Feel, Fail, Fall and Other 4-Letter Words to Live By

OFF THE MAT

Weekly Thought Offering:

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.
Paulo Coelho

Journal Prompts:
I label______ as a failure
I fell when I ______
A big feeling I pushed away because it was “bad” was_____
If I rewrote all of those things as lessons in an instruction manual what I was being taught was….
I can help myself remember to change my knee jerk to challenge by….

Weekly Mantra:
Failure is flight school
I am safe
I am held
I trust the divine plan
The future In unfolding greatness before me
The universe has a plan that is more beautiful than I can see

Hello Sadhakas!

This week we start a new pose. Hello crow! ON THE MAT we are looking at the shoulders and how to give weight to them to allow them to strengthen and eventually to hold us up in this any many other arm balances. But therein lies the rub, you can’t learn to stay up without falling down. It’s a basic universal law. We cannot learn without failing being a part of the process. Think back to everything you have ever learned to do, inevitably you were not “good” and did it “wrong” many, many, times before you did it “right”. Why then as adults do we label falling, failing, and feeling hard feelings as “bad”? Seems to me they are clear signs progress is being made and we will soon master the thing we are working on.

A few weeks ago we talked about resistance. We talked about how what we resist persists and how learning to stop the pushing can help us rid ourselves of the pain. This week we deep dive into what exactly we push away and ask ourselves why are doing that. What if you could eliminate the pushing in the first place? What if you could see things clearly and as they are? Right now you call it a failure but really it’s a stepping stone on a path of spiritual growth.

Which is to say, this week ON THE MAT we are falling a lot. We are practicing getting really comfortable with changing levels and strengthening our shoulders in the process. OFF THE MAT, I encourage you to change your relationship with falling, with failing and with feeling big feelings. Each time you want to knee jerk and say you failed something I want you to rewrite that thought with an acknowledgment of how you are practicing and strengthening your connection to Self while you learn how to fly.

With Great Respect and Love,

Nicole