January 2019 | For a New Beginning

For A New Beginning

by John O'Donogue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety,

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, 

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto the new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Happy New Year! Yoga, Acupuncture and Qi Gong are all about finding ease in discomfort. It's about deliberately doing postures and exploring moments within that are new, unknown and restorative. Through the breath, the movement, and the constant shift and transformation of energy, these practices helps us to feel alive and involved. We learn to seek out silence and calm so we can hear the benevolent inner voice. And we begin to settle for nothing less than this: beauty, truth and kindness.

Cheers to a new beginning, to a new year, to committing yourself to always seeking the "out-of-the-way" places of the heart. 

Love for the journey,
Anisha

December 2018 | Prisoner of Blame & Praise?

I've spent the last week in the presence of my teacher and role model, Master Ou Wen Wei. He teaches by example and this way of teaching invites and encourages his students to understand how to improve and evolve on their own, through communication and guidance from the heart. As we understand ourselves under his expansive wings of love and affection, we naturally recognize what we need to change and how we can reach our goal.

What I've been willing to understand within myself is the difference between seeking acknowledgment, needing approval and trying to appease, and genuinely wanting to give, help, serve and share with others with full devotion and dedication; the difference between reacting to others' negative feelings or intentions towards me, and being able to ignore, overlook them or not see them at all; the difference between protecting or shielding myself to be safe, and opening my heart to everyone without worrying about what I may lose, only seeing the advantage and the goodness in each interaction and in each person.

"Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.” ~ Buddha

It’s human for us to be stalled by the criticism of others and intoxicated by the fragrance of praise. However, the thing about listening too closely to blame is that we become a prisoner to it, feeling the need to correct ourselves until we have approval and acceptance. And the thing about exaggerated praise is that we also become prisoner to the need to maintain the sudden regard we are bathed in. Whether we act out of a need for approval or react to the withholding of approval, neither is life-giving and both are eventually draining.  What if we could be like a giant tree amidst it all?  What if in any matter I can naturally and freely acknowledge and be responsible for my part in it? And when I know in my heart I have done my best, to be able to let go.  In doing so, we find a balance between the need to control the life around us through action, and the need to trust the path,  slipping into the river of life. 

These patterns are conditioned within us and often deeply rooted. It takes time to realize the difference, to modify ourselves; it takes patience. Sometimes we don't see the depth of change we had hoped for immediately, but if we stay with it, day by day, step by step, those small accomplishments eventually surprise us with a lasting transformation. And though sometimes in the moment we can feel trapped in our current reality and negative emotions, we must remember it is one moment, one setback, one little whirlpool in a long river of life. Seeing our mistakes, our misunderstandings, our weaknesses and correcting them doesn't have to be painful. We can be the giant tree, withstanding the winds of praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow. It is and can be a golden key in creating freedom for ourselves, from our past and present burdens. All the while, our limbs and leaves go every which way, branching out farther into the world of relationships and connections with an ease and adaptability that can only exist from spreading roots steadily into the ground of understanding ourselves.

Love for the journey,
Anisha

November 2018 | Poetry, Kindness, Humanity

Within the depths of despair and sorrow, we are also able to find our depth of love and our extent of kindness. When we find ourselves experiencing the loss of someone we are close to, a relative's despair, or the exhilaration of entering a new chapter in life, have you ever noticed that we can often have a more rich and profound response if we read poetry or listen to music that inspires or speaks to us? The music or poetry deepens our connection to our shared humanity, our shared experience. Poetry can give rise to an array of emotions often igniting a shift in perspective or giving us access to a closed off space within the heart. And then like magic, sometimes we find a different way of engaging with the world that allows us to take a step outside our own lives and enter in to a broader stream of human experience. The more we immerse ourselves in this vast stream, the more we understand how the things and people of the world resonate and harmonize with one another. This is my hope and intention with the workshops and classes I offer, whether it is Pangu yoga, a Mini Retreat or some of the new and exciting offerings I'm creating for 2019! I hope you enjoy this poem below. Its one of my favorites.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
                                        - Naomi Shihab Nye
 

Love for the journey,
Anisha