The Results

I took YJ Yoga Snob Quiz, from Vanessa’s blog and here are the results

I’m a Balanced Yogi!

A Balanced Yogi You love your friends unconditionally and accept them for who they are no matter what their yoga style preference, religious beliefs, or spending habits. You focus on the good in people and would never try to change them. Almost everyone feels comfortable in your presence. You live your yoga. You are an inspiration to yoga students everywhere!

Take the Yoga Journal Yoga Snob Quiz!

Engaged

Call me a Fiancee. My proposal was accepted, though the ring was the wrong size. Has this changed anything for me, no not really. Except now I’m being asked the question: When will the wedding be? Answer: haven’t gotten that far yet. The two ideas out there so far, a Buddhist Wedding officiated by our friend who is an Acharya in the Shambhala Lineage, or elope to Italy.

Plans

I am a planner, and lately my plans seem to never come to fruition. One thing I’ve noticed is that my plans often have a hidden ingredient of impatience that I inject into them, i.e. things always take longer to accomplish than I think they will. I give myself 1 year it takes 3, I give myself 1 hour it takes 1.5…etc, etc, you can see how the samsaric cycle is perpetuated by this. So I have decided to give up deadlining. I will still plan and even plan in detail, but I will restrain myself from setting time limits, or deadlines as I seem to have an uncanny knack of creating unrealistic ones.

I went to see the bodyworker, and I’ve made huge progress, though some of the core issues in terms of emotional/muscular weakness are still there. She’s given me some really challenging homework, that has already been immensely helpful. One of the exercises involves getting feedback from folks, and not just ones you trust. Suffice it to say i had a rough childhood with very critical people around me, and I have a huge fear of taking in feedback from folks who I don’t trust. I fear it will become part of me, as it did as a child —–The bodyworker said this is a false belief, very helpful —-As an adult I have the capacities (and the organ systems - another thing she works with) to discriminate. I think on an intellectual level I knew this, but I am still afraid of taking in feedback from folks who I don’t completely trust. I can count the people i completely trust on both hands….so that really limits the field. So this has been challenging exercise. She advised me on how to take feedback as well: Feedback should not be defended against, it should be accepted, not as being true, but allowed to be considered and not figured out or defended. We can just take it in, and in about a week’s time we will know if it is important for us to believe and work on this feedback, or if it is complete garbage. I tend to shut out feedback if I find the source of it to be someone who seems to be a complete jackass, or I don’t trust or respect them. This exercise offers the possibility that anyone can offer helpful feedback, regardless of the source. Ultimately I get to discriminate, but it won’t hurt me to take in what is given. Radical concept for me.

What does this have to do with the knee you ask? Lots, these erroneous beliefs and emotional issues are what cause my muscles to go weak in certain situations, and many of them have gone weak since childhood. Breaking through these emotional issues and erroneous beliefs will strengthen everything that wasn’t supportive to the knee in the first place. Its pretty amazing I’ve already been able to contact strongly some core muscles that I have never really felt before. So, i was skeptical at first, but I really see how this way of working is helping, and it is not a quick fix, but alot more than my knee will have been helped by the end of it.

Mindfulness

I’ve found so much joy lately in my practice around paying attention. Just noticing the fear when when it comes up, the satisfaction when I jump through and the relief when muscles open and engage, the beautiful feeling of movement and stretching. The visceral sensation of breathing. Today I was able to see my injury as a gift as I have gotten back to basics, driste, breath, bandhas and that is all that is necessary to get the benefits of this practice. Of course, I’ve been told this time and time again by teachers, but to realize this fully in the moment feels like a huge breakthrough. Tomorrow is a new day with new things to pay attention to, feel, and experience completely.

Moonday munchies

I was hungry all day long! Let me see….started off ok, fresh fruit, coffee, later on mana bread with peanut butter (midmorning snack), then a salad, and a bunch of chickpeas, veggie burger slathered in veggy slices with pickles, bun….homemade peanut butter cookies, about six, white corn chips, homemade veggie chili, big bowl of popcorn, and more white corn chips, and another double espresso in there somewhere. Doesn’t look like that much, but way more than usual. Maybe I should be eating more on a regular basis…

Nausea

Alcohol is now making me sick. So the Margarita’s didn’t go so well…..as i somehow sensed it reated a tamasic nightmare in my stomach, accompanied by the hot burrito I consumed. Fortunately, it passed quickly and my Saturday wasn’t ruined. I have noticed that as my practice gets deeper and more intense I often go through a period where I can’t drink at all, and often even lose my desire for ‘toxic’ substances. Lately, the knee has been feeling better…no doubt due to Laksmi’s magic, not all the way there, but definite progress. I haven’t had to be as careful lately, still vigilant, and thus have had deeper more intense practices…lots of sweat and purification going on. When I practice that intensely over a sustained period I find that I often cannot tolerate harsh substances at all (with the exception of coffee)…this is a good sign and I am happy about, just wish I had been a little more in tune with myself before drinking Margs and the spicy food. Anyway, my body let me know. Been feeling very good about my practice again lately, and am realizing that some deep detoxing is going on right now…duh! So no more alcohol…or I’ll stay with something more mellow like wine….Friday is the only night I ever drink anyway, but looks like I might give that up for awhile. San Pelligrino is a nice substitute.

Margarita Night

It’s margarita night, what has become a weekly tradition. After a grueling week of work and yoga practice what is better than a nice cold Marg in the 95+ degree weather? Maybe a bit tamasic, especially before during and after spicy authentic mexican food, but wth? The restaurant we go to stops you at 3…..good thing tomorrow is my day off asana practice.

Let the weekend begin!

Regard all Dharmas as Dreams

My melancholia from yesterday has arisen and passed away, as the Buddha predicted. The Buddha was a cool dude and he has lots to teach, for instance one of my favorites is to ‘Regard all dharmas as Dreams.’

This statement means that all phenomena in our daily lives are to be considered as real or unreal as the occurrences and situations in our dreams. Both are equally illusory. This is helpful to me in that I don’t take things so seriously and I feel somewhat empowered to impact my life in the same way I can impact dreams with awareness and conscious intention.

Carlos Castaneda talks about how we can take control of our dreams if we look at our hands while in the dream…and this actually works by the way, I’ve experienced it. It’s not quite as easy in ‘real’ life, I can also attest to trying it in this ‘reality’ and am currently gazing at my hand yet my life feels very out of control.

However, if we see the hands as a metaphor for action — we do things or manifest with our hands - we can then deduce that looking at our hands could mean taking action amidst the chaos, manifesting in accordance with our awareness, intention and consciousness allows us to influence and impact our ‘real’ lives in the same way we can influence and impact our dream lives.

Goodbyes

I’ve been saying goodbye to quite a few close friends lately, as they leave the area for different reasons. My closest friends are now spread out around the globe. I’ve got to admit its been quite sad and something I’ve noticed as I get older is that it seems more difficult to make these really good, close friends. Maybe its that I’m in a committed relationship now and don’t go out as much. It seems that most others my age are doing the same thing, and there isn’t enough time inbetween work, (for me yoga) relationships and other commitments to just idly hang out the way we used to. I’ve also noticed some feelings of being left behind…I am wishing for an exciting change like moving to a foreign country, or embarking on a Ph.D. program (well maybe not that one). This has made me look at my own life and it seems a little ludicrous for me to be feeling this way as things are going so well for me right now in my life….though the longing for change continues.