Stop stretching!

I hear it all the time, "i just need a good stretch". Please yoga friends, STOP STRETCHING! Within the last year I have had a major life transforming cultivation on the mat. I have realized what is being craved is ENGAGEMENT, not stretching.  We're over-streched in our lives in a multitude of ways.  We are dis-engaged and we need to develop healthy ways to Flow Together. When we get on our mats, we get injured because we continue the pattern of "stretching". We over-stretch and hyper extend and not gain any real flexibility. We end up stretching ourselves right out of our sockets! This creates MORE instability and damage to our joints. Think "engagement and elongation" instead of "stretch" when you're on your mat.  This means rooting more, drawing muscle INTO the bone and sucking your hips and arms into their sockets.  It will be a huge shift for many of us who have been practicing in that organic free-flow sort of way for so long.  But in time, you'll feel MORE.  You'll be stronger and more stable.  Your endurance will increase and you will generally feel better.

My love for yoga and sharing it has never been more genuine, heartfelt and with purpose than it is right now. And this comes from my humanness. Yoga isn't easy for anyone. The evolution within my life flow and some of the processes I have gone through are incomprehensible. Yet I have recently felt more gratitude than ever for every one of those times my heart has been broken, that my choice was questionable and for the flat out mistakes that I have made. The experience of life is being shown and moving through everything that is the OPPOSITE of what we think we want so that we cultivated greater understanding of what IS.  

"Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow"

The moment we think we know everything is the moment we stop learning and growing and the exploration ends. When we stop learning and growing, we rapidly begin retracting - in so many ways.