Dear Yogis,

We had the first of our Mindfulness classes last night.  What a great experience!  (next time remember to bring blankets for the nidra).  I certainly am going to do more.  I am now thinking about how to manage studio classes when they return, together with zoom which I can’t drop because so many of you are coming who could not come to studio classes.

We will manage and organise ourselves.. in the old days before there was a yoga school on every corner (before my graduates started teaching and building their own schools), I taught up to 5 hatha yoga classes per day almost every day – 6 days a week, workshops on weekends, retreats.  Everything.  This will be the same, but not as gruelling as meditation and restorative will be sprinkled here and there, and zoom has become a little less nerve-racking for me..

Regarding zoom.  There are always issues with computers.  Yesterday it took me three goes to get onto zoom. Luckily I was on time.  Every time I use it I learn a little more.  If you get on and I can’t hear you, and I am making hearing signs, it usually means there is an audio problem at your end.  You can log out and log in again.  If that doesn’t work, we can do a silent class – You can hear me, but I can’t hear you.  It has worked before.  My techie says I live in a difficult area and the internet is not the best – but we manage.

“POWER-WHINING”:  Some people I meet are always complaining (or dare I say it, simply rude).  Here’s a tip.  “Power-Whine” with a friend.   Psychiatrists call it “Regressive Coping”.  You each get two minutes to complain to the max. No interruptions.  In this way you will get everything off your chest, you haven’t hurt anyone, and you don’t have to take yourself too seriously.  I think nowadays we call it venting.

Lacking a friend you want to show this side of yourself to, you could always do it standing in front of a mirror with your hands on your hips.  Aggressive.  After two minutes with a friend or just by yourself in front of the mirror, it looks pretty silly and unproductive, and guarantees a belly laugh or two when you can see how stupid you are being – as if whining changes anything? You could follow it with two minutes of gratitude, list everything you are grateful for.  This will leave you in a much better frame of mind.

Whatever else you do, gratitude is absolutely the best strategy to cultivate INNER PEACE.  When you learn to manage your mind, take care of yourself, are kind to others, and take a MINDFUL approach to life.  Like everything else, getting it right takes practice.  Imagine gratitude as the gearshift on your car.  You are in charge of course.

Only you can move your gears from obsession to peace, from hard and rigid to the softness of love.  Relaxing comes a whole lot easier when you are living in a bubble of gratitude.  As the Buddha Says:  “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”.  I add,  “and be grateful”.

FRIDAY ZOOM:  11.30 Yoga Cafe  – it’s nice to bring something for show and tell, or just bring a glass of champers…it is not a crafting session. You don’t need to bring anything except you.  5.30 RESTORATIVE YOGA.  Weights and Bands optional.

SATURDAY ZOOM: 12.30 RESTORATIVE YOGA… Weights optional  2pm MAKE YOUR OWN TAROT CARDS

SUNDAY ZOOM: 10am the Repeat of last weeks BHAGAVADGITA. You don’t need to be a yoga teacher, or trainee yoga teacher to attend.  Interested?  Perfect.

All details on the home page of the web site:  www.yogabeautiful.com.au

 

SEE YOU ON ZOOM.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE

 

 

Dear Yogis,

Sorry you weren’t at class last nite.  We are moving forward with THE CHAKRAS.  There is so much to know of course,  but we are trying to stick close by the practical aspects of identifying, working with them, knowing when the energies are up or down, active or underactive. How to know that in yourself and others.  Kinesiology, pendulums, etc… It is a fascinating study.  Although the class is listed as starting at 7.30 and finishing at 9pm, not everyone has run out of questions and the class often lasts quite a bit longer.

The Stage 3 is going to be changing soon as we imagine we can move back into “normal” or “new normal”, and studios will gradually open up.  I am not sure how I will manage this.  There is only one of me, and I can’t do studio classes and zoom.  Plus many of my students now are interstate or under isolation in stage 4.  Then there are those people who have never physically been able to come to my studio because of distance and now can zoom.  It has been a wonderful time, and I don’t know what will happen next.  We will play it by ear.

INNER PEACE GROUPS.  Please think about this and start your own groups.  We will think abut how to do this in our Wednesday classes.  I want you to save the world.  I can’t do it on my own.  What are your priorities?

When I was in my late forties I gave this a great deal of thought.  I worked out that if I lived into my 70’s (where I am now) and given that I didn’t take action right away, I only had about 1,000 Fridays (the day I dedicated to my children) left.  If you are thinking of these things too, get 1,000 dried chick peas and put them in a jar.  Every week, take out one seed.  In this way you will actually be able to see the number of days or weeks dwindling.  Life in this way seems a whole lot immediate and precious.  Every one of those chick peas is a day or a week of your life, and the number is finite.  You can’t add even one to the jar.  Every day, every “chick pea” is precious.  What have you done with yesterday – all of your yesterday.  What are you going to do with today?  If you thought you “can’t do……..” and take a chick pea out of the jar when YOU don’t show up, you can’t put that chick pea back. You can’t re-run the day. Life is not a movie set, there are no re-runs, no dailies that you can change.  You can only change NOW.

As yogis we say we are saving the world “one person at a time”.  Starting an Inner Peace group can help in this especially at this time. In “normal” Inner Peace is in short supply, and I imagine the situation is worse right now.  How can you start an INNER PEACE group? How can you change your community “one person at a time”.  You can start by coming to our MINDFULNESS  session tonite at 6.45.  There is nothing I teach you that you can’t teach others.   Start today.

WEDNESDAY: 12.30 ZOOM RESTORATIVE,  5.30 ZOOM RESTORATIVE,  6.45 ZOOM MINDFULNESS

If you want to join you can always email me (yogafirst2@bigpond.com) and let me know your interest and we can organise it.  Or go to the web site and follow the directions under the drop-downs or the HOME Page.

By the way.  The photo to the right above are ORBS –  the angels around us all the time.  Others took photographs at the time I took this.  Mine werethe ONLY photos where they showed up.  There were camera buffs present who didn’t believe what they could see, who  checked the lens at the time.. no dust, no interference.  These orbs were around us, are around us,  we just are not always conscious of them.  Sometimes they make themselves known to me, but I am always aware that they are there even if I (WE) can’t see them.

 

YOU REALLY CAN SAVE THE WORLD

NAMASTE, JAHNE.

 

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

We are coming to the end of the CHAKRA yoga lecture series, and as much as I love them, how about a change of direction.  So many of you (and you are not on your own) are doing it tough during covid. Would you like a series on “MINDFULNESS” on Mondays at 2.30pm instead of the Tuesday yoga lectures, (and a 2 hour Mindfulness Retreat 1st Sunday in every month at 2pm).  Your choice?  We could have MINDFULNESS (THE INNER PEACE GROUP) on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays.  There could be a class there at the right time for you…Yoga then Inner Peace?

WEDNESDAY MINDFULNESS CLASSES (including Yoga Nidra) 6.45pm starting this week..  I taught these for years at The Bentinck and before that at Innisfree.  I still get students who email and tell me how these classes helped turn a corner for them.  Be there with us – Wednesdays at 6.45pm  and it starts this week.  If you want to join us, let me know your interest yogafirst2@bigpond.com.  I am doing a booklet (of course) for those who want more.  This will be a special offering which includes 16 cards of MINDFULNESS ACTIVITIES you can download for use in your classes, and yourself..

Many of the activities I did spontaneously, I have written them down, drawn the diagrams, and you will be able to take them to your classes, use them for your family, and use them yourself.  When you can’t think what do do, when you get stressed, when your mind goes blank – choose a card.

Mindfulness Meditation is a tradition which stands alone.  The meditation you and I have studied is about bringing your mind back to  a single focus, whereas MINDFULNESS MEDITATION is all about expanding your awareness to notice all you can without judging it.  If you feel cool, the idea is you notice it and avoid thinking of it as being good or bad, it just IS.  My favourite meditation and one I have been using for years is taking a small piece of chocolate and eating it slowly with my full attention.  You could use cake, or anything really.  In our cards we use an orange.

We are human beings (no news there) and everyone does meditation in a slightly different way as their understanding expands. The only definition of a good meditation IS ONE THAT YOU HAVE ACTUALLY DONE.  The goal is not to experience peace during the meditation, but to train the mind so that you will feel peace, awareness and choice AT ALL TIMES.

Like all habits – good ones as well as bad ones – meditation of any kind takes commitment. I find that when my mind is racing, mindfulness meditation done just before bed (or in bed) calms my mind, and gets me ready to sleep.  I concentrate on breathing, familiar sounds and smells and the feeling of the blankets, the futon, and things that mean “sleep” to me. And I can easily doze off.  Not by losing consciousness in meditation (I meditate for reasons other than calmness), but by relaxing my mind in mindfulness.  A feeling of embracing the familiar.  But this works for me – something like it will work for you.  You get to choose. The chair at the right is waiting for someone- maybe you.

I am noticing that at the end of this covid time people are becoming depressed, even apathetic.  I imagine that more people will seek out counsellors, and need mental health assistance as they realise that Covid is not going away, that this is going to happen over and over until conditions slowly change. That eventually the money will run out.

They are not sleeping well, and getting through the day somehow, sometimes in a way that is less than helpful for themselves and their family.  I notice that my neighbours are using shopping to make their lives meaningful… couriers arriving every day! We keep treating the brain and we have forgotten the heart.  The result is that our technology and all the science we bring to play becomes destructive.  We have intelligence but we lack the intelligence of the heart.  As a yoga teacher I know how difficult it is for most to recover from this soup of anxiety we find ourselves in.

As you go about your day today, think about every person you meet as a human being (even if you can’t see their smile,  imagine one). They have a story.  They are trying to find peace and happiness just as you are.  Teaching mindfulness can help.

When your heart opens even just a little, a tiny  chink in your armour, even a small crack allows your peaceful core to shine out.  When this happens your body and your mind relax, and compassion helps you calm down and allows you to come home to your REAL SELF.

Remember, change doesn’t happen all at once. Small steps, baby steps, will get you where you want to be. I believe (I can almost guarantee) that you will go to places more extraordinary than you can ever imagine.  I believe there is a Divine Hand that works unseen – when you take one step towards positive change in any area of your life,  that Divine Energy will take a hundred steps towards you. Untold possibilities, extraordinary change will begin to appear, synchronicities will happen that will amaze you.

What can you do?  When my cards and book are ready, buy a set for yourself and your friends and use it as the foundation to start an INNER PEACE GROUP.  Right now one on zoom, later in the studio.  We have one called CAFE YOGA on Fridays at 11am – all welcome – email me for your zoom ID its free.  It is about peace and companionship in difficult times.  It is not all about navel gazing, we laugh we joke, we are together. 

As you move through your day – Read, breathe consciously, take time for a walk noticing something different each day, be a good listener, practice gratitude, learn to manage your mind, reach for simplicity in your life, and pay-it-forward with random acts of kindness.

YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

NAMASTE – JAHNE