Launching Yoga Mat Spray- blend of bergamot and sweet orange. $12
There's nothing like a hot yoga session. It was love at first sweat for me back in my 20's when I first discovered Bikram. I quickly became a devotee doing 4 classes a week while teaching dance cardio at gyms 3-4 times a week. I loved the post sweat, flushed face high on life vibes. Luckily a lifetime later I have a studio nearby where I go 1-2 times a week and practice. These days I look and feel like a wet cat after class, having sweat all over my yoga mat. I made this essential oil based yoga mat disinfectant spray and I will admit I also spritz it on myself after toweling off. Shop now to order!
And now, on to some mat reflections from this past week. I typically start my week on the mat on Monday mornings and let my intuition help guide my intention, which I then reflect on for the course of the week. As the instructor guides the class to "set an intention for the day's practice," it comes to me immediately, "to cultivate loving awareness."
For the entire hour I keep thinking, "what the heck is loving awareness" like what is it really. I always say to know something intellectually and experience something on a deeper level are different kinds of knowing. So, I went on with my practice, locking my knee, getting deeper into Eagle pose, sweating thru triangle, heart beating out of my chest thru camel and all the while, the word "gratitude" was all I could come back with...and feel.
Loving awareness is the same as gratitude, but how could I arrive even deeper in that understanding. So once home, I googled it...nothing like technology to connect, and I arrived at a passage from Ram Dass. Here's how he explains Loving Awareness:
"I have a practice in which I say to myself, "I am loving awareness." To begin, I focus my attention in the middle of the chest, on the heart-mind. I may take a few deep breaths into my diaphragm to help me identify with it. I breathe in love and breathe out love. I watch all of the thoughts that create the stuff on my mind, and I love everything, love everything I can be more aware of. I just love, just love, just love." (Ramdass.org)
Even as I typed that just now, I ask myself, "how can you cultivate something that you are?" Can I cultivate Monica? Or do I identify as Monica? And what is Monica? Monica is loving awareness. Yessss. this resonates. I want to feel and explore this further.
I remember in my yoga practice a few lifetimes ago in Williamsburg, my instructor would say during Savasana: "Breathe in love, breathe out love." Then I think back to a few years ago when on an edible I heard and felt my grandmother's presence and she whispered to me, "Love more"
More from Ram Dass:
"When I wake up in the morning, I'm aware of the air, the fan on my ceiling. Ive got to love them, I am loving awareness. But if I'm in ego, I'm judging everything as it relates to my own survival. The air might give me a cold that will turn into pneumonia. I'm always afraid of something in the world that I might have to defend myself against. If I'm identified with my ego, the ego is frightened silly, because the ego knows that it's going to end at death. But if I merge with love, there's nothing to be afraid of. Love neutralizes fear. (Ramdass.org)
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