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.

returning back to Pittsburgh

It was a relaxing trip to the Chopra Center with the only thing for me to plan was my daily massage and the meditation. The first day there I was asked to lead the group in the 30 minute meditation which was an honor for me. United airlines and the Denver airport is a different story that I don’t want to get in to right now. After the first day there my bowel movements went from 7 or more times a day to only once. I don’t know why I am only glad that it happened. It does seem like a far way to go for a natural dose of pepto bismol or immodium.
What comes next in my life I am not exactly sure at this moment, but I would like to make something to do with helping others. I am good at it, and if you just look around there are many who could benefit from what I know.