Meekness

Flexibility and strength. The two are so rarely in perfect balance and communion. We work for one or the other or we are naturally blessed with one or the other. But we don't often have them harmoniously working together.

Here enters yoga - the practice that strives to bring balance to strength and flexibility. And I'm not just talking physically. All of yoga is devoted to increasing the strength of our character and talents and yet having the flexibility to give our wills to God and trust in His timing and the perfection of the moment. 

Strength gives me the ability to get deeper in my flexibility. It is only as my arms gain strength that I can even hope to accomplish the side arm balance that will allow me to pull my leg further up to the sky with the flexibility I have gained. They work in perfect harmony in yoga. 

Here enters meekness. Meekness, one of the least understood and seemingly paradoxical attributes of our Savior Jesus Christ. I spent my month abroad a couple of years back studying this mysterious word and trying to apply it to my life. I'm still studying it and still having epiphanies. Here's the one I had today: meekness is the perfect balance of flexibility and strength. It is having the strength of body, mind and character to go where The Lord wants you to go while also having the flexibility to grow there and bend to His will. It is not breaking or falling flat on your face in the deepest pose The Lord could put you. It is being able to hold yourself up while giving in to His will. 

Meekness is the greatest strength and the deepest humility/flexibility. Just as the Savior exemplified.
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Yoga Is

Yoga is a drinking in of life. Yoga is gratitude. Yoga is peace. It is a prayer. Yoga is a lifting of ones soul to its creator. Yoga is at at-one-ment with God and oneself. Yoga is faith. It is hope. It is charity. Yoga, to the fullest extent, is a realization of divine potential. It is becoming one with God because one becomes like God.

This morning I took a few minutes before work to step into nature, down by the river and find some peace to fortify me through the day. I found it. I found it in God. Because that is what stepping into nature really is for me - it's a stepping into and up to God. It's taking His hand and feeling His embrace and being reminded of what really matters. It's a prayer. 

And while I prayed this morning I did yoga. Real yoga. I breathed and paused and opened my soul to hear His voice. And then I drank the nature in with a simple movement of the arms above the head and then bringing the energy back into my heart with my hands. So simple. So real. So powerful. 

God is in everything good. God is everything good.
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Continuing

Continuing the line of thought about where I am versus where I was and where the students are: during my practice this morning, as I did the pyramid pose and stretched my palms flat to the floor with ease, I thought of how easily I have forgotten the place I was and how long it has taken me to get where I am now. The joy of the present has swallowed up the hardships and necessary patience of the past. And yet, as I began to judge myself for not being able to remember the pain of a certain stretch or my own inability to balance, I had to stop and remember the mercy of the dilemma I now find myself in.

The forgetting of pain and inadequacy is one of the greatest joys God offers us. We grow and it's hard but when we are past it we look back with joy and urge others on! If I truly remembered every step of the long journey, would I eagerly encourage students to just keep pushing forward so they could find the joy? It seems that this frail human needs the joy of the moment to help others look forward to the joy and also to be willing to take another step and another journey. 

So although I have to constantly remind myself to be patient with my students and compassionate with where they are, I am no longer fighting against my present joy or trying too hard to remember the pain. After all, I still have quite the journey to take and I'm going to need all the present joy I can have to get through it. :)
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The Dilemma

This morning I had cause to consider the things I know about yoga and when it is appropriate to share my knowledge versus when I should be silent and let others take their journey.

I have been so blessed to learn some incredible lessons in yoga even in my short journey thus far. I look back on the steps that brought me to my training at Bodhi Yoga and I realize what a miracle that was. I could have trained anywhere. One simple step was all it would have taken to turn me into a completely different teacher and yogi. But I was led to take the steps I did and I ended up at Bodhi - a place where I have been extremely blessed to learn of the many spectrums of yoga and to learn, in my opinion, the proper and safe way to be a guide to yoga and to teach and learn the foundation of what yoga really is. 

So I have a confession: shoulder stands scare me. Yep. They didn't use to scare me. I can do them. I actually love doing them! I love the completely different perspective it gives me on life. I feel like a new person when I come out of a shoulder stand. That said, I don't know if I will ever teach someone else a shoulder stand. At least not at this point in my life. There are other inversions that can give so many of the same benefits and there is so much potential for harm if you do a shoulder stand wrong that I would just rather stay away from them all together and teach something else. 

This morning in class we were doing a version of the shoulder stand with our feet against the wall and every time she talked about stretching the neck I cringed. I cringed when another student said she was going to go home and do this stretch for her neck a lot. I cringed when the teacher told us to push it farther back on the neck. I wanted to shout for everyone to come out of it and explain right then and then that it want supposed to be a neck stretch but a SHOULDER stand and that someone was going to get very hurt if they didn't learn the exactly proper form in doing it. 

I was scared. I was scared for what might happen because someone innocently did the pose the wrong way and pushed it too far. 

Thus my dilemma. When is it appropriate for me to share the things I know and even to correct another teacher? Is it ever appropriate? Do I just do things the way I know how - the safe way - and let others do a "neck stretch" when I know it could hurt them, or do I step out of my place as a student and advise the teacher that she is teaching the pose wrong?

I stayed silent. I'm questioning that now. Surely I could have found a way to say something, even if it was after the class, alone with the teacher. I didn't this time. What do I do next time something similar happens?
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What Yoga is for someone else

This morning I was teaching a private class and I got to thinking about what yoga means to someone else.

For myself, I've gone through a journey with an ever changing landscape to get where I am now with yoga. What yoga means to me now is very different from what it meant to me six months ago. It's richer and fuller and more than I can even put into words. It feels deeper than just the physical. The only problem with this journey is that I am having a hard time remembering what yoga was six months ago. I don't remember how it felt or what it meant to me. I am completely stuck in the present moment. This being the case, I have a hard time understanding and empathizing with my students as I get deeper into yoga. I want them to feel what I do now and enjoy the richness but I forget that they have to go through the journey too. 

Some people come to my classes just for the savasana. Some come just to talk. And some even come just because their friends are there. But I'm learning that none of these reasons are wrong. Just because someone doesn't understand yoga and how to get the fullness from it doesn't mean that they won't get something good from it. We all have our own journeys and yes, sometimes I get frustrated because someone isn't focusing on the breath and I don't think they're getting the benefit they should but when it comes down to it, they're there and they are trying. That's what matters. Yoga will come. It comes and it's magic and you'll wonder how you're ever lived without it. Until then, yoga is still good even if you just come for the savasana.
www.gobodhiyoga.com