There are philosophies that say you can be who you want, have what you want, and do what you want, just as long as you think the right thoughts and remain positive. The sky is your limit - so they say.
What this means is that, apparently, as long as you apply your mind rightly, whatever you dream you can achieve, from putting your leg around the back of your head, to effortlessy surfing 70 feet waves in Hawaii, Of course this is small fry when compared to reducing carbon emissions quickly enough to save the world, and, if you so wish, providing good quality healthcare for the masses in no time at all.
In the face of this, Reality is a tough task master. As I read in a newspaper this morning, opposition (and even same-party politicans) and world leaders prove as easy to herd as a bunch of angry, wet cats. Seven years into a yoga practice and more than a few bodies will still not have the flexibility required to fold easily into a foward bend.
Its not all bad news though. What is becoming increasingly clear to me, is that if you do focus your attention on a result, what you get is - progress in the right direction - no matter how large or powerful the seeming obstacles, including fillubustering republicans, and Chinese leadership obsfurcation.
Astonishing progress, if you are lucky, work hard enough and have the right skillset, or maybe even have mastered the positive thinking paradigm. Halting progress with lots of hiccups and set backs seems to be more the norm though.
For most of us this version of reality is good news. Using the example of your yoga practise, what it means is that we can gracefully accept the fact that we are still unable to master the astanga jump through, or put our legs behind our head, as being a totally valid Part of the Process called life.
We can of course work on our skills, and sometimes even, if our goal is realistic for us, actually achieve these attributes.
Even, if we don't, what we definitely will get is - more flexible. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the additional mind, body benefits, help create an all-round more positive life, flowing in the right direction - now.
This is not to knock limitless thinking. However, if you do want to achieve something extraordinary in your life, or your yoga practise - you may just find that your old mental habits, stiff muscles and external world conditions prove somewhat tougher opponents than often expected. A lot of hard work maybe required to get you where you want to go, and even then, there are no guarantees.
However, if you carry on regardless of your obstacles, you will probably end up learning a healthy balance between acceptance of what is, and working for a positive future. On top of that you will probably get a lot more positives than you initially bargained for. In the case of yoga, a fun, healthy, and non destructive way of improving your body and mind's strength and flexibility , without expecting to be perfect, straight away, or even ever
Is yoga for you? try a class and find out. Visit www.loveyoga.co.uk for more information and to book your place
Friday, 16 April 2010
CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES
Barack Obama says 2010 is a year of exciting possibilities, and, if that man can see his challenges in such a remarkable light, the least we can do is actually try with ours.
Donna Hamilton, a well known psychotherapist says: "I started out helping people focus what was wrong with them, now a lot of what I do is focusing on what is right. There is a very authentic and powerful transformation that occurs when people focus on their successes and positive relationships."
While I don't believe in being in denial about serious problems, I do believe that, with enough accurate information, and a little bit of reframing, you can focus on the positive, or, at the very least the positive potential, of any situation.
Here are some ideas (taken from Arjuna Ardagh's book the Translucent Revolution) to guide your body and mind in helpful directions. It is really worth asking these questions of yourself. It's a practise, the harder the situation, the harder you apply the practise.
1) Are you fully aware of all your options? What have you done to research these? Do you have confidence in the people around you?
2)Are you honouring your need for connection with others, or isolating yourself?
3)Are you being kind and good to yourself? Are you nurturing and nourishing your body, or are you treating it as a machine?
4) Are you noticing and expressing your feelings or are you feeling stuck, depressed, frustrated and bottled up?
5) Have you explored the workings of your own mind, and can you see how your thoughts and beliefs affect the quality of your life?
Are you sure that everything you believe is true?
6)Do you feel connected to the meaning and purpose of your life? What do you really want to live for?
7)Are you taking time each day to connect to your deepest core and essence?
Yoga can be part of your life-style in many ways.
It may even be for you. Try a class and find out. visit www.loveyoga.co.uk for more information on styles of yoga, and the current timetable
Donna Hamilton, a well known psychotherapist says: "I started out helping people focus what was wrong with them, now a lot of what I do is focusing on what is right. There is a very authentic and powerful transformation that occurs when people focus on their successes and positive relationships."
While I don't believe in being in denial about serious problems, I do believe that, with enough accurate information, and a little bit of reframing, you can focus on the positive, or, at the very least the positive potential, of any situation.
Here are some ideas (taken from Arjuna Ardagh's book the Translucent Revolution) to guide your body and mind in helpful directions. It is really worth asking these questions of yourself. It's a practise, the harder the situation, the harder you apply the practise.
1) Are you fully aware of all your options? What have you done to research these? Do you have confidence in the people around you?
2)Are you honouring your need for connection with others, or isolating yourself?
3)Are you being kind and good to yourself? Are you nurturing and nourishing your body, or are you treating it as a machine?
4) Are you noticing and expressing your feelings or are you feeling stuck, depressed, frustrated and bottled up?
5) Have you explored the workings of your own mind, and can you see how your thoughts and beliefs affect the quality of your life?
Are you sure that everything you believe is true?
6)Do you feel connected to the meaning and purpose of your life? What do you really want to live for?
7)Are you taking time each day to connect to your deepest core and essence?
Yoga can be part of your life-style in many ways.
It may even be for you. Try a class and find out. visit www.loveyoga.co.uk for more information on styles of yoga, and the current timetable
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR LIFE
Unfortunately, most of us are caught up running around in today's ever faster, not to mention, increasingly electronic society. It's probable in today's day-and-age, for example, that you will be working for a stressed out organisation, or even redundant with bills to pay. You may be deadened from watching too much
TV, or being glued to your computer, or eating denatured food,or drinking too much.
If this is true for you it's likely your physical health will be suffering. This all too typical lifestyle can also help create a loss of depth, sensitivity, integrity, awareness and passion in your life generally - Ultimately, the situation may become intolerable for your body and your mind, not to mention your soul.
Your health is one of the most important things in your life. Certainly it is more important than money, possessions & status.
You are a physical being. For good health, you need the slower rhythms that nature provides, good food and plenty of healthy exercise and relaxation.
HOW YOGA CAN HELP
Yoga, taught well, is a system that encourages you to treat your mind & body in a sympathetic, holistic & observant way. Once you are relating to your body and yourself with some degree of depth, integrity, passion and sensitivity, you will be able to transfer this way of relating to your family, friends, business, community and world.This leads to an entirely different experience of yourself and your connection to others.
Simply by learning to witness your breath and how to treat your body in a sensitive and compassionate manner, you will achieve far more in terms of learning to live life well, than you would through a year's worth of free spa treatments.
Is yoga for you? try a Love Yoga class and find out. Visit Ihttp://www.loveyoga.co.uk/ for more details and timetable
QUOTES
"As much as everybody enjoys all the gadgets and comforts, many people are realizing that they don't even want to live without communion and respect for Earth।" Barbara Hand Clow.
May peace prevail on Earth - Unknown
"We are nature. If we don’t allow ourselves to express and honour that on a regular basis then things go wrong. Our alienation from nature includes alienation from other people. Because we are nature & we are nature’s most hard won fruit – human beings,we need the nourishment of that contact." Godfrey Deveraux
TV, or being glued to your computer, or eating denatured food,or drinking too much.
If this is true for you it's likely your physical health will be suffering. This all too typical lifestyle can also help create a loss of depth, sensitivity, integrity, awareness and passion in your life generally - Ultimately, the situation may become intolerable for your body and your mind, not to mention your soul.
Your health is one of the most important things in your life. Certainly it is more important than money, possessions & status.
You are a physical being. For good health, you need the slower rhythms that nature provides, good food and plenty of healthy exercise and relaxation.
HOW YOGA CAN HELP
Yoga, taught well, is a system that encourages you to treat your mind & body in a sympathetic, holistic & observant way. Once you are relating to your body and yourself with some degree of depth, integrity, passion and sensitivity, you will be able to transfer this way of relating to your family, friends, business, community and world.This leads to an entirely different experience of yourself and your connection to others.
Simply by learning to witness your breath and how to treat your body in a sensitive and compassionate manner, you will achieve far more in terms of learning to live life well, than you would through a year's worth of free spa treatments.
Is yoga for you? try a Love Yoga class and find out. Visit Ihttp://www.loveyoga.co.uk/ for more details and timetable
QUOTES
"As much as everybody enjoys all the gadgets and comforts, many people are realizing that they don't even want to live without communion and respect for Earth।" Barbara Hand Clow.
May peace prevail on Earth - Unknown
"We are nature. If we don’t allow ourselves to express and honour that on a regular basis then things go wrong. Our alienation from nature includes alienation from other people. Because we are nature & we are nature’s most hard won fruit – human beings,we need the nourishment of that contact." Godfrey Deveraux
Monday, 12 April 2010
CAN YOU REINVENT YOURSELF THROUGH YOGA?
One promise that many yoga teachers hold out is that it's possible to reinvent your life, reconfigure your mental and emotional attitudes, and radically shift your vision of what life offers.
The claim is that yoga, when practised correctly, is capable of, for example, turning a pessimist into someone who can see the perfection in everything; or an angry person into one who can channel their rage into creative energy.
Yoga's fundamental premise is that all of us, at our core, are made of the powerful, loving intelligence that gives rise to all life, furthermore, that this intelligence is fluid and infinitely creative. Because this is the actual truth, according the philosophies from the East, it is theoretically possible to change just about anything about ourselves and our life.
Indeed, some Yoga teachers and New Age teachers do believe that we can change absolutely anything. But is it true? Is it actually possible to change our personality? Can we heal a chronic or terminal illness by transforming our attitudes? How about trying 'changing the world' on for size, when your middle name isn't Hussein?
These are important questions. The truth it seems, is that the answer is both yes and no, and sometimes, maybe - depending on who, and what, you are talking about. On the one hand, certain aspects of our basic personality and physical constitution are ours for a lifetime - no amount of stretching will lengthen your thigh bones. On the other hand, there's no question that when we enter deeply into our consciousness, extraordinary shifts can take place. Some people have indeed healed life-threatening illnesses. Others, managed to change themselves enough to make a huge impact on all of our worlds - Sadat, Gandhi, Mandela and maybe now - Obama - come to mind.
Neurophysiologists say that each time we react in a certain way — getting angry, for instance, or procrastinating yet one more time — we strengthen the power of that pathway. Yoga texts make the same point, calling the pathways samskaras. Once these pathways have been set, most people just keep running down them, like rats in a maze, reacting with the same old patterns and feelings over and over again. It is these patterns that - ultimately - create our character, our ways of thinking and acting, and our perspective on life.
Unfortunately, Samskaras are powerful, which is why knowing better does not always change our behavior. There's a weight to those accumulated impressions. They are, on a daily basis, the reason we think and feel the way we do.
Yoga can help,in that it help you more clearly 'see' a pattern and, then, with any luck, 1) disidentify from it a bit, while at the same time take ownership of it. This is because the various practises work at increasing awareness of ourselves (our minds and our emotions, as well as our bodies), increasing our compassion and sensitivity for our selves, while at the same time honouring higher principles of truth - like non-violence, and non-stealing. Yoga can help us become aware of and change certain emotions and entrenched views, and improve the quality of our inner state. Yogis can honestly claim, verifiable by results, is that the regular practise of yoga produces radical improvement of overall well-being.
Over time, and with dedication many changes can, and do indeed take place.
Loosely based on an article from Yoga Journal by Sally Kempton. www.loveyoga.co.uk
Is yoga for you? try a Love Yoga class and find out. Visit Ihttp://www.loveyoga.co.uk/ for more details and timetable
The claim is that yoga, when practised correctly, is capable of, for example, turning a pessimist into someone who can see the perfection in everything; or an angry person into one who can channel their rage into creative energy.
Yoga's fundamental premise is that all of us, at our core, are made of the powerful, loving intelligence that gives rise to all life, furthermore, that this intelligence is fluid and infinitely creative. Because this is the actual truth, according the philosophies from the East, it is theoretically possible to change just about anything about ourselves and our life.
Indeed, some Yoga teachers and New Age teachers do believe that we can change absolutely anything. But is it true? Is it actually possible to change our personality? Can we heal a chronic or terminal illness by transforming our attitudes? How about trying 'changing the world' on for size, when your middle name isn't Hussein?
These are important questions. The truth it seems, is that the answer is both yes and no, and sometimes, maybe - depending on who, and what, you are talking about. On the one hand, certain aspects of our basic personality and physical constitution are ours for a lifetime - no amount of stretching will lengthen your thigh bones. On the other hand, there's no question that when we enter deeply into our consciousness, extraordinary shifts can take place. Some people have indeed healed life-threatening illnesses. Others, managed to change themselves enough to make a huge impact on all of our worlds - Sadat, Gandhi, Mandela and maybe now - Obama - come to mind.
Neurophysiologists say that each time we react in a certain way — getting angry, for instance, or procrastinating yet one more time — we strengthen the power of that pathway. Yoga texts make the same point, calling the pathways samskaras. Once these pathways have been set, most people just keep running down them, like rats in a maze, reacting with the same old patterns and feelings over and over again. It is these patterns that - ultimately - create our character, our ways of thinking and acting, and our perspective on life.
Unfortunately, Samskaras are powerful, which is why knowing better does not always change our behavior. There's a weight to those accumulated impressions. They are, on a daily basis, the reason we think and feel the way we do.
Yoga can help,in that it help you more clearly 'see' a pattern and, then, with any luck, 1) disidentify from it a bit, while at the same time take ownership of it. This is because the various practises work at increasing awareness of ourselves (our minds and our emotions, as well as our bodies), increasing our compassion and sensitivity for our selves, while at the same time honouring higher principles of truth - like non-violence, and non-stealing. Yoga can help us become aware of and change certain emotions and entrenched views, and improve the quality of our inner state. Yogis can honestly claim, verifiable by results, is that the regular practise of yoga produces radical improvement of overall well-being.
Over time, and with dedication many changes can, and do indeed take place.
Loosely based on an article from Yoga Journal by Sally Kempton. www.loveyoga.co.uk
Is yoga for you? try a Love Yoga class and find out. Visit Ihttp://www.loveyoga.co.uk/ for more details and timetable
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
FINDING YOURSELF THROUGH YOGA
Yoga is, or can be, far more than just an exercise routine. When you become absorbed in reflecting and feeling deeply your body, your movements, your little finger, your breath ect, you cannot help but grow.
This does not mean you become perfect, in posture or personality. What it does mean is that you find out more and more about yourself, your body, your mind, your weaknesses and your strengths. Ideally, in my opinion, you should also become more compassionate and inquisitive about yourself and others - their whole selves - not just the bits you like. You can but grow through this approach.
You improve strengths, and begin to identify where you have made mistakes, where you can change and make/get better, and where you can just accept what can't be changed. Hopefully, you gain more clarity about yourself and your shadow, and the self and shadow of others also.
More consciousness (eventually) means better decisions, leading to a better life, and - when enough people take this approach a better society all round.
Love Yoga provides classes that give you a great body work out, a depth of relaxation not easily achieved elsewhere, and a philosophy, that points out encourages you to look within, work with yourself (and others) in order to create positive change.
In class, you learn techniques that enable you to listen to your mind and your body, with a depth of attention, sensitivity and compassion you may not have developed before. This evolves all of you - your body, your beliefs, your awareness, and your capacity for seeing the bigger picture.
You also learn how to forgive yourself when inevitably, you are less than you would like to be.
Is yoga for you? try a Love Yoga class and find out. Visit Ihttp://www.loveyoga.co.uk/ for more details and timetable
This does not mean you become perfect, in posture or personality. What it does mean is that you find out more and more about yourself, your body, your mind, your weaknesses and your strengths. Ideally, in my opinion, you should also become more compassionate and inquisitive about yourself and others - their whole selves - not just the bits you like. You can but grow through this approach.
You improve strengths, and begin to identify where you have made mistakes, where you can change and make/get better, and where you can just accept what can't be changed. Hopefully, you gain more clarity about yourself and your shadow, and the self and shadow of others also.
More consciousness (eventually) means better decisions, leading to a better life, and - when enough people take this approach a better society all round.
Love Yoga provides classes that give you a great body work out, a depth of relaxation not easily achieved elsewhere, and a philosophy, that points out encourages you to look within, work with yourself (and others) in order to create positive change.
In class, you learn techniques that enable you to listen to your mind and your body, with a depth of attention, sensitivity and compassion you may not have developed before. This evolves all of you - your body, your beliefs, your awareness, and your capacity for seeing the bigger picture.
You also learn how to forgive yourself when inevitably, you are less than you would like to be.
Is yoga for you? try a Love Yoga class and find out. Visit Ihttp://www.loveyoga.co.uk/ for more details and timetable
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