11d • General discussion
A theme you guys can try on :)
Theme: From Ego, to Breath, to Heart
Over a year of practice, most students will move through three stages.
Sometimes it takes ten years.
Sometimes it is not linear.
Sometimes you feel like you are going backward.
But every sincere student will touch all three.
Stage One: The Ego Centered Stage
This is where almost everyone begins.
A new student walks into class and the mind starts firing:
How do I look
Am I doing it right or wrong
How stiff am I
How inflexible am I
Am I going to make it through
Do I need to leave the room
The ego centered stage is very common.
We are preoccupied with opinions and judgments.
Our own fear and craving lead the way.
We compare, we worry, we try to control.
In this stage the practice can feel overpowering and overwhelming.
The only way out of this first stage is not to fight the mind, but to notice it.
To see the flow of mind and matter.
To recognize “Ah, this is ego. This is fear. This is craving.”
And still stay.
Stage Two: The Breath Centered Stage
You will know when you arrive here.
The ego is still present, but it starts to loosen its grip.
The breath begins to take the lead.
You can feel this in yourself and you can feel it in the room.
The energy gets lighter.
There is less heaviness.
Students start to smile.
They do not take themselves so seriously.
It becomes ok to fall.
They smile when they fall.
They laugh when they come out of a pose.
Somewhere along the way the focus shifts:
I was no longer practicing to look good or bad.
I was no longer wondering if it was right or wrong.
For the first time in ten years I gave all the importance to my breath.
My breath became tangible and visible.
My ego did not overpower me.
My breath was simply expanding and contracting.
Pulsing through the entire class.
You can feel when that shift happens.
The whole room changes.
Everything begins to feel juicy, alive, connected.
This is the doorway from ego to breath.
Stage Three: The Heart Centered Stage
There is a third stage, and most of us just get brief moments of it.
This is when the heart opens, especially when everything else feels like it is going to fall apart.
The to do lists lose their power.
The need to impress loses its grip.
You are not practicing to be noticed or unnoticed.
You are practicing because your heart is here.
Hearts do not break. Only egos do.
Hearts are resilient. They bend, they stretch, they feel deeply, and they bounce back.
It is the ego that shatters.
At the end of your practice it is not about how deep your backbends were.
It is about how present you were.
It is about how much your heart has opened.
Closing Reminder
So when a student walks into your class, remember that they may be in any one of these stages.
Some are caught in ego.
Some are beginning to breathe.
Some are opening the heart for the first time in years.
Our work as teachers is not to force anyone into the next stage, but to keep pointing them back to presence.
From ego to breath.
From breath to heart.
Over time, with patience, this practice will move them through all three.
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A theme you guys can try on :)
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