Are you looking to deepen your yoga practice, and bring your whole self to the process, not just learning about the poses?
Would you like to investigate how a practice on the mat can relate to your daily life?
Are you happy?
Are you following your purpose?
Do you know your purpose?
Do you know the difference between inner and outer purpose, and how to connect the two?
Let's explore all of this also. Through moving on the mat, slowing down life for a bit to be curious, to investigate with an open mind and a daring heart.
Join me.
SLOW DOWN
In a fast-paced world, which tools do we really have to slow down?
Also, in a lot of yoga classes, the pace is so quick.
Are you really in tune with your body throughout?
Can you mind the breath, can it be smooth, slow and unrestricted even if the pace is fast?
If the answer here is no, would you like it to be?
This is a major part of what I offer in my classes.
We go slower. For many reasons. For a better understanding of the poses, the movements and the transitions for one.
Also, for how your body naturally moves. Everyone is different, body shapes and movement patterns.
How can we investigate something like this if the pace is so fast that we are unable to keep track?
We also slow down to slow the mind.
Of course this can work with rapid movements as well and in these classes some movements will be invited to move quick. But not until you know the movements.
You FEEL the movements. In your body.
What is offered is Space to create an experience for your own body.
So. Slowing down. Feel all movements, especially the subtle ones.
Along comes your mind, with your thoughts, your sneaky thoughts that are often hard to catch.
Slowing down the body, slowing down the movements AND the breath invites heightened awareness so you may CATCH your own inner dialogue.
If you are like me, I know I can be my own worst enemy.
So many ways of being disappointed, complain, dissatisfied, even disgusted.
A yoga class is the perfect environment to train myself to listen to my thoughts.
And aim for this listening to be without judgement. ALTHOUGH, if I do judge, may I catch myself judging?
Any awareness, any time I pick up on a judgement, a trashing of self, is a victory! It is not a defeat!
These are probably patterns of old, making themselves known beneath the surface.
Creating feelings of non content and dissatisfaction. May I catch the thoughts and the feelings.
THE POSES
Technique and form and the basis of the movements we go into is of course important so you don’t injure yourself.
This is, yet again, where slow comes in. So body awareness is always present.
I loooooooove flows. Creative sequences where we just explore. It is really never-ending.
We go through core functions, activation throughout the body which is relevant in the different poses and movement. And even more than that, the breath. How do you breathe through all of this?
The breath will also aid you in relaxing a major part of your body, your face.
So much tension in your face.
In our daily life, when stress occurs, when an incident which is not expected occurs, and fear might enter, tension sets in larger part of the body. Especially in the face.
May we during this practice again and again be reminded to relax our face muscles.
So then. The poses. The structure is laid out. Of pose after pose.
We shall not forget to play.
Yes move with intention, also with this open question of “Wow I wonder how my body will respond to this!”
Feel the pose. The support from the ground inviting a rebound effect to reach upward.
It is all about the energy within connecting to our surroundings.
To mother earth, to be grounded. Yield my body to earth.
Which allows me to be in my body, daring to yield and not be so strong all the time.
Be like water, strong and gentle at the same time. '
Where are the restrictions which halt your body and your breath?
Investigate yet again. Calibrate your effort, of how much is needed to sustain the pose.
May the quality of the breath be more important than how you think it is supposed to look on the outside.
IT IS NOT ABOUT THE POSES
This sounds like a form of therapy. And it is!
Yoga is so much more than the physical poses.
If you truly venture into the meaning of yoga, you enter into the meaning of yourself, who you are, where you come from, what is your purpose, how do you treat yourself (truly), how do you treat other people, and which values do you have.
Yoga can truly be a wholesome, with dedication. With openness.
STILLNESS
In a yoga class there is not time to go into the whole philosophy of yoga.
That being said, even if you think yoga is like this or that, a teacher says you should focus on this or that. OR even:
This is wrong for you and this is right for you.
If ANYONE tells you what you should or should not do, and if you listen to that person without consulting with your TRUE teacher: YOURSELF, your inner voice, you are misguided.
Teachers are awesome as signposts, I have so many myself and value them so highly.
They are so inspiring to my life. Though, do not forget, what is being said or read, needs to resonate.
So I say stillness.
Pause. Breathe. May you be still for a moment and truly listen within.
How does this feel? What does my gut say in this moment.
May I touch my heart and ask it to provide an answer?
Of course, a lot of the times it isn’t easy to stop or listen or even know what feels off or right on spot.
But I will for sure never know if I don’t honor my Being by pausing.
In this fast paced society, to pause is an Art.
INSTRUCTION
Holy moly. I don’t like that word. Instruct.
I guess it has it’s usage, and yoga teacher or yoga instructor, is there really any difference?
Lets break it down.
To instruct. You have someone telling you what to do.
You follow the guidelines from that person. And you attempt to execute them as best you can.
This is where preferences enter. You start to expect of yourself to execute this, and you are disappointed if you can’t. Of course, this is just an example and you may not be like this. But it happens so often.
Instead of “I am gonna nail this” may you enter a different route.
“ I am gonna be open to whatever outcome”
Can the whole process of yoga just be an OPEN QUESTION?
Yes those words needed caps.
An open question, no end result. Perhaps like music or dance, see how your body copes, how does this all translate to and meet with your body? Anything can be altered and modified, and with practice you create your own movement patterns to fit YOU. Not the other way around.
LABELS
I have been dealing with back issues for 12 years. I used to call it back pain.
And this became my identity.
I was Kenneth with back pain. I was back pain Kenneth.
Pain is a label. It is destructive.
It is like telling my brain that I should still have pain in my back because that’s my story!
Isn’t that crazy? That’s actually how it works!
May I instead feel into my back without needing to name it.
Body sensation is the effect of something. It doesn’t just pop up.
For my part, I was (probably) born with discs that were “bad”, they were disintegrating.
But! telling myself these stories throughout the years just made the situation a lot worse.
I kept the story of my pain dearly.
That’s how identification works, if I lose it I lose myself (this is where the Ego comes in).
In these classes we aim to look at labels and stories we tell ourselves.
Not to try to get rid of them, but study them.
And if I realize it is no longer serving the essence of myself, they naturally just start to vanish.
Trying to push something away counter productive.
The Universe provides the need to push something away, ergo it stays stuck.
Solution? Focus on the sensations in the body and the emotions.
AHIMSA
Non-violence. Rather. Compassion & Love.
This is already mentioned above, the beloved principle is at the core of a yoga practice and of life itself.
First I take a long hard look in the mirror.
Kenneth, pleased to meet you. How am I treating you today?
I check my patterns and my inner dialogue. My energy.
And when I see how I treat myself, may I also offer compassion and kindness towards myself?
May I create Space for something to be exactly what it is, without trying to push it away in fear or trying to cling to it also from fear, this time of losing it?
May I investigate with curiosity?
And then, this will affect how I treat my fellow human being.
And nature. And animals. And ALL life on this planet.
This principle understates that everything is connected. How do I treat you if you are me and I am you?
THE EGO
When I say “my class” and I speak of “me” I like to halt at times.
Feeling and realizing that there is a difference between the Soul speaking and the Ego speaking.
The Ego is worried about the past and the future.
The Ego wants results, comparison, to be better than others or special.
Special also includes being worse so others may feel sympathy. Pity. The Ego thrives on all of this. To be a one of a kind and super special.
The Soul needs none of this. No comparison, no competition.
It is about companionship and expansiveness. Where we lift each other up.
The Soul knows that if I lift you up, I lift myself in the process.
No scarcity. The Soul is about abundance.
I remember my beginning as a teacher, I loved to show off skills.
I was teaching/instructing sequences and saying “look what you can do”, but what I was really saying was “look what I can do”. The Ego was showing off. I remember feeling shameful of this when I realized what was happening.
Although, this was also a big part of the journey, to bring awareness to something that was just unconscious.
I still feel the Ego revealing itself and it has stuff to say which seems soooo important at the time (for the Ego). And here again, the pausing and the stillness will strip the Ego naked and leave it powerless. The Ego cannot exist in the light of Awareness.
So what am I?
If I take the “I” out, and become a Space holder, so the Universal Energy connected to the Soul may flourish.
In that moment there is no personal will, it is only the Good of the whole which is revealed.
And this Good of the whole has no intention to do anything in particular but to create an atmosphere of Love and room to BE just who you are in the moment.
PURPOSE
Oh this is a big one. This connects to all that is said above. Who are you?
What makes you shine a little extra? What makes your heart beat a little extra?
Can you FEEL it when you are inspired? How does that feel, truly?
To be inspired in whatever it is that you do or where you are.
This comes from nothing external, this is from the core of you.
From your Soul, the magnificent spark from your Source.
To be inspired is to be In Spirit. You are becoming one with who you are.
It is like coming home, where you feel familiar and can relax AND shine your true colours.
It’s where you release out into the world that spark which is within you.
What is your purpose in this world?
Only you can truly know. No one can tell you what it is or isn’t.
It is formless and unexplainable, it has to be felt and experienced.
“Don’t die with your Music still in you”.
We all have music within, something we are born with that is supposed to be released into this world.
I can tell you my inner purpose.
It is hard to pinpoint, but thinking about it makes these words come out:
Compassion, kindness, fire, creativity and healing.
Being in my true power, my raw truth of who I am. Knowing I am connected to all life.
Which then becomes a part of my destiny, to be in a state of a burning flame.
To allow my whole being to be just what it is.
And from there, to create my own reality.
I am connected to all, at the same time the master of my reality. I am no victim,
I am not someone that something has happened to.
My stories do not own me. I am a burning flame with all it’s splendor and power.
And from this vantage point I see my outer purpose.
I wish to pass it on, my experience of truth within myself.
Who I am, and what it is like to live in inspiration.
This includes every single human emotion I will go through, every single thought I ever have about myself or anyone else. The old concepts I used to believe in, the patterns that controlled me, they control me no more as the Awareness brought forth through the power of the Music within is running the show.
I am a channel of the power of the Universe.
I am in the moment of sharing not separated from you or anyone.
I am in that moment not a teacher, I am a channel which the energy, the true healing energy of Love, may pass through. My job is to keep the channel open and the space clear.
YOU ARE NOT TO BE FIXED
For whatever reason you come to this class, please remember, nothing about you is broken.
Nothing.
You may have problems, difficulties, emotional and physical.
But you are not here to be fixed. You are here to investigate. With kindness towards yourself as you do so?
If it is hard, that’s ok.
Can you in that moment bring kindness and acceptance to not being able to be kind?
Everything we feel is there for a reason.
Our past, our stories, concepts of how things should be in the society and in our lives, the patterns learned of how to be, how to act, how to think and also how to feel.
Can we PEEL OFF THE LAYERS together?
May we question our reality, what we believe in?
May we step into this class being willing to throw old ideas away?
Can we give ourselves the opportunity to do that, instead of continuing to add on and add on, new ideas, new constructs, add onto the old.
May I invite to compare it to your breath.
If you have learned a breathing pattern from youth which does not serve you at all, would you add onto that pattern new patterns?
How about stopping and listening to your breath, how does it FEEL while breathing?
The body is so intelligent, it kind of knows what to do if you allow it. Stop. Listen.
Investigate. That is the beginning.
Remember this; If you continue to aim to fix something, especially with the help of the mind, the Universe gives you just that: A need to fix. A need to fix presents a lack.
Constant self improvement programs out there feeds on lack.
Something is not right and we need to fix it. Please don’t go for a quick fix.
You already have the answer, it is within yourself.
All an opening into your heart. With kindness.
In these classes I aim so highly to see you.
Past the layers of what you can do and not do. I don’t really care what you are able to perform.
This is a boost of course, to manage something you are working for, no doubt!
Though, never forgetting the true importance, to meet you exactly where you are, and greet you, directly to who you are. And I hope you also may greet yourself with kindness and acceptance of where you are in the moment.
CONCLUSION
Yoga is a practice. Yoga is not really something to be done or executed.
It is to be lived, experienced and felt.
In the doing, through the movements and the poses, may you ask yourself how it is to BE within the Doing?
May the Being count for more than the doing?
How are you in this moment? Truly?
And if there is a mask there, may it be ok to keep it as long as you know you are keeping it on and accepting that the mask needs to be there in that exact time?
May this bring you closer to your heart, to accept all of you.
All the moments you wish you were stronger and better.
May you accept all the moments of your life bringing you up to exactly THIS moment, right here?
You are on the mat. You breathe. You are not to be fixed.
You are born good enough. You are beautiful in your splendor of a Being.
How do I meet events in my life that I might not have wished for.
Do they make me unhappy or do I accept them for what they are.
What is my attitude towards life?
Do I welcome uncertainty or do I need answers to everything?
Is it dangerous to let go of control?
And if I do dare to let go, who is it dangerous for, my higher true self, or the Ego?
REST IN THE STILLNESS OF THE PAUSE
This is a moment I cherish to enter as often as possible.
To be in that pause, that stillness, that moment where everything is actually ok and good enough, and there is no need to change a thing. That moment is so powerful. It lets me tap into the Source of all creativity.
May we create together in these classes.
Peace out.
