My young zen master

This morning, walking my six years old to school:
-“Mom, you wanna hear a joke?”
-“yes”
-“Do you know why the trees look so old?”
-“no”
-“It’s because the children are so young.”

Change, yoga

I’m working with change, not a change that I in any way can do, but a change I try to stay open to. I love this quote: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~Anaïs Nin
It is willingness to change, not just wanting it. After experiencing it, the difference between wanting to change, no matter how desperate this want is, and to be willing - appears.

classes

Wet, windy and grey weather cannot keep me from working with sun salutations today. Maybe the greyness will make us work in a new way? There are many new students, so I’m still putting down the basic lines, keeping it simple, good for me, good for them (?). For the next two days I think I go with, rotations and gravity.

Judgment day

Today I criticize me for not being good enough. Not doing more, not being able to cope more in my everyday, for having a sloppy brain. Yep, exams often have that effect on me, tickles my perfectionism. Really sucks.
It was a good exam, I was fairly treated, so what can I do now.
Maybe, I should do a really sloppy yoga practice, not do anything “perfect” and try to love that?
Or maybe I should do a headstand to change my perspective?
I’m really just tired, so sleep and do nothing is probably what I should let in.
zzzzzzzzzz

gifts in my work

I love my work. No matter how much is going on inside my head, when the class starts and I say all the initiating “lets land here and now” to my students, I land in a holy “now”. I loose sight of everything, except for the nest pose/asana/exercise. I loose track of time, often I have let go of my ego-projects and have a whole new perspective afterwards. Before I go, I can feel tired and like there is nothing inside and that I really should concentrate on this or that problem, after class I have more energy and often I have landed in a solution instead of poking around my imaginary problems.
It’s challenging to write in English, but slowly it’s coming back to me, I enjoy the challenge!
Tomorrow is my exam, so wish me luck. I try to hold on to the fact that it actually is just an ordinary day in a students life, and that we are all just one, me and my examiners :-)

More unity

Seems to be my topic, for the time being ;)
Yesterday, I started my day with reading an article of one of my professors, in witch she explains artistic moments/meetings as a 4th dimension, as being in the “now”, the present. My jaw fell down on my pillow (yes, I think it’s great to study in bed ;-) and I got so excited, that I had to take a two hours break, just grasping the consequents of this new unity in my life. How great to have a professor that take this, for me, spiritual truth, and put it right into a very usable place. Wow!
I find myself starting on a journey towards unity with myself. Now there is a truth in me that I’m not supposed to be a part of a whole with another human being, not a lover, not a parent not a friend or any kind of a “guru”. The more I love being me, the more unity there is within me, strangely I find myself being able to relate more to other people as we are one. It feels like standing on a train station or a harbour. This could lead anywhere. I’ll try to “harbour” this feeling, hope that it will get stuck in me, because there is a beautiful strength in this truth.
One of the main understandings of yoga is that the point is to unite, so why not look for unity, collect all the evidence that I can find in my every day?

Letting go

Yesterday a big online community I’ve been a part of closed down. So I’ve been sad.
I’m so grateful that it's been in my life, these two years that I started to study again. Since I’m a single mom and don’t have time to socialize before and after classes, I have enjoyed the opportunity at night, online. Now I have a network at the institute of fellow students, that I keep up with. So it’s ok that it closes, but still a loss. When I was younger it was a threat to feel sadness, I always feared that it never would go away. I’ve experienced that feelings goes by, if I don’t resist them, if I allow them to exist. God! How many times have I not fought- not to get sad or angry?! Now it’s a part of my “daily” yoga-practice, to find out what’s inside, before I start working.
Today the sadness is gone and there is gratitude and I’m in the present again, letting go of this beautiful supporting community.

My profane studies,,,

In a week from now, I will be done with my exams, a tension is building up inside. I can’t read longer than a couple of hours, then I have to do something completely different, because all terms and facts are summing around. When I pick up my kids I try to relax and only give my attention to them. I have to remember, not to plan all kinds of extra activities and keep things simple this week. It’s ok that my studies now will take “mind-space” for a while, it’s only temporary.
I’m blessed to have kids so that I can’t obsess with my reading.
I’m blessed to teach yoga, on the side, so that I always have to get back into my body, down to earth.

Drudgery

This word, kind of lost its meaning, when karma yoga came to me. I do the boring, or “duty” stuff, not resisting it, not discussing it, just doing, and often it turns into a meditating work.
But still, on days when I do, what used to be my “domestic drudgery” I get the same feeling in my body, so I guess the change of attitude has to reach the bottom layers in me, before the physical feeling leaves? It’s like a lurking feeling, in my lower back, it’s not a pain but something like a “wear out”.
What can I do to release it now? My mind is blank, go to bed perhaps?!! Good night.

Motorbikes, yoga and spiritual unity!!!

Some of my first lessons, of being in the present, I learnt by driving two wheels.
The goal can only temporary be in my mind, most of the driving, (traveling) I have to be 100% here and now. Pure yoga!
This was some valuable lessons in awareness (sthira), to keep my eyes on the road, the sense of the wind (all the calculations of when and where the surprises would/could come), the feeling of the engine. Yes, riding was a god lecture. Mainly, the journey is the goal, which brings me back to yoga (gets me thinking of the first 4 sutras of Patanjali). How great to have a vehicle that can tilt!! How great to ride a vehicle that demands so much of its driver, so the driver has to be here and now. Usually these things annoy me, but now I can see the greatness. It’s with pleasure I tell my students to be thankful for the hurting feeling in the scalp(hihi), when they learn to stand in a headstand, it’s good for you, it talks to you, you are supposed to respect and listen to this feeling ;)
Hope to learn this thing in other parts of my life! Isn’t it great, when totally different parts of your life melts together, and gives unity! I love it.

evening

The class was fine, I’m so happy to see that my students can trust me, to tell me when I made a program that was too though as well as, when they are comfy and satisfied.
Discontent students were a major problem for me in the beginning. Than I realized that I cannot teach big classes and give everyone exactly what they need, every time-for me it’s been a long practice in letting go! I also had the impression, in the beginning, that they came because of me, and that I have to make perfect programs, well that’s over ;) Now I tend to see myself, more and more, as a mediator, mediating between them and the yogatreasure. Today I’ve been so inspired by reading some blogs. Some people write their gratitude lists, here are some of mine, from today:
Thanks for a blue sky and sun in my eyes!, for the giant windows at my work, for a calm brain, for a silent home. For not having anybody needing me! And Thanks for letting me, be in the truth of not needing another human being, knowing that I’m whole just by myself-what a beauty to rest in. I’m sure I’ve read about this in a yoga text.

classes

Sometime I work with, for me, spiritual concepts in my classes, like courage or playfulness. But (but, but, but-whole lots of buts-sentence from my mind-yesterday) today, I really just feel like putting the focus on the positions, themselves. Yes, that’s it. Standing principles and sitting in the next, and to finish off, laying down in the last class :)
This day, my brain is calm, so it’s easier to look forward to se what the day will bring.

Gratitude

Today I felt crappy, and my kids did act out, just like I felt inside,,, so I got irritated on them,, buggery, buggero
I’ve been thinking about how to start this blog. I was inspired to write, since I’ve enjoyed some other bloggers writing about their journey of recovery, or spiritual search.
I delayed the start, since I didn’t want to start out with frustration :)
But I gave up, so here we go,,, and as I opened my writing space I felt gratitude!!! Well, what do you know! I’m so thankful for my work, my kids and my studies. For having this computer and the web, so that I’m never actually alone,, I have to face that loneliness is an illusion.
The hard part these days is to wait, to do nothing, pure ahimsa. I observe the insanity rush around and I try to do nothing. Good on me! That’s new!!
For example, I want to do several new years’ resolutions, bad old habit, (for me). I just love to plan the splendid changes rather than give some space for universe to start doing them, little by little in my present day :) So now I sit on my fingers (Nordic expression ;) and try not to fix myself! I'm surrendering, vairagya!!