MONTH OF YIN - MARCH
REPLAY PAGE
REPLAY PAGE
Everyone who joined the whole series is welcome to join the livestream session on Wednesdays at 8pm (CET)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82129089721?pwd=MS90SDlEcGFXY3JacjdNWjlhaUxadz09
Meeting ID: 821 2908 9721
Passcode: 521521
You'll find all the recordings from this series posted below.
YIN * SOMATICS* RESTORATIVE
remembering our fluid nature AKA octopus flow
remembering our fluid nature AKA octopus flow
PROPS: bolster
This session is a mixture of somatics, yin yoga and restorative yoga. Combining stillness and gentle flow, with many poses you'll have a choice to follow what your body-mind needs in this moment.
I aimed for this class to be a meditative experience, a pausing where we are not aiming to feel in any particular way but get curious about what is present and what the practice of slowing down reveals.
I share a meditation prompt that my teacher Brooke McNamara shared:
"When we sit in meditation, we sit in the midst of our own opposites: our strengths and weaknesses, our desires and dislikes. In doing so, we express a willingness to work with everything that arises in the field of our own mind, no matter how great our aversion." ~ Noelle Oxenhandler, The Buddha’s Robe
This session is a mixture of somatics, yin yoga and restorative yoga. Combining stillness and gentle flow, with many poses you'll have a choice to follow what your body-mind needs in this moment.
I aimed for this class to be a meditative experience, a pausing where we are not aiming to feel in any particular way but get curious about what is present and what the practice of slowing down reveals.
I share a meditation prompt that my teacher Brooke McNamara shared:
"When we sit in meditation, we sit in the midst of our own opposites: our strengths and weaknesses, our desires and dislikes. In doing so, we express a willingness to work with everything that arises in the field of our own mind, no matter how great our aversion." ~ Noelle Oxenhandler, The Buddha’s Robe
360 degrees of (variables for the) hips with yin and somatics
PROPS: block and (optional) blanket/pillow for head support
Change is in the air. It's the change of seasons, our bodies preferences and rhythms tend to change as the outer rhythms of light change - just to name a few things in flux. Within the practice we have an opportunity to notice what changes (from small to profound) our movement choices create and really embody the fact that change IS life. That all what we can perceive is continually changing. The rule of impermanence.
Below I share some of my thoughts and pondering on the topic of change, as I myself am going through a major change in my life.
The physical intention of this class is simple - it offers various stimulation for your hips by moving them through many different angles and possible directions.
I recently heard a talk by Brad Stulberg who has written a book about change. He talks about how for the longest time we have thought about stability and balance in terms of homeostasis - where in the event of chaos, disruption or change the balance is reached by returning to how things were (X to Y back to X). The breakdown of the etymology of the term homeostasis would be homoios/homeo meaning same, like, unchanging and stasis meaning standing, stasis . Therefore the assumption here is that the stability is achieved by staying the same.
What the scientists are discovering and what Brad is reporting on in his book is that this dominant model for relating to change is outdated. That the sequence of the events in case of a disruption is more the following: from order to chaos/disorder/disruption to reorder. The term used to describe this phenomenon is allostasis and again the etymology of the word will give us clues to what it stands for: allos means change, variable, different, other and stasis means standing, stasis. Here the assumption is that we achieve stability through change (or by changing) or in order words we are able to remain stable by being variable.
I love how this can change our relationship to change and possibly moving us from fearing or resisting change to being in conversation with change, a participant in the way our outer environment shapes our sense of self and inner environment. How we are build to evolve and grow through change.
The two quotes that I offer in this class are:
"Balancing between comfort and exploration of the unknown is how we build our brain" by Dr John Ratey, is one recipe how to work practically work with change. We did that in our last session in this series - playing our edge and discovering when to lean more towards comfort, ease and safety versus building our capacity for some discomfort and challenge. The quote above refers to neuroplasticity - our brains being malleable and able to change. But same is also true about our nervous system patterns, therefore often a term bioplasticity is used these days, because a change in our nervous system will have an effect and change all other major systems in our body. The saying in nervous system circles goes - change your nervous system, change your life.
The second quote is by Joanna Macy: "Rather than viewing our self as a fixed thing with characteristics that can't be changed, we can think of ourselves as a flow of becoming". I love it and find it very empowering! Being in the flow of becoming! The desired "stability" (or "normal"...as in "getting back to normal") is not a fixed static state, but a moving target that is always going to evolve.
Change is in the air. It's the change of seasons, our bodies preferences and rhythms tend to change as the outer rhythms of light change - just to name a few things in flux. Within the practice we have an opportunity to notice what changes (from small to profound) our movement choices create and really embody the fact that change IS life. That all what we can perceive is continually changing. The rule of impermanence.
Below I share some of my thoughts and pondering on the topic of change, as I myself am going through a major change in my life.
The physical intention of this class is simple - it offers various stimulation for your hips by moving them through many different angles and possible directions.
I recently heard a talk by Brad Stulberg who has written a book about change. He talks about how for the longest time we have thought about stability and balance in terms of homeostasis - where in the event of chaos, disruption or change the balance is reached by returning to how things were (X to Y back to X). The breakdown of the etymology of the term homeostasis would be homoios/homeo meaning same, like, unchanging and stasis meaning standing, stasis . Therefore the assumption here is that the stability is achieved by staying the same.
What the scientists are discovering and what Brad is reporting on in his book is that this dominant model for relating to change is outdated. That the sequence of the events in case of a disruption is more the following: from order to chaos/disorder/disruption to reorder. The term used to describe this phenomenon is allostasis and again the etymology of the word will give us clues to what it stands for: allos means change, variable, different, other and stasis means standing, stasis. Here the assumption is that we achieve stability through change (or by changing) or in order words we are able to remain stable by being variable.
I love how this can change our relationship to change and possibly moving us from fearing or resisting change to being in conversation with change, a participant in the way our outer environment shapes our sense of self and inner environment. How we are build to evolve and grow through change.
The two quotes that I offer in this class are:
"Balancing between comfort and exploration of the unknown is how we build our brain" by Dr John Ratey, is one recipe how to work practically work with change. We did that in our last session in this series - playing our edge and discovering when to lean more towards comfort, ease and safety versus building our capacity for some discomfort and challenge. The quote above refers to neuroplasticity - our brains being malleable and able to change. But same is also true about our nervous system patterns, therefore often a term bioplasticity is used these days, because a change in our nervous system will have an effect and change all other major systems in our body. The saying in nervous system circles goes - change your nervous system, change your life.
The second quote is by Joanna Macy: "Rather than viewing our self as a fixed thing with characteristics that can't be changed, we can think of ourselves as a flow of becoming". I love it and find it very empowering! Being in the flow of becoming! The desired "stability" (or "normal"...as in "getting back to normal") is not a fixed static state, but a moving target that is always going to evolve.
SOMATIC YIN - CONTAINING MULTITUDES
PROPS: bolster or pillow or couple of folded blankets
Physically in this practice we target the upper back, chest, breasts, shoulders, lungs and diaphragm. Fine-tuning our posture, broadening the chest and finding movements that will benefit the myofascial structures of the chest. The shoulder movement that I'll be geeking over in the beginning of the session is from Katy Bowmann - so great for shoulders, upper body posture, breast and chest muscles and fascia and lymph drainage.
The theme in the background throughout this March series seems to be change. I read this quote the other day by Cory Allen:
"Meditation pauses the story in your mind long enough for you to remember that your mind is always telling you a story." I share in the beginning of this session that the voice of an inner critic has lately risen again more loudly to the foreground and how a "yin way" to work with those numerous inner narrators is to actually get curious, give space and full permission. When we understand that even the most flawed inner voices have the intention to keep us safe and connected, we are perhaps even able to embrace them and tap into a deeper current of compassion and understanding them being part of our wholeness.
I offered a quote by Walt Whitman: "celebrate the glorious multitudes we each contain and welcome the wonder that comes from discovering one another's multitude afresh..." And also interview fragments from John O'Donohue: "each of us is the custodian of an inner world that we carry around with us" ...and he talks how therefore we are both privileged as well as doomed - as we cannot unshackle ourselves from the world we carry. He writes: "All human being and human identity and human growth is about finding some kind of balance between the privilege and doom.
Throughout the practice I offer for you to notice the changing mind-states. How our body's sensations, the intensity of a pose, our breath can influence the inner narrative and also vice versa. The constant mutability of our thoughts, our sensations, our feelings, our moods, but over longer periods of time also our values and our beliefs.
There were couple of other quotes that I have been pondering over, but did not include in the class. I would still like to share them here with you:
James Baldwin (on freedom and how we imprison ourselves):
"This collision between ones's image of oneself and what one actually is, is always very painful and there are two things you can do about it: you can meet the collision head-on and try and become what you really are or you can retreat and try to remain what you thought your were, which is a fantasy in which you will certainly perish."
John O'Donohue? "One of the sad things today is that so many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence. They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role or to an image, or to a predetermined identity that other people have actually settled on for them. This identity may be totally at variance with the wild energies that are rising inside their souls. Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise. We settle for something that is safe rather than engaging in the danger and the wildness that is our own hearts."
Physically in this practice we target the upper back, chest, breasts, shoulders, lungs and diaphragm. Fine-tuning our posture, broadening the chest and finding movements that will benefit the myofascial structures of the chest. The shoulder movement that I'll be geeking over in the beginning of the session is from Katy Bowmann - so great for shoulders, upper body posture, breast and chest muscles and fascia and lymph drainage.
The theme in the background throughout this March series seems to be change. I read this quote the other day by Cory Allen:
"Meditation pauses the story in your mind long enough for you to remember that your mind is always telling you a story." I share in the beginning of this session that the voice of an inner critic has lately risen again more loudly to the foreground and how a "yin way" to work with those numerous inner narrators is to actually get curious, give space and full permission. When we understand that even the most flawed inner voices have the intention to keep us safe and connected, we are perhaps even able to embrace them and tap into a deeper current of compassion and understanding them being part of our wholeness.
I offered a quote by Walt Whitman: "celebrate the glorious multitudes we each contain and welcome the wonder that comes from discovering one another's multitude afresh..." And also interview fragments from John O'Donohue: "each of us is the custodian of an inner world that we carry around with us" ...and he talks how therefore we are both privileged as well as doomed - as we cannot unshackle ourselves from the world we carry. He writes: "All human being and human identity and human growth is about finding some kind of balance between the privilege and doom.
Throughout the practice I offer for you to notice the changing mind-states. How our body's sensations, the intensity of a pose, our breath can influence the inner narrative and also vice versa. The constant mutability of our thoughts, our sensations, our feelings, our moods, but over longer periods of time also our values and our beliefs.
There were couple of other quotes that I have been pondering over, but did not include in the class. I would still like to share them here with you:
James Baldwin (on freedom and how we imprison ourselves):
"This collision between ones's image of oneself and what one actually is, is always very painful and there are two things you can do about it: you can meet the collision head-on and try and become what you really are or you can retreat and try to remain what you thought your were, which is a fantasy in which you will certainly perish."
John O'Donohue? "One of the sad things today is that so many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence. They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role or to an image, or to a predetermined identity that other people have actually settled on for them. This identity may be totally at variance with the wild energies that are rising inside their souls. Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise. We settle for something that is safe rather than engaging in the danger and the wildness that is our own hearts."
SPRING EQUINOX YIN & QIGONG
PROPS: bolster
Our month-long exploration of change took us all the way to Spring Equinox. It is often talked about as a time of balance, where for a short moment the larger planetary rhythms and the movements of the sun and moon are such that the day and the night are of equal length. Yet - this is also the time of the biggest change as we move forward from here the days will get longer and the nights will gets shorter faster as the yang continues to rise and the yin continues to descend.
YinYang theory and philosophy (and lifestyle) embraces paradox, dynamism, and change. So "balance" is not something static - an ideal place of calm platitude - but the capacity to be with change, the ability to hold the paradox of opposites and the constant dynamic ever-changing relationship and interplay of Yin and Yang, light and dark, contraction and expansion, growth and decay.
We start with a 30-minute QiGong session - embodying the elements of Water (as it relates to the season of Winter and the Kidney Qi), Earth element as our stabiliser during transition times (related to Spleen and Stomach) and the Wood element that carries us through the season of Spring and is connected to the Liver and Gallbladder. We remember the still, hibernating, dream space that Water element holds, the womb or seed time, if honoured and held it connects us to our pure essence, our imagination and pure potentiality. The seed of yang protected and germinating, until it is time to take what's been hidden out into the world. Wood phase is the yang rising, it is the time of growth, planning, visioning, taking the first exploratory steps on a new path. It is rebirth, new beginnings, taking that which has been in our imagination out into the worlds. This is a creative, courageous step but also a vulnerable one. So in this session I keep leaning into the grounding and nurturing qualities that Earth element embodies. We do that through breath, through imagination and imagery, and the shapes and forms throughout the sequence.
The two poems I share are here:
Our month-long exploration of change took us all the way to Spring Equinox. It is often talked about as a time of balance, where for a short moment the larger planetary rhythms and the movements of the sun and moon are such that the day and the night are of equal length. Yet - this is also the time of the biggest change as we move forward from here the days will get longer and the nights will gets shorter faster as the yang continues to rise and the yin continues to descend.
YinYang theory and philosophy (and lifestyle) embraces paradox, dynamism, and change. So "balance" is not something static - an ideal place of calm platitude - but the capacity to be with change, the ability to hold the paradox of opposites and the constant dynamic ever-changing relationship and interplay of Yin and Yang, light and dark, contraction and expansion, growth and decay.
We start with a 30-minute QiGong session - embodying the elements of Water (as it relates to the season of Winter and the Kidney Qi), Earth element as our stabiliser during transition times (related to Spleen and Stomach) and the Wood element that carries us through the season of Spring and is connected to the Liver and Gallbladder. We remember the still, hibernating, dream space that Water element holds, the womb or seed time, if honoured and held it connects us to our pure essence, our imagination and pure potentiality. The seed of yang protected and germinating, until it is time to take what's been hidden out into the world. Wood phase is the yang rising, it is the time of growth, planning, visioning, taking the first exploratory steps on a new path. It is rebirth, new beginnings, taking that which has been in our imagination out into the worlds. This is a creative, courageous step but also a vulnerable one. So in this session I keep leaning into the grounding and nurturing qualities that Earth element embodies. We do that through breath, through imagination and imagery, and the shapes and forms throughout the sequence.
The two poems I share are here:
|
Spring will come
with its long light and lessons of how we need tome seasons of darkness in order to bloom. It will arrive one morning and drench everything anew. (emory hall) |
Come, Spring
Let sun come gently to soften the dirt. Let after and before become forgotten as newborn green brings quiet to mind. Let our gazes go down into micro changes underfoot and up into later twilight skies. Let skies fall into our ears and eyes and palms of hands so we have more to give when strangers say hello. Come, Spring. Let us make something unfortettable together. You bring your teeming splendor I'll bring all my praise. (Brooke McNamara) |
YIN * SOMATICS * MEDITATION
openness - curiosity - kindness
openness - curiosity - kindness
PROPS: block or folded blanket for the head
From gentle movement as a gateway into meditation, then merging the meditative awareness into a somatic yin practice...and into your life.
I was remembering a teaching by Tara Brach as I was preparing for this class about 3 attitudes at the heart of a buddhist practice and path:
* openness - she called it being relaxed. Can I hold what is arising with a little bit more openness? When I talk about a "yin attitude" I often refer to being with an experience without trying to fix or solve or get rid of, but making space. Our mind's habit is to frame anything that it doesn't like and what causes us to contract as a problem. but what if what's arising is not a problem? You still might not like it, it might still hurt, but how would you hold the experience if it not framed "a problem". This reminded me of another meditation instruction by Loch Kelly: "what is here when there is no problem to solve?"
* curiosity, wonder, being interested - what wants your attentions? what is difficult to feel? what is easy and light? Can we regard what is happening with curiosity?
* kindness, friendliness, tenderness towards our own inner life
We'll weave the attitudes throughout the practice while noticing who you are and what you identify with as you welcome these qualities.
In the session I share one of my favorite poems for meditation by Hafiz:
From gentle movement as a gateway into meditation, then merging the meditative awareness into a somatic yin practice...and into your life.
I was remembering a teaching by Tara Brach as I was preparing for this class about 3 attitudes at the heart of a buddhist practice and path:
* openness - she called it being relaxed. Can I hold what is arising with a little bit more openness? When I talk about a "yin attitude" I often refer to being with an experience without trying to fix or solve or get rid of, but making space. Our mind's habit is to frame anything that it doesn't like and what causes us to contract as a problem. but what if what's arising is not a problem? You still might not like it, it might still hurt, but how would you hold the experience if it not framed "a problem". This reminded me of another meditation instruction by Loch Kelly: "what is here when there is no problem to solve?"
* curiosity, wonder, being interested - what wants your attentions? what is difficult to feel? what is easy and light? Can we regard what is happening with curiosity?
* kindness, friendliness, tenderness towards our own inner life
We'll weave the attitudes throughout the practice while noticing who you are and what you identify with as you welcome these qualities.
In the session I share one of my favorite poems for meditation by Hafiz:
Just sit here right now.
Don't do a thing. Just rest.
For your
separation from God
is the hardest work in this world.
Let me bring you trays of food
and something that you like to drink
You can use my soft words
as a cushion for your head.
Don't do a thing. Just rest.
For your
separation from God
is the hardest work in this world.
Let me bring you trays of food
and something that you like to drink
You can use my soft words
as a cushion for your head.