Lumen

This is a recording of a class I taught as an opening class to the winter Foundation Training series of 2024. This episode starts with the class settling in and getting all the comfy blankets and supplies out to really sink in together. Then I talk about why I have decided to start the 2024 winter courses with a class purely on self-regulation tools before getting into any of the physical practices. I share personal stories of self-regulation in some heated moments, all about each practice, and how these practices can really increase our window of tolerance, help shift us from being primarily in sympathetic nervous system into the parasympathetic where healing can happen, and how they can put us at the center of our own health, healing, and journey. In the end there is a guided experience through three practices. 

I share three practices: 

The one thing I didn't say about resourcing in this recording, is generally not to use another person or an animal as a resource because sometimes when you think about them, you can also remember something really challenging about them. For the resource, pick somthing that is just solidly & purely easeful, pleasurable, or comfortable.

I hope you enjoy this! Please reach out to let me know if these practices impact you positively or if you have any cool experiences with them!

In this episode I talk about what the structure of a Shiatsu treatment is currently like when you come to see me! 

Check in - What's alive in life right now? Coming into the "Felt Sense" Resourcing Reflecting back:
What I hear from an elemental perspective What organs / channels I think I may treat and why
Getting comfortable Guided meditation to settle in Holding diagnostic areas Working the channels

In this podcast I link our ability to let go with our relationship to uncertainty and our sense of self worth. 

Where we are in the cycle of 5 elements Uncertainty The nightmare Bringing consciousness to the unconscious Worry Fear and anxiety Becoming present Opening up to possibility Letting go Past Failures, rejections, abandonment Value Good enough Re-defining failing Re-defining winning Kobayashi Maru Open up to next layer of evolution

TRANSFORMING RESISTANCE TO STABILITY:

In this podcast I talk about the opportunity inside of feeling resistance. How resistance can be a door opening instead of a door closing.

IN THIS PODCAST I TALK ABOUT:

– Our difficulties are our best teachers, but only if we know how to learn from them. 

– Wounding in Childhood, being disliked

– Conscious engagement with our pain

– The heart and the mind

– How to use experience as fodder for the work

– Taking the lessons from our practice out into life

– Resistance, preferences, acceptance, allowance, process & the pillars of practice

– Enduring the long journey

– Opening up to our true nature

NOTE: Near the end of the podcast I talk about two students who are confronting resistance to difficulty.  When I listen to myself, I heard irritation in my voice and I took the podcast down, worried they would hear that instead of the passion I have for the pivot point they are in. I took the podcast down to edit it and make it right but through great urging, from those who had a chance to listen, to put it back up, un-edited and raw, I am re-posting it without any edits. I want everyone who listens to know that the moment these two students are in is the moment I live for. It's the pivot point. The tone in my voice is about that passion, it's what gives meaning to my teaching. If you hear irritation or rushing in my voice, it's my own irritation and rushing with myself within this exact moment that I am connecting to, it's the work I have yet to do for myself. Their lesson is my own. I cherish these two as students, friends and fellow travelers who share a commitment and fire for self study that matches my own!

I am re-posting it, unedited and raw, largely because my acupuncturist urged me to put it out there saying that it's my job, as a teacher, to be slightly irritating, that it can bring value, movement, and growth in places of stagnation, if students choose to take it that way. 

DISEASE: IT'S AN INSIDE JOB.

In this podcast I talk about realizing that the locus of control is on the inside and how we can affect our health and life through emotions /  internal conditions. I explore how we can affect things like cancer, disease, and sickness through emotional processes by linking emotions to cellular health. I explore the importance of developing a practice and a process to develop a relationship with our emotions and the power of that. 

In this Podcast: 

Feelings have a beginning, middle, and an end. Exhaustion can come from a feeling that hasn't been fully felt. Our body is our unconscious, any good practice will reveal what is there.  When the unconscious comes up to the surface it is an opportunity for healing. We often experience resistance to feeling this stuff and develop strategies to avoid it. We can also develop a process of being in engagement with the encounter and through that, heal and develop a sense of stability that is not dependent on the outer world of circumstances. This is a special type of strength. Stories to illustrate the transition from resistance into acceptance and allowance. What we resist persists. Developing a process and what a process is.

CRISIS AS OPPORTUNITY: 

In this episode I talk about working with resistance in a way that can put us in touch with the feelings that keep us stuck and feeling dead in our lives. These feelings can keep us stuck in suffering or they can be a flood gate into coming alive. Learning to feel things we "don't want to feel" can put us in touch with our truth and living in alignment with ourselves. 

In the Chinese language the word for crisis has two meanings, one is crisis and one is opportunity. 

PAIN AS A BRIDGE: WAKING UP

In this podcast I talk about developing the kind of strength that makes us consistent, dependable, and gives us integrity as human beings. It is the strength to keep on keeping on. It involves mastery as well as stability. You become like a rock or a mountain. You feel grounded in the world because you are grounded in your own self. A quality that indicates this in your life is the presence of rhythm, daily rhythm. The power that comes from this rhythmic existence is a kind of balance, harmony, and wholeness. It gives us the strength to handle both success and failure. It is the strength to balance and harmonize our individual needs with the needs of the group.

Note: The recording quality isn't the best but I felt like what I said was so important to share, so here is the imperfection :) 

THE PATH OF THE WARRIOR: 

In this podcast I bring the work of Foundation Training for Posture together with Chogyam Trungpa's work on The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Talking: Posture, Breath, Science, Emotions, and Being a Fully Human Being

IN THIS PODCAST: 

Prep talk for my Fall Series The Tao Spacial Imagination Facilitating Healing Working with emotions during practice Equanimity  Breath work as part of the warm up Warm-ups... and why

SPRING BIRTH / RE-BIRTH:

FALL / METAL  WINTER DREAM SPRING RE-BIRTH THE ALCHEMIST COURSE YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED WITHIN ARMS REACH TURNING BASE METALS TO GOLD TRANSFORMATION - WEAVE TOGETHER TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW THE PHOENIX RISING OLD WOMAN PORCUPINE GARMET MYTH RESILIENCE WITH PROCESS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION FOUNDATION TRAINING THE SUPPLE LEOPARD THE READY STATE CATCHING AN ANTELOPE

IN THIS PODCAST: 

I cover the story of the 5 elements, what each element is associated with psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually, and how that relates to life.  I also cover traits of each element as they are found in ourselves and the people we know. This is very storyteller style with personal experience of living the elements. Yay! 

CHANGE AND COMMITMENT: GOING BEYOND GOOD ENOUGH, VALUE, WORTH, RIGHT & WRONG

IN THIS PODCAST:

BOOKS I READ FROM: 

"Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown

"Conscious Loving" by Gay Hendricks & Kathlyn Hendricks

"Claim Your Power" by Mastin Kipp

"The Goddess Oracle" by Amy Sophia Marashinsky

"Braving the Wilderness" by Brene Brown

"Shadow Yoga" by Shandor Remete

IN THIS PODCAST: 

This podcast covers:

LIFE TAKES PRACTICE: SUTRA 1.5

THIS PODCAST COVERS: 

This Track Covers: - Getting to the Roots of Beliefs - Equanimity - Faith - Shenpa, Getting Hooked and Our Ego - Samskaras - "Wrong" Mind Frame - Leaning In, Instead of Avoiding Pain - Using Triggers as a Doorway / An Opening - Yoga Sutra 1.4 - Understanding Yoga Philosophy on how the mind works - Beingness - Identifying as Awareness or Identifying as the Ego and Sense Data - Using Non-Violent Communication System to identify limiting beliefs - Critic Verses Cheerleader - Reflecting on Mastery - Live Life as an Experiement

Talking about Impermanence before class last night PLUS beautiful John O'Donohue Poem.

This is an excerpt from classes this week on both the water element, fear, letting go into the unknown, and loneliness, as well as the role of the heart, connection, boundaries, and being held by the universal group heart.

"Your heart has a great connection to the universal group heart, way bigger than the small personal circles of humans. Letting go of the vine does not mean disconnecting from source. Only letting go of that one attachment to the physical connection through the stem. Once free of that, you are in relation to all source, all essence, all heart." - Nini Melvin

In classes this week we explore the how getting your needs met makes it easy to let go of attachments that don't serve your heart as well as looking at ourselves through our hearts and not through judgment and how doing this helps us digest our lives. In class we are doing twists to help the body digest and move through things too!

In class today we talked about how beliefs change how we see reality... then on conditional love, insecurity, judgements, and THEN on what is most important and aligning with that.

Savasana on reality and being with what is.... just being. Inspiration: Sutra 1.16

tatparam purusakhyateh gunavaitrsnyam "The ultimate renunciation is when one transcends the qualities of nature and perceives the soul." - BKS Iyengar

Dharma talk today on reality and being with what is.... just being. Inspiration: Sutra 1.16

tatparam purusakhyateh gunavaitrsnyam "The ultimate renunciation is when one transcends the qualities of nature and perceives the soul." - BKS Iyengar

In this class we explore "being," coming from this place of wanting the life that we have. We look at the feeling of the "grass is greener" somewhere else, wanting a different life, different body, different situation, the fear of missing out, and the belief that happiness could be here if only this "______" wasn't here. Then we explore the ideas of presence, reality, a new definition of love, and of committing to the life that we have.

In this class we talk about getting grounded! Summer 2015

More on being centered and grounded! Giving and receiving and getting enough nourishment. Summer 2015

In this class we talk about being grounded and centered. Getting our needs met even when it's inconvenient for everyone else. Late Summer 2015

"Whatever you are meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible." - Doris Lessing

In this class we talk about authority, discipline, shame and guilt... and what it's like to just give yourself what you really want. What is possible if you stop denying yourself what you really want?

In this class we talk about the Buddha's comparison between the banana tree and the ego, comparison to others, perception of reality, and of the ego's swings from high-and-mighty to low and fermenting. Then we move to just being mystery... meeting mystery to mystery.

Class on Tuesday April 19! Inspired by Sutra 1.5 We looked at pain and our relationship to it. Then moved through our practice with kindness, the kind of kindness to oneself that comes from an understanding of impermanence, from the pain of losing the things we love, and of deep understanding and knowing that we all suffer and we share in sorrow; that is not ours alone to bear. With that understanding of suffering... the forgiveness and compassion that can shift our relationship to pain... to one with willingness and curiosity instead of judgement and the suffering that comes from resisting it.

In the end, we wrapped ourselves all up inside of blankets, tight ones with a sandbag on the thighs and an eye bag too! Deep sense withdrawal to take us inward with the softness of blankets and being all snuggled in!

In this class we talk about the obstacles to: -living aligned with truth -connected to the heart -presence

Game on!

In this class I talk about letting all of life in... creating the conditions for wisdom to arise.

Inspired by Sutras 1.30 - 1.32 in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

"The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.  You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it.  That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand."   - J. Krishnamurti

Last public class at Karoun yoga... The perfection of Asana and the discipline of practice are not done so that we may hold on better, but rather so that we may learn to let go better. The purpose of discipline is to liberate ourselves, not to rigidly and exhaustingly grip onto form, structure or belief, but to suddenly find ourselves inhabiting spontaneity and play. The lessons of discipline are in the undisciplined moments. It creates a structure for these elements to arrive. Love Liberates.

youtu.be/cbecKv2xR14 - speech from Maya Angelou - LOVE LIBERATES

In this class we explore self-worth and value and our tendency to seek outside of ourselves for affirmation of our "goodness" or "bad-ness." I share a story about the Buddha, the first 4 yoga sutras, a reading, some self inquiry / a practice, and some sing'in!

In this dharma talk, I talk about receiving THIS life, living in alignment with the heart. How earth --centered, grounded, integrated -- gives us ease in transition and in letting go. I talk about transitioning out of old patterns of beliefs and thoughts that put us in conflict within ourselves. The conflict causes a dissipation of energy... and about coming out of conflict and coming back to living effortlessly... passionately.

Note: Passion and desire are different than each other. Desire is based on conflict and attachment. It's wanting something that isn't..it is fighting with what really is. Passion is effortless because it aligns with the heart and is based on what is.

Intro to Backbends - Playing With Fire

Alter egos to promote freedom to say what you need to say (hehe!) Ego eradicator - (what's one more humbling experience?!) Playing with fire (physical and emotional pros and cons) Developing witness, discernment, and technique for getting into body (about parasympathetic and sympathetic) What is a life of deep happiness for you, your nature? Yoga Sutra 1.34 Breaking Patterns Using body as bridge - Out of ignorance into "clear perception" Story of Banana Tree - About the nature of the Ego 5 Things to watch out for - this is the game, excited for their arrival so one can do the work of re-alignment - breaking patterns Kindness - a poem from Naomi Shihab Nye A guided Relaxation Gayatri Mantra

A guided relaxation for learning to take yourself out of Fight or Flight and into Rest and Digest. At first, learning to pull yourself out of fear and aversion takes awhile, both with learning to relax but also with letting go of our attachment to being afraid. However, with practice, one can do this in seconds and one begins to realize all the clarity they can get from the relaxed state. This is a step in changing patterns, it just requires a willingness to be attentive to our patterns (when we should actually be afraid because we are in danger or when it is just the ego feeling threatened) and a willingness to let go of things that cause us suffering.

Its the beginning of being okay with not having control and not knowing.

A class on backbends and heart openers! All about the heart!

-Philosophy -Auspicious Place -Individual Expression -Universal Expression -Purusa and Prakriti -Development of the Heart Chakra -Depression -Chemical Changes from BackBending -The Meridians in the Arms

The hilarious journey of being a yoga teacher and navigating "spiritual-new-age" jargon!

Here's to being unprofessional, not knowing, not being the expert... letting go of assumptions, fixed views, perceptions, judgements and ideas in favor of....going on a pilgrimage!

in China, there was a teacher named Dizang who had a student named Fayan. Dizang saw Fayan all dressed in his traveling clothes, with his straw sandals and his staff, and a pack on his back, and Dizang said, "Where are you going?" Fayan answered, "Around on a pilgrimage." Dizang said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?" Fayan said, "I don't know." Dizang said, "Not knowing is nearest.".... translated as not knowing is most intimate...not knowing is nearest and most intimate.

Here's to getting off the plateau of stagnancy in the known and jumping into the galaxy of darkness as vast as outer space. So much for right or wrong.

This podcast is about living according to our core values and a lot of the challenges that come with that, as well as making a life out of the life we have been given.

A dharma talk about commitment and holding that gateway of hope open in the face of disappointment, failure, shame, fear, and doubt.

This Track Hits On:

The mantra: The opening invocation of the Isha Upanishad, a Sanskrit text that delves into the knowledge of the Self

Pronunciation: purnam adah purnam idam purnat purnam udachyate | purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavashishyate ||

Translation:

That is Whole. This is Whole. The Whole arises from the Whole. Having taken the Whole from the Whole, Only the Whole remains.

(Translation by Zoë Slatoff-Ponté)

IN THIS TRACK:

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