One of my teachers opens each class with the question: What do I need to know today? I am so grateful to Jillian for opening up the path to my question---what do I want to feel today? I've spent about a decade of my life avoiding feeling through doing and thinking. I'm going to be teaching YTT sadhana for the other group in my old room and every time I walk into the Sunset Room here, the feelings of my first meditation in motion experience flood my body. It's electric and tingly and unnerving and unravelling. I feel the glow of candles and streetlight and remember the dark and how my body twisted and turned in the beam of light in my spot by the far window.
From that moment, my physical body was transforming but it couldn't feel it in my body. I remember shopping for clothes and telling the sales person what size I was and even when they would tell me that I was a 4 and then a 2 and not a 6, I didn't believe them. Even when I tried on the 6, it seemed right to me---I would compromise and buy the 4 even though it was the 2 that fit best. That's how much I was living in my mind.
Now I am asking, what do I feel I need, not what should I need. The answer is based on a feeling instead of a schedule or a set of rules or practices. It was easy to fall into the patterns of vegetarianism and vigorous yoga. They were nourishing my body, yet, the changes that I was experiencing were skin deep. Now the questions are what is going to support me today in this moment. It may be a nap or a gentle class or writing or dance or a breath practice or a vigorous question. But first I tap into my heart. I close my eyes and get quiet. I put my hands on my heart and I breathe and I practice listening.
What I want to feel is safe and open and grateful and inspired.
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