Magic Carpet Ride

I recently went to Disneyland where "dreams come true!" It is a magical place of happiness and complete fantasy. All put in this box of wonder for children to discover and explore. As we grow older we become disappointed that those dreams never came true quite as we imagined.  I was reminded over the weekend about all those dreams that I had. Life was so simple and easy and everything would always work out. You can choose to let the past drag you down and dream of the day when all your dreams come true or you can choose to be present. Letting the past guide you to not making the same mistakes, allowing your dreams of the future to push you and then becoming present in the moment as you live each moment fully. 

There is nothing wrong with having dreams and escaping to that dream world. Each time you step onto your yoga mat make that your magic carpet ride. Dream world will take you so far in life, then life sets in and the dream fades. I wanted prince Ali to come swoop in and save me. Today, all I want is to help change people from the inside out. All the other things will happen when the time is right. 

Live the life you imagine on your mat. Do what you can on that mat to make a positive statement towards your goals. When life is down, put the effort in to your practice to clear the mind and reset the body. When everything is going great, show that in your practice. Allow your practice to touch others and spread that contagious energy.

Being on the mat has taught me that the teacher has control, not me. That I am there for 90 minutes to breathe no matter what asana I am in. I can stand on my hands or lay on my back and my mind will stay clear and focused. My breath will not waiver. That is yoga. On the mat, off the mat! 

The Fall Equinox

I started a detox last monday. It is a good way to clear out all the junk that accumulated over the summer. A lot of emotions come out of a detox. You have to deal with problems and stresses and not being able to fall back on comfort food is difficult for me. Yet each time it is complete I want to stay eating as clean and healthy as possible. My yoga practice is always a solid foundation for me to lean on when I am doing the detox. A lot of negative emotions and thoughts have come up the past 2 weeks. I feel agitated with people and especially with myself. I grow impatient because I cannot find a quick fix for my problems. I narrowed it down to one thing that I think about myself:

I am not good enough!

I started analyzing all the things that I think about myself and how I honestly view my life. It is a hard topic to talk about because it is so honest. We all do it to varying degreees. We build up our friends and family, and then tear ourselves down. If we expect others to love us and treat us right then why don't we expect the same from ourselves. I cannot possibly love anyone if I can't learn this lesson. Because at the end of the day, I am alone, no one will take care of me better than myself. No one knows everything that I have been through, all of my mistakes, all the pain and heartache I have experienced. And no one can build you up the way that you can. Try saying something good about yourself. Sit down and actually write down all the good that is in your life. All the amazing things that you have in your life. If you can't write anything down start with this....

Why is it that I can clean out my body, I can do yoga for hours on end and run miles along the beach but I can't tell myself that I am enough. That I am changing peoples lives.

I am tired of beating myself up, promising that I will change tomorrow. You can tell yourself something positive right NOW! Force yourself each day to say only good things and see what changes in your life. I will tell you I have been doing this for a couple months now and I get exhausted hanging out with people that are down trodden about their life. They complain about all the problems in their life instead of being grateful for what they have. 

So make the choice, clean the body, clean the mind and clean out all the negative!

Love begets courage, moderation creates abundance and humiliation generates power.        --Rumi

Courage

Courage cannot exist in your life when your ego is in the way.

The above picture is one of my favorite yoga poses, Hanumanasana a.k.a. the splits. Symbolic of our battle between yoga (the calm) and the real world (the chaos). What makes me love this pose is not so much the stretch but the history behind the pose. The monkey god, Hanuman, is revered throughout India. Hanuman demonstrated his devotion to King Rama by searching the world for Rama's beloved wife Sita, who had been kidnapped. So great was Hanuman's desire to serve his master that he performed a mighty leap across the ocean to find her (hence why this pose is named after him). Hanuman had no ego, his devotion to 
serve his master is so great that he did everything in his power to find the King's wife. 

It's the qualities embodied by Hanuman that serve us most—not only in the pose but also beyond it: purity of motive, the conviction to unite what has been made separate, and the zeal to rise to any challenge. Love begets courage, so when you can fully love someone then you have the courage to speak the truth to them, to serve them, to cross the ocean for them and to stand up in their defense. If you don't have this then you cannot truly love anyone or anything.

Hanuman stands for the ability to soar. Hanumanasana reminds us that we can free ourselves of our small stride, our narrowness and our petty circumstances.  I look back on issues in my life that ended relationships or divided friendships. They all are caused from ego and lack of service. I have to first learn to love and embrace myself for all that I am, both the good and the bad. When I can fully understand that then I can serve someone in the capacity that will better both of us. 

We can all be more like Hanuman by taking with us his pure motive into relationships, the workplace, your yoga practice, even family issues. Be pure with your intentions, stop playing games and just be honest with yourself and with others. Go out of your way, be inconvenienced by the people in your life and inspire them to go out and help others. Be inspired by Hanuman and go out of your way to tell the people in your life that matter the most how you feel about them. Keep them close, and value them more than any other possession you have. 

As fall is at our doorstep, I challenge each person that reads this to make a change. To be of service to someone. Or to be like Hanuman and devote yourself to a cause. Take ego out of the equation and be humble enough to serve. Free yourself from the ego that tells you your too good. All of us have insecurities and weaknesses, embrace them. Take your scope of awareness outside of yourself, realize we all are facing problems, we all have been hurt and we all want to be loved. The more your honest, the less you will be holding in and the more open you will be to give, to live and to love.