We come to the mat to be vulnerable

We do? YES! In many ways, that is why we all come to the mat, whether we think about it or not. We're trying something new, we're diving into the practice, we're letting go of our ego that normally protects us. Our egos help us in our careers, and move forward to be a part of the evolution of society. It helps us to be part of the bigger picture. We need it. BUT it sometimes...sometimes...trips us up and gets in our way. That's why we come to yoga! To be a part of something else. To connect back to the very core of our being, our source. To find what makes us all ultimately the same because thinking about how different we are, and who is better at what, how we can make money and find love can be all too exhausting. For a moment, stop holding yourself up, give yourself to the earth and surrender. That's being vulnerable. When we can find the seat in our body that let's us be our true self. To act on what is purely YOU and trust your intuition. Our lovely, handy and efficient technology has now mapped out how we get from point A to B, how to speed dial your BFF, and make all your appointments for you. But what about your instinct and intuition? We don't want to stop using the core of our being, right? Tap back into it and find that vulnerable place we keep trying to protect with our ego. Be vulnerable, leave your phone home for a day :) Or just come to yoga class...stick out your neck, open your heart.

Destroy the Ego

Being a "beginner" in yoga vs. "experienced" is not about going into binds, inversions or whatever you might think is the deepest variation of a pose. Its not doing every chattarunga or being able be in a headstand for 9 breaths. The difference is being able to let go and know when your body needs child's pose or to skip a vinyasa. Its being able to know what is available and appropriate at any given time. Just because you can bind in side angle pose doesn't mean its appropriate to do that version every single time you do it! This is a time in our practice when are challenged by our ego. Sometimes as simple as tree pose might seem...we have that day where its just not happening and you just can't get into it. This is when we have to give ourselves permission to not be perfect and not be as "advanced" as we thought we were. Sometimes we're faced with challenges in life. Those days that go completely wrong...when things don't happen how we expect and we're suddenly late for everything or missing the bus or losing our jobs or whatever it is that life throws at us. It is so important to allow ourselves this concept that...life is not easy. It is a challenge every day. And that being the case, we cannot allow it to hold us back! Let go, move on...destroy the ego!

Who are you, really?

Its difficult not to judge. When we see something we immediately describe it, decide if we like it or not. That decision is often baked into us, this is the heat of our ego at work. We build preconceived ideas about situations and people without understanding the process or experience, Without having enough experience. This brings us to the place where we are not really experiencing what we think we are, we are not really seeing what we think we are. Its all a construct of our ego. This is a difficult thing to let go of. But when we come into our Yoga practice its something we try to do. Give ourselves the time and space to let go of the mind's constant urge to make sense of things. Instead of making sense, we can use our senses. We can give ourselves the opportunity to shed our mind's chatter. We are giving ourselves a break from the roles we play in life, otherwise known as our egos.  As soon as we intellectualize, describe or judge something we change that thing/experience and its no longer what it was when we first saw it. A beginner's mind is not just about being a beginner but imagining the natural or original state of the mind and the things in our world.

Shed your ego

Its hard culturally to let go of the idea of how we identify ourselves, no? Here is my list of the different ways I identify myself: artist, Asian, acupuncture student, little sister, friend, introverted, flexible, injured, New Yorker, blogger, Yoga practitioner...the list can go on! We all put ourselves in categories, under labels or roles to play. It's in a way, how we make sense of things or how we decide where we fit in. But sometimes we get stuck in these roles! I find myself saying..."Well, I don't really do that because I'm Asian" HAHA! OR "New Yorkers live like...such and such and we don't do this, but we are really into this other thing". So ridiculous sounding! But we all do this to some extent because its hard to let go of our ego.

It is when we let go of these labels and roles, that we can truly live in the present moment. We free ourselves to the attachments we have to our labels and instead open ourselves up to infinite possibilities.