Each month, “My Better Day” newsletter contains tips for your yoga practice, yoga quotes to bring yoga off the mat and into your life, affirmations to brighten your day and motivate, and more! It is my wish for your well-being that I send this newsletter to help make your day a Better Day!
My primary goal for 2011 is to continue to share the transformative power of yoga and wellness with you. Can you help me with this goal? Here are a few ways that you could help:
1. If you have enjoyed my offerings this past year including classes or newsletter, please let me know via an email testimonial or suggest new ways to improve my offerings.
2. Spread the joy and wisdom of yoga and wellness by sharing my newsletters with friends and family.
3. If your company is interested in an on-site program, please inquire for
details. Better Day Yoga LLC offers On-Site Corporate programs like Yoga, Meditation/Breathwork, and “At-the-desk” classes to fit your budget and benefit the physical and mental health of your employees. Let’s talk about the many benefits to both the employer and employee that Corporate On-Site Programs offer.
In this issue: Yoga quote, Practice yoga pose, Meditation on the go, Chakrascope, Hand Mudra, Featured Card Deck and Quote, Healthy News, Featured Recipe, Favorite Yoga Music / DVD, Happenings at Better Day Yoga LLC, Final Relaxation Quote.
*By the way–this newsletter is one of the 8 part/posts newsletters. They took quite a bit of time so I began doing single post newsletters after the February/March 2014 newsletter. That being said, if you want all of the posts of one newsletter for the 8 part/posts, please hit the back button to go back to all the posts listed with the newsletter your’re reading. Hope that makes sense!
Namasté,
Sandy Krzyzanowski
Founder, Better Day Yoga LLC
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”—John Lennon.
I’ve been dwelling on Lennon’s quote a lot lately. When I first heard it, I was obviously younger and I recall thinking “that’s probably true” and then dismissed it without much analysis. Fast forward several years (let’s not count) and a lifetime later, and this quote has come to have more validity for me. It’s been hitting home for me lately. Perhaps I’ve just had a run of things not going according to plan, or perhaps the older I get, the more I dwell on “the plan” and how it’s going. Sometimes I forget to add flexibility into the plan. How about you? I think whenever you have an idea of how things should go, and it doesn’t go exactly according to the plan, that’s life. We can tend to get attached to the exact outcome we are looking for, though, can’t we?
For starters, let’s take Christmas. For me, Christmas has always been a special time of year which holds a unique magic. So expectations are high. Even in the midst of unhappy family Christmases growing up, I found joy in the season. As mentioned in my last newsletter, I even gave a speech in college on believing in Santa. We have an annual Christmas party (28th annual this year!) where our house is decorated to the max. I like to say I’m either Santa’s elf, Mrs. Santa Claus, or the representation of Scrooge’s ghost for “Christmas present”. Have you ever seen that room the ghost first appears in? That’s our house at Christmas. We start decorating right after Halloween so we have plenty of time to get the job done without panicking. So this year when the blizzard decided to land on our party date, I was among the many regrouping. Shortly after that, we watched a Christmas movie that kept saying “Things always work out at Christmas”. I held on to that mantra. I’ve decided to use it all year with a little adjustment—“Things always work out.”
I get regular emails from Mike Dooley’s “Totally Unique Thoughts from the Universe”. When you subscribe to the newsletter, you get to input your name and a goal so the emails are personalized. This one came to me today, and I thought it was appropriate: “Whenever something doesn’t work out the way you thought it would instead of thinking that something went wrong, see it as something that went unexpectedly well, but for reasons that are not yet apparent.
Everything plays to your favor.
Score!
The Universe”
There are several quotes along these lines, and since you know I love quotes, here are a few of them: “Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while here we may as well dance!” Or, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” And then there’s “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I couldn’t change the weather. Nor could I change the fact that most people wouldn’t be able to reserve two weekends in a row in December for attending our party. So I rescheduled it and moved on from there.
Rescheduling the party the week after the blizzard created a whole domino effect of rearranging, delaying, and canceling in other areas—not the least of which was a delay in this newsletter getting done. Moving the party out to the next week meant more time spent preparing for the party (repeat the cleaning, cooking, etc.); less time available to be spent on “regular” Christmas stuff like shopping and wrapping—that’s life. “It is what it is.”—My ultimate favorite.
In retrospect, it sounds like I took it in stride. Well at the time I didn’t, but I came around as we all do. We can all make the best of it. We can all make it work because what are our options? “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
This reminds me of the story of the Taoist farmer:
This farmer had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to condole over his terrible loss. The farmer said, “Good, bad—who’s to say?”
A month later, the horse came home—this time bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer’s good fortune. Such lovely strong horses! The farmer said, “Good, bad—who’s to say?”
The farmer’s son was thrown from one of the wild horses and broke his leg. All the neighbors were very distressed. Such bad luck! The farmer said, “Good, bad—who’s to say?”
A war came, and every able-bodied man was conscripted and sent into battle. Only the farmer’s son, because he had a broken leg, remained. The neighbors congratulated the farmer. “Good, bad—who’s to say?” said the farmer.
Who’s to say that the party rescheduling was good or bad? It just was. No labels needed.
Have you heard Jerry Seinfeld’s skit on how close “sucks” and “great” really are? Hang in there through to the end of the skit. The hot dog analogy is great:
Yes the very best lesson you can learn in life is that “sucks” and “great” are pretty close or who’s to say if they’re not the exact same thing? “Good, bad—who’s to say”?
In the midst of all this regrouping and rearranging, I started down the “oh, woe is me” line of thinking until I realized that if there was to be a blizzard, the weekend was probably a better time to have one than a typical work day. There were less people needing to travel. Likewise, I planned on bringing the 3rd of eight weekend yoga trainings I had to miss as a stand-alone workshop to my own yoga studio’s location in April since it’s on one of my favorite subjects—the energy of chakras! (Read the Chakrascope section intro below for a crash summary on chakras.) So I was actually saving myself some money by not paying for the class twice. We also had already moved tickets to a play we were scheduled to see from that weekend to another date due to the yoga training conflict. So when the blizzard hit, we already had the play moved to a different weekend—yet another “save”. Just like the “TUT” email said, everything really does play to your favor. It’s all a matter of how you look at it.
The domino effect caused by the storm didn’t have to be labeled “good” or “bad”. It just is (what it is). I’ve often read “you are exactly where you’re supposed to be”. My husband often offers a similar sentiment: “It is what it’s supposed to be.” At the time I hear these expressions, I’m not always ready for their message, but in retrospect, they are as comforting to me as “Things always work out.” Perhaps it is in their expression that the turning point from “sucks” to “great” can occur. Polar opposites, after all, exist on the same plane. You just need to shift your position. It isn’t the situation that needs changing; it’s your view of it.
“Just know that every single person is exactly where they need to be to learn exactly what they need to learn. We can’t be in the wrong place.” –Andrea Smith, Andrea Smith Gallery. (She also has a weekly “Enlighten up” message. Her gallery is filled with Quan Yin’s—the Goddess of Compassion—a personal favorite. So I love to “window shop” through her emails and Website: http://www.andreasmithgallery.com/index.php.)
What lessons did 2010 provide for you? I think I learn the best lessons are when things don’t go according to plan. Your biggest problem is your best teacher. The person that bothers you the most holds your greatest lesson. That sucks, but it’s great. After all, we can easily pick that which bothers us the most. So then all that’s left is to find the lesson—the greatest lesson. It’s like life gives us a map to find our greatest lessons by presenting them first as the loudest annoyance.
My April 2010 newsletter featured the card deck, The Power Deck, Cards of Wisdom, © 1991 by Lynn V. Andrews. It has a “Strength” card that expresses this sentiment beautifully: “The person who upsets you most in your life is one of your best teachers. If that person can get inside your head, turn you around, and confuse you, you know that you still don’t understand what you are doing. You need more strength. Learn by seeing that your life is a teaching. Like the red lotus healing its pain in inner solitude, gain strength from entering your wounds, and learn from them. The magician remembers the trail and takes a different one, even if it is more difficult. In this way, you build strength.”
What was your loudest annoyance in 2010? Find the lesson. Remember “sucks” and “great” can be pretty darned close, if not the same. Did something not go according to “plan”? Maybe it’s the “plan” that needs altering. Happiness is loving what you have.
Maybe it’s the measuring stick of your plan that is all wrong. I am realizing that the monetary measure of success is over-rated, and you probably won’t believe me when I tell you that this thought was already in my newsletter draft when I got another email message earlier from the “Totally Unique Thoughts from the Universe”: “The pursuit of money as a means to anything usually means (almost always means) that someone, somewhere, at least momentarily, has taken their “eye” off of what it is they really want.
Tricky that way, huh?
Yours,
The Universe”
Yes, monetary success is important, but only one possible measure of success is monetary. There are many others—such as did you do all that you could to grow? Did you connect with some wonderful people along the way? Did you get up again each time you fell? If you answered “yes”, then that’s great. If you answered “no” that sucks, but all it takes to turn it back into “great” is to get back up again. After all, it’s the getting up again that’s life. It’s the “dancing in the rain”, referenced earlier, that’s life.
I’ve spent my life working for other people. Now I’m working as the owner of my own business. I keep looking behind my shoulder fearing disapproval from the powers that be, but I am slowly remembering to remind myself I’m my own boss. When it comes down to it, we are all our own bosses. We all answer to “the person in the mirror”. That can be great, but it can also suck.
Others can view your attempts as failures or misfortunes, but it’s your own view that counts. If you choose to let it be neither good nor bad, that’s great, because it will never suck. Remember, you get to choose the measuring stick.
I consider each and every yoga student I’ve had the honor to teach as a blessing in my life. I end each yoga class with a couple of silent prayers. The first one is a hope that I’ve filled my student’s cups with what they personally needed at that moment, be it a work out or a “work in”. Sometimes I am left wondering how well I did. I worry that I may not have provided exactly what they were looking for perhaps, and that sucks. Sometimes they tell me I’ve given them just what they needed, and that’s great.
I’m slowly remembering to remind myself I’ve done my best and it doesn’t need to be labeled good or bad—so it should never suck. This idea of perfection we are all striving for is setting ourselves up for disappointment because just what is perfection? Is it even achievable? Or put another way, will you honestly ever let what YOU’VE done be labeled perfect? Our egos like being in control. We need to detach from that inner judge.
One of my favorite authors, Wayne Dyer, has a new book called The Power of Intention, Learning to Co-create Your World Your Way. The day after I was writing the above, I found myself randomly opening this book to the following:
“Let go of your reputation. Your reputation is not located in you. It resides in the minds of others. Therefore, you have no control over it at all. If you speak to 30 people, you will have 30 reputations. Connecting to intention means listening to your heart and conducting yourself based on what your inner voice tells you is your true purpose here. If you’re overly concern with how you’re going to be perceived by everyone, then you’ve disconnected yourself from intention and allowed the opinions of others to guide you. This is your ego at work. It’s an illusion that stands between you and the power of intention. There’s nothing you can’t do, unless you disconnect from the power source and become convinced that your purpose is to prove to others how masterful and superior you are and spend your energy attempting to win a giant reputation among other egos. Do what you do because your inner voice—always connected to and grateful to your Source—so directs you. Stay on purpose, detach from outcome, and take responsibility for what does reside in you: your character. Leave your reputation for others to debate; it has nothing to do with you. Or as a book title says: What you Think of Me is None of my Business!” This ties in well with my second silent prayer:
My second silent prayer is a prayer to “stay centered in my comment to learn, grown, and teach with a positive intent and positive energy”. Because as long as I can stay committed to THAT, I am able to release the work to the Universe. Good, bad, who’s to say? I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now. It is what it’s supposed to be. Things always work out.
