I have a confession to make. The last couple weeks I have found myself avoiding my yoga mat. It has felt like an obligation - something I have to do. And quite frankly, I have been afraid of my mat. However, I know this experience. After practicing yoga for over 20 years, I notice a pattern. There is a power in getting quiet, to turning inward and listening to what arises - listening to your deep knowing. It can feel overwhelming and you can start to intellectualize what is going on - but ultimately the practice is about feeling, naming the sensations and honoring what arises. To become truthful with ourselves is often a daunting and uncomfortable task.
This practice of “Satya,” or truthfulness, is one of the yogic restraints - or yamas. This is not the simple “don’t lie” command, rather Satya demands an integrity to our life and our own self. And revealing that truth - to ourselves - can be scary. It is showing up and asking “is my yes coming from a dark corner or the light in my heart?” Can we allow ourselves to be real rather than nice, to balance our need to belong with our need to grow? And can we recognize that truth is fluid - that what might be real and true for us in one moment or phase of our life, might not continue to fit?
All of this - this practice of truth, or Satya, is an act of compassion. We all might have that one friend in our lives that is “blunt” or “just tells it like it is” - who can wield the truth like a weapon. That is not the yogic practice of Satya. Remember, this truthfulness is acting from integrity - showing up in our lives as our whole, true selves. It is a tall demand. Truth rarely seems to ask the easier choice of us - and more often than not we know what to do, we must pay attention and have the courage to listen to and act on our inner knowing. It is an act of trusting ourselves.
“What might my life look like if I were willing to contact truthfulness in every moment?”
I invite you to the mat, to sit, to listen.
Poem: Body Intelligence (2)
There are guides
who can show you the way
Use them.
But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting the connection with presence
with all your pulsing energy.
The throbbing vein
will take you further
than any thinking.
Muhammed said, Do not theorize
about essence. All speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings.
They think that the designs on the curtains
are what is being concealed.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Do not claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.
~ Rumi
Practice: Morning Prayer
This meditation practice is from A Course In Miracles
Find a comfortable seat. Allow yourself to root down into the earth and lengthen your spine all the way through the crown of your head. Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. Allow your eyes to close or your gaze to soften. Take a deep breath in. Now exhale. Continue breathing, lengthening the inhalation and the exhalation. Notice what arises - not naming or claiming or judging. Just noticing and letting it be or letting it pass.
As you continue breathing ask each of the following questions, allowing 5 to 10 cycles of breath between questions for you to “listen” to what arises - to your truth.
Where would you have me go?
What would you have me do?
What would you have me say and to whom?
Continue breathing and noting what arises after each question. When you feel you are complete, take a deep inhalation and exhale out your mouth. Do this two more times. Notice your connectedness to the earth, the air on your skin, your presence in the room. Gently open your eyes.
May you find peace within you and peace all around you.
Much love,
M