Yoga for Anger If I may be so bold, one of the core and unspoken beliefs held by yoga and spiritual communities is that to experience anger is somehow unspiritual or un-yogic. The truth is sometimes life will be all rainbows, lollipops and unicorns and sometimes life will hand us the most antagonistic set of […]

Feeling Incomplete

We have this core belief about being a human being that we need to get more to be complete. If we could improve our physical appearance, our health, improve our relationship or get in a better relationship, fix our job or get a better job, fix up our house or move to a better house, buy a better yoga mat, better clothes, a better night’s sleep, then we would be fulfilled.

In our culture, we are taught that when we grasp enough pleasureable experiences one after the other our lives will be happy. The problem is that wanting is like an intoxicant and we are unable to see clearly.

The truth is, we do not need to acquire things or change things, we can see how our sense of longing and incompleteness gets us caught in a vortex of desire and wanting. It creates a belief and a feeling that we are separate and not whole, that we are deficient and inadequate in some way.

With the stability of our yoga practice we can notice that we are caught up in a painful narrative of grasping and wanting and come back to resting in our body. When we stabilize our awareness opens.

When the desire, longing, wanting arises. When that sense of being partial, defective or imperfect in some way comes up it is an invitation to stabilize so our awareness can open. We can become curious about the longing. How long does it last? Does it intensify? Does it fade away? How does it feel in your body? Where do you feel it in your body? What emotions are attached? Is it charged? In what way? Notice how the longing, wanting and desire shifts and changes as you pay attention to it.

With awareness we can distinguish unhealthy desire from skillful motivation. We can start to open to our experience of desire, longing and wanting and with wakeful conscious attention unlock the valuable energy bound up within them.

This is not a matter of creating a club to judge our experience or push it away as if it wasn’t happening. And we are not confusing desire with pleasure. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a pleasant experience. We are bringing compassionate, tender awareness to acknowledge the longing that is present in our lives so that we can respond more skillfully. We understand that nothing lasts forever, just as the desire arises, it too will pass away.

At its deepest core all of our unskillful desire is a deep spiritual longing to connect with our own completeness. The more we support our awareness and sense into each experience we can recognize that we are intrinsically good and honour our precious human life.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Supported Fish Pose or Salamba Matsyasana, Sphinx Pose or Salamba Bhujangasana, Ardha Dhanurasana or Half Bow Pose, Cat Pose or Marjaryasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Pigeon or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, Dancer Pose or Natarajasana, Over the Moon Pose or Ardha Chandrasana Chapasana, Wide Legged Standing Forward Fold or Prasarita Padottanasana, Zig Zag Twist or Bharadvajasana, Bound Angle Pose or Baddha Konasana, Savasana or Corpse Pose, Bhairava Mudra (Male) or Bhairavi Mudra (Female)

Props Needed: 2 Blocks

Were you able to stabilize and open your awareness in this class? If so press the like button.

If you know somebody else who could benefit from seeing clearly their completeness and the preciousness of their human life, please feel free to share this class with them.

Let me know in the comments how longing, desire, and wanting felt in your body and how it shifts and changes as you pay attention to it.

Thank you so much for your donations: Donna, Leah, and Cornelia and Donna

We did a lot of backending and hip opening today.

Feeling Incomplete

We have this core belief about being a human being that we need to get more to be complete. If we could improve our physical appearance, our health, improve our relationship or get in a better relationship, fix our job or get a better job, fix up our house or move to a better house, buy a better yoga mat, better clothes, a better night’s sleep, then we would be fulfilled.

In our culture, we are taught that when we grasp enough pleasureable experiences one after the other our lives will be happy. The problem is that wanting is like an intoxicant and we are unable to see clearly.

The truth is, we do not need to acquire things or change things, we can see how our sense of longing and incompleteness gets us caught in a vortex of desire and wanting. It creates a belief and a feeling that we are separate and not whole, that we are deficient and inadequate in some way.

With the stability of our yoga practice we can notice that we are caught up in a painful narrative of grasping and wanting and come back to resting in our body. When we stabilize our awareness opens.

When the desire, longing, wanting arises. When that sense of being partial, defective or imperfect in some way comes up it is an invitation to stabilize so our awareness can open. We can become curious about the longing. How long does it last? Does it intensify? Does it fade away? How does it feel in your body? Where do you feel it in your body? What emotions are attached? Is it charged? In what way? Notice how the longing, wanting and desire shifts and changes as you pay attention to it.

With awareness we can distinguish unhealthy desire from skillful motivation. We can start to open to our experience of desire, longing and wanting and with wakeful conscious attention unlock the valuable energy bound up within them.

This is not a matter of creating a club to judge our experience or push it away as if it wasn’t happening. And we are not confusing desire with pleasure. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a pleasant experience. We are bringing compassionate, tender awareness to acknowledge the longing that is present in our lives so that we can respond more skillfully. We understand that nothing lasts forever, just as the desire arises, it too will pass away.

At its deepest core all of our unskillful desire is a deep spiritual longing to connect with our own completeness. The more we support our awareness and sense into each experience we can recognize that we are intrinsically good and honour our precious human life.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Supported Fish Pose or Salamba Matsyasana, Sphinx Pose or Salamba Bhujangasana, Ardha Dhanurasana or Half Bow Pose, Cat Pose or Marjaryasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Pigeon or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, Dancer Pose or Natarajasana, Over the Moon Pose or Ardha Chandrasana Chapasana, Wide Legged Standing Forward Fold or Prasarita Padottanasana, Zig Zag Twist or Bharadvajasana, Bound Angle Pose or Baddha Konasana, Savasana or Corpse Pose, Bhairava Mudra (Male) or Bhairavi Mudra (Female)

Props Needed: 2 Blocks

Were you able to stabilize and open your awareness in this class? If so press the like button.

If you know somebody else who could benefit from seeing clearly their completeness and the preciousness of their human life, please feel free to share this class with them.

Let me know in the comments how longing, desire, and wanting felt in your body and how it shifts and changes as you pay attention to it.

Thank you so much for your donations: Donna, Leah, and Cornelia and Donna

Feeling Incomplete We have this core belief about being a human being that we need to get more to be complete. If we could improve our physical appearance, our health, improve our relationship or get in a better relationship, fix our job or get a better job, fix up our house or move to a […]

Tree Medicine

Difficulties can be the source of our deepest wisdom, patience, balance and compassion. My teacher’s teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says the spiritual progress from the ego’s point of view is one insult after another.

Normally when challenges, mistakes, difficulties arise in our life we feel blame, frustration or a sense of failure, we try to get over our feelings and get rid of them as soon as possible to get back to life as usual, our more pleasant experience.

Usually in our lives when difficulties arise, we project our frustration onto them, as if it is something outside of ourselves, our relationships, our living circumstances, our work, the world outside of us that is the source of our discomfort. We think that if we can change our circumstances then we will be happy. But it is not in changing our circumstances that we will be happy, but in our relationship to them.

Instead we can take our difficulties and turn them into our medicine. We take our struggles and they become the remedy of patience and compassion towards greater and greater freedom as we come to know our True Self. Our greatest elixir for growth is often what will bring us face to face with our strongest limitations and difficulties.

We all face difficulty in our lives. Challenges in relationships, problems at work, pain illness and injury, loss of those we love, sometimes it is our own depression, anxiety, fear and addictions.

Today I am going to share Jack Kornfield’s story of a poisoned tree. On first discovering a poisoned tree which is a metaphor for the difficulties in our lives, some people only see its danger. Their immediate response is to cut it down and get rid of it before anybody is hurt. This is not any different from the normal response to aggression, compulsion, greed and fear that arises within us when we are faced with anxiety, depression, loss, conflict or sadness in ourselves and others. Our initial response is to get rid of the problem.

Perhaps your response upon discovering the poisoned tree is not aversion, but compassion. Your response may not be to cut it down, but instead of judging it you decide to build a fence around it so that others are not poisoned and the tree may also still have its life. This is a shift from judgment and fear to compassion.

Jack Kornfield suggests there is a third kind of response to the poisonous tree. This person sees the poisonous tree as exactly what they were looking for and picks the fruit. They investigate the properties of the poisonous fruit, mix it with other ingredients and use the poison as a medicine to heal the sick and transform the suffering of the world. This person sees value in the most difficult circumstances.

Jack Kornfield asks, what spirit of freedom, compassion or understanding is yet to be found in the midst of the difficulties of your life? With respectful attention what can you willingly learn from the difficulty that is present in your life?

Resource: Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart

Yoga Postures or Asanas: Reclined Bound Angle Pose or Supta Baddha Konasana, Reclined Side Bend or Supta Ardha Chandrasana, Side Plank or Vasisthasana, Plank or Kumbhakasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Tree Pose or Vrksasana, Warrior Three or Virabhadrasana Three, Uttanasana or Standing Forward Fold, Janu Sirsasana or Head beyond knee pose, savasana or corpse pose, anahata chakra mudra

Props Needed: 2 blocks, bolster, meditation cushion

Thank you so much for your donations: Cornelia, Donna, Hilary, Sonja, Diane, Zaneta, Donna, Sharon F, Sean, Anne-Marie, hanna, Peige, Hannah - these are one time and monthly donations to YWM

Tree Medicine

Difficulties can be the source of our deepest wisdom, patience, balance and compassion. My teacher’s teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says the spiritual progress from the ego’s point of view is one insult after another.

Normally when challenges, mistakes, difficulties arise in our life we feel blame, frustration or a sense of failure, we try to get over our feelings and get rid of them as soon as possible to get back to life as usual, our more pleasant experience.

Usually in our lives when difficulties arise, we project our frustration onto them, as if it is something outside of ourselves, our relationships, our living circumstances, our work, the world outside of us that is the source of our discomfort. We think that if we can change our circumstances then we will be happy. But it is not in changing our circumstances that we will be happy, but in our relationship to them.

Instead we can take our difficulties and turn them into our medicine. We take our struggles and they become the remedy of patience and compassion towards greater and greater freedom as we come to know our True Self. Our greatest elixir for growth is often what will bring us face to face with our strongest limitations and difficulties.

We all face difficulty in our lives. Challenges in relationships, problems at work, pain illness and injury, loss of those we love, sometimes it is our own depression, anxiety, fear and addictions.

Today I am going to share Jack Kornfield’s story of a poisoned tree. On first discovering a poisoned tree which is a metaphor for the difficulties in our lives, some people only see its danger. Their immediate response is to cut it down and get rid of it before anybody is hurt. This is not any different from the normal response to aggression, compulsion, greed and fear that arises within us when we are faced with anxiety, depression, loss, conflict or sadness in ourselves and others. Our initial response is to get rid of the problem.

Perhaps your response upon discovering the poisoned tree is not aversion, but compassion. Your response may not be to cut it down, but instead of judging it you decide to build a fence around it so that others are not poisoned and the tree may also still have its life. This is a shift from judgment and fear to compassion.

Jack Kornfield suggests there is a third kind of response to the poisonous tree. This person sees the poisonous tree as exactly what they were looking for and picks the fruit. They investigate the properties of the poisonous fruit, mix it with other ingredients and use the poison as a medicine to heal the sick and transform the suffering of the world. This person sees value in the most difficult circumstances.

Jack Kornfield asks, what spirit of freedom, compassion or understanding is yet to be found in the midst of the difficulties of your life? With respectful attention what can you willingly learn from the difficulty that is present in your life?

Resource: Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart

Yoga Postures or Asanas: Reclined Bound Angle Pose or Supta Baddha Konasana, Reclined Side Bend or Supta Ardha Chandrasana, Side Plank or Vasisthasana, Plank or Kumbhakasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Tree Pose or Vrksasana, Warrior Three or Virabhadrasana Three, Uttanasana or Standing Forward Fold, Janu Sirsasana or Head beyond knee pose, savasana or corpse pose, anahata chakra mudra

Props Needed: 2 blocks, bolster, meditation cushion

Thank you so much for your donations: Cornelia, Donna, Hilary, Sonja, Diane, Zaneta, Donna, Sharon F, Sean, Anne-Marie, hanna, Peige,

Tree Medicine Difficulties can be the source of our deepest wisdom, patience, balance and compassion. My teacher’s teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says the spiritual progress from the ego’s point of view is one insult after another. Normally when challenges, mistakes, difficulties arise in our life we feel blame, frustration or a sense of failure, we […]

Chair Yoga Class with Sherry

Today we have a special guest on Yoga with Melissa

Sherry Zak Morris from YogaJP

Visit her website here

Subscribe to her Channel here

No matter what is going on in your life right now, you can always find time to feel the Joy and Gratitude of being alive. Even with our aches, pains, worries and frets we can give ourselves permission to walk on the Sunny Side of Life and appreciate all that we have.

Sherry leads this Energizing Chair Yoga class with a group of senior citizens who happily and joyfully move, dance and smile while celebrating the NOW. Join us! You'll be glad you did!

("Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street!" Louie Armstrong)

Joy is the light that perks up in us for now reason. Sherry begins this chair yoga class with a centering, connection with the ground and some breath awareness. After centering Sherry goes into some neck releases for you. From there Sherry brings some mobility into your whole body with some leg and foot movement starting with the foot slider. After the foot practice, Sherry begins with some quad practice.

Sherry encourages you in some playful, joyful movements that will get your heart rate up and encourage blood flow. You will practice eagle pose in the chair with 3 options and movements to help you move your shoulder blades down. Your thumb is the first place that arthritis sets in and Sherry gives you some movements for this. There are two dances in this chair yoga class. Sherry moves through some sun salutation flows. You even get to come in and out of your chair with some squats :)

When you come to standing you will do some movements to increase your height, core strengthening and leg strengthening as well as some balancing. When you come back to seated you release your calf and hamstrings with hand to big toe pose using a strap.

The class finishes with an upbeat dance sequence for joy and gratitude.

Props Needed: Chair, Yoga Strap

 

Chair Yoga Class with Sherry

Today we have a special guest on Yoga with Melissa

Sherry Zak Morris from YogaJP

Visit her website here

Subscribe to her Channel here

No matter what is going on in your life right now, you can always find time to feel the Joy and Gratitude of being alive. Even with our aches, pains, worries and frets we can give ourselves permission to walk on the Sunny Side of Life and appreciate all that we have.

Sherry leads this Energizing Chair Yoga class with a group of senior citizens who happily and joyfully move, dance and smile while celebrating the NOW. Join us! You’ll be glad you did!

(“Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street!” Louie Armstrong)

Joy is the light that perks up in us for now reason. Sherry begins this chair yoga class with a centering, connection with the ground and some breath awareness. After centering Sherry goes into some neck releases for you. From there Sherry brings some mobility into your whole body with some leg and foot movement starting with the foot slider. After the foot practice, Sherry begins with some quad practice.

Sherry encourages you in some playful, joyful movements that will get your heart rate up and encourage blood flow. You will practice eagle pose in the chair with 3 options and movements to help you move your shoulder blades down. Your thumb is the first place that arthritis sets in and Sherry gives you some movements for this. There are two dances in this chair yoga class. Sherry moves through some sun salutation flows. You even get to come in and out of your chair with some squats

Chair Yoga Class with Sherry Today we have a special guest on Yoga with Melissa Sherry Zak Morris from YogaJP Visit her website here Subscribe to her Channel here No matter what is going on in your life right now, you can always find time to feel the Joy and Gratitude of being alive. Even […]