Month: April 2015

NOT broken through self-love and self-healing you all:)

　Tilling our land and sowing our seeds…feel this earth! It’s almost summer! Smelling the roses in the air, walk your doggie more:) He/she will thank you for it.
$6 ! what!!??? you mean if I get 7 for each chakras, that’s $42? a bit expensive… but not any rock would do…for our divine body temple:)

Soma means body, …(I am) … in service of helping bodies to reduce or eliminate pain, normalize range of motion, and just generally get back to the happy, fully functional, badass state that is their birthright.　

(YAY, YES)Brooke Thomas, Soma Happy

Soma means something else in Sanskrit – it means nectar of immortality or a sweet drink from a fountain of youth(!) … and it doesn’t just drip but you have to siphon it out, squeeze it, juice it out is how I visualize the harvesting of that nectar… a divine drink we all likely not refuse. Anyway, found her honesty to be refreshing – and made me think about my motives and reasons behind doing yoga…other than experiencing first hand its healing powers:

I’ve done yoga for years, but have never really considered myself a yogini. Let’s just say that as someone whose body is built more on the dense end of the brick sh*t house to Gumby spectrum, contorting myself into a weird shape that had a Sanskrit name didn’t exactly come naturally to me.

– Brooke Thomas

I don’t know – why do people get into what they get into with passion? For the yoga profession, at least for me, the central reason is that desire to help others feel better, stronger, renewed; desire to help them feel less pain or be pain-free, naturally – it’s funny that all the time when I was getting my formal education, I never thought of pursuing such field – and if I had, I probably would have chosen another major and a profession but at that time, I was rather self-absorbed and determined to reach some height on a career ladder that had nothing to do with caring or body, mind & spirit (but all about the mind).

At the same time, being young and vibrant, I had no one around me close who were sick or injured or mending … and as a result I had no feelings of empathy or compassion for the weak or the suffering. If I saw someone in need, my tendencies would have been to avoid them… Oddly only when I was in midst of college and finishing, I started to encounter break-downs of health around me and finally myself as well, a bit later on (probably from stress dealing with others needing, demanding care). My father probably had 3-5 major operations before his final demise; my mother is alive but tends to focus on the negatives post-hip surgery (successful if you can call walking with a walker a success) and so… hospital visits are not foreign to me. There was a period when I commuted to the hospital maybe 1-2 times a day to visit with flowers and bento or soup while trying to make a go of my own career which had nothing to do with healthcare or wellness. Yoga was something I did for stress-management but teaching it was big departure from the original desire to merely deepen my knowledge because … essentially at the core is always a curious student within. I guess I wanted to learn about the technique that helped me and how to apply it more to be more effective off the mat, outside of the yoga studio. Judith H. Lasator’s book, “Living Your Yoga” is highly recommended for that end as we juggle through life.

Recalling a peer yogini at Judith Lasator’s training, there is this beautiful, and I mean, BEAUTIFUL yogini – by my definition that means perfect body at least in appearance fit for a yoga journal magazine cover? let’s call her Minnie:) and she is a therapists for children with physical limitations; then there’s another beautiful yogini who teaches yoga to women going through cancer care … such beautiful heart they have … in awe. I mean, I am looking at Minnie and ask – so why did you choose to go into what you do when you can easily be teaching fit beautiful people at some gym? She says with wide eyes then laughs “why, isn’t it obvious? Look at me! I am so broken!” & I look back at her – WHAT? Broken??? You are NOT broken – far from – don’t you know, you are just so BEAUTIFUL. There stood before me a beautiful yogini, a yoga instructor, who helps disabled children in water – she, to me looks healthy and fit AND far from broken BUT she believes she’s broken… speechless. Reassuring her that he is NOT broken (that’s the past and she’s on the mend!) but beautiful, I think everybody wants to feel vibrant and balanced in a wholesome, natural way and that … too is what I seek for self and others. Not broken but strong; regenerated and renewed at the cellular level.

So … that’s it. I am trying to find the best tool to that end – I am not a doctor so cannot find a cure (too late for med school) but can dispense other kinds of remedies to bring comfort I think – and if yoga is not that best tool, I will find some other means but by far, with all that I have looked into, yoga is the best as long as you truly embody your body while doing it and not make it into a “showtime” or something competitive. Those pursuits are strictly off the mat; outside of the studio space.

from Time Magazine article “How Yoga can Wreck your body”.

Keep in mind this – Click here for my revered guru’s reminder always. Unless you are in that league of yogis practicing yoga at least 2 hours a day REGULARLY, do not strain to do everything to the max intensity you saw on a mag cover – She’s so funny – it’s okay to be that one with the 3-fold “bloody” “frickin'” thick mat!

Been making this home-made but now looks like they are on shelves. If you make it yourself, you can mix the oils to come up with “that” certain scent that evokes a certain “place” within your mind. More unique but these can serve as ideas. If you study aromatherapy, you will learn to group them – like chemistry, some scents just do not mix well and there’s no synergy when one scent erases or counters the other – need them to be complementary, not fighting each other. (you can say that about people too!)

Cute place:)