A long time ago, I was lost. I was facing crisis. I was hurting. Yoga helped.
These days, everyone is hurting. The crisis is ubiquitous. Everything feels like loss. We are scared. We are angry. We are tired.
Yoga can help us. I desperately want people to have these tools. I want people to use them.
Yoga is not the solution to our life problems. It is a way to help us address our problems.
The most important thing I can teach right now are the skills of self practice. Yoga is ultimately about taking care of yourself. Not needing a studio, a video, a lot of time, fancy gear, to be ‘ready’, but the radically effective practices of taking a little bit of time, every single day, to be self-aware and caring, honest and hopeful, dedicated and supported. I want you to do what you can, today. I want you to know how important it is.
I don’t exactly know how to best do this, best support personal practice. I’m mulling ideas and will keep telling you: take care, today. I’m here if you need. Just take care today. The glory of this is everyone already has the pre-requitisites; everybody should do their own practice according to their needs, capacity, and experience.
If you have questions (and you should have questions: questions are good! Teaching can only begin once you have a question. If you don’t have questions, you’re probably in a practice of avoidance rather than a practice of yoga), reach out.
If you want a tool of community, prompts, info, join Yoga Club on Mighty Networks. It’s like social media in being connective, you can chat and post and ask and message. But it is unlike social media in being a gated community, without any algorithm, less the toxic of meta and the manipulation of communication.
But please just start, today, for yourself.
It’s immediate and simple: how are you right now? Ask your body mind to show you.
Then stand up or change your position somehow (lay on the floor, cross your legs the other way, hold your arms over head, push your hand into something. Doesn’t matter.). From this changed position, explore the feelings/thoughts/mood you first identified. How does it look from here? How does it feel? What else do you feel?
Now take several slow, attentive breath.
That’s it, y’all.
A personal yoga practice takes that basic idea and makes it exquisite, evolutionary, consistant, affirmative and growthful. It should be supported by on-going learning, a teacher, some personal reflection. But it’s really as simple as what you just did.
Here’s what I suggest, what I can offer, right now:
I am going to leave the zoom mentorship at $50 for the time being. It is very important. Please take advantage of this. It works best if you schedule several sessions, not one. It’s like therapy that way. I’ll give some suggestions and ideas, you run with them, but then it’s important that you come back and we process. Then I can give you more. This is how you magically accomplish personal practice: you do your practice, but you do it within the context of mentorship, accountability and support.
I’m going to hold space every Monday at 7 am for Gayatri japa starting March 3. The tiniest bit of movement, pranayama, and meditation. The most essential and elegant of prayers. The a-priori, first, most exquisite of practices. I’ll tell you more every Monday. But you just show up Monday. Come once and get the feel. Come twice and get into the momentum. Come for several months and you’ve got stitha-prajña (established in your wisdom.). You can do this on your own, once you know how. But if I’m holding space consistently, your personal work with it will have a stronger support.
I’m going to start a once a month sangha on the Bhagavad Gita (also starting March 3). There is no better spiritual teaching for our time. I want this to be rolling admission, begin whenever, come as you are.