Acceptance Leads to Peace

One of the things that I love about yoga is that it grows in your life as you grow with it. It evolves off of the mat and penetrates every area of your life if you allow it. I find that the lessons I am learning are often not even deliberate. My most current and active observation is that of acceptance. I find that after three years of being an instructor, I have learned to accept my body and it's limitations on the mat. This ability has then spilled over to other areas like how I view myself in the mirror and how I view myself in relationships.

It's very freeing to me to be able to accept who I am and know that maybe even that aspect that I accept can be freed up to become different. I accept my weight. I accept my flexibility. I accept my abilities and strength. That doesn't mean that I can't work to make them different. But this time, with the acceptance their is peace rather than condemnation and judgement. There is the freedom to be who I am and there is freedom to grow into something different.

So, here's to acceptance. I challenge you, reader, to find something in your life that you do not like about you and see if you can release yourself of some of the judgement and condemnation that stifles. I guarantee you that you will love the feeling of acceptance. Let that discipline be an active part of your practice both on and off the mat.

What a week

As I am 9 weeks post partum after a fantastic surrogacy, my body is going through LOTS of changes! The pregnancy was not easy on me (you can read about it in my surrogacy blog link on the right) and my last trimester was filled with aches, pains, swelling and bed rest. So, my yoga body seems to be buried deep inside, and it has been painful but pleasurable bringing it out!

The pregnancy induced carpel tunnel and tendentious in my wrists and an undiagnosed issue has also been my feet and ankles. This is thankfully getting better, but slowly. My most treasured ability is to be able to flow through Chaturanga Dandasana. I say flow through because I am not able to hold it, but to even come down from Down Dog, to Plank and Chaturanga is like visiting a long lost friend. My body yearns for yoga and I am eager to get lean and strong so that I can practice as I have in the past. As I hold plank, I have a little fear that my wrists will lock or give out, but the over riding sensation is of delight. Delight in the effort, delight in the surrender and delight in the opening. Aaaahhhhh.

And as I have been gone from my teaching so much and so many great teachers stepped in to cover my classes for me, I feel compelled to accept their subbing requests now that I am able. That meant that last week I subbed four on top of my already scheduled five classes. This might not be a lot of classes for some yoga instructors, but for me, coming out of giving birth for the 5th time and now at the age of 36, it it was an exhausting week! Good, but exhausting.

So, this week will not be as busy as I only am subbing two classes and I look forward to my personal practice growing. I find it interesting that at home, I am now enjoying Rodney Yee's DVDs. To be able to just plug in a video and follow rather than creating a practice is such a nice treat.

Welcome to my Yoga blog

Here I invite you to communicate and share your thoughts on my posts. This will be my place to be me and just talk to the virtual yoga (and more) community. I will share about my career as a yoga instructor, studio manager, and simply a modern day yogini. The life we live in is far removed from the lives of original yogi of thousands of years ago. How do we practice the discipline of detachment? What of withdrawal, and more?