I N T E N T I O N

My intention this month is
Courageously Take the Seat of the Teacher and Practice Teaching.

P R A C T I C E

Practice daily. Use your daily practice to cultivate your technique. Enjoy the Sacred Preparation SPACE playlist on Spotify. We are working with the seventh chakra Sahasrara. The practice theme for this month is Aura. See the Virtual Class Studio or Live Class Recordings to support your practice and learning.

M E D I T A T I O N

Practice daily for 3-11 minutes. Use your meditation this month to elevate your consciousness.

C O U R S E W O R K

Practice Teach. Receive feedback and support. 

r E A D I N G

Continue to read through your writing and catch up on your reading.

J O U R N A L

Write 3 Morning Pages followed by 2 minutes Listening to Silence each day.

O N G E N E V A

Share the connections you are making as things fall into place. 

Prep
How do my actions implicate others?

Call Flow
11:30-11:45am (15min) Opening: Dr. Brooks says
11:45-12:15pm (30 min) Talk Topics: This month, 7th chakra, You have the right to your actions, but not the fruit of the action.
12:15-12:45pm (30min) Forum: How do my actions implicate others?
12:45-1pm (15min) Questions and Closings

Opening: Dr Douglas Brooks, says

‘If you are in search of the outcomes, it is a good bet that your desired actions are going to miss the mark.”  He goes on to say .. “because there's not enough principle, there is not enough care to the act itself. When you are preoccupied with the fruits of your actions, you’re going to lose perspective.” 

If you get fixated on the outcomes, ie., how are you going to do, how is it going to be perceived, how are you going to perform, are you going to do a good job, are you going to survive this? You will miss the whole point.

The point is the experience. The experience of the conversation that you're going to be leading during your first public 45 min community yoga class. 

Instead of thinking about the outcome, could you put your focus on the act itself? The act of creating, preparing, planning, and the act of following through on your plans?

This month is preparation for your practicum - teaching a class to the Y members and community and your final exam. 
Then, you get your certificate and get to celebrate! Yeah! You can then register with Yoga Alliance, pay your $55 annual fee, get your insurance if required, and then … your yoga teaching practice can begin!

Let go of your preferences please. Release your preferences for what you think this experience is going to be like, allow yourself to rest in the Unknowing. Not knowing is most intimate. Know that you did the work, you’ve done your best, you're gonna show up and give it all you can. Know that this, your class, is the very best you have to offer. You can say that with confidence because it’s true. This is the very best you have to offer now. 

You're gonna do it, and then you're going to do it again, and you're going to do it again, and again and again.  And maybe, 20 years from now you’ll still be doing it, and you love it and you don't want to stop and you want to keep learning. If not, you’ll still have had an awesome time!

Yoga has brought me through every difficult thing in my life from the death of my mother, divorce, disease, big moves; through all of the experiences of human life - disease, death, loss, entropy, love, peace, JOY, gratitude. It's part of the experience of existing as a human being?

7th chakra
Seventh chakra is the right to know. It is higher intelligence. It is humility. It is harmony. It is illumination and union with divinity, or your highest Self. 
It is your vision and you exercise your right to know.
It is a knowing of fearlessness in the throat as you exercise your right to speak.
It is deep compassion in your heart as you exercise your right to love. 
It is power at the core of your being felt in the solar plexus.
It is the movement of liberation, felt down in the depth of your belly. 
It is the grounded vitality of your roots.
This is where you feel into knowing what you are capable of. It is where you bring forth possibility. 
It is in the stillness when you go inside that you’ll find the information that you are seeking.
It is the revelation of the process of knowing who you already are.

It is in the seventh chakra that you experience energy acceleration. Where you’re learning how to witness the feelings and sensations, where you observe, where you learn through those experiences, and where you learn through physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual tension.

In the seventh chakra, you move from burden to bliss, and you know that both can exist at the same time. 

When you feel safe enough to relax, you become flexible, and when you are flexible, you have the ability to be curious, and curiosity is what allows you to be connected to the divine.

You then experience an intuitive, undeniable, knowing.

It is here where we value intuition over intellect, and the more you practice the more you know.

So an affirmation associated with the seventh chakra is I know. And, I know that I know.

The flipside (the shadow side) of saying this affirmation, I know, can sometimes be sometimes a dangerous place especially if the I know is back by I am right and you are wrong. So we open up the body to see where we can move past that place where we think we already know. Explore what all of the possibilities might be and you will experience something beyond the mundane. 

Looking ahead to the end of our program
Before you teach your final class, we are going to go into a ceremony, of sorts. In that ceremony, we will be moving from mundane to extraordinary. 

And we’re going to get a little meta, out here, and the instruction with the ceremony is to feel into the idea, that you are the one who is praying, and answering the prayer because you are the one who is aware of the source. Yoga is the science of channeling all of your energies upward towards wellness, and it’s a feeling like remembrance.

So know that what blocks you is fear. The mind is trying to seek and end unease.

Use and develop your intuition, by connecting to source, connecting to the inner voice. Know that in the spaces that you are creating, you are protected and in that space you are only working for good. Sincerity is about knowing what you know.

You have the right to your actions, but not the fruit of the action.
There are certain things we just need to do. There are obligations, responsibilities and there are also things like eating, sleeping, and drinking - we just need to do these things. And then there are certain things that ask us to rise to the occasion - to step up. 

A question to consider asking yourself now is: “How do my actions implicate others?”

A main teaching (there are many, but a main teaching) in the Bhagavad Gita and that is …

You have the right to your actions, but not the fruit of the action. 

That is one translation of this idea, so in today’s call, I’d like to expand on that. 

Has anyone played soccer? Or tennis? Or volleyball? Or softball? Or basketball? What is one of the key fundamentals in sports with a ball? …. Yes, keep your eye on the ball - not the goal, or the basket. The ball.

Yoga is paying attention. Unless you are paying attention to the things that you are doing you're not going to get the outcome you want anyway. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, in the conversation with Arjuna, is not saying, outcomes don't matter and also not saying that outcomes don't matter just because he is doing this action - which is refusing to fight. He has to fight - it’s an obligation, it’s a responsibility, but he also has to step up, to rise to the occasion of what is being asked of him. He’s saying (quoting Dr. Douglass Brooks)” that when you act on principle, your focus on the action is the better determinant of the result.” 

So, If you are thinking about outcomes and consequences, you are not paying attention. You’re not paying attention to what you are supposed to be doing. When you are trying to put the ball in the goal, you look at the ball. Yoga is paying attention - it's keeping your eye on the ball - not being distracted by the outcome. Yoga is knowing what to attend to, and letting the consequence be what they may.

If you pay attention, then the consequences may happen and if they don't, then you won't have any regret because you knew what you were doing anyway. You were paying attention, you weren't distracted by the fruits. The caution is to not enjoy the fruits before the action because then you're missing the point. The point is … to act - to do the thing.

Now, just for fun, and because I like to confuse and delight, I’ll share a Katonah saying .. your doing will never give you your being, but your being will. always give your doing. This is not easy. It is not a normal thing - in our culture, to not think about the actions. It's normal to have desires for things to go a certain way and it's normal to be concerned about how things are going to turn out. And that's where we have the opportunity for yoga. 

Yoga is defined as equanimity - which is one of 150 ways yoga is used in the Bhagavad Gita. 

“Attend to the act. When you're doing the right things for the right reasons and you're attending to it, however the chips fall, you'll be able to live with that.”

No matter how well I do in presenting a class, no matter how well articulated, or how profound, on how well I teach alignment, or how spot on the flow is, or how aligned I am with the room, or how many people show up, I am good with it because I am sharing from the heart, I am being authentic, and I am offering a yoga practice as an act of service.

Alright, so here’s the magic - you will more likely get the results you want, because you're paying attention. 

Dr. Douglass quotes his teacher - who said

“Pay attention. Don’t complain. If you're complaining you're clearly not paying attention.”

There is a certain “suck it up” mentality to Indian cosmology (cosmology means worldview). There is an invitation to learn from mistakes. However, it is kinda hard nosed. Ok so , there is an invitation to learn from mistakes but it’s … make a mistake, learn, and then don’t make the mistake again. Which, of course, is rarely possible, and most likely not possible. When we make a mistake, it’s much harder to learn from our mistakes. You can make a mistake and let it go, but to learn from it - whew. It’s much harder to learn and make a change, than it is to say, oh I’m sorry and then not change. 

Shadow and Spiritual Bypassing
I think it was last month when we began in on the shadow. The Indian tradition doesn’t give much thought to the shadow, it doesn’t care much about assimilating the hurt, or the feelings, etc. It wants you to find your way through. “The Gita doesn’t value your trauma.” Arjuna has to fight in this battle which is inherently traumatic and Krishna’s like suck it up dude - do your duty, forget about it. The Buddhists say - everything is suffering  -  deal with it. Christianity is like this in certain ways - if you just put your faith in Jesus everything will be good - you know those platitudes. They are the kinds of things that you see written on wooden board at Hobby Lobby. They aren’t wrong, they just don’t always get to the heart of the experience - they keep things on the surface, at a surface level in the way. That last bit is spiritual bypassing. (Spiritual bypassing is a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices. It prevents people from acknowledging really the depth of what they are feeling). Ex: when someone dies instead of feeling into the depth of that loss someone might say either to themselves or to another person who may be hurting .. well, at least they aren’t in pain anymore.

So learning from the experience - instead of not making the mistake, or glossing over with a spiritual bypass, or platitude, or consolation … and this is where we start to diverge from this idea of “you have the right to your actions, but not the fruit of your action” -  is to not lose the lessons. It’s one thing to have this experience and get over it and move on. And it's another thing to have that experience and let it really deepen. So that those lessons are retained. So that the wisdom can be incorporated into your story. Not just I went through this thing. This thing was awful. I'm done with it now. Instead we use the depth of our experience to bring depth to our story. 

Having gone through this experience having receiving B’s diagnosis, I am more humble. I am more patient. I dare say, even more joyful because I know how precious the time I have with him is. 

And I also moved through and out of depression. And I have to live with the truth and work with everyday. But that is all incorporated into my story. And that brings wisdom. Weight. Gravitas. It’s learning how to live with it and how to live through it. To learn to live through it, you need a certain kind of immunity and sensitivity.

So, if someone comes to me and says I’ve received this really terrible diagnosis or my son, or daughter received this terrible diagnosis - it doesn't hurt me, I can hold my own space and I can hold space for another person. And, it’s not just immunity, you also need sensitivity. 

“Sensitivity is commensurate (equal to) with your ability to create deeper resilience..” (paraphrased Dr. Brooks)

Ultimately, you'll learn more if you don’t try to transcend the experience. 
Alright, so we have a paradox. On the one hand we have to endure and on the other hand, we don’t want to desensitize.

When you lead, you open yourself to the possibility of being criticized, blamed, judged, there will be people who don't resonate or even don’t like you or maybe even hate what you may have said, or did, that one time. 

Also, we don’t go around not paying attention and doing whatever. We're not like, ef it I don't care, it doesn’t matter anyway. No. we pay attention. If we experience criticism, we test it against our own self. We take it in. Let it sting. Any form of dissatisfaction (like you can’t please everyone, you are not an avocado) - don't be concerned with that, because it’s all yoga.

Pay attention because you want to be sensitive to the experience. The invitation is to experience all of it, develop immunity and an openness, a trustworthy feeling, that there is more than just your desires, or preferences to consider. 

How do your actions implicate others? 

This is Karma. Karma says - you have to act and every act has consequences. Even inaction produces results. So everything you do has a consequence. 

Carl Jung described shadow as, the unconscious part of our character or personality that does not align with the ideal version of what we're aiming for, this being the version of us Jung called the ego ideal. We have this idea of ourselves and of course we want to do a good job, of course we want people to like us, of course … But if something doesn't go well, don't let it destroy you … learn from it, learn from the experience. “Don't waste a good crisis.”

In Goldmining the Shadows, Pixie Lighthorse invites the reader to hold themselves accountable for harm their wounds cause themselves and others. She talks about how pain contains valuable wisdom. We all experience hurts, especially early in development. Our pain causes us to adapt for emotional survival. And our behavioral responses to pain and suffering creates unconscious “shadows”. And those “shadows” follow us around - to work and into relationships, creating sets of circumstances from the trajectory of our wounds. We can transform the shadow through self-learning and self-knowing.

So let me give you an example that applies to teaching yoga. 

The action:  … You prepare. You eat. You sleep. You practice.  
You rise to the occasion by paying attention. And you keep your eye on the ball. Pretty simple. Right? Not easy. But simple.

Now the shadow would be the part of yourself that - to use the eye on the ball analogy - would say things like - if I miss this goal, my life is over. If I miss this goal, everyone will hate me. Or it might say, I am so good at this, I’m the best. If I make this goal, then everyone will love me forever. The shadow is pretty extreme. It’s the “always”, “never”, “all the time” statements. You can see how we might not want to let the shadow run the show and we can see how important it might be to recognize it. 

Can you put some space between the action and the results? Could you focus on paying attention. Letting the chips fall where they may. Learning. And keep going.

Ok so, I would like for you to share - what is coming up for you now after listening to this?