How do you want to feel?
Lessons From the Mat- How do you want to feel? (written in 2015)
I recently went to a workshop with one of my favorite teachers, Desiree Rumbaugh. It has been a few years since I have taken one of her workshops, and it felt really good to hear her and learn from her again. She asked us this question: "what do you really want?" She used our yoga practice to show a relationship between our yoga practice and how we move about our lives. Her example was..."why do I want to be able to keep doing handstands into my later years of life?" The answer for her is- "because it makes me feel better." The questions then arise- why do we do what we do? What makes us truly happy? What do we really want? How do we want to feel every day?
Instead of looking to the outside of yourself- instead of seeing the outer trappings of your "success"- can you look inside and discover what it is you really want to feel? Does being able to do handstand mean you are truly happy and successful? Or is it merely a superficial pursuit? You can apply this question to everything. So I ask you...
Will losing a bunch of weight make you happy, or will being happy help you lose weight?
Will having a bunch of money make you happy or could being happy actually bring more money to you?
The word happy is just my "fill in the blank" word. I ask you to put the answer to that question- what you really want- into that spot.
When you take that to the yoga mat, you can explore how moving and acting from your inner strength- the core muscles and you inner wisdom- can help you achieve a more therapeutic expression of the pose. It might not be a handstand, but you can make all the actions leading up to it with all the right alignment and still get the benefits- both physical and mental benefits- of a handstand.
A great way to help you cultivate what you really want is to do life affirming practices every day. This will get you accustomed to making positive changes and lead to great results with time and effort. A simple place to start is with basic dietary adjustments.
The following lifestyle action that you can do daily comes from Ayurveda, which is the "science of life" that is used by yogis to improve health and well being. My hope is that by adding this practice you will see the benefits of making small little changes to your day to lead you in the direction of feeling the way you want to feel every day.
Every morning, after you scrape your tongue and before you brush your teeth, drink a big glass of warm water with a quarter to half a lemon or lime if you are feeling a little hot (or might have heartburn like symptoms) squeezed into it. It's that simple... making this a habit is the challenging part of it. This is meant to help rehydrate the body after a long dehydrating night.
If you want to learn more about how yoga and Ayurveda can help you discover and achieve what you are really wanting out of your life send an email to set up a quick 20 minute introduction to yoga and Ayurveda to alignagain@yahoo.com
Photo credit Elena Kloppenburg