A way to control your karma

In my last post I said how when I get sick I can look back at the choices I made and see why I am sick again. I also wanted to make clear that is not how I try to live. Sometimes bad things will happen and I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out what choices I made that made something so bad happen, or worse let myself feel guilty because of my past choices. Isn't that how karma works? If you want to exist without much control over your life then that is a good way to look at karma, but it is not how it has to be looked at.

When I let myself become aware of my present situation that is the moment the power of karma now takes over. If I become aware that I am not meditating or calming my mind down enough for me to stay healthy, I now can start to use karma or conscious choice making and control what happens next. I could just become aware of it but stick to the way things have been and the karma will obviously be me getting sick. I could also let myself become more aware of each choice I make picking only the actions that feel like they are good actions and I will get strong again. It was the same situation with two different outcomes because I slowed down enough to let myself become aware of my present situation. So instead of using karma to waste our time looking back at why we are in this situation, karma can become a powerful tool in life that lets us control where we want to go.

Choices for gaining your health

When I am teaching someone a yoga class and they can’t go that far into a pose because of tight muscles I say to them, “When was the last time you focused on stretching those muscles.” Usually I hear things like a long time, or never, and that is okay with me. I do think what is more of a big deal is that they thought they should be going all the way into the pose in the first place. I let my students try to understand that they are exactly where they should be in the pose; the pose is perfect for them at that moment. Now a few deep breaths while focusing on the tight muscles will create a new perfect as they slide further into the pose.
I thought I could use that theory when I have to get control of my health again. I’ll look back at how much I’ve actually put into making the healthy choices that help me keep my health and can usually see what choices I made that made my health slip. Just like my breath I can start to focus on making the right choices and I will witness myself slide right back into good health.
Here’s why this works for me. I break up a day and say on average there is 16 hours of the day that I am awake. If I meditate twice a day for 30 minutes, do yoga twice a day for about an hour each, and eat healthy meals during the day that would be about 4 hours of focusing on the right choices for dealing with whatever my major problem is. That might not sound bad because that is a lot of yoga and meditation; mixed in with the right foods I should be healthy again in no time, but jump back to thinking about what I said about 16 waking hours.
If my health goes bad again and I think that only 4 out of 16 hours are going to bring my health back, I am only fooling myself. I need to be careful not to focus on my bad health and focus on the choices I make to get my health back. I also need to do this at least 15 of the 16 hours that I am awake. Almost every choice I make needs to be made with the thought “is this the best choice for me right now.”
I guess I also have another choice when I am having problems, I can always let myself think this is the way it is and I’ll just have to learn to live with it. That choice is a downward spiral into more problems. Trust me, I know..

Feeling good makes me feel selfish

The more I help other people, the more I help myself. That thought makes me feel selfish or guilty. Selfish and guilt because I help others doesn’t really make sense to me, so I thought I would ponder on it for a little bit. Selfish and guilt to me are part of my ego. The ego is the “I” or “mine” part of my life, and the part of my mind that attaches itself to things. What part of helping others makes me feel guilty or selfish? I know I have spend most of my life on the receiving end of the helping others in life, giving is something new to me, but not something that I think would make me feel guilt or selfish. It is such a good feeling when I know that I am helping someone who needs help and then somewhere at that point of feeling good I turn it around and make it a negative feeling. Maybe I don’t feel like I deserve to feel good when I help someone else. It should be like doing work or doing a deed without expecting anything in return, but I get flooded with warmth and the feeling like I did something good. If I look at it that way I guess I can see where guilt and feeling selfish can come in, but that is not what I want. I am doing what feels natural to me when I help someone else, and my natural actions makes me feel good. If it happens to help others that is great, but I can also see how letting myself feel good about doing what seems natural as something good. Problem Solved.

One year ago

It was 5 years ago this month that I started to convince myself that eating and then throwing up was normal. At least as far as what was real to me, vomiting daily was a part of life. I checked myself out of the hospital realizing that if I was going to stay alive it was going to be up to me. I figured the best way would be was to just accept that throwing up my meals was going to be part of life, quit fighting it I thought. That is when I was lucky enough that the energy and information of the internet threw me some good info where I learned about a place called The Chopra Center for wellbeing. It was 5 years ago that I decided to give something that I thought was a little weird a chance. It was after just 3 days at The Chopra Center that I started a 10 day streak of not throwing up anymore. I showed myself that being sick did not have to be normal. After getting sick again I had to try what I thought was helping me and I went back the next month in September of 2003 and the same thing happened where the food I ate actually stayed in me. I guess the best lesson I can learn from that is to realize that what is real and normal for me today, doesn’t have to be that way tomorrow. How I view things, my choices, and my will to survive can in the blink of an eye change my life for the better.

Doing Yoga While Grocery Shopping

I heard a story about a man who was lost at sea in a raft for nearly 3 months. He was able to catch all the fish he wanted, and he ate it raw. After some time he could not get himself to eat anymore of the fish meat, but other parts were starting to look good to him. The man started eating the skin of the fish, the eyes, the liver, and other internal organs.
There is only so much nutrition in just the meat of the fish, not enough to keep a person alive. So at this desperate point of survival this guy’s brain was telling him where the vitamins and minerals were that he needed. Something made the fish eyes and raw liver look good; the mind was telling the body what it needed to survive without him being aware of it.
A new way of grocery shopping can come from this story, we can call it yoga shopping. I know it sounds weird to try this, but I bet you end up with a much lower grocery bill. Next time you go to the grocery store do not go on your usual route through the store. Walk around for a bit and see if you can connect with the right sensations with the food you pick. If it doesn’t seem right, put it back! Organic Ice Cream might work because we need the calcium, your body might be craving the proteins meat has to offer, but remember to grab these items because it feels right, not because old ways of shopping and thinking are telling you to select it.
Also don’t grab anything just because it is faster and easier to cook, make the cooking part of the meal just as nourishing for you as the eating part. Add the little extra touches that seem right to add and make each meal a special treat, and remember to cook and eat with awareness. No television, magazines, or newspapers.

My body eating itself..

I watched a show on the Discovery Channel last night about the human brain being pushed to its limits. It was a great show because it made the complex physiology understandable for everyone. It helped me understand what my body and mind were going through at the end of last year when I decided starving myself was better then going to the hospital over and over and getting CAT scans, tubes up my nose, needles stuck everywhere, and worst dealing with doctors. Even though it was not the smart choice somehow I decided not eating was the best way for me to survive. My mind went into emergency mode and decided that I was going to still get my nutrients, but it was by consuming my own body. It started eating what little fat I had and went on to breaking apart the proteins in my body by taking the nutrition from my muscles. This went on until the start of 2008 when I stepped on a scale and it showed I was at a weight that I haven’t seen since I was around 12 years old. I had to face what was happening.
Thank God I decided that I am not ready to die and that my body living off itself was not the answer. When I started eating again food that was making me sick became healthy pleasures that my body soaked up. New items like organic yogurt smoothies have become part of my everyday life while yoga and exercise have built my muscle back. It is amazing how we can go into these survival modes when things hit the worst of times and we think it is all over. I am reminded of Deepak Chopra’s words about how are life is like the weather. Sometimes there are terrible storms with major devastation and destruction that takes place. But we can trust one thing about the storm; it will come to an end. We will rebuild from the worst of storms while getting to enjoy some sunshine.

Feeling Our Restrictions

When I look at the actions I make that are still not good for my health, I let my ego step in and tell myself I will change and improve taking away the feelings I had for a second about not choosing something good for myself. As soon as I told myself I would change I am more at ease without ever having to feel the sensations brought on by my original thought.
I’m learning recently that an important factor in actually keeping my health is to let go of my ego wanting to make everything better and just spend some time being aware of my unhealthy ways. I let the feelings of what I am doing sink in while looking at how my automatic choices are destructive and keeping me from a strong healthy life. At this time I will not make any choices to change, but I will just let my body feel the restrictions.
It seems like this would be easier then telling myself that I will take action and change, but it’s the opposite way with me. Just being aware and accepting my faults let me face my demons without my tough ego making up excuses. I get the chance to see how these demons or bad habits are keeping me from being where I want to be. Once it sinks in deep I can start to look at all the different choices that are available to me, the healthy choices.

Do I really accept?

I have been doing some deep thinking on the thought of acceptance for the reason that there has been something about accepting that has been bothering me for several months now. I believe I can take responsibility for my actions or even for my condition at a point in time, but I am not sure I can say I accept where I am. I can’t accept but am willing to take responsibility almost sounds moronic now that I type it out and look at it. Instead I see my ego getting in the way of me thinking I don’t accept a certain situation when deep down I must have if I am taking steps to change things around. Maybe I don’t like the situation I am in, but I do accept it so I can make my life better.
Part of dealing with acceptance is to spend time witnessing and becoming aware of the restrictions that are going on in our bodies. As I was doing this I started to realize that my biggest restriction is not about bad habits or toxins I take into my life, but is about a fear I have. It is the fear of becoming a successful person, a person actually able to support myself and a family. Too many times my health destroyed any success I was gaining that I’m not sure I can accept the thought that yes I can be a successful person and what has happened in the past is just that, the past. I feel like I can take steps to move in the direction of success, but not sure I can accept it. Yes I can see how that sounds dumb, but it is the way I feel right now. Should I look at my ego to see if that has anything to do with it? No, maybe just all my experiences added up have let itself become this real thought of not being able to accept success and happiness.
So how can I change this way of thinking? The change actually becomes a lot easier now because of my most powerful tool, awareness. Now that I am aware of my fear I can start to let myself change my views. I can take things one step at a time instead of trying to look ahead at the big picture that scares me, and then as my new experiences change, so will my reality.

Video - Commit to Freedom

I was playing around with making a video yesterday based on

The Chopra Center's 10 Commitments.

Control your health by committing to freedom

teaching yoga and an inspiration

Last night I taught a yoga class to about 20 people at a fitness club. All of the students were women and 16 of them were the image of what you see on most fitness club ads. They all seemed to be more flexible, had better balance, and were stronger then me. I was there to teach them a class a class based on a flexibility, balance, and strength. 3 of the other students were around my age who and were taking their first yoga class. Then there was 1 woman who was at least as old as my mom, but probably older. It is hard to tell because my mom looks so good for her age. It was a big class filled with a blend of many different expectations and that made me a little nervous. I decided to do what has been working and not change a thing about the way I teach, I was going to do what I do best. It may have been a little too stress reducing for a couple of the people, but most people had that look on their face at the end of class, it was a smile and a look of peace.

Looking back at the class today there is one person who sticks in my mind the most, her name is Jean. You think I might say she was a beautiful young lady, but there must be something wrong with me because the face that stands out most is the one elderly woman. She was an inspiration to me on how she fit right in with all the much younger women, and then after the class she looked at the calendar on the wall to see what silver sneakers classe she could come to this morning with folks her age. Age didn’t seem to matter to Jean, she had a big smile that made it look like she was just having fun in life. If that is not an inspiration, I don’t know what is.

My Religion Saves My Foot

Once in a while I start to question myself about my religious beliefs and wondering if they have changed from what I was raised to believe. My whole life I have strongly believed in this one and only God in the heavens above, but in the last five years I have looked more inward towards my heart when I need to find an answer. I try and find God within instead of up above, which makes me ask myself the question about my beliefs changing.Tonight I was pulling the comforter off my bed to change the sheets when all of a sudden there was a loud thunk of a 15 pound curling weight I had on my bed. This solid metal weight landed so close to my foot that I could feel the cold metal next to my foot. Instantly my hands came to my heart, I looked up, and I said thank you Lord! I got my answer to the question, what’s within myself is just a little sparkle of what I see above:~)

Yoga Pose Challenge while learning ego control

Can anybody beat my time? This is a contest to help me learn more about my ego. Too much ego can be very damaging and I want to make sure I can keep it under control.
You can send a video reply to enter the challenge.

Expectations from a hug

My daughter Lily was having a bad morning today. Her school project didn’t save on the computer at home so she did not have a complete assignment that was due today. We argued about how I thought she was not going to be killed by her teacher at school today. I also let her know my feelings about waiting until this morning to try and print this out. Lily was bummed out and before we left for school I decided to give her a hug. When I hugged her she pushed me away and grabbed her stuff for school. I was mad, I tried to make her day better and she shrugged me off. She knew I was mad and acted like she didn’t care; I was not going to talk to her the whole way to taking her and her friend to school. On the way a thought hit me, it even made me smile at myself. I realized I wasn’t mad at Lily, but mad because things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go. I wanted this upset child to take my hug, feel better, and say “thank you dad, you’re the best dad in the whole world.” I think my expectations were a little too high there, in fact when it comes to giving a hug there shouldn’t be any expectations. I’m sorry that something Lily worked so hard on got lost, but I am also happy that she is not afraid to release her feelings like she can around me. We got to school and as she got out I made sure I turned and gave her a smile and said “have a good day.” Lily slowly looked up at me with a look that said she was sorry, smiled, and said “bye.” Sometimes when we don’t get what we want, we end up with more then what we expected.

New Weight - New Picture

5-20-2008

A gain of 22 pounds

in a little over 4 months:~)

A master and a failure

It took me years to understand what the difference was between change and transformation but I can not understand the power of attention or intention. There are lots of books and seminars that teach about how you can achieve every kind of success with the powers of attention and intention, but for me I always seem to be the opposite. An example is my weight recently I wanted so much to keep gaining weight. I put all my intention on getting on a scale every day and focusing on how I could make it keep going up. It became hard work and every little time I lost a little weight I would get upset. It wasn’t worth it and I finally decided to stop trying so hard and stay away from the scale. Since I felt strong and my health has been good why worry anymore. I wanted to learn how to accept where I was at and realize things weren’t that bad. I even got Dr Simon to agree that 10 pounds lighter then what we decided on was good enough. I told him that for all I know I have had 10 pounds of intestine cut out of me and maybe 115 pounds now is like 125 pounds we were hoping for me. Now everything was good again and I didn’t feel like I had to try to gain any more weight. Last night after a long day of trying all the different groceries I bought in the morning I wanted to step on a scale. I didn’t think I lost any weight; after all I was eating all day. I looked down at the scale and was shocked when the scale showed my weight at 121 pounds. Its been about 15 years since I was at a weight like this, this is what I weighed when I did gymnastics. When I took my attention away from my goal, I gained weight. This same thing happens when I put my attention on my Crohn’s disease and wanting to male the problems go away. All my attention on the disease seems to make it act up. I may be a master in change and transformation, but I am a failure when it comes to the powers of intention and attention.

Over active mind and being selfish

I was getting ready to teach a yoga class, but I felt everything was just on overactive. My mind, my body, and every other person I came across so far that day. Everything was just about a notch or two above stable, and now I had the chance to change that with how I chose to teach that yoga class. I decided that before we even got started that we should just sit and close our eyes. I said that we should just try and take this little bit of time during the day to not let ourselves think of anything from the past or anything that we might have to do later on, but just relax and notice the moment. I wanted to know how did my body feel, and how did my mind feel. Was I ready to teach a calming stress free class? It was a couple minutes that we all ended up sitting there with our eyes closed, but when we started to move the class seemed to flow with effortless ease. After the class one of the people in the class told me how amazed they were on how active her mind was. She thought she was already in a quiet state of mind, but my class showed her a new view of stillness.
Sometimes I wonder if my teaching yoga isn’t selfish. I know the experience will be healthy and positive for me, and I understand how I can keep my health by giving the lessons of good health to others. I am doing it to help me keep my health with the image that I am helping others, that is selfish. Maybe image is the wrong word to use. How about I am helping others and because I give so much, my gift that I get in return is good health.

Energy and Information

I was having trouble connecting to my wireless internet this morning and it was starting to drive me crazy. My computer was showing that the internet was at very good strength. When I looked further at my wireless connection I found that somewhere in my room was also the invisible energy of something called happy network, sheila123, fawqaz, and belkin54g all with a lock on its energy so I couldn’t do anything with it, but it was in my room along with my own Linksys connection or energy. What good is all this invisible energy that is invading my room, and what does it need to take it past an invisible wave of pure potential to something we can call matter? Well for my own Linksys energy that was in my room I had my computer with the connection to the energy or the internet. My computer has the software that allows me to use an internet browser where I can type in the information of a web site address and from there I can view and experience the world. What the energy or the internet needed was the right information.
I actually have a point to all this because if we allow ourselves to realize what we call a body and a mind is actually made up of nothing more then the same invisible energy like the wireless internet floating around my room. Our senses of sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound is one thing that gives us the information that allows us to see the energy the way we do in a material way. Just like typing in a new web site address we can change our present and future by just starting to become aware of the choices or the information we add to our energy. We have control over the information our body takes in by the food we eat, the exercise we get, and all our choices to how we want to react to things around us. I think this view is the secret when it comes to being those few percent that are in a placebo study and get better just from the information that they were given and not anything to do with any real drug. This understanding is how we can be the one that takes control of our life again and keep control.

Yoga and The Spiritual Law of Giving and Receiving

In the Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga that I teach, Giving and Receiving wants us to become aware of how our physical body is in constant exchange with the body of the universe. The simple explanation is paying attention to our breath as the air flows in and flows out. Think about the food we eat and how it becomes part of our body and the water we take in makes up as much as 80% of our body. There really is no solid body but an ever flowing exchange with everything around us. My favorite saying about the spiritual law of giving and receiving is “Because our body, our mind and the universe are in constant exchange, stopping the flow of energy is like stopping the flow of blood.” When blood stops flowing it begins to clot or a river that stops starts to become stagnate. Keeping aware of how everything is connected to me makes me feel more like every action I make can and does have a strong impact on the world.

In yoga practice for this day giving and receiving ask us to move through the day with full awareness. Understanding how the best way to prepare for any moment is to be fully conscious in the present. In our yoga practice we ask ourselves what our the consequences of each movement and each choice we make. The part that makes it yoga for me is that in giving and receiving we are asked to listen to our hearts for the right answers. If it is a good choice we will have a comfortable feeling where we know we are doing the right thing.

The Power of Giving and Receiving

If I want to feel better when things are not going quiet right I have learned to give. Since I don’t have much money it makes it easier for me to understand how to do this in a non-monetary way. At the grocery store I might pull a cart out and give it to the person behind me, a smile and hold the door open for someone is a great way to give. When I am driving and other drivers are driving like crazy I find the time to slow down and let someone ahead of me who for a reason needs to be in such a hurry. Giving with out expecting anything in return is a great way to turn a bad day around and make myself feel better. It also seems that when I start to give I will also notice how often someone is trying to do the same kind of giving to me. Letting myself accept these gifts can sometimes be a lot tougher then giving sometimes. If an older woman holds a door open for me I might let myself feel bad or rush to get through the door instead of just taking the time to smile and say thank you. There is a power in giving and receiving that is very healing to my mind, body, and spirit. Modern science would show us that when we give with out expecting to receive there is a chemical release in our body that is more powerful them any medication we can get for helping things like pain and heart disease. The best part is that these chemicals are they don’t have any bad side effects like we would get from medications for these problems. Try taking a breath in and hold it until you start to feel uncomfortable while not letting yourself give any of the air back, and then blow out all your breath and hold it while not letting yourself receive any air. That is the same uncomfortable feeling that builds in us if we don’t do the simple task of giving and receiving during our day. Look people in the eyes today and smile, I promise only good things will come of it. Let people do for you instead of saying no thank you and you will also get those same good feelings.

A new day of choices

Have you ever had a day where it seemed like every other car and everything someone said to you got on your nerves? Well that was my day yesterday, a day of aggravation. I was meditating last night and ended up laughing at myself for the day I had yesterday. I couldn’t find any peace during the day and I decided to take it out on the world, boo hoo, poor me:~)
It was such a beautiful day out and all I wanted to do was feel anger. Why? I wish I had a good answer but I don’t. I didn’t have much strength and lost some of my weight that I worked so hard to gain, maybe that was part of it. Meditation or just sitting quietly for 30 minutes let me become aware of my actions which led to me laughing at myself. I laughed because I knew I had a choice of my actions and I was choosing the wrong actions, but from the moment I became aware of the pain I was inflicting on myself and others I was able to change how I will react to everything. Awareness is a powerful thing, but I had to slow my mind down enough for me to be able to recognize what I was doing.
Today is going to be another beautiful day and I will be a different person then I was yesterday because I want to be. My actions not only affect myself but all those around me and I am sorry for that. Today is mother’s day, a day we can all celebrate. I’m pretty sure that everyone on this planet is either a mother or at least was born by a mommy. Today is a new day where all the choices of how I react to things are up to me. I control what I want to get out of this day thanks to awareness and my choices.