It’s Not a Sprint, It’s a Spiral.
OFF THE MAT
Weekly Thought Offering:
Often growth is not a straight line and we must stop punishing ourselves when it is not. In life we see the same things over and over again until we heal and free them. Growth often happens after we have seen the same thing many, many, times from ascending views. This moment you may be in the same place you have been before but if you can see it as another chance, learn from it and change some things. You’ll have more tools for the next go round and hey, you may not even need to see it again!
Weekly Journal Prompts
A recurring theme in my life is…
Having seen this situation many times I have learned…
When I am free of this it will look like…
For me to be free I need to respond like this when the situation comes up again…
Weekly Mantra
I ascend to my highest self
I see the patterns I learn the lessons
Hello Sadhakas!
This week we are in week 2 of our great twist, revolved hand to big toe pose. This week we turn out attention to the twist itself.
If you have known me as a teacher for any period of time, then you have likely heard me talk at length about the importance of knowing how to twist the spine while maintaining length. Twisting (like all things) has the ability to be good for you, or not good for you, depending on how you apply it and how consciously you do it. You see most of us spend a great deal of our time flexing the spine; whether its working at desks, holding and caring for little ones, or spending regular amounts of time on those spin bikes (or maybe even all of the above?!) The spine was not designed to flex for extended periods of time over great durations hence basically every adult you know suffers from or complains of back aches on a regular basis. Take that inherent compression and add an additionally compressive action like twisting and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. But never fear, yoga is here! And as one of my teachers says “Yoga counter poses life.”
This week we look not only at how to correctly align the spine but then how to take that alignment into a twist getting us the benefits without the possible pains. Twists in yoga have long been associated with detoxification benefits both energetic and physical. When we think of “detoxing” many of us think of releasing something down but this week I want you instead to focus on the spiral up. This will create strength in the muscles that keep us upright and help us repattern where our spine lives in space both ON AND OFF THE MAT.
OFF THE MAT I want us thinking about all of the ways we tell ourselves that we have failed, and I want us to radically forgive ourselves. I think of each of those moments as stops on a spiral staircase. We can let these moments take us down or we can start to see them for what they are, the chance to rise up and beyond a need for them in our lives anymore. Spend the week like a detective, piece together the patterns of things in your life, write them down. Instead of focusing on the fact that you have made the same “mistake” 10 times, I want you to write down the things you learned each time, no matter how small it is. I also want you to write a list of how you might respond differently (aka - up spiral on the staircase) the next time it rolls around. This is how we free things not by pushing them away but by welcoming them in and learning the lessons they came to teach. If we do this, we will no longer need them and they will leave for good!
With Great Respect and Love,
Nicole
