Growing Up in Spirit

Pranayama to Release Resistance- Sitting in a comfortable position in a chair or on the floor, settle yourself erect and close your eyes. Invite yourself to take a deep breath now, in through your nose and out, through your mouth. Slow and steady. Notice the movement of your belly, lower chest and upper chest as you take breath in, in that order. Notice the subtle vibration of your breath on the inside of your mouth as you exhale completely. Let your tongue, cheeks, muscles of the face relax down with the inhale and feel your belly contract as you release every last bit of air from your lungs on the exhale. Fill up again. Exhale and relax again. You do not have to do anything more or less. There is no rush. Feel the top of the inhaled breath and the bottom of the exhale. The preciousness of each breath. The vibration of the life force as it travels through you and out of you, as it vibrates your cheeks and lips. Feel each breath linking together, circular. Feel the letting go to receive the splendor of taking in. Feel the taking in to feel the splendor of the letting go. Continue on till the horizon behind your eye lids is clean and clear or until you feel relaxed and free to move forward.

So, you just got a Yoga Plan, and you feel great. The practice was what you needed. There were some things that you tried that you’d never tried before, but there were things that you'd done before too. You really think you can do this. “It will be fun,” you tell yourself. If you have any problems, you know that you have the Yoga Plan, and that you can reconnect with Courtney or your other yoga teacher-friend, and the pictures on the plan are clear enough. J

But the first morning you awake, you do what you normally do. You lay in bed, or you jump right up and move forward. You realize that the Yoga Plan is not where you wished it would be right now at this hour. You tell yourself, you will do the Yoga Plan later. “That’s OK. You’ll get it in at some point today or tomorrow.” You go to your mat soon thereafter, but you don’t feel the motivation for this like you did that day. You are distracted, resistant, scared even. You do some of the Yoga Plan and then get off your mat. Time passes, and your days goes on, and you feel good anyway, most of the time. Though you could work on “that thing.” You go to sleep, or do whatever things you normally do.

I know I have to tell you now how I know all of this to be true, hu? In order to do that I will be vulnerable and tell you my story. I’ll make it brief, but you will get the point. You probably already do.

I did not start doing Yoga till I noticed I was not feeling well. I was not flowing in my thoughts. I felt lack of connection to others and Jehovah, and I was finding myself in all sorts of circumstance. That would not have been my choice of words then, but now I can see I had cut off the stream as best I could of Conscious Thought which is not really possible, but... In my mind, I thought this would allow me to do anything I wanted without contemplating the sacrifice, benefit or cost. Not that I wanted to do anything bad per say, I just didn't want to focus on it. 

I did not start doing Yoga every day after the first class. I did Yoga once. I did Yoga once again a month later. I did a Yoga pose one afternoon on a mat I bought after taking a couple more Yoga classes and buying some books. I forced myself to lay on my mat just so that it would get some use. I watched the one Kundalini Yoga video my sister found for me and graciously gave to me for Christmas when I was pregnant: Pregnancy Yoga with Gurmukh (Awesome yoga by the way!). It was like the only Kundalini Yoga video that I’d ever seen at that point. It was different. I felt great afterwards, and my pregnancy was smooth. I gathered some other videos along the journey. I loved Sean Corne, and Rodney Yee; he came first. And after I went to The Yoga Journal Conference in Boston in 2002, I found Shiva Rae’s practice of Vinyasa flow to be fabulous: the loud music and the fun of yoga movement was blissful for me. I still was not practicing the Yoga I’d been taught, every day, a lot but not every day. 

Then, I moved to New Hampshire with my husband and young son, and I felt lost. We’d moved around a lot by this point, so that was not an issue. I’d lived in several places in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, now,  we were moving to New Hampshire. In each place, I had clung to churches and by what I was raised doing: going to church every Sunday and giving to a church community. It brought me some comfort, community, healing. I didn’t feel alone as much on Sundays. The message would stick to my bones and help me see things from new perspectives. I made church friends, rediscovered sisterhood and brotherhood with people who went to my churches. And I didn’t feel guilty if I went. And once I was at church, I’d have a good time. Sometimes, I’d leave happy or cry so hard I felt rung out, or I’d find myself during the week singing a song that I’d heard in church. It would lift my spirits. 

But that wasn’t about the Churches I attended. It was about me connecting with God, so I could get out of my own way, the practices.  

Still, in New Hampshire, though there were churches, I did not want to go. I did not want to feel like the one brown person in the church, and I did not want to go to Catholic Church, not that I have anything against that, but Catholic Churches were plenty there, and I didn't want to "figure it out." I wasn't raised Catholic. I would still read my Bible and pray to God. I still believed. My belief was a firm idea. Too often I remember feeling really guilty about this, but I was scared to be vulnerable in a church, in this place, New Hampshire, where diversity was scarce. And to clarify, no one was ever mean to me or my family in New Hampshire because we were brown, we just were. And I fixated on that difference.

But Yoga started to have a more solid place in my life. And in New Hampshire, I felt much more welcome on my mat in a Yoga class as the only brown person. And I didn’t have to talk if I didn’t want to. I could just pay my money and practice and go back to my life. When I practiced, it made me feel like a different person. Sometimes I would chant with all my might or sweat so much, I felt like I’d been rung. Sometimes I would weep on my mat, tears of joy and of pain, sometimes for no reason that I could make certain of. There was just a Connection. And I needed that. I needed a community of teachers who were going to speak to my need or guide me through poses that allowed me to find my breath again. 

But that wasn't just about the Yoga class, but rather, the practices. 

I noticed the days when I did not get on my mat translating differently. Things were not as clear. And I would go through days not knowing what I was looking for. But all this time, I was moving forward, down stream to an easier thought about ALL THIS, surrounding what's right and who is wrong. 

I was moving out of my own way. There were many practices, but the one's of Churches and one's of Yoga classes gave me two very different approaches to reaching Christ, my teachers, my self-love...whatever I needed to be happier, for me. There are many ways to reach the Supreme. That is what every gift that He provides is about and it is ALL a gift. The practices I employ, for me, are my Connection, my reception, my focus.

Fast forward: Yoga Teacher Training, Thai Yoga Massage learning, Dhyana Yoga teacher, Workshops, Healers, Trainings, Community Involvement, Traveling Yoga Business, Churches, SOZO fitness, Yoga Plan, Intuitive Coaching later, I will be honest with you. I still don’t get on my mat everyday, and I love getting on my mat. But I get on my “mat” EVERYDAY. I don’t go to church every Sunday, but even better, for me, I go to “church” EVERYDAY. There is beauty in personal devotion, which I did not always understand, a devotion which is specifically for me and my Source Father God connection, my movement toward fully embodying Christ Consciousness. But that is for me. 

Practicing what one knows to be helpful should be one's Yoga Plan. I look forward to continually adding to my Yoga Plan as this is how I will continue to grow up in Spirit. Your muscles: physical, emotional, psychological, Spiritual... learn, and you learn what is right for you that way. For me, it took realizing that my Yoga Plan  is not just built on asana (poses) to realize that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. On the days when I did not accept this, for so many years, I dealt with the resistance inside me by creating other things: some that served and others that did not. I was creating by default. I created by default so well that I created Cancer in my experience. It was then that I knew I had so much information that I was not using, and I had to put my Yoga Plan into action to find my sadhana (daily practice). Personally, I had to actually stop doing asana for a time in order to find it, if that is your Yoga Plan hang up; It was mine.  I used to judge others whose dedication was to the mat. I envied them. I thought I should be like them. I thought I needed to be like them. I, in my faulty thinking, even judged people who did not have devotion to their mats for those stints of time when I did. I was wrong. Everything is not for everyone, and everything is not for every day; however, what you choose to observe today is a gift from God. I know; it will take some sorting to find your way, all the days of this most awesome journey, some days, choosing to sit instead of move. And some days, knowing you can’t sit until you move.

There are many ways to bring your Yoga Plan into your life. There are many ways to bring your practice to the Light. There are many ways for you to remember your Connection to the Infinite One. One Yoga plan or class or sermon will not do it.  But when you are ready, if in this life you will ever be ready, finding and practicing your Connection will be a great start.