Author Archives: lissa

About lissa

writer. lover. yogini. bookworm. dreamer.
April 1, 2011

the yoga off the mat

By lissa

Today marks the start of YIOM or Yogis Inspiring Oneness Month, a month-long celebration of yoga for the month of April. The concept was created by Lorin from The Vegan Asana and over twenty yogis and bloggers have signed up to write about an aspect of yoga three to seven days per week for the month.

I try to live my yoga throughout the day — finding compassion in the stranger insulting me, breathing through my sadness rather than stuffing and hiding it in my body, and softening and opening in the face of fear since that is at the heart of love. I want to share those things with you. I want to focus on the yoga that starts when we roll up our mat and walk out of the studio. What happens when we enter our lives and leave the dream-like state yoga on the mat can often take us to? Do we continue to face ourselves throughout the day? Do we see ourselves in the people that we like as well as dislike? Do we maintain openness no matter what circumstances we face in our day?

I have never found a harder yet more rewarding task than finding yoga in as many situations as I can throughout the day.

–lissa

3 comments | posted in 365yoga, yiom, yoga

March 30, 2011

you are love, beauty, & truth

By lissa

You are love. You are beauty. You are truth.

Photobucket


***

In each moment, know that you are enough. Know that the present moment has everything you need in it. Stay present. Live each moment. Be true to yourself.

Have you noticed how when you don’t feel like you are enough, nothing feels enough in your life? You’re constantly striving for something else, something better, something stronger to satiate you yet nothing is ever enough. This is because you have to make a comparison in order to determine if something is enough. Comparisons, in general, have a very diminishing quality. They encourage resentment and discouragement as opposed to forgiveness and acceptance because they have a very external and judgmental quality to them. “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” — Mother Teresa. The same is true for when you judge yourself or compare yourself to others or the past.

Sometimes, we have to empty ourselves in order to feel full. Let go of the thoughts and ideas about yourself and your life that are no longer serving you. Do the work within so that you don’t go without. Define yourself. Define your life. Define your worth.

–lissa

photo by garry.

4 comments | posted in 365yoga, manifesting

March 28, 2011

Undefine your fears

By lissa

“I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

–Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, Dune

***


For most of my life, I lived in a world of fear and shame that left me paralyzingly shy. Shyness was the gate of emptiness I could not close. For years, I did not believe that anyone would love me for me because of my shyness. It seemed like people only liked me in those moments when I broke out of my shyness because then they did not have to face something that made them uncomfortable — the sadness and shame that was so obvious in me that they desperately wanted to avoid in themselves.

I became talented in pretending to be who people wanted me to be. My observation skills were so strong from my shyness that I could very easily mirror people and be their perfect companion. It was perfect except for three things: I was not happy, I was not myself, and living an inauthentic life is exhausting.

I clung to the idea that people loving me was the key to my happiness.  I made filling my life with people my occupation. It took me a long time to recognize that only I could fill all the empty spaces inside of me by being myself and loving myself unconditionally. I realized I was the love I was seeking.

One of the things I am most proud of in my life is this journey from shame and self-hate to my current path of self-love and kindness. I went within and faced myself and my demons. Instead of judging, I loved. Instead of condemning, I breathed. I have been able to push pass my fears so deeply that I can stand in front of a room and teach yoga. I can push past my ego and my past and be there for others to perhaps help them undefine some of their fears. Me, the girl who could not even blow out her birthday cake without crying and hiding behind my mother’s skirt.

***

We must travel in the direction of our fears. — John Berryman.

Rather than avoiding the things that make us uncomfortable or afraid, we need to delve right into them because they are the changemakers in our lives. Resisting them will only strengthen the impact that they have in our lives and we will remain stuck, our past dictating our future.

Go within and truly ask yourself what does your fear stem from? Understanding the source of your fears will help you to slowly unravel them. Take small steps towards doing things that frighten you every day. Often, fear is a perspective rather than a reality. Fearlessness is a muscle that needs to be strengthened everyday. Find comfort in things that fill you with fearlessness and love. For me, I found that comfort in writing, loving kindness meditation, and heart opening poses and inversions.

My affirmation to myself: I am enough. I am love.

–lissa

top photo by *Zephyrance – don’t wake me up..

bottom photo by Fixed Image.

10 comments | posted in 365yoga, love

March 23, 2011

life is a continuous transformation

By lissa

 

What if instead of judging and labeling our experiences, we used them as a vehicle towards our continuous transformation and growth?  We could live instead of merely just exist.

–lissa

 

photo by harold.lloyd.

4 comments | posted in 365yoga, manifesting

March 22, 2011

The light in the darkness

By lissa

We need a mix of darkness and light. Sometimes, the darkness repairs what the light cannot. I had a bodywork session (rolfing/structural integration) that released more emotions than I was ready to experience. I sat with the feelings and tried not to judge them but instead experienced them and let them go.

I’m pretty sure that they are old emotions I had stored away in my body. The significance of repressed emotions in the body cannot go unsaid. Christiane Northrup MD, a prominent women’s health doctor, refers to them as small ticking time bombs in the body and illnesses in incubation. They manifest in so many different forms in people like chronic pain, headaches, high blood pressure, depression, digestive difficulties, etc. This is where the beauty of mindful and releasing practices like yoga, art, laughter, running, and so many others become instrumental. We need the skill of being able to listen to our bodies as well as knowing how to let go to be able to work towards complete wellness.

…

Sometimes, I feel like sadness is merely a disconnection between your heart, body, mind, and soul; that’s why pranayama and mindfulness always seem to lessen the pain. A simple  breath work could be to breathe in love and softness and expand on your inhale and to release on your exhale and breathe out any tension.

…

Another thing I like to do besides breath work when I am feeling sadness or disconnection is to think of the things I am grateful for. Gratitude is an immediate mood lifter and changer because gratitude and sadness cannot share the same space.

One thing I’m immensely grateful for is the sun.

I cannot even look at that picture and not feel happy.
…

I can choose happiness even in moments like this because in every piece of darkness, there is light and love. It’s all a matter of what you’re willing to see in each moment.

–lissa
photo by Haiku Garry.

4 comments | posted in 365yoga, happiness

March 21, 2011

Choosing happiness

By lissa
A couple months ago I made a list of simple things that made me happy like yoga, listening to music, eating healthy, being creative, reading, etc… I sought out to include one or more of those things in my life every day. The results? I felt a lot happier than I did before. Seems kind of obvious right? If I hadn’t made a conscious effort though, I could definitely see those types of things getting lost in the shuffle of a busy day.

I feel like happiness is something you need to invent in your life every day, every moment, rather than look for it or wait for it. The act of seeking distances you from happiness because it puts you in a space where you’re unhappy with what you have presently rather than making the most out of what you have. Happiness, contentment, or acceptance are available in every moment if we are open to them.

I  talked with my family about the idea of choosing happiness every day in life and it stirred quite a debate. They told me that being happy everyday was an impossibility. They said there are specific moments for happiness, such as graduating college, having a child, or getting married, but to be happy every day would be like lying to yourself since so much of life is painful. I felt sad that they could only see major and infrequent accomplishments in life as the times where they could allow a bit of happiness into their lives. I wonder if a lot of people feel this way. Do people feel guilty to be happy or maybe scared to be happy since they think of it as a fleeting emotion?

When I talk about happiness, I’m not talking about those rare moments of utter joy. I’m talking about the contentment and inner peace that comes with coming to terms with the ups and downs of life and finding the blessings in both of these. I’m talking about staying in the moment and not letting thoughts of the past or future overwhelm you but just enjoying the simple beauty in every moment like a kind word, a good meal, or five rounds of deep breath.

Happiness also entails being true to yourself and to the things you want out of life. If you spend over 40 hours at a job you hate or are in an unhealthy relationship with yourself or others, then you already are deciding against happiness and the simple things might not make as big of an impact on you.

What do you think? Is happiness something you feel like you’ve been able to choose in your life?

–lissa

photo by Mansour Ali.

14 comments | posted in 365yoga, happiness, manifesting, thoughts

March 20, 2011

The first 79 days of my rebirth

By lissa

 

It’s fitting that I’m starting this blog on the first day of spring, a season that symbolizes growth and rebirth. I have experienced more growth and rebirth in the past few months than I have in years by taking more of an active role in my life. Instead of waiting for life to happen to me, I have decided to create my own reality through my actions, my thoughts, and my energy. I am facing my fears and dreams and running towards both of them in order to reach the happiness, which was always there, I just never felt like I deserved it.


Ram Dass says, “Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”  I did this for years, clinging to the idea of how worthless I was and carrying that into my interactions with people. My feelings attracted friends, bosses, and significant others who validated those feelings in me by treating me badly and putting me down. It took years of self-reflection and yoga for me to break free of the shame that imprisoned me. I am so grateful for yoga for allowing me to connect with my true self and  for showing me how to find meaning and love in my life by searching within.The journey makes me think of a great quote by Yogi Bhajan: If you don’t go within, you go without.

Why are so many of us so afraid of silence, of going within our selves, of being  our true selves? That yoga high after a blissful class, that feeling you get after you create a great poem or piece of art, that feeling you have after you truly connect with another person — those are all feelings you can get only by going within. What are we afraid of seeing? It’s almost like we’re more afraid of seeing how incredibly wonderful we are for overcoming the things that have hindered us in life more so than being afraid of seeing our negative qualities. I know I was afraid of those things. How could I let go of those negative patterns that I was so comfortable with? What would my life be without the pain that was my story?

Now, I see that both my darkness and my light make up my joy. I have given up a lot of people and patterns that were not serving me anymore and have been living a new life without shame. Letting go of the past is never easy but it is such a necessary part of self-love and creating space for new possibilities in your life. Letting go a little bit in yoga class each day prepared me for being able to let go of an aspect of my life that was no longer working for me. I have practiced an aspect of yoga for 79 days straight, since the beginning of the year, and am committed to continue this for the remainder of the year. I can only imagine what the next almost three hundred days will bring.

–lissa
photo: by Johnny Patience.

5 comments | posted in 365yoga

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