Today my heart awakened to the new yoga. Or the old yoga, whichever context you choose...Yoga is the union between you and you. Its the union between who you THINK you are, and who you really are. It's like discovering your soul and your body after you strip away the story you have made for yourself. When you tell people who you are, you have a story. I would tell you that I am a nurse, I am a dog person, I have great friends, I do fun things, and I constantly remind everyone of 'my story' when I talk about myself incessantly. I have 'stories' to tell others about my journey and others have a perception of who I am by the way I interact and share. Everyone has their stories, made up of their past experiences which they present to the world and others accept or reject them based on those labels we put on ourselves. Through facebook, for example, we project the selves that we want others to accept and appreciate and be excited, happy or sad for. We want others to acknowledge our souls and appreciate them. I believe it makes us feel less isolated and alone.
Getting wrapped up in living the story to impress others has been a lifetime soul sucker for me and I didnt even know it. I have not lived for me for a very long time. I have been searching for so long for something I do not have, and not seeing that I have everything I need right here...amazing kindred soulmates who I adore, and I am on earth in this awesome temple called my body...and with all my mistakes, I have not trusted myself to accept that I have surrounded myself with some amazing people, people who love me and accept me for who they know I really am. I have equated a relationship with a man to my barometer for happiness and it has gotten me nowhere but blind to the gifts I have placed right in front of my eyes.
If I learn nothing else here, I have already learned so much.
Today started off amazing. Another nose cleanse and up to the yoga class. Yesterday our teacher told us that Prana, or energy of all living things, is conserved in yoga, rather than expended, like in regular rigorous exercise. We were told Yoga should energize you and you should come out of it feeling great, not tired. I put my hand up and asked about when I'm hot yoga, and I want to die and it's so hard, to me that is expending energy, not preserving it. I was interrupted by many of the other students, who said that yoga is not supposed to be a competition or hard exercise, that you should never push so hard that it is painful for a session or compare yourself to others who can bend into a pretzel. Yoga needs to come within, and the better you get the easier it should be. I was told that westerners are generally missing the spiritual point, to combine breathing and postures properly, and it makes for a totally different experience. I came in this morning thinking I would not try and impress anyone, just do the stuff I could and not compare myself to some of the flexible girls. I kept my eyes closed the whole session like many others did, and you know what? What a difference. It was now just for me. Like my own little yoga class in my mind...all for me and I didnt even think of what others were thinking. I thought about this breathing thing and how it must be worth giving a good try. I'll be damned. It totally worked. I came out of there feeling like a million dollars.
Half way through the session, a band started to play and we could hear the bang of drums and tambourines and bells. Hearing a cow suddenly let out a mooooooooooooooo and goats whineying was enough to snap us back to reality... Picture the sound of a monkey jumping on the tin roof of the yoga room and taking a piss, which sounds like thunder until we can see the stream flowing off the roof past the window. We were all curious to what kind of festival was going on on a tuesday morning. After the session we had breakfast and went out to see what all the commotion was about. Turns out there was a wedding precession on the street:
we kind of didnt want to interfere as white westerners on a private local party.
An amazing treat today: Jeb, this 23 yr old at risk youth worker from Australia who is here with his Mom and sister, decided to take me out to the market for some yoga clothes. We had trouble finding stuff for him because Indians are small and he is about the size of Roger from work. Everything he tried on did not fit him. People were staring in the street because of the way he looks:
His ear peircings are as big as quarters and that dot under his eye is a peircing too..they are everywhere. so are the tattoos. We sat at this American coffee shop by the bridge and had my first coffee in a week and two scrumptious samosas all for a buck fifty:
Getting wrapped up in living the story to impress others has been a lifetime soul sucker for me and I didnt even know it. I have not lived for me for a very long time. I have been searching for so long for something I do not have, and not seeing that I have everything I need right here...amazing kindred soulmates who I adore, and I am on earth in this awesome temple called my body...and with all my mistakes, I have not trusted myself to accept that I have surrounded myself with some amazing people, people who love me and accept me for who they know I really am. I have equated a relationship with a man to my barometer for happiness and it has gotten me nowhere but blind to the gifts I have placed right in front of my eyes.
If I learn nothing else here, I have already learned so much.
Today started off amazing. Another nose cleanse and up to the yoga class. Yesterday our teacher told us that Prana, or energy of all living things, is conserved in yoga, rather than expended, like in regular rigorous exercise. We were told Yoga should energize you and you should come out of it feeling great, not tired. I put my hand up and asked about when I'm hot yoga, and I want to die and it's so hard, to me that is expending energy, not preserving it. I was interrupted by many of the other students, who said that yoga is not supposed to be a competition or hard exercise, that you should never push so hard that it is painful for a session or compare yourself to others who can bend into a pretzel. Yoga needs to come within, and the better you get the easier it should be. I was told that westerners are generally missing the spiritual point, to combine breathing and postures properly, and it makes for a totally different experience. I came in this morning thinking I would not try and impress anyone, just do the stuff I could and not compare myself to some of the flexible girls. I kept my eyes closed the whole session like many others did, and you know what? What a difference. It was now just for me. Like my own little yoga class in my mind...all for me and I didnt even think of what others were thinking. I thought about this breathing thing and how it must be worth giving a good try. I'll be damned. It totally worked. I came out of there feeling like a million dollars.
Half way through the session, a band started to play and we could hear the bang of drums and tambourines and bells. Hearing a cow suddenly let out a mooooooooooooooo and goats whineying was enough to snap us back to reality... Picture the sound of a monkey jumping on the tin roof of the yoga room and taking a piss, which sounds like thunder until we can see the stream flowing off the roof past the window. We were all curious to what kind of festival was going on on a tuesday morning. After the session we had breakfast and went out to see what all the commotion was about. Turns out there was a wedding precession on the street:
we kind of didnt want to interfere as white westerners on a private local party.
An amazing treat today: Jeb, this 23 yr old at risk youth worker from Australia who is here with his Mom and sister, decided to take me out to the market for some yoga clothes. We had trouble finding stuff for him because Indians are small and he is about the size of Roger from work. Everything he tried on did not fit him. People were staring in the street because of the way he looks:
I wish I had a photo of the 12 locals that surrounded us and proceeded to point and stare at his jewlery. He turned to me and said, what the hell, I'm an attraction in this place...
This afternoon's yoga included about an hour of relaxing meditation. Today I came to Rishikesh spiritually. I am here to stay. For so many more days. In my mediation classess I took with Bart the last few months, I really had some great experiences and when I'm truly meditating i feel like I am flying, like I am taking off from my body and having an emotional experience. I feel, for a fleeting moment, that my life is in harmony and I am so lucky and all that. That I can just stop worrying about my life because everything is going to be ok. I felt that for the whole two hours of yoga and I almost cried afterwards. It put me in a state where people were telling me I looked so much more relaxed..and everyone was talking about how today was so profound...as a collective we are chanting better, becoming closer, and understanding each other better. All in a couple days. I can only imagine what the next month will bring. Life, well it couldnt be better at this very moment, unless all my besties were here to bathe in the joy of giving in to the light.
Hey wait, I almost forgot. My energy was so positive today the universe decided to bestow the best treat on me and a couple of other lucky people who got to discover the 'good as the queen', vanilla ice cream, fried bananas, cookie dough fried in butter, caramel and chocoate sauce at this little cafe next door:
And I ate the whole thing.
xoxo
I love reading your updates, it feels like you're not so far way. Can't wait to read more!
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