Weekly Letter: The Same Practice

*Weekly Letter is the letter I include in my weekly yoga studio newsletter.*

Why do we ask our yoga to be the same all the time?

I am not the same every day. Some days I feel more strongly than others. Some days I need to take care of my emotions and be quiet or small.

But the yoga isn’t asking you to be anything other that what you are. And to be more sensitive to who that person is. By connecting closer to the truth that is now, you open yourself to the care and consideration you need to so you can recharge. The practice is just reflecting back what it sees or experiences. And why is that so hard to accept?

Watch the reflection,

~Carmen

Weekly Letter: Taking the practice deeper

*Weekly Letter is the letter I include in my weekly yoga studio newsletter.*

The Bhagavad Gita says, ‘Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.’

The word journey is tricky. In any journey, it implies a destination with stops along the way. Maybe journey is the word because so many yogis were nomadic. Journey is mentioned countless times in writings, I’ve used the word a lot myself. But in reflection, is it the best word for the modern practitioner?

The yogi of the past, was seeking enlightenment. Freedom from reincarnation. The yogi of the past was working on their spiritual health with no real guarantees on what would happen.

The modern yogi has been promised results through mass marketing and has a different goal taking focus on their current body and mind. I have never had a student come to me asking for enlightenment in my 10 years of teaching.

If I were to say to the modern aspiring yogi, ‘this practice will only make you look and feel good in the afterlife,’ I’m pretty sure they would walk away from me with a WTH look on their face.

So, lets look at that word journey again. Can there be both? Can the modern student attain their physical goals and work toward enlightenment in their yoga journey? I think so.

Here is what I would offer that person to consider:

1. Place a higher value on pranayama than asana
2. Change the words you’re focusing on in class
3. Let the words instructing movement go into the background of what you hear
4. Focus on the words that ask you to go inside of yourself

But Carmen, isn’t the asana important? Yes, and it will still happen. I’m just asking you to change where you hear the emphasis. Peel back the layer of asana and what do you have? You want to deepen your practice? Try that for one class and let me know how it goes.

Dig deeper,

~Carmen

Weekly Letter: Send Love through Light

*Weekly Letter is the letter I include in my weekly yoga studio newsletter.*

This past holiday season my neighbors and I decided to coordinate our porch decorations to tie the neighborhood together. It was a cute candy cane theme that was easy to do and be creative. We enjoyed the idea that our block would feel unified, festive and bright.

Then most of us took down our decorations and at the beginning of February, and the neighborhood was suddenly plunged into darkness. Like a vacuum-all the light out was sucked out of the block. It was weird, eerie even.  

I read a few years ago, leaving Christmas lights on the porch during the winter months can help individuals with seasonal depression, but I might say, it makes people in general feel better as they see the pretty lights and the energy of their warmth is transferred. While I felt how real that could be, nothing made this idea more obvious than when the neighborhood took the lights down this year.

Valentine’s Day being this week, some celebrate, some don’t. I could do a whole thing on self-love and probably will some day, but not on a week where it will fall short to do what it needs to because it’s playing into forced energy.

So instead, I want to propose something. Leave your porch light on Wednesday night. If you have something else you can turn on, go for it, but what if for that night, a night when some people feel the most lonely, you offer a kindness-the safety of your light. There are a few thousand people on this newsletter. What would it mean in our community to have a few thousand lights on? A person coming home from a first date gets a little more light to come home to. Your neighbor comes home to an empty house greeted with a little extra light from next door. What would it mean for you to come home to something like that?

Take this moment to put a reminder in your phone or set your timer for Wednesday and for the night, leave the porch light on to energetically give the outside world a loving hug.

Light it up,

~Carmen

Weekly Letter: Helping Future Me

*Weekly Letter is the letter I include in my weekly yoga studio newsletter.*

I’ve been spending some time over the last month doing little jobs for myself in the future.

I’ve been wiring ornaments to small trees before putting them away, writing my future self emails and scheduling their delivery, I’ve been organizing certain things in a clearer way, so I won’t have to redo something later. And if I think there is a chance I’m going to miss something because I was lazy in the moment, I stop and don’t move forward with that task, but wait until I have the time to devote to it properly.

What am I getting ready for? Just me. I’m trying to be kinder to my future self now so I don’t fill my head with the condemnation I would surely dump on myself later.

It might seem silly or obvious to do this. I’ve started to notice how many little things I’ve been putting on myself for later, waiting for the time or intention to do them. Until they mount so high the pressure is crushing.

Adam Grant made a comment about picking your pain when taking on a goal.

Instead of creating a goal, Grant suggests you consider the work it will take to get there, and if you’re not willing to do that work, then your goal isn’t going to work. If you find the work you’re willing to challenge yourself with, then that is a goal you’re more likely to achieve.

Great lesson. But also, ‘picking your pain.’ By putting things off and letting them pile up until I’m motivated, am I not just punishing future me? And in the future, am I not just filling my headspace with a narrative about my past self? A person I cannot possibly be anymore because time has lapsed?

So why am I choosing to perpetuate this cycle? No. Its time to get off that wheel to no where.

Keep going,

~Carmen