The whole pleasure/pain response, that instinctual mechanism, is embedded in the body. We resist pain, and we hold onto what feels good. What could be more natural? And yet what could be more mechanical, conditioned and reactive? We cannot ask the deep survival patterns of our body/mind to disappear. They are very powerful, and quite essential on a certain level of our being. But if we allow this kind of conditioning to dominate us, then we cannot discover our deeper nature, which is presence-- completely open to everything as it is.

We can work with our conditioning in a much gentler way when we are already resting in presence, in an open space of non-judging awareness. This awareness is our foundation. It is simple, open, unstructured, innocent, natural, and right here.  With this kind of awareness we can begin to become intimate with our own experience, with the totality of our experience. Not separating parts out and saying, “This is me, and this is not,” but opening our arms and accepting it all.

Accepting my body just as it is in this moment, listening, breathing, moving, and letting go. When I allow my breath to mirror the openness of my awareness, then the nature of my experience begins to change. I can approach the feeling of discomfort without pulling away or resisting. I can allow myself to open to this feeling, listen to it, respect it, work with it. Not looking to a book or a CD or a teacher, but opening to the wisdom that comes through the body, from moment to moment, that emerges and then disappears. Heart beating by itself, lungs moving by themselves, resting in the simple feeling of being alive.

Some kinds of yoga emphasize the willful, effort-full aspect of the practice, as if, by trying harder, we are going to gain some control over our body. I want to look a little deeper here, because this lies at the heart of everything we are doing. 

In Soma Yoga we begin in a place of deep receptivity, with a willingness to listen to the intelligence that lives in every cell of our body, to listen and respond. Sometimes we are strengthening our core muscles, sometimes we are working with our flexibility, sometimes we are grounding our energy, sometimes we are working with the energy meridians, sometimes we are working with our brain patterns.  But we are not trying to control the life force in the body. We are opening, creating a much wider container so that the life force can flow freely, spontaneously.

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Notes from a non-dual coaching session

I was speaking with someone this morning on a non-dual coaching call. My client, whom I’ll call Bob, said to me, “I still feel separate most of the time. So I have this idea that something should change, there’s another place where I could be that is better than this. I’m just never clear about whether I exist or not.  Sometimes I lose my sense of separation, but a lot of the time it’s still here.  I’ve been wondering about this question for a long time.”

“Okay, “ I said to him. “Let’s stop right here for now. In non-dual practice, one of our main pointers is “What is natural?” Unconditioned awareness is the most natural state of all—totally uncontrived and unstructured. If I really appreciate this, then I can align my practice with something that is quite spontaneous and authentic, something arising from within me, rather than a set of instructions from outside.”

“If you, Bob, are experiencing this as a recurring question, then I hear that life is giving you this inquiry, offering this question to you as your natural koan:  ‘Am I separate or not’?

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Last week I spent a whole day out in the Slocan Valley, sitting and writing with a group of women. We sat on a porch, looking over a pool, fields full of trees and flowers, and the green mountains across the valley. The silence got deeper and deeper. We sat, we wrote, we read out loud, and worked with each other. We walked, stretched, and wrote some more. The whole day passed like this, and it was good. All my life I’ve noticed this—that when we allow ourselves to be creative, a deep contentment fills our being.

The first thing I want to say about creativity is that is belongs to all of us. We are deeply embedded in a relentlessly creative universe. The most natural way we can be is intensely creative. That’s our authentic nature. But we started to believe something else: creativity is for the gifted, for the special, for the other person, not for me.

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Cultivating Inner Qualities

Now that spring is finally here, even in snowy Canada, I’d like to share an exercise that is a great one to do in the spring.

In the Sufi tradition, students work on cultivating and nourishing what are sometimes called ‘soul qualities.’ These qualities come from our core, from presence, from the most authentic and natural part of our being.  As we grow up and become conditioned, we lose track of some of them, while we develop others. Part of what it means to grow into wholeness is to learn how to access these qualities that have been covered or hidden.

One way of doing this is to think of them as seeds you are cultivating and nourishing inside your own being.  Find a pot, fill it with good soil, and plant a seed, or more than one, in the pot. At the same time, choose a quality from the list below, or find one of your own. As you water and care for your seed and watch it emerge and grow, imagine that you are doing the same thing with this quality. Be curious, be playful in the way that you do this. Try thinking of it as a flame you are fanning, or a seed you are watering, rather than something you are lacking.

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I’m writing this in order to encourage you all to let inquiry be an organic and natural process, instead of something that you feel you have to ‘get done’ or impose on yourself.

What I suggest is that you really allow your heart and body to discern which are your questions, which ones are alive and full of meaning for you. And then it’s not about finding time to answer them, it’s about allowing yourself to live with them. For example, Echart Tolle’s question is “What is life asking of me right now?”

Write your questions down and put them on your computer, bathroom mirror or fridge. Carry them into your day, drop them into your body and your heart, and listen to see what emerges. Engage in dialogue about them with anyone else who is interested.

You are not looking for an answer with your mind. There is no answer to these questions. Your whole life is the answer. But if you really live with them, it’s a bit like being on a treasure hunt, and clues will start to appear, as you follow the living thread of your own inquiry.

I hope this helps.
love
Shayla

I’m always on the lookout for questions that can awaken, inspire and transform the whole way we relate to life. Because what I believe about the nature of existence is how I will be experiencing my life, moment to moment.

In his dialogue with Oprah, Eckhart Tolle speaks of a question we can all ask ourselves: “What does life want of me?” Instead of “What do I want of life?” turn it around and ask, “What is life asking of me right now?” If you really ask this question, not just with your mind, but with your heart and body as well, it acts as a
gateway to a whole new way of being in the world.

The other one I love is “What is my relationship to this moment? Am I fighting it, resisting it, arguing with it? Or I am open to it, one with it?” and “What do I want my relationship to this moment to be? Do I want to fight with it, or hope for a better moment in the future? Or do I want to rest here, as I am, and allow this moment to reveal itself to me?”

The way I relate to each moment is the way I relate to this vast mysterious thing we call life.

Enjoy your day.

Love
Shayla

Dear friends: Understanding that we are all interconnected is something that could change the way you experience life in a major way. These discoveries are now emerging in every field, from medicine to quantum physics. Helping you open to a deep sense of interconnection, and your ‘invisible network of support’ is now an integral part of my work.

Here is a great example from Adam Dreamhealer, in response to someone who asked him what he actually sees when he is engaged in his healing work.

Indra’s Net

This universe is like an endless net of invisible threads of energy, of life.  The vertical threads are time, the horizontal threads are space.
In every place where the threads cross, there is a living being, shining like a jewel in this vast net.
The light of Being shines through and penetrates each living point.
And every being shines, reflecting itself, and also reflecting everything -all the reflections of all the reflections in the universe.
We are not separate (Adam Dreamhealer)

There is a wonderful website called livingthefield.com (Lynne McTaggart) that has a lot more information about the field of non-local energy that connects us all.

with love
Shayla Wright
‘Barefoot Journeys’ coaching, courses, workshops & retreats
http://www.barefootjourneys.net

Many years ago in Ottawa, I went swimming one Friday afternoon in the lake. For some reason, the lake water, along with the wax in my ears, swelled up and plugged my ears completely. I couldn’t hear a thing. My doctor could not see me until Monday afternoon, so I spent 3 whole days in a state of total deafness. 
On Monday, the doctor cleared my ears with a jet of water. What happened next only lasted about 2 minutes, but I’ll never forget it. Because I had been so deaf, when my hearing suddenly returned I found myself listening to the whole field of sound, all at once. In that field were thousands of tiny tinkling sounds that I had never heard before.  I felt as if I had fallen into a vast web of sound, an enormous symphony of little chirping microscopic noises. I sat there for 2 or 3 minutes, dumbfounded, until my normal sense of hearing returned and the beautiful soft sounds disappeared from my conscious awareness. 

Something happened to me recently that was very much like that experience in Ottawa . It all began with gratitude. Over the last while some miracles have happened in my life. I don’t really know how or why these powerful blessings have emerged. I call them miracles because they appeared all of a sudden, for no reason that I know of.  Events like these do not explain themselves! They remain forever connected to a profound sense of mystery.

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I wanted to share something with you about and self-acceptance, and how much I have learned about this from Radiant Mind and Peter Fenner. Someone was speaking to him recently about how when they sit in meditation, they access an open, unconditioned place. But when they come back to ordinary life, they lose it. And feel bad, unworthy, frustrated, disappointed-pick the word that is appropriate for you.

Peter said, “Of course that happens. It happens to all of us. No matter how skillful we become at accessing that place of unconditioned awareness, we can lose it in a second. It’s nothing to feel bad about. It’s just the way things are, until you evolve to a whole different level of consciousness.” I realized in that moment that I had been feeling bad about that one thing for 30 years! That I had actually used my spiritual practice to torture myself about the fact that I couldn’t stay in the state I wanted to be in. Isn’t that amazing? And somewhat ridiculous?

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I’ve been thinking lately about all the years I’ve spent working with people, and how much of that work has been centered around unraveling our fixed sense of identity. One of my ‘Gift of Presence’ students called it “a joyous unraveling.” There are an infinite number of ways that we can relate to our identity, our ego, our sense of separate self.  Some people want to understand their ego, some want to improve it, some want to destroy it.  And of course some people just want to dress it up and take it out.

There is a lot of controversy in spiritual circles about all this. What to do? How to proceed? Do I embrace my identity? Do I expand it, do I dissolve it?  Is it real? Is it an illusion? Do I need therapy, or coaching, or meditation? Or three years in an ashram? I don’t think so.

The whole conundrum seems so much simpler to me now than it used to. I think that’s because I’ve learned to trust my own experience, and the experience of my students and friends. For me, the simple truth of the matter is this: we all get tired of ourselves!  Being a separate person all the time is exhausting. That’s why it’s so hard on people when they can’t sleep. Sleep is a total release from our whole waking-state identity.

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There was a phrase from one of the scriptures that we heard a lot in India. It would get inside my head and make my mind itch. “What is poison for you in the beginning,” it said, “will be nectar for you at the end. And what is nectar at the beginning, will become poison for you at the end.” I’ve been connecting with the
meaning of this lately, in a whole new way. Somehow this experience has lifted me up, encouraged me, and awakened me to new possibilities for our future.

How we know ourselves, how we imagine ourselves, can feel so solid and static. And how quickly it can change. Our whole identity can open and expand in a moment, no matter how much resistance we are feeling.

About a year and a half ago I came to a turning point in relationship to Mother Earth and my willingness to live a sustainable life. I realized that prayers, recycling and emails to our government were not going to do it for me. I felt this longing, deep in my heart, to take a big step forward. And I kept wondering why we humans so often wait until things are totally desperate before we are willing to do things differently.

Gradually it became clear to me that I wanted to learn to live without my car. I was quite surprised by this, as I was very attached to my car. It was a Honda Accord I inherited from my mother, after 25 years of living in India without one. It represented freedom, mobility, and the spirit of adventure. I would think about letting go of it and feel a lot of resistance.

But the longing was even stronger than my resistance- I knew that to be true. I was preparing to go to a Radiant Mind teacher training course in France this fall, and in July it became obvious that the only way I would be able to afford the trip was by selling my car. Isn’t it strange how the universe conspires to help you evolve and grow, even when you think you are not ready?

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When I speak, it is not my intention to tell you how to live, what you should believe, or how to improve yourself.

My intention is to offer some pointers, some radical new perspectives that will shake you up, and loosen the fixed ways you have of looking at yourself and your world.

Instead of filling you up with more information, these pointers can awaken you to a field of intelligence which I am calling ‘The Heart.’ This field of intelligence functions in an entirely different way than your conditioned mind.

Discovering the nature of this wisdom for ourselves allows us to ask ourselves some powerful questions about what is actually working in our lives, what we really want, and what matters most. 

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“Only the unexpected is real.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

Did you ever notice how certain themes run through your life, rising up and falling away, only to appear again sometime later, maybe in a slightly different form?  For me, over the last while, it’s been about creativity, spontaneity, the flow of life which is unstructured and unrehearsed.

We had a great discussion about it one evening in my ‘Alchemy of Writing’ group. I’ve been offering to my students a vision of creativity as something that is innate and universal, because it is our true nature. It’s not something that belongs to anyone, and especially not to a privileged or special group of people. Creativity is how the whole universe emerges into form- over and over it demonstrates this spontaneous power of expression at the very heart of life.

When I really allow my heart to open to the sense of this vast field of creative energy, I realize that each one of us was born to discover ourselves through this process of free expression- to experience directly that who we are is not a fixed and static thing, but a flow of energy that is always new and dynamic.

As we explored this way of looking at things in my class, we realized that a lot of confusion happens when we equate creativity with skill. They are not the same. Skill is a learned thing, something acquired through practice and intention. We can practice creativity too, but only in the sense of learning how to open, to surrender to something that we can never control.  Rumi was pointing to this when he said, “The more skill you have, the further you are from what your deepest love wants.”

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Soma Yoga Retreat in Yelapa Mexico, Soma Yoga & Transformation

Dear friends and yogis:

One of my longtime yoga students, Tracey Scanlan and I are offering a Soma Yoga retreat in Yelapa, Mexico, Dec. 1-8. The full flyer is at the end of this newsletter. Please speak to us if you have questions. It’s going to be a marvelous retreat, an opportunity for deep renewal and awakening.

I have been encouraging all of my students to relate to their yoga practice as a living, evolving thing. If we do this, then our experience keeps growing deeper and more alive-we stay on the ‘living edge’ of what is unfolding for us.

Since the spring, we have been going deeper, opening up to ‘the inner body,’ the whole field of energy and presence that underlies our physical body. When we are able to directly contact the aliveness that the body is actually made of, our capacity to heal, regenerate and renew ourselves really opens up.

We have also been focusing on building more core strength, grounding down into the earth, and experiencing how that core strength supports us in showing up for our life, and meeting each challenge as it arises.

The original purpose of yoga was to connect you with your authentic being, which is not a separate, static thing, but a living, flowing field of presence.
When we look at the body from the outside, it certainly appears as a solid object. But when we drop inside and open to our inner experience, all that we find is a stream of experience, sensation, and feeling. And when we let go a little more, we realize there is a lot of spaciousness and tenderness in this experience, an openness that lies at the heart of who we really are.

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