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Trying to find my groove

My groove seems to be lost.

I'm having a struggle with my yoga practice, on and off the mat. On the mat, I have injuries and I know that majority of you yogis will say that I should just breath, use more banda and keep practicing. I am of that opinion too, but kind of wondering if my body isn't just saying " STOP!! You are hurting me!!"

Off the mat I'm just trying to juggle life. I know either of these "problems" are new and I know everyone has gone through this phase, and this is for sure not the first time I go through it.

Problems with juggling life just kinda show up every once in a while, it takes time to get over it. Usually if I struggle against it, instead of trying to listen for whats the message (yeah..like I always just sit and listen.. teaching myself as I go here :) ) it usually takes longer to pass.

A favorite slogan of mine: "This too, will pass" I keep at heart.

This time round, my juggling is about having so little time on my hands.

My family consists of me, my husband our three kids (6-11 years old) our dog, our full time jobs, my yoga teaching (not the full time job, but an extra job), all kids are in school, music and sports.

Yeah! it is a LOT!

No wonder, when I see it like that, I'm struggling keeping everything under controle.

I've been thinking a lot about what I can do to make things easier for me.

As is, I'm not practicing (lack of time or injury, you choose), I'm not that prepared for the classes I teach, I'm not following my kids homework and practices, the dog is having a major hair fallout (happens twice a year, it is just so much more dramatic when I'm having a life crises as well ;)) husband?.. husband who? I'm tired when at work and all of this is making me incapable of being creative (I'm a webdesigner). I have some kind of a hormonal imbalance (one that has many the same symptoms as PCOS) and my skin is so dry that I just gave my for-head, scalp and hair an oil bath.

I long for more creativity. I need an outlet for that. And I want to meditate more.

For some reason, I feel like I'm going backwards in time, not in a bad way, but I'm starting to want to do things I remember enjoying when I was a bit younger.

Anyway, I have thought about all of this very much and what I do want for now, is to be able to oversee the home, my family, and be there for them.

I also want to have time, or maybe I should say space, in my life for being creative, well rested and get the feeling of looking forward to go out of bed.

So I have to quit doing some of all the things I'm doing. I have to make things more simple and for the first time in my adult life I'm going to do it.

Gona be hard, but I beliefe I have to, and I want to.

Hopefully Groove will come back to me :)

Don't wannahh!

Opening, releasing and letting go. I find it very hard to be wanting to do just that. I know why, and I know I do need to do this.

I'm pushing these tasks to the side because I know it will hurt, at the beginning, more than it will feel freeing.

Ohhhhh...well.

Back

This week, the yoga class I'm teaching has the back for a theme. We are two who have a same kind of a yoga class (powerful vinyasa flow) and we have the same theme every week and then we change theme, so we have a different one each week.

When thinking of back my mind goes straight to backbends. But if I think about it some more, that really doesn't have all that much to do with the back other than we are bending it in ways we never do unless in yoga class or if we are a gymnast. So back bending to me at least, is more about opening the front of the body.

No, when having the back for a theme, I must focus on the spine from top to bottom. The shoulders/shoulderblades. All of the muscles in the back and shoulders. And not forget all the muscles that support the spine from the front.

So core work, twists, making space between each vertebra and really just trying to stand and sit straight (with an S-shaped spine).

Wow how the back troubles us humans! Of course from all the sitting, bad posture and lack of any firmness what so ever in the muscles. In my opinion core work is the best medicine. And when I say core work I'm not only talking about the Uddiyana bandha area, but also strengthening all the muscles around the shoulders, spine and hips.

They have written about .. me?

http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/588

I even found an article about my hip discomfort.. or of course not MY hip but hips, lower backs and "short from sitting" muscles on people in general. I'm extremely glad that my thoughts are correct, and that I should actually be stretching the front of my body now, but also slightly disappointed because this wasn't a discovery I made. Ego talking of course ;)

Nadi Sohdahna

Have begun practicing second series of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga. I don't have any revolutions from doing that yet other than that my theory about my hip-injury being cured by that activity.

I have been practicing the primary series for few years now. I've grown pretty strong, can do handstand and full vinyasa if that is a measurement to anyone, gotten pretty limber, can sit in padmasana but doubt that I'm able to put my leg behind my head. Really normal though, not freakishly strong nor so limber I could actually lick my own ass (...the cheeks, come on!) by bending backwards.

BUT! I keep having hip injuries. Thats extremely boring and frustrating, and yeah! I know those injuries are there to teach me something and I HAVE learned a LOT!

While I've been dealing with this injury, I've realized that Urdva Danurasana, even though it doesn't hurt when in it, but afterwards (like the day after) is a hassel for my body.

THEN, I thought, oh yeah, there is almost nothing in the whole primary series that stretches and lengthens the quadriceps, psoas and I don't know, maybe other muscles connecting my hip area to my upper body, which are pretty important muscles to have both strong and long for back bending. Of course you do a little bit of a warm up every time in urdva muka svanasana for urdva danurasana. That apparenly isn't enough for me, so my quads are pretty tight. No yoga teacher of mine has actually talked about tight quads, there is on the other hand hammering about tight hamstrings.. which I know a few of us have, hehe, but seriously, the hamstrings are not the only muscles that need some lovin.

I started to do yin yoga poses to stretch my quads and psoas. Got a little better. Then I decided to take it all the way by just starting the second series. I feel a WHOLE LOT BETTER! Stretching the quads is the best thing ever at the moment.

But why do I feel like I'm cheating? That is because the Ashtanga rules are very strict and different teachers take them to different lengths. The tradition is to practice the primary series for a very long time, years, not months! You know to cleanse the body.

After looking at the asanas in second series you can see that a lot of them are poses you do in a normal vinyasa flow class. But the way they are talked about, the second series that is, gives the impression that those asanas are only for few chosen ones, over achievers in the "yogaworld", and only for people who practice strictly according to tradition.

I don't agree. I can feel that my body needs opening on the front side. Maybe that should be the milestone for when you should move on to Nadi Sohdahana (cleaning the nervous system) When you know your body that well that you feel it needs the opening. Maybe a teacher can't tell you when you are ready. Maybe only you can tell. But of course always take advice from your teacher and you can't take my words like you should skip primary series, it is there for a reason! (.. !)

Bodies are so different from each other and people are using their bodys in so many different ways during the day. So I conclude that it is not possible to have the same milestones for every body that practices yoga by the Ashtanga method.

But yay! Second series is fun and challenging and maybe also what I needed to keep going. Cleansed my body enough and now time for the nervous system.

#ashtanga #nadi sohdahna #yoga #asana #yoga injury #Primary series

Revealing yoga practice

How to put this in words... my yoga practice is opening up alot of stuff about myself that I didn't understand or didn't know. This happens often during one or another asana.

Latest two examples are:

1. (you may not laugh!!) I can't allow me to be happy about myself if my mind judges that others in the room are doing better. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people ARE more successful than I, in the room (doesn't seem to matter if they are in the same profession or doing the same as long as they are not sharing a room/space with me), it has to do with the ridiculous fact that my mind grabs every opportunity to decide that others are better than I am and therefore can not allow me to be happy about what I can do.

I personally don't give a rats ass about how others are doing, I feel happy for people who are successful and I try to learn from them. It is my mind who has a problem with it.

I just realized this the other day while practicing and saw another girl doing a beautiful practice and she was doing poses I can't do well and when I realized I had lost my breath, drishti and my will to finish the practice this dawned on me. Hoping since I now know this that it will go away.

2. As I lay in Savasana today I felt, like I often do, enormous wave of pain rushing through me, followed with a feeling of relief. You have to know that I store a lot of pain and fear so this is probably very normal.

But I realized that I (as in my soul) was f i n e ! I did not feel the pain and it was like I could see from inside my body the pain I felt on the outside. I actually felt the pain in very specific parts of my body (my chest/heart), with emphasizes on BODY, because I did not feel it in my soul. And I wasn't immersed in the feeling and it didn't take over, it just was there.

My soul is fine, and my body is trying to recover from years of fearabuse (did I make up a new english word?).

It is apparent that the body remembers a lot of stuff. And now I have a chance to let that go.

#yoga #practice #let go #fear

Yoga photos

I don't think yoga is such a holy thing that it cannot be criticized or talked about or that what is written about yoga or displayed can't be criticized.. lets start with photos.

I have to get it off my chest how frustrated I sometimes get when I see images of a perfect person in the perfect yogapose.

I have, for the record, searched my mind to see if I'm jealous of them for being able to do the poses so beautifully. The answer was: yes, in a way a part of me wishes all yogaposes were accessible to me and that I would look beautiful in them and eeeveryone will applause.. yes.. there my mind went with the wind. But the answer is yes, on some level I envy.

But on another level, a whole lot more normal level, I get frustrated by those pictures because they are not showing what yoga is all about.

Everyone with anything between their ears knows that yoga is NOT about how your poses look like. It is not about being on display before others so that they can adore you. And it isn't about showing the female body in a very bendy pose wearing close to nothing.. just sayin.

Images like that give the wrong impression of yoga which is all about uniting us humans as ONE with the Universe.

Aaaand I continue

Fourth of the Yamas is Brahmcharya. Which means celibacy.

I have heard many, many variations on how to live by this one.

Some say it means that you must not have sex at all. Others say it is OK under this and that circumstances.

And finally, which I agree on, is that of course you can have sex, but you do it with your partner and nobody else.

In my mind sex is available to us humans so we can enjoy it AND reproduce our selves.

So to me (and many other literature) living by Brahmcharya is to only practicing sex with my husband.

I think it is important to be aware of that this is an old text and that humans tend to "understand" them just as they please.

I have actually heard yoga people say " yeah.. Brahmcharya, I did that for 3 months" and then the next person tries to top that and says " I did that for 6 months, my girlfriend was NOT happy"..

I don't know... first, doing this for x amount of time is not living by it, like these texts suggest we do. Second, being in a relationship and asking the partner, who isn't necessary a yogi, to accept that you aren't going to have sex is just stupid to me.

Stupid because we can't really deny that sex is a huge part of being intimate with our partner. Not the only way, don't get me wrong, but it just IS a huge part of being in a relationship.

Well. I think the most normal and most successful way to live by Brahmcharya is to go by these simple relationship rules (which we all know):

Don't cheat. Not as in having sex with others than your partner and not in the form of thoughts or words, written or spoken.

How do people who are single tackle this. I don't really know. I had issues as a teenager and never could stay single. I was addicted to someone loving (read: approving) me.

I guess a good rule to go by is to not loose yourself in others, respect your feelings and your body.

The beginning and the end.

The breath begins on an inhalation, the first inhalation, and end on an exhalation, the very last air being pushed out.

Thats all. Nothing complicated about that.

Fear and Creativity

Would it be ok for me to accept that my fear is what makes me creative?

Does it take the feeling of fear to enable the creative to come through me? So it might not actually be fear but just a wave of creativity.. just feels the same in the body.

If at the backside of me, because I feel it in the top of my back, between shoulders (little lower down the spine) and back of my head and up to the crown, that I'm connected to the divine/higher power/supreme consciousness and feel protected, at home and at ease, and at the front, in and around my heart everything is about to burst with fear.

Weird, ha!

Painful breathing.

I just have to say something!

Asking people to breath is asking people to let go of their fears. To be in their presence and body, with everything that comes with it.

Everybody alive will breathe, hence .. you know, being alive and all.

But to B R E A T H E, thats a totally different story.

You out there teaching yoga who don't have the experience of carrying any demons of fear with you.. please remember that most of us do. So when you say breathe and thereby asking people to let go of what their mind believes keeps them alive, be compassionate and remember this isn't always easy and the feeling of letting go isn't always exhilarating and renewing.

Sometimes, some days, it is actually extremely hurtful to breathe.

Continuing with the Yamas

I'm not trying to educate you or try to make myself look (on print) like more of a yogi than I am. I write stuff so I remember it, so I'm forced to think about it and really GET what things are about.

These written thoughts are just my experience with that we call YOGA, and the philosophy that goes with it.

Asteya would be the next one in my sequence of Yamas. Now that I have talked about Ahimsa, non-violence and Satya, truth, I'm going to speak of Asteya which means non-stealing.

Yes. Don't hit anyone, don't tell them lies and don't steal from them. As with the other two, the easiest to understand is the fact that we don't steal. We put them to prison who do a lot of that, so most of us don't shoplift, rob banks etc.

Here comes the BUT!

Asteya is a wildly broad term for not stealing, in my opinion of course.

It does not only ask us to not steal others belongings but also not stealing time and space.

As for our own practice, it asks us not to steal from our own body! That was interesting!!

Steal from my own body? Yes, in form of rushing into asanas and out of them and pushing the body beyond what it can actually do. We will miss the healing process that is integrated in to the asanas and the asana sequences . This is a journey, we can't just arrive without taking the trip.

Well, as for not stealing others thoughts, time and space.

For example a yoga teacher it is crucial to keep the time limits in the yoga class. It must start on time and finish on time. Same goes really for everything else, it is rude not to be on time.

For stealing space from others is to, in my opinion, for example come to close into the personal space of others and make a riot there. Not to respect others boundaries.

Also in relationships, now talking about people who live together, that one of the two of them don't go around deciding stuff for the other one and doesn't arrange their life without consulting them.

This was my two cents for Asteya. I have a more profound understanding for this, but find it hard to put in words.

#yoga #yamas #asteya #non-stealing

Do I have to?

Do I have to be curious in this position? Is this the road to enlightenment?

Don't get me wrong, I love my backbends and always feel grate when I'm done with them, so energized, but I do feel that this just sends a mixed message out there.. like if one can't get to know their Self without being curled up in a very strong backbend.

The text is right though, Yoga IS a perfect opportunity to be curious about who we are, it is the backbend that isn't accessible to all.

My Mind....

...has such a huge and overflowing schedule of things to think about or think about doing that I don't have time to write. What a space the loud part of my brain takes.

POOOO.

Satya

Wouldn't it be cool if I actually could remember all those sanskrit words been throwing around?

Satya.

Means truthfulness. Like with Ahimsa (non-violence), because I'm a civilized person who got taught as a child not to lie, my mind knows it isn't really ok to not tell the truth.

Well. Not lying to others is the easiest part to understand.

Why would someone lie? For thousands of reasons. Many related to fear and pain. For dysfunctional families, for example where alcoholism is a fact, children (and the grown-ups) often lie to cover up for all sorts of stuff going on at home.

Can you imagine having, as an adult, to re-program yourself if you used lies to survive as a child? Because that is very often a fact, that people use lies as a survival mechanism.

For some this is a huge step and a hard one.

It's hard because within everyone there is the Truth. And the Truth will come out eventually. It will actually just burst out, I have had that happen to me. It was a classical example where I denied to listen to my heart and follow what I knew was right (haven't you had that feeling.. when you just know?) and went instead on someone else's journey.. there isn't place for two on individual journeys, so of course I go thrown off the road. Landed on my face, naked with my hair on fire. It wasn't pretty.

Anywho, Satya is to me also about letting it be ok to listen to my heart. Actually try not to be afraid of what it has to say, and asking for courage to know if what I think I hear, is actually the truth.. it does take some practice, but when you feel it once, you won't question it again.

And even in relationships, practicing to be myself ( ... be My Self = be who I am) no matter what kind of effect people have on me.

I once met a guy who I really liked. Short story even shorter, I totally lost my Self to him, I (embarrassed to say) totally screw everyone I loved over and actually changed my personality and what I liked and disliked to try to please him. That ended in a totally weird situation, and I'm still mad about it, not mad at him, but me for just loosing myself like that. (This where I got on my face, naked with hair on fire).

All in all, being true and speaking only the truth takes practice and training of the mind. Also bear in mind that you can't speak the truth if it hurts others! This is where Ahimsa and Satya work together.

So it's a thin line we are walking people, but we keep moving.

Maybe I'll write on this again.. I'm rambling on.

#Satya #Ahimsa #yoga #ashtanga #yamas and niyamas

Yamas and Niyamas

Yes.. everyone is talking about it. They are at the beginning of literally every yoga book I've opened. There is a huge difference between reading/writing about them as to weather one lives by them.

I haven't taken a conscious decision to just flip over, and live strictly by them, I'm thinking about them, and kind of going through what is actually being said in these old texts. I'm going to go through them one by one here on my new blog, starting with the first one Ahimsa.

Ahimsa means non-violence. No harm may be done. Well, as a civilized person I do not use physical violence, I'm fairly calm by nature (though... now, I'm just taking a pause from ripping up trees in my garden..) but there is another side of this coin.

First when thinking of the words non-violence, it only applied (in my head that is) to not harming others with my hands or feet.

After thinking about non-violence some more, I realized that it also applies to not harming others in words OR thought! Thought is very powerful, word even more so.

After a while, I realized that I'm actually being asked not to harm anyone.. not others and not myself. Somehow I tend to forget that I'm actually there, even though I intellectually am aware of my own presence on this earth I often am not aware of Me. This may apply more to me a few years ago, but I really fall into it often, the difference is that I can and know how to come back into awareness now.

Anyhow.. my biggest obstacle with this Ahimsa, is myself, what I eat and what I think of myself.

It is violence against my self when I eat nothing but candy all day (yes, this happens more often than I care to admit) or when I forget to eat for a whole day, and every time I eat just something because I can't be bothered with thinking about what is good for me or to even cook something.

For me this is extremely hard and has become a huge every day problem. What to do?.. I don't really know, ...someone might suggest practice, practice.

Another thing that is a violent act against one self, is the "how I think about my self". I have fallen into very dark pits of:

I'm so ugly I can't look at my self

I'm so fat

I have such a weird looking body that everyone must notice

I'm deeply unsatisfied with this and that part of my body

Nobody wants me (not even my husband of 10 years)

See! My mind is brutal against my body and my being. What does my mind think it is?? And WHY does it not like the body who carries it around so patiently? Who/what polluted my mind?

Now I have to re-format the harddrive. Install a Ahimsa based software. I'm sure if I learn to be non-violent against my self, the food thing automatically will fall into place.

I'm going for listening to myself and my higher power for this task. I'm already overflowing with information from all sorts of media about how the human being should achieve happyness.. my tiny brain can't figure out what to do with all that info.

I'm letting go.

#ahimsa #yoga #ashtanga #non-violence

Morning practice

Morning practice is h a r d! Or for me at least it is. This is the third time I go try this. I don't have access to a shala in the mornings, so it's just me, Me and my body on the mat.

First of all, and this has happened all the times I've gone for a morning practice, the body can not and will not bend, bow nor stretch the way it can in the afternoon.

Second, it is hard work making the tired me wake up a bit earlier and do a practice. I know this sounds like a spoiled brat, and many can just say "just get up, it's no proooblem"

Third, I get very easily distracted, much more than if I'm practicing in the shala with others doing the same.

I've noticed that in week three, everything comes easier, almost as if I'm doing my practice in the afternoon, so I just have to stick to it!

What I have chosen to do now, is to take myself through the primary series like if I were a beginner.

Today was day two, so I went Suryanamaskara A and B and Padangusthasana and Pada Hastasana.

Seems weird to do so little, but I allready feel like I've learnt a couple of things while doing practice both slowly and small amounts at a time.

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