Notes from the other side of the mat

Tags

dance of life, giggles, give and take, gratitude, Healing, learning, monkey mind, savasana, students, Yoga, yoga teaching

I stare at the photos on the wall – someone else’s gurus. But they’re very kindly looking and steady. Calming. So I share a few silent words of prayer with them: Please just let me just get out of the way.

You’re all lying in savasana – almost equal numbers of men and women. Peacefully lying there. I direct your attention to your breath and the rise and fall of your chest. Or, the movement of the air at your nostrils. I watch you all lying there, trusting the words I’m saying and I think, wow, how DID I manage to get into such a cool line of work?

I feel very humble and thankful and from this mindset, I begin the class.

It’s a gentle class, for beginners. That doesn’t mean it’s without challenge, though!

There are giggles – which is always a good thing – yoga should never be so serious that you can’t find a smile or a smirk. We get through the simpler movements and then things slow down because each movement of the next sequence needs to be broken down. Just like that feeling of trying to learn new choreography in a dance class, things are a little awkward for a while. But that’s okay…

So many beginners in the room all at once, which means I have to explain where you need to place your forward foot for a (back knee on the ground) lunge because otherwise I’m seeing all kinds of “interesting” shapes. Keep your elbows to your sides for cobra and use your spine to come up, not your arms so much! But we get there.

I work in my two of my current favourite nuggets of yoga knowledge:

1. The focus on the breath is to train the mind so that when you’re in a more challenging posture, eventually you’ll remember to go back to your breathing without being reminded. And just when you think a pose is too hard or you can’t hold it, if you use your breath as a vehicle you might surprise yourself.
2. When I ask you to scan your body for sensation, it doesn’t matter what you notice. Don’t get stuck on, or overly fascinated by any of those sensations. We’re developing a practice of self-awareness to sense and notice what’s going on both inside and outside of the body. It is the noticing that’s important: not what you’re noticing.

And suddenly we’re at the other end of the hour. No real meditation, because there’s a whole meditation class right afterwards and you’re welcome to join in that. But we do a little more focused breathing in savasana, and I give you a few more clues on how to get along with your monkey mind.

It’s over, and I realise with gratitude that it happened again: much of what I said felt more like something I channeled rather than a consciously worded class. Indeed, I ‘got out of the way’, so to speak.

Teaching yoga is not about my ego, or how wonderful a yogi I am. It’s this crazy and sublime sense of service, a true privilege. There’s an implied trust radiating off of you, and I feel extremely protective of those in my care. In my class. Learning from me!

Cycling home I feel very light of spirit, and I can’t stop smiling (which is kinda tricky coz I don’t really want to swallow any bugs). There’s a feeling of “rightness” that goes with this work, and whenever I teach a class I am learning to put aside all of those “who, me?” stories. Because each class shows me that I have knowledge to share; it doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to everyone but here I am in a position to pass it on to you.

So as I teach you, you are undoubtedly teaching me as well. I learn more about myself, and how I can interact with you. I learn more about yoga. I learn that in fact, I’m better off not hiding away from the world. That I should be out there, being a part of the dance of give and take. That it’s worth it. That it brings light into my life.

Thank you. Thanks for being my student and allowing me to learn these things. It’s such a damn honour, truly it is.

~Svasti xxx

Kick-ass kinesiology ftw

Tags

affirmations, Anger, bush flower essences, cheated, confession, crystals, finger-in-the-pie, Forgiveness, giggles, Kali, Kinesiology, lost years, muscle testing, rape, Shiva, spring clean, tuning forks, unstuck, Zombie

So here’s a confession for you, although not a particularly juicy one: I have no freakin’ idea how kinesiology works. I just know that it does.

Perhaps it functions as a channel to communicate directly with the body, or the higher self, our guides or even the universe. Or perhaps all of those things are really just one and the same and it doesn’t matter what you think you’re communicating with. What matters is that it gets to the heart of things. The truth. The stuff that needs to be heard and dealt with – kinesiology connects with all of that beautifully. Intuitively.

Also, by way of a secondary confession: I giggled heartily throughout of Monday’s kinesiology session, tears seeping from the corners of my eyes! I giggled at myself and at the very, ummm… finger-in-the-pie spot-on-ness of stuff that was coming up. I’m pretty sure I didn’t become hysterical in my laughter (right, Kerry?), but it was probably close.

I knew, totally KNEW without a doubt, there was more to do in my inner world. More to clear out. More to resolve. Because I want to become as functional a human being as I possibly can. I have no idea how much work there is to do still – and of course, that’s not counting any gunk I’d accumulated before the last five years. But hey, if I can even spring clean those last five years from my body, heart and mind then I’ll be an extremely happy lady…

My very first encounter with kinesiology was years back, when I worked for a chiropractor. She’d use it in practical ways to assist her chiropractic treatments, but then she also once used it to help me clear out a really bad dream (that was, if you like, related to a past life). And yep, that’s a story I haven’t written here.

I had a little more kinesiology several years after that to combat yet another traumatic dream memory – but that one was related to experiences from this life time.

Then there was a little kinesiology about four months after I was assaulted – still living in a daze, still thinking that I could wait out all of the nightmarish things that made life so unbearable… The treatments I had at that time, however, were about just getting me to a somewhat functional state. The months preceding that, I was little more than a zombie. Floating through my days, and trying not to feel. Trying to ignore the photo negative imprint of his eyes seared onto my retinas… trying to sleep my days away as obliviously as I could. Wishing for all the world that I’d just stop existing.

My kinesiologist at that point related her own horror story: being raped by someone who’d become infatuated with her. Raped at knife point, over and over. I remember being amazed that she could speak so calmly about it. It’s only been in the last year that I’ve been able to talk about my own experiences without completely losing my shit.

It was through the lovely Nadine that I learned of Kerry. I went to Kerry and Nadine’s first Unstuck workshop (which was awesome, by the way) and through the synchronicity of these experiences, I knew I’d end up going to see Kerry at some stage. I just wasn’t sure when.

Well, the ‘when‘ is right now. So turn up the heat, baby!

Monday night included much head nodding, many ‘doh’ moments, and the aforementioned hilarity. Kerry would do her thing with the muscle testing and speak words that couldn’t have been more spot on if she’d been inside my head. Lots of my ‘stuff’ was demanding to be heard and in no uncertain terms. Very blunt, it was.

We’d talked about what I wanted to do with these sessions, and Kerry wrote a series of affirmations for us to work with. I think the list went something like this:

• I trust myself
• I trust my decisions
• I trust that I’m headed in the right direction
• I find my perfect weight
• I forgive myself
• I can forgive the past

Uhhh… say WHAT?

I. Can. Forgive. The. Past?!?!?!?!

Ermmm, well not really, actually. Not right now.

I could barely get the words out of my mouth when Kerry asked me to say them. And right then I wasn’t laughing any more. In fact I was choking a little, the way I used to in therapy when working on something really difficult.

Oh. Apparently, forgiving the past wasn’t okay with me. And perhaps for the first time, I explained it out loud and in fully formed sentences…

I feel that in some really important ways, the last five years were stolen. Wasted. Despite what I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown and had to come to terms with myself, there’s a part of me that would trade ALL of that to get those years back. To be as fit and healthy as I was then. To still possess the same level of happiness and confidence. To have been in a position to date and/or be in a relationship. To have possibly met someone I wanted to have kids with.

That last one is HUGE. I’ve been grieving for those lost years.

And I love kids, really, really, really. I wanted and STILL want the opportunity to be a mother. Like a lot of women, and I know I’m far from alone in that. I’m thirty-eight, and in December I’ll be thirty-nine. While I know that some women are fortunate enough to meet their partner and have babies at this age and later, I feel… good god but I feel so ANGRY and CHEATED out of those years! Prime years, where the chances of me being able to get pregnant were better than they are now. Better than they’ll ever be again.

Those years are gone and I can not get them back. There’s nothing I can do about it. And the person I’m angry at of course, is me. Kali and Shiva help me!

And so we worked those affirmations, and a whole bunch of other stuff I probably can’t remember correctly. In addition to muscle testing, kinesiology uses some awesome tools – like bush flower essences, tuning forks, crystals (apparently I need to acquire a blue lace agate) and prayer cards (cheeky things!). And there’s a bunch of stuff associated with the results of whatever comes up and those words as I mentioned were cutting right through. No messing about!

But we weren’t done yet. There was another message for me – seems I’m not doing enough to satisfy my creativity. Apparently the blogging and the yoga teaching are good, but my body/higher self/guides/the universe wants more. Wants me to write more!

Say what?!!

Which is, y’know, terrifying. I like my little blog here, and the idea of drawing more attention to myself by getting stuff published makes my mind turn to mush. In fact, I don’t have the faintest idea how I’d go about getting published! Or what I’d write or for what sort of publications.

Kerry did suggest perhaps writing more about what I know – perhaps stuff that would’ve been helpful to me five years ago if I’d come across it… and that’s a great idea because back then, it wasn’t easy to find support groups or even websites that were specific to people in my shoes.

For now, I’m just putting it out there that I plan to make inquiries, see what I can find out and perhaps even plan a few pieces. Which still sounds scary but actually, somewhat manageable.

So Monday was AMAZING (and that’s not even counting the two calls I had about upcoming yoga teaching work!). We shifted a lot of energy and made a good start on the spring cleaning. Even if I looked and felt a little fried when we were done!

There’s more to do though, but that’s for next month…

~Svasti

P.S. ftw = for the win