The cafe

The cafes and bookshops are alive and seem to be flourishing in Sydney.  They host an eclectic mix of humans - some intent on a caffeine fix, some searching for an intellectual moment, others looking for an out of the home office space but most looking to take a break from the chaos they call life. New York City (my home before Sydney) had almost all but lost its cafe culture.  As people's lives get more rushed, more busy and more chaotic, one of the places we can go to refuel and escape from the madness was disappearing.  Right when it was needed most.  The bookshop folded to the fast paced, ease and convenience of anything digital (i.e. Amazon).  The local, beatnik cafe gave way to the pressure cooker of Starbucks.  Which, by the way, doesn't even take the time to brew real espresso for its lattes.  Starbucks prefers the automatic machine for its fast, quick efficient pace.

In Sydney, the pace is fast, but slower than New York.  They say there is an average walking speed for each city.  Someone has actually calculated this.  New York City's pace is hyper speed, can't stop for anyone especially not that tourist taking a photo of Times Square or stopping to buy an overpriced "I love NY" T-shirt.  Sydney's pace is meaningful, purpose driven, but okay stopping for the red lights and waiting to cross the street until the green walking man says it's safe.

Is there a direct correlation between city speed and the number of cafes and bookshops?  I'm not sure but from where I sit, this Sydney bookstore with the peaceful cafe where I can unwind between yoga classes looks pretty good.  Here, I can sit in a comfy, cozy over-sized arm chair which affords me the luxury (but maybe it should be the necessity) of a pause.  The luxury to slow down, taste the soy milk frothing at the top of my chai latte and inhale deeply before exhaling slowly.

Restorative Yoga - A case for compassion

About a month ago I spent a glorious 4 days learning to teach restorative yoga from the master herself, Judith Hanson Lasater.  Judith teaches restorative yoga on the basis that we need rest and compassion for ourselves first in order to then go into the world and give to others.  We have to have compassion for ourselves by taking time out of our days to slow down, to be still, to be quiet and to be with ourselves. Since probably the age of 16 (when I drank my first sips of coffee while working at the local cafe), I have been a person who thinks I can go, go, go forever with no stopping.  If I stop, it's all over and can't get going again, so stopping always seemed like a dangerous proposal to me.  Plus, our culture values being busy.  We tell each other, "Oh I'm so busy these days" and we say it almost with a sense of pride. As if being busy means we are more valuable and important than if we are resting and still.

Some years down the road, I started to realize that my go, go way of life wasn't sustainable for me and my well-being. Plus, I was irritable and angry a lot of the time which didn't feel very good.  Cue YOGA.  But not just any yoga, not yoga with 10-15 chaturunga push ups and a 2 minute lie down that barely can be labeled savasana (which, by the way, was my preferred style for a long time and honestly style that works wonders for lots of people).  This though, is the yoga of rest, of restoration.  A yoga I had almost nearly forgotten about until a friend mentioned that Judith Lasater was coming to Australia and would I be interested in taking her restorative yoga teacher training.  (Wake up call?)

Our bodies need rest to take care of all of their crucial biological functions, we need rest to bring us into our parasympathetic nervous system where we can start to heal.  Where immune function is boosted, where our heart rate starts to slow, where our digestion and assimilation can happen efficiently, where our blood pressure decreases (and the list goes on).  Where we just feel good, calm and happy, more satisfied with life.  You know, that dopey smile you get on your face after you get up from savasana after a really good yoga class, yeah that feeling.

After taking this training, I have become re-invigorated to do nothing in a way I never thought possible.  I bought myself 2 bolsters, 5 blankets and a case full of eye pillows all to better facilitate my ability to do nothing.  But this just isn't any ordinary doing nothing, this is a very well supported, barely any parts of your body touching the earth, nestled into a dream land of comfort where you could stay for days, doing nothing.

My new daily practice consists of some asana (yoga postures), meditation and a minimum of 1 restorative pose for at least 20 minutes.  It is beautiful.  Yes, of course, I still feel tired and annoyed from time to time.  As Judith so kindly reminds us "we're only human after all" and how human of us to have those emotions.  I now feel, however, that I have tools to deal with those feelings.  I can support myself, I can take care of myself in ways I had all but forgotten were available to me but are absolutely amazing and nourishing to my soul.

The other and possibly more beautiful thing about this practice is the by product of my calmer and peaceful self, is that I am a much better yoga teacher.  By taking care of myself via rest, I can then, as Judith says, go out into the world and help others.  When I'm well rested and calm, I'm nicer to everyone I come into contact with, from my dog, to the neighborhood barista, to the stranger sitting next to me on the bus.  Then via those kind interactions, the barista, my dog and the stranger on the bus all feel a little bit better.  Then, maybe, they'll go on to be kind to the next person they come into contact with and so on and so forth.  It's like a chain reaction of niceness that started because I decided to rest.  You too, can facilitate this kind of chain reaction, a pay it forward of sorts.  It's my small way of trying to make the world a better place.

When I was 13 I stopped eating meat and told people it was because I wanted to save the rain forest.  While, as you can imagine many people laughed at me.  But, it's not like I could go strap myself to a tree in Brazil, so that was my way of doing my part for the bleeding, suffering world that I was just beginning to understand.  While I still eat very little meat, but practicing restorative yoga is another way that I can do my part to save the world.

Because of how much I love and believe in this practice, I want to share it with you, and the rest of the world!  I'm offering discounted private lessons that include restorative yoga (buy 2 sessions and get 1 free).  I'm also running a 6 week workshop on meditation and restoration at Pranamoves starting in November.  Contact me at kelseyhendricksonyoga@gmail.com if you're interested in either of these things!  I would be honored to share this practice with you.

Great conversations about samadhi can happen anywhere

The other day I was at the bank making a deposit and had a fascinating interaction with the teller.  I told him I was a yoga teacher and his previously bored expression changed dramatically, he lit up.  He enthusiastically starting telling me that he's been practicing meditation and he loves it.  He said he sits for an hour every day and recently had a beautiful experience where he moved past his thoughts.  His thoughts just left, drifted away and he felt as if he had merged with the world around him.  As he continued to describe feelings of bliss and absolute peace during this phase of his meditation, I was jumping for joy inside!  All I could do was smile and nod furiously back at him with what I can imagine was a look of awe on my face. From my perspective, he had reached samadhi (the 8th limb of Ashtanga yoga as laid out in the Yoga Sutras).  Samadhi, the place when your concentration turns into meditation and then turns into a merging, a yoking, a union (the definition of the word "yoga").  Wow.  It's said to be a state where the individual merges with the whole universe and we realize that we are part of the whole, connected and not separate.  I've read about, heard tales about and dreamed about what samadhi must be like, what it must feel like, but always thought it was more of an idealized state that only sages and serious yogis who live in caves, or at least only yogis who live in India, reach.  Yet here I was, at the bank in Paddington, Australia, looking through the plastic partition at a man who had experienced samadhi.

So go forth people, go forth and meditate.  That state of bliss, of ananada, of incredible peace and joy is actually attainable for us mere mortals.  However, after we reach it, we do have to come back to this plane and live our daily, average, normal and sometimes mundane lives.  The bank teller told me he continues to meditate but doesn't always reach that state.  Some days yes, some days no and he is wondering why.  We're only humans after all, and I didn't have the answer for him.

Some Bali Wisdom

I recently returned from a 2 week stint in Bali and what a trip, filled with amazing experiences and of course some enlightening yogic moments.  There are too many to share in one post, so I'll start with a few here. Bali is one of those destinations where everyone seems to have a preconceived notion of what the holiday will bring.  But...it all depends on who you talk to.  Speaking to those of the yogi persuasion, I heard "how exciting, what a spiritual, special place, the Balinese are beautiful people".  Talking to the Aussie born, "what the heck do you want to go there for?  It's just full of drunk, fat Australians looking for a party".  Others told me Bali was "over commercialised", some Americans asked me "where is that??, Indonesian?  Are you sure you'll be safe by yourself".  My first 4 days were spent alone in Ubud and yes, I felt very safe.

I've developed a recent love of traveling solo, it's refreshing and empowering.  A gentle reminder that everything I need in life is within myself and luckily that doesn't take up any luggage room.  I did, despite this, drastically over pack, prepared for every scenario that never occurred (cold nights and mornings, fancy dinners, jungle treks etc.).

And so, with a litany of other people's stories bouncing around in my head, I headed off for an exciting new adventure.  Immediately upon disembarking the plane in Denpasar, I smiled to myself at all the Balinese airplane workers just hanging out by the plane, ready to unload luggage, sitting in a comfortable looking squat position.  I've heard stories upon stories about how people in India and other non-Western cultures, squat to rest meanwhile because of our chair bound lifestyles in the West, we can barely hold malasana for more than 2 minutes.

The streets of Ubud are a busy, congested, messy affair.  They are cluttered with stray dogs and chickens, swimming with men smiling and nodding at you as they ask, "taxi, need a taxi miss?" and of course teaming with people squatting outside their shops as they await their next tourist customer.  The side walks are broken up pieces of bricks with grates lying over missing slabs of concrete.  If you're not watching where you step, you might casually fall into the canals filled with water and trash on either side of the street.  The scooters and motorbikes rule the streets, zooming passed the slow moving cars and buses.  I was told cars only appeared in Bali 40 years ago so most of the streets were built for push bikes.  These scooters are a family affair, husband, wife and baby/toddler all piled onto one bike with often a load of rice, a chicken or some other absurd load (according to our standards) precariously balanced on the back.  The shops, restaurants, bars, hotels, spas are mostly manned by Balinese locals who've come to Ubud to work.  Meanwhile the patrons of said venues are mostly white Westerners from Australia, Europe, America etc.  Everyone speaks English or some version of English and yes, I agreed with my fellow yogis that the Balinese are a beautiful people.

Twice a day if not more often, they make offerings at the temple.  There are temples everywhere, in every shop, restaurant, hotel, villa, yoga studio.  There are temples outside on the street, there are temples inside each room of the hotel, everywhere. Some are large, glorious, stone structures covered in the traditional black, white and red checkered cloth that represents the Hindu trilogy of Shiva (destroyer), Vishnu (sustainer) and Brahma (creator).  Others are smaller, some are painted in gold, some are made of wood, some sit at the top of the village, some in the middle.  Each home has a temple and the temple has to be larger than the people's home to honour the gods.  These offerings are usually small baskets made of palm, filled with some rice, various flowers, incense and other food that's in season and considered spiritual.  The women are in charge of making the offerings and they toil away every day to make hundreds of them in love and service to the divine and knowing full well that the offerings all get burned into the fire at the end of the day.  They create something out of love and devotion only for it to be later destroyed.  Their days are full of these rituals, done in service to a force greater than themselves.

In our Western brains, it's hard to imagine why someone would waste so much time creating something just to then destroy it.  We are taught to do things efficiently, as quickly as possible while still producing an excellent product or end result.  We are taught to achieve, to do things in order to get them done.  But what then happens to us...we end up running around like chickens with our heads cut off (for lack of a better metaphor).  Trying to achieve, competing to be busier than our neighbours, more stressed than our coworkers because being busy and stressed means that we are leading successful, meaningful and productive lives.  While on the retreat at Villa Boreh, every night, the villa employees would set the table for dinner while were were finishing our evening yoga practice.  So each night when we came to the table, we were enchanted with what we would find.

There was usually a beautifully done flower arrangement or stone arrangement in the shape or a heart or an OM, there were flowers and palms on the table put into beautifully stunning designs.  There were candles on the ground each circled with small stones.  All of this was done with such love, such care, such grace just to be then destroyed at the end of dinner and repeated again the next night.

During our last night at Villa Boreh, one of the participants said they wanted to take the palm basket home to make their own offerings at their home alter.   What a great idea, I now wanted to keep mine as well.  Luckily, before stowing an illegal plant item into our Australian bound suitcases, the wise Nikola (yoga therapist and retreat leader) chimed in and reminded us that the whole point of the offerings is to offer them, to burn them in the fire.  To make the offering to the greater forces in our Universe and to then let them go.  Ironically, there we were a week into a yoga retreat, wanting to hold on, to preserve instead of letting go...(non attachment??).

So after a week of being back in Sydney, a lot of my resolve to maintain some of these beautiful rituals that make life so rich and sweet has fallen away.  Things have returned pretty much to normal, but at least I can now say I'm aware of another way of operating.  That our way isn't the only way and might not always be the best.  I'm aware of how I'm doing things, is it to finish them or for the love and joy of doing them?

Meditation

According to the Yoga Sutras (the most prominent of the ancient texts on Yoga), Yoga has 8 limbs. Yoga can also be thought of as an 8-fold path or journey. Asana (the physical practice which most of us know as "yoga") is incidentally, only 1 of these limbs. The other in order are: 1. Yamas (ethical standards, how you deal with others and your environment) 2. Niyamas (observances, how you deal with yourself) 3. Asana (physical postures including a seat for meditation) 4. Pranayama (breath exercises, breath control) 5. Pratyahara (withdrawing of the senses) 6. Dharana (focused attention on one object) 7. Dhyana (uninterrupted flow of attention on object) 8. Samadhi (a state of ecstasy or bliss, when one has merged with the object)

For today's purposes, we are focusing on the last 3 limbs, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, or Meditation.  I've been taking an amazing and enlightening course on Yoga Therapy and last week's class focused on using meditation for therapeutic purposes.  For me, it also cleared up some things about the practice of meditation and some big bells of understanding started dinging.  Hence, I thought I'd share some information with you.

When we sit to meditate, we are learning to sit with ourselves, to sit with our thoughts, to try to quiet down our monkey mind which jumps willy nilly from thought to thought (or branch to branch as the case may be).  We are not, when we meditate, however, running away and avoiding thoughts, pushing them away as they come up, ignoring the unpleasant thoughts.  Instead, we try to act as a passive observer, a detached witness, watching our thoughts as they flow through our mind.  Plus, it's nearly impossible for all but the most enlightening swami to still her mind completely.  So to help ourselves cultivate this witness, we give our mind a point of focus, an object on which to focus.  That object can be anything; a tree, a candle flame, a mantra, a visualization technique.  For therapeutic purposes, we want to pick something that has meaning for us, something that has properties we want to embody.  For example, if I am feeling anxious, flighty, like I can't ever sit still and I have to be constantly moving or doing something, I might pick an object that makes me feel grounded and calm, steady and still.

Meditation isn't something we can make happen, like sleep.  We can't command our bodies to fall asleep.  Instead, we have to prime ourselves to be ready for sleep.  We dim the lights, we lie down in bed, we count sheep etc.  Same with meditation, we have to set the stage for dhyana and samadhi to come, set the stage to merge with the object of focus.  As such, we come back to the 8-fold path of yoga.  First, we practice asana, we move the body around in all different ways so we can be comfortable when we sit down.  Next, we come to pratyahara, withdrawing the senses.  We sit down in a quiet room with few distractions and close our eyes, we turn inwards.  Then comes the hard part, dharana, one-pointed focus.  Returning to the object, let's say we've chosen that fig tree to help calm our anxious, worried self.  We start to draw up the image of the fig tree in our mind.  We think about all the properties of that tree, imagining the smells, the feel of the bark, the steadiness, the stillness, the rootedness etc.  Then as we are thinking about the tree, other thoughts might start to creep in, oh it was so nice yesterday when I went to the park and sat under a tree and ate that muffin.  I love muffins, those blueberry ones are particularly yummy, maybe I'll bake muffins tonight.  (My thoughts often to go yummy food items it seems, even in blog posts!)  Oh right, fig tree.  We come back time and time again to the object we are focusing on, our fig tree.

With time and practice, maybe not in one session, maybe not in 10, but eventually, the focusing on the object becomes easier, effortless.  Dharana eventually turns to Dhyana, we are effortless imagining the tree, keeping that image and all the thoughts and feelings of the tree in our mind.  Nothing else exists except that tree.  We are starting to merge with the tree, we start to take on the properties of the tree ourselves.  Maybe feeling more grounded, more stable, more rooted into the ground, more strong and steady.  Then Samadhi arises, we've become one with the fig tree, have merged with the object of our focus.  Now, we come to a full and complete understanding of the fig tree with nothing to cloud that understanding.

By using an object of focus that has qualities you would like to manifest in your life, you can use meditation for therapy purposes, to bring you back in a balanced and clear state.

---

kelseyhendricksonyoga@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/KelseyHendricksonYoga

For the love of yoga

Let me illustrate why I love yoga so much. The other morning, the alarm goes off at 5am to get me down to Bondi for my 6:30am class.  I fight tooth and nail against waking up, snooze the alarm twice.  I'm screaming inside as I get ready and trudge off to class.  On the bus ride back, my mind is going nuts - bouncing from thought to negative thought.  The definition of a monkey mind.  I'm thinking about how hot it is, how I wish I had a car because this bus is annoying, how my thighs are fat.  I should run when I get home, or maybe I'll bike instead.  But it's just so hot, I'm seriously dripping in sweat.  I really could go for a coffee, but no, no coffee, I gave that up.

I arrive home, feed and walk Allie dog.  She is probably wondering what is wrong with me, why I'm so snappy.  Then, pause.  Hang on a minute, what am I doing?  I need yoga.  I roll out my mat, turn on the new playlist I'm testing out and lie down.  I start to breathe.  Good, I'm glad I didn't bike or run.  It's much cooler inside than out and I'm glad we haven't need Air Con this summer.

Breathing, inhale, exhale.  Start to move, knees into my chest, twisting, sit up.  Let's see, intention - love myself more.  Do some cat/cow, modified side plank, testing out a new warming up sequence I think I'll teach.  Inhale, exhale, sigh.  Feeling better already.

What am I going to teach at corporate later?  Maybe I should go to the beach when I'm done with my practice.  Down dog, plank, cobra flow.  My shoulders feel better after that massage I got the other day.  Easier to inhale.  Flow through a few sun salutations, breathe, plank hold.  Interesting, if I pull my hands toward my feet it does really firm up my shoulders.  Sun salutation B, I think I only need one of those today, warm enough.  Flow though some warrior IIs, a triangle, half moon.  Twisting half moon?  Nope, not today.  Just breathe.  Inhale lift, exhale, forward fold.  Pause _____

Other side, let's see, inhale here?  No exhale feels better.  Oh my left hip is a little tender.  This song is good with this flow.  Yes, yum good _______.  How do I match the breath with each of these postures?  Ah that works.  There we go. ______.  Life is good, my body feels free.  Balancing, tree, eagle, dancers pose.  Breathing ________.  Bridge, breathing _______

Twist.  ______  Recline pigeon ______ pause.  inhale, exhale ______.  Savasana, rest ________________________.  Wiggle my toes and fingers, sit up.  ___________peace.  nothing else remains, it has all drifted away.  Thank you yoga, you continue to amaze and inspire me.

My new Sydney mornings

A weekend morning timetable to illustrate how my life has changed since moving to Sydney, quitting my marketing research job and becoming a yoga teacher.

Wake up at 5:15am, press 5 minute snooze once.  Out of bed by 5:20am.

Make green tea in to-go travel mug and some yogurt concoction in a tupperware to go.

Catch 6:02am bus filled with an eclectic mix of ambitious early risers out to catch the first rays of sun for their run/swim/other athletic activity sitting next to still drunk revelers trying to make it home before the sun rises (they’re failing).  This particular morning being the Sunday after the Saturday of Halloween, there were a few costumed revelers.

Arrive at Bondi beach at 6:20am, take a stroll in the sand, find a rock to do some brief yoga and a meditation upon.

Saunter over to the Icebergs club to teach 7am yoga class.

By 7:45am, I’ve lead a feisty group of yogis through 5 sun salutations, a few warrior poses and far more movement than I’d ever used to imagine anyone interested in before 9am.  Yet regardless of my previous judgement about the morning hours, the classes are usually busy, people are awake and mostly ready to go.  Even the beach-side and ocean water filled pool we teach the classes at is teaming with swimmers by 7am.  Bondi beach itself is crawling with surfers and some runners (and the occasional, let’s watch the sunrise since we’re still drunk and awake partyers) by the time I’ve arrived at 6:20am for my meditation.

This is all fascinating to me (maybe not to you reader) because in my past life as a New York City dweller and corporate worker/market researcher, I dreaded the mornings.  Especially the weekend mornings, usually I was hung over from the night before.  I would drag my sorry butt out of bed around 11:30am, blink my eyes open enough to make coffee and then head to brunch around 12pm/1pm.  Have some bloody mary’s to cure said hang over.  After brunch I might go for a shop, buy some things I didn’t need that cost to much because of my slightly buzzed state.  Basically, what I’m saying here, is that I nearly never saw the 5:15am hour unless I myself was one of the drunk revelers.  I pretty much never saw the 6am-7am hour no matter what and was lucky if I even woke by 8:15am on the weekdays to get to work by 9:30am.

It’s not like I’ve become a yoga teacher and all of a sudden I’m a made over person who never drinks and loves my super early mornings.  Yes, I don’t drink as much and do enjoy the fresh quiet of the morning.  However, it’s also a change in culture and location.  New Yorkers lack any respectable outdoor space, in fact most of the public space in New York is crowded, concrete, loud and busy.  Meanwhile, Sydneysiders enjoy multitude of parks and beaches all within very accessible distance from their homes.  Of course they are all up early, they’re taking advantage of their beautiful city, weather, sun and waves!  New Yorkers pride themselves on their cool, unique and ahead of the curve bars/restaurants/clubs etc.  Therefore, they stay out late on the weekends frequently said establishments.  Sydney is relatively lacking in that cool bar area, so early to bed for its residents.

Change of culture, change of environment, change of profession, change of habits and lifestyle.  These early morning hours just mean I now rest my head down on the pillow by 10pm.  A major faux paux in NYC but I’m slowly adjusting.

Ishvara Pranidhana

Ishvara Pranidhana, the act of surrendering to the universe. Ishvara Pranidhana is a Niyama or observance, from the Yoga Sutras, a yoga text dating back thousands of years. Patanjali, the yoga sage who we received the Sutras from, suggests that we practice a certain code for living to help us on the path toward a clearer and more free mind and thus a more peaceful and easeful life. Ishvara Pranidhana classically interpreted means surrendering your life and your work to the divine.  I like to think of it as allowing your life to flow and unfold as it will without trying to muscle or force things to happen. After all, we have little control over most outcomes and over our own destinies. My mom always said I tend to grab life by the horns and wrench what I want out of it. Forcing and maneuvering and grimacing to make things happen in the way I thought they should. I like to believe this is a common ailment in my fellow human beings?

After going through much of life this way, pushing and trying to force things to happen, I eventually found yoga.  Yoga lead me to the ancient writings of the Sutras, which brought me to this specific Niyama (observance).  Ishvara Pranidhana, surrendering to the universe and surrendering to you life, to let go of those things you can not control. I wish I could say that since I started studying and practicing this niyama, I just sit in my lounge chair and watch life unfold before me like the play that it is, but that's not exactly true, at least not yet.  However, I am slowly learning to allow whatever fruits I reap to fall at my feet and to take life as it comes.  A little less muscle, a little more ease and a little more letting go.  Sometimes it is in the process of letting go that what you really want shows up at your doorstep.

For the next few weeks, I’m dedicating my yoga classes, both those I practice and those I teach, to Ishvara Pranidhana.  In the hope that it will serve as a personal reminder and as an offering to my students.  Maybe it will help make life a little easier and a little more peaceful.  Let’s see what unfolds.

Mindfulness

Before each yoga class, I spend some time writing down what I hope to convey to my students in relation to the theme of the class.  It doesn't always come across as eloquently as I may have written it or prepared it, but sometimes I go back through my notebook to re-read the the pieces and find them to be good reminders for myself. Here's hoping you might find some use in your own life for the wisdom of yoga that has been passed down to us from generation to generation, from teacher to student.

Mindfulness theme and the beauty of meditation:

When we are mindful, living in the present moment, quiet and still, a whole world opens up inside of us.  This world is our access to an abundance of peace and bliss (ananda).  These feelings of peace and bliss are always there, deep within each and every one of us.  We just have to slow down, listen and delve on in.

As Rumi so eloquently reminds us "Why are you so enchanted by this world when a mine of gold lies within you?".

~Shanti

The yin to my usual yang

This afternoon I took my first Yin Yoga class in a long while. It was at a Paddington yoga studio called Barefoot Yoga. Barefoot is Sydney’s first donation based studio, similar to Yoga To The People in New York where I first started practicing yoga.

My yoga is usually fast moving, flowing and physically challenging and stimulating. My yoga quiets my mind and until now, I had thought it was introspective. Today’s class with Crawf showed me otherwise. Yin is the opposite of what I gravitate towards and what I usually practice, it’s slow, the poses are held for 5 minutes at a time, it’s quiet and it gets inside your head.

The first 20 minutes of class were an exercise and a test of my mind/body control and mastery. I thought I’d gotten to a level of practice where I could breathe through nearly anything. Not this. 3 minutes into holding pigeon I forgot how much I hated opening my hip, how much I hated the lack of control over when I could come out of the pose, how much I simply hated the teacher, myself, the class, the girl in front of me who seemed so content, I hated everything and just wanted to flip back into an opened hip down dog. I literally felt my entire body getting hot, red, steaming with the pitta fire and irritation. After I thought it couldn't get worse, we held a few more hip opener poses on the same side. I could feel my hamstrings and glutes constricting with every passing second (which were ticking by slower than I’d ever experienced). 5 minutes became an eternity.

Then as we came into pigeon pose on the other side, I laid me ear down on the mat, looked up and saw a massive gold painted OM symbol on the wall and something changed. I started to let go. Little by little. My hip relaxed, my shoulders and chest melted into the floor and I could feel my breath sink into my belly.

As we moved onto gomukasana (cow face) Crawf suggested we try a mantra with the breath and it all came together. Inhale, “I”, exhale,”am”. “I am”. That’s it, that is everything. I am. I am here, in this body, in this room, in this city, half way across the globe from everything I know. I am Kelsey, I am doing yoga, I am present and I am here right now and that is all that matters. I am peace and I am stillness. The rest of class flowed by, not quickly but it didn’t drag on either, it just moved as it should. I am just where I should be and so is everyone else, just where they should be.

We closed class with one more posture and finished out with the usual savasana and I knew I had found home. No matter what happens in the world, in your life, you are just as you should be. You are and I am and that is all that matters, the rest is superfluous and potentially just a distraction from what really is. Talk about introspection.

Namaste and Shanti.