Category: Yoga Themes
Ideas and thoughts you can use as an intention to practice with or theme to teach with.
Yoga Is Attention
When you sit still, what comes up in your thoughts, and do you see this time as a distraction by your thoughts? What if it is possible to take on another perspective of the word distraction? And perceive the distraction as just what your attention is specifically on in the moment. For example, say you are in a pose in a classroom filled with other yogis doing their own practice. In a balancing pose, as dancers pose, you may feel the urge to glance over at another in the pose to compare how you look versus how they look. You then lose your balance, drop from the pose, and tell yourself you’ll never look like that because you don’t have any balance, but this is not true. Of course, you have lost sight of where your attention is going. Just like everyone, when we were children in school, not wanting to pay attention to the teacher at the front of the room, we can be reluctant to pay attention to ourselves and our own conduct. Maybe attention can be seen as what you are doing right now; you are always doing something right now, and when you are present with what you are doing, the illusion of you distracting yourself disappears, and the gentle realization that what you are attentive to has been up to you all of the time. Time is ours to spend how we want, and the right attention can lead to success and happiness in every breath and moment you experience. In yoga, attend to your mind and body by spending your time watching yourself breathe. Something remarkable happens when we pay attention to our breath for longer than the length of a commercial; we see our thoughts disappear because our mind and body give us full attention. To surrender to this moment is the practice, and you will meet tough times, but you can do it, you are doing it right now. Practice with this breath, spend some time with yourself in kindness.
Yoga Is The Breath
Yoga Is Helping Increase Our Perception
Yoga Is About Your Foundation
Unity begins from what is below. If we can find what our foundational self is, their is this opportunity to create a unified mind and body. In a physical practice to understand yoga starts with how you put your mat on the floor. The way the ground is treated give the resonance frequency a yogi can benefit from shown as a balanced body in movement and equally a sharp sense of stability in one’s mental comfort. Next the layer of your feet and body, how do your toes feel and can you label your thinking long enough to focus on how the sole of your feet feel against the material of your mat and the hardness or softness the ground presses against your mats bottom side. Can you connect to the contraction of the muscles cascading up your feet, ankles and legs as if your muscles extend across a time-line, you can watch the engagement of you body with mental clarity. The reason why we have the feeling inside us is because it is you. The yoga of your self is to sit comfortably with yourself, your body, and your mind as they are in the present on the earth, where all hearts beat. Has your heart beat changed or have you become more aware of it the more you feel your body? The frequency of your heart beat can give you a tenderness to the ground below you, it then is easy to walk on earth and feel as those you are entangled with it, have been and always will be. Awakening your heart can lead fundamentally to they way the body heals itself the best and in turn gives the ground below a better chance to heal itself too. Give this a try if you don’t do it already to understand the foundation and its importance to your practice to yoga. Once every morning and every night, tell your flowers and plants and trees around your house, “Thank you, I love you.” And do this for one month, observe what changes you can see in them and share it with someone else. Lets fundamentally let soil know the kindness, appreciation and love we have for it. Without it we would all be without. Focus on your fundamentals and stay gentle friends.
Yoga Is Balance
There are the obvious reason why yoga in its essence is balance, like the physical pose you stand in and balance your body in. Then there are the obvious but subtle things like your breath goes in and out and then in again, this is the balance in a dualistic sense. (Up and down, in and out.) Then there are the more subtle ways of balance, like how your eyes when they relax on a single point your breath becomes soft and your mind and your body stops moving because of your eyes not moving. (That was a silly twist of words.) Yoga is balance because no matter how you look at yoga it’s balanced. Yoga will grow confidence in the balance within yourself and will come strictly through the struggle of why you’re practicing for yourself in the first place. The struggle in the practice can lead a practitioner to a state of calm and effortlessness in mind and body, and this state of Self can be seen as a way to recognize what balance could be… The Balance of your mind body and spirit can be a personal choice, so always see it in your own way I’m sure you are balanced in your opinion, here. A struggle like reading this can increase your fight or flight response of your SNS (sympathetic nervous system) and now you can practice breathing to activate your PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) which will balance your mood. One last thought here, Yoga is a path to balance and your path to balance is infinite. Enjoy your breath.
Yoga Is A Union
What is Yoga? Yoga is a Union. Picture this, you are in a studio room full of students including yourself ready to practice with mats laid out. As you stand with the other people in the room, this can be seen of as a collective of people, but not quite a union yet. So, now focus on your own body and imagine all the little moving forms like, cells, bacterium and others that as a collective work in your body, but you can not see them doing their jobs, yet they do. This fact of not being able to observe them, makes this collective a Union. In harmony your body will do what it does best for you with your effort or not. Letting go of expectation of each pose as you do them couple with unifying the pace of your breathing can give you a very close sense of union in your body that with persistence presence and consistent concentration can spill into the yoga studio when you practice with your group of Yogins. Give union a try breath, feel, let go and try again. Happy practicing to your union with yourself. Try a downward facing dog for 5 minutes today!
Yoga Is Your Spirit
Your spirit plays a large role in Yoga. You must learn through practice what you are ”made of“ which will grow your confidence the more you approach it. But what is the spirit? This is a complex question with many perspectives and you can answer it for yourself in your own way because you’re right. In the next few sentences may be a way to look at whats called the “spirit”… Everything around us is in this connective energy ocean, that surrounds us all the time, this space between us is filled with energy that vibrate seemingly forever. So as you move through your physical yoga practice and this energy ocean you feel all that you are inside and out, from bone to muscle to the feeling of air on your skin. You can test your.connection to this abundance of energy through engaging in concentration on your physical posture and the comfort you make in it a pose. A couple ways to raise your spirit through a yoga practice. Practice posture in connection with your breath (energy) and notice your focus. In other words, mind your body and you’ll mind your breathing patterns, which will focus your mind. Confidence arises from this connection between your (mind body and spirit) there is no separation. Those around you will notice this as you continue to practice Yoga. Remain humble as you grow and love with kindness those that may observe your change. Enjoy your practice.
Yoga Is Your Body
Take a moment to think about your body right now. And at this very second, there is a countless amount of cells doing their life’s work. It is a harmony of function in action. You can see this effect when you lift a finger, move an arm or walk around. The things we don’t get to witness is what is moving inside. But what if you think about it, doesn’t it almost seem like you can visualize what is happening. Practice observing your body while in motion, the special thing you can begin to notice when you do, is the harmony of every cell working together. Every organ helping each other, maybe some don’t want to help, but that can improve. Feel your breath and how as you inhale your body moves to the rhythm of your exhale. It is the subtle motion that opens the union of the whole body. The art of your movement is a learning experience that can spark the most fantastic creativity, dance, parkour, rock climbing, and yoga practice can name a few. Happy learning!
Yoga is your Mind
Your mind is such an incredible entity that is connected to all the energy in the universe. This union between you and all that is around you can be “thought of” and when contemplated may be felt within oneself. Each mind has an entire universe set inside of it, it has been growing from the very start of life, yours and before. And then how you insert new information into your mind, the future gives way to who you can become and how you want to become it. The will to become it is your choice and always can be. We can recognize this with the simplicity that every mind has its body or physical state that it exists in. Your mind then discovers the universe that surrounds your body. This makes the unity of mind and body as close to one another as energy is to mass and light. They can not be “separate”. Mindfully think about that. How you imagine yourself can be just as important as how you are being, this can be thought of like this picture clear in your mind as physically turning on the light switch to your rooms lamp with ease. Try this out for yourself, it’s easy, picture yourself turning on the light switch in your room right now. Then physically do it, are they similar. Work on your mind with visualization. The more you work on this the more at ease each movement will be. When your mind has a clear representation of what you would like to see in your world it becomes solid, you can believe that these seemingly two states mental and physical are essentially one state of being. And now you can turn the energy of the mind into the world you see around you every moment. Start by going easy on yourself, learning takes time. Be patient. When you practice a physical Yoga practice, you can begin to see, feel and hear what yoga is inside of yourself and around you, and why Yoga is your Mind. That’s not too complicating… Happy practicing, namaste friend.