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Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: gratitude

A serving of help with a side of reflection

23 Saturday Jul 2011

Posted by Svasti in Health & healing, Hypothyroidism, Learnings

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

abundance, cats, Community, Depression, exhaustion, Generosity, gratitude, Hashimoto’s, Love, neighbours, PTSD, Support

A tricky thing for semi-wild/semi-tame creatures like me is letting people in. I wasn’t socialised that way, and for all of my longings for lots of friends and a connected network… well, it’s a two-way street isn’t it?

You see, it’s not just about give and take. It’s that you have to be okay with receiving: accepting what’s offered, free of charge.

Like many people, I had to learn that generosity helps keep the world turning. Our culture is one of consumption and usage and fulfilling our needs. Our own personal needs, that is. Not all families teach their kids about generosity to those outside their family. Mine sure didn’t.

So I’ll admit it: I used to be stingy. For example, many years ago, I used to feel hard done by if I was out for dinner with a bunch of people and my meal cost less than everyone else’s and yet I was expected to pay the same amount as others. I haven’t been that way for a long time now. I give away money, food, clothes and I’ll pick up the dinner tab for me and my friends if I can afford to.

My yoga studies and being around my Guru changed my self-centered feelings of lack, into generosity. Through demonstrations of compassion, sharing, love and giving, thankfully I learned that abundance comes from sharing what you have.

But allowing others to be of service to me (when I’m not paying for it) is something I’m still learning.

A little while ago I asked the universe for a helping hand, because thanks to Hashimoto’s I struggle like a mo-fo with my energy levels sometimes.

It can be exceptionally difficult to get out of bed, but not in an: oh it’s Monday and I don’t wanna go to work, kind of way. What I mean is that it’s physically difficult because I’m exhausted down to my bones.

This means things like taking the rubbish out, doing the dishes, cooking meals and so on, are challenging.

Even though I asked for help somewhat whimsically, I knew I was asking for something I genuinely need. I’d no idea where it’d come from or even if it would.

But it did!!

Little did I realise it’d be my neighbour. I live at on the ground floor at the back of a deep block of apartments. She lives at the front.

By some strange twist in my itinerant lifestyle, I’ve been living in the same apartment for over 2½ years now. For me, that’s seriously some kind of personal best. It’s possibly the longest I’ve lived in one place since I was eighteen.

Anyway, my neighbour and I have little chats whenever we happen to see each other. She has a little girl, and is a stay-at-home mum with a somewhat distant de-facto husband. For ages, I couldn’t remember her name even though she’d introduced herself when I moved in (thanks, PTSD short-term memory failure).

Our friendship has grown organically. At first we swapped pleasantries, then we spoke of her little girl and my nieces. Of job frustrations, and eventually, more personal things. Her relationship issues. My history of PTSD and depression. All while hanging out the washing or talking over her (ground floor) balcony etc.

Then came the little favours. She picked up Miss Cleo cat from the vet after her surgery last year. I’ve looked after her beautiful sweet grey boy cat and she’s fed and dispensed pats to Miss Cleo in my absence.

Miss Cleo and grey neighbour cat (they have a love-hate thing going on)

And so on. We’ve swapped thank you gifts, but we’ve never really taken it any further than that.

Until she noticed me limping around (both times) with my calf muscle tear and asked what was going on. I told her a bit, but as she was on the phone we said we’d talk another time.

Saturday of last week, I’d just come home from my yoga class and was getting ready for my thyroid ultrasound (which is NOT fun btw). She came out of her apartment and I explained about Hashimoto’s and the limping and so on.

I was already feeling pretty emotional, but then she tipped me over. Well if I’m cooking, I’ll put some aside for you if you like. It’s no trouble.

Sobs. This is more than my own parents have offered to do for me. Then she adds, If you need to talk, if you’re feeling really bad or need help with anything, just let me know.

We hug and I tell her how grateful I am for her support. Monday night, she sends me a text message to let me know that dinner will be waiting when I get home. I’m blown away by her kindness and even more so when in response to my gratitude, she texts back: You deserve a helping hand.

Whoah. I do?

The dinner is really tasty. Butter chicken, rice and vegetables.

I’m still sitting with this idea however, that someone thinks I deserve support. Accepting and receiving care is humbling for me. I guess I’m just not used to it.

But I’m realising that in order to be an effective giver of services to others, I also need to know what it feels like to receive.

I’ll tell you what it feels like. A freakin’ miracle, that’s what.

~ Svasti

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Notes from the other side of the mat

01 Tuesday Feb 2011

Posted by Svasti in Yoga

≈ 15 Comments

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

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5 minutes to appreciate a little action #reverb10

15 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by Svasti in Writing prompts

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

#reverb10, 2010, appreciation, Booyah, budgeting, debts, deconstruction, Depression, five minutes, ghetto skillz, gratitude, gypsy trappings, Money, moolah, paint stripper on steroids, roses and rainbows

Another compilation and I’m almost caught up on the daily prompts. Much of this feels like I’m hashing over subjects I’ve already covered in recent times, albeit from another angle perhaps? Never mind… 🙂

5 minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.
~ December 15 prompt

  1. Hanging out with my little nieces – they’re about to turn 2 and 4 respectively and are just little firecracker personalities, each in their own way. Drawing or playing sandpit with them is one of my greatest pleasures. There’s an innocence and great joy that comes from spending time with them, and they are very much in my heart.
  2. Teaching my first yoga class – nuff said!
  3. Regaining a sense of balance and finally kicking depression in the ass – things started coming good for me towards the end of last year. While 2010 hasn’t exactly been all roses and rainbows, I’m pleased to say I haven’t slithered back into that circuitous nightmare zone. Booyah!
  4. I’d want very much to remember that in 2011 I’ll be a third-time auntie. Before my sister and her family went overseas this year, I got one of my “messages” tipping me off about the email my sister would be sending me with the news. I’m pretty certain it’s a boy but I won’t know if I’m right for another couple of months. He’s due in June. 🙂
  5. Working out my plan for the next couple of years.
  6. The accompanying sense of clarity I gained as a result (see below).

::

Appreciate. What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?
~ December 14 prompt

Honestly – and this might sound odd – but I’ve come to appreciate everything I’ve learned about myself in the last five years. All of that stripped to the bone honesty and removal of delusion (like paint stripper on steroids) has been worth it. Not that I’m recommending that kind of descent into mental health degradation to anyone, understand.

But what if it wasn’t possible for me – with my pig-headed vibrancy and self-assured belief in several cultural fairy tales – to have learned my lessons any other way? Perhaps that’s not true, but then again… You could say I’ve come to terms with it all and I now understand why it was so hard for me to cope with what happened.

I was speaking to one of my yogini sisters last night – she was at the retreat I was meant to attend. As I’ve mentioned before, even when I’m not actually on the retreat myself I still reap the benefits. This time was no different, and it was interesting to corroborate my October/November experience of deep introspection and clarity with what actually happened for my fellow yogis.

Clarity – it’s what I’ve gained and appreciate the most. Understanding what truly matters to me and what doesn’t. Letting go of struggling so hard for things that just aren’t a natural way of living for me. Deeply getting in touch with who I am and what I want for my life, even if it doesn’t look anything like anyone else’s idea of a good time.

I mean, last week I was at one of those (Fucking December) Christmas engagement things. A whole bunch of people I used to work with back in 2008 (my last REALLY corporate job) were there. It was kind of like old-home week and actually great to see them all. I felt happy. Jubilant even, and absolutely no regrets over the purposeful deconstruction of my cushy little life of self-deception.

Over small-talk with a couple of ex-work mates, I explained my upcoming grand plan and here was one of the responses: Sounds great. I couldn’t do it myself, but if it makes you happy… I mean I don’t want to sound like a dick or anything, but I’m good with my life just the way it is (working 9-5 and paying off a mortgage).

Thing is, it DOES make me happy (and you don’t sound like a dick). At another point in my life, hearing those words might’ve made me feel less-than, and judged, which would’ve also made me feel like shit. But surrounded by people whose main focus is renovating their bathrooms, for the first time in ages I didn’t feel like some kind of fool for not having or wanting all the things they’re after. It ain’t my path, people!

I am clear – I want the simple life. And I’ll express my gratitude for this knowledge by doggedly pursuing my goals of getting out of the financial hole I’m in and picking up my gypsy trappings once again. And this time hopefully, I’ll be setting out for a life that encompasses my hippie/gypsy-self instead of denying her under buttoned-down corporate wear…

::

Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?
~ December 13 prompt

This hippie/gypsy/yogini girl here? She gotta acquire herself some serious skillz! Gotta get my sensible on, if you know what I’m saying.

A little more with the full disclosure: I’ve never been very good with the moolah. You could even call me financially irresponsible, if you like.

I can’t recall a single lesson on budgeting or money management at high school or from my parents. Regardless, my sister inherited their financial savvy and I did not. But whatever, right? I’ve picked up what I know about saving and budgeting on the streets. I’m all ghetto when it comes to my financial prowess!

That said, with my ghetto skillz I’ve extricated myself from under a mountain of debt in the last few years. But there’s more to go. I’m sure in 2011 I’ll be sharing with you some of how that mountain came about. Most of it wasn’t exciting, just stupidity and/or bad luck. Quite a bit of the latter, too!

I’ll be getting incredibly up close and personal with my spending habits, working out how to save money and maybe even make a little extra on the side. The goal: being debt-free by the end of 2011, baby!

I’m on it, okay?

~Svasti

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An Aussie non-Thanksgiving

26 Friday Nov 2010

Posted by Svasti in Life, Yoga

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

body, breath, Compassion, Eye contact, gratitude, interconnectedness, Intimacy, Love, Melbourne Cup Day, Mind, particles of joy, PTSD, random animals, supta baddha konasana, Sweet Mango, Thanksgiving, Yoga, yoga teaching, Yogis

Right now in America its Thanksgiving, which (and possibly you didn’t know this) isn’t celebrated as a holiday outside of the US and Canada. But in general, it’s a great idea for everyone on this planet to practice feeling grateful, and more than just once a year. Preferably without overeating, too. And even when things aren’t all rosy.

Especially yogis – y’know, I think it’s in the yogi handbook (that “official” one they give you when you sign on for life)…

(AHEM! That last sentence was a JOKE people! Well, except for the part about “especially yogis”. Coz, dudes and dudettes, yoga philosophy is all about love and compassion and stuff!)

Before this post gets going, I wanted to let you know that Sweet Mango (aka Michelle) – I wrote about her in my last post – did get the miracle she desperately needed. It’s such a wonderful story, and I am thankful for the way things turned out for her!

Over here in the ass-end of the world, we don’t do the whole turkey dinner in November thing. Today on Twitter, Ecoyogini asked if we Aussies have a holiday in November. Ha! The closest thing we have is a holiday on the first Tuesday of November and it’s for a horse race (quite a famous one though).

Yep… and in the week leading up to it, people spend stupid amounts of money on clothes and booze (translation: alcohol) and then go and stand around dusty racing tracks – unless they are lucky and get an invite to a VIP section – and bet, and drink and flirt. It’s meant to be glamorous or something.

Of course, I’m quite anti the whole thing on account of the horses. I mean, sure they get treated well as long as they’re making money. After that, some of them become breeding animals and the others…well, I think it’s dodgy.

And that is our November public holiday! Well, as long as you’re in Victoria. In the other states, people just take a half day from work, and get drunk over lunch which effectively renders them useless for the rest of the day!

Anyway, this post is meant to be about stuff that I’m grateful for, right? So here goes!

Despite everything, including all of the reasons this blog exists, I am grateful to be here.

These days my life is much more, uhhh, liveable than it has in a good long while. However, I still have days/hours/moments where I feel completely and utterly miserable. Mostly, this happens when I compare the state of my world to some cookie-cutter ideal I was hand-fed by my family, the society I grew up in, and/or the values of the entire freakin’ western world. The tendencies towards depression and anxiety attacks mean that none of that stuff is easy to deal with.

My life looks pretty much nothing like any of those “markers” of happiness and success. And yet, despite everything, and perhaps regardless of the numerous times I have to back myself away from the soul-destroying, negativity-loving shouty little demon folk, I’m pleased to report that these days it’s still possible to find happiness and gratitude.

Okay, so my version of happiness is far from perfect. But still, nearly every single day I can genuinely find something to be happy about.

A lot of that has to do with three things.

First – just taking the time to look around me. Because then I get to indulge in my predilection for saying hello to random animals on the street…

A cute random dog I befriended on the street

And appreciate nature, and other people. Yeah… that thing I used to avoid thanks to PTSD? It’s called looking other people in the eye, and now I can do that again (hooray), I look through their eyes into their hearts and offer them what they hopefully see as a smile of love. Because in case you hadn’t noticed, pretty much all of us need more of that. Love. Smiles. Pleasure gained from little things.

If what we want for this world is to generate more love, compassion and gratitude, then this seeing people is important work, because so many of us just feel invisible, right?

Second – actually, is my online world here. Through which I’ve met incredible people and hey, maybe someday I’ll get to meet a few more of you! While reading blogs and Twitter, I’ve discovered stories that angered me, brought me to tears, made me laugh out loud, entertained me and overall, educated me. You are all awesome!

Third – of course, is yoga. I still can’t quite actually believe that I’m a yoga teacher, and yet I find endless blessings and revelations from each and every class I teach. Even if I think the class went terribly, it still teaches me. And more than anything, it brings me happiness, to think that I’ve been able to share information with others that helps them learn more about their relationship to their body or mind. That just blows my mind!

Between teaching and my own practice, plus regular doses of kirtan and meeting other like-minded people… this has and continues to be a stabilising force around which I gather those smallish particles of joy.

Yoga is the basis of the new life I’m planning for myself…more about that some other time soon. For now, I’ll just say that for the first time in an absolute age, I have a plan. Something that’s about doing the right thing by myself and I just hope I can pull it off! Because if I can turn things around the way I want them to go, then it’s not just doing the right thing for me – it will in the long run benefit others, too.

And now, a little something I wrote and read out to my class this week. None of the ideas are new or original. They’re all things I’ve learned from my teachers. Maybe it’s just because I’m a new teacher, but sometimes I feel like I don’t get to say the things I really want to say while I’m teaching. Stuff that I want my students to understand about yoga!

So I basically wrote down a bunch of ideas, and asked everyone to lie in supta baddha konasana (reclined butterfly) while I read it out.

Here it is now, for you, too. With my love and thanks for being a fabulous online community. xo

About your yoga practice

The concept of yoga has been interpreted in dozens of ways all over the world. But what is yoga, really?

Is it stretching? Does movement have to be involved? Can yoga could be performed in a chair, or by a quadriplegic or paraplegic? Is yoga limited to what happens in a class and on your yoga mat? The answer could be “yes” to all of these things, but yoga philosophy and practice is a vast  body of knowledge and can take many years to study.

Through my teachers, the following definition of yoga has been passed down to me and it’s both very simple and very complex: yoga is intimacy.

Not in a sexual way of course! But intimacy as true interconnectedness. This begins with how you relate to yourself, and so we start with the breath. In much of our waking lives, we are unfamiliar with our own breath – and yet it’s the breath which carries the exchange of life force energy that keeps us alive.

How aware of your breath are you? Without training it’s difficult to breath with awareness all day long and this is why in yoga class, we practice being focussed on our breath.

The breath originates our life force and ability to move, and as such, we start and end each movement we take in yoga with our breath.

And over time, through this practice we learn to link our breath (awareness = mind) with our body. For many people this is a challenge, because the body is where we store all of our pain, fear and suppressed emotions. To connect the breath/mind with the body, is actually a really big deal.

Once that connection between the body and mind starts to open, the body responds in kind. And you might find that yoga poses you previously thought you couldn’t do become much easier. Sometimes these sorts of changes can appear to happen very quickly.

But you have to ask yourself if it was ever the case that your body couldn’t do what it can now do. Or if it was something else that changed. Your awareness of your body in space, perhaps? Or maybe your fear around what you think you can or can’t do?

People have many reactions to yoga. Some think it’s boring. Others – including me – have at times found it to be something that causes fear. Some people experience nothing but bliss doing yoga. And others yet again, try it and hate it.

These are all reactions of the body and the mind attempting to work together. And if you keep practicing over time, you might find that you experience all of these things, and possibly other experiences I haven’t mentioned.

The thing is – whatever your current experience of yoga, it can and will change. And while you’re finding your feet in your relationship to your yoga practice, it’s good to adopt an attitude of playful exploration.

In my own personal practice, there are still things I can’t do or that I find really challenging. However, there is a way around that fear, if we are willing to be playful and have fun with it!

The opposite of playful exploration is telling ourselves we can’t do something. The more we tell ourselves that, the more we won’t be able to do it because we won’t even try. If we never do those things, our relationship to them never changes.

So, back to the concept of yoga as intimacy. We fear what we’re not familiar with. To lose our fear, we have to get to know what we’re afraid of. And in yoga, our tool set for this work is the mind, the breath and the body.

The mind focuses and controls the breath in a way that helps us to relax and provides continuity and consistency. The breath starts and finishes our movements to soothe our transitions and release our fears. The mind can tell us all kinds of things about our yoga practice – how much it hurts, that we’re scared or tired, that we can’t hold that pose a second longer – but if we allow ourselves to focus on breathing instead of what the mind says, the body will respond. And suddenly all of our protests go away. And the body, with the support of the mind and the breath, can over time, experience openings that inform the mind that things are changing.

This is why it doesn’t matter if you fall over. And why it isn’t important how well or badly you can do a pose. The correct attitude to your practice at any given time is: “What’s going on in my body? Where am I holding tension? How is my breathing? Do I feel connected to my body as I move through these yoga poses?”

To answer these questions, you need to explore how you feel and what you’re thinking and doing in your practice. Although a yoga teacher leads the class, your yoga practice is unique to your own body, breath and mind. You are the only one who can do this work of exploration, and it’s the way to intimacy and the path to attaining yoga.

~Svasti

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Big Exciting News

23 Wednesday Jun 2010

Posted by Svasti in Yoga

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

accessible yoga, charity, gratitude, kirtan, mentor, volunteering, whirligig life, Yoga, yoga teaching

See this lovely, lovely building? It holds the secret to my Big Exciting News. Which is happening, it really is!

If you follow me on Twitter, you might’ve noticed me talking about this already. But until things got a little more certain, I didn’t want to write a post. Just in case.

So, at this otherwise rather uncertain time (no, I still don’t have a new job yet and will be out of income-providing work as of this Friday – and I’m trying my best not to panic about that!), my Big Exciting News is 100% certain. Can you believe it? I barely can, and oh wow, I think I can stop holding my breath now…

What I’m talking about is my very first ever yoga teaching gig! And even better, exactly the sort of teaching I want to do right now. Volunteer teaching that is, and for a very specific audience.

I don’t know who’ll be in my class yet, but they will be clients of social service organisations like Sacred Heart – my students could be homeless, or coping with mental illness or possibly even street workers. Not that it matters to me. All I care about is making yoga accessible for people who otherwise could not afford it.

Y’know, when I started thinking about how to make this idea work, I didn’t realise how much effort I’d have to put into giving my time away. But I guess that’s how it is when you’re creating something from scratch, right? It takes effort and energy to build something new!

The first step was easy – I just started talking to people about what I wanted to do with no idea how to make it happen. And it turns out that unbeknownst to me, the key was among my existing network of people.

I’m a part of a little community that gathers once a month for kirtan, and then some of us go out for dinner afterwards. We’re a diverse bunch of people, and when I started explaining what I wanted to do, one of the women at the table told me she was a social worker. She gave me a tip about a local charity she works with – one that provides recreational services to the disadvantaged. It sounded promising, and so I did a little Googling.

Which is how I found myself making email contact with them, then having a chat and a cup of chai with one of their really lovely reps. We hit it off and had a wonderful conversation! And I explained that what I wanted was this – access to a room I could use free of charge for yoga classes once a week, and the classes would be free for the people who attended. And preferably, a bunch of yoga mats to use.

She was very supportive and excited about my idea, but nothing happened for a few weeks while she put the word out in her network. To be honest, I think if we hadn’t clicked as well as we did, I don’t know if she would’ve tried as hard as she did to find a way for us to work together!

Several weeks ago I received an email with the subject was: “Exciting news!”

What she’d been able to negotiate was free space for 10 weeks at a local venue (see photo). It’s actually an art gallery in St Kilda, and the yoga room (used by other yoga teachers etc) is upstairs and out the back.

Last Saturday I picked up the key and had a look around. It’s a very short cycle from my place (15 minutes max.) and the building is GORGEOUS, isn’t it? Wheee!

The idea is that my charity contact will keep looking for a more permanent venue we can use, and for now this is sort of a test run – for them and for me.

And, ummm…  I’ve got a request for my yoga teacher peeps reading this! I figure I’m gonna need advice and perhaps a little mentoring. I’m not sure y’all remember what it was like when you first started teaching, but I’d sure appreciate some tips. So along with my network of yoga teacher friends in my physical community, I’m hoping I’ll be able to call on my blog network yoga teacher friends, too. If that’s okay with you folks? 😉

So. Stay tuned. There will be LOTS more on this topic. For now, I’m just thinking about the first few classes and what I want to do with the 10 week period overall. Remembering that many of my students could be BRAND NEW to yoga, and many could also have all kinds of physical/mental/emotional issues.

I feel a lot of gratitude for this opportunity. Even when I’m not sure of my own employment status, I can’t tell you how excited I am to be doing something for other people. Somehow, it’s about the only thing in my crazy whirligig life that’s making any sense right now.

The ways in which we are blessed, we never really know, right?

~Svasti

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Swirling yoga love

04 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by Svasti in Life, Yoga

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Depression, gratitude, Healesville, houseguests, kirtan, Linda Blair, loving kindness, Mark Whitwell, motorcycles, non-dual Tantra, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Retreat, Shadow Yoga, Yoga, yoga teacher training, Zen

Whoosh! See what happens when you put your intentions out there (such as the desire to explore of different yoga styles and teachers) – apparently what happens is that opportunities come and land plum in your lap!

Been feeling a lot of gratitude at the moment. And excitement, nervousness and amazement. We’re already in March and what a rush these months have been! My head is spinning (but not in a Linda Blair kinda way).

In part that’s due to the increased amount of energy I seem to have as I glide ever further from the shores of Depression, out into a world that makes me smile for no good reason with increasing frequency…

Of course, I’m not foolish enough to think I’m “cured” forever. Once depression (and/or other related mental imbalances) have been an unwanted house guest, they tend to hang around and think they have a standing invitation.

So, like others who’ve spent more than enough time with depression, I get it. I know what triggers me and for the most part, I know what helps and heals. And just like my PTSD symptoms, I wait and watch. Will I be haunted by depression again? Possibly… but then maybe not.

For now, I’m feeling pretty darn blessed, really. I have a multitude of teachings from my Guru, and now my yoga teacher training, supplemented by learning Shadow Yoga (it still blows my mind!). I’m getting myself organised to begin teaching classes (YTAA membership, insurance etc). And in the meantime I’ve had two spectacular gifts materialise.

The first of these was Mark Whitwell’s Heart of Yoga weekend workshop in February (Valentine’s Day weekend no less!). Thanks again, to super-woman Nadine for organising everything! I’m yet to write up my experience of Mark’s teachings properly, but it’s a-coming. As are some further notes on my experiences with Shadow Yoga, possibly even in a more coherent form than I’ve managed to date.

Then there’s the kirtan group I’ve been attending for several months now, run by a local yoga teacher/talented singer and musician. The sessions have been awesome, giving me some fantastic insights. And now he’s brought an American Zen Master to Australia – a teacher he respects.

This Zen Master guy sounded really interesting and I wanted to go. But when I looked at my finances (post Mark Whitwell retreat, still paying off my yoga teacher training AND saving for retreat with my Guru in October) I could see it wasn’t going to happen.

So I explained the reasons I couldn’t come very transparently, and in response I was offered a very discounted price. I was also offered a lift there and back (required since I don’t have a car) and if needed, someone to house/cat sit for me.

Every possible reason I could say no was countered with generosity and kindness. And to be honest, I felt just a touch suspicious. Like – why would someone who doesn’t know me very well want to do those things for me?!

Then I snapped out of it and remembered that yeah, y’know there are other people out there who are unfailingly generous by nature. And I had to remind myself that I have no problem with doing something for others without expecting anything in return – I give away money, possessions and just do things for others because I can! But… I still find it hard to accept the odd occasion when people offer me such kindnesses in return. It feels unbalanced somehow (strange logic, I know). But then I figured out a compromise that made me feel better about things – I asked to be #1 helping hand on retreat, doing food preparation or whatever is required to help things run smoothly. My offer to be of service was accepted and so it’s all good.

So yay! This coming long weekend I’ll spend three days in beautiful Healesville (75 minutes out of town) for a yoga and meditation retreat, Zen-style. Which is actually quite closely aligned with non-dual Tantra, just from another perspective.

The weekend after the retreat, I’ll be having interstate houseguests and yessssss, that’ll be the sound of motorcycles parked in my carport! *grins*

And I promise, I will post about my recent wonderful yoga experiences here as soon as I can! 🙂

~Svasti

P.S. Speaking of loving kindness, check out this post on Lily’s Life: Food For Thought. A warning however – might be a good idea to have tissues at the ready while you read it!

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