Finding Safety in the Present: Eliminating Time

Scott more and I are teaching a workshop this Saturday at 10MST called Finding Safety in the Present: Eliminating Time. If you haven’t had the pleasure of taking a class with Scott, you won’t want to miss this. He is a gifted teacher, writer, author, mentor and all around amazing person. One of Scott’s super powers is that he really lives his teachings. If you've ever read his blogs you know that he has a wealth of knowledge (decades in fact). The language he uses holds all of the wisdom of yogic philosophy, made accessible for the modern yogi. And lucky for us, his “specialty” is yoga nidra which he’ll be bringing into our workshop.  

So yes, getting to experience yoga nidra with Scott is a no-brainer but you are also probably wondering what the workshop is all about and what it means to eliminate time?

No surprise, I’ll start the answer with a question:

How much time do you spend thinking about past events? 

We all do it. We perseverate about what went wrong, what we said, what we didn’t say and on and on. We take an experience that was painful or uncomfortable in some way and then we increase our suffering by thinking about it over and over and over.

And what about the future? How much time do you spend worrying about what might happen and how things are going to unfold? 

We all do this too. We spin on the what-ifs. We plan for failure and disappointment, as if thinking about it will somehow help us avoid or ease that future suffering. And so we suffer in a faulty attempt to somehow mitigate that suffering. 

When we spell it out like this, we can see how futile all of that past and future rumination is.

SO WHY DO WE DO IT???

The reason is simple….

HABIT and big fat neuropathways that keep you on that hamster wheel. 

What we know is that we nourish what we pay attention to. Judith Lasater, a yoga teacher I really appreciate, says, ”what is worry but praying for what you don’t want?” Neurologically and psychologically, she’s exactly right. We grow what we pay attention to. We strengthen neuropathways that lead us down an anxious and distressing path by allowing our minds to cycle around what might go wrong before it has even happened. 

And I say allow, because we have choice here. I’m not suggesting it’s easy but there are practices that will help us take another route.

That’s what we’ll be doing together. Calming the nervous system by building a felt sense of safety, and working with practices that help root us in the present.

Because the truth is, the present is pretty awesome and when we spin about the past and future, we miss it. We miss the taste of our avocado, pesto toast with a perfect fried egg laid on top. We miss the sound of the mourning doves outside our window and we miss the moment when someone we love wants to connect but we are too distracted to notice.

Let’s not miss it! Let’s fall into this moment - mind and body!

Instead of time traveling back and forth, we’ll eliminate time - make it a non-issue and enjoy the images, sensations and emotions that are present right here, right now.

Because the truth is, the present is often really awesome and way less fraught than the regrets of the past or the imagined worries about the future.

So please join us for discussion, guided meditation, yoga asana, pranayama, and yoga nidra. 

We would love to have you! And know that if you are reading this after the recording, you can still purchase the replay!

Saturday, February 19, 10am-noon MST
Live on Zoom
All Registrants will receive a replay
Your Yoga Students - make sure to use your coupon code!

Thanks for being here. Hope to see you on Saturday the 19th!

Much love,

Rachel

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