going back.

Good morning!

After meditating this morning (which to be honest, sometimes looks like me sitting still with eyes closed and spending the whole time trying not to think small, ridiculous thoughts and instead trying to return to the awareness of my breath), I went back to one of the notebooks in my stacks, that hold the past 20 years of notes from yoga teacher trainings. I picked up one from 2013 that held notes from a training I did with my teacher, Jonny Kest.

For me, sometimes I have to go back in order to move forward.

Going back to those notes reminds me of things, truths, ideas, insights, that I have forgotten. What I am sharing below are my notes from his teaching. Most of what I wrote are his words, infused with my summarizations. You will recognize the idea as it is one that was life changing for me and one that I teach often.

He begins by reminding us:

…”Let go & become an open vessel to this practice…become a channel for this practice to move through you…breathing and moving past the constructs of the mind”…”we can become imprisoned by our own thoughts if we lose connection to our bodily sensation. We can even begin to believe that our thoughts are true. But this practice rescues us from our thoughts and takes us into deep sensory experiences”…

What I love most about this passage in my notes, is the reminder that this practice, our practice together, “rescues us from our thoughts” and takes us past the small mind - the ridiculous thoughts (the same ones I was having this morning while sitting still) and transports us into the present, giving us access to our intuition. To go back and remember that while our thoughts are compelling, and at times feel like the must be real, they are only thoughts and we can change them. We can come out of thinking and into feeling when our thoughts begin to work against us and trust our bodily sensations to anchor us in the real moment. And then we have the chance to begin again.

What past insight, information, knowledge could you go back to in order to move forward?

Biggest love,
Tammy