1. Surrender

The First of twelve lessons

Welcome to my overview of 12 yogic lessons twinkling in the hearts of those fortunate to attend this year’s Deep Healing Retreat. It is my hope that it awakens the 12 houses of your heart too.

Our first learning: Surrender

In broad brush strokes one surrenders when they sign up to attend a four day retreat.

There is a surrender of the days away from work or family or other life commitment.

There is a surrender of holding onto finances as the money moves from being locked in the bank and back into the flow of life.

And even a surrender of one’s creature comforts: one’s addiction to scrolling, favourite tea cup, need for stimulation and noise, time with your favourite squeeze or weekly hobby.

A Deep Healing Retreat is not intended to be a walk in the park. Somehow participants know - even though all the promotional photos look delightful and luxurious - that something unknown is about to unfold and they arrive with fear, trepidation and a whole bunch of courage in their blossoming hearts.

To attend a retreat means to surrender control and take a leap of faith. Faith in yoga, faith in those who will attend and share the space, and faith in me the teacher, and my ability to hold that space.

The practice of surrender has a sweet and simple ritual called “Choosing your Oracle card” which are also knows as Angel Cards.

The ritual of Choosing one’s Oracle or ‘Angel’ Card

The group sits together in a circle, cards are spread out faced-down in the centre, and each person gets to choose one card. They turn it over and what is revealed is a single word.

Love. Joy. Forgiveness. Community. Bliss. Patience. Gentleness. Brilliance. Delight. Belonging.

Oracle cards offer words that resonate deeply and carry a myriad of possible meanings.

A Small Aside To consider

When we think of an Oracle we go back to a different time and culture. In Antiquity a priest/ priestess would act as a medium (connection to the divine) and so through them people would seek advice and foresight.

‘Angel” cards are similar to Oracle cards as they too brings to mind the idea that there may be a protective force, benevolent and holy, that cares for and guides us. The Angel is connected to a larger, bigger force than we feel our small-self does not have access to or daily contact with. The idea of an angel opens up in us something divine, but less tangible. Again, something you can’t control but you can be influenced by.

Back to the main practice

Oracle / Angel Cards

An Oracle card offers us a chance to let go of having to be in the drivers seat. We are invited, instead, to allow the universe to guide us. The practice is firstly to surrender, as you have no control or choice over what you pick. Surrender builds trust. Trust that something else can hold you. The universe may be benevolent after all. 

Next, once holding this card in your hand, the task is to turn it over in your mind and feel into the meaning it might hold for you. What does it offer? What dream does it ignite or past does it heal?

We do this from a higher place within. From the vertical line between heaven and earth, we open to meaning. This avoids the duality of the "good/bad, right/wrong like/don’t like" horizontal approach that tends to dominate our daily life. Instead we can listen in with stillness and openness. 

Sometimes people are surprised to realise it is not a word telling you what to be more of or get more of. This word could be expressing what you mean to others, or what your natural talent is!

Enjoy your Oracle card and let it nourish, inspire and celebrate YOU.

Taking a leap of faith as the Retreat Facilitator / Principle teacher

This year I put aside pre-fabricated, commercial oracle cards. I chose coloured paper and textas and with the participants in my mind and heart I wrote 13 words that just felt like they spilled out of me. No rhyme or reason. I opened up and let each word arrive through me, unquestioningly.

I was deeply touched by the process of the ritual unfolding, as each person opened up and shared their word with the group.

And the word I selected?

LOVE.

Or did love choose me?

Yoga: Freedom when you are ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’

Dear Readers,

In the flow of life we can find ourselves, at some point, feeling stranded between a rock and a hard place. In those moments we say “I feel trapped, stuck, unable to see a way forward”.

Sometimes there is pressing imminence about the situation and the urgency increases our anxiety. Other times it is something that sits terribly uncomfortably and chronically, unrelentingly there.

The point and result of yoga is that there is a way. There is freedom - now.

While life by definition entails suffering, the yogi has a deep understanding that there is way to decrease it, avoid it or totally transform that suffering.

Heyum Dukham Anagatam

The suffering that is to come

Can and should

Be avoided

Three stories from my own life.

1/ Psychologically minded

I remember being in my room in our family home in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne and thinking, wow, I can just become my own psychologist, then I won’t have to save up money for when I need to see one. I was 12 years old. To me saving money was a really really cool thing to do. I didn’t have any to save but I knew I would need to one day “If I don’t have any now…” I thought “then I probably won’t have any in the future”. So I fervently invested in myself.

With great enthusiasm I learned and applied psychological frameworks to my life, including understanding the wild, crazy distress that surrounded me. Parents, siblings, friends, school life, boys. So much for a 12 year old to manage!

The rock or limitation: being completely under-resourced to cope with life.

The freedom: to become my own inner guru.

I truly learnt and believed there were ways around the ingrained limitations of life.

I used reflections, perspective shifts and a wide range of frameworks to see myself and others. I dove in and by 16 had a growing interest in Jungian and Freudian psychology. I started to feel capable and even masterful. Life was no longer a series of random acts hurtling toward me and from me. Things could make sense if studied and named, observed and interacted with. I was like a scientist and I loved that because they wore white coats and earned money.

2/ Tennis

One day on a ‘weekend explore’ around our local streets with my brothers (something we did quite often) we came across a dumpster bin. In it I found something I had been yearning for: a tennis racket. It was a metal black frame, slightly bent, and had a full set of strings. The handle had no cushioning, but I managed to use money from my paper round to buy some.

Mum enrolled my sister and I in tennis lessons on Saturday mornings. When we had competitions I was aware that my bent, rusty old racket from the dumpster was kind of a dud, but I did something to overcome that issue. I decided I could made my racket super powerful. I truly made it mine. I would imagine it was an extension of my arm, that it connected right in to the centre of my chest and that when we moved we moved as one.

I loved playing tennis and I never blamed my racket for any of my losses.

When I started high school I got an amazing bright red sports uniform. Along with new runners and my first ever backpack, Mum also bought me a proper tennis racket from a real sport shop. The racket was white and polished like a ceramic doll, with a blue and red stripe, matching my sporty look. I felt decked out and powerful, like I could stand tall and be like the other girls.

The fact is, this racket was waaaay too heavy and my poor right shoulder still hasn’t recovered. 40 years later my shoulder feels as though it must be dragged out of its healthy home, deep in the socket. Just to perform the acts of daily life the arms stills believes it must be pulled out from its roots. I never want the allure and dazzle of things looking good to trick me again.

I’m hugging this shoulder into my the side windows of my heart now, tending and cradling it as I sit here on the couch. The rain falls and I have a warm home, lamps light and chicken broth brewing.

Moral of the story: a crappy tool can be made splendid because sometimes spirit is greater than matter. I extended my spirit to include the full potential of my racket into a sense of wholeness, coordination and balance. I united spirit with the limitations of this physical world, we did the dance and it was marvellous.

3/ Heat

For many year, after graduating from Melbourne University with my Arts degree in psychology and English (literature), I worked at a University and wore work clothes. ie: restrictive in all the wrong ways. One very, very unyeildingly hot day I jumped on a tram in the city. No air, full of other people and their body heat. With my skin unable to breathe and my digestive system squished, I knew I had at least a 25 minute journey ahead. When bodily suffering is that carnally present, it becomes all pervasive and consuming. Something has to be done other than bad moods, frowns, grumpiness and irritability as the outlets. I decided to use the Sitali cooling breath that I had learned in my yoga classes. I rolled my tongue and breathed in. Ahhh, cool. I stopped crouching and frowning and allowed the mind to focus on the breath coming in and the feeling of ‘cool’. Even in that stifling heat I found reprieve. Nothing in the environment changed. I changed. I switched it with a Sitkari breath every now and then which kept my mind occupied and content.

And that is the end of today’s blog post.

There is freedom. There is choice.

I have no interest or investment in the blame / complain game.

I chose wisdom, freedom and grace.

x

Katie

p.s. Today, being the 7th October is a sad and painful day for me. I am protecting my mind and heart through mantra, prayer and reflection. At the Buddhist temple this morning, as I walked toward the river, my friend Seven saw I looked low, he said : “Listen to me, not too much thinking, sing, move, keep body busy.” The true nature of human nature is to want each other to be happy.

Yoga for Women - A community project

Dear reader,

On Thursday mornings the local community centre hall fills with women, welcoming them to a Women Only space to explore the profound knowledge yoga offers.

They roll out their mats, use the blankets and bolsters provided, and take a restful moment to just Be.

What a joy. What a relief. What a necessity.

It is a pleasure for me to offer the time for one’s head to rest, lungs to breathe, belly to stretch, pelvis to feel and feet to enliven.

We roll, reach, explore, feel, rest, stretch, strength and discuss what is happening. We study the mind and the body in direct and open conversation.

To my knowledge, this is unusual for a yoga class. Many yoga studios feel compelled to get student moving so the teacher simply demonstrates a sequence of poses followed by a relaxation.

These Women Only classes provide the students and I the freedom to move, rest and workshop as we need. We can do all this in one session.

I love this freedom because it means I am actually looking at the person on the mat and providing a yogic moment: responding to what is actually there - so it feels authentic and relevant.

Today’s session we studies the pelvic floor through sensing movements of the pelvis, experiencing open/closed, wide/narrow, and supported/braced. We explored how the feet, legs, hips all affect the pelvis so we can walk away with an integrated view of the body.

Alignment of the pelvis can help with incontineence when there is a sudden pressure on the ‘core unit’. I showed images from my favourite pelvic floor book on the elements that make up the core: diaphragm, pelvic floor, transverse abdomens and multifidus. Then we sat on chairs to really feet what supports the core: good posture!

It was a fabulous class and I so blessed to have engaged and inquiring students who I know will weave there yogic knowledge into their lives.

Heyum Dukkham Anagatam

The suffering to come can and should be avoided.

For more Womanly Yoga you can attend my annual retreat.

Visit the retreats page for details of this precious and delightful event.

www.bodycentred.com/workshops

Katie

Deep Healing Retreat for Women

www.bodycentred.com/deep-healing-retreat-hepburn-springs

Yoga was for a very long time the domain of the males of our species.

Women like Vanda Scaravelli, from Italy, had the courage and self confidence to transform it into somethings that met their own womanly needs.

My yoga is certainly a Womanly Yoga - one that includes pleasure, renewal, creativity and beauty. At the very heart of my yoga is the deepest kind of love.

At the essence of our being is something untouched by life, it cannot be shaped, moulded, twists, diminished. In yoga it is sometimes referred to at Atman. The unchanging essence the illuminates the entire universe.

Remembering that we are apart of the universe and are inseparable from it is one of the outcomes of a yogic life. We are an integral part of all life and all Beingness.

Within the framework of a retreat - away from the machinations of life - there is a real possibility that our consciousness can shift and we can at last fully perceive this connection.

The path is laid out, we simply have to take the first step.

The skills of leading Noble Silence ~ Being on Retreat

Last November after months of much rain and gentle sunshine, I ran my annual silent retreat. I call it Deep Healing Retreat as that is the intention ~ to feel deeply healed in the areas of life that you care about. Or to simply feel the soothing care and attention you can give yourself through yogic practices.

It was the perfect season, the perfect location, with just the right bunch of humans.

Getting things right so others can thrive is something I really value. I can plan for and manage the deliciousness of the food, the comfort of the guest rooms, and of course the aesthetics of the yoga studio.

These things arranged attentively by the host helps to set the scene for our participants to feel honoured and take refuge in the Sattvic qualities of harmony, ease and quiet-radiance.

The elements of a retreat that are not under ones control happen to be the most interesting ones: communicating what Noble Silence is, how it can serve you, what it is not and how to get the most our of it feels a bit like throwing a line out into the raging ocean and hoping to catch a fish.

Deep healing means foundational investigation of one’s self and that requires a letting go of our everyday behaviours.

Yogis have a powerful tool to end out dated habitual patterns: the deep pause of reflective silence.

Inviting retreatants into the experience of extended silence is a communication the can take some planning and skill. Here are my recommendations having reflected on the task for a while now. I have summarised the invitation to silence as:

Sewing the Three Seeds of Noble Silence.

Imagine if I asked you to be silent for a day. Likely you would have all your proclivities and attachments in full swing, just continuing on inside your head instead of voiced out loud. Same record playing the same tracks, and getting the same results.

Thought captured in the light of yogic awareness

So instead, a teacher can take wisdom from life and set the scene. Just as a gardener knows to prepare the soil and select the right spot for seed planing, so it is with effectively setting up students for the healing nature of Noble Silence. Having chosen the right spot, tilled and nurtured the soil and prepared the seed we are more likely to see flowers blooming and fruit ripening.

seed number 1 - This process of Noble Silence is profound!

Communicating to your group that there is something profound about yogas’ penetrative nature is step one.

Spend time sharing with the participants that so much more is possible, that we are likely stuck on repeating tracks and there is a way break through old limitations.

And don’t just use words, engage in practices too that get the group actively opening to challenges that meet an edge and cross old boundaries. Here we feel in our bodies that we have thrown off old assumptions and stepped into a new realm of energy, breath and self identification.

Change based on deep insight is profound. So expect depth and expect insights from your Noble Silence!

Seed number 2 - Facing your own thoughts

You have thoughts all the time so what does it mean to face them? Our usual thoughts occur to us as real, natural and true. “I’m hungry” “I’m tired” “I like this person” ‘It’s time to go to work” however hiding amongst such neutral thoughts are little misconceptions - which left undetected - can lead us astray.

Unconscious beliefs that have never seen the light of analysis or whose impacts we are unaware of are likely stewn all across our daily self talk.

For example, take the thought ‘I’m hungry’ and let’s sieve and detangle it through a Noble Silence view:

“I’m hungry… therefore I must eat the closest thing available, whatever it is, there’s no time and resources to eat what I actually want nor am I likely to get something that is good for me”.

Oh! That’s interesting. All of that was sitting underneath such a simple, common thought.

That’s a lot of insight right there!

Let’s look at “I’m tired,

“I’m tired…therefore I will be grumpy until I get sleep and I should not have to do anything”

Oh! Now I am feel to see that I can relate to tiredness in new and different ways that might not include grumpy and on strike. Silence gives us time to hear our own thoughts and have new light breathed into them.

You can do the same with the other statements. Try for yourself “I like this person” and “I must go to work”

Try to find at least 5 preconceptions or misconceptions for each statement.

Naming what’s underneath the thought… identifying the context from which it arises… and experiencing new insight are all natural outcome of Noble Silence when it is well guided.

Summary: Facing your own thoughts is about having the quiet reflective time available to you, in a safe and nurturing environment, where you can see what’s underneath them, unconsciously driving your life.

Seed number 3 - Facing your body’s sensations

Mindfulness has always been taught as an awareness that includes bodily sensation. It is a way to be in the Now. The mindful person notices what they feel, where they feel it and may also acknowledge how they are interpreting the sensations.

Using the examples above, this is what might come to light during Noble Silence: “

When I have a sensation in my upper belly (that I call hunger) I become vigilant and my nervous system becomes active. I am compelled to seek out food to stop that sensation. Why? Because I interpret it as a negative sensation, as if something is terribly wrong. Is something terribly wrong? No, not at all, I ate only 2.5 hours ago and I was sated. What to do? Keep noticing it, engage in places and activities that regulate my nervous system and keep me centred. Change my breathing to a pattern that soothes the feeling. Make a reassuring promise to check back in with the feeling of hunger so it knows I am listening and tending to it. I know I will eat in 2 hours. I can be a voice of calm reassurance to the freaking out of my tummy talking.”

Or the going to work example:

“When I know if it time to go to work I feel my body stiffening slightly. There is a fist in the pit of my tummy that tightens. I start rushing and getting my self worked up. I wonder what it would be like to calmly prepare to depart for work…. I wonder if I could delight in the process of getting dressed, eat slowly, enjoy the big hugs as I bid my family goodbye for the day, and walk out the door with my heart full and my feet on the earth, noticing the flowers and trusting that I am enough. Trusting that I bring light and joy to my work and to other people . Imagining this I feel something new is possible. “

With these three seeds sewn:

-Expect the profound - Face your Thoughts - Face your Feelings

the foundational philosophies of yoga starts to have practical applications.

We are now actively engaged in the study of the mind and the levels of Self/ self that are available to us. We see that we are whole and yet made up of parts.

Summary

In Noble Silence we have time and intention to look deeply at our own mind. We look both at the thoughts and at the underlying beliefs that fuel the arising of those thoughts.

With the yogic Yama and Niyama guiding us, knowledge of the Kleisha and especially an appreciation of Atman we will have a wisdom consciousness available to us that sheds its light on the dark.

Noble Silence is self-study (Svadyaya) but it is also even simpler than that… once things quieten down and the retreat has its effect on us… the mind sits quietly and we reside in our own radiant nature.

Yes, the thinking mind quiets, the feelings quieten, the breath settles and the Self is revealed. Even if only for a twinkling moment.

The atman, the true self, the divine within us at last has the stage and we can feel deeply blessed to be present among such a warm and loving light.

Restorative Yoga - all yoga is restorative

“All yoga is restorative” could be better said as “Yoga is always restorative” because when a yoga class leaves you feeling shaken, it isn’t yoga. Exercise, fitness, ego, some yoga business / bottom line decisions are often not what we would agree as being yoga. 

A class is a place of learning which means that one will come across the discomfort of growth. We often say ‘yoga is a path and it is a state’. The classroom-learning of yoga is a necessary path but the state of yoga takes time to develop.

This article puts forward the idea that the state of yoga is mostly not present in a standard hatha yoga class. (Most western yoga is hatha yoga: asana and pranayama based) Therefore the restorative nature of yoga is also not present for the person, yet. You just have to look at the marketing material most yoga classes use to get a clear indication of what is going on: the ubiquitous rows of tightly placed mats. The student is put in a limited space, lined up and treated like everyone else in the class, made to fit in, put in an unnatural environment, expected to follow instructions and made to appear more like an economic unit than a blossoming, fully connected and enlivened spirit.

For some students their ‘yoga’ practice can even be completely devoid of yoga if the student/ self or student / teacher relationship is not right. The challenges of learning are best done wrapped in the attidue or context of yoga’s essence: wholeness, freedom, friendship, love, joy, beingness, nature, support, honesty, simplicity, lightness, beyond ego into fullness, and regular acknowledgement of the unlimted and eternal. 

Those learning about the body and energy flow, and about the mind’s influence with and by the body, will sometimes make learners mistakes, as is expected and necessary. They will go too far, get injured, fry their nervous system, face strong emotions, exert their will on the body, and all the things that a student must learn to then move toward knowledge, wisdom and mastery.

I must note here, that for many yoga practitioners, what is learnt in yoga does not often translate into daily life where it could have its best impact, instead it is discarded until the next yoga class. This is odd to me.

If I learn that the hip opening and thigh-enlivening of Warrior Two makes my energy flow big and full and I feel my nervous system and breath become more integrated and whole, and I feel I AM MORE WHOLE,  then surely I would want to use that. Like when I find myself  in my kitchen worrying about my disintegrating friendship and the shame and self blame that I probably should throw off and disown because it is wrecking my day and my nervous system. So Warrior Two is there as a friend, a saviour, and I grow even more affection for it. Right there in the kitchen. I learn this pose’s grace as my neuroception informs my interception. With this information my past memory of the pose’s gifts make it an obvious choice I freely offer myself.

All yoga restores us to our sense of wholeness. The phrase 'sense of wholeness' is not an idea. It is a felt experience that a yogi must have. Sometimes wholeness is the result of 10 minutes in Child’s Pose over a bolster, sometimes it is a sun salute series throwing off the malaise of a dull and spiritless day. Sometimes it is saying sorry to someone or being open to a hug. 

Sensing and Wholeness are both vital in the vocabulary of a yogi. Perhaps that is what I was most wanting the yoga Australia member’s circle to walk away with.

Being uncomfotable is an important part of yoga. Staying in a pose when the first reaction is to get out, or staying still when that habit is to fidget... these are moments when our idea of ourselves and reality move from being small to being full of possibility. They reform what was the past self, into what is possible now and into the future.

Possibility implies the unknown and the soul speads its wings in the spaces that are not yet charted. 

Newness, freshness and a releasing of past beliefs, attitudes and postures are signs that yoga is happening within the person.

The essense of yoga is the mind being seen for what it is - a cycle of raga and devesha - and going beyond mind. Behind thought is pure, expansive consciousness. Underneath the fluctuations of mind is stillness. There is nothing to be known in stillnes, but we tend to take back into the world with with us a little note to self, a lesson, that says “relax, all is an illusion of sorts”. That is where we learn the play of opposites, the trap that we navigate throughout our lives. We may learn to choose sattva over the other two best friends/ frenemies: rajas and tamas. We may even become sattvic. A quietly, radiant being. Self restorative in our choices.

A class is not a space for the state of yoga, but a place to learn how to get there. It opens tiny little doors inside us that we may chose to keep open if we attent to them properly, treasure them, take them home and begin the process of ownership.

With true ownership, yoga is always restorative.

~

Reference to my past teachers on this topic: Leigh Blashki, A.G. Mohan, Sophie Lefevre Bunn, Patanjali, Buddhism, Louise Simmons