The scariest moment is always just before you start

Sorry for my absence! It seems that I was well and truly swallowed by the summer…and GOSH was it delicious being inside her:)

This summer my husband and I took a trip to Brazil- traveling to lazy beach towns, crazy big cities, historical old cities and the incredible countryside.

The first part of our trip was in a beautiful surf town called Itacare…just us, a couple of Brazilian tourists and the beach… Within a few hours of arriving, we were sitting in a surf school with our friends listening to an instructor whose lessons & observations from the days surf hit me straight to the core.

We started by watching videos from the day and he observed that while many were able to paddle out & stand up, they were still afraid to take their hands off the board to catch the wave and simply experience the surf.

The instructor continued by saying that very often, students tell him that if they keep their hands on the board they feel like they are in control and still kinda feel like they are surfing so, they would prefer to just keep it that way because it works!

Of course at this stage… the yoga teacher sitting in the back row’s mind started to run wild…

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In yoga, there is a single natural movement that seems to scare the CRAP out of almost all beginners. The humble backbend.

We have a posture called camel pose, in the beginners series it is the deepest of all the back bends in the class and in Bikram Yoga, we use 75 minutes of warm up to prepare for it!

We start the posture kneeling, with our hands on our hips…

Then we push the hips forward and simply let the head drop back.

Easy right?… notsomuch…thanks to fear.

The simple act of letting the head drop back incites such tremendous instinctive fear… maybe that the heads going to fall off….maybe that the entire body will tip backwards…or maybe its the sheer sight of the wall or floor from kneeling that almost always scares the humble first timer.

This fear doesn’t last forever though…after a few glances at the wall/floor the mind begins to rationalise that the head actually isn’t going to fall off… which leads us to the next step.

Letting Go.

Yup. The next step is all about letting go of control, trusting your instincts and “riding the wave”.

In Bikram Yoga, we start one hand at a time.. baby steps…yet these baby steps represent so much and are often the source of so much fear.

Just like the beginner on the surf board, learning to let go of your predictions of what you think will happen, opens up so many incredible possibilities and experiences.

Fear manifests in many different ways… on a surf board, in the snow and in the yoga room, on the streets!

Understand that to experience the ocean, the snow, the body and each other fully, you must be open to all the experiences that are being offered… and open yourself fully.

Replace your fear with desire…You have SO much to receive. Once you set your eye on the prize and start focussing on that, the fear will become irrelevant because you see the goal. Breathe in the exhilaration of the desire…and as you exhale…. go for it!

The confusing art of balancing kindness

Its been a while since my last post… there has been a lot of growth in the air, so I just had to close my eyes, open my heart and breathe it all in…

I saw this posted on Facebook today and it just shed a glorious light on my own personal journey with balancing silence, calmness, kindness and here’s the tricky one… boundaries.

As a child, I lost a brother and sister and with this type of early exposure to love and loss of life, I have been raised to believe that if you were kind, grateful and generous to all, all would be fine.

What I didn’t realise was that “all” included me…

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Growing up as a blend of the East & West, my natural tendency to be kind has been something that I have struggled to balance out with my basic need for boundaries.

I usually let the boundaries slide a little… innocently I trust that it will all be fine in the end 😉 But, as it turns out – boundaries are more important than I understood.

As this incredible picture highlights, kindness in its many forms including silence & calmness is often mistaken for weakness in its various forms including ignorance & acceptance – a weakness that is often taken for granted by people who are just fundamentally different!

This difference is no more a good thing, than it is a bad thing- its part of the basic understanding that we are all a product of our upbringing and environment.

And thats where personal boundaries gently step in…

These guidelines that we create, allow us to identify ourselves with what are reasonable ways for others to behave around us and the response that we will have when people step outside the limits.

Learning to extend kindness towards others AND ones self is that tricky little rope that I am learning to walk.

In the physical practice of yoga, this is something that manifests as we work beyond our physical limits because our ego tells us to.

In the mental practice of yoga, the psychologica/emotional limits will only manifest when we learn to listen and respect the quiet voice. that simply says no. Regardless of how things appear at face value or what he or she says, we come back to that word. No.

Its a short & almost inaudible word.

But the owner of the word is worth respecting.

Freedom to be who you are in this world is immense responsibility.

Its time to be responsible – to protect, preserve and respect that voice.