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We Are Amazing

I'm still watching portions of National Geographic's The Human Family Tree which traces our genetic beginnings to one man and one woman living in East Africa thousands of years ago. It's fascinating. Can you believe that our physical bodies are 99.9% alike?

That we are able to identify, segregate, and discriminate each other based upon our .1% difference is simply amazing. We are amazing!


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View The Human Family Tree via Top Documentary Films for free although in parts, not in a continuous film. It may also be purchased from NatGeo.

Image: Dropping Knowledge
This interactive site pairs often riveting photos with questions. Be warned that the stream may contain photos that upset or offend. View it at your own risk.

What Would You Rather See?

Today, no matter where I'm going and no matter what I am doing, it is my dominant intent to see that which I am wanting to see. --- Abraham

I saw this video on Twitter early last week and it was passed around again by e-mail within a few days. You may have already seen it, as it was first posted on You Tube on January 29 and already registers way over a million views.

What a brilliant way to remind people to wear their seat belts without trying to elicit fear (crash dummies and wrecked vehicles) or threatening a reprimand ("Click It or Ticket"). Take some time to watch it by clicking this link: Embrace Life (You Tube, 01:29).

The film is part of a promotion by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership and has become an "internet phenomenon" according to their website. It's gaining worldwide interest as countries seek to license the product in order to air it on national and state television stations.

Aside from the "feel good" quotient of the video, it reminds me of the difference between worrying about a loved one and wishing them well. When you wish someone a safe trip, it would be the same as energetically wrapping your arms around them. Worry would be the same as visualizing them in danger and not being able to do anything about it. What would you rather see?

Have a Heart That Never Hardens...

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

-Charles Dickens

Valentine's Day is coming up this Sunday and all of the print and TV ads made me wonder what people would give themselves as a display of their affection. Well, out of a group of ten women there were no wishes for material objects or confections. Each person chose an activity that would make them happy and it ranged from baking sugar cookies to surfing all day. My guess is that each person's sense of satisfaction and joy, although arising from different actions, will spread to those around them.

What about you? While you're thinking of something special for that certain someone, put yourself in line there too.What would you do or obtain, to show some self-appreciation? You're the only one who knows what you really want. In fact, why wait for a special holiday?
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10 Suggestions on How to Love Yourself
How to Love Yourself, Louise Hay (You Tube 03:03)
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Photo: zik "Tay"

You Are the View Master

You must watch the pictures that you paint with your imagination. ... If you would have good health then you must imagine this as vividly as you fearfully imagine ill health.

- Seth

 

Some of you may have heard me say this before but when I first decided to take up yoga, I saw myself as an eighty-year-old woman, doing a headstand in the middle of a room. Well, I've been standing on my head for a number of years now and I have a few more birthdays left before I turn eighty. I think it's time to put some new pictures into the old Viewmaster.

What about you?



Photo: All About 3D

A Very Important Question

The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.-Ursula Le Guin



One of the most elegant things I read this past week was contained in just one sentence. Actually a question:How do you want to feel right now?

Author Ken Winston Caine suggests that you ask this in the first person, especially when feeling frustrated or overwhelmed. How would I like to feel right now? Be absolutely honest with yourself. Then, feel that way.

It gets easier with practice. Once you've chosen the way you want to feel, your words and actions will be attuned to your emotions. You'll be acting rather than reacting.

It brings to mind Ben Hur (okay, Charlton Heston) in command of his chariot. When we're not in control of the horses (senses) and the reins (mind) flap and flail about, it's the charioteer (intelligence) who must take control of the reins, the horses and the chariot (the physical body).

The beauty of Mr. Caine's question is that you don't have to be so spiritually athletic. Just ask, How do I want to feel right now?


A magical question that changes EVERYTHING, by Ken Winston Caine.

Who's Driving Your Chariot? A Question for Yoga Meditation Practitioners from SwamiJ.com.

Photo:DoBeRaGi

The Practice of Being Present

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.- Leonardo da Vinci

 

 

 

Last year I wrote a piece on changing my mind about past events. I ran through several sad and displeasing memories and edited the dialogue and actions and wiped them away like spilt milk. In their old forms, all those memories did was draw me back in time like a sling shot and when I came flinging back into the present, those unwanted emotions came too. What good does that do?

In a similar mode, you may look forward and either become a slave or master to your future. I recently read an elegant account of future mastery in Phil Bosta's Be Proactive - Create Your Own Secret Moments. He talks about the days when his daughter was young and he would stand at the doorway and envision her as a young adult, leaving home for college. Thinking about that day, made him cherish every day with his child, who's now a young woman.

I dealt with a nagging past for peace in the present and Phil used the future to bring more joy into his present. Both decisions and actions had to be made in the present. Author George Orwell said, "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." To my mind, no one has invented a remote control for time (yet) so we truly have to be present to win. Here are a few ways to practice being present:

• Take a few deep breaths (you knew that was coming, right?) and just notice the rise and fall of your chest as you inhale and exhale.
  
• Narrate your movements so that your mind and body are working together, in the present and not out of habit. "I'm putting my keys in the first drawer " helps you remember when it's time to go and by the way, you don't have to talk out loud.
  
• Drive a little slower than usual or take a different route. Notice things.
  
• When you've got a lot on your mind, take a shower. It washes away all of those question marks and exclamation points floating above your head.

Have a few favorite methods of your own? Send them to me, let's make a list and I'll make it available on our web site.

Photo: Karel Dvorak

Fertilizer for a Yoga Class

Do not say,"it is morning," and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.
-Rabindranath Tagore

Shortly before my yoga class on Saturday my Twitter entry was:

Latest: I have 30 minutes to create the best yoga class I've ever held. I think it'll come from my Twitter friends. So I read...

Sure enough, the word fertilizer caught my eye and it was linked to a blog post and author Richard Reeve's admission: "I'm intrigued at exploring how in my own practice, wrong attitudes miss many opportunities that are rich for cultivation."

That was all I needed to formulate a two hour class based on attitudes and how we might be doing ourselves a disservice by placing yoga postures into the "Poses I Like" or "Poses I Don't Like" columns. Just a slight change in attitude is all we need to change the status of something as humble as manure, to fertilizer and then to nutrient status. Imagine what could happen if you altered your self-talk about a yoga pose or any other practice, habit or action.

I asked everyone in class to name or describe a pose that was currently in their "least favored" column and those were all the poses we did for the next hour. We experiment with a lot of body-mind-feeling connections in my classes, sometimes to the discomfort of those who just want to move their bodies. But for those of us who seek a constant balance, we enjoy working on themes that we can take along with our lives outside the studio.

Vrksasana (tree pose) as an example, may be challenging for a number of reasons. A person may have difficulty standing on one leg because there may be a weakness or imbalance in the foot, ankle, knee, hip, etc. of the standing leg or the one that's bent, or both. Another person may feel dizzy just lifting one foot in the air. The pose itself though, is simply, Vrksasana. What we think and feel about it is due to our own physical body and/or beliefs.

This week, take a look at the things that you immediately dismiss or pre-judge through a different lens. As though you are taking a picture of that person, place or thing, focus and then re-focus. Make-up heartwarming stories in your mind rather than dishing out quick labels for the driver tailgating you. You're being generous to a stranger and lightening your load at the same time.

If we could see each day as Tagore suggests, "for the first time as a newborn child that has no name" and speak of things as we would like them to be, maybe we would view our lives as growing toward something greater as opposed to diminishing to an end. What do you think?

Photo:The Techno-Impressionist Journal

Randy Pausch

Immortality is the genius to move others long after you yourself have stopped moving. - Frank Rooney

His rise to fame was like a comet siting: time specific, well-defined, yet limited. Randy Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and the video of his Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University circulated quickly by e-mail. The You Tube video that I've listed below, one of many available, has had over 6 million views as of today.

Randy Pausch's physical presence was also comet-like. We were transfixed by his bright and shining form, doing push-ups and laughing as no dying man is apt to do. Eventually, after many orbits, comets disintegrate and disappear, and Pausch too, died this year on July 25, leaving behind a wife and three young children.

Pausch viewed his situation as an engineering problem and decided to do the best he could with what he had. He considered himself lucky to have had the time to write a book, also titled The Last Lecture and written primarily for his children.

What I find remarkable is that we are all waking up everyday with the same fate as Randy Pausch. We may not have the x-rays and lab results to confirm our imminent demise, but we do have expiration dates, all of us. What would you do if you were given an exit date?

Pausch said that he chose to lecture because that's what he did in life. As a professor, he lectured. If you could leave a message by way of what you do best in this life, what would it be?

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Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
I love that question! Make it a good day.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: YouTube (1:16:27)

Randy Pausch discussing his book, The Last Lecture: Google Video (17:10)

Ten Questions for Randy Pausch: Time/CNN.

Photo: MortonM

Not YET

My first e-mail message of the day was from my brother Jason, about a conversation between his wife and Kai, their seven year-old son:

I thought of you today, when Kai was bugging Heidi about how to use the Chinese ink/brush set and what the different pieces mean.

She said "I don't know, why don't you look it up?"

"I can't!" was his response.  "You want me to drive to China?"

"No," she chuckled, "you can't drive to China..."

"Yet!" he interrupted.  "I can't drive to China YET."
Now whether that means he can't drive yet or will one day build a bridge to China, I don't know.

I think Jason had recalled an earlier post about baby James, Not Full Grown...yet . I couldn't help but wonder if Kai remembered a conversation we had nearly two years ago when I visited them in New Jersey. I told him that I thought he was going to be tall enough to be a good basketball player and he promptly explained that he didn't have the muscles to be a ball player.

I said, "Yet".

He said, "Huh?"

I said, "You don't have the muscles, yet."

I swear that a team of CSI-types came out of him and took pictures, asked me to repeat what I'd said and taped my voice, measured his arms and legs, made me sign a written statement and then retreated back into Kai.

Kai is a remarkable person and I don't doubt that one day he could build a bridge to China, play basketball and drive to wherever he chooses to go. There are many things he's already capable of doing but I think he's just waiting for the acceptable age. The world's not ready for him....YET!

Photo:Kyle Reed

How do I Stop Complaining?

I ended the last post with the admonishment I've heard quite often in yoga workshops, "Never, ever, ever complain!" Since we are responsible for the outcomes in our lives, complaining essentially disputes that fact and places the blame on someone or something else.

Complaining is a habit that takes a lot of focus to overcome and I like the suggestions given by Steve Pavlina in his article, "How to Stop Complaining": become aware of and control negativity, begin to consciously create what you want, and assume total responsibility.