Be Present

Practicing yoga gives us an opportunity to embrace being "present".  Living in the moment with our mind, body and spirit.  Join me in class tonight while I work to leave behind my Italy and pasta-filled thoughts to find that contentment in the present.  Below is an excerpt from one of my favorite blogs (semperviva.com) that talks about being present.

It’s quite common in the Yoga world to hear the instruction to ‘become present’.  This is a very misleading instruction, as it implies that there has been a time in your life that you haven’t been present.  If you think back upon your life to this point, can you remember a time that you somehow disappeared completely, then magically reappeared some moments later?  Highly unlikely.  So, in reality, there has never been a moment in your life in which you haven’t been present.

What we’re working on in our Yoga practice is the realization of this truth.  That you always have been, and always will be present.  What happens in Yoga – as we drop deeper and deeper in to the experience of being alive – is a total sense of this truth.  A deep, kinesthetic awareness that you are actually here, right now, occupying space and time.  That this is not some kind of philosophical endeavour, but instead a journey into the very real realm of embodiment as consciousness.  When you have even the slightest taste of this awareness, all concern about achievement, all struggle, all resistance to life naturally drops away.

And it is really so easy.  The next time you step onto your mat, simply set the intention to stay with your breath, and to meet the moment-by-moment experience of being alive exactly as it arises, and as it passes.  Realize, every moment…wherever you go, there you are.  A breathing, feeling, living, entirely present metabolic manifestation of this mysterious universe. -Cameron Gilley