The Gift of Space

This is the gift of my day.....

It is so simple.  A fish and veg stir fry homemade by our neighbors.  

The past few weeks I have done nothing to give myself space.  Instead I have played a game of "I should...." and felt guilty when I do not follow through.  Until one fine evening when Jeremie casually mentioned that "I should have gone to do the radio show...."

You know, when we first step on our yoga mat we almost treat it as though it is a barrier, like we need to stay within the confines of the rubber material and that the moment we step into a pose, that is where we must remain.  We crowd ourselves, limiting our ability to feel it, limiting our ability to reach the potential that comes from these movements; mostly because we forget that we have the time to move and create our space.  Because yoga, like life, is a pulsation, and a constant conversation.  

Our body will start to give us warning signs that will be telling us to create a bit of movement,  which can put us in the awkward predicament of not wanting to draw attention from other students or the teacher so that we can just get through this damn class.  Then the worst happens, and we have been noticed, (I hope to god you get noticed, other wise find a new teacher and a new class!!!!!), and the teacher approaches us with the right information to open up and we learn that inevitably......

With out the space we cannot create the change!!!!

We have to adapt, trust ourselves, listen to what is actually going on and take action accordingly.  This stems far beyond our mat and far our into the worlds we live in.  Bridging these gaps of "difference" from our mat to our daily lives allows us to see what our habits are in more than just a physical sense.  On your yoga mat, playing with your space will save your joints from injury, your body from discomfort, and maximize your results.  I had a yoga instructor back home that used to always say "It is when you know your boundaries that you have ultimate freedom", "and to find your boundaries you have to move".  

I have had to accept in these past few days that I unfortunately do not always give myself the space I need.  If I had simply given myself the space to be homesick, to communicate what I was stressed about at work, to sit in the air con or go to the beach I would probably not have blown a gasket when there was something else that I "should" do.  

Now that the gasket has been blown, and a dear sister has left to continue her amazing beautiful journey, my dude has left on a visa run, and I have a beautiful dinner, music, and space I can settle into exactly the things that I need to address.  

It is in this space that we establish ourselves separate from others beliefs or expectations.  It is where we settle into the seat of our soul, our own knowledge about ourselves.  

Step 1, take care of your shit.....

I have most recently been exploring how much I procrastinate with my day to day needs.  Not the ones that I enjoy of course like drinking coffee, showering, yoga or eating but the little things that make us human and are unique in the mammal world.

I put off hair cuts, logging online to pay bills, grocery shopping, emails, phone calls, filling up my gas tank.......  

I know these are things that need accomplished for the life that I have created and the life I enjoy, but most days I just don't want to be bothered.  Instead I dread them, and wished I approached them with a bit more gratitude, and even enthusiasm.

....Poor little american girl has to fill up her gas tank, and go to a western grocery store to buy a luxurious bag of coffee....hahaha its time for me to get real!

So, because I am lazy like this I am starting to realize how many hours I anticipate the things that need accomplished and in the end I have wasted hours, maybe even days thinking about it again and again and delaying it again and again.

So, that's awesome and all, but I am kind of tired of wasting time in my life and I wonder how much I would have gotten accomplished if I quit delaying the very basic things.

As a yoga teacher I started to relate this to a yoga practice.  I see it all the time in class, where students do not take the extra step in the lunge, soften the knees, or become aware of the breath.  All things which are necessary for a proper practice that will protect you from injury... but we do not think about that.  Instead we think about those around us, catching up in class, aesthetics, the end result, the time, or the discomfort. By not setting ourselves up properly for the pose and taking the necessary time we need for proper function of a practice, we weaken our bodies.  \

I think this is human nature, and sometimes that nature leads us to put the attention on the wrong area.  But in a yoga practice, we want our bodies calm and relaxed, our breath uninhibited, our movements slow and specific.  There are many benefits to be had by making sure you set up correctly in both your yoga practice as well as your daily life.

It is important to be efficient in our lives so that we do not waste the energy that we do have, especially if our lives are chaotic and busy.

Let us quit being lazy and start accomplishing the small steps in our life that bring us to bigger picture, whether in your yoga practice or off of your mat.  Reducing our stresses, improving our frame of mind, and building our strength and confidence in ourselves as we accomplish even the little things in our life.

So please, for the love of your knees and your sanity, step that foot far enough forward that your knee is not passing it in a lunge.  Your knees will thank you in 5 years!  And who knows where else we will be with our accomplishments by then.

  

Your Posture Meets You Practice

Our attention to our posture is as important as our attention to our clients, after all if we are uncomfortable in our bodies and our stance then how can we be attentive to what is happening on the table.  The strength of our core, the grounding in our legs, the position of the shoulders and so much more are what makes us a successful practitioner.

 

It all starts with the feet and works its way up the body.  The final outcome of the body is that the hips above the heels, the shoulders above the hips, and finally the ears back over the shoulders.    

The feet should be firmly planted with the weight distributed towards the back side of the body.  To accomplish this weight distribution I suggest standing there with your toes lifted off of the ground so that the body is resting on the ball and heel of the foot.  It takes a little getting used to and a lot of practice in which I suggest keeping those toes up as much as possible until it feels natural to let them down and hold the weight out of them.  This will begin to strengthen the muscles of the feet as well as the ankles and up the legs.

Which leads us to the knees.  For proper support we want the knees to have a slight micro-bend in them, have them be soft as if you just are about to jump high or are just landing from a jump.  When we lock out our knees we are energetically saying there is an underlying discomfort in standing our own ground.  We are relying on the dynamic of the bones to support us rather than the strength of our own muscles.  We soften the knees and the muscles of the legs will kick into action and it will suddenly become easier to have our toes lifted and the weight in our back body.  When the knees micro-bend it automatically releases the pelvis so that the low back can lengthen and the hips can align over the heels.  This will also gently engage the deeper muscles of the core so that the belly button pulls towards the spine to stabilize the core. 

The final steps are easy, as we rest in the grounding of our feet we draw our shoulders and our lower ribs towards the back body so that the shoulders are over the hips.  This keeps us from puffing up our chest and interfering with our heart.  As we complete our posture by pulling our ears slightly back over our shoulders we give the energetic effect of staying present rather than rushing forward. 

To have a stable body and a basic understanding of how your body is feeling and how it is aligned also keeps us open to the mis-alignments that happen energetically when we are physically out of whack.  I highly suggest incorporating yoga poses into your stances; using lunges and wide legged stances as a grounded base so that the core stays strong and the shoulders relaxed.  These type of stances will also keep you attentive to facing the client, not crossing arms, and being aware of their movements. 

When you are able to trust your stance and use less physical energy in trying to stay comfortable you will be more present and open to other sources of energy.  I encourage practitioners and students alike to practice these stances in their daily life whether at a table or doing dishes.  Stand strong in your feet keep the knees soft so that the hips can relax, draw the torso back over the hips and relax the shoulders.  All of these have amazing energetic effects and you will soon be able to notice a shift in your sessions!

Published 2013, Healing Touch Level 1 Manual

What Did You Expect?

Expectation.  

That word says it all.  Through my life I have expected people to come through. To be something that they could, would or God forbid, I think they “should” be.  Only to let them and myself down with this expectation.

I actually have no idea where to begin, I had the thoughts all in my head as to how I could best express to all who read this the most important point, which is to let go of your judgements on people because of what they do and who they are.  Specifically in the world of yoga since that is where my work is.  However the mind bottling thing is that the only reason we have so much expectation about others is because we are judging ourselves for the same thing we are projecting onto other people.

So, where do you begin an article like that, and what do you start to express first?  Here lies the dilemma of which one comes first, how do we approach this?  Well, we, most of us reading this either meditate or practice yoga or stay conscious about our eating habits, etc to address this.  But there we can so quickly run away with the thought that we are living righteously.  But are we?

What is the right way to live? 

What do we expect of the people in our lives, but deeper yet, what do we expect of ourselves?

While dancing my face off one Halloween weekend I was given the opportunity that so often happens when you work in the public eye.  I ran into yoga students, people who had heard about my classes, people who had taken my classes, and people who I had taken classes from as well.  And, even though I was there to party down I suddenly felt a large amount of pressure to act a specific way.  To appear “yogic”, but what on earth does that mean?  All I could think, as I talked to the myriad of individuals was “Oh my God I have whiskey in my hands”  “Did they see me smoking that Cigarette”, “Whew, my skirt is short”, and of course “Am I living a lie?” “Is this really the Yogic lifestyle, maybe I should go home and meditate”. 

Buzzkill.  

There I stood in a sea full of people dressed in wild costumes, drunk or on drugs, dancing wildly and decided that this moment is one of the greatest moments of my life.  Here is where the world of yoga and the “real” world collide for me.

So, I jumped all in, I danced until I stunk, a played hard with my friends and enjoyed the night.  As I pounded my feet on the ground, spinning wildly and bumping into those around me I scanned my memories of this life and I came to the beat stopping obvious thought… we are all on our own personal journey.  Here together to experience the life and the events but to move through it at our own pace. 

What do you expect of your teachers, your peers, and yourself?  In the world of yoga do you expect your teachers to be at home practicing, while you are out playing?  And if you are a teacher, do you have expectations that your students be at home deepening their practice rather than out having a wild night with friends and socializing? 

I remember the first giant let down in yoga… I had placed the expectation on an individual that because of the position they were in, they would be different from the other drama out there in the world.  I was crushed to discover that this person had their own stuff…. Really?!  I had forgotten and given no credit to the fact that we are all human.

Article Published 2011, Yoga Connection Magazine

A Trip Outside of Yourself

“He who travels far will often see things,

Far removed from what he believed was truth,

When he talks about it in the fields at home,

He is often accused of lying,

For the obdurate people will not believe,

What they do not see and distinctly feel,

Inexperience, I believe,

Will give little credence to my song”

I went to Mexico, for a month.  We drove down against all advice not too.  We survived and we sustained ourselves for the most part.  When we got to the beach we found a place and pitched our tents, we set up a kitchen area and soaked it all in.  From there we would go to the store and get only what we needed that the cooler could hold for 2 days and let go of the rest.  Our days consisted of spear fishing, surfing, scuba diving, swimming, climbing for coconuts, etc.  It was beautiful and there was only one word to describe it:

Simplicity!

Everyday we went to bed with the sun and rose with the sun, planned our days around the food we were going to eat, surfed, played bochi ball, swam, walked, and read in the hammocks.  And in that space is where I revealed myself to, well, myself.  You can only spend so much time with yourself, and when you have nowhere to go and nothing that has to be done you see a lot of yourself.  I got to very personally step out of every comfort zone I have ever known and play in the abyss that the world really is.  After vegetarianism for a year and being raw for half of that, I ate meat and cooked food for every meal, every day.  I was able to listen to what my body wanted and honor it.  It felt incredible and still does.  But as there is a light side to things, there is too a dark side. 

The shadow crept up behind me, and like a tornado I suddenly found myself in the eye of a storm.  To be honest, I have experienced anxiety and insomnia for much of my life and I expected the beach and the ocean to help with it, to settle my system enough to fully relax.  Then one night there it all was again, no sleep, and nightmares when it did come, and anxiety deep down in my chest.  What could I be anxious about?

 

Well here is what I got out of it….

Anxiety, it is all fear.  It is a feeling that is so strong that it distracts you from everything around you.  So, what was I so afraid of?  I was afraid of myself.  I was afraid of the habits and patterns in my life.  I was afraid to look at and take accountability for every time I have had anxiety or insomnia or fear based thoughts.  I always drove the blame towards an outside source… my childhood, the phase of the moon, the food I ate, my horoscope, my living situation, my past….

But none of those things were present on the beach in La Saladita, Only memories and storylines from my own head.   Leading me to the conclusion that I, and my patterns, are the only constant in this story line of my life.  The accountability goes all to me

. 

Hold on, because I am about to really go places here! 

In the middle of these swirling thoughts about what true accountability was revealing to me I dug deeper and deeper until I could find what it really stemmed from.  I found it, and it hurt, but in the best way that hurt can because it really changed my life  I found this word compassion that every one speaks so highly of and I opened up to it.  The true depth of my discomfort does not need shared, because it is not the moral of the story, and I do at some points believe that some things should be held dear.  The truth of the matter is that we have all these things within US, outside of US and acting upon US.  And that US is the constant.  No matter what it is we always have choice, our reactions are our choice and our power.  BAM!  Self Empowerment!

 

Shortly before I left for Mexico a dear friend shared with me something her mom told her, “The ball is in your court, you just have to realize it”. 

It breaks down to all the simple things in life.  The ball is always in your court and you are always responsible for the things in your life.  If it is an outside influence on you, you can still choose how to react to it.  Maybe this information will empower you for the rest of your life.  I know that it did for me.  I have now seen that whatever I do in life, I have the choice.  If I want something to be different then I can change it.  Sometimes it is work, and sometimes it comes with ease. 

I am inspired more than ever to offer up to the world what I have to give.  I am in the process of creating what I do and what I want to bring and I simply am burning with desire to give it to the world.  It has to do with empowerment and drawing into one’s own sense of self, and if you are curious it will be revealed soon.       

If I had a moral to this story, it would be to take a trip like this, to step into an unknown situation and know that you will be just fine.  I would encourage everyone to challenge their day to day perspective on life and begin to see the things that challenge them in a different way.  I would ask that everyone who reads this article takes a moment to imagine a life where it is all so simple, because it is all within us.  What would the world look like if we all empowered ourselves?  When we are empowered we accept full responsibility and accountability, meaning that we have the potential to see our actions and reactions in the world as a whole. 

We are all powerful people and regardless of what each of us has gone through we have the CHOICE in everything that we do.  You are Empowered!  You are incredible!  You can change every situation to be full of love and growth.  

Article Published 2011, Yoga Connection Magazine

To Yoke

To yoke, or to unite; with this being the translation for the word Yoga it would make perfect sense as to why so many people are attracted to it.  I myself was drawn in by my practice after a short period of time as I began to feel more like I belonged to the world, like I had my own place here.

After 7 years of inconsistent practice I decided to step up and do a teacher training so that I could lead others into the deeper realm of yoga, so that I could maybe help others see the incredible possibilities that I had experienced with yoga.  I stepped behind the doors of what yoga looked like and discovered that the world of yoga is very similar to a world without yoga.  Sometimes it is petty, it hoards and has greed, it has its lies and it has it downfalls and drama; but mainly because we are all human and this is part of our psyche… yoga just offers us a gateway to begin to see these patterns so that we can shift to a higher activation of self, yoga helps us to be aware of the “humanness”.

My name is Adriane Ehmann and I began yoga at 18 years old when I was modeling and they expressed that yoga would help me to lose weight.  Lose weight!!!  I was on it, I practiced 1 hour a day 7 days a week determined to lose weight…. And found so much more.  At the time, and as young as I was, I was  involved in an abusive relationship.  I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and drank heavily 3 to 4 times per week.  The results crept up on me and I am unsure of how long it took before I had the full realization….

But one day I woke up and noticed that I didn’t smoke first thing, and then I noticed that when my partner was mean I just let it go and was able to relieve it through a steady breath, and then I didn’t want to go drinking…. These things, these habits begin to decrease in strength and before I knew it I barely smoked, and if I drank it was a single glass of wine, I was calmer and the fear of returning home was less and less because somewhere deep inside me I knew that this relationship did not define me.  I lost weight for sure too, but I mainly contribute that to the 12 diet pills that I took a day.  Then one day I got the phone call of a lifetime and was invited by Elite Model Management of Milan Italy to come out and model for them.  It was exactly what I had been working for and with the exit from the Unites States my yoga practice ceased to exist.

The relationship naturally ended when I returned from Italy, and I fell into a heavy drinking stage upon where I was drunk pretty much 70% – 80% of the time for 6 months.  There was no time for yoga as I wallowed away in the “failure” or modeling and the “failure” of a relationship.  I fell into many destructive habits at this point in life; the drinking soon led me to cocaine; which ultimately led me to another 6 month binge of being coked out probably 75% of the time.  It was my priority to be disconnected and nothing was going to change that….. After a night of partying, (skipping the details), I should have been dead, but for some reason I survived.  I was up for 4 days with the shakes and anxiety like no ones business and with the help of dear friends I made the decision to step out of my self destruction.  My roommates encouraged me to start going to the gym, where I took a yoga class within those first couple of sober days; that class helped me to begin my own home practice with the videos of Suzanne Deason and Rodney Yee.  Yoga again became a nightly ritual and with how extensive I was diving into drugs and alcohol, where I should have experienced withdrawl, I experienced peace.  This I attribute to the practice of yoga, as it is the only thing that I had seen such incredible results with before. 

I practiced yoga for another 5 or 6 years on and off at home with the comfort of my videos that had nurtured me through so much torment.  I stayed clean from drugs and would find myself making better decisions when I would practice, a feeling of wholeness was there when my practice was consistent.  In this time I took one guided yoga class session through the Recreator in which I cried for hours after each practice.  And after the 7 years of hiding at home I joined a place that was both a gym and a studio.  At this point I practiced once a week and even taught a few classes a week at another place where I had been trained to do a specific sequence.  I was happy, but I also wanted to get certified so I pursued it and went from practicing once a week to 7 days a week for months and months.

I have been a certified instructor for over a year now and I love it.  I have taught consistently and practiced inconsistently at times and regularly at other times.  But my dedication has always just been there.  I find myself always committed to yoga and try to revisit what my journey has been often, as the practice is something that I can always revisit and go to when I need comfort and exploration.  It helps me to tap into myself at a level that may remain untouched otherwise.  I create an opportunity to listen to my body and witness my breath as they dance together in perfect creation of the divine.  When I come to my mat I find a sense of compassion for myself and for those around me; I am able to take accountability for my life and see what I am happy with and what I would like to do better at. 

Yoga, to me, is school, it is consistently around to teach me about the world and to link me to those that are far and near.  It has changed my diet from heavy emotional foods to vegetarian and raw.  It has led me into deeper practices such as meditation and breath work, unlocking unknown memories and motivations.  I would call it a form of religion I use it to connect to that I remained ignorant from for many years of my life. 

Article Published 2010, Yoga Connection Magazine