Day 9 – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Inner Enlightenment

Your current mindset is a groove in a record. Your thoughts, if repeated make the groove deeper, and it becomes harder to change your mindset.

What is your song? Is it sad? Angry? Frustrated? You are the singer. Your words and actions are broadcast. Those closest to you will hear and feel them first. Every step has an emotion within it.

Is your song true to you? Do you mean the words you speak? Is your dance joyful, but you have sadness within?

How fast are you singing? Can others join you? Or are you trying to make your song harmonize with others, pulling you to places you are not ready to go to? Don’t you want to sing at your own pace?

Are you still trying to write your own song? Or are you just trying to find your breath?

So what can you do about all these questions?

Be happy, even if you are sad. Even science proves you can get in a better mood and handle situations better, if you put on a fake smile. Then Wait. Eventually your body will respond in kind, and you can realize some situations are not based in emotion, but actions from your own reaction.

Your body also knows the difference between holding truth and lies. Be honest with yourself first, then you can be honest with others.

Don’t rush, go at your own pace. You don’t need to push yourself into a sprint, when you are not healthy enough to do it. Finding that spot beyond the comfortable pace and the stretch is where the magic happens.

And start your own thing. There is no perfect time to do something. There is only now. Don’t wait, it is better to try and fail and try again, then be stuck in perpetual procrastination. Waiting for perfect circumstances to occur first before you take action will only keep you in a state of Waiting. And unless you are observing and learning all that is around you, you are doing nothing.

This is what popped into my mind as I was in the stretching portion of Yoga. The little lessons from a road trip. The universe unfolding as events occurred. I asked myself, why are these things happening, and with a DURH PEARCE! The universe needs you to learn. And when an old barrier comes up again, don’t concentrate on how hard it was to overcome it. Concentrate on what you did to get beyond it. Celebrate that success.

Every action changes your vibration. What you broadcast soulcast to the world, will be brought back to you.

Be happy, be truthful, don’t rush, do something.

It’s a start. I don’t say you have to do it right, just start. You’ll make a new groove. And soon, others around you will pick up on your song.
I’m still here,
Pearce

P.S. The Funny Thing that happened ? Better health.

Day 8 – Barriers

Things do not hurt the way they used to.

The pain has moved to another place. This pain which I once held is not as strong. I don’t miss it, it wasn’t good for me. I now can see where a shift has occurred, and as much as it did hurt me, it cannot any longer.

When you make room within yourself, you can allow greater things to happen to you. Once you remove the negative that holds you in place, you allow that positive to come in.

I’ve broken through a barrier, found new movement, and I can do things that I could not before.

Pain is temporary and inevitable, suffering is optional.

So, that was a little poetic and twee at the same time. But yes, I have broken through a barrier in my yoga practice. I could go a lot further today than I could yesterday. That magic moment where they tell you, you will become more flexible. BAM! Happened. I need a t-shirt.

I’ve got through the Yin class, which is mainly deep deep deep stretching, and feeling pretty good. The class seemed shorter than it actually was. It felt amazingly good to just get into stretches and hold the position. Guess I was in the zone, and found good concentration. The lower lights helped a little, as staring at a monitor all day long will screw up your eyes. The Foundation class that I finished off going to, was a lot easier. Will definitely get back into the Yin class again, as I ripped through the regular Foundation class. Camel pose, floor bow, done like dinner, got that backward bend in the spine rocking. Felt amazingly good too. Balancing poses, still working on.  Standing bow was a little easier on the right hand side than the left. But the right hip and inner thigh is extremely tight. Even when sitting down on the floor, with both feet soles touching each other, my left leg flops down quite easily. But the right? It’s a bouncy castle. That and the shoulders. I don’t think I’ll ever get into a decent eagle pose, not without surgery on my shoulders and tendons.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

Pain is temporary and inevitable, suffering is optional.  Mangled up buddhism right there.

I don’t remember all of the painful parts of the practice. (Sort of like, do you remember what you had for lunch a month ago? Seemed important at the time, but now, I don’t even remember the details.) I do know that I can choose to focus on the physical sensation of the muscles relaxing, stretching and strengthening. Or I could choose to focus on the burning, sharp painful, stiffness that pulls, the dull deep throbbing, bright piercing, uncomfortableness. I will acknowledge it, and then let it go.

I can breathe.

Which is something, surprising, that I have to remind myself to do. Even in practice or in the middle of the day. I’m not breathing right. Pranayama exercise to oxygenate, will replace out that afternoon coffee which will dehydrate.

So my advice today is, when you break through a personal barrier, celebrate that past, and look forward to exploring the new.

Just think of the places you’ll go.

Om still here,

Pearce

Day 5 – Mindfulness

Becoming aware of what your body is currently feeling is a little disconcerting, and can lead to other thoughts.

What is that pain? Why is that happening? Why didn’t I start this earlier? Am I going to die much younger? Why is that pain happening? Did I that hurt earlier? Why is this-

Stop.

Don’t let your anxieties grow more anxious thoughts.

Easier said than done, right? So you start small and work your way up. Start by shutting off all electronic devices. Computers, tv’s, smartphones, radios, home phones. Stop updating the internet with pictures of what you are eating. Stop checking or playing through possible permutations of information over the internet. Also known as video games. Stop being nosy of what others are doing.

We are inundated with so much information, we cannot stop for ourselves. 

And simply do nothing. 

You can do nothing for 10 minutes, allow your mind to rest, and become more mindful. Andy Puddicombe in this great TED talk describes this.

This takes practice. And it’s not going to be easy. When you can step back away from anxious thoughts in your brain, you can control them. And once fear is gone, there is space for better things.

And I thought quitting cigarettes was hard.

I’m still here,

Pearce

Day 2 and 3 of Yoga Challenge

Day 2 and 3 of Yoga – Lessons Learned

Apologies to those who are new to my blog. I write for the ear. I will be recording them at a future date. More for my own practice, and I will be posting them up on Soundcloud. (You’ll be able to find it here, once I get it recorded.)

So I didn’t eat enough or late enough on Friday afternoon, so the Friday night Yoga class was interesting. The foundation series (not Asimov) was challenging, and I was getting a dull throbbing headache. I wondered what it was, then I recognized it from days when I haven’t eaten enough. Low blood sugar. It’s not one of the marketing strategies for yoga to eat healthy. It’s for your own safety! The last thing you want to be doing is passing out or stressing out from hypoglycemic shock. It’s not healthy! So yes, I will have to plan a healthy snack on those days when I will eat after the class in the evening, or in the afternoon and catch a late supper afterwards. Granola comes to mind, I may double up on my time saving egg/bacon breakfast burrito. No reason why I can’t eat that at any point of the day. I missed out on Tree pose, as my heart rate was up and was really dizzy by that point. I’m glad the second half of the class was on the floor.

Also, hydration, hydration, hydration. Tips that I’ve found that work for me so far, try them out for you, and let me know your own.
– Drops of lemon juice in your water, not only will this dechlorinate the water, but will give a little more flavor. So you aren’t just forcing water into your system.
– Coconut water is amazing for hydration after a yoga session, or after a workout. Try and avoid the stuff with sugar and other preservatives.
– Drinking throughout the day helps with energy level. And not just water… Green Tea has been a great refresher and concentrator for me lately.
– Get a huge drinking vessel, make it your own. Right now I have a 64oz coffee to go mug, I fill this with filtered water, and a couple of splashes of Ginger/Lemon juice.

Saturday class at Hot Yoga on 20th was welcome, minus 20 degrees celcius outside, add on a windchill and it feels like minus 37 degrees. But it was plus forty degrees in the studio. Hooray! Stepping in, finding a spot, I found my muscles loosening immediately. Didn’t have enough time to do a good lying still warm up. Still felt a little sore in few spots. Lower back, abs, inner thighs and the perpetual knot in my right shoulder. Got a little bit better rests in between poses, did more diaphragm breathing. That was working a lot better bringing heart rate down too. I’m still finding places of tension in my body, I did have a longer warmup time the other day, that may have also been a factor from the lower blood sugar and dehydration.

Finding my balance is still a bit off, I’m falling out, but it’s getting a little better each day. Surprised myself today as I got into bow pose correctly and didn’t faceplant. Tightness in my calves and feet, I have to shake out the stiffness afterwards.

Today I remembered to eat at the right time and brought my usual bag of stuff. Water bottle for those precious little sips in class, towel for shower afterwards, plastic bag to hold sweaty clothing/yoga towel/shower towel afterwards. I come to class in sweats, then change afterwards, regular clothing. Helps out a little. So when I reached into my bag looking for the coconut water that should be wrapped up in the jeans that I had currently on … I left in the fridge at home. No big loss. But it is another lesson.

And it comes up from something in my RSS subscriptions off of Cool Tools, it’s a survival guide, which I am thinking about purchasing just for research for Seekrit Project writing project.

No matter how much you prepare for a disaster, there might be something else that will be there to mess you up. Survival handbooks will get lost in the case of a disaster. The person with the most survival knowledge skill will get injured or disabled first in case of a disaster.

No how matter how much planning I do, there will problems ahead. And I am the cause and owner of these problems. But I won’t have to dwell on them, or flog myself onto the Guilt Train to Tokyo. (possible spoken word piece there) I’ll just learn, and do better, don’t plan, rehearse and visualize what I need to do. Then Do It. No hesitation, no fear, set aside ego and just flow. There, zen moment for the day. Got a little deep there.

Day 3 Yoga done, Ends on February 10th. 27 more to go. Hooray!

Now I must go back to my writers group, get more of Boom finished, and the NaNoWrimo. But with this blog, I have my 750 words per day done!

I’m still here,
Pearce