Annie Q Syed

You know the hoo-haa about how yoga can change your life? Well, that is nothing compared to building your own home yoga practice.

Before I begin I want to put it on the record: what follows are my opinions and Marianne (also known as ZenPeacekeeper) didn’t even know I am writing this. This is my way of expressing my gratitude to her and spreading word about how original and beneficial her “30 Days of Yoga” is.

I tried the 30 days of yoga because I had been out of regular practice since August of 2009. Due to being bicoastal and transcontinental I did not have access to my regular yoga instructor or studio in NYC. And I can’t do my own home practice without some structured guidance due to my attention span….until I get my own teacher training….

Top 10 Reasons To Try @ZenPeacekeeper’s 30 Days of Yoga

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Everyone has something profound to say once they have “made it,” whatever that “making it” may entail for that individual—making a certain amount of money, buying one house or many, getting married, having children or seeing them happily married, degree(s), fame, promotion, “security”, fill-in-the-blank.  I want to talk about when you feel so far from “making it” that you can’t even spell it! I want to point at the stream of cataclysms of the betwixt and between.  Events, one right after another, which lead you to finally conclude that life is really just that: one big transition. Death might be the only full stop—the rest of life is a series of commas, semi-colons, and any other punctuation point of your liking which serves as a pause or connector but never quite an end. The glorious in.be.tween which pushes you to Be and Become.  (What this means on a personal level, specifically in relation to my recent stay in Jo’burg, I will share later).

Volatile stock market to the global recession to Michael Jackson’s death to the turbulent changes in the lives around us: 2009 sucked. There is no other eloquent way to put it. If it didn’t suck for you: congratulations. I really mean that. Not being cynical at all. I am very happy that the events in your world can restore the balance in the universe for the rest of us.

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….by Terri Trespicio, from mama’s magazine: Body and Soul, October 2009

1. For the healthiest food, eat close to the source.

2. Stay tuned in to emotions. They connect you to the moment.

3. When you feel at ease with yourself, you become truly free.

4. Stop talking yourself out of the life you want most.

5. Style has less to do with what you wear and more to do with you are.

6. Experience the power of pure silence.

7. Every moment of suffering brings an opportunity to build resilience.

8. Don’t let fear of the unknown hold you back from making a change.

9. Fall represents a return to roots. Let yourself rest and replenish.

10. Happiness doesn’t just happen; it emerges.

Mama says that she doesn’t know many “guaranteed facts” of life but this: whatever you do not appreciate or are ungrateful for God/Universe takes from you.  She wants to make sure I understand she is not talking about death–this is not that conversation. She says what she is referring to is blessings–material or through the caring of another.  She says this is especially true when it comes to love in any form with any one in any type of relating. By love she means caring, sharing, and all forms that we know for a fact are not an abstraction but tangible mediums. She says love is an exchange of energy; it has to “go further”…it can’t just be held in a vacuum or in a thought. Love must be nurtured to grow.

She says it is not necessarily God’s way of punishing a person for being indifferent or dismissive for taking away what we are not grateful for. But because what is given must be taken care of, appreciated—be it a car, a roof on your head, a plant, a cloth–but especially love.

As I sit here and type the above she is now calling me to come have breakfast. She says I can do this later. “Food, sleep, dreams and love can’t wait. Everything else can.”  I tell her it is her fault–I am typing out some words for my “soul packers”–friends who would appreciate what she said this morning–friends who refer to my mother as a “ball of glow.”  So she agrees:  I have five more minutes to type. “But no editing,” she adds sternly,  knowing I can edit one sentence for hours (she speaks with such loving intentions that the word “sternly” is a misuse really but I am typing fast and hence will stick with it). I explain this is just a post which is similar to emailing ‘The List’  and not a writing piece I am working on. She doesn’t get the difference but she nods anyway.

She handed me this quote last night when I told her that true yoga bliss happens when we stretch and twist to arenas we couldn’t have imagined ourselves capable:

“…the act of extending one’s limits implies effort. One extends one’s limits only be exceeding them, and exceeding limits requires effort. When we love someone our love becomes demosntrable or real only through our exertion–through the fact that for that someone (or for yourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not efforltess… the desire to  love is not itslef love…Love is as love does…an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We chose to love…” ~ The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck.