Newsletter
Wednesday September 21, 2011

Dear Visitor

Greetings!

 Welcome to our September edition of The Sunbeamer.

Spring is in the air; the magpies are swooping, the footy final is looming and love or hate it, the feisty north wind blows... bringing change, pollen, new growth and the promise of summer…

So dust yourself off, blow away the cobwebs, clean your windows, (both physical & metaphorical), and take a fresh look at the budding new life that is sprouting all around and within us.

Read on for all our spring news here at the studio, we have fantastic new membership deals available, early morning yoga is back on the schedule and we are now taking bookings for our very special weekend workshop in November with my teacher, Paul Wooden.

Spring is the perfect time to be inspired to take fresh steps towards living a life more aligned to your deep inner truth. So this month, Belinda & I take a look at the all important yama about truth, Satya.

And big congratulations to our talented Belinda for her wonderful article Worrier to Warrior, which is featured in the current edition of Australian Yoga Life. Next time you go past a newsagent check it out, it is the first article in the magazine, what a coup!

Love Claire xx

Satya - The whole truth and nothing but the truth...

There is no god higher than truth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

This is part 2 of the article looking at the first 2 yamas, ahimsa & satya, (the ethical, yogic guidelines of acting with non-violence & truthfulness). These two yamas are the foundation of my moral compass and they inspire me to strive to live an honest & compassionate life. They work together and each keeps the other in check. Brutal truth can be very harmful and unkind, but all non-harm that squashes truth can be limiting and full of fear.

Consider the Chinese proverb:

Tension is who you think you should be,
relaxation is who you are.

When we act from a place of personal honesty and openness we are expressing our deep personal truth. When we live from this place of truth we reveal our true nature; we can relax, there is no internal battle wearing us down and we are in alignment.

Part of the process of maturing is learning acceptance, developing and fine tuning our awareness and letting go of our learned behaviours that do not serve us well. The more we struggle with who and what we are the more tension and discomfort we produce. The more skillful awareness we develop the more easily we notice the misalignment and then in turn we can choose to change our direction.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. 
~ Leo Tolstoy

Truth just is; simple and profound, the secret is to relax and let go, to trust in the integrity of our true nature and allow ourselves to be revealed; the big, bold, complete, extended volumes… the wonderful, wild and ridiculous ‘warts and all’ total picture... No two of us are the same, how remarkable is that? Of all the billions of beings that have lived and died on this insignificant speck of rock in the universe every one of us is 100% unique. It really is astonishing. So who are we NOT to shine our brilliant and beautiful selves out into the cosmos for all to enjoy? It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us the most and if we embrace our light, it inspires and helps others to do the same.

The tricky bit is being brave enough to live day in, day out from a place of truth; to have the determination, strength and courage to forge your own path. Where is the path? Nobody has walked it before, so you need to discover the tools to find it, see it, feel it and enjoy it! Walking this virgin path means doing things that go against the common grain, it means standing naked for all to see, it means being prepared to go it alone when you find yourself swimming against the tide. It means being prepared to cop the flack when others challenge you and try to make you walk their path.

The discovery and expression of our deep inner truth walks hand in hand with its best friend, ahimsa. Can you express yourself with non-harming and kindness in mind? Before you speak or act can you pause and ask, “Is this true? Is it necessary? Is it harmful?”

Our practise of yoga is fertile ground for discovering and tending our true path. Each time we do yoga we ask ourselves to sense, feel and open into our truth. It is not something we need to manufacture, it is just there. What is happening right now, where is my truth in this action? Am I hiding, am I boasting, am I being harmful?

Yes, this is serious stuff, but as always we can make it a playful adventure of self discovery… you may as well enjoy the wandering and wondering, right?

Truth is tough.  It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch, nay, you may kick it all about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Belinda's Banter

Truth will set you free.

These words sound old and clichéd but they are actually very wise.

Not only is honesty important in our relationships, workplaces and daily life but it is essential to our yoga practice and self development.

Have you ever lied to yourself? Very few of us can deny making excuses or bending the truth to suit our desires and excuse our shortcomings. Yet though we might get away with lying to others, we always know deep down when we are lying to ourselves. 

We might think that a few white lies never hurt anyone and lying to ourselves isn’t so bad. After all, we are the only ones who can get hurt by it right? Right, but there is the problem - we are doing harm by lying to ourselves, by supporting unhealthy habits or mindsets we are going against both Ahimsa, non harm and Satya, truthfulness.

Facing the truth and being completely honest with yourself sounds easy enough but is a challenge. Becoming aware of when our thoughts try to avoid or bend the truth is a good place to start. Once we are aware of the areas we are avoiding we can look into how to change these habits.

With Spring in the air it is a great time for growth and new beginnings so spending time outdoors reflecting on what you find can be very helpful. Breathe in the transitional energy of Spring and let it bring change to wherever it’s needed.

Love & Light

Belinda

Our feature Student of the Month

Introducing our Gold Member,
Maree Lewis

Maree is my much loved student, neighbour and friend. I met her about 8 years ago and she has been a regular student ever since.

She is an absolute inspiration to me and a delight to be in the company of. She approaches life with passion, good humour and maturity and is a living example of the SunYoga tag line, embrace life and shine. She does and she does!

Who was the first person to say yes when I suggested going for a midnight swim at Mission Beach only 2 weeks ago? What more can I say?

Here is her story…

I really was in a bit of a state when I started yoga. It was 21 years ago & I was a very busy working mother of four in my forties. I was under a lot of pressure, (at that particular point more than the usual rough and tumble that life throws at you), and I was exhausted, stressed and scared. I knew something had to happen and decided it might be a good idea to find a yoga class that I could go along to with my sister.

Yoga session number one was at Footscray Pool with loud gym classes going on and screaming children in the pool, but in spite of all the noise I enjoyed it and I loved the relaxation. It felt so different to any other type of class and I took to it like a duck to water.

Finding yoga felt like a blessing, it gave me the time to stop and look inside myself. It helped me to see through the chaos of my life and get some new perspective. It made me realise that everything was in fact OK and that life was not impossible. I could stop, take a big breath and go back into the world feeling lighter… After class I felt like a different person and would always come home feeling refreshed and relaxed.

There were many times through those early years that it was a big effort to get to the classes. My teacher had moved to Williamstown and often it would have been easier to not make the effort to travel. I often had to really push myself to go. My sister & our daughters have attended with me off and on over the years, but I stuck with it and kept going regularly. It felt like something I had to do! I started going twice a week and got really good at it and loved it. I lost weight, the kids were by then starting to leave home and it felt like something really good, something for me...

Throughout all my years of yoga, (and it still regularly happens today), the yoga class finishes and as you are leaving you find yourself looking at another student and you both say,

“I really didn’t feel like coming to yoga today, I was tired and wanted to stay at home, but I am so glad I did because I feel so much better!”

There have been 3 wonderful yoga teachers in my life over the 21 years and Claire is one of them. We met when she came to take over my last teacher’s class in Newport about 8 years ago and I have been attending her yoga classes ever since. It is lucky for me that she lives around the corner & decided to open her studio within walking distance of my house.

Yoga is not for me a place to do amazing poses or push my body beyond its limits, but to be kind and caring to myself, which in my busy life often gets put aside for all the other things I do.

I am now retired, moving into my late sixties and I go to yoga more than ever. I am still very busy with my children, 12 grandchildren, family, friends & neighbours.   My love of yoga continues to grow and develop and I have noticed a big shift since I started attending retreats as well as classes about 3 years ago. Going to retreats has added to my yoga experience, it is lovely to have the time to slowly enjoy longer sessions twice a day or more, eat wonderful food, enjoy great company and have loads of fun.

My retreat experiences got me thinking why can’t I go to yoga this much all the time, I mean really why not? I have tried to do yoga at home but it just isn’t the same. It seems impossible to get the mental focus that you get in a class and there is always something going on to distract and interrupt me, the phone, someone comes to the door…  

So when SunYoga introduced the gold membership I was very happy. It is very affordable and now I can do a class whenever I want, even twice a day sometimes! At first I felt guilty about going so often and thought they would get sick of the sight of me… It is wonderful knowing that the studio is there. I love the fact that I don’t even have to think about the money, there are lots of classes to choose from and it is much better than going to a gym.

As I am heading into my late 60's I know yoga is very good for my health, even more so than when I was younger, it helps me to concentrate on myself for set times during the week and brings me back to me. A lot of the weight bearing and opening postures are very challenging and you use your body in a yoga class in ways that you just don’t do in everyday life. But if you don’t use all the bits then they stop working, and the older you get the more important this becomes.

Claire & Belinda’s eclectic approach to yoga means that classes are always different, I am never bored, and what adds to my pleasure is that it is fun! I never come into a class & think “Oh, here we go again”, this is what keeps me coming back. We laugh, it is social and I enjoy mixing with the other students, people of all ages, it keeps me young…

I am a lucky woman to have found yoga when I did and very lucky to have found 3 wonderful teachers…
Thank you!

And one more thing...

Thanks to Lea who is the messenger of this month's furry deity… Hope you like it!

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches & pains,
If you can resist complaining & boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day & be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism & blame without resentment,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without alcohol,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

Then You Are Probably... The Family Dog!