Rebel Yoga

fuckyeahyoga:

yoga anatomy!

(Source: cranbarrier)

(Source: conflictingheart)

fuckyeahyoga:

Yoga Thoughts!

NSFW. So that means you should watch it.

fuckyeahyoga:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajmI1P3r1w4

(Source: dontworrybehealthyy)

the list of important things for today:

a .

listen to phantogram. on repeat.

two.

go to the beach and have long, intense-o, meaningful dharma talks with likeminded yogi housemates/friends/fellow-old-soul.

tres.

i went to the New York Yoga Journal Conference. i’ve been in… not a funk, per-se, but a… plateau. i’ve felt a little uninspired. a lack of sparkle a verve and passion and fire. which is not like me at all. i’m a constant schemer; i always have plans, ideas, banditry… i pretty much can’t slow down because i’m so full of excitement to be in ACTION.

that’s normal me. lately not so much. i’ve really been digging deep down to figure out what’s all tied up, what’s getting stuck somewhere. cause somethin’ was feeling all sluggish and gross and slow… like i had molasses in the engine instead of gas.

i took a seane corne workshop… and she said something that really struck me. at first it didn’t really clang the bell, but i’ve felt it over the past 12 hours creeping around in the back of my subconscious and that’s a surefire sign that i need to look that thought dead in the eye, and either shoot it dead, or get real up close and personal.

seane was asking what trauma, hurt, pain, or unhealed parts of ourselves we needed to care for so that we can show up fully for the people in our lives and for ourselves. i’ve spent the majority of the past 5 years doing that work with myself.

it was not easy.

actually it really sucked. it was frustrating, and upsetting, and difficult, and draining, and i wanted to quit every single damn day. taking a good, long, slow, deep look at yourself is terrifying at worst, demoralizing at best when there’s so much accumulated hurt. to look at yourself, when you’re wounded, is to have to remember, deconstruct, and understand all the seemingly terrible things that have ever happened to you your whole life. have you ever cried so hard you cry yourself to exhaustion and pass out cold? yeah: its like that, pretty much all the time.

but i also recognize my privilege in even having the opportunity to sit down and think about these things, let alone having the time to heal, to deal with all the knots of pain tied up within myself. so every time i wanted to quit and take the easy route (easy route: quitting, being unhappy, settling into misery, being comfortable with what i knew even if what i knew sucked the big one, etc.) i remembered how lucky and privileged i am and to not take that for granted.

if you have the power, the opportunity, and the knowledge to do something that improves yourself or the world, you better not waste it. you better fucking take it and run with it.

so i kept doing that work. here is where i started: an addicted, ruthlessly masochistic, skinny, mascara stained mess of a person. bigger walls than berlin circa the 80s before the fall.

here is where i ended up: with a lot of scars.

with a lot of hope.

with a lot of faith.

with a deep, electrifying, bottomless well of love.

that hard work, the un-knotting of what the world has thrown at you, to look at yourself, to constantly address and deconstruct and say “sorry” and forgive yourself and to take ownership and do things even when they’re so difficult it feels like an emotional ironman… when you finally feel finished? not even close.

because all that the world does throw at us, it leaves us scarred. those scars are reminders that it does not get easier. you don’t do the work and then magically life sops being hard! bad things stop happening! everyone loves you! you love yourself all the time and there is nary a spot of rain or a cloudy day!
nope.
it is a life-long challenge. because after the wounds start to heal, those scars last for life. and you have to realize how deep they run. for me, i’m in a place in my life where i’m just recognizing how deep my scars run, and how my fear of getting hurt again still limits me.

seane corne asked us to look at what wounds we have… but i don’t have any fresh gashes right now. what i do have are leftover fears all over the place. sometimes i’ll be walking around my own mind, not watching where i’m going and i’ll trip right over one. and tehre it is, the ghost of some wound of lives past that i’m still trying to negotiate around.

this weekend i finally realize that what’s making me feel so sluggish and stuck — are my own limiting beliefs. it’s hard for me to see them, sometimes, but they’re still there, none-the-less. it takes special hard-won black-eyed-life-prize-fighter vision to identify when one of those limiting beliefs are at work, but i’m getting better and better at spotting them.

my top two at work?:

1. being A Failure.

2. i’m not qualified to do that = i haven’t earned the right = i don’t want people to think i have a “big ego” or to think i don’t know what i’m doing = i’m afraid of what people will think of me.

still! after all that work! i’m afraid, deep down, in two big ways, of what the outside world will think of me if i try, and then fuck it up. that was my biggest story, back in the day: i’m a fuck up. i fuck evvvvverrrryyything up. that’s really what i thought. and you know what? part of it was completely true. i didn’t show up for what i said i would show up for. i lied, to everyone, including myself, all the time. i lied about why i was doing things, i lied about who i was, i lied about what i wanted, i lied about what i thought. i was a big effing liar. i was irresponsible, i didn’t get anywhere on time, i didn’t Take Care of My Shit. part of dealing with the big mess of being a fuck up was taking ownership for my words, my truth, and the mistakes i had made. part of it was not making excuses for myself. and part of it was being more authentic and not saying “yes” to all the things i didn’t really want to do. the biggest part of it was realizing my behavior made me feel like a royal fuck-up… but i was not a fuck-up. so i changed my behavior. inchingly, slowly i changed. slowly the people around me saw it. slower still, i started to see it in myself.

and even though i know i’m not a fuck-up (and i never really was), those scars are still realllll fresh. they have JUST healed over. and in the back of my mind is my limiting belief that if i go after something i want, people will judge me. they’ll think i’m still that fuck-up girl. most of all, i’m afraid that i’ll forget all the hard work i’ve done and think that i AM still a fuck-up.

and that limiting belief, buried down in there, has been holding me back from taking this world by storm. my fear is Holding. Me. Back. i could make this world SHAKE if i stepped fully into my own power and the opportunities the world is shooting my way. but when i let me fear hold me back, i don’t step up to the plate. and guess what? you’ll never hit the damn ball if you don’t step up to the plate. whatever is holding you back is keeping you from ever finding out.

bit by bit, i’m ripping up those limiting beliefs and burying them, one by one.

curiositycounts:

Just stunning. Holi Festival of Colors, India.

(via)

 

“The onslaught of ‘she needs a sandwich,’ ‘I can’t believe her thighs don’t touch,’ ‘I can see her bones,’ had the same individual affect on me that ‘put that sandwich down,’ ‘her thighs are going to have rug burn,’ and the like has on women who relate to those in one way or another. An environment that shames women for being ‘so small’ is still an environment that shames women. The problem isn’t that we ‘shame women for being fat,’ the problem is that we ‘shame women for being’. Period. It’s still an environment that divides us and prevents us from understanding and helping one another. It’s still an environment that tries to tell women what choice to make, by shaming them into believing the choice they’ve already made is insufficient… because someone else knows better.”

Excerpted from Friday 5: Five Things Every Feminist Who Wants To Lose Weight Should Remember | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss @ http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/friday-5/friday-5-five-things-every-feminist-who-wants-to-lose-weight-should-remember/

fuckyeahyoga: aparigraha (non hoarding, non possessiveness)

fuckyeahyoga:

sometimes we hold onto things that we don’t have space for or that we might have never had space for in the first place!

so get rid of the clutter.

clean out your room. clean out your closet. clean off your desk.

clean out your diet. clean out the mind.

clean out everything that no longer…

this. training. is. so. hard.