Category Archives: Gratitude

Creating Abundance

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“Abundance is about being rich, with or without money.”— Suze Orman

Depending on your perspective, the holidays can either be a joyful time shared with family and friends or a dismal demonstration of unrealized expectations. The choice is yours. Abundance is everywhere, if you choose to look for it.

In my annual Yoga of Thanksgiving class this past Thursday, twenty-two students and I reflected on the concept of abundance: what it means to us, how we can create more if it and how we can share it with those around us.

Our practice included over an hour of movement, but that was the least of it; meaningful  practice tugs more at the heart than the hamstrings. Today, I’d like to share some quotes, breath practices, and meditations we explored.

First Quote: “Whatever we are waiting for — peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance — it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.”—Sarah Ban Breathnach

First Breath Practice:

  1. Lengthen your inhale and exhale, making them approximately equal.
  2. Remain at that lengthened breath for several minutes. With each inhale, imagine abundance in all its forms entering your heart. With every exhale, imagine those same qualities flowing through your body and taking root in every cell.
  3. After several minutes, return your breath to a normal rhythm. Carry the energy of this breath practice to meditation.

First Meditation Question: How can I invite abundance into my life, regardless of my material wealth?

Second Quote: “The universe operates through dynamic exchange…giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.”— Deepak Chopra

Second Breath Practice:

  1. Lengthen your inhale and exhale, making them approximately equal.
  2. After six breaths at that lengthened breath, add a two second pause after both the inhale and the exhale.
  3. Remain at this breath for several minutes. With each inhale, imagine abundance in all its forms entering your heart. In the pause after inhale, imagine abundance completely filling you. With every exhale, offer abundance back to the world. In the pause after exhale, imagine abundance both within and around you.
  4. After several minutes, release the pauses, but continue breathing with a lengthened inhale and exhale.
  5. After several more breaths, return your breath to a normal rhythm. Carry the energy of this breath practice to meditation.

Second Meditation Question: How can I create abundance in the lives of those around me?

At the end of class, each student chose a string of prosperity hens that was crafted by artisan women in India. Hens symbolize prosperity in Indian culture, because any family fortunate enough to own a hen has a continual source of nourishment. I hope the hens will remind each student to be grateful and generous in the season ahead.

I hope this practice does the same for you.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and join me in our special New Year’s Yoga Celebration!

Memories of a Celebration

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Thank you to the students who gave up their Monday evening yoga practice with Cara to allow me to celebrate a final evening with Whole Life Yoga’s most recent teacher training group.  As predicted, we shared more than a few tears, but we also laughed, played, and ate more than was probably good for us. Today’s blog shares some of that celebration with all of you. Enjoy the photos!

Gorgeous tropical flowers decorated the altar and set the tropical theme.

We began by sharing stories, memories, and learnings with each other.

The class kindly wrapped me in a meditation shawl each person had worn, so I could carry their energy with me forever. I will treasure it always!

After a brief movement and meditation practice, each student set an intention for the future, about how they would use the yoga teachings personally and share them in their world.

We ended the ceremony in a final closing circle.

Of course there was food.

And even some bubbly.

Finally, a big kiss farewell.

And lots of promises that this goodbye was not forever.

Thank you, my friends, for everything.  And to the rest of the Whole Life Yoga community, thank you as well.  Your gracious acceptance of these students as participants and observers in your yoga classes has been a big part of their learning. I may not say it often enough, but we couldn’t do it without you!

Namaste

Tracy

More information about Whole Life Yoga’s teacher training program can be found at our web site:  Yoga Teacher Training at Whole Life Yoga.

Inviting Newness to Your Practice–Lessons from the Tasha-Dog

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Gorgeous spring days like today make me feel, well, alive. The air is crisp and infused with the sweet smell of new flowers.  Colors have returned to the Seattle landscape—reds, pinks, purples, blues, greens—even the whites seem to jump out in stark contrast to the gray days we will soon leave behind.

This year, my dog seems unusually entranced by the newness.  Our normal ninety-minute walks stretch to two, even three hours as the paths she found disinteresting all winter suddenly come alive to her again.

Today, as she walked me to her new favorite spot at Greenlake, I was struck by how the familiar is continually interesting to her.  By conservative calculations, we’ve walked Greenlake’s path almost 2000 times in our seven years together; yet she still finds it fascinating.  As she gets older, her interests and abilities change.  She is no longer the great hunter-dog that dragged me, face-down, across the grass as she tried to catch those ever-elusive squirrels.  Now she’s more of an observer, a tour guide of sorts, saying hello to familiar walkers as she gazes across the lake from her new treasured spot in the shade.

But still, every time, she leads us to Greenlake with enthusiasm–with intention.  I never know exactly where we’re headed, but I can tell that she does.  And in spite of her obviously planned destination, she enjoys every minute of the path along the way.

Like Tasha, we can live our lives–and practice our yoga–with great enthusiasm and a sense of newness.  We can bring the same sense of wonder to the 2000th repetition of cat pose that we brought to our first.  As our bodies change, we may not be able to do handstand or wheel, but we can invite vitality, energy, and joy to every pose we can do.  We can invite gratitude and intention to every breath we take.  In fact,  these simple poses give us the opportunity to more fully experience the connection of body, breath and mind that is truly the purpose of yoga.

As we enter this season of re-birth, I’d like to invite all of us, including myself, to experience life and our practice the same way Tasha does.  As happy in exploring the familiar as seeing the new.  As present and joyful in our old age as we were in our youth.   As connected with our world on the days our path is difficult as the day we took our first step.

The yoga sutras call this persevering practice:  Doing the same practice over and over again, over a long period of time, without interruption, with enthusiasm and an intention of growth.  Such a practice, they say, leads to the true goal of yoga: clarity.

May you find newness and re-birth, joy and optimism, hope and clarity this Spring.  And may you experience the inner peace that is the state of yoga.

Namaste

Tracy

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle!

The Essence of Gratitude

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I recently read an essay from one of my yoga teacher training students, in which she discussed how she continually practices being grateful, even when things don’t go her way.  It reminded me how easy it is to let the circumstances of life dictate how we feel.  You can clearly see it in the sun starved faces of Seattleites these past few weeks.  When it’s sunny and warm, we feel joyous and energized.  When it’s rainy and cold, we feel lethargic and depressed.

One goal of yoga is to learn how to find internal peace, so that regardless of the “weather” in our internal or external worlds, our mind is calm, centered and content.  The teachings tell us that we cannot control what happens in the world around us.  But we can control how we react to it.

I once listened to a wonderful recording by Joan Borysenko, in which she discussed practices of gratitude.  I can’t remember the title anymore, but I adapted a practice from it that I use to keep myself connected to the joy and beauty of my life, even when I feel down and things seem to spin out of control.  This practice reminds me that no matter how “awful” things seem at any given moment, there are always many, many things for which to be grateful.

Like many important things in life, the practice is simple, yet powerful.  Each night, before falling asleep, I recount at least 10 things that I was grateful for in that day.

To be completely honest, some days it’s  harder than others.  But I can always do it, even on days that have been truly challenging on every level.  And the practice makes me pay attention and seek out the small joys I might otherwise miss each day.  It doesn’t matter how big or how small, every day brings gifts that make me smile.

For example, today I am grateful for:

  • The cool breeze wafting through my living room window.
  • The purple color in the center of the orchids next to the studio fountain.
  • The soft, silky spot behind my dog’s ears
  • The sound of the neighborhood woodpecker as he drills on our metal chimney top.
  • The white breasted bird that sat on the line outside my window this morning.
  • Reconnecting with my 82 year old Aunt on Facebook.
  • Chocolate.
  • The seemingly endless support of my husband, even when I’m doing something he doesn’t agree with or want me to do.
  • The yummy taste of Blackthorn cider.
  • The delightful E-card I just received from a dear friend as I typed this blog entry.

The essence of gratitude resides in things both big and small.  This practice keeps me connected to all that is wonderful in my world on a daily basis.  I hope you try it and benefit from it as much as I have!

Namaste and may you have many things for which to be grateful.

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle!