Connecting with bliss

(Originally published 15 January 2012) 

I was planning for my next blog to address my organizing campaign, which is my focus for this year, but instead it comes from my returning to a book I hadn't looked at in months, when I wanted something to read with my morning cup of coffee. It is Lilias! Yoga Gets Better with Age by Lilias Folan. She's had a long-running yoga program on PBS, and I became a fan of her AM and PM Yoga for Seniors video as a way to get back into a gentle yoga practice that honored my joints and plus-sized body.

I had finally returned the copy I had gotten from the library, replacing it with one from Amazon (a spiral-bound one that can lie open as you work on postures, which is cool)—and promptly left off reading it somewhere in the middle. So I finished the section on the Wisdom Body (having previously read the parts dealing with the Physical Body, Energy Body and Mental/Emotional Body), this one focusing primarily on meditation. Then to the brief exploration of the final and deepest of the "sheaths" or koshas, the Bliss Body.

I was fascinated to learn "After two decades of research, Paul Ekman, PH.D., a psychologist at the University of California at San Francisco, concluded there are 18 types of smiles, but only one is the true smile that produces positive emotional benefits." [p. 127] But it was the experience of practicing her Inner Smile Relaxation that rocked my early morning and compelled me to share this blog.

While following her directions and words in building and focusing my smiling energy toward various parts of my body, and radiating gratitude for what the various organs and body parts do for me, I started to cry. There was no grief or sadness; I wasn't sobbing. Through the 2 page exercise, the tears just steadily streamed down my face as I acknowledged and appreciated this miracle of the body in which I reside: I truly connected with bliss.

I am so thankful that I have found another great teacher to guide me in my journey. And I naturally want to share her healing wisdom with all my Spark Friends. As Lilias would say, Namaste. Or from me, Blessed Be.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big Rocks

(Originally published 2 August 2011)   Yosemite National Park has some of the most glorious scenery on Earth, in my opinion. I always buy myself a Yosemite wall calendar, so I can enjoy its beauty throughout the year. I was rather disappointed when I turned the page for a new month and beheld a single tree standing next to a boulder. My sarcastic reaction was "Oh whoopee, a big rock!" But at my choice of phrase, I had to laugh. Have you heard the story of Big Rocks? Supposedly a man leading a workshop on time management began with a demonstration. He had a glass cylinder into which he put several rocks, until they reached the top. He asked the class if the container were full. They agreed it was full. He then poured several scoops of gravel into the container, where it settled around the rocks, until it reached the top. This time when he asked the class if the container was full, they were divided, and none were certain what the answer should be. So he took a bag of sa...
Read more

Babystepping My Way to Glory

(Originally published 26 February 2011) That phrase, “babystepping my way to Glory,” came to me while speed walking yesterday on my afternoon break, as I gazed towards a golden sun in a sparkling blue sky that was reflecting off the still white patches from our last snowfall. I had been doing my Louise Hay affirmations* and my lovingkindness meditation phrases* and my heart was full of gratitude, joy, and hope; I was delighted with the beauty of the moment and pleased with myself and the progress I'm making. This was a much different and better place than when I wrote my Bad Days blog less than 48 hours earlier. Yet while I could feel the power and energy flowing through me so freely, I did not fall into the trap of thinking this is how will always feel or should always feel, or it's going to be easy from now on, or I'm always going to get as much accomplished as I had that day. I won't automatically earn as many nutrition and fitness points or get as much declutte...
Read more

Bad Days

  (Originally published 23 February 2011) I really know I'm making progress now. Work was OK, but it's been a rough evening at home. Frustration and disappointment over vacation planning issues, with more frustration and disappointment over the failure of the new resistance cord DVD to offer modifications for stiff knees. In the old days, any stress at work or in life was an excuse to buy and consume comfort food — in my case wine and chips, or other high-fat foods. Not this evening. OK, I switched from salad to soup, but chopped and added fresh veggies before emptying the can of soup into the pot. I made sure I was maintaining my Oases of Order (those small sections of real estate I have liberated from clutter) in the kitchen while I cooked. I cleaned the litterbox (one of my daily routines I'm establishing) and put in my (minimum) organizing time in order to fulfill my Babysteps Brigade team challenge activity and earn my corresponding Other Goal point. I wasn'...
Read more