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Wednesday, 26 Mar 08
I met Kristen immediately following my return from Senegal. The first morning I woke up at her beautiful house in Crested Butte, she greeted me with a warm smile and a gourd of yerba mate. “Would you like to do some yoga with me on the back porch?” she asked. Kristen offers a subtle and powerful view on the world and her adventurous lifestyle make for quite the young yogi. Here is what Kristen has to say in her own words about what it means to conquer your fear. Read on and as Kristen would say, “Bless up!” — Claire Smallwood
Wow, my life has been one crazy adventure! Always traveling and living in some tropical little country (often with some exotic man!) or doing healing work that pushes my suppressions in front of my face. Sometimes the lessons learned have been merciless, where I wonder in desperation, “What, oh Jah, is next?” Other times the vibes have been so sweet, blissful effortless, flowing within the ocean of existence. I’ve found, usually after the blissful times, a time of depression comes and then the cycle continues. All because of my attachment to the happiness, the depression is felt. I have found that seemingly all emotions and “victories” are impermanent. We are all impermanent here in these gorgeous bodies. Just as flowers bloom, so that same flower must die, change is what gives life the pulsation of excitement and beauty in the first place.
Yes, my friends, I am a woman striving to find balance and nonattachment to the illusion of permanence, control — surrendering. One of the biggest jumps I have taken (time and time again) is to surrender and trust my inner voice, my intuition. Even though there is nothing logical involved and I might not know where I will stay tomorrow night, or even tonight, to trust myself and surrender to the inherent bliss that resides within every molecule of this universe — that is my challenge.
I have been doing yoga for several years now and it has been one of the greatest catalysts for me to learn trust. This has been my tool, to work on the physical level to delve deeper into the understanding and trust at the more subtle emotional and spiritual levels. An example of this is doing the headstand. At first doing the headstand was terrifying for me; I would balance and then topple over, ever reminding me of my fear of falling, but gradually I learned to push past the fear and find the meditation in this now effortless balancing pose. I was reminded of my fear of falling the other day at a yoga class when I took the jump to drop back from headstand into a backbend, something that does not require nearly as much physical skill as it requires trusting yourself. I knew that if I fell it would not necessarily be pleasant, and I kept repeating to myself, “I’m scared.” My beautiful yoga teacher was there echoing that it is about trusting myself, reminding me that I am strong and ready for this. So within that knowledge, I grounded my head and elbows into the earth, slowly allowing myself to begin to drop my feet back behind my head. There was a moment where the fear overwhelmed me and I dropped one of my legs to the side to avoid falling. (I was perfectly balanced but had allowed the fear to paralyze me.) Laughingly, my teacher said, “Try again.” This time trusting that my feet will root into the earth and that I will always pull through for myself.
The second attempt was beautiful, once again, balancing on my head and (with strong intention) allowing my feet to drop back behind me, the moment before I reached the floor, I felt so awkward, my elbows were off of the ground momentarily, but before I had time to bail out of the pose, I realized my feet were on the ground! I had done it!! That was the most liberating movement I had ever done in this body, holding that backbend there everything in the universe felt in alignment. Trust!
So is life, even when you feel terrified, not trusting anyone, please remember to trust yourself. To do a pose like this, one’s focus must be one pointed, open, trusting and with a firm mediation (intention). Just like the lessons in life, no one can learn them for you, you must take the dive into the unknown, the terrifying. This is where growth occurs, to push past your natural comfort zone to the point where no matter where you are, what you look like, nothing is outside of your comfort zone because nothing is outside of yourself. Self worth, self trust and self love. A sage from India (OSHO) says, “To be brave is not enough, bravery is an island in the ocean of fear, often when one is brave, they in turn desire others to fear them, for they haven’t acknowledged their fear, they have suppressed it, fear turned inside out. Often when you accept an emotion, it will dissipate, so when you accept your fear as a human emotion and fully acknowledge that you do have fear, then and only then will you rise above fear, to do something even though you are terrified, that is to be fearless. To act even though you are fearful, to push past the fear, realizing your impermanence here, to do what you have always feared, THAT is to be fearless. You will fear nothing, and no one will fear you — fearlessness.” Bless and love to all, Kristen
Yogi learns that biggest jump is surrendering self
Comment on this PostI met Kristen immediately following my return from Senegal. The first morning I woke up at her beautiful house in Crested Butte, she greeted me with a warm smile and a gourd of yerba mate. “Would you like to do some yoga with me on the back porch?” she asked. Kristen offers a subtle and powerful view on the world and her adventurous lifestyle make for quite the young yogi. Here is what Kristen has to say in her own words about what it means to conquer your fear. Read on and as Kristen would say, “Bless up!” — Claire Smallwood
Wow, my life has been one crazy adventure! Always traveling and living in some tropical little country (often with some exotic man!) or doing healing work that pushes my suppressions in front of my face. Sometimes the lessons learned have been merciless, where I wonder in desperation, “What, oh Jah, is next?” Other times the vibes have been so sweet, blissful effortless, flowing within the ocean of existence. I’ve found, usually after the blissful times, a time of depression comes and then the cycle continues. All because of my attachment to the happiness, the depression is felt. I have found that seemingly all emotions and “victories” are impermanent. We are all impermanent here in these gorgeous bodies. Just as flowers bloom, so that same flower must die, change is what gives life the pulsation of excitement and beauty in the first place.
Yes, my friends, I am a woman striving to find balance and nonattachment to the illusion of permanence, control — surrendering. One of the biggest jumps I have taken (time and time again) is to surrender and trust my inner voice, my intuition. Even though there is nothing logical involved and I might not know where I will stay tomorrow night, or even tonight, to trust myself and surrender to the inherent bliss that resides within every molecule of this universe — that is my challenge.
I have been doing yoga for several years now and it has been one of the greatest catalysts for me to learn trust. This has been my tool, to work on the physical level to delve deeper into the understanding and trust at the more subtle emotional and spiritual levels. An example of this is doing the headstand. At first doing the headstand was terrifying for me; I would balance and then topple over, ever reminding me of my fear of falling, but gradually I learned to push past the fear and find the meditation in this now effortless balancing pose. I was reminded of my fear of falling the other day at a yoga class when I took the jump to drop back from headstand into a backbend, something that does not require nearly as much physical skill as it requires trusting yourself. I knew that if I fell it would not necessarily be pleasant, and I kept repeating to myself, “I’m scared.” My beautiful yoga teacher was there echoing that it is about trusting myself, reminding me that I am strong and ready for this. So within that knowledge, I grounded my head and elbows into the earth, slowly allowing myself to begin to drop my feet back behind my head. There was a moment where the fear overwhelmed me and I dropped one of my legs to the side to avoid falling. (I was perfectly balanced but had allowed the fear to paralyze me.) Laughingly, my teacher said, “Try again.” This time trusting that my feet will root into the earth and that I will always pull through for myself.
The second attempt was beautiful, once again, balancing on my head and (with strong intention) allowing my feet to drop back behind me, the moment before I reached the floor, I felt so awkward, my elbows were off of the ground momentarily, but before I had time to bail out of the pose, I realized my feet were on the ground! I had done it!! That was the most liberating movement I had ever done in this body, holding that backbend there everything in the universe felt in alignment. Trust!
So is life, even when you feel terrified, not trusting anyone, please remember to trust yourself. To do a pose like this, one’s focus must be one pointed, open, trusting and with a firm mediation (intention). Just like the lessons in life, no one can learn them for you, you must take the dive into the unknown, the terrifying. This is where growth occurs, to push past your natural comfort zone to the point where no matter where you are, what you look like, nothing is outside of your comfort zone because nothing is outside of yourself. Self worth, self trust and self love. A sage from India (OSHO) says, “To be brave is not enough, bravery is an island in the ocean of fear, often when one is brave, they in turn desire others to fear them, for they haven’t acknowledged their fear, they have suppressed it, fear turned inside out. Often when you accept an emotion, it will dissipate, so when you accept your fear as a human emotion and fully acknowledge that you do have fear, then and only then will you rise above fear, to do something even though you are terrified, that is to be fearless. To act even though you are fearful, to push past the fear, realizing your impermanence here, to do what you have always feared, THAT is to be fearless. You will fear nothing, and no one will fear you — fearlessness.” Bless and love to all, Kristen
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