Life's Pause Button

Yogis,

Have you ever noticed how a holiday seems like a big pause button on the remote control of life?  Before a holiday, life ramps up, trying to squeeze both our regular responsibilities and the preparations all in the same 24 hour days.  But then it arrives…….and everything pauses. It is like the gap between breaths.  The space between words.  A time of veering off the trail .

 

During a holiday like Thanksgiving, we step back.  The to do list drops away.  Work seems like a distant memory.  We sleep late, eat what we crave, and do whatever we feel like….often with a lot of togetherness.  It is a time of becoming present.  Being in the moment without much concern for the past or the future.  Just being.  Selecting what to do next not by what you should do, but what you feel like doing.   It’s as if the world will just wait.

And I had a second layer of pausing piled on, like the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie ……I was still sick for most of the holiday. It dragged me back to the pure physical-ness of walking through life in this human body.   Aware of each discomfort.   I realized that illness also is a form of stopping.  I didn’t run for two weeks, and only practiced yoga a few times throughout.  So this Wednesday I  finally gave in and visited a clinic to get antibiotics, and found myself diligent in not exerting.  The “me” who always wants to do, help and give, had to rest.  Had to surrender.  Even sending out my vibration was too exhausting so I just allowed the Universe’s hum to soak in as comfort.  I personally did many things I never do in my daily life – watched tv, ate rich foods, and sat on the couch for hours on end.  At one point we watched 3 back to back episodes of “The Big Bang Theory”, just because it was one of my sister-in-laws favorites – and because we could. 

When we pause we notice and become more aware.  And what we see or experience may be pleasing, annoying or even uncomfortable.  During the pause of holidays, or being sick, there can be just as many moments of wanting to soak it all in, as there can be of wishing you could run away as fast as you can.  We see everything, including our own lives, our likes and dislikes, our hot buttons, and our vulnerabilities, exactly as they are.   This is what mindfulness is all about.  Being with it all.

But tomorrow the play button will be pushed, and life will pick up right where we left it.  Work will be there and I will dive back into my running and yoga.  Like coming out of a cocoon.  Making our way back onto the trail.  But is it possible to bring a piece of this pause with us (perhaps without the green bean casserole and stuffing) so that we don’t become removed from all that is here?

Today I bundled up and walked down to the river to just sit.  And sit I did for ½ hour, quieting my mind and letting the world pour in.  And I realized that this is a pause that I do weekly.  The day up to that point, and the walk down are filled with activity.  But then I just stop.  Completely stop.  And when an inner voice tells me I am done, I express gratitude, and then hit the play button of life.  But I enter back in with a calm and a broader view.  We all need these pauses, and not just at times of big events, holidays and illness.

So what is your pause button in daily life?  And do you hit it often enough?

Pausing to notice,

SARAH

Throat.......your vibration

Dear Yogis,

The Universe has an unusual sense of humor.  This week we began our classes on Vishuddha, the throat chakra, where we find our voice…………. and I completely lost mine.  During Tuesday’s classes my glands began to swell, my throat became sore and by the end my voice was deep, gravelly and hoarse.   By Thursday night I tried to be heard through loud whispers, and by Friday’s class I gave in completely and we just did a gentle flow.   Talking had become utterly exhausting.

But even though Vishuddha is about self expression and being authentic, its deeper meaning is in the silence.   And I was given, without necessarily asking, the chance to explore it.

 

The organ of action for the throat chakra isn’t the mouth or tongue.  It is the ears.  Listening.  Listening within. 

The majority of our speaking has a specific energy flow ….from the mind, out through the mouth.  From the mind, out through the mouth.  From the mind, out through the mouth.  Speaking what we “think”.   Letting others listen to what we “know”.  Filling the silence with the busy-ness of the mind.

But to speak with our authentic voice we must first get very quiet and go deep within – changing the direction of this energy flow.  Noticing (earth), uncovering our true desires (water), awakening passion (fire), opening the heart (air) and then radiating all of this through our out breath in words.  From the tailbones connection to earth, through our very center and out through the mouth.  From the tailbones connection to earth, through our very center and out through the mouth.   Speaking as “you” from the heart.   Honestly.  With courage.   With this kind of talking, there is a whole lot less of it. 

So this week as I tried to rest my voice I could watch.  I would only speak when something needed to be said.  And I worked on my vibration.

As beings of energy we have a vibration.  You know how you can tell when someone is behind you, often before hearing them?  Or you walk into a room and instantly know that someone is angry?  You can feel them.  Our vibration communicates, affects others, and leaves a mark on the places we go.  And the more you begin to lead life and speak from the heart, the higher your vibration will become.  Like the perfect circle I spoke of in my last post, you begin to radiate love, the highest vibration…. And you become a magnet. 

You can also actively send your vibration out!  Try it.  Your vibration is a form of self expression, as much as, or possibly more than your voice.  Close your eyes and find some part of “you”, the real you, that you  don’t typically let others see.    For me it is what I have always referred to as my “wildness”.   For others it might be your soft side,  your sensuality, your humor, or your grit.  Something deep inside that the “persona” you have built up on the outside, can’t really express.   “Feel” what it feels like.  Then energetically spread the whole front of the body wide open, drop your shoulders to give your throat a lot of space, and send it out through vibration.  If you are alone, there may even be a sound you let out with it.    The more you do this, over time the easier it will become to let that part of you “OUT” all the time. 

How freeing!  Aaaahhhhh………………….  Can you feel me?

Not needing to speak,

SARAH

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

            ~William Arthur Ward

Heart.....the perfect circle

Dear Yogis,

Begin as we always do.  Slow everything down and notice this moment. 

Notice your breath.  Notice your physical presence.  Notice the space that surrounds you and its sounds and sensations.  Feeling what it is like to be “you” right now.   Right here.  It never gets old, does it…..

Now bring your awareness to the space around your heart…..an inner bow…. And watch the breath flow like gentle waves over the heart.  This is our sacred space and if you get very still you will begin to notice that  it feels like no other space in the body.  The heart has a unique energy.  And it is quite powerful.

This is the home of our joy, our sorrow, bliss and grief.  It is also our space of love.

Love.  That elusive emotion.  Sometimes it charges at us with blinding force.  Other times it seems to slip away.  Sometimes just out of reach.  It can lift us to soaring peaks and wound us to our very core.  Sometimes smothering and other times so very comfortable.  But the one unifying thing about love is “we all want it”.  It is our most primal longing to be fulfilled.   But what is “it”?

Have you ever met someone in a random situation where your eyes locked and you felt like you had known them forever?  Where your conversation was immediately so comfortable and deep that you felt you could talk forever?  Where when it is time to separate it felt like two magnets being pulled apart?  That is one of the Universe’s way of giving us a glimpse of LOVE.  It is the seeing of the other’s soul through the window of their eyes.  LOVING them not for who they are, what they wear or what they look like, but because it is like talking to yourself. 

Most of the love we experience in life is personal love.  The love of our friends, family, homes, traditions……and it is beautiful and wonderful and provides us with support, warmth and joy.  But it contains some boundaries and limitations because it is the type of love that we seek from the outside.  The feeling that someone or something outside of us will “complete us”….. make us whole…make us happy.   That missing piece that when we find it, we will be full.  Like a pie with a missing slice.   Looking to be “loved”.   But when the piece no longer fits correctly, or our empty space shifts or changes, the love fade away.  It no longer serves us.  This is human nature. 

But the emotion we look to awaken in Anahata, the heart, is LOVE.  Unconditional, universal.  Vibrational.  It is spiritual and it is contained completely within you.   And when this is touched…when this is opened, it is like a volcano.  Limitless and filled with tremendous power and light.  Fulfilling….right out to the edges of your being,  becoming “complete” from within.  Needing nothing from without.   A perfect circle.  And because it is an ever flowing fountain, it can’t be contained within the artificial boundary of the skin – so you begin to emanate LOVE.   Not looking for love, but being LOVE.  ……and the more you give, the more you feel.

And from this space you can begin to see it in others.  Recognizing “you” in everyone.  All flowing from the same fountain. Feeling the other “complete” circles when your paths meet. 

LOVE is like coming home. 

"and think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course"
                          ~The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran)

But we must LOVE ourselves first, 

SARAH

 

Opening the heart.......through surrender

Dear Yogis,

That outpouring of gratitude I saw in all of the emails was incredible!  Couldn’t you just feel it through the PC?  Just imagine if you were standing close by….. Just imagine if we did that every day…..We are energy and we can build whatever it is that we desire! 

But don’t let it stop there.  Gratitude is a daily practice that becomes a way of life over time.  Creating a list of 10 each day gets it going.  Maybe sending them again to all of us.  Maybe falling asleep or waking up to them.  Maybe writing them daily in a journal.

Someone gives you a genuine hug….thank you Universe.  You receive an unexpected gift….thank you Universe.  As you open your eyes in the morning, the first image you see is fire red leaves against a brilliant blue sky….thank you Universe.   You host the 25^th  annual Lobsterfest dinner for 10 close friends who you only see once a year….thank you Universe.    And thank you especially for that much needed extra hour of sleep afterward!

 

Now the tougher one.   To open the heart, which is to have the ability to love others unconditionally, you must first love yourself.  Deeply love yourself.  Warts and all.  Successes and failures.  You must believe you are worthy.

So the practice this week is to create the quick list of  10 things about yourself that you are grateful for….  And read them aloud to yourself in the mirror.   This is not for the fainthearted….Why is it so much easier to be grateful for everyone else?  Why?

In the first 3 chakras of Earth, Water, and Fire, we noticed the vastness around us filled with pure potential, we turned on our sense of feeling to allow desire to rise, and then created the vision of how it will be once we have that which will fulfill us.    And we painted it on this blank canvas in front of us, projecting it out clearly into the world, and we see it daily with an unwavering focus…believing that we can and we will.

Now as we enter this 4^th chakra of the heart, Anahata, the unstruck chord, we are asked to surrender.    Just to surrender.  Trust.  Beginning here to move away from the physical-ness of our 3 lower energy centers, over the bridge of the heart, to our much more expansive, spiritual side, where all is possible.  Here we sense that there is more.  Much more.  Learning to  trust the unseen.  The universal energy that is so much bigger than us….yet not separate.  Moving from Me to We.   

This takes a loosening up on the reins.  This takes a “leap of faith”.    Leaving doubt and worry behind.  Closing your eyes and falling back into the arms of the Universe with utter trust. 

“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”

                ~Rabindranath Tagore

Aaaahhhhh………………

SARAH

 

 

 

Gratitude......every day

Yogis,

First – stop whatever you are doing right now.  Stop completely…….. Notice this moment.   Now close your eyes and take 3 slow mindful breaths.     Changes things, doesn’t it!

 

These two weeks we are working with the energy of the heart.  And gratitude is one of the most important practices here. 

 

So each day spend a moment coming up with a quick list of 10 things you are thankful for.   Written, spoken or thought….doesn’t matter.  Just have them come directly from the heart (not the things you think you are supposed to be thankful for).  Then give a quick thanks to the Universe!
 

Here is my list for today:

·         Seeing the sun return

·         The vivid colors outside

·         My yoga

·         The special piece of cactus that Molly gave me

·         My breath

·         Deer

·         My neighbor Danny

·         The beautiful shelf that Paul made for me

·         Watching a small songbird bathing in the water pooled on the grill cover

·         All of you

 Anyone else want to share yours?

The more gratitude you share with the Universe, the more of life’s joys will flow back.

Grateful,

SARAH