I am doing WIII at Ogonquit beach in Maine.

Balancing yoga postures have never been the easiest postures for me, but I was drawn to try Warrior III while at Ogonquit Beach in Ogonquit, Maine just to see if I could hold the posture with sand, sea, and breeze beneath and around me.   I was standing on pretty firm sand but my foot was sinking in a bit, requiring some micro movements to establish a secure foundation.  A slight breeze swept over me.   The waves were rolling in to shore reaching my feet when stronger surges rolled in.  My balancing foot had to be firmly rooted so that I wouldn’t be distracted by the sea washing over it.  My mind needed to be focused on the execution of the posture.  My weight had to be forward just the right amount, so that my body was parallel to the beach.  Extension through my fingers and back foot required focus and concentration as I held this posture.  My breath supported me in expressing Warrior III to its fullest for that day.   Staying balanced took stability, a firm foundation, suppoortive breathing, and focus as the forces of nature, my mind, and emotions swirled around and within me.Staying balanced on the sandy shore with a breeze sweeping across me is a bit like staying balanced in our everyday lives.  You have the responsibilities of work and home often bombarding you causing tension and stress, sometimes creating tumult in your inner world too.  So, how can you stay balanced in your life as your world comes rolling or crashing in and out around you, sometimes washing over you?  How can you stay grounded and not be swept away by the inner tides of emotion that bubble up from inside you?  How can you maintain balance in the times that you are currently living in?

A first step is to have a firm foundation by being grounded in your heart center, energetic heart.  When you live your life from your heart space, this place of peace, quiet, stillness, love, compassion, and all knowing, you can confront whatever challenges, natural or otherwise, that invade your life with a greater sense of stability and ease.  You can breathe deeply, directing the breath downward connecting yourself to the earth energy to calm and quiet the thoughts, feelings, or experiences that are causing distress.  You can use a mudra, hand gesture, to bring balance back within you.

There is a wonderful mudra, Adhi Mudra, that I have been exploring when I need to create greater calm within, bring my energies down.  (My thanks to Joseph Le Page and his Integrative Yoga Therapy program for expanding my awareness and exploration of this amazing practice.)  It is simple to do.  Just fold your thumbs into your palms then wrap the other four fingers toward the palm covering the thumb.  This creates a gentle fist.  Place the fists onto your thighs or knees and breathe deeply, directing the breath downward.  (Adhi mudra is contraindicated for low blood pressure or recent abdominal surgery.)  You can do Dirgha, Complete Breath or Viloma Krama breath along with the mudra.  Viloma Krama breath is done by taking a full inhalation from the lower belly up to the clavicles and exhaling down from the clavicles to the lower belly in three steps, pulling the navel back toward the spine at the bottom of the exhalation.  Explore Adhi Mudra and Viloma Krama breath with me as you watch the video below.

Breathing, mudras, being grounded in your heart center is not all that needs to be done to balance the ebb and flow of  your  life .  You must be in the moment, not focusing on the past or the future, just the now.  Eckhart Tolle writes in his book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Awakening, “Life is now. . . .”   If you can live from this combination of  breath, mudra, grounded heart, and stay out of the playpen of life, colored by past happenings or future scenarios, you can experience the elements of life, its joys and challenges, with greater stability, acceptance, and at-easeness.  What is in the moment, the now, is all there is.  When you live in this way, each moment of life can be lived from a place of inner calm and outer presence.  Balance can happen more easily for you.  Joyful living can be yours.

May you create balance in your life.  May you know joy . . . .

Namaste,

Sandy

 

 

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