Category Archives: Strength & Flexibility

I am on day 15 now of my personal yoga challenge and for some reason when I think of yoga, I naturally envision a beautiful healthy person, bending their body into amazing poses or maybe I just assume that everyone is able to touch their toes without bending their legs. Well, my friends, this is certainly not me. Everyday I can feel my body stretch a little more as I practice but resistance is futile.

What is this resistance? Will I ever be able to release this resistance? Is it structural or functional resistance due to my life patterns? So I have really been trying to take the time to breath through this and listen to my body as I ease into a posture. Or sometimes when I don’t want to physically participate in a posture, I imagine myself doing the posture. When I do this it actually empowers me to keep going & keep breathing.

With every yoga pose (asana) I experience I have the opportunity to explore my body by applying more or less effort, cultivating balance and flexibility. Involving parts of my body that may other wise be dormant consciously moves energy and wakes up my body, opening myself up to a more subtle awareness. Even though I am not flexible and can’t even straighten my legs when I try to touch my toes, I continue on, movement by subtle movement.

During this process I have also started to read the powerful book, A Course In Miracles: Foundation For Inner Peace. So far I am really enjoying reading about the meaning of miracles and doing the daily lessons.

Here are some quotes from Chapter 1:

• Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.
• Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.
• Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like expressions of love, which are always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring more love both to the giver and the receiver.
• Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means to communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles loves is expressed.
• Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.

So onward with my yoga adventure, with increasing purpose, process and practice!!!

Love,

Michelle

Real life is not always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgment of what is working in our lives can help us not only survive but surmount our difficulties. ~Sarah Ban Breathnach