Posts In: Mantra Monday

by Olivia Cecchettini

I turn on the news and all I hear is violence and it stuns my heart
because I have cultivated a life of peace.

It’s astounding to me that we are still killing each other
over race, sexuality, religion, and so on…

The human race has advanced so far
in technology, in space exploration, in medicine,
but what have we learned about our treatment of other humans?

What have we learned about connecting to one’s own spirit?
What is it worth, your spiritual survival?

We are so far removed from our neighbors
from our rainforest
from our compassion
from our hearts
that we are numb to the world around us
and we have lost touch with the world within us.

Every day I see people who suffer physical and emotional pain,
these two are intertwined with little separation.

The body speaks. Listen.

This is yoga – more than physical postures –
yoga connects the physical, mental, emotional selves
into one spiritual Self.

We look outside ourselves,
never thinking that everything lies within.

But the world is changing day by day,
I believe there is a wave of passionate, intelligent people creating change,

The kind of change that starts within –
within our reactions,
within our suffering,
within our humanity,
within our hope for the next generation.

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Laura McCorry

Don’t do yoga. Step onto your mat with your bare feet. Breathe. Pick a yoga pose, any pose. But don’t do it; at least not the way in which you’re accustomed. Arrange your arms and legs and body to take up the outer form of the pose, then wait.

Breathe. Feel the yoga pose spread from your center and push out into the edges of your body, refining. Don’t move so much as expand by millimeters wherever it tells you to make space.

Start on the outside. Soften skin, then muscle. Then ligaments and tendons and bones. Let go everywhere except those isolated muscles needed to hold you steady.

Then go inside. Soften your thoughts, your feelings. Can you let go of your fears? Allow a thin mist to drape over your dreams and ambition.

Still don’t practice the yoga pose. Allow the yoga pose to practice you, to work on you and through you.

You’ll know when it’s finished. You’ll feel the weight of your body humming the same low tones as the rooted trees in the forest. You’ll become aware of your own absolute stillness. This is what comes after.

When Yoga becomes subject and you become the object acted upon, what comes after is the real fruit of your practice. After exertion, the deep peace of stillness. After the rough seas of life, the wide, clear expanse of your own soul.

 

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

From the bottom of our hearts, we want to say thank you to all of our readers and supporters both online and at Yoga One’s studio!

We couldn’t offer this weekly blog without the entire community behind us. You inspire us with your dedication to this life-changing practice of yoga and healthy-living. Thank you for showing up, for reading, for living out your yoga both on and off the mat and sharing your experiences.

Let us know what you’d like to see more of and where you think we’re doing a good job or need to improve! We welcome all comments, questions and submissions.

We look forward to continuing to publish engaging interviews, book reviews, top quality yoga instruction, meditations for your everyday life and stories of personal transformation.

To celebrate, here’s a look back at some of our Top Posts this past year:

1. Yogi Reads: Yoga Girl
2. Top 10 Yoga Myths – Part One
3. Top 10 Yoga Myths – Part Two
4. Yoga Keeps Me Sane: My Post-Baby Practice
5. The Power of Intention
6. Are You Holding Yourself Back From Greatness?
7. Eight Limbs of Yoga for a Whole Being
8. 2015 Yoga One Teacher Training Perspectives
9. Yes to You: A Yoga Teacher’s Poem
10. Mantra Monday: Let the Light In

Namaste,

All of Us at Yoga One

by Laura McCorry

One of my teachers used to begin class with two simple questions: Where are you?

At work, at home, at the grocery store. At yoga, waiting for class to begin. So many thoughts and plans running through my head. My body carried me to class, through the motions of walking, driving, talking, sitting, without any special notice or conscious direction.

Where are you?

His voice was clear and strong. The entire class answers back with one voice:

Here.

Then the next question: What time is it?

Morning, afternoon, after work. I’m in the middle of something, still working it out, making plans. Thinking about someone, wishing, worrying. Early with nothing to do then running late and feeling anxious. The day slips away hour by hour until I rush to make it before they close the door and hastily sit down on my mat.

What time is it?

The room has grown quiet and still. I’m aware of everyone in the room and how our disparate thoughts and experiences have all been submerged into this one experience, together. We answer:

Now.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Laura McCorry

What’s weighing you down? That idea pushed to the back of your mind that hasn’t left. Maybe it’s been days or months. Maybe you’ve been thinking about this thing you’d like to change for years.

Sometimes we let ourselves be defined by conditions and labels that have grown up over the years like weeds. They come from family, co-workers or friends – sometimes they have even been planted by our own hand in the night. The weeds grow up around the bloom of your true self and cut off the light.

You are the gardener of your soul. Approach your inner landscape fearlessly and take stock of everything growing there.

Keep the healthy growth: the relationships still in bloom that bring you joy, those habits and ideas that feed your passions with their abundant produce.

Prune back anything that doesn’t fit your true self, the person you’d like to be. Clear away doubt, anger, resentment and guilt. Let go of old sorrows that have ripened and fallen to the ground. Dig down into the earth of your being and rake away the last remnants of any bad seed.

These things weigh on your heart because they are not rightfully a part of you. A gardener’s work is never done. Each day you must go out and pull up small intrusions. Each day you must show up and begin again.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Monique Minahan

At yoga recently the teacher suggested this intention for our practice:

I will not take things personally.

This didn’t really resonate with me, so I chose an intention that rang more true to me:

I will take things personally.

As in, I will get up close and personal with my dreams, my loves, my life and my fears. I will smell their sweat and place their sticky cheek next to mine and breathe in their outbreath. I will inhabit every ounce of this human body as I rest in the hammock of being and awareness that holds it up.

I sometimes get the sense in the yoga world we’re all trying to detach and be perfectly balanced, enlightened beings. I’m all for enlightenment, but in striving for that perfect state we can miss a lot of wonderful imperfection along the way because we consider it “in the way.”

For a long time I approached my practice and my life as if it were in the way of where I was going. I wanted to get “there” because getting there seemed to mean I wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. I envisioned a state of being where stress wouldn’t sway me, family wouldn’t bother me, loss wouldn’t shake me, and life wouldn’t hurt me.

What I was doing was detaching from my reality and skipping out on my own life. I was missing the point Peter Rhodes makes when he says:

“We make a mistake when we wait for heaven, wait for enlightenment, wait for change. It is not going to happen in the future. It is happening. It is within our experience. Now is the time.”

Yoga and meditation are tools that help us distinguish the two and bring a quality of awareness to our lives so that we don’t suffer unnecessarily. It is just so easy to use these valuable tools to bypass what’s happening right now, what’s living and thriving in our bones and bodies and lives right now; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Life is not always love and light. Sometimes it’s pain and darkness. They are the two poles of life that together light up our lives as the full experience it is.

It’s easy to fall into a practice of seeking enlightenment on a mountain top while the everyday enlightenment passes us by. Lorin Roche reminds us of this in The Radiance Sutras:

Wherever, whenever you feel carried away,
Rejoicing in every breath,
There, there is your meditation hall.
Cherish those times of absorption—
Rocking the baby in the silence of the night
Pouring water into a crystal glass
Tending the logs in the crackling fire
Sharing a meal with a circle of friends.
Embrace these pleasures and know,
This is my true body.
Nowhere is more holy than this.
Right here is the sacred pilgrimage.

I’m so grateful to that yoga teacher for her offering and for sharing an intention that was relevant in her life. It helped shed light on my own process and revealed to me an intention that has been marinating in me all year.

I will take things personally. I will live life fully. I will love more than ever before.

Monique Minahan
Contributing Writer

Mo is a writer and yoga teacher who believes in peace over happiness and love over fear. She likes to set her sights high and then take small steps to get there. You’ll find her walking the dirt path behind her house with her little fluffy dog, practicing walking her talk by keeping her head high and her heart open. 

Read more from Monique on her blog, mindfulmo.com

by Laura McCorry

You are not fixed. 

Sometimes change is so slow as to be imperceptible. Your cells are always dying and new ones are born to take their place. Every day your hair grows a bit longer. Every day some small new part is incorporated into the whole of you.

All it takes to change your direction in life is one new thought. One different action. One word of love. All that came before brought you to this moment, right now. But the past shouldn’t be given a seat at the table of today.

Have the small acts and thoughts of this hour brought you into alignment with what you know to be true about yourself? If you have strayed from your path, this is when you need to have the most compassion for yourself and the most courage to forget what came before and begin again.

Never be afraid to speak your truth. People will try to hold onto the old idea of you because it is familiar. Don’t be tempted to go along with them.

Listen to the voice inside that speaks your dreams. Give yourself permission to shout who you are to the world. Consistent acts in the same direction add up over time. Small steps matter. You are not fixed – you are free.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com