Week 8 ~ Breakthrough

Welcome to our LAST WEEK Energizers!

I hope you have enjoyed creating a new routine of paying attention to the voice of your body, and listening to what it has to say to you.

It is my hope that the recordings in this course, the journal, the downloadables, and the journey of weekly terms and concepts from yoga philosophy have given you some things to think about for your body and your life.

Now that our virtual classes are complete, know that you have two more months (till July 31st) with the content in this portal - AND -

I gotta surprise to share with you ;)

I’ll be adding NEW exercises to the portal each week (in order, one through eight) to help you connect the dots between your body, your practice, and the philosophy, and get you into that creative side of your brain - which is our problem solving, evolutional brain.

But before we all go crying in our cereal that we won’t be spending virtual time together anymore, let’s get to Week 8.

Go ahead and download the week 7 reflection worksheet, if it so serves:

Download Week 7 Reflection Worksheet

Karma & Enlightenment

Ok: you know those moments in life that feel like a snapshot of perfection? When time seems to slow, and we suddenly feel at peace… like we’re exactly in the right place at the right time… we have that perfect sense of clarity, energy, calm, and relaxation.

✨True Bliss.✨

Or: those times when you’re talking to someone and they say something that suddenly helps you to connect the dots on something seemingly unrelated?

✨Brain Sparkle✨

Or: you meet a person and feel like you’ve known them your whole life and you just understand each other, and can talk forever, and you leave feeling 10X better than before you met this person?

✨Chemistry & Alchemy✨

~ ~ ~

To my mind - this is enlightenment, or as close as we’re going to get to it here on Earth in our lives. “True” enlightenment, from what I interpret of the spiritual side of the practice of yoga, is about liberation from the bonds of the physical world. AKA, when your soul leaves your body. This is the approach offered by classical yoga. (Ashtanga, Iyengar, Core Power, LifePower, and many other popular styles.) AKA you hope you did what you could in this life to not come back as a dung beetle. gulp.

But, equally, or perhaps more important, is the idea that what you do now, creates a ripple effect on what will then reverberate back to you.

As much as WE ALL want to come back as something lovely, karma teaches us that what we do right now, day in and day out, is the process - the actions - that will allow our bodies, minds, and breath to be in alignment with our souls.

You may have heard someone say “karma is a b*tch.” This would be based on the implication that we are now paying for something we did before. This could be something you did last week, five years ago, or some energetic trait you were born with.

But here’s the lovely catch:

Karma is not fixed.

Its fluid.

Meaning that it’s not like we’re born with some kind of pre-destined outcome that we then must live chained to for the rest of our existence. We can influence our karma each and every day by living in integrity. (with our soul, our communities, our Earth, etc.)

The interesting thing about karma and enlightenment, is that just like Shiva and Shakti, they work in congruence with one another. I like to think of karma as efforts that we put forth - the part we have some semblance of control over - while enlightenment is like the surroundings we find ourselves in as a reward for walking our karmic path. AKA the fruits of our labor.

That said, just as Shiva and Shakti must dance, in and out, back and forth, ever changing and being willing to sometimes lead and sometimes follow, we must trust that both karma and enlightenment are at work as we move through our lives. If we become too attached to “doing the right thing” with every breath and step, and then wait around for little moments of enlightenment to bless us, stuck in the idea that the “process is perfect,” we’ll likely be waiting a long time. By the same token if we avoid stepping into any action - regardless of whether or not the situation, resources, etc. seem to be ideal - we haven’t even dared to dance in the first place, and enlightenment will never find us.

These little breakthroughs - moments of understanding, truth, joy, connection… these little traces of enlightenment are indeed worth the effort to beget them.

✨

Dear explorers, as I set you loose to practice on your own with these ideas, concepts, and tools for the next two months, FEAR NOT what you should or shouldn’t do.

Do what feels right for you, in your body, in the moment, in your life.

Notice.

Notice your breath. Notice your choices. Notice your body and listen to it’s voice.

THIS is how we take the practice of yoga, and weave it with the practices of Tantra to live fully and joyfully in this life, in this body, in this time.

As one of my favorite Zen quotes says (in various renditions, across various sources):

“The teacher must have clean hands. (S)he must be humble of mind in the art of passing on, not letting a sense of “I” be present in the teaching, but letting “it” teach what “it” will. He therefore has no pride in success and makes no claims at all. Why?
Because in truth, he has nothing to teach. And none can take ought from him. (S)he can but point the way and at most, as Suzuki once told us, bring back into the right direction the efforts of those who, for the moment, seem to have lost it.”

I absolutely, un-shamefully fail in this effort, because I’m a woman with many thoughts and feelings that I love to share! But I hope that at the very least, I have inspired you to continue to invest in yourself, continue to practice, and continue to learn about the vastness of your own heart, soul, mind, body, breath, and spirit.

I am light.

(Most days.)

And I see and honor your light.

(Also most days. Hey, we’re all human.)