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Roots & Wings

Yoga and Healing Arts

Doorway to Experiencing the "Self"


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Melissa has been teaching Svaroopa Yoga in Metrowest for over 12 years. She is on the staff of Master Yoga Teaching Institute and a Leading Svaroopa Teacher. Her daily yoga practice is a lively mix of family life, teaching yoga classes, offering Yoga therapy and Embodyment sessions, continued trainings, and a deep commitment to her own practice.

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Author: Melissa Fountain, CSYT
Leading Svaroopa® Teacher

Think about how you move through space. Are you simply trying to get somewhere, and the sooner the better? Or is the trip along the way, walking through one room to another, a joy in and of itself?

Everything we "do" can become a doorway to experiencing the "Self" (that joy of being that arises within you). It's all there, ready to be experienced, when we're "all there": present, feeling our bodies, softening our core tensions.

When we Slow Down, we become aware of feeling our body, we lean into our bones, and feel our Earth's gentle gravitational pull. It is then, from our own central vertical axis, that we can choose to take our first step, bringing our "Self" with us.

Of course, when we're in a hurry, the head juts forward, the chest collapses, the shoulders mound up and the spine and legs grip. "Gotta get there" takes over.

To break this pattern, try becoming more aware of your "Self" in space, and try this exercise:

Acknowledge there's a doorknob you're heading towards. Slow down, and think of the top of your spine, at about the level of your nose on your face. This is your central axis, move from it. Bring yourself back into yourself and repeat "now I am walking to the door, now I am reaching for the doorknob." Feel the knob as you turn it, and don't lurch, head first through the doorway. Pause. Breathe. Back yourself up into yourself, and bring your whole being into this new room, ever present to the newness of this moment.

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