Tag Archives: peace

Your most beautiful self

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pinkflower

 

I wrote the post below a month ago as I reveled in the beauty of a perfect August in NYC. But life has been a series of challenges for me this summer and many things, like blogging, have disappeared as quickly as summer seems to have. Looking again at these photos, I see perseverance –  blooming year after year, no matter what the hardship, no matter how harsh this city may sometimes feel, no matter if anyone notices or not. Being your most beautiful self amidst it all.

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From August –

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to teach yoga. It’s such a gift to guide beautiful souls in this practice. In my Friday evening class after several restorative poses and yoga nidra, I could literally feel each student opening like a blossom.

The deepest practice is in allowing ourselves to let go, to open, to drink in the sweetness of peace and let ourselves exist in that peace. Even only for a moment.

Lately I have been stopping to smell the roses and every other flower that seems to be exploding all around me. From the Highline, to city parks, to front stoops, on fences, in pots, or among weeds in a tiny square of dirt around a sidewalk tree – vibrant, colorful, joyful blossoms.

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Finding peace in chaos

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As emotions spiral, tensions rise and fall, and the known becomes the unknown, chaos feeds itself, growing into an overwhelming mass of frenzied heaviness. Everything has the potential to ignite from a spark to a blaze. How do we contain the raging wild fire into a simple, controllable flame? Where do we grasp when everything slips through our fingers?

When there is nothing to hold onto, we can always go inside and hold onto our Self. There we will find the steadiness. Pranayama can be a key to unlock that door to stillness.

When we cannot remove ourselves from a difficult place we can remove our minds, relocating to a clearer space. It starts with focusing on the breath. Once we begin to focus, the breath slows, the body begins to release tension. When we deepen the breath we are signaling to our body and mind that everything is ok. Then the heart follows.

There are so many wonderful pranayama practices, great for cleansing, for stimulating, for stilling the mind. Just practicing one – mindful, slow, steady, deep breathing – is life changing. I made it through 20 hours of natural labor with pranayama (and a lot of determination, courage, and faith). I stepped out of each contraction and into the breath. Steady, slow, deep. Once my son was born, the endless hours of focus and concentration seemed like a blink of an eye, the pain quickly forgotten. But I won’t ever forget the gift of pranayama in getting me through and its powerful and immediate help in all times of difficulty.

Pranayama continually reminds me to slow down, to let go, to have faith that my inner Divine will guide me, that I am not alone, that I am connected – that everything will be ok.

Gently down the stream

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GangaIn The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Swami Satchidananda says, “The entire world is your own projection.”  What a powerful idea. What does he mean? We choose to give meaning to things, to people, to places and we choose what particular meaning to give them. We then react in response to those meanings. I lost an inexpensive ring I had bought for myself – I had given the ring the power of being a reminder to me of the spiritual path. I loved to look at the ring and remember where I was and how I felt when I bought it. Then I lost it. I was upset, it was meaningful to me and irreplaceable.

But, did I lose the spiritual path? Was that reminder in a physical object more powerful than the practice itself? No. I had given that little piece of metal power but it in itself was just a little piece of metal. I let it go and the upset followed.

Being able to control how the world affects you is the key to peace.  Knowing the difference between your true self and your affected self is yoga.

“Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah – The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.” Practicing yoga is practicing letting go. Our minds jump around and react constantly – stilling, restraining the mind, letting go of the reactions, the attachments, and just being brings peace.

How we react to the world around us is what creates the world around us. But it is such a difficult practice to become aware of our reactions, to control them, and to let them go. Peace is not easy to achieve.

My two-year old son seems to have mastered letting go in mid cry and turning his frown upside down and laughing at it all. He sang to me: “Row, row, row your boat gently on the lake. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life’s a piece of cake.” Life’s a piece of cake mommy, why are you making it so hard?

Then he changed it up to: “Row, row, row your boat on a on a mouth. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life’s a piece of mouth.” He thought that was supremely hilarious and laughed heartily. I have to give it to him for being creative and trying to make a joke – but mostly I admire his ability to laugh. He reminds me every day to laugh. Life really can be laughable if you let yourself see it that way.

Row gently and know none of it is real. It’s amazing how hard it can be to laugh, to let go of attachments, to believe it is all just a dream. It’s all a creation of our minds. Everything we hold onto is ultimately unimportant. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have people or things in our lives but we should try to be in control of how our mind reacts, how we attach, how we project meaning and expectations onto them. It must be easier if you become a monk…

But I will row on and practice.

Quotes from Satchidananda, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990.