November 28, 2024 Thanksgiving

Cultivating Gratitude 

With shorter, darker days and less sunshine to boost our spirits, it’s easy to get caught in a loop of stress  and low emotions. Our critical inner voice may be emphasizing our negative thoughts about ourselves and those around us. But there’s an antidote to the winter blues that we can practice at home.

We can use this time to cultivate our gratitude and appreciation. Taking time to focus on all that we’re grateful for can help us feel better about our lives, get sick less often, sleep better, feel more optimistic about our future, enjoy closer family ties, and live with more energy and enthusiasm. And those are just a few of the benefits of taking time for the practice of gratitude on a daily basis.  Living with an attitude of gratitude can take us away from fear and toward joy; toward a feeling of being in harmony with the world around us.

In the seventeenth century, Dutch philosopher Rabbi Baruch Spinoza suggested three questionswe could ask ourselves each day for a month:
Who or what inspired me today?
What brought me happiness today?
What brought me comfort and peace today?
Spinoza said this practice could lead to profound inner transformation. Where our attention goes, our energy follows. So turn your attention to those things in your life that make you happy, even when they seem small, and feel your energy expand your love and joy.

Make time for to practice gratitude. Slow down and listen to your senses---the aroma of a cup of tea or coffee, the feeling of crisp air outside, the warmth of a cozy room. Shift your attention from the rush hour traffic to the sky beyond it.  Appreciate every friendly smile or comforting hand. See those you love with the fresh eyes of thankfulness for what they bring to your life. 

Negative thoughts can be sticky and hard to let go of. Take a few quiet breaths, slow things down and practice seeing all that you are and all of the wonder that surrounds you. 

Shanti
Pattie

A word on resilience…

January 1, 2023

Strongheart isn’t starting the New Year the way we hoped or expected. The comfortable space where we meet and practice together has gotten temporarily knocked out of commission. Last weekend’s frigid temps busted a pipe next door and “floating floor” took on a much more literal meaning for us.   

Shoveling water out the back door and soaking up flood waters with yoga blankets (which BTW hold a lot of water) is a great way to activate the Sympathetic Nervous System and feel the stress climb.  We’re all designed to do something when sudden, unexpected things happen, and they don’t have to be life-threatening, terrifying disasters like what befell Buffalo N.Y.   

Big or little, the unpredictable and undesirable causes stress. What takes us out of our comfort zone causes stress. Feeling that things are beyond our control causes stress. And because much of life falls under the heading of unpredictable, unexpected, and out of our control…life is stressful. 

A life without stress isn’t possible and chasing that goal is probably pointless.  Even in an ashram on a mountaintop, unexpected snow could collapse the rooftop and peaceful meditation would probably not be the ideal response. But being able to get back to our peace in a timely way,  after we’ve fixed the ashram roof, is a worthy goal.   

A stress-free life is an empty aspiration. The resilience to meet stress and recover calm is something to strive for!

We foster our resilience when we don’t fan the flames of our anger—-dwelling on anger just prolongs our stress. We foster our resilience when we tune into our compassion—our loved place flooded, elsewhere people died. We foster our resilience when we remind ourselves we aren’t alone, and feel gratitude for all the help that’s been offered. We foster our resilience, when we recognize that we are capable of meeting challenges—when we trust ourselves.  

So Strongheart is beginning this new year, resolved to stay resilient and teach yoga, with mindfulness, gratitude, and compassion to foster that spirit in our community.  

Shanti,  

Pattie 

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Two Wolves

“There are two wolves battling inside of you, one is fear and one is love.
The wolf that survives depends on which you decide to feed.” 

~Jaden Wilkes

Namaskar All,

The Two Wolves is a well-known Native American parable which has become a frequently repeated meme. I won’t repeat the whole story, it’s easy to find and you’ve probably heard it before.

Just a reminder: Wolf 1 is filled with anger, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity and other undesirable qualities; Wolf 2 is filled with love, hope, kindness, generosity, benevolence, compassion, joy and myriad other good qualities.

Wolf 1 and Wolf 2 exist in constant battle in all of us—we all have our strengths and weaknesses, our dark and our light.

Thinking about the legend presents the question, “How are we feeding our inner wolves?”

There’s a lot of food for the bad wolves of our nature in the world around us—stressful daily lives fraying our patience and breeding angry reactions—media dwelling on divisiveness and encouraging comparisons that breed envy or dissatisfaction—news that fosters a sense of hopelessness. There’s no shortage of food for our bad wolf.

Feeding our good wolf takes a more conscious effort from us. We have to make time and space to savor good experiences—big and small. Little negative experiences can turn into full course meals for our bad wolf as we repeat and replay them. The same can be true of positive experiences if we give them the same time and attention.

Feeding our good wolf with gratitude for a beautiful moment or a kind or generous gesture can enrich our life. Shifting our perspective to what nourishes us and savoring it, not rushing past it, can change the world we see. Choosing which of our wolves we feed is choosing the life we want.

So don’t wait for a big moment or a special day—look for a small moment every day when you can just look around and repeat the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” It’s food for the spirit.

Shanti,  

Pattie

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Growth Takes Time

Be not afraid of growing slowly.

Be afraid of standing still.

~ Chinese Proverb

Namaskar All,

I had the good fortune recently to travel west and see the giant sequoias—trees that can live 3,000 years. There’s a sense of indescribable awe when you stand in the presence of a living thing that has stood rooted to the same spot on the earth for that long. And there’s a sense of stillness around the trees—as if they’ve been quietly witnessing as seasons pass and the world changes around them.

Two hundred years ago Native Americans were the only visitors to the sacred giant trees—now awe-struck travelers from around the world come. And all of those years are nothing in the life of the trees seeming to stand still there in their places. Standing still is an illusion though.

It may take forestry measurements to see, but through fires and adversity the trees are growing. A tree burnt and dead at the top continues to grow at the base—bark grows around fire scars to heal them. Slowly and patiently the trees go on, standing in their place but not still, growing.

We don’t have the lifetime of those trees, but they can still be an inspiration for us to be patient and allow ourselves to grow slowly. Our scars and damage don’t heal  in moments. Sometimes we’re trying to grow past an idea we’ve carried around with us for years. Sometimes we’re looking in the wrong direction altogether for our answers. Whether it’s physical or mental, everyone comes to yoga to grow and change in some way and that requires some self-compassion and kindness.

The awareness we bring to our practice can help us understand what holds us back and what will help us find the best of what we are. Our practice can remind us to measure our growth in small stages, rather than being yoked to a big expectation that leads us to discouragement. Our practice can help us stand strong and steady  in our world, seeming still, even as we grow slowly into all of our possibilities.

Be inspired and grow at your own pace,

Pattie

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