Lao Tzu describes yoga for what it is:

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving”

This should be the mentality of everyone. Start your yoga class like this, today. Do not create expectation, because that is the source of disappointment. Just enjoy and pay attention on what you are doing in that moment.

Sometimes we try to find balance in the most difficult places, we practice meditation with the sirens of the police on the background, and we have a yin class with electro-house music from a  place close by.

We cannot change others, and we are not trying to, we can only improve our own being. That is what my teacher used to say. Stop trying to control every situation, to create the perfect environment, your comfort zone, but instead explore your discomforts, fears.

Like in yoga we get in uncomfortable situations, so that after, when we pass from that situation/postures, everything is getting more comfortable. We raise the threshold of what discomfort means, what pain is, what is cold or hot to the body, we get better.

We are super-Buddhas, super yogis, super everything, finding balance in the most occurred situation, we get stronger than the examples we follow. In the past it was a lot easier to meditate under a tree, with birds in the air, loving nature, having healthy food, a roof over the head and clothes was true richness. That was easy 3000 years ago. Try meditating now i think is a little bit more challenging.

Everywhere you turn your head, there is an image, a place specially designated so it can manipulate your senses, you are unaware of all the subtle messages you get every day, all the substances that can inhibit your neuro-transmitters telling you when to stop eating, or that you need sweets,meat, a tv that tell us what to be, when to be, where to spend our energy.

And somehow we survive this, we are aware and detach from them.

So let s bring more awareness to some aspects in our life. Let s chose the positive from every situation. We create our own reality.

I was thinking to dedicate classes to a special need, let s say back pain. “Back pain yoga” instead of “Hatha Yoga”, people with back pain will come to that class expecting exercises for their back, but instead I m having a normal yoga class. Their perception will treat the back, as most of the asanas treat everything in the body, yes you can pay more attention to particular parts of the body, but a yoga class is an overall health.

Just because you’re not aware of the postures doesn’t mean that you don’t get the benefits, but Awareness will definitely improve everything. And if I m giving you ice cream and tell you it was recently discovered that ice cream, releases endorphin and heals cancer. Your mood will definitely rise and you will feel you are healing yourself.

But all that is happening in the mind, the thoughts are change everything. So be smart chose your thoughts carefully. So if yoga only brings positive things in your life, why are you trying to question the happiness it brings in you?

It is like you are not used to happiness anymore, with silence and peace, so you’re hurting yourself one way or another.

Thoughts are saying “I m healing my back…I don t understand how but definitely this is a posture for my back.”, in a back pain yoga class.

And this thoughts are beneficial, are healing you, but what if you use this every day, in every situation. It may be a placebo effect but your head doesn’t make the difference, and  you are healing.

So make this your intention for every class you are having. “I m getting more flexible, more loving, I m healing my pain in the back, in the leg, everything I m doing here is to improve my mind, I m getting stronger, I can control my thoughts, I am here!”

But most of us are like “this is boring, I would prefer a boxing class, or killing myself in weights, all this breathing is stupid, and how much are we staying in this posture? Why isn’t the teacher doing sun salutation today? How will this improve my health? …etc”

And how can you be happy or enjoy something if your head is using 40% for thinking about the future, 30% you are using past memories so you can plan the future, and the rest you are paying attention to the present “ needs “. If we concentrate always on what we have to do, and what we are lacking? How can there be place for happiness?!

Lao Tzu said “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”

Happiness is based today on “what others cannot get”. The most expensive things, brands, things that we don’t need. But we are “Taught” that we are. We concentrate on the things we don’t have, and just because it s so hard to get it get s attractive to us. It is like we are frustrating ourselves willingly.

If I m going to buy a Ferrari with 200 000 euros, but change the name with an Chinese brand, change the shape of the car so people will not notice it s a Ferrari, but leave the motor, all his options included. And then try to sell it for 50 000 nobody will even pay attention to it. That is the effect of branding, we can buy expensive t-shirts but after we have to brag about it, because if not, there is no real pleasure in what we accumulate. Redefine your needs, think more on the source of desires, where do they come from, do you need it , why you need it? And how is that going to affect your situation.

How much time are you spending a day, on figuring what happiness is to you, not to others, what completes you, or just to realize how many great things you did, how amazing you are, and that every day you are improving.

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.”