Splendid Yoga

Do you have chronic pain? I’ve gone through various phases with it. During childhood, I had daily migraines. (Turns out that’s because I have PTSD from early childhood trauma!) I’ve had some pretty deep healing phases, including an 18 month ACL replacement that took two surgeries to figure out. I don’t know if I know what your pain is like, but here’s what my pain was like: Exhausting Sharp Aching Distracting Isolating This meditation is not going to cure your chronic pain. But it will change your relationship to it. Pain is a message, not a punishment. Pain is your nervous system telling your brain, “Something’s off. We need to do something different.” In your wisdom, you get to decide what that something different is. Maybe it’s paying the close attention to the pain that seems unbearable, that we will do anything to escape. Give it a try. Let me know how it goes.

As Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, puts it, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”Amy Jahn, certified Mutual Awakening Practice teacher in her upcoming course, will guide you each step of the way through the history of and science behind the Mutual Awakening practice, how the practice came into being and where it emerged from, what you will experience when you engage it, and exactly how to engage the Mutual Awakening Practice so you become fully empowered to practice it with the partner (or partners) of your choice. This course will provide everything you need to know and do (including practice partners) to practice Mutual Awakening and reliably engage real Shared Unity Consciousness.  This two person, open eyed, verbal meditation practice is perfect for anyone across all ages, and lifestyles. It's for anyone who has yearned for something more meaningful in their own lives and for humanity.

I hope this brings you peace. Have a seat. Repeat after me.

Let's chat with intuitive coach Melissa Corter about why it is exactly that you are stressed about money. Because you are, aren't you? Telling yourself how little money you have? Getting yourself all worked up about it? We talk about why that might be, and how to resolve it. Have a listen.

Let's do some affirmations to align yourself with wealth and success. Have a seat. Repeat after me.

The Yoga Sutras demand cleanliness in order for an optimum human experience. Not just a clean house, though that’s certainly part of it. Go make your bed. Go do the dishs. Listen to this while you’re doing it. You’ll be done before the recording is done. Then we can work on cleaning your human suffering off your divine self. Let’s do it.

This is what it feels like to be human: scary bored grateful joyful All of it is worthy. All of it is the experience of being human. This is what it feels like to have a body. This is what it feels like to breathe. This is what it feels like to be human. This is what you do to make it easier to be human.

Pema Chödrön tells us that hopelessness is the solution to fear. We are in a period of losing our footing. Things that felt familiar and secure …aren’t. Everything you knew to be true …isn’t. This is a beautiful time to liberate yourself from anything that doesn’t serve you. This is a beautiful time to practice gratitude for what you have. Because we’re about to learn just how little we can live with. We may as well be grateful for it. It makes it easier. Promise.

Y’all, we are in a PANDEMIC! Here’s what I love about it: The whole world, en masse, is being asked to heal. You’ve seen the stories of dolphins and swans exploring the Venice canals for the first time. Polluted parts of China are clearing up and seeing sunlight. That’s what we’re going to bring in today. This is a meditation for creating healing, protective energy. If you’re stuck at home and realizing that your choices have not brought you closer to your heart, this will help. If you’re stuck at home and feeling the effects of a virus ravaging your system, this will help. If you’re out in the world helping each other, this will help. This is the meditation I give my lightworkers who are walking into hospitals and orphanages and disaster zones, places where disease flourish. Do the common sense things: wash your hands. Stay home. Touch each other’s souls, not each other’s hands. Protect yourself while you’re doing it. Be well, friends.

Aparigraha means non-hoarding, non-attachment, non-grasping - all sorts of things. It refers to living a simple life. But simple is as simple does. Your level of simplicity , in the details, is going to be different than mine. In its simplest form, gratitude for what you have overcomes any sense of attachment, including envy. Here’s a simple mudra (hand gesture) to encourage that flowing gratitude. Join us here: www.facebook.com/groups/splendidyoga

This one is to focus your eyes. Nice if you’re studying a bunch (hi, students!). Relaxing if your eyes are tired. This is a grounding, breathing exercise because you need to calm tf down. Try this one before your day begins.

Lay on your back, with your legs up the wall, if that’s comfortable for you. This is a grounding, breathing exercise because you need to calm tf down. Try this one before your day begins.

Ever take a trip into the future? Ever lose a night’s sleep wondering what’s going to happen? Ever flip out over all the terrifying, terrible things that might happen? Ever get so excited about something that’s going to happen that the reality of it is a letdown? I’ve got some news for you, friend: The future is none of your business. The infinitude of the present moment is your business. Here’s how to manage future-tripping thoughts: It used to be that, to practice yoga, you needed to be celibate. That means no sexual experiences of any kind, including self-pleasure. The idea is, sexuality is purely a form of humanity. To transcend sexuality, and therefore your humanity, is to attain enlightenment. That’s not always relevant in this day and age. Not all of us can be celibate; humanity would cease to exist. Nowadays, it’s interpreted a bit more loosely. So what does it mean to practice sexual purity? Take a listen:

The Yoga Sutras insist upon sexual purity, but its meaning has changed over the millennia. It used to be that, to practice yoga, you needed to be celibate. That means no sexual experiences of any kind, including self-pleasure. The idea is, sexuality is purely a form of humanity. To transcend sexuality, and therefore your humanity, is to attain enlightenment. That’s not always relevant in this day and age. Not all of us can be celibate; humanity would cease to exist. Nowadays, it’s interpreted a bit more loosely. So what does it mean to practice sexual purity? Take a listen:

This is a simple breathing meditation. Breathe in for 5. Hold for 6. Exhale for 7. Focus. These are long seconds. Nothing fancy. You’ve just gotta sit there and breathe. Let’s do it.

This is a simple breathing meditation. Just a few minutes to bring some sweet energy into your day. Nothing fancy. You’ve just gotta sit there and breathe. Let’s do it.

You'll want to be laying down for this one.  Are you having a difficult time letting go of something, or someone, from your past? This will help. This is an energetic cord cutting for releasing your attachment to something that isn't serving you. It's nice to do all year round, but it's significant to do on new years of all cultures and full moons.

Y’all, Taylor Lancaster is one of my best friends and Buddhist and vegan mentors. Find him on insta @tenderliving He was awarded the congressional Medal of Honor for his protest against GMOs, traveled on his bike for 2 years, and just finished the PCT. He was also molested as a kid, raped, and beaten up for his queerness. He lives life on his own terms, which is why he inspires me. We chat in Maui about his sobriety, how that affects his queerness and his internalized homophobia, and whether any of this is real.

Asteya means non-stealing. Basically, we’re all kleptomaniacs. “Stealing is to take or use other people’s property without their permission, which includes sneaking phone calls at work; dirtying up the city that we all pay for with our taxes; or ruining the earth for the coming generations.” — The Essential Yoga Sutra: Ancient Wisdom for Your Yoga by Geshe Michael Roach, Lama Christie McNally Wanting what you don’t have, the desire of which will lead to stealing, is rooted in attachment. You define yourself by what you perceive to own. But you don’t own anything. The clothes, the car, the home you’ve purchased with money: you don’t own any of them any more than you would own the clothes, the car, the home in a video game. You’re just borrowing them for your ultimate purpose. I remodeled my bathroom last year. I knew it would be an expensive project that would take way longer to finish that I could imagine. Still, I suffered greatly. After a mighty whinge-fest, a friend told me, “You’re really defining yourself by your home.” It hit me hard, the reason I was having such a difficult time, the reason I was suffering so hard: it wasn’t because of the bureaucratic nightmare caused by my HOA or the stress of couchsurfing for three months. It was because I thought I needed my home to be myself. I don’t need it. I want it. Life feels safer with it. But I know that I am myself with or without that home. That’s when I knew I had to move. I was scared to move. I still am. But I’m doing it anyway. I was super attached to the idea of a homeowner, of having my own space. I was stealing from myself. I was stealing the joy the next journey would bring me. I was robbing myself of the gratitude for all the sweet memories and friends I made living in that home. What really clinched it for me was, I was stealing from someone else the opportunity to live in a sacred home with kind neighbors. We steal from each other all day long. It’s painful, when you realize how much energy it takes to take what you don’t need from someone who does need it. It makes life harder. Here’s how to make life softer.

Satya: fun to say, hard to practice! Really speaking the truth is difficult: it means never giving someone else even a slightly different impression from what you know to be true. The most serious lie is to make false claims about our spiritual realizations. It's also just generally good to avoid divisive talk, harsh words, and idle pratter.” — The Essential Yoga Sutra: Ancient Wisdom for Your Yoga by Geshe Michael Roach, Lama Christie McNally My friends make fun of me because one of my default responses to anything is: is that true? Part of it is that I don’t understand sarcasm intuitively, so I learned to clarify if someone is being literal or just teasing me. It’s a good question to ask difficult, cyclical thoughts as they arrive: Is that true? And then: Well, what shall we do about it? How do you know what is true? It’s hard for me because I don’t trust my own thoughts. I learned not to trust them after years of depression taunted me with the sweet luxury of suicidal ideations. I let them haunt me for a long time, and then finally, I agreed with them. I told them: You’re right, it would be easier to be dead than to be alive right now. What are we going to do about it? That truth set me free. It gave me the sweet luxury of making the harder choice: to be alive, but also to live enlightened in love rather than apathetic in depression. It allowed me to look at the fog of my depression and say, if this is it, so be it. But if there’s a way to make it sweeter, kinder, more loving, let’s try to do that instead. Like the afternoon sun burning off the morning marine layer, I experienced an enlightenment, and it’s been a little easier, a bit lighter, a bit more lighthearted, a bit more enlightened, since. Here’s the translation I like. Here’s the truth: every part of life is suffering. That’s what the yoga sutras tell us. The Buddhists agree, but there is a purpose to suffering: to deepen your compassion, which is your desire to reduce to suffering of others. Not all of us feel that way. Some of us think that by deepening the suffering of others, we will relieve our own. That’s not how it works. That’s not how I work. Here’s what you get if you seek compassion: wisdom. It starts with non-violence. If your thoughts and actions are violent, so too is your life. If your life is violent, so too is the world. How can you bring a gentler sense of yourself to the world, right now? Let’s do it.

You can listen to this one doing whatever. We’re going to talk about the sutras, self-control and non-violence. Here’s the translation I like. Here’s the truth: every part of life is suffering. That’s what the yoga sutras tell us. The Buddhists agree, but there is a purpose to suffering: to deepen your compassion, which is your desire to reduce to suffering of others. Not all of us feel that way. Some of us think that by deepening the suffering of others, we will relieve our own. That’s not how it works. That’s not how I work. Here’s what you get if you seek compassion: wisdom. It starts with non-violence. If your thoughts and actions are violent, so too is your life. If your life is violent, so too is the world. How can you bring a gentler sense of yourself to the world, right now? Let’s do it.

You can listen to this one doing whatever. We’re going to talk about the sutras. Here’s the translation I like.: The Yoga Sutras are instructions on how to become whole. Here’s what’s holding you back: Ignorance Selfness Grasping Here’s what to do about it: Live ethically (we’ll talk about how to do that soon) Practice meditation Seek wisdom Let’s do it.

Rumi was asked: What is poison? Anything beyond what we need is poison.It can be power, laziness, food, ego, ambition, vanity, fear, anger, or whatever. What is fear? Non-acceptance of uncertainty.If we accept uncertainty, it becomes adventure. What is envy? Non-acceptance of good in the other.If we accept good, it becomes inspiration. What is anger? Non-acceptance of what is beyond our control.If we accept, it becomes tolerance. What is hate? Non-acceptance of people as they are.If we accept unconditionally, it becomes love. So how do you love unconditionally, tolerate what is beyond your control, seek inspiration and adventure, and know what it is exactly what you need?

Do you sleep through the night? Me neither. When you wake up in the middle of the night, is it because you’re so excited about what’s going to happen the next day, like a kid before she goes to Disneyland for the first time? Sometimes, that’s the case for me, usually right before I travel. Usually, I’m thinking about all the stuff that’s stressing me out. (Sometimes that’s travel, too.) Recursive thoughts, or the 3am thoughts, as I like to call them, are those pesky memories and worries that sneak into your subconscious and just won’t let go. They wake you up in the middle of the night because your body, in its 2 hour sleep cycle, hit a spot where some of that stress was stored. Your body feels that stress, and your brain, to protect itself, starts thinking all these thoughts to explain why you woke up. In the vulnerable darkness of sleep, it’s easy for those recursive thoughts to sneak in and set up camp. This is a simple breathing and observational meditation to help you when those thoughts settle in. Let them be. Then let them go.

“Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear!” That’s a quote from Empire Records, a movie that came out over 2 decades ago (omg). It stuck with me as a teenager, when my boarding school friends and I would watch it over and over again. We still quote the line to each other in our various Facebook activities. It’s come up a lot in my meditation studies because the practice of meditation is basically side-eyeing your thoughts into oblivion. In this seated meditation, you’ll learn how to label your thoughts. Thoughts are either the past memories emotions regrets moments you’d like to experience again attempts to understand the meaning behind things that happened or the future goals to-dos fears moments you wish you could experience now attempts to find to security in a plan of what’s going to happen Label your thoughts. Let them float on. Until there are no more thoughts that come from the outside: the past, the future. Then you can find peace in sitting still with only your intuition for company.

This is a meditation to help you gain clarity. Perhaps you’ve not been feeling well but aren’t sure why. Look, go see a doctor, different kinds of doctors. But the body knows what it needs to heal. Let’s ask it. We’ll do this one lying down, as close to the ground as you can get.

May you be filled with joy. May you be at peace. May you move with kindness. This is a loving kindness meditation. You offer joy, peace, and kindness to the people in your life you love in order to make it easier to offer the same joy, peace, and kindness to the people in your life with whom you have some conflict. It’s a tool for inner peace and forgiveness. Here’s how it works physiologically: Your memory is only as good as the last time you remembered something. Whaaat? Okay, so you know when you save a document, it saves the most recent version with the edits? It’s kind of the same thing with your memories. When you think of someone, your neurons are tugging at the last time you remembered it, like your computer pulls up the last time you saved a document. So what your body experiences is what you felt the last time you were thinking of that person. You can train your brain to think peaceful, loving, kind thoughts about even the cruelest people. It will soften them. But more importantly, it will soften you.

Perhaps you have some travel in your future. Here’s a simple visualization to protect you in times of stress. Like…..going to the airport. Like…….being around family and alcohol. Like…………….life in general. We’ll spend a few minutes grounding, and then you’ll glow, like the sun. Like the sun, you have an infinite resource of energy at your disposal. Like you, the sun exists in and of itself, not for anyone else. That it so happens to provide energy for all life on earth is a coincidence / miracle. That you so happen to provide sweet, protective, light-filled energy for those around you - that’s a choice.

There is no peace in the future. There is peace in the present moment. There is peace in the now. But we love to think about the future. I do, at least, especially in the middle of a big project. I’m in a masters program to study acupuncture and herbs, and man, it’s fun to think about what it’s going to feel like when I’m done. I’m years away from being done. I don’t want to live the next years of my life waiting for something to be over, missing the sweetness of the present. So I practice in the morning, breathing, being present, confident in the knowledge that I am right where I need to be, and feeling deeply grateful for it.

Here’s the thing with peace: it only exists in the present moment. Here’s the thing with our minds: they love to live in the past and the future. w. t. f. How is peace even possible, if our egos are trained to ponder the past for lessons and protect ourselves from the future? Let’s sit with it.

What does it feel like to have no facial expression?

How would your life be different if you started today what you wish you'd started 10 years ago?

A simple breathing exercise and some affirmations to make this a great day.

Tonglen is a Buddhist meditation wherein you breathe in the hard stuff and breathe out the good stuff. It's usually the opposite! I use it to deal with anxiety and fear.

https://www.splendid.yoga/blog/dailymeditation102319

If it hurts, bring it in. If it's pleasant, send it out.

"Enlightenment is not being swayed by external circumstances as a total experience."

How do you talk to your intuition? Here's a simple method to bring you clarity on what you should be doing with your life.

Throat chakra work! Here's how to find your truth.

Let's do a breathing exercise to get deeper in touch with your intuition. Nadi Shodhani, or alternate nostril breathing, balances the body, soothes the nervous system, and grounds your energy. Then we can dive deeper into your intuition. Have at it.