This weekend I was a participant in an intensive yoga retreat at the Amrit Institute in Ocala National Forest. The trip served as a vital hiatus from the stressors of my mundane routine, as well as an exploration in self-discovery. The lessons I internalized were as subtle as the sensation of a placid breeze, yet as they gradually seeped in, the impact became immensely profound.
The focus of the program revolved around connecting with prauna, also referred to as the life force. Alignment with this energy is said to enhance your yoga practice while simultaneously directing you easily and effortlessly through life’s challenges.
During the two-day workshop, we were exposed to a combination of explanatory lectures, interactive exercises and guided meditations. Inundated with this novel information, I came to several realizations about myself. The most fundamental of these was the insight that my soul, that wise intuitive spirit that resides on the crest of each breathe, is always whispering gently within. Through my conditioning and domestication, I learned to tune out this universal frequency. Intellectually, I’ve known this concept for some time, yet until yesterday I was never as acutely aware on a physical and emotional level how passively detached from life I have become. The beauty of having such deep sensitivity to this disposition is that I now have the opportunity to investigate and resolve the resistance interfering with the expression of my own vitality.
To some such a revelation may not seem so significant. And although this expedition did not trigger an orgasmic explosion of enlightenment, it did succeed in rooting embryonic seeds of metamorphosis. I have the awareness that if I desire these healing buds to blossom, I must nurture them diligently with practice, patience and perseverance. The choice is up to me: I can allow this potential to remain dormant, or I can transform the knowledge I’ve absorbed into wisdom, allowing it to permeate my daily existence. Most of my life I’ve been paralyzed by fear and incapable of cultivating joy. In this moment I choose to embrace this journey called life with love and acceptance. And so it is.
Jaime,
ReplyDeleteYour writing is AMAZING! If you don't mind, I would love to send this to the Amrit Institute so that they may use it as a testimonial if they like, authored by you. It is so beautiful that at such a young age you opened to the gift of yoga and were able to plant these seeds that will continue to grow in you for the rest of your life...and on. Your future patients will truly benefit from this knowledge you have received. I hope you continue to use this awareness to deepen your practice in what ever style of yoga you practice, but especially in your every day life. Amrit Yoga has been a blessing for me as I hope it will continue to be for you.
Much Love,
Michelle
the disenchantment washes over me in waves, and it has become such a constant feeling i long for its return when slowly withdraws with just enough craft to show me how things are not. a large part of me died a while ago, and i have not been able to regain innocence lost. there is a gear missing, something misaligned, a broken wheel, something fundamentally wrong. to try to place it is to name it, and it is something that can not be named. the dark side will take over, and i give up, im not in the drivers seat anymore. you can stare into my eyes, but im not going to be there staring back.
ReplyDeletewhilst this machine is to him
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Really great writing. I'm glad to see that experience had such a positive effect on you. You make a really great point when you talk about the soul always whispering to us, I think it is there and we've all turned blind eyes and deaf ears to it more often then not.
ReplyDeleteReading this really makes me want to learn from your example and plant seeds of healing in my own psyche. Learning to connect more so with our own prauna really seems like a positive thing everyone should look into, it's so easy these days to forget we're all parts of a larger picture and let our thoughts and fears dictate us rather than that humble and discerning instinct that is our inner selves.
"And I choose to be the best version of me, with limitless potentiality."
ReplyDeleteI love this line! Please don't forget it.