Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Your Yes



Your Yes 

The fruit of a tree begins with a blossom. Your next fruitful act begins with a thought.
Thoughts lead the way and open gates, or deepen the existing valley being walked in.
Yogis understand this creating and deepening of channels with the term, samskara.

Three years ago in my online Penzu journal I wrote about what I was inviting in to my thought and life structure with these short lines addressed to myself and to others:

What is the narrative that you are playing today?
We each have one, some dominant, others subordinate or alternative. 
What are you living and giving permission to?

Another way of seeing this self inquiry is asking yourself about what you are acknowledging and thus strengthening with your “yes”.  What are you giving a yes to?
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A Deeper Dive

To deepen times of integrating self inquiry as a practice schedule in “down time”. It might be a half day a week, or a full weekend per month.

Occasional periods of silence allow us to surround ourselves with stillness which makes it easier for us to then develop greater harmony within. Just thinking about the amount of stimulation that we have in just one day will help us realize that we have so many things that divert our attention from ourselves. Being able to take a break from these things, though, enables us to slow down and relax, which in turn makes time expand for us, adding a new dimension to the way we live and experience our lives. By staying at home and carving a peaceful space for yourself today you will discover that peace always lies within you. Daily Om
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Find A Quote Each Day that Will Open Your Heart, Mind, and Path

"Love enough to let wisdom lead the way."
 - Lama Surya Das

Thursday, January 3, 2019


You Are Enough

Just being here, being ourselves, is enough.

Most of us have the feeling that we are here to accomplish something big in our lives, and if we haven't done something that fits the bill we may feel as if we are waiting. We may feel incomplete, or empty, as if our lives don't yet make sense to us, because they don't line up with our idea of major accomplishment. In some cases, this may be because we really are meant to do something that we haven't yet done. But in most cases, we can let ourselves off the hook with the realization that just being here, being ourselves, is enough.

As we live our lives in this world, we share our energy and our spirit with the people around us in numerous ways. Our influence touches their lives and, through them, touches the lives of many more people. When we strive to live our lives to the fullest and to become our true selves, we are doing something big on an inner level, and that is more than enough to make sense of our being here on this planet at this time. There is no need to hold ourselves to an old idea in the back of our minds that we need to make headlines or single-handedly save the world in order to validate our existence.

We can each look within our hearts to discover what is true for us, what gives our lives meaning, and what excites us. We can release ourselves from any pressure to perform that comes from outside of our inner sense of purpose. Staying in tune with our own values and living our lives in tune with our own vision is all we need in order to fulfill our time here. Our lives are a process of becoming so that we cannot help but cocreate; being who we are, responding to each moment as it comes, we can trust that this is enough
A Daily Om post
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This from Jacci Gruniger in Santa Fe, NM: 

This year I am working with these mantras:

I AM enough
There IS enough
I HAVE enough



See more at  www.yogawithjacci.com 

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"Falling in love with yourself is as beautiful as any experience of love is. It's learning to laugh at your awkward tendencies and smile at all your quirky habits. It's learning to be grateful for the many sides you have - confident, crazy, shy, sexy, nerdy, angry, weird, and all the rest of them. It is realizing that you're one of a kind and that you deserve to give the world the best person you can be. Falling in love with yourself is being happy in your life and knowing that in this one moment in time, you're beautiful simply because you are you."     - Kovie Biakolo
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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  - Maya Angelou
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“Every time we ask a good question, we’re generating a fresh possibility and a new way of seeing our life.”  — Jen Louden
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“Slow Yoga: Musings from the Beginning of the Bell Curve”
See the writing by Kaoverii - Sublte Yoga

Good Yoga = Fast and Strenuous Yoga
(How do you answer that?)

 But cultural speed comes at a price – it creates a myriad of stress and meaninglessness induced illness and dysfunction. as J. Krishnamurti said:

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Not that fast strenuous exercise doesn’t have its benefits, of course it does. But when speed and productivity become the primary goal of yoga and reinforce toxic cultural values, then it becomes problematic. The antidote to our caffeinated culture gets devoured by that culture.  

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Here are a set of new themes for some of your yoga practices:

"MOTION IS LOTION"
“Movement is medicine.”
“Gentle is the new advanced.”
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My meditation teacher from Kripalu was, and is, Jonathan Foust.  You can visit his website at
 https://www.jonathanfoust.com/.  He lives with his wife, Tara Brach (also a meditation teacher, see https://www.tarabrach.com/) in the Washington, DC area. Jonathan likes to get out in his kayak and take photos of the wildlife. He has put together a great five minute review of the area wildlife of last year and is posted on youtube.  The back ground music is him playing his meditative flute.   See - Riverbend Park Images, 2018 by Jonathan Foust

His annual self review questions at the beginning of a new year is asking himself –

What Worked?
What Didn’t Work?
What’s Calling Me Now?
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Perhaps your inner guru is inviting in the Essence and Energy of
Patience / Courage / Insight

Let us all slow down in 2019 and see what is really here!