Yoga Inspirations

In my own yoga practice and in teaching I find inspiration from many different places, both on and off the mat.  One of my biggest inspirations has been my mentor and teacher, Laurel Hodory, who I have studied with over the past year and whom I did my 200 hour training with.  Aside from Laurel one of my other biggest inspirations has been Kathryn Budig.  I first came across Kathryn when I signed up to take a workshop with her at last year’s Yoga Journal conference in San Francisco.

Kathryn embodies what I go to the mat to find: strength, play, confidence, and acceptance.  Since I can’t practice with her in person I frequently do her classes via YogaGlo, an online yoga subscription service that has a wealth of amazing teachers.  I never know what to expect in her classes and she challenges me both mentally and physically.  At times I end up in places I never imagined and at times I choose to not push so hard.  She has a brutal, positive, refreshing honesty about her and I admire that.

Her last two classes on YogaGlo have at times almost brought me to tears as she talks about how strong we are for just doing a certain posture.  This means a lot even though it is conveyed via a computer screen and especially if it is a day where I am struggling with my body.  If I can flip the negative self talk into how strong I really am it helps to get me out of my head.  Instead of focusing on the feeling of my flesh I can flip in into:

“Yeah I really did just do that.  That is awesome.”

At times yoga instructors, especially those who are well known can be idealized as very thin, wiry, and strong. Depending on the day this could also be triggering as I think I have to be that way to be an amazing yogi. It is refreshing for me to see Kathryn who is strong and shapely and can still do amazing things with her body without having protruding bones!

Before I left for Vermont I did her most recent class.  In it she discusses 2012 as being the year of learning to listen to our bodies, to listen to what we really want and not where our minds take us.  If we listen enough she says our bodies will tell us the answers as they are wise creations.

Jetting off to Vermont I have the opportunity before me to really step into this.  To step into listening to my body and throwing away routine and that which my mind dictates.  Before leaving admitidtly some of my over-exercising instincts were trying to rear their ugly head and indeed in the time leading up to my departure they were trying to get me to get into the old preemptive working out game.  While I didn’t give into that I still was struggling with doing too much at times.

Wait you say, isn’t doing too much really preemptive working out?  No not in my head.  I have categories for it all and this wasn’t falling into that. Ridiculous and all just semantical, right?

This is also the first winter in over ten years where I’m effectively not on an antidepressant type medicine.  As discussed in the early fall I had been working to taper off my Effexor XR.  I ended up at a place where I am now taking a very low dose which I pretty much count as nothing.  It has taken a while but I am noticing some of the mental noise coming back as a result of this.  Not so much depression, but mostly anxiety and OCD type tendencies.  I am hoping that these noises don’t get too loud that they can’t still be quieted through yoga and mediation.

Here is to a 2012 and to continuing to listen and hearing my body!

Photo Credits: kathrynbudig.com