my body is amazing.

My body, is AMAZING.  This is a recent realization of mine.  Do my thighs rub together? Yup. Are my shoulders a little too broad?  I tend to think so.  Could i lose 5-10 pounds?  Probably.  But i'm not talking about how amazing I look.  I'm talking about how amazing my body is.

For pretty much my whole teenage into adult life, like so many women, I have struggled with body image and self-love.  I am never good enough for myself, and always striving to change the way I look, in hopes to attain some image I have created over time through comparing myself to what I think looks better than me. 

Recently I started with a new yoga therapy client and I was reviewing my notes in going over what our next session was going to cover.  We are focusing on a lot of breath work, bringing the nervous system and the endocrine system into balance through education and alignment of the Chakras.  As I was reading my notes I came across something I had written down:

"Our bodies know where they want to be, and what they need, but it's our thoughts that often get in our way of actually listening."

You know how there are some books that you can just learn something new every time you read it, depending on where you are in your life?  That is what the above quote is for me.  I know that is true, on an intellectual level, but when I read it this week, something else clicked on an emotional level and something major shifted in my heart.

I realized in reading that quote, in my own notes, in my own handwriting, that my body has ALWAYS told me what it needs.  She tells me when I'm tired, hungry, need to go to the bathroom.  She tells me when I need a hug, or when I need to be alone.  She tells me when I need chocolate, or when I need vegetables.  She tells me when I need to back off and chill out, or if I can push a little harder and be safe.  This body that I have been blessed with, tells me EVERYTHING I need to know, about how to take care of myself; and she is ALWAYS right.

The other piece to this realization, is connection.  I realized that I ALWAYS listen to my body and feed her what she asks for.  I eat generally healthy, I sleep at least 8 hours a night, I drink a lot of water, I exercise, and I chill out.  I only do these things because my body asks me to do them (in no particular order).  I rarely get sick.  I don't typically have mood swings.  If I'm feeling out of balance, my body always tells me what i need to come back to balance.

So, in this moment of realization, I grew conscious of this deep connection I have with my body.  From this consciousness sprouted a deep appreciation for how she never lets me down in telling me what I need.  I had a brief moment of sadness for how mean I have been to myself, mentally/emotionally.  And when the sadness passed, I just felt so deeply grateful to have made this connection at all.  This week, I have stopped "feeling fat" or "wishing my arms were more tone" or thinking these self-deprecating thoughts, because I am so deeply grateful to not only have a body that is fully functional, but a body that is so full of infinite wisdom.  As long as I listen to her, I am set with everything I need to live a full, healthy, and happy life.

So my hope, is as conscious humans, we can shift the meaning of what an "amazing body" is.  Right now, it's so superficial and material.  But what is yoga, if not finding that deep internal connection to Self?  We can come together in support of these functional, amazing bodies we are blessed with, to appreciate all that they do for us!  They breathe for us, they remember things our minds forget, and most of all they tell us what we need to stay balanced, and live a healthy happy life.

This is the most liberating, incredible feeling to have, after feeling trapped by my own self-conscious, negative thoughts that I never seemed to be able to escape. 

My body is AMAZING, and I am so deeply grateful.  Thank you for reading <3 p="">
Love & Light,
Sarah

Is Yoga a Popularity Contest?

We all want to be seen by another, and by each other.  We seek validation in the thoughts and words of others because it is part of the human experience.  We are social beings who want to be loved.  When we don’t receive the validation we are looking for in one another, we look for it other ways: the right car, the right house, the right clothes, etc.

I am 100% responsible for all of these feelings and searching’s myself.  Just because I am writing this blog, doesn’t make me exempt from any of this.  But I recently came to an acceptable understanding with myself that made me want to share. 

Ever since I moved to the Boston area, my intention was to become a well-known yoga teacher that people seek out to practice with and want to write articles about.  I completed my training in 2010, and started on this journey to yoga-fame.  Little did I know, that within 6 months of my completion to training, that basically every person I knew started quitting their “real jobs” to become a holistic wellness person, or a damn yoga teacher.  All of a sudden, this field felt competitive, and like I had to move fast to get good classes, even if they weren’t ones that were aligning with what I believe yoga to be.

After teaching in the Boston area for a few years, I still felt a little bit like a nobody.  I always thought that being a yoga teacher would be so glamorous, because there is a style of yoga for everyone, so whatever I had to offer, would appeal to enough people!  Oh to be so naïve…it’s true what they say: ignorance is bliss. 

It really came to light in so many ways to me, that being a yoga teacher in a city, especially as small as Boston, is like a straight up popularity contest.  I was never a popular kid in school, and I never really wanted to be either, because those kids were always mean!  I like to do my own thing, and I like to teach yoga, that not only I feel comfortable teaching, but also yoga that comes from my heart.  This yoga I speak of, doesn’t involve loud blaring music, and it doesn’t involve expensive yoga clothing.  It involves all five layers, or koshas of our human experience: physical, energetic, emotional, intellectual and spiritual.  And it just has to be enough, otherwise, what the hell am I doing with my life?  After what felt like a long road to learning this, I think I have finally found a space that I fit it in: smaller suburb studios.  Will this get me in a magazine or to be the next lululemon ambassador?  Probably not.  Who cares?  I get to teach yoga to anyone who is open to receiving what I have to offer, and that is a gift. 

I am writing this mostly for the many teachers out in the world who experience anything similar to this.  I’m not tall, or skinny, and I don’t wear expensive yoga clothes to make me look sexy.  Because yoga isn’t about the external stuff: it’s exactly the opposite.  Yoga doesn’t care if you look good doing it; it just wants you to practice.  For those of you trying to win this hopeless popularity contest, ask yourself why.  If you win, what does that mean?  That people around you validate you?  Validate yourself, because you are enough, just as you are.  There is a slippery slope between seeing people as a role model who you admire, and trying to be just like that person.  Be you, whoever that is, meet yourself there, and let it be enough.  Don’t get down on yourself for falling into the popularity contest cycle either: it’s only human to want validation!  But I promise you, that validation through others, or nice clothes, or whatever external thing it may be, is only temporary.  You have the power to love yourself, empower yourself, and accept yourself, just as you are.  That’s when you’ll find happiness…from your yoga: within.

The Practice of Yoga

Where do I begin?  My last post was over a year ago, and so much has happened.  I suppose i'll write this as i would write in a journal, and just start with a bit of babbling about how to start this entry :)

So much has happened since my last time writing here.  A few months after our city hall celebration of becoming legally married, my husband got pretty sick.  I won't go in to details here as its not a private journal entry, but it was quite intense from my point of view.  He is ok now, thank goodness.  After quite a dramatic couple of months to get things under control, we started to settle in to a routine and get things back on track.  We moved to a different apartment with  more space, and we added the first addition to our new family: Dixie the wonder dog :)  She brought so much light to our lives in a bit of a darker time...and we had each other, so we knew it would all be ok!

In the fall of last year, i enrolled in my 300 hour Comprehensive Yoga Therapy Training program, which is now coming to a close this coming weekend!  I think that with the program happening, there has been a lot of processing going on, and writing about it has felt too intense until now.  The program has been amazing and supportive of my growth as a teacher, a person and a soon to be certified yoga therapist.  Each weekend we talked about a different aspect of the physical and energetic body, and each weekend we chipped away at another layer; at least i did.  As much of a social person as i like to be, i have really had so much going on, that its been easier for me to process a lot on my own and with my husband.

This program has opened up a lot for me, and a lot of it i can't fully articulate yet, but there are observances floating around in my mind and body.  The biggest shift for me is the true realization that we really do create our own reality, our own happiness and/or our own suffering.  The samskaras (habits or karmic patterns) are very real, and its a lot of work to choose a different path to alleviate stress.  For example, it is very hard for me to react differently to situations regarding my family, because i love them so much and its so close to a big part of my identity.  Becoming a married woman is another role of many i play on a daily basis.  Though my marriage is not a game to me, there are certain responsibilities that are required of a relationship to work, and certain expectations that i have of myself, that i have of my husband, and that he has of me, for the partnership to work.  Just as there are these responsibilities and expectations of myself as a yoga teacher, a friend, or a daughter or a sister.  We are all on this ride together.

What i have noticed to be quite palpable to me, is that we all project our expectations of ourselves, and on to each other.  As a friend to another, I expect to stay in touch regularly, I expect support of hard times, and congratulations through good times.  I expect compassion and understanding, and I expect a listening ear when necessary.  I expect honesty most of all.  I expect these things, because that's what i personally believe a good friend to be.  Something that I have learned (especially over the last year) is that not everyone has the same belief system as i do regarding what a good friend is.  This has been a particularly eye opening challenge for me as we compiled our guest list for our wedding, and received the response cards back in the mail.  It was time for me to re-assess much more than i realized would be part of the process of having a wedding.  Another piece to remember that is so hard when you are immersed in something so important: not everyone is in the same place as you!  I realized after many tears and hurt feelings, that people who i expected more support from, simply cannot relate to the place of my life that i am in right now.  It was evident when my few friends who have been through a wedding, behaved the way i expected...and my friends who have not yet been through this right of passage, didn't seem to understand the capacity of the situation.  But it's so hard to not be hurt by that, as our belief systems can get very rigid and stuck when we want and expect things to go a certain way.

We all have belief systems for all different situations in our lives, and we project them on to each other, and even on to ourselves.  We develop these beliefs through socialization, television, family of origin upbringing etc.  Most of the time, the things we believe are not even true when we break them down and get in to the meat of the belief.  Like, it's not true that the friends i have, who didn't behave supportively to me (as i expected), weren't happy for me.  But when i was right in the middle of the situation, that's what it felt like.  I can say all i want that "its common sense to send a congrats card, or email or SOMETHING" when your friend gets married...but thats just another projection of my belief system.  layers and layers and layers.

What i am so excited about is my ability to actually recognize this now.  I know it doesnt mean that i will be able to reconstruct all my beliefs in to something that are true, but at least there is some space now between a situation, and my reaction.  of course there is a little more space with some situations than others.  the situations that involve people like family, that go SO much deeper, take much longer to reconstruct, as there are more layers to work through.

People are truly such complicated and guarded creatures because our society is not based on a sharing, loving supportive community.  Its competitive and harsh, which has been a huge source of my struggle in growing up, and becoming an adult.  People can be SO kind and loving and compassionate, but many of us aren't because it makes us too vulnerable to ridicule and its scary.  I have always believed this, and will always believe that what everything boils down to is that every single person wants and needs to feel loved by another.  I truly believe that if every person had someone that they knew in their hearts, loved them unconditionally, the world would be a vastly different place.  There wouldn't be the drama that everyone seems to need and crave.  There would be less hatred and violence on television.  I think that we prevent this from happening as a society, because we think life would be boring or something.  Again, with the layers of complications of the human race! ahh!

These are just a few of my sort of self-discoveries over the last months.  They seem to be at the root of healing/managing/minimizing stress in my life.  Of course it's a lifelong project, journey, and adventure to becoming the best version of myself.  It's so hard for me to remember that i have to put myself first so i can be the best for everyone else around me.  Its the positive side of being selfish.

Even though i struggle with it some days, my mission to be able to cultivate true compassion (not pity and not empathy) but real compassion, for everyone around me.  It's always the hardest with your inner circle, because that's where the expectations are the highest...but its certainly the most rewarding when those glimpses peak through, and light up my heart.

This is the practice of yoga.  Noticing, observing, and allowing space for it all to unfold.

Love & Light,
Sarah