Back to Meditation!

 

Yogis,

It’s that time of year – Back to School! 


 

Everyone I talked to this week was either sending their kindergartner off to their very first day of school, watching their 14 year old get ready to enter that seemingly massive world of high school, or driving their 18 year old (who appeared so grown up during senior year and now seems so small) to be dropped off into the new life that college brings.   While others said goodbye to their last one, then returning home to the empty nest, and a new life of their own.  Lots of smiles, nervousness, excitement and tears. 

September brings back routine, activities, homework and that hint of fall in the air.  Fall is the season of air.  The slow laid back pace of summer quickly shifts to a chock full calendar.  And with this change of seasons can come a sense of hurriedness.  A feeling that our feet are no longer rooted to earth. 

So I too am launching a back to  school for all of us……. Back to Meditation!

 

 

Many of us virtually meditated together through the month of March in March Madness Meditation.  It has been 6 months since then.   So for those who didn’t participate, perhaps it’s time to give it a try and learn something new.  And for those that did it may be a good time to recharge your practice, or simply deepen it with the strength of a meditation community!

So here is my “school curriculum”:

Dates:                  Entire month of September

Frequency:         Every Single Day

Time:                   Minimum of 10 minutes daily (everyone has 10 minutes…everyone)

Where:                In your home – or wherever life has taken you

How:                    Emails will be sent daily with suggestions, inspirations and different techniques

Who:                    All of us!  Creating our own community to share questions, ideas and discoveries

Everyone has heard the benefits of meditation – reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, increases concentration, improves focus, builds empathy and calms the nervous system.  Science is even beginning to prove it (although hopefully you would take my word for it!)  Most have said “I should meditate”.    Here is your chance to do it virtually, but with the support of a like minded group.

So let me know if you want to join in!    All I need is an email and you will be put on my Back to Meditation email DL with a lot more info to follow!  And please invite any family or friends who you think may like this, or may benefit.  I would just need their emails!

Send me a note at sarah@serenitycircleyoga.com! 

It takes a month to make something a habit,

SARAH

I STILL want to feel it all........

Aaahhhhhh…….Feeling yogis,

So this week I worked on feeling it all.  I realized that it isn’t just something we can say we want, sit back  and hope that it happens.  That is called wishing.  I want to manifest it in my life. To make it how I live.  I want to continually move closer to feeling it all…..

 

 

So here is how my week went!

Step 1 – Lots and lots of breath.   And then more breath.  Breath makes you feel.  Breath awakens the body.  The more breath, the more life.  So we worked with the three part breath.  We have 3 distinct sets of breathing muscles – belly diaphragmatic breathing, rib cage thoracic breathing and finally upper chest heart opening breath.  We need all 3 in order to breathe with the entire body. 

So we took long slow 3 part inhales. The belly breathing connects us to earth, grounds us and awakens sensation and desire.   Then the thoracic breath pulls it up, giving it some fire, strength and forward movement.  While the final upper chest breath spreads the heart wide open and turns on our feelings of love and compassion.    And the complete exhale…..like a rolling pin down the front of the body releasing out ALL of the breath, and with it anything we no longer need. 

Wonderful to practice this while lying on your back with knees bent.  I demonstrated this in class but would love to have all of you practicing it with me!  So if anyone knows someone who would be willing to videotape me doing it so I can post it, please let me know. 

Step 2 – Time with nature.  Go outside.  A lot.  Barefoot.  Sit still and just notice.  And the longer you sit very still, the more you will notice.  It is as if the world opens itself up to you, revealing its innermost secrets.

 

This weekend I tried to be outside for every moment possible since it was so gorgeous.  Yesterday I spent most of the day in my garden enjoying time with Bunny Rabbit, chipmunk, hummingbird, butterflies and almost every type of bee you can imagine.   I slept out in my tent and soaked in the moon beams that were shining down on me throughout the night. I awakened to all of my gourd blossoms in full bloom welcoming in another beautiful day – and the return of every type of bee you can imagine. 

Step 3 – Movement.  Yoga. Walks.  And Rockin!!!  Nothing like Boston’s “Smokin” in the middle of yoga classes this week at peak volume to get us all moving!  And whether you enjoyed it, felt self conscious, rocked to it, or wished it would go away – you must admit you felt something…… 

For some reason dancing with abandon like that made me giggle.  Every time I practiced this week – both in and out of class – when the song ended I broke into a true, out loud belly laugh (if anyone walked in on me during the day they would have thought I was crazy – but I am used to that now).   And I noticed that surrendering yourself to the beat leads to an incredible sense of relaxation at the end of class.  Did you all feel that?

Step 4 – Try not to think so darn much……   Less thinking and more being.  Everything at this moment is exactly as it is supposed to be so don’t struggle against it.    And whatever it is that you want to manifest in your life, see it and feel it.  Live as if it is already here.  And voila!  It will be. 

 

The combination and accumulation of sensations from steps 1-4.....feels awesome.

I love you Bunny Rabbit!

 

I love you all too!

SARAH

I want to feel it all.......

Yogis,

Just back from the final beach vacation of 2013.  A week of simply doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to.  Walks, books, yoga, friends, ice cream and several beach naps. 

Those of you who have been to the beach with me know my ability to lay out my towel, place myself in the prone position and within 3 minutes, slip into a deep restful sleep.   And I can do this even with everyone around me, coolers being opened for fresh beers and an occasional yell across me from someone directing a beach activity.  But this week we were alone and at one point, the only truck on the beach and I slept….and slept….and slept.  Heavy.  For 2 hours!  It felt magnificent. 

My body creating a mold of itself in the sand.  A warm sun on my back, filtered by a cool breeze.  With the steady rhythm of the waves, not only heard but felt.  Earth and water.  Letting go into a giant exhale. 

Rehoboth Tower

Last Friday I was out of town, so it had been two weeks since my “time for me”.   A challenging yoga class, tapas and a couple of beers at Jaleo.  Back home in my room, windows open, candles lit, music on.  I start to move and it happens.  Every time. 

I realized that this time each week is like connecting to my inbox of mail from the Universe.  And since it had been two weeks, there was a lot of mail!  Message after message pours in.  Not at all unlike what happens when you connect to your inbox from work after having been away for a week – but a whole lot more fun and fulfilling.  And the only reply needed to any of them is a simple thank you.   It felt magnificent.

Let me ask you a question.   Which would be your desire right now - to think more, or would you choose to feel more? 

And if you chose to feel more, would you want it to be deep or shallow?

I know I for one, want to feel it all…..

I was reading a book this week that made me alternate between laughing out loud, and sobbing (enough that suntan lotion was dripping into my eyes).    At times I would have to stop to let the words settle into my bones (and squeeze my eyes shut to stop the stinging).   My husband was having a hard time understanding why I would choose a book that made me cry.  For me, that is what I want a book to do……make me feel.   Not entertain me, but move me. 

This is also why I dance.  Not night club type dancing or learned steps, but letting my body surrender to the music.  We have to move in order to feel.  Our bodies are warehouses of everything that has happened, not only to ourselves but to our ancestors.  It has ancient wisdom that we can unearth by simply beginning to sway.   And the more we do it, the more we drop the idea of how we are supposed to dance, the more we let go into it…..the more we feel.    The more mail shows up in our inbox.  And it feels awesome. 

But I also noticed that I have certain things I still prefer not to feel.  Fear being one of them.    I don’t choose scary books, and tend to decline offers of things that make me nervous.  I don’t like to be scared.  However, to live from the feeling mind, to feel it all, we cannot pick and choose.  So fear is the one that I am consciously beginning to move toward in order to feel it more fully.   

We are not who we “think” we are.  We are who we “feel” we are.  So make sure the feeling mind is being given plenty of opportunity to be opened, challenged, expanded and experienced.   When you make the shift you will know because there is no longer the urge to hurry.  Everything slows way down because we are truly present.   Each moment becomes huge and there is so much you can do in each and every one.  It feels satisfying. 

My garden bunny is now my daily friend, coming to my whistle and sitting by my side to eat bird seed.  Our time together feels spectacular!

I want to go deep,

SARAH

Spreading my wings

Yogis,

I sat down this evening and began writing on a completely different topic, but it didn’t feel right.  It didn’t put words to my experiences of this past week.  The topic didn’t feel authentic.  It wasn’t the one that the Universe was asking me to write…….

What keeps coming to me is that it is time again to spread my wings!

This was a week of what many would refer to as coincidences, but what I refer to as signs from the Universe. 

It began with the one I sent out to many of you.   The daily email that I receive from “Notes to the Universe” which had the exact same words – including quotation marks- that I had just written the day before in my I Am Perfect post (8/4). 

No more "supposed tos," OK, Sarah?

You're not supposed to work harder, look better, sleep less, sell more, run faster, talk slower, be happier, stay longer, leave earlier, cook, clean, negotiate, settle, start, stop, move, try, win, shake, rattle or roll.

Other people made all that up.

I love you the way you are,
    The Universe

Huh.  Isn’t that interesting.  But they didn’t stop there. 

I hadn’t heard any updates in over a month on a deal I had priced so I emailed the rep for a status.  What I hear back is “That actually closed today!  Is that just a coincidence that you are asking?”

The book I am reading happens to eerily mirror a sorrowful event we experience this week as a family.   A book I had not heard of, but had just read about is lying right at the edge of a bookcase in a friend’s room where I stayed.   There is a  new project that I keep feeling drawn to do, but am a little scared to jump in to.  But it is validated when a friend unknowingly makes a statement with conviction to another friend that my project is going to come to pass – and I had never even told her I was thinking it. 

And they kept coming. 

I taught a Goddess workshop to a beautiful group of women yesterday and during our practice I spoke to the ability to create anything you want by having a vision that you see clearly every day with an unwavering focus - but then having the complete and utter faith that it will manifest.   I had us spread our arms wide to plant the vision in the clear open space in front of us and see it clearly.   As we brought our hands back to our hearts the next words in the song were – Do you believe what you see?  Now that one brought us all shivers.   And as I left there that evening for my drive to the beach I again listened to that song and as those words played I glanced out my car window to a large billboard towering over me that read ……The Right Song at the Right Moment. 

So.  What do these mean?  Why do they happen?  How are we supposed to respond.    

The Universe is always communicating with us, and we hear it when we are listening.  Always.  But sometimes they are just little whispers in the ear.  Maybe slight adjustments that may be needed.  Words of encouragement.  Or little wake up calls when we start to lead life from the brain.  The Universe is our higher consciousness speaking and it has beautiful sound advice for us, if we choose to follow.

Then there are those times where they come at you  in greater numbers.  All just seeming to be a pat on the back that the path we are on is right for us at that time.  Like a high five.  Way to go.  Just keeping doing what you are doing.  Or even the opposite.  That those obstacles we keep encountering are telling us it’s time to turn in another direction.  That there is a better path.

But then there are times like the one that I appear to be having right now, where they come at you in rapid fire succession.   Where you can sense some message is in there.  That is time to take action.   Time to spread your wings!

So…..I asked to borrow the book that leaped out at me in my friend’s house,  I will continue to spread the teachings of the Goddess and I will use this winter to submerge myself into my new project.   And perhaps there is even more.   I will continue to listen.  Living this way is both a little scary, but oh so exciting. 

Finally….I wrote to one of my sons this week to tell him how incredibly proud I am of him.  I don’t often do that type of thing, but I felt drawn to put my thoughts down to share them.   As I sat on the beach this afternoon to read the end of my book, here is what the woman who is close to dying had to say:

 

“You should tell your family every day that you love them.  And make sure they know you are proud of them too”

Wow.

Shivers and tears,

SARAH

I am perfect

Yogis,

This week we exhaled.  And exhaled some more.  Classes felt to me like one gigantic exhale as we flowed over and over with breath.  So relaxing.   Amazing what breath can do…..

In life we need these exhales planted within every single day.  Those times each day that you stop what you are “supposed to be doing” (although I am not exactly sure who is telling us what we are supposed to be doing – but that’s for another day), step off the treadmill and be with whatever brings you inner peace.  They can be 5 minute barefoot walks in the grass, a 3 minute dance to your favorite song, a ½ hour soak in the tub or an hour long yoga asana practice.  The amount of time is not important, but the doing it is.

For me it is my morning meditation, my yoga practice at lunch, my weekly walk to the river and my wander through the garden at the end of the day.  And each time I do any of them my mind shifts from the thinking mind to the feeling mind.  Another world entirely.  And when I get back on the treadmill of daily life I am refreshed and ready.  So what are yours?  Do you make time for them?  Every day?  If not, why?

So as I exhaled my way through this past week, someone reminded me of something which I had forgotten……

I am perfect.

So simple…..   I am perfect.  In fact, we are all perfect. 

Now many of you may have the reaction that this sounds quite egotistical.  Who the heck does she think she is?  But it is actually the opposite.  To believe that we are imperfect is to say that the Universe, God, or the great mystery created us as flawed.  That somehow we know better and can “fix” ourselves.  Now that takes a big ego.  But it is all in how you uncover your perfection.

It isn’t “I AM PERFECT” said with the chest puffed and in a loud authoritative voice, indicating that I am somehow better than others.  Instead it is simply “I am perfect” said from the heart with openness and gratitude. 

You are perfect.  The “you” is your innermost soul, unchangeable and filled with light.   The messiness on the outside is just our human-ness, and will never be perfect, nor is it meant to be.  It is just called life and is the playground for our soul to take pleasure in.

At yoga class the other night we had a substitute teacher.  At the end of class she thanked us all for being there and  then the following just tumbled out of her with a huge smile –“ Thank you for letting me be me.  That is why I love this job so much!”.  It is those times that we feel free to be our true selves that feel the most perfect.  Where everything fits and we feel limitless.

It takes strength to recognize your perfection.  It can feel uncomfortable.  That somehow we are unworthy.  But the perfection is there and is patiently waiting to be embraced and shared.  And the more you begin to see your own perfection, the more often you will look into someone else’s eyes and feel a strange sense that you know them from somewhere.    It is simply the other’s perfection reminding you of yours. 

I am perfect.  You are perfect.  Now that calls for a big exhale…….

I see you,

SARAH

We don't exhale enough........

Yogis,

Take a moment to simply observe your breath.  What happens on the inhale?  What words would you use to describe it?  What about the exhales?  How do they make you feel?  How do they differ from each other?

Lately I have noticed that we have become  a world filled with inhaling…....with not nearly enough exhaling.

 

As a baby we enter the world with that very first magnificent drawing in of life through our breath.    The inhale.  The taking in, expanding, growing and filling.  Breathing in all of the joy and opportunity that life has to offer.

Our childhood and busy young adult lives are represented by the inhale.  The waxing moon, reaching its peak when full.  The lengthening days that fill the space between the winter and summer solstice, providing us steadily increasing light by which more can be done.   The time each day from the approaching dawn until that point in the late afternoon when you can feel that downward shift of energy which signals the march toward dusk.

The inhale allows us to move forward in our careers, buy houses to fill with children and  beautiful things, expand our talents and run fast.  It is the receiving…..the taking in.

But with breath, just as with everything in life there is the necessary opposite flow….the exhale.  The letting go.  But many  of us have lost touch with this amazing friend that we have right inside.

Our world is filled with so much intensity and so many possibilities, that it becomes tempting to inhale, inhale, inhale.  Go. Go. Go.   More. More. More. That feeling of always having to stay “one step in front of” the other person, the to do list, or  the next big sale.  The fear of exhaling perhaps because it may be seen as a form of weakness.  Of not trying hard enough.  We have somehow all been convinced that more is better (think about that for a moment), and it is the inhale that will bring it to us.  Forward motion.

But the consistent inhaling of our society is taking its toll.   Sleeplessness is rampant.  Stiff necks, upset stomachs, locked jaws and an ever increasing numbers of those with heart disease.   We live in a world filled with stress and when we chest breathe and inhale more than we exhale, we invite it in and serve it tea.  And once it has settled in and gotten comfortable there, eventually it will show itself to you in the form of an ache, pain or illness.  

Luckily for all of us, we have the best prescription there is within us at all times……..the exhale.  Long, slow, complete, relaxing exhales.   But you have to practice!   Exhaling completely.   Exhaling more.  Way past the point where you normally stop.  Emptying.  Notice how after just a few of them your mind slows and muscles soften. 

I just returned from a week at the beach with a group of about 40 friends (no we don’t stay in one house!).   On vacations we eventually begin to exhale more so that by the end of the week everyone even looks slightly different.  The shoulders drop down from the ears.  The lips soften and the hands relax.   And I noticed that when we exhale more there is a lot more laughing/giggling/general silliness and dancing.  Yes!

So my message is not to step out of life or to take a permanent vacation.  But simply to exhale more.  We can allow the stress to come in with the inhale as long as we show it to the door  with the exhale.   Moving forward, but remembering to also step back to observe.   Bringing new in, but being sure to let the old go at the same rate, or life becomes much too crowded.  Everything should flow through us without the need to attach and hold on.  

Flowing in…..flowing out.   Be aware.  Exhale more.  You will be glad you did.

Giggling until my sides ached,

SARAH

Do you know truth when you see it?

Yogis,

Hot enough for you!  Whew!  Slows you way down and gets that sweat pouring.  Everything in the garden and behind my house now feels so full and alive.  Summer has definitely arrived…..  and with it, my butterfly weed.

 

Last week I spoke to the first of the yamas.  Ahimsa.  In its simplest sense, non violence, but so much deeper.  We are truly living ahimsa when the desire to harm is no longer present.  Where the very idea of causing injury is inconceivable.  Treating everything and everyone as sacred – including ourselves.  This is the bedrock of the yogic path.

Now we move to the second yama.  Satya.  Truth. 

Truth.  Well that’s a little simpler isn’t it?  Or is it.   The more I sat this week with the concept of truth and the concept of living from a place of truth, the more complex it has become. 

Once again we have the simple definition.  Not lying.  Not exaggerating, boasting or speaking things that are untrue.  Pretty basic, but that all assumes we have clarity as to what is true.    So ask yourself,  what is true?

Now it’s not that I believe most people walk around deliberately lying.  But we tend to speak what we “believe” to be true and that differs for each of us.   We all have our perceptions and our newest talk track often depends on what we heard on the news that morning, or what someone “told us”.  Our upbringing, economic status, physical abilities and emotional state each put their own angle on how we perceive life.  Our different lens that we view life from  give all of us a slightly distorted view.  Like viewing life through a kaleidoscope. 

A book that I just finished happened to have a paragraph that talked about the word truth.  It said that the words truth and tree both originally come from the same root word.  So truth is simply a deeply rooted belief.    But these can change as our life situation changes, or we mature, or there are new “findings”.  What we clung to as truth no longer fits and we shift. 

The world is flat.  Oh no, sorry it is round.  Low fat is the best diet.  Oh gosh sorry, we need fat so eat plenty of avocados and nuts.  Stay out of the sun.  Darn, what we really meant is get at least 10 minutes a day to keep your vitamin D up.   And so on. 

So back to my original question……what is true?    How can we live from a place of truth?

I searched further and I found one definition of truth that began to make some sense to me.  “Truth is that which is unchangeable.”  Now that begins to feel right.   

So I have been asking the Universe what are those things that are true, that are unchangeable.  The one that keeps coming back to me is “spirit” or “self”.  I talk often to how we are each one unique spark of the universal energy.  And we are each perfect.  We are ALL born open, loving and special and it is only life’s layering on us that causes us to question that.  But that inner self, the one that you can feel and touch when you close your eyes and go inward, that part that feels exactly the same now as it did when you were 8 years old – that never changes.  That is your place of  truth.

Yoga is a journey that helps us peel back the layers of life to reconnect and live again from that space.  I can say that every time I finish my daily meditation or my asana practice, I feel closer to truth then I did when I started.  But then it slips away.  So I do it over and over and over.  Inching my way closer and closer to source. 

The other times I feel truth knocking on my door is when I am connected to nature, music or writing.  These are the times I am the most present.  Where I shift from the thinking mind to the feeling mind.   I don’t believe that the thinking mind is capable of deciphering  truth for us, nor is it meant to.  Satya is felt in the body.

I have a baby bunny living in my backyard who spends most of her day in my garden.  The other night when I went out she hopped right over and let me take her picture.  The love and connection I felt with her at that moment was satya.  How could you possibly look into those eyes and not see truth…..

I see each and every one of you,

SARAH