Broken to Breakthrough.

Yoga invites us into the cracks. Into the light peeking through the doorway of a dark room. It asks us to step into the challenge at hand and to know deeply that as some parts shatter, more always is born. All of these thoughts have been brought to the surface from the wisdom of my friend + teacher, Hillary Cohen….and from the brilliance and clarity of Douglas Brooks and his re-telling the Ganapati stories. I invite you into my breakthrough…..

The world of a new mother is definitely one that beckons your expansion. In fact it requires your presence, your ability to receive your abundant nature. But first you have to break-down a lot. You literally break apart in pregnancy + birth, but you hold to the grace that lies within you + manifest this little bundle of JOY. Then you have to let go, you have to break the ties of that child within you + help them come into their own, you have to ween them + ween yourself from their love. You have to empower not enable. There are moments when I have felt like, I can’t hold this, like I have no more to give. This is where the Yoga comes in….. the question is how willing am I to listen. In all the moments, I have to give way to all the fears of loss, unworthiness, abandonment, etc for me to also hold the possibility of bliss, gratitude, + LOVE. When I can remind myself of my own inherent fullness, love appears in the moment I need it the most. I am settled, I can hold more, I am more.

Whether you have a child or not, look at YOUR Life. What relationship beckons your deepening? What pose is calling you to evolve it forward? How can you allow the old to break, so that you might breakthrough to more beauty, more fullness, more abundance?

The key here, as Hill reminded me is that…..”Omni, if you go to these vulnerabilities, really go there, GRACE meets you.” Let’s all grow together.

 Thank you Hill, thank you Douglas, thank you Ganapati, thank you Omni.

Donation classes are coming….

What is a Donation Class?
a: A yoga class for everyone. ALL the money goes to a worthy charity, usually local.

Why?
a: Why not! Yoga invites us to offer the most beautiful version of ourselves to the world. In this small way we can make more beauty with those that surround us! Our last event for CASA with Julie Margolis, we raised almost $2000 for the Essex county chapter. Two years ago we raised almost $1500 for Leukemia! Our community is no doubt, effective, so let’s keep it up!

What’s next?
a: We have two planned… one to raise money for Dina Sutter’s library in the Philippines. The other is a Pink Dance Party for breast cancer, an idea created by our dear friend and breast cancer survivor, Maureen Glennon.

When?
a: Dina’s will be in September and the dance party will be in October! Keep your eye out for specifics.

Volunteers?
a: We love help, these events take promoting, please contact omni@yogamontclair.com to be apart of our next donation class.

Over-stepping.

I can still hear my high school cheerleading Coach, Teri Butler, saying to a squad of very hyper teenage girls as she listened to yet another rant of inappropriateness, ” That’s it! There is the line and you crossed it!”. The combination of her very long island accent + outrageous arm movements made us laugh everytime. In fact, we really enjoyed pushing her buttons, I think we tried harder each time for her the utter the infamous line.

I have always boasted myself as very honest. In fact, a little too honest. I have been most recently compared to Bethanny Frankel, a similarity I have not decided on whether I like or not, perhaps it is a little to right on for me to swallow. I mean she strikes me as amazing and completely abrasive. I have lost friends because I said too much, I have also gained them. I have left those who won’t tell me the truth when I was way off track. I have also made deep connections with strangers who had the courage to put me in my place. So…. what does all this have to do with YOGA?

Well I do believe that Yoga is about making connection. But How deep are you willing to go? What are you willing to admit too, what are you open to receive?

Yesterday in class, a conversation went from small talk about the miserable cold rain to a heated discussion. The student told me, “Omni you are not listening to me. ” I was proud of her for speaking up to me. She was right I wasn’t fully listening and just like that I could hear, ” Omni, there is the line and you crossed it.”

I have nothing to hide. I make mistakes and I am willing to hold myself accountable to them. The lesson for me to learn here is how can I hold the middle. How can I ask questions but also respect the boundaries of the individual I am engaging with. I must listen and open to what they are saying, what they are asking of me, the level of my participation.

In this way I meet them where they are at. I can honor their boundary and show them mine. I then must leave it be, allow them there process, whatever they choose. Life is a gift, choice is always in our hands to experience life as we want it.

I share my trials and errors as a way of showing others they are not alone. In hopes that they can trust in Grace and themselves to move through difficult situations. I also can assume they are processing the way I do. THIS is my mistake.

So, yes, I over-stepped again. But with every fall, I can then recognize more. Allow more. I honor these moments of true learning and smile at myself.

I also pause and open, I receive the fullness of myself as everything.

Where in your life can you recognize more fullness, embrace the mess as much as the bliss?

Om Namah Shivaya.

Yoga Connections

My dear friend and YM student, Victoria Kucharski gave me this beautiful idea.

After 2.5 years of being owner of YM and surviving the current economic situation…. I can honestly say that the principles we use in Anusara Yoga can deeply aid in the world of business. This may be a no brainer to you and if so we want to hear from you.

YM is a collective of artists, parents, care-takers, CEOs, financial planners, self-start entrepreneurs….we each have a wealth of knowledge behind us and our particular fields.

Yoga invites us into relationship, so I propose a networking night, once a month at YM. In this format, we can more deeply learn about the community we practice in. Support one another in our endeavors and speak out about what we do!

I also think we should discuss one specific principle each meeting. We can share how “Open to Grace” manifests in our business and share our own individual application of the principle.

Please share your comments and let me know your interest in this idea. I believe in this community and I think this will only deepen the abundance factor in all of our lives.

What do YOU think?

There is always more…..here is proof.

The universe at work....

This crayon drawing you see to your left is not just a child’s recreation of the cover of Matrika Yoga….. it is so much more.

On December 1st, 2008 (as Violet wrote on top of her page) in our kid’s yoga class, our topic of the day was, “There is always more”. This phrase is a phrase you will hear in your adult yoga classes and is a theme directly from the words of Douglas Brooks. For those of you who are not so familiar with Douglas, he is the philosophical voice of Anusara, not to mention a world renowned Scholar and amazing teacher.

On that day, I asked the kids, “where do we live?”, they said “Montclair”. Followed by me asking, “And Montclair is part of a???”, which was answered, “A state!”. So we kept going…. a state is in a country, a country is in a continent, a continent is in the world, the world is in the universe, the universe is …… and so we came to, “there is always more”. Throughout class we found new things in each pose, to continue the theme, we would stretch our fingers, take in more breath, and even remember to pause as an action of MORE. Then we sat down for our guided drawing portion of class…. I help bring the kids back to our theme and then ask them to draw a representation or expression of that. One child drew a seed, then a plant, then a tree with fruit, then a person eating the fruit. May I remind you that these kids are 5 years and under. I watched Violet draw hers and thought it was beautiful, I also thought i understood it. So I asked her to tell me what her drawing meant, and she replied, “Well whatever way you go big circles or small circles, there is always more”. I get goose bumps or loma harshana as Hill calls them just thinking about that moment. I was only looking one direction, up, and this brilliant little soul showed me my own theme…. there IS always more.

I have been re-reading my Matrika, and today for some reason, I really looked at the cover. I felt a rush of energy throughout my body, and thought, “I have seen this before, somewhere else, not just on this cover”. So I looked harder and I notice the center had a small dot, as if the circles kept getting smaller. Now, I give each child a journal for class, so they can keep a log of their drawings. I ran to the back of the studio and open Violet’s log….. and there it was, the exact same drawing…… by a five year old who has no idea what Matrika was. For those unfamiliar with Matrika, it was a scholarly journal featuring Douglas Brooks, and others who specialize in the Tradition of the Rajanaka Tantra.

Take a look at the picture above again…..

Let it be a constant reminder that this life is a gift, and that there is always more to learn, to experience, to feel, to see, to give, to receive, to re-learn, to LOVE.

Thank you Violet for your wisdom and constant reminder of the universe.