Before teaching my Stockton Heath yoga class in Warrington last night I had an interesting conversation with a friend about the people who ‘do stuff’ and those that don’t!! By this we were discussing the way some people seem to live their lives for the weekend, almost wishing away their week on a job that doesn’t inspire them and often losing their evenings sitting on the sofa watching TV.
We are given an opportunity to live our lives so we should take advantage of this. A mind or body that is stretched to new places usually feels better for the experience. I would challenge anyone to give up their television for 3 months and tell me that their life is less for the experience!!
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Find out all the latest news and views from Tabitha and the other practitioners at Yoga in Cheshire.
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i love being me
I’m finally, in my late 30s, getting to a point where I can wear a t-shirt stating ‘I love being me’ & it’s true!! There’s so much good about my life that I sometimes feel slightly guilty for my happiness or my luck. Then I realise that it is not necessarily my life as a whole..but more the sum of the parts that allows me to wake up and smile every day. In my younger years, as I suppose we all do, I was busy looking for happiness in the wrong places, searching for the activities or acquisitions that would keep me feeling good. I have finally found that the only way to maintain happiness is to source it inside my self rather than looking to outside influences to make me happy. This I think has been the easiest lesson of my 20s partly because I didn’t realise I was learning it until I had!
It is also said that writing a gratitude journal can help us to be happier. Maybe some of it is learning to stop and examine the positive in our lives rather than the more usual just focusing on the negative. Learning to see what we have rather than what we haven’t! Even writing this blog has reminded me of just how much I have to appreciate. Looking forward to the summer ahead and sharing bubbles of happiness with the world 🙂
Be the change you want to see in the world
I haven’t got it perfect by a long shot, and still need reminding that decisions have to sit comfortably in my heart space or they probably aren’t aligning with my path & won’t make me happy. That immediate gratification may not be worth the longer term stress . It is sometimes harder work to take the right path, but obstacles can be a challenge or encourage flexibility.
time is precious
Time is our most precious gift yet the one we tend to take for granted. It was my birthday this week and a few good friends gifted me their time. The day started with me laughing out loud as I continually discovered small notes in every nook and cupboard wishing me well…small deeds done with love and good will which really touched me. Later the day I was reminded that many hands make light work when friends visited to help with some DIY….even more so when I got to do the light work and they did the heavy stuff!! Not only did the wall they took down let in more light to my garden, but they brought a lightness to my day and a brightness to my smile!
Every day I am grateful to have the opportunity to live, learn & practice my yoga both on and off the mat. These days I am loving having more time to do it and less stress about how quickly it happens and I’m enjoying the greater awareness that yoga brings to my life. Both internal and externally appreciating the world through clearer vision.
As Patanjali’s yoga sutra 1.3 tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam explains so much better in discussing how when the clouds are removed it can be seen that the sun was always there, merely hidden by the clouds of our minds!!
learning to inhale
We have all had situations where we knew deep inside ourselves that a decision is wrong, but we choose to go ahead anyway. We may be logical, thinking with our heads and not listening to our hearts. Our yoga practice allows us to observe the breath and integrate body and mind to explore how we should be living. It helps in decision making, confrontation, fear, anger and observing our habits. Simple breath awareness is a wonderful practice for learning how to bring our lives into balance, to give as much to ourselves as we give to the world around us. Conscious breathing encourages conscious action in returning inward to the self. Learning to love the breath, and to explore the intricacies of the mind are wonderful parts of the practice of yoga.
yogic flexibility
When you are enviously looking at the student on the mat next to you fold their foot up by their ear, focus internally on your breath, close your eyes and take your awareness back to your flexibility of mind! As our minds become more flexible we are able to accept that we are all different & we all shine in different areas. For me as a yoga teacher, the student who discovers more about themselves & their internal world through their physical practice is learning more from yoga than the student who can easily flow into a difficult physical practice. So remember that yoga is about more than just physical postures; that the asana are just one of eight areas which Patanjali focused on as the practice of yoga.
yoga manners
Yoga class manners may appear obvious, but they allow us all to enjoy, what is a very individual practice in the company of others. A well mannered student is a joy in class, whereas a badly mannered student can spoil it for everybody so please just treat others as well as you would like to be treated!
finding fortune in misfortune
It is the practice of yoga and meditation that reduces our clouded perception of the world and allows us to view the situation with a clearer perception. Samskara are the seeds of our past actions…we can get into habits without realizing it, be it always driving the same route to work or just accepting without question what path our life is taking. It sometimes takes an outside event to allow us to move out of our comfort zone. What we need to do is to see this as positive in that it allows is to work with our practice and observe with clearer perception. It also allows us a fresh view of our life, for sometimes only when we look with fresh eyes can we see the positive in new situations; the fortune in apparent misfortune!
all work & no play
For me, I am trying to schedule in more time to just potter. Days where I have no schedule apart from to enjoy my practice, wander down the river with my dog and notice. I think that is the important lesson for me..to remember to notice! To allow my senses to become more sensitized to smells, to touch, to sound or just to being open to the world I move through every day. During meditation I often feel that the birds start to sing or the breeze to touch me. Whereas it’s more likely that without thoughts and actions constantly intruding on my senses, they are more able to open to the experience of the world around me. Noticing the birdsong or the smell of grass on the breeze that day-to-day life forgets. Try to, just for a week, allow your self a few minutes every day to just sit and notice the world around you. To relax your control on your senses and experience and opening, a letting go of the self control. A sense of just being in the moment with what ever arises.
living a life true to your heart
For me, personally, I now wake every day with a smile. I have found my environment where it is acceptable to just be me. A place I can explore what makes me happy from a secure base. If our roots are deep and content then we are able to thrive and grow further.