Yoga Pose for August - Eagle Pose

Eagle Pose
Sanskrit: Garudasana
Image courtesy of my Husband, Don Anderson.
Taken in the beautiful WWI Park in Plainville, MA.

Eagle pose is great for opening up the back, working with the shoulders and really strengthening the legs, knees and ankles. Can relieve cramps of the legs. Many benefits are held in this balance pose. As you hold you feel your strength. Find peace and quiet the mind. Everything is inside and your power is expanded upon while you maintain this pose.

Directions on how to come into the pose:
Stand in the powerful Mountain Pose. Feet walking distance apart. Straight, activated arms and legs, good posture. From here begin to bend your left knee and bring your right thigh over right left knee. From here you can keep it modified as you sit back and place your foot on the floor or you can bind your right foot around the lower left calf as you see here in the image to the right. Balancing on the left foot. Then while sitting back in this position, you can wrap your right arm under the left arm and bind your wrists so palms are touching. If binding is a challenge and for those with wrist issues you may simple allow your forearms to come together with palms facing each other. Now from here take your bound arms and allow the elbows to stretch out away from your body and lift up. Shoulders are over your hips here. Hold here and breathe. Challenge yourself by sitting lower. Challenge yourself even more by coming into a bound foward fold, nice and slow and gracefully rising back up in this position. Another challenge is to simply close eyes and maintain good balance. Come out and switch sides after a few breaths. Do this a few times on each side. The more you practice this you will be able to maintain good balance in this pose for a good few minutes or longer. :)

When not to do this pose or to modify/Contraindications:
Those with knee issues may find this pose challenging. To start use the modification I've offered above. The more you practice this and other yoga poses you will strengthen your knees again and be able to eventually come into this full pose. Don't rush yourself. Just honor the wisdom of your body always.

Come As You Are

Come As You Are

Forget everything. Come as you are.

"The roses bloom so beautifully because they are not trying to become lotuses. All effort is futile. You have to be just yourself." ~Osho

Reading the above quote gets me raw and real and allows me to relax into myself. I can take a deep cleansing breath. There is no out there. There is only in here. In here is where the "out there" comes from. All our thoughts, decisions, beliefs, limiting beliefs, etc. are from the inside first and then as we choose to think them or believe in them, we resonate that vibration out to the world and that attracts to us our circumstances and experiences. It's time to let go of it all. Let go and surrender to just coming to the table as you are.

Forget everything. Come as you are. In yoga, there is a saying that yoga meets you where you are. Wherever you are at, there you are. Even in yoga one will strive too far in the future for something that their body is not ready for or reach too far in the past for something they regretfully gave up or experienced and limit themselves in a pose where they can strive to evolve. But we always come back to the present. In yoga it is about living now, breathing now and Being now. Come as you are. All the other stuff in your life is just that. Stuff. A blip on the manifesting radar and then it's gone. But your divine essence is still there, always there, never changing or leaving. It is your true self.

Sit back and listen. Your still small voice within, that essence is always ready to expand out to you. Dive into yourself and hear the blissful peace. Nothing that has even happened to you or that may ever happen to you will ever take this away from you. Because it IS you. Just know and breathe.

So as in yoga, it is in life. Life takes you as you are. Wherever you are on your path that is what you bring. You bring your true essence to everything. So let's do our best to not allow our ego and limiting beliefs dictate our truest selves anymore. Let's do our best not to be fake anymore with people. Let's do our best to be our authentic selves. We can be loud about our authenticity and we can also be graceful in its intensity or soft soothing way. We are complex and yet very simple beings. We exist and therefore we are expressing the divine through us. Allow what IS to come out. We do not need to stuff down our authentic beautiful selves anymore. It's time to simply come as we are, say what we say and be whatever we be. Relax.

Eckhart Tolle quotes a Zen master in his July 2010 newsletter as saying, “'Don’t seek for the truth – just cease cherishing opinions'. And that’s enough."

As you relax into yourself you will rejuvenate your soul. The air is easier to breathe. Your body will feel the surrender into yourself. Your life will feel more blessed because it is. You will transform who you have always been. Allow yourself to be you. Come as you are.

Enjoy, live, laugh and love always!

Blessings to you on your path,
~Spiritual Cheerleader