With so much focus on the external in the modern world including yoga, making time to immerse yourself in self-study (Svadhyaya) is key especially if you are going to teach. Or continue to teach ‘yoga’
To explore, refine and understand how energy flows, how you are with yourself on the inside, will have a ripple effect on the outside.
Learning stability and ease is an ongoing practice. To be distracted by the external weather it is a yoga pose, or someone else’s business, opinions or even your own, can become an obstruction to your natural way of being, to your health & vitality.
Constant distraction demands we become more discerning and able to re-prioritize self-care more than ever. If we want a sustainable yoga practice that grows with us not against us, along with a sustainable teaching career we need to learn how to work with these external challenges that cause internal ripples.
The Subtle Body has such wisdom, yoga has such wisdom ~ are we learning to listen? Being “on” all the time isn’t the best environment to learn to listen.
Everyone has obstacles, physical, mental, emotional, environmental. The one that causes the most harm is the inability to sit with yourself as you are right now without rejection.
Non-acceptance will weigh any yoga pose down. Being a yoga teacher doesn’t mean you don’t have problems to work through. But practicing yoga and understanding it’s more subtle components can help us develop a fluid mind that is open to change. A fluid mind will accept aging and illness. We are not bulletproof , we are human. And humans are fragile.
Sometimes we don’t need more strength to overcome these internal struggles as that can create more resistance to the reality of how things are (at the moment)
We don’t need more striving to get these so-called advanced yoga poses (??)
Sometimes what we need is to learn how to soften. To learn how to listen again with curious ears.
Things are never as they seem.
If you are going to be on a never-ending self-improvement project, seek something longer lasting than the external or you will forever be disappointed or momentarily happy.
Creative Sequencing is about more than you think and more than you see.
The starting point is to breathe in a way that welcomes you back home to your own body time and time again, through all of its challenges and changes.
Please don’t misunderstand that you need to do something fancy externally to find the ‘yoga’ in the yoga. It’s more subtle and more skillful than fancy.
Don’t just look at the image on Instagram.
Nor believe the overflow of content.
Make space to experience things for yourself without expectation and without rushing. the process.
That in itself is “advanced” yoga sequencing because we are faced with our own fears of not keeping up, not staying strong.
Undo the conditioning ~ It’s worth it. You have a life to live. Lean into its mystery rather than fight against it.
Re-prioritise Self Care.
It’s a pretty brave thing to do in this day and age.
“Every time I do an immersion myself , or a Silent Retreat or any form of self study (eg every time I come to my mat or cushion) I feel like I am starting all over again because everything is always changing, inside and out. To keep a beginners mind , to realise you are forever a student when it comes to yoga is a step in a healing direction of developing a fluid mind. This will not only serve you it will serve your students”
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Namaste
Tammy