My journey to become a yoga teacher continues with next YTT workshop coming up this weekend. In the meantime, here is a short update on what inspired me last week.
What I’m learning
I started relying on my recently acquired knowledge of Journey into Power yoga sequence (Baptiste Power Yoga inspired) for my home practise. My thanks here go to my girlfriend, who planted this idea. Up to this moment, I was constantly using videos, which is stress free, but not very empowering approach. Leading myself through the JiP sequence not only strengthens muscle memory both physically and mentally, it is also a step toward being able to teach this sequence. Also, within the sequence, there is always space for something new – experiment with poses I’m not so comfortable as yet, play with inversions and arm balances or slow down and really feel what’s showing up.
What I’m experimenting with
This will probably sound random, but as someone who likes to have hands-on experience, I learnt how to juggle a couple of years ago, but ignored this skill for a long time. After hearing about all the benefits, that juggling brings (on The Becoming SuperHuman Podcast), I decided to re-learn this fun practise. Benefits, to mention just a few, are: improved brain fitness, dexterity, concentration and many more.
Podcast episode that impacted me the most
Tara Brach’s gentle voice and great sense of humour in Listening with an Awake Heart caused me to pause and reflect. If someone asks me if I’m a good listener, I’m quick to respond “yes, I am”. But am I really? How often am I really listening? How often do I listen with my heart and how often with my head? Looking for solutions to fix the problem, to come up with some “useful” or “smart” response, rather than listen deeply to create space for connection? How often am I leading conversation in certain direction without paying attention what the person in front of me is saying? Assuming I know what that person wants to say before any words have been spoken? Listening through my judgements about this person or proving to be right?
Inspiration for the week
I’m reading now Daring Greatly by Brené Brown and love it! Few insights from the book:
We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us. We’re afraid that our truth isn’t enough—that what we have to offer isn’t enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.
When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.
Quick update on apps I’m using
My lucky 13 list of most frequently used apps has shrunk to 11. I’m not using Coach.me any more, all my habit tracking goals are now in OmniFocus, where some of them were duplicated anyway (e.g. morning yoga, meditation, journalling etc). I let go of Yoga Tracker as well and I’m logging my yoga sessions in Cody app now. Also, I replaced Mindfulness app with Serenity: Meditation Timer, which allows me to have 4 presets, like: meditation 5 and 10 minutes, practise teach and yoga self practise.
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