I learned some good things at the Sages and Scientists conference, from some of the world’s top researchers in neurology, medicine, and well-being. Here’s a big one.

If yoga doesn’t release tension from your body
and mind, support radiantly good health,
and put you in creative control of an inspiring life,
you’re doing it wrong.

Ok that’s a strong statement. Is it possible to do yoga wrong? As long as we’re taking time to tune in, connect with how we feel, and respond, then I don’t think so.

But sometimes we get stuck, carrying along the same bad habits we’ve built our whole lives, even into our health and healing practices. So there’s good news here. We have a way to trade the old habits that don’t work for new ones that do.

How we live each day has a real, concrete, and profound impact on our bodies, our biology, and our lives. We create ourselves – our neural pathways and connections, our gene expression, even what we pass along to our children – in how we move through each day. We are not only our own to discover. We are our own to create.

This is a ground-shaking, earth-moving discovery.

We each live in a body that we create
in every moment, through the choices we make.

We each live in a world that we create
in every moment, through the choices we make.

And we can choose right now to become our own best caregivers and creators. We can release stress from our minds, and from how we move in our lives. We can heal. We can align with our nature, and unblock our energy.

When energy flows,
potential and reality become the same.

So it makes me wonder, is any one of us getting it right? Are we close? And this isn’t just about yoga. Whatever we practice along our path to progress, it can be tai chi or qi gong, painting or vacuuming. It’s in how we move, in everything we do, all day every day. Are we getting it right? Who knows. I know we all get it right at least some of the time. It’s why we know how much is possible, for all of us. I also know we can get it right a whole lot more, and become something much greater, each of us, and together.

—

There’s another thing I learned, my guess is it’s related in some way. It’s about how we get things wrong sometimes, and how we can get them right.

Nearly all mental disorders
are connected either to chaos or rigidity.

So how do we get it right? Creating our own radiant health and healing is found on a middle path. It has a structure and process that makes progress possible, while maintaining the freedom of self-discovery and direction. This is how we trade in the old habits that don’t work for new ones that do. Not chaotic, not rigid. Beautifully diverse in our path to a universally connected wellbeing.

This is why we created Strala. And I’ll guess that this art of moving in our lives – softening, connecting, finding your own way in your own body – creates something like a fractal. There’s a beautiful order to our individuality, connecting us together in a much bigger picture.

It has me thinking also about the rigidity found in many modern yoga practices, and same for tai chi and qi gong. One correct way, one correct look, even rigidly holding tension in every form, and every movement.

We wouldn’t usually look for a cure by practicing more of the disorder. Are we accidentally carrying along the same disorders we’re seeking to heal?

It’s something to look at a bit more. A doctor friend and yoga enthusiast even wrote to me, saying that rigidity and tension can be a path to growth. But I don’t think the many doctors and research scientists at this Sages and Scientists convention would agree. And I don’t agree either.

Holding rigidity and tension is just practicing
what we’re already too good at. More stress.
It’s bringing our most common neurosis into our cure.

Maybe this works occasionally and by accident, because our bodies have a way of healing themselves. We’re pretty amazing this way. But I think we can all do even better, by letting the stress go, and learning to accomplish challenge in a soft, peaceful, and easygoing way. It takes practice. It’s very different from the myth we’ve been taught, about all the stress and struggle it takes to succeed in this world. So we get to trade this myth in for something better.

We can accomplish far more by tuning in than tuning out, far more through ease than struggle. Our greatest potential is realized in peace not war. So we can change everything by changing two things:

1
Recognize what we experience outside of us
as what we experience inside of us.

2
Forget what’s outside. Change what’s inside.

It’s a big thing we can do. And it takes practice. So begin where you are, and move easily from here.

– by Mike

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

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