One Amazing Body with Many Necessary Parts
Just as the human body is one, though it has many parts that together form one body, so too is Christ. For by one Spirit we all were immersed and mingled into one single body….we are all privileged to drink deeply of the same Holy Spirit. 1 Cor.12-13
You, my friends, are unique and absolutely necessary to the functioning of the Body of Christ! Whew-hoo!
I went to a yoga workshop all weekend and I came away with a lot of great information. But the one thing that I really want to share with all of you is to reinforce something I have said many times before. I hope you will find FULLY ALIVE YOGA to be a place where you can show up just as you are, and not how you think you should be.
As students this weekend, we were encouraged to work within the limits of our own bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons: to really feel each pose in our own bodies. As teachers, we were encouraged to offer our own students that same opportunity, to work within the framework of the body they were given.
So why is it within the yoga community that we hear people say I am not good at yoga, I am not flexible enough, I am not stretchy, I am too old, I can’t be still? We judge ourselves as not being adequate, never being enough, different from the person practicing next to us. I hope you will always know that this is a place where you can practice yoga just as you are and not as you think you should be or how you think it has to look, in the body you have been given and not in the body you think you need to have. Not in my body or in the body of the person to your right or left. But in your own glorious skin, created to be uniquely you! When you honor and listen to your own body, you give others permission to do the same. You are absolutely necessary to the whole Body!
The Yoga Sutras provide a guideline for the practice of yoga. And in those sutras we learn that we are to practice with both comfort and stability. Who am I to judge where your comfort and stability should be? So that is my commitment to you as your teacher, to give you a wide yet safe berth to experience the poses in your own skin. And know that you are fearfully and wonderfully made just as you are!
Psalm 139
You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside
and my intricate outside,
and wove them all together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex!
Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking.
It simply amazes me to think about it!
How thoroughly you know me, Lord!
You even formed every bone in my body
when you created me in the secret place,
carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something.
The Passion Translation
Self Rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life
because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘BELOVED’
Being the ‘Beloved’ constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Henry Nouwen, priest, writer, theologian