starting over – HOORAY!

so my new yoga client and i were talking about ways for me to introduce her to what i call “the finer side” of yoga. and we decided to start with the yamas. we’re gonna take one a week and be mindful of practicing it for the week and talk on our friday lesson about what we’ve discovered. i try to be mindful of the yamas and niyamas all the time but actually having weekly discussions and teaching her about them to is like starting over and learning them all over again. and it’s so awesome to freshen up and renew that passion for my non-physical practice. and in re-reading judith lasater’s “living yoga: translating patanjali’s yoga sutras into everyday life” in “the joy of yoga” i got a nice little kick in the ass when i came across this in reading about ahimsa (our focus this week):

“to practice ahimsa is to be constantly vigilant, to observe ourselves in interaction with others, our thoughts about those interactions and the intention behind our words. try practicing ahimsa by observing your thoughts when a smoker sits next to you. your thoughts may be just as damaging to you as his cigarette is to him.”

wow. point taken.

(i am really proud of my bf. he’s been holding strong and using the gum to keep him from smoking. he even made it through an entire night of our friends’ wedding (which by the way was great! the venue was having 2 events that night but it was well arranged and all was well) -plenty of drink and plenty of temptation- without smoking a single cigarette! still walking the line between being supportive and not nagging or judging. but i know we can do this!)