Sunday, September 5, 2010

Our inner self talk...

Tonight while doing an exercise that I learned in my yoga training called inquiry I came to some interesting realizations. First off, inquiry involves another person sitting with you and asking you two questions, giving you time to respond and talk as long as you want. The first question is "what are you experiencing right now" the second is "how does it feel to acknowledge that." So you sit and get quiet with yourself and really tune inwardly about how you are feeling right at that moment. The other person does not engage with you they just hold space for how you are feeling. It is a great way to see how quickly our emotions change and how they pass, one into the other and that is happening all day everyday. Sometimes we can let ourselves get so caught up in an emotion that it consumes us and can bring us down. Inquiry really shows you how quickly that can pass and that you can begin to become the witness to your thoughts and emotions and watch them come and go without judgement.

While I was doing my inquiry tonight, I at one point was feeling very proud of myself for accomplishing my 500 hour yoga teacher training and for really having come a long way in a short amount of time considering all the struggles I had been through in the last year and a half.

I presented a workshop on Saturday about the feminine energy and I thought it went really well and opened a lot of doors for people. So while explaining all of this in my inquiry process, this inner voice said quit talking about yourself so much, get off your high horse. I paused for a moment and then continued to talk about myself and to be ok with that. It is so crucial to acknowledge our hard work in our lives and how far we have come. For me this was really important for two reasons, one I don't give myself enough outward credit, really speaking it out and letting myself hear how far I have come. Secondly, it was interesting to hear my own inner critic saying stop talking about yourself, listen to how boastful you sound. It was interesting to hear that after all the work I have done on myself. We are our own harshest critic, so knowing that that will always be there it is important to acknowledge and then decide whether or not we are going to listen to it. I chose not to and continued talking about myself. But it is almost scary to hear how judgmental we can be of ourselves. Even of just speaking nicely out loud about ourselves. For me this was a huge revelation.

Also, we did some art this evening in my group that I put together. My roommate led the art project and encouraged us to just let the painting flow and not think of what you are doing or trying to control it in any way. I heard my inner critic again saying this looks silly, etc. But the minute I let all of that go something beautiful came on the page.

So letting go of our perceptions of how we think things should look like or be. Knowing that is just the inner critic thinking it knows better, knows what we need or want. That is really just our ego, afraid of us letting go. Knowing that when we let go the magic happens. Something more powerful, more creative takes over and the ego is no longer in control. Something bigger is moving our paintbrush, playing our instrument, or writing a great piece of work. Something profound and beautiful comes out of that and we feel it on a much deeper level and others experience our work on deeper levels. That is when you can really say that creative work moved me. So it is time to stop listening to that inner critic and start letting go and giving into the present moment. Giving into the magic of what is. Acknowledge what the inner critic has to say, mentally say thank you for your concern, but today I am going to do this instead of listen to you. Begin to see how your activities change, how your self talk changes and how life seems a little more free. Letting go of control, letting go to what is, being more authentic and less how you think you should be. It is a beautiful way to be.

Love and light,

Erin

Aug. 30, 2010

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