Start your new year with a little bit of movement. Please enjoy this 10 minute all standing poses yoga practice!
Self-Love
At the end of one of my yoga classes, I noticed a student crying quietly on their mat. There was a feeling of heaviness in the air, and yet, this slight sensation of freedom. During our vinyasa flow, we worked with the theme of self-love. Every time I circle back to this intention as an instructor, it makes me think: why is it so damn hard to love ourselves?
Growing up, I was a competitive gymnast. There was an incredible amount of pressure to constantly do and be better. Although the words, “you are not enough” never actually came out of my coaches’ mouths, that seed of a thought was planted very early on. I was a strong, young girl who spent twelve to fifteen hours a week training, while also playing soccer, and still, I was not enough. Not celebrating my accomplishments and just pushing for more, became the norm.
As I moved into middle school, the struggle to love, hell, even like myself became an everyday battle. I physically developed much later than my peers and with this slow growth, came bullying and the comparison game. I called my parents twice a week for months claiming to not feel well, when really, I was becoming depressed. The transition into adolescence, like it is for so many, was a nightmare. The internal struggle for self-acceptance continued for many more years.
After graduating high school, I moved away from my small hometown. I thought that if I had a fresh start, I would start liking myself more, and so would others. Instead, I fell into a deep depression. I turned my focus outward looking for approval of myself in others, only to find myself chasing emptiness. While in therapy, I was given the homework of looking at myself in the mirror everyday and saying something positive. I felt nauseated the first several times, but it eventually became a little easier. The next step was to look at myself in the mirror again, this time saying, “I love you.” I cried every single time and eventually gave up trying.
Years later when I was in yoga teacher training, we had to do an exercise where we sat across from one of our co-trainees. We looked each other in the eyes while saying positive things about one another. Cue the nausea again. I will never forget that moment. I fought so hard not to interrupt with the response of, “you’re wrong.” I did my best to sit, listen, and believe. Slowly, I began to believe a few of the things that were being mentioned. I returned to the mirror that night, emotionally drained, looked at myself, and finally got those three powerful words out: I love you.
We grow up with so much pressure from everyone around us to be more or less, different or the same, this or that. Learning to break away from the ingrained belief system that gets created in our lives by the input of others is hard work, but it can be done. I started finding strength in the qualities that I once believed to be flaws, and that helped me to see that I bring a lot to the table. Self-love is a lifelong practice of accepting and appreciating who you are and what you have to offer in this moment. When you can let go of the judgment and expectation of others, you can start to see, with a little more ease, that you are more than enough.
Reset and Center
2020 has been one roller coaster of a year for all of us. It has left me, and many others, feeling uncertain, unsure, and nervous about what the future holds. Job loss and financial insecurities topping the stress list. When things become overwhelming, I like to escape.
The first place I escape to is my yoga practice. My mat is a safe and comforting spot, almost like a second home. It gives me a chance through breath and movement to leave the outer world and dive deep into my internal self. I am grounded and free all at once. Posture by posture, I work through the physical and mental weight that stress leaves in the body. Sometimes though, my yoga practice isn’t enough.
I was recently given the opportunity to go to the mountains for the weekend and it was exactly what my heart needed. Here in the bay area of California, it’s been difficult to go outside. We’ve had extreme heat waves and unhealthy air quality due to ongoing fires. My husband and I took off for the mountains just south of Lake Tahoe. The four and a half hour drive was a lot like my yoga practice. There were moments where I was fully present and deep in thought. Other times, I was spaced out and exhausted. The more we started to be surrounded by trees, the more I was able to relax.
The outdoors have always been my other escape. I grew up in the country and quiet, open space always brings a sense of calm. I let every thick grove of trees we passed bring deeper, calmer breaths. It didn’t take long to feel that internal reset button being pressed.
Once we arrived at the house, I took what felt like the biggest breath I had taken in six months. I just stood on the porch, staring at the surrounding mountains in complete silence. It was as if my brain knew that it could turn off. We spent the evening playing games, laughing, and just letting go of the outside world for a little bit. The next morning, I got up with the sun and decided to combine my two escapes into one practice.
I took an hour for myself, while everyone else was sleeping, and got on my mat. I practiced on the deck as the sun started to peak over the mountain range. In that moment, my entire being was centered. I was able to fully drop into my surroundings and myself. It’s amazing what a change of scenery can do for your wellbeing.
Later, we packed up, said our goodbyes and took the long way home-soaking up every bit of the present moment. Many hours and fun detours later, we arrived home to the same smoke-filled sky, but with a new outlook. Taking time to reset and center yourself is always worth it.
Join me in my outdoor practice here.
Garden Lessons
On a warm, summer morning, while pruning my tomato plants, I casually mentioned to my husband how gardening is a lot like therapy. I immediately recalled so many of my own personal therapy sessions over the years. My thoughts then turned to my yoga practice and teaching. It was in that moment that I realized how similar tending to a garden is to tending to ourselves in our yoga practice.
If you have ever taken care of a garden or even one house plant, you know how much time and care they require. Is it getting enough sun? Shade? Water? Nutrients? Love? (yes, plants need love too) When you tend to it daily, the work is relatively easy, but when you neglect it for any extended period of time, it’s much harder to get it back to its baseline. From the outside, our tomatoes looked great. There were lots of tomatoes growing and many new buds forming, but deep inside the plants were a lot of dead pieces that needed to be trimmed.
Often, we show up to our yoga practices and move, breathe, pack up and go. We tend to the surface of ourselves, but what about the stuff deep inside? The place where we hold onto old wounds, troubling thoughts, anxiety, fear, and so much more. Those are the pieces, that when we allow ourselves, can be trimmed away. They all take some level of energy to hold onto and can take away from all of the wonderful things in life. Just like dead stems and leaves that continue to take nutrients away from the healthy parts of the plant.
Pigeon pose, a deep outer hip stretch, is a posture that digs deeply into the emotional body for many students. I personally have cried into my mat in that pose countless times. When we tend to the surface only, we may think of how pleasant or intense the stretch is, but there’s always a chance to dig deeper. Students will often ask me why they suddenly felt like crying or yelling in that pose. It always brings a little smile to my face knowing that their emotional body was speaking to them. I invite them to explore the sensation instead of running away from it. Maybe it’s frustration from the day trying to find a way out or something bigger that’s been stuck for years.
Allowing ourselves to go to that mental and emotional place during practice can leave us feeling exposed. I remember looking back at my tomato plants after trimming them for an hour, thinking that they looked so bare and open. It’s from this exposure and new found openness though, that we allow more room for ourselves to grow and thrive- to continue to feed and nourish all of the good stuff in our lives. This kind of awareness and willingness to explore those deeper, more challenging parts of our practice take time and effort. Little by little, we will start to see ourselves flourish and grow.
