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with Sarah Jenness, RYT, CPT
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The Artichoke Heart of Yoga

1/30/2019

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It’s the end of yoga class, we’re all feeling good, and it’s time for everybody’s favorite pose: Savasana. Well, almost everybody. 
 
As a longtime yoga teacher, I know the student who walks out right at the start of Savasana.  They always have a good excuse. Somewhere to be or something important to do, I’m told, and for some this is surely the case. Many times, however, the real reason is obvious: stillness creates discomfort. Dropping into the present moment without “doing ” can trigger the mind into overdrive. It can bring up underlying emotions and unmet needs. It connects us to what’s present within, and if we’re out of balance- this can be difficult. As a culture, we glorify busy! Anything less can be unsettling.
 
Rest and relaxation are a radical practice. To slow down and connect with stillness in this fast moving culture is an extreme act of self-care. It takes courage to carve out time for this- to be with silence and stillness- yet the benefits are far reaching. When we shift our nervous system, we shift our outlook, our relationships, our entire way of being in the world. Our family and colleagues benefit. The other drivers on the road benefit, and our renewed patience and compassion ripples out beyond our perception.
 
Just as we need to exercise every day- as much as we need to elevate our heart rate to support our cardiovascular system, hormone balance, and brain chemistry- we need rest. The physiology of relaxation is distinct, and different than sleep. When we slow down and rest, the nervous system switches from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and digest).  Hormones shift, immune function increases, and we feel more centered and clear.
 
When we are supported, we relax. Restorative yoga uses props to support the body. We hold postures for longer periods of time. Comfort is key, so the props are what keep circulation flowing and muscles at ease. For beginners the props can feel cumbersome. I like to joke that the best things in life are a pain to get to- artichoke hearts, pomegranate seeds, mountaintops. Totally worth the fuss. A deeply comfortable backbend that releases tense muscles- same deal! When we drop into supported stillness, we experience sukha, or sweetness. Amazing things happen. We reconnect with our inner calm and experience peace. We arrive at the end of restorative practice feeling clear and content.
 
Witnessing a room full of people drop into this natural inner state every week never fails to lift my heart. Yet I simply hold space. I’ve learned how to arrange props to support the body, how to see neutral alignment and modify poses to achieve it. But it’s the presence of the students that makes this practice so sacred. Their willingness to simply “be” is where deep healing can occur. We often put props away in silence. An unspoken peace has filled the space within and around us.
 
So next time you want to skip Savasana, think twice about what you’re missing out on. Even a few moments of stillness can create positive shifts in the physiology of the body. And the peace it can connect you with extends far beyond those few minutes it takes to be still.

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The Guest House

10/2/2013

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What matters most is how we feel, regardless of the circumstances that surround us. All the new age advice asks us to feel what we want to create in our lives, in order to attract it. So simple, right? So simple that I choose completely relaxed and at peace now, come on feelings! Hmmmm, great advice and I get it, intellectually- but my head ordering my heart around has a history of failure.

After ten months in Bali, I made the big shift back to the US. As my plane descended in the cold winds of San Francisco a few months ago, I witnessed the familiar bustle of the landscape all around me. My former home of ten years looked so familiar- freeways buzzing, boats in the deep blue bay, a bright, hilly landscape of movement, action, and ambition.

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As our plane landed, the feeling came immediately: pressure. Pressure to make money, pressure to be disciplined, pressure to....I'm not even quite sure. It was a sudden and dominant feeling, this stress. We taxied to the gate and I felt the walls of it enclose around me. After nearly a year of lolling around on a tropical island at a pace I haven't known since the slow summers of my rural childhood, this anticipation of rejoining urban western culture was a shock.

I looked out across the gray tarmac, making a meager attempt at stretching my achy limbs after twelve hours in flight. Through keen observation I physically felt the tension enter my body- taxes, storage unit, cold wind, the rental crisis. Eeewwwwww, not feeling good. I took a breath and tuned in. 

The feeling of this tension came on so quickly- what if I could acknowledge it, accept it, breathe, and let it go? I tried. Stresses still lingered, but I was immediately able to acknowledge these feelings without becoming them. This is my practice- this ability to witness.

How is it done? By arriving in the moment! We cannot always choose what emotions move through us, but we can observe them as they arrive, that's for sure. Yoga teaches us to feel feelings without becoming consumed by them, to connect into that deeper self that is solid, peaceful, and unchanging. As so beautifully written in one of my favorite poems by the great Sufi Mystic, Rumi:

THE GUEST HOUSE
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- translation by Coleman Barks

Sitting at the gate at SFO, my ability to witness the emotions 'sweeping my house' immediately comforted me. It awakened my awareness of a deeper consciousness- my "house." I squeezed my husband's hand and felt grateful for the safe flight. As I looked out at the fabulous light of the California sunset, I relaxed, and just as instantly curiosity and excitement returned. 

We host so many visitors- day by day, moment by moment. Curiosity, excitement, tension, stress. All just guests, passing through. Contentment is visiting me now, as I'm cozied up in my Berkeley cottage, eating organic berries in my post-acupuncture lull. Grateful is back as well. 

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The Dance of Driving

4/24/2013

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Why did the chicken cross the road? To keep me on my toes of course! Or at least to keep me on the brakes. As I drive my tiny four-door Suzuki down the busy lane north of Ubud, the chicken is the least of my worries. In the sweltering heat my neighbors have dragged their rice harvest out to rake in the streets, two way traffic shares a single lane, and tiny babies ride all around me on motorbikes without helmets.

Be here now. Know your place in space. Go with the flow.

There's nothing like driving in Bali to keep you in the present moment. As I sit in the right-side drivers seat and shift with my left hand, I tune out the conversation of my passengers and focus on my breath. The jungle pours over us from both sides of the tiny road. Deep potholes abound. I'm aware and relaxed, even when the big truck is barreling right at me and a drop off is five inches from my left tires. I breathe. I've got this.

Knowing my place in space is a strong sense for me. My peripheral vision is keen, and my body relaxed. Does this come naturally? Au contraire. It comes from practice.

For years I spent most of my time and much of my resources on dance classes. As a result, I flow easily with the movements of others. I perceive and predict the actions of energies around me. Who would've known! All those years people told me I wasn't being practical about my dance passion, and here I am driving like a rock star in Bali.

As the curvy road winds up a steep hill, my left hand shifts swiftly, my ankles extend with grace between the clutch and gas. Whoa! An elderly woman with a giant stack of logs on her head appears out of nowhere! Brake slam, a near engine stall, but I've saved it. God bless my skillful neuromuscular proprioception.

I've always believed in follow your bliss. All those dreamy photos that float along the Facebook feed with positive messages, I eat them up. Every minute of my dancing was a joy. Even now, with an upset hip and a tender wrist, I tear it up at ecstatic dance.

Whatever you love makes you whole. Life takes us through many journeys, passions, interests, and sensibilities. We wear many hats. My beloved teacher, Luisah Teish, explains it like this: (please excuse my extreme paraphrasing YeYe) Life is a palette! We do not only use one color, but dabble in the entire rainbow. She tells me that when she is writing, she is simply resting from her painting, and when she is painting she is taking a needed break from her dancing, and so on.

In Bali I drive with a smile. I operate this car with a confidence and grace that could only come from one place: the ballet bar.

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Beautiful Bali - an Endangered Blessing

2/12/2013

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As published in Bali Inspired Magazine 

"Be the change you want to see in the world," spoke the beloved freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi. For years, this sentiment has been glowing away in helvetica at the bottom of my emails and, in a sense, this message describes what brings me here to Bali. Like many of my new friends, I have journeyed in search of my own authenticity. To look within, if you will. As an urban yoga teacher, I spent most of my time helping others relax, meditate and become embodied. Through my own meticulous self-care regimen - mind and body - I was maintaining sanity, but only barely by the end. I made it out, finally realizing my dream of coming to Bali! It hasn’t all been butterflies and frangipanis, true that, but it is a blessing to be in a place that honors Spirit and respects the importance of the inner realms. And yet, as magical as it is here, it is often easy to forget why I came. It's easy to sleep in, to shorten my meditation (just like home). It's easy, on this sacred island, to feel over-sensitive and moody, and the next moment blissful. To be irritated by the little ants incessantly crawling across my sticky skin. Easy to get busy. To get lazy. To get worried.

This morning would be different - I was going to be productive. Laptop in tow, I make my way to begin working over cappuccino, Wi-Fi in the jungle. It is a hot, bright morning in Penestanan Kaja. My short stroll along the moss covered path to Yellow Flower Cafe winds beneath avocado and banana trees, plumeria blossoms waft a sweet scent from below. As the small footpath opens to the serene cave that is Yellow Flower, I see the Balinese owner sitting with members of his family and staff, playing a guitar and singing devotional songs. My timing is perfect. Sweet respite - music, Wi-Fi, caffeine. Another day on the Island of the Gods. There are no customers about and the young women are all dressed beautifully in lace ceremonial clothing, in fuschia and orange, teal and yellow - sashes and sarongs alike. "Upachara hari ini?" I ask, is there a ceremony today? "No ceremony, please join us!" This muscled, bulk of a Balinese man extends his hand to welcome me, with a gentle light in his eyes I have rarely seen. His beautiful newborn baby is watching his every move from a lap nearby, listening to every musical note with intense focus and fatherly love. This child is adored by so many, always surrounded by family and friends, held by abundant loving arms. I sit down on the bright pink sofa nearby and start humming along. Classic Bali moment. As they chant to Ganesh, OM Gum Ganapatayai Namaha, my original plan of busting out my technology flies out the window! I am loving this moment. The devotional songs conclude in a prayer. Heads bow, frangipani blossoms lift to third eyes. Many of the mantras I know from yoga. I close my eyes and listen, whispering along, and feel a stirring in my heart.

After my makan pagi and perfect froth are delicately placed before me, the kitchen staff join in to pray around the long table. With hands to hearts, incense burning and offerings coloring the place, prayers lift to the unseen world. There is no doubt of the reality of this invisible realm. This big difference between Western and Balinese cultures is precisely why some visitors feel more at home in Bali than back in their mundane Western origins. Surely, I am blessed to have a vibrant spiritual community back in California, but a reverence for Spirit is not what spins American culture. Back home the spiritual life is private, separate from everyday life. Faith in money and technology dominates. Here in Bali, there is no question that Gods exist. Spirits must be placated, both the benevolent and the demons, as the little offerings are placed everywhere, everyday. There is no question that each moment is precious and family and ceremony are of utmost importance. "God can call us back at any moment," my Balinese friend explains. "That’s why we enjoy life and make the most of each moment. We are just temporary visitors in this world; we never know when our time here is up." He smiles as he tells me this, clear about his place in this world, in his temporary visit on earth. The prayer at Yellow Flower continues, formalizing with each mantra. Out comes the holy water, the little hand gestures in perfect synchronicity. I am feeling blessed as I witness in silence, sitting behind my poached eggs and cappuccino. Time stretches out and slows down around us. My breath, sunlight through the lush green view, the soft moist air, and the sounds of the morning jungle. The veil between the worlds is thin. The Gods receive. For the duration of the prayer no customers arrive, no one is on the path, and there are no interruptions. This moment, this wonderful moment! This is why I came to Bali. To be here - in this moment, and this one, and this...

When we stop to breathe, listen, and feel what is around us - time slows down. When we communicate with the Divine within and all around us, the time/space continuum shifts. It is truly magical. A typical morning for me is suddenly transformed into a sweet meditation at Yellow Flower Cafe. Once again, I am pulled out of my spinning mind and into this beautiful life that is happening, now. This is one of the many great gifts of Bali, the gifts that draw us here in droves. At a new level, it hits me: how important it is to preserve this place!
 
The Balinese culture creates a virtual container; it holds a space of healing for all who visit here. The sad thing is that our very presence as visitors threatens the Balinese way of life. According to the Ministry of Tourism, nearly three million tourists came to Bali in 2012 and this number is expected to increase each year. Many expats continue moving to the island, creating more garbage, leasing land and opening businesses. It has happened, it is happening. We just can not get enough of this sacred place and its incredible smiling people. We receive so much here. This change is unstoppable. So how can we, as grateful hearts and respectful visitors, help preserve Bali? How can we be the change we want to see in the world?

We all must ask ourselves this question. The answer will be different for each of us because wherever we may roam - we bring our baggage with us! Many of us arrive here ready for a change, in need of healing, open to inspiration. And Bali delivers. We receive, we expand, we transform. So how do we show our gratitude?

We do not always give and receive from the same source, the Universe does not necessarily work that way. What is important is that we practice both giving and receiving. As a visitor, traveler, expat, or cultural refugee (now often called spiritual tourist), we must respect and revere Balinese culture, its people and this environment. We must acknowledge that Bali holds incredible space for so much healing to occur.

My own contributions have been humble, from Bahasa class to volunteering - I am always discovering new ways to love Bali! I am inspired by all of the positive things happening, and the conscious people I continue to meet here in Bali. Donate, integrate, educate. Whatever you choose, make it personal and from the heart. Let's be the change! What is your gratitude offering? I guarantee your heart will sing from sharing it.
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    Sarah Jenness, RYT, CPT
    Gentle and Restorative Yoga, Sound Healing, Guided Meditation

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