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OPEN MIND OPEN BODY The Yoga of Connection |
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Week 47: Gratitude and More Homework This week, many of us in the U.S. will celebrate Thanksgiving, with its focus on gratitude and community. Many of the members of this online community are not in the U.S., but even without the official holiday reminder (and the requisite pumpkin pie), it's always a good time to reconnect to gratitude. To begin with, consider a yogic perspective on gratitude that distinguishes between authentic gratitude and fear-based gratitude. Fear-based gratitude has, motivating the feeling of gratitude, the undercurrent of "I'm so happy this happened instead of this that," or "I'm so happy to have this now and hope I don't lose it." Authentic gratitude is an appreciation for everything in the present moment, and everything that has made the present moment possible. There is bit of a sense of inevitability in this feeling -- the realization that there is no alternate universe where some other history, and some other "now", is a real possibility. The Practice: This can be done in a meditation (following breathing practices and/or asana practice) or as a journaling practice. It is my hope that you will also write a description of your reaction to this practice, for inclusion in the December emails. You can reply to me directly or post your thoughts on the discussion board. 1. Make a list of five things that are present in your life now, or have happened in the last year, that you are grateful for. Five is a somewhat arbitrary number -- more would be fine, but if it's challenging to think of five, stick with it. 2. Now take a look of this list, and imagine each disappearing from your life. Notice how it feels. See if you can use this imagination to reinforce a sense of authentic gratitude, without following any sense of fear or disappointment. 3. Make a list of three things that are present in your life now, or have happened in the last year, that you would not have chosen for yourself. Keep this list short -- no need to belabor this reflection, unless you get very good at part three and want to continue the transformation! 4. Reflect on the your second list, and find a way to move one thing on that list to the first list -- the list of things you are grateful for. Despite not being something you would have chosen for yourself, can you be grateful for how this experience, relationship, or challenge has influenced you? Continue with the other two things on your list. Not everything that shows up on a list like that can be easily transformed into an object of gratitude. But if you manage to genuinely move one things from list two to list one, that process plants the seeds of a mindset that reflects yogic gratitude.
Homework: For the last weeks of 2006, I would like the weekly emails to include your responses to the questions I'll be posing over the next weeks. Last Week's Homework (please do still respond...I will be sending some of these responses out in next week's email.) Two questions: 1) What does it mean for you to feel "connected"? 2) When was the last time you felt this--what was the context, what was your attitude, who was with you, what were you doing, and where was your attention? In other words, what conditions created this experience? 3) What do you think is the greatest obstacle to your experiencing this state of connection? I hope you will email me your thoughts so that I can send out a compilation. Don't worry about writing "good" responses. In my experience it's the writers who think they have nothing insightful to say who say the most. Take care, Kelly Share your reflections at http://www.openmindbody.com/discuss Explore the class archives and audio files at http://www.openmindbody.com/2006emailclass/archive.htm For both sites, use the Login: yoga and the Password: connect
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