“Your yoga practice always has to be a little more clever than your habits.” ~T.K.V. Desikachar

How do you show up for your Yoga practice?

I love this quote by Desikachar because it asks me to question the importance of what one brings to the yoga practice and how that affects it’s real potency. It points the responsibility to the individual practitioner to fine tune their self awareness rather than to unconsciously follow a behavior within oneself or power play between teacher and student.

How do you show up for your practice? Do you find yourself repeatedly wanting the same results when coming to practice? Have you ever had an experience of complete freedom through your yoga practice? Does any of this inquiry relate to life ‘off the mat’?

How do you show up for life?

The yoga tradition offers us many self-care practices for well-being of body, mind and heart. However the main aim of yoga as a spiritual path offers insight into the human dilemma and how to skillfully navigate through the ups and downs with more inner awareness and ease.

Opening and unwinding physical and mental tension patterns, taking our guard down and being more fully present with oneself, opens up a space in which we can uplift our view and see ourselves more clearly. When we truly allow the yoga practices and the cultivation of an embodied presence to have it’s affect, the mental tapes, physical restrictions and emotional tendencies come to the surface and offer us the experience to simply Be. When we continually attune as well as surrender to awareness itself, freedom arises.

First, we must be motivated to be happy and second, we must be willing to take responsibility for our actions, including our thoughts and emotions and how they affect our inner and outer world. If we are not interested in being Self-aware, likely our habitual tendencies will drive our actions and the degree of our suffering. Our yoga practice and it’s affects might remain superficial and our human body, mind, heart might not see it’s full integration or potential.

Here and now, you are invited to show up fully for each practice and for Life!