In the quiet meditative moments with myself, I fall in love with myself with a true inner intimacy. In sitting, breathing and stretching into a posture..I stretch into my body, into my deepest being. I experience myself fully and feel fully alive, from a peaceful place within.
I practice a slower meditative yoga...the same way I have taught it too. To find and resonate with the still place within myself. We all have it. I have found that slowing down is where I meet spirit, the universe, or God. Each soul has different experience of the oneness of all.
When I first started teaching yoga I was told that my teachings were too advanced because people wanted to just 'do yoga' without slowing down, without diving deeper within, without unwinding the emotions, fears and dreams stored in body/mind.
How is that yoga I thought?
Yoga is union. The unity of mind, body, spirit. How can you have union when you are working to just do it? Unwinding the body is more than simply doing a stretch. It's about unwinding from the deepest place within yourself, and it takes being still to get there.
Yet...there is no one right way I have realized. Each person will gravitate towards whatever path their heart calls for.
I have found that slow meditative yoga gets me in the space to slowly feel into my body in a profound way. Sometimes I am feeling into my pain, my fear or doubts. Sometimes I am simply feeling into my joy and love. It is possible to commune with my muscles, tissue, cells in such a way that I can slowly expand myself through all of it. I can move into the moment and feel every ounce of it. I think of it as the soul of the moment.
In my 10+ years of being a massage therapist I have noticed how difficult it is for many to be still within themselves, because usually they are avoiding uncomfortable feelings within and usually aren't aware of it.
Awareness is the key to unlocking an inner portal of tremendous bliss.
During my yoga practice, many times, I have experienced that simply being present with the more difficult emotions can be powerful tools for transforming them. There is something magical about being with the pain or fear from a place of acceptance. It allows the moment to unfold organically. With a quiet stillness the more difficult emotions can actually be consciously stretched through and moved out. Or in others words, they can be processed and let go of.
And on the other side of that, is that bliss I just mentioned. When we aren’t resisting, we are open to an incredible flow of life force energy. That energy feels good.
When we slow down, we see more, we feel more and we can actually BE with ourselves more.
We spend so much time living outside of ourselves. So much time up in our heads and not in our bodies.
Yoga can teach us to traverse our inner landscape and teach us to be with ourselves from the inside out.
It can teach us to get out of our heads. Using our body to synch into our vibrant beings. This is the place where we meet our inner beauty and feel the shine of our soul.
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