YOU

"You don't need to find yourself for you never lost yourself" Mark Whitwell

What a powerful statement...meditate on that for the day.

If we were never lost, then what are we searching for?
As Mark and his teachers say, "To merge and to be with our own experience, rather than react, is yoga"


This is the yoga I practice, I teach, I believe.


This is yoga where if all I can do is breath in and out on the subway or in traffic, or maybe before I go to sleep I inhale and exhale my hands above my head and to the floor for a few minutes...then I am yoga.


As Mark says, "All you need to be a yogi(ini) is your body, breath and the beautiful embrace of your own reality"


That sounds like a perfect mixture to me...and something that I can take anywhere I go, for the rest of my life.


So far, it has already impacted my life on a deep level bc there is no excuse that I do not have enough time or money to practice yoga...bc yoga is me, breathing strength receiving.


om shanti

Doing my Yoga has already...

Doing my yoga everyday has already helped my...
aches and pains
mind chatter
breathing
relationships with others
appetite
weight loss
and sense of my self

Its been about a month that I have been doing my yoga everyday now...sometimes for 7 minutes and sometimes for 30 minutes. It starts to feel so good that I do not want to stop.

My routine:
Basically I start standing up, eyes closed, hands down by the thighs.
Inhale my hands up above my head gently touching fingertips and look up at hands
Exhale hands down to touch thighs.
Continue this for at least 3 or 4 breaths...up to as many as you feel.
Really hear the inhale and exhale...to the point that the throat is open and mouth is closed.
Ujjayi Breath

The with the exhale fold down, fingers touching the floor
Inhale all the way back up fingers touching the tips and look up
continue with the breath for as long as you like

Then
Extend one leg forward about 2.5 feet, hips width apart
and inhale your hands to the sky and exhale all the way down so they finger tips are touching the floor
tilt your chin to your chest for Jalandhara Bandha

change legs

rest in childs pose

try this for a few days

It seems that my body is being naturally stretched so that the soreness is released, easily. BC every day and night that I do my yoga, I feel looser and leaner. I have not gone to the gym or eaten more or less. But my body is responding to this deep, conscious breathing..and my heart is responding to this time I am putting in for me.

You try.

From Mark Whitwell:
"The ancient wisdom of yoga teaches that Life is already given to you, you are completely loved, you are here now. It teaches that we are not separate, cannot be separate from nature, which sustains us in a vast interdependence with everything. The universe comes perfectly, and is awesome in its integration and infinite existence. This union is our natural state, this union is Yoga."

The Promise

From the day I met Mark Whitwell a few years ago in LA and having recently spent a few weeks in India with him...he continues to promise me that if I practice my yoga for 7 minutes a day for 3 months...my life will change for the better through creating intimacy with my Self. What does all of this mean?

I spent 2 weeks in India with some beautiful strangers, now friends...and our hearts were open to receive Mark's teachings. Though his teachings are quite simple..they are also complex. That is why I will be having some of the other students and teachers share their experiences on this blog as well. The day to day quests and questions of 'this Promise'...

Here we start.