RIP Ray Manzarek

It makes me very sad when beautiful artists die, especially artists from a time past that I want to remain alive. The Doors are a part of that time. Recently, a friend of mine told me a story about a woman who is convinced that Jim Morrison is still alive. Now, while I don't know that I am sold on this story, I like to believe it is true. I want to believe that his spirit walks among us. I want his energy to still exist. Not that death signifies the death of energy, but still, I like the idea that Jim remains alive.

Ray Manzarek fits into that same category. I want his energy to forever live on this planet. Though, his death does not mean it no longer exists it has simply changed forms. His death signifies a death of a certain time and phase, but his music will always live on. And his spirit will morph. Death does not mean the end rather it means change.

The Doors have always held a special place in my heart. I first started listening to them when I was 17. I was living in the college dorms, drinking WAY too much and running around being crazy, which I suppose is normal for any college student, but I had a certain restlessness that needed to be tamed. I took to listening to The Doors to put me at ease. When I told my boyfriend at the time this he said, "You need to do more than just listen to The Doors."

I told him I knew that, but really I didn't. It is sort of embarrassing to think back on my naivete.

My boyfriend was a surfer and he spent his time drawing, surfing, and studying while I spent my time partying. I was emotionally unstable and used alcohol and socializing as a way to avoid my deepest feelings, desires, and fears. I knew I needed to find a deeper center, but at 17 I didn't know how. I was envious of my boyfriend's ability to just be. In the end, I rejected his calm for an elicit mysterious boy who tortured me, but I took The Doors with me. Jim Morrison's voice calmed me. It still does. At the time my favorite Doors song was The End. Today, it is The Crystal Ship.

The Doors slipped me into a state that I knew I needed, but it isn't until today that I can say I have found that center. They were an intregal piece in the journey to my discovering my self and learning to just be. Their music and their words mean so much to me. I am saddened that another piece of their band has slipped from the physcial world, that his energy has changed forms. RIP, Ray Manzarek, my thoughts and prayers are with your soul...

Physical vs. Emotional Pain--You Choose!

During my mom's recent trip to NYC she told me the story of my learning to walk. I learned to walk rather quickly, but a mere month into my time on my feet I fell and it hurt. It took me two months to get back up. I didn't crawl, but I wouldn't stand. Instead, I walked on my knees for two whole months, cautiously gaining my balance for the day I would stand again.

I think this story is hilarious and so telling about my relationship to physical pain. The other night I asked a couple of my friends whether they prefer physical or emotional pain. Both of my friends said physical. I definitely prefer emotional pain. I know how to deal with it and work through it much better than I do when I am physically injured. I posed the same question to the advanced class I was in on Friday and one of my friends and fellow teachers said, "Really, they are the same thing."

I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. I mean, I believe that physical pain is a manifestation of our emotional state, but for some reason in regards to this specific question I hadn't put those two together.

It got me thinking about people who often repress their emotional pain and end up physically injured. When we are more adept at facing ourselves and our emotions our bodies are freed from the pain and we feel free. If we ignore, repress, or try to hide the hurt and emotions of life our bodies force us to deal with it in other ways. Such as through a physical injury or sickness. 

I prefer to face my emotions head-on. I have found that this is not the popular way of dealing with them. People numb, hide from, ignore, avoid, and run away from the truth that lives inside of them. In turn, these emotions rear their what might have been beautiful heads in an ugly way through injury or sickness in the body forcing us to address what we feel inside. Unfortunately, most people don't look at pain and sickness this way and instead treat the symptom rather than the root cause.

Pain is telling. It is a lesson waiting to unfold as something beautiful. Once we are able to admit this and address the pain within ourselves the happier we will be. Life is about learning, growing, and giving. And nothing makes us learn, grow, and become more grateful than overcoming pain. Be it physical or emotional, pain enables us to reflect and have compassion for others who are struggling with their own pain. We are all struggling with some form of pain.

I still, as an adult maintain that I would rather be weighed down by emotional rather than physical pain, but as my friend said, "Really, they are the same thing."

The more quickly you are able to identify your feelings and work through them the more quickly you will be free...So, be still, reflect, meditate, and radiate the joy that will ultimately overcome your pain!

 

 

The Journey of Yoga

Life is a journey. Just as each day is a journey. And, almost more so, every yoga class is a journey. As I was walking to class the other morning I started thinking about this truth. Yoga is a journey into the self. And with each class we traverse through the brambles, branches, and the like clearing the cobwebs, removing that which no longer serves us and facing that which we have hidden inside. It takes courage to go on a journey, any journey, but particularly the journey that is our own heart, mind, and spirit. That journey takes the most courage of all. 

Yoga is the journey to the center of the self. Every day when we step inside of that room we must have the courage to face our own selves and emotions. It is never easy. It is always difficult and we always come out the other side cleaner and happier than we were when we stepped into the room. With each class, the story of our day or our week unfolds and is told. Sometimes, stories from years past unravel from our bodies and fill our minds and hearts, allowing us to let go and move forward. Asana gives us the gift of learning to let go. We store emotions in our bodies and as we practice we release them allowing us to deal with them in the best way possible. Letting go can be the hardest part of life, but once we release we are able to start fresh.

Living life in an authentic way is often not easy. It is hard, but the right way is always hard. We are put on this planet to do work, important spiritual work. It is easy to lose sight of that as we walk through the realities of the world, but the truth is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience and every time we walk into the yoga room we increase our internal vibrations, which enhances the vibrations of the planet and that energy shoots into the universe. So, if ever you feel frustrated by the path you are walking take a moment to look inside, journey within and know that the journey you are taking fuels the good of the world. If you feel that you have gone off path there is always time to reset and begin the journey anew. Stay true to yourself and to the spiritual message you wish to send to the world.

Namaste...

Be Free

My Saturday message is to let go and be free. Our spirits want that, long for it really. In this life we accumulate so many chains--emotional, physical, financial--and we forget that we are able to be free. It takes a shift of thinking and, often, it takes leaps of faith, but the truth is that we function best when we are free. So, take a look inside at what causes you to feel conflicted, confused, or chained and release all of it. Let yourself be free...nothing in the world will feel more rewarding. And if you find an excuse hiding in there that is all it is---an excuses and there is no room for those in life. In the end, it is only you who suffers from your own self inflicted suffering. 

Be free...and live form your heart...you will never regret those decisions!

Breath is Love

 Today was a most beautiful Sunday in NYC. I went to yoga, following which I spent some time on the steps of the Met with two of the most beautiful girls. We giggled and twitterpated over life until the smiles were permanently planted on our lips. It was a morning full of love and laughter...:) Such moments are beautiful and refreshing and love filled...

I often feel that love is met with power struggles and fear. I guess it is scary to love, but it is all that matters so isn't it a thing we should be willing to learn? To love...

Interesting, isn't it? That we need to learn to love. Much like re-learning to breathe. We are born with the ability to do both, but as we age and anxiety, tension, and stress take over our bodies we forget how.

Breath and love are symbiotic. The more easily we breathe the more easily we love and vice versa. Life abuses us until we learn to live in our center and breathe fully and completely. Oxygen is so healing for the body. It heals a plethora of ailments physical, mental, and emotional. The more we breathe the cleaner and calmer we feel and the more able we are to accept our own truth, which is often having the ability to accept who we love. This includes ourselves. Loving the self is the first step to loving others. It isn't until we are happy with the person who we are and are able to sit in silence with that person that we will breathe and love properly. 

And once we are able to breathe, the love should be a lot easier to accept and give. Power struggle is based on the ego. Love does not know its game. Unfortunately, it seems to be a very common response to truth and love. I can only assume that means that the person responding in such a way is not living in their own truth and is unable to breathe and give love...

Breath is life. Breath is yoga. Breath is love. And love is why we are here. To reverberate love and give it back to the universe, the planet we live on, and all of the beautiful beings we encounter. Learn to breathe and you learn to love and life becomes so much more joyous and free...

A Journey Into Erotica

March was a big month for me: yoga competition, writer's conference, a trip to another city...And now it is time for Spring and new life to begin. I have met and gotten to know some amazing people over this last month and I feel truly blessed...

Ironically, this birth of the new is coming at a time when I have decided to write a novel I have been planning for quite some time. It is pieces of an old life placed in a fictional world with new characters meshed with ones based on a real life I lived. It feels so long ago that I can barely relate to being that young girl.

It's interesting how as we grow and change when we look back on the life we once lived it feels so far removed from who we are today that it could be an entirely different person. For though the base of me is still the same much of who I am and my daily habits and behaviors are entirely different. 

I went to an amazing birthday party the other night. It was at The Modern and it was for one of the most amazing women I know. The night ended at 7 a.m. with a cab ride home from the west village. I love that time of day, especially when it is the close of a night. There is something truly reflective and beautiful about being awake all night and watching the sun come up. 

At the party, I was telling another guest about the novel I am writing. He asked if I have a difficult time relating back to that time because he doesn't know if he could. I told him that I am writing as though the character is not me. As if it weren't my life. Though, interestingly, I can still relate to that time. It takes place in the rave scene and as readers of this blog know that was one of my most favorite times in life. So, yes, I can still relate to it, but the girl is not me. She is a different person one who has yet to have the courage to take on life, but she does have the courage to jump into it. She is a girl who is just letting go of her youth so that she may evolve into me.

She has no idea the work that is ahead of her and it makes her raw and beautiful, filled with emotion and unafraid to express it...

Looking back at her is interesting and I would NEVER want to relive her path again. But writing her is fun. Eleven years ago is when I began my Bikram yoga journey and nine years ago I started writing fiction. Both have changed me in immeasurable ways. The story of this girl is from before that time...

It will be erotica and I'm super excited about it...

So, that is what I have been up to in the last month...And now it is time to write some erotica about a girl who was once me, but is so completely not anymore...

Oh, and for research I am reading 50 Shades of Grey...I truly hope my intellect doesn't suffer permanent damage!!!

Limitations No More...

We all put limiting beliefs on ourselves. Often we don't even realize we are doing it, but those beliefs creep in and take over our outcomes without us even realizing it. 

I often tell my classes that yoga is a metaphor for your life. What you do in yoga and how you behave in yoga is often how you behave in life. I had been trying to do a posture for five years. This posture...

At some point in my process of attempting this pose I had decided that I would never be able to do it. I would pull myself close to the floor, but my chest never touched, only my chin and then I would quickly get myself out of it. I was afraid, afraid of what would happen if I pulled my chest to the floor.

A few months ago, I started practicing with a teacher who looked at my body and said, "You can do that pose."
In line with my newly professed commitment to give a million and one percent to everything I want to do I vowed to her that I would make a more concerted effort to actually do the pose. After all, I had been stuck in the same place with it for two years. From that day forward I started trying more completely. I even got my chest to the floor a couple of times, but was still walking my way into it instead of going in properly. On March 1st, Friday morning, another teacher, the coach of the first teacher, was visiting. He looked at me and said, "Bitch, you can do that posture. Just listen to me and I'll talk you into it."

And I that is what I did. I trusted and I listened to his instruction and as a result I did the posture, getting in the right way...

I started here..

Then dropped to my elbows...

Then pulled myself through until my chest was on the ground...

And ended in the posture at the top of this post with my hands under my chin and a smile on my face. This posture is a metaphor for me about where I have been allowing myself to get stuck in my everyday life. I had accepted that I would never do this posture. I had become complacent and didn't put forth the necessary effort to actually do the posture. It became elusive to me, something I didn't need to do, but as Mary Jarvis says, "If you can, you must." And I could. Only I was allowing my own limiting beliefs to hold me back from believing that I could.

We do this in life. We get to a certain point and we are happy where we are, but when it is time to grow we must. And this year is all about growth for me. Full wheel will always represent as much to me. It is the posture that broke me out of believing in limitations. I always say that I don't, but even I was putting limitations on myself. No more! It does no one good for any one of us to put a cap on our abilities. We are capable of so much and if we can we must. It is our duty to the energy of the universe and to each other--to act as inspiration for one another. We all long to be inspired and if we are able to inspire others, well, then  WE MUST!!!

This is next for me...for right now, sideways splits feels impossible, but I know it's not!

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