Thank you for another incredible transmission and container through which to approach yoga. 🙏🏼
Pace and practice has showed up, for me, in so many different ways. I have had periods of starts and stops. I have had periods of grief and healing with extended periods of practice and then distraction. More recently I have found daily meditation, yoga and study. This steady application and appreciate for practice feels more sustainable. Both my ego and soul seem to have agreed to practice for the benefit of my being. I am not sure if this is due to grace or ripening. Every morning I wake up and express gratitude for being alive and restate my vow to be on a path of peace.
My pacing and practice tie directly into a sense of surrender. It took me 40 years to realize that I am not the “doer.” Spirit/the Devine is acting and I associate a person with all the doors of perception that are associate with the human form “Daniel.” The more time I can surrender to the Oneness of all things the more whole I feel.
we are all love 🫶🏼. Sub Ek
Om Namah Shivaya 🙏🏽
Self-study is completely new as a concept for me. I never really thought of myself as something to learn in order to be with, in fact I divorced myself from half of myself and latched onto the other half. I ran from the half I learned to hate..or I hated the half I learned to run from.. I'm not sure which came first and maybe both swirled together to create a dissociated being I definitely wasn't interested in knowing..let alone learning from, tending to, caring for, being with. It took a lot of seasons, loss, trauma, change, time, to give me space to truly look in the mirror at what was left on floor at 26. Seeing the trauma, the mess, the hurt with clear eyes made me realize how much aversion I was doing...how much I'd have to get to know in order to find ways to care for myself. Everything I had tried, mostly the bandaids, didn't work because they were bandaids but also because they weren't true tools help to support what I actually needed. The truth is I had no idea what I needed.
I've spent the last year slowly meeting and learning parts of myself I thought I left behind so many years ago...that's the only way I've found a blueprint to give me what I need after a lifetime of never thinking about it. Even the times I wasn't intentionally self-sabotaging myself, I wasn't intentionally caring for me either, I was making decisions without even knowing I was in the driver's seat without a map of where to go. I now know my body can provide me with information...I can be on my team to know which way to step, which ways to rest, which ways to pause, change course, make any adjustments that might serve me... however all of that requires a deep knowing of SELF. An ongoing check in, body scan, heart scan, to learn all that I am, all that I carry and can do in each day so that I can make choices that serve TODAY me. I don't believe my body can give me a map but it can teach me to tend to TODAY's mind/heart/body/soul that might get me somewhere I'd like to be.
Still - movement, choice, pause, rest, agency are stolen from so many of us.. the capitalist machine (increasingly) demands so much of our bodies at the expense of food on the table and a roof over our heads for our children. How can we institutionalize the dire need for all humans to experience their full hmanity while contributing to collective systems that can hold us, the Earth, all beings we share this place with? We spoke about the pace of practice—and some of the challenges or barriers that can come up when offering slower, more intentional movement in certain environments. How do you relate to the idea of slowing down? What feels possible, supportive, or difficult about pacing in your facilitation?