My journal of drawings, quotes from various readings, meaningful conversations, and journal entries direct and capture my observations. Immediately I find out how often I do react with fear. This looms greater than I realized – a pattern so subtle and yet so loud at other times. “…obstacle to deep yoga practice ..relationship at the […]
This assessment and study has turned into a test of sorts. Fear seems to be popping up everywhere – giving me lots of opportunity to befriend it. As Passover approaches, I am reminded that just like the metaphorical story of the Jewish people crossing the Red Sea, I am passing through narrows – mitzrayim. This […]
One aspect of my fear is that it lives in either the past or the future. So I return to living in this moment – finding the Divine in this specific moment in time. This is a relief. Somehow I am now ready to move from observation and study to develop a practice. My search […]
By listening, I have found that under my fear is great sadness. Sadness that: I can’t save my daughter from her illness/condition, sadness about some things I would have done differently in raising my children, sadness about my daughter’s poor health and the unknown, sadness that my mother is dying, layers of sadness. This is […]
As in the initial story of the Rabbi and the stingy man reveal, one can let go of hoarding and change those beliefs that no longer serve you. I hope to deepen my own patience, persistence, presence and lovingkindness towards myself in this journey of non-grasping and making it simpler.
Axis Yoga Teacher Training Students begin their studies with a hands-on study of Yoga’s yamas (restraints) and niyamas (observances). Through some self-reflection this student found the road to santosha (contentment) to be a mingling of all yamas and niyamas.
Selecting the yama/niyama I was going to focus on for my experiment was a difficult process for me. Upon reading through all of them, it seemed like there were bits and pieces in each one that needed improving on in my life. On the evening in class where we were told to separate in to groups […]
Ironically, that same evening, I had opened my class notebook to some “favorite quotes” I had been keeping track of since class began. There, sitting in the top spot, was one that I had written down during the first week of class that had resonated with me from the Mirror of Yoga book: “Contentment is […]
I set out to be content. Enter daily life. A beautifully challenging teenage daughter. A marriage. A huge redecorating project that I had volunteered for with a deadline. A beautifully challenging teenager now with a broken collar bone and pretty cranky. Financial challenges. A broken car (again). etc. etc. This is going to take A LOT of practice, this […]
Over the past two weeks, me and my little mantras have become very close. They have been helping me to “be aware”. I have been practicing. Weighing each word before speaking it…staya. As I try to push my opinions on my teenager and husband, I found myself literally stopping in mid sentence and calling on […]