know what a yang style of yoga is. And isn't all yoga good for the whole body, including our joints? To really answer the question and get to know Yin Yoga requires a fuller explanation. This part of our journey provides a deeper look into Yin Yoga and begins with an explanation of what it is, how it evolved, and its benefits for the whole body mind.
Yin Yoga has the same goals and objectives as any other school of yoga; however, it directs the stimulation normally created in the asana portion of the practice deeper than the superficial or muscular tissues (which we are calling the yang tissues). Yin Yoga targets the connective tissues, such as the ligaments, bones, and even the joints of the body that normally are not exercised very much in a more active style of asana practice.
Suitable for almost all levels of students, Yin Yoga is a perfect complement to the dynamic and muscular (yang) styles of yoga that emphasize internal heat, and the lengthening and contracting of our muscles. Yin Yoga generally targets the connective tissues of the hips, pelvis, and lower spine.
While initially this style of yoga can seem quite boring, passive, or soft, yin practice can be quite challenging due to the long duration of the poses. We can remain in the postures anywhere from one to twenty minutes! Yin and yang tissues respond quite differently to being exercised. You need to experience this to really know what Yin Yoga is all about. After you have experienced it, even just once, you will realize that you have been doing only half of the asana practice. "
Source: http://www.yinyoga.com/ys1_0.0_what_is_yin.php
Yogis out!
:)
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