living in appreciation

Source: imgfave.com via Sharon on Pinterest

Hello Blog.
Hello Friends.
It's been a while....

I'm happy to be here with this soy latte, my manual for my life coach immersion, and my pinktop.

I have so much to say about my time in Santa Cruz. My heart and my head sorta feel like their opening and exploding all over the place. Tha aha's, hmmmmm's, oh shits, and hell yea's are abundantly flowing.

Today what I'm feeling is appreciation.

And just how happens we spent a whole day in my life coach immersion deep in the throes of appreciation.

Each day we have a commitment that we explore. This was commitment #9 and reads like this:

"I commit to living in appreciation, both fully opening to receive and to giving appreciation."

The counter-commitment reads like this:

"I commit to feeling entitled to "what's mine", and to resenting when it's not acknowledged in the way I want. I commit to withholding my appreciation of others. I commit to taking others for granted."

We explored this commitment in the yoga class I taught this morning. During centering we appreciated things in the outer landscape....

The sun and the way the light danced in across the studio floor.
The sounds of the birds chirping.
A bright blue sky.
Plants, flowers, trees.
Spring beginning to burst forth in all Her glory.

We then turned out attention to our inner landscape. An invitation to appreciate our very own magnificent inner landscape.

The feeling of hands resting on legs.
Our legs, belly, back, and chest.
The breath and it's magical ways.
The mind and it's marvelous ways of working.
So much to appreciate.

We began to move and appreciate the marriage of body, movement, and breath.
We appreciated our fingers, wrists, and hands.
They allowed us to drive here, hold a mug of hot tea, hug a dear one.

We appreciated our shoulders in cow face pose.
Our hips in warrior II.
Our hammies in hand to big toe.

We moved into our edge in poses. That place where it feels uncomfortable "to be".
We pondered how appreciation can show up even in these uncomfortable places and feelings....

Could we appreciate our body, our pose, our feelings for what they were now, even in having room to grow in the pose on the mat...
And in our life off the mat?

"I commit to living in appreciation, both fully opening to receive and to giving appreciation."

This is so much of what I strive to bring to my life and my teachings within yoga. Yoga and life...Life and yoga as expression of love and appreciation.

This is the stuff dreams are made of.
This is the stuff my dreams are made of.

I'm feeling deeply, deeply appreciative today.
Too put words to it would take too long.
I'd say too much.

e.e. Cummings says it best with,

"I thank you God
for most this amazing day.
For the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a true blue dream of sky.
For everything which is natural,
which is infinite
which is Yes."

It's good to be home. I've missed You.