It's Your Dharma: Don't Hold Back!

It's early on the morning of Day 5 of the Anusara Yoga "Melt Your Heart, Blow Your Mind" 2010 World Tour, Day 5 of the immersion with John. This has been an incredible week, so much bigger, deeper, sweeter, funnier than I ever could have imagined. Melted heart? Check! Blown Mind? Check! Chit and ananda are on board.

Sometime on Tuesday afternoon I think, John said something about the notion of Wednesday as "hump day," that in our culture there's this prevalence of just needing to get through Wednesday so we can coast downhill to TGIF and the weekend. And also the idea of meting out our energy through the week, trying to make it last, holding back on Tuesday because we know there are hundreds more poses coming our way on Wednesday, and Thursday, etc.

That's nonsense. Don't save it. Go big every time. Go big every time like it's the first time, go big every time like it's the last time. This idea we have that our energy is limited, that if we blow it all out today there's none left for tomorrow, is a self-imposed limitation that prevents us from stretching to new lengths. We don't even know the heights and depths we'll hit today, let alone tomorrow. Energy, like love, is expansive. There's more!

And so we all went big on Tuesday. And we went bigger on Wednesday. And we went even bigger on Thursday. And guess what? There was always plenty of energy, more more more than I ever thought I had access to, to hold the poses, to sit cross-legged, to drop into backbend, to press up into handstand, to fold forward and stay there. Sustaining longer = more opportunities for the light to come on, for a deep sense of contentment to unfold and take up residence deep, deep, deep in the core.

I don't think there could have been a better way for me to kick off 2010, my self-proclaimed Year of Intention, than being here with John and friends. Realizing intentions, living a dharmic life, is easy, actually. Yoga provides the technique, the rest follows. All we have to do is be clear about our dharma, about who we are, and stay with it, be true to it, not hold back.

Go big today, friends. Show yourself, sing out, jump around! And tomorrow we'll do the same, as it just keeps expanding, getting better all the time.