Today was so much information at once my mind kind of shut down at the end of the night. I was also in the middle of my 2 day fast, so my body and mind were not as aligned as I had wanted them to be. Woke up this morning, cutting my fast because my body was telling me to do so. I had told myself that I would get through the full 48 hours, but woke up to a feeling of weakness. It was like my body was screaming in suffering, wondering why I was depriving it and did not understand what my mind had placed as a goal. After much listening to my body and heart, I decided to break the fast after 34 hours and respect the health of my body, rather than forcing it to experience something just due to my own expectations of what I believed I could accomplish. I feel like I accomplished more BY listening to my intuition and my body, because that was a firm opportunity for me to trust myself, rather than going off what others were telling me I should do. I feel like it was a wonderful outer world reflection of many of the thought patterns I bring into my yoga practice.
Day 3, we went through the Sun A series, Chaturanga demo, and beginning of class series. We read together the names, the poses, the transitions, and all of the cues for each. We came up with many deepening cues, and focused our attention on the student in front of us and how we could help adjust them; rather than just reading from the cues given.
When we began class, the journaling assignment correlated directly with the class I had taken prior, asking what quality shines when you are being your authentic self. I answered immediately that it was my smile, because that is truth, and that truth had been confirmed only an hour before that when Diana allowed herself the courage to compliment me after class.
I appreciated all of the assists we had received in each pose that also helped with protecting our bodies. We also were given variations for our own practice to help with Chaturanga that involved using the strap or the blocks. I feel like when I did, though, I injured my wrist and I am going to take much more care in paying attention to how my body is feeling because after this training, each pose seems to have gotten a lot more difficult when the consciousness of alignment came into play.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman 11:11
