Dear Yogis,

This morning, my last day before actual (restricted) yoga classes start, I am considering the journey I have been on, and I know from my emails, that you too have been thinking about this.  How are you going to fit everything in now that most things are getting back to normal?  This may or may not include your children.  Somehow you have to go back to how things were, with the complications of home schooling,  husband back at work, no in-laws coming around, no back up.

I don’t have home schooling, but I have built new things into my schedule that I have to add on to what I was doing before.  You might think that I just wander round “omming”  all day and that this newsletter is just banged out in 5 minutes – NOT SO.

Let us look at the confusions and stress of this moment in time as an undesirable symptom, behaviour pattern or disease that needs to be eliminated.  We might think that treatment or behaviour modification is the means to our recovery.  If we define success as “the successive realisation of preconceived goals” then to attain success we need a starting point, a clear destination and a means of transport.  In short – A PLAN.

If we bumble forward in our usual manner,  what we do to correct or manage a confusion often becomes part of a new problem. With planning, each destination in the healing process becomes the starting point in a new journey.

We can achieve nothing without a plan which includes each part of the journey.  I watch the series called “HOUSE”.  It is about a very gifted diagnostician.  He can’t effect a patient’s recovery by himself, he needs to talk about it at every point with the team.  They go up blind alleys, they make mistakes, but they keep on narrowing and narrowing the options until the solution becomes clear.  FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END THEY HAVE A PLANNED OUTCOME and because they have knowledge of the path, and because they work together, they achieve success against the odds.  You can too.

I can’t do my job without a plan, and for the first time some of my yogis are getting back to me with those comments.  I put a YOGA plan on etsy, which hardly anyone has accessed (called THE JOURNEY) so if you have been having trouble keeping up with your modules,  and haven’t planned and haven’t downloaded that, then I have done all I can do and now it is up to you – and we know how that will work if you don’t plan.

I have just completed a general planner which mimics what I do every day.  You can download this (yes, it will be on etsy), or you can muddle forward, or you can spend more time planning the planner than you are doing moving forward.  It too can become an excuse, a reason why you “can’t”.   1.  Just download it (make one for each day and empty/file them at the end of the week and start again) . 2.  Put two holes in the long side, and 3.   insert into a two hole binder   4.  then complete the plan for the day ahead every night before you go to bed, having worked it out with your children, your better half, or home help, so everyone is on the same page.

“NONE OF US PLAN TO FAIL.  WE FAIL TO PLAN”.

Here’s an affirmation:

“I celebrate the power of life that attracts what I need to be whole in body, mind and spirit.  Today I live my life gracefully receiving the feelings and awakenings of my ever changing body-mind”

 

GET TO IT – AND ENJOY THE DAY.

NAMASTE, JAHNE

 

 

Dear Yogis,

In the last few days students (around the world, not just Oz)  have been asking me how they will cope now that their spouse is going back to work, and the children are still at home.  Everyone has slowed down, and a gap appeared in their everyday routine, but they didn’t think of it in spiritual terms.  They just frittered it away playing games and having fun.  And now they are adrift. Actually they are further back than they were when this started.

If you sense there is more to life than going back to the daily 9-5 grind, overcommitted,  stressed out, then you could be part of the awakening. If you don’t know what to do now.  You have failed to realise this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You have probably missed an opportunity.

That being said, today is probably a good day t0 practice self care, go inside, take things slow in spite of the fact you may want to rush into the day mistaking business for success. Busi-ness is one of the ways that we avoid feeling emotions. By keeping busy all the time we may not need to go there.  This “rat in the wheel” life is one of the by-products of the capitalist society.

In the “Awakening” it’s  time to let go of old habits and security and move towards your purpose. I have always resisted the idea of “normal” (fitting in) I have never believed that anyone was sent here to be “normal”.  We are here to be extraordinary, and to be on a journey to discover our cosmic (true) selves. We each have a destiny, a purpose, a mission we signed up for.  Your passion won’t show up if you are sitting in your toilet paper igloo waiting for the voice of God telling you what to do next.

You need a plan.  You can’t get where you are going if you don’t know where you are meant to be.  You need a plan, and you need to consistently stick with it.  A boat setting sail in New York to get to Melbourne, won’t miss landfall because the land has shifted, but because the map was wrong,  or they didn’t look at it. They miss because they don’t have a plan or haven’t checked they are going in the right direction.

It is my experience that we get information a bit of a time so we won’t be overwhelmed.  This (if you act on it), will take you closer to your destiny.  You have to be honest with yourself, and keep walking forward whether you like the journey or you don’t.  The road is rough before it becomes smooth.  Baby steps. The secret is to just keep going, trust life, and make your dreams a reality.

Of course, going in a new direction can make us fearful.  If we can’t move we get stuck in overthinking, we feel bad and then our thoughts turn negative, and we don’t act. As you move forward ask yourself, “Does this feel right?”, if your heart tells you “yes” keep going. Does it feel ‘right’, and does it serve the greater good? If you take this path,  instead of doing your job to live, live so you can do your job. You can change the world one yogi at a time.

To go inward, one of my ways is to paint or draw, and I too have been getting information a bit at a time – the TEA LEAF READING CARDS just flooded through to me..  Today it has been so hard resisting the urge to let go of everything and just paint.

When the information is flowing through me it is a joyous place to be,  but I like you,  have students arriving this week for yoga classes, and I wanted to get the studio clean in every way before they arrive.  Windows, mirrors, blinds, toilet, everything, so my lovely students will walk in to a fresh and exorcised space.  To keep the devil out – clean everything.

Happy cleaning.

Have a lovely sunny day.  We have been having deep frosts, then glorious days.  The rough before the smooth?

Namaste.  Jahne

 

Dear Yogis,

We are starting work again.  For the past 7 or 8 weeks we have trusted that all will be well. We didn’t decide to hide away, it was decided for us.  To remain positive, we have been working towards the next phase of our life with anticipation, but opening the door to “the everyday” is a dangerous step. The path as we know only too well, is fraught with temptations and frustrations.  Our life going forward will be very much more complex, and without spontaneous human contact for the foreseeable future.  When we move to hug, or shake hands, there will always be that nagging health question causing us to turn away, hang back and be suspicious.  We will be living close to the terrible for the sake of the wonderful.

When the restrictions are lifted, once again we will be able to feel that we are in control.  Once again people will seek us out, not because of who we are, but because of what we have.  As a young man, the travelling minister (and founder of what would become  the Wesleyan Missions), John Wesley calculated that twenty eight pounds a year was enough to take care of his needs.  Since prices generally remained the same in those times, he was able to keep more or less at that level of expenditure throughout his lifetime.  It seems unbelievable to us.  Later in his life he made fourteen hundred pounds a year from the sale of his books, but he still lived on the twenty eight pounds and gave the rest away.  Of course, he was a single man with no children so he didn’t have to deal with “domestica”, however the idea is a sound one.

Consider this.  You have come through a COVID time of economy, a time of less. Are there are ways that you could remain close to the amount you have been earning over this time.. Are there ways you could simplify your lifestyle so you could live, let’s say, on half what you would in good times ordinarily make?

The Grace of giving with all its difficulties is a a happy ministry.  When money is not in the picture and only the love of others motivates our service it changes everything.  So much good can be done, so many lives changed.

Until we can we learn to live in simplicity, we will find it hard to believe it is possible.  To begin, find creative ways to get in touch with the earth.  Listen to the wind and the birds, walk whenever you can, grow flowers or plant trees and discover once again “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”. Learn to enjoy things without the need to own them. Learn to share and develop the habit of homemade celebrations. Invite the neighbours to join you.  Go gently when you do – how can you enjoy people if you are always trying to impress them.

In the “Covid Break” we have learned that there are things we can do together that we cannot do alone.  At our best we are dependent and responsive to one another.  We need each other’s help in order to know how to love God.  We need each other’s help in order to know how best to love our neighbour.  “Lone Ranger” community is a contradiction in terms.

See you at Yoga.

Live simply, Laugh and be happy.  NAMASTE JAHNE