What Are You Trying To Say?

The Universe helped me stumble upon an Office Maxx that was merging with another one of its stores and so the entire store was 80% off.  Why move stuff from one location to another if you can find a way to get other people to carry it out the door for you?!

I was immediately lured to what I try to stay away from buying any more of...the journals.  Hi, I'm Sandra and I am addicted to journals!!! There is something about the hard cover designs housing what seems like endless blank pages that sucks me in every time. I like the feel of the journal in my hands much like I do a book. I am definitely not a e-book person; I want to hold a book in my hands and be able to underline and bend pages for the day I might go back through them.  I like the design on the journals. Some I choose for symbolic reasons while others for whimsy.  I'd like to be able to tell you that this time in the store I chose one or the other but, since I left with about twenty journals, it was a lot of both!

Another thing I like about journals is that the pages are blank.  Even though I am aware of this, I still open each one and flip through the pages as if I could get a glimpse into the inspiration that will eventually find its way there via my tool of preference, a mechanical pencil.

Your yoga mat is much like the paper in my journal.  It is a blank canvas waiting to see what sequence you will create, rather than sentences.  It waits to see what poses you will form instead of letters.  And every time you come back to your mat, it's like re-opening the journal and starting another page.

What guides your writing?

What guides your practice?

On a good day, for me, the answer to both questions is flow.  When I write, I encourage my pencil to go full speed ahead. I will look back later to see if anything made sense, but...does it matter?  My conscious mind has full accessibility to guide me. On mat mat, I am fully present so my conscious mind can guide me as well.  I don't want to do a pre-planned or repetitive sequence; I don't want to think about what comes next. I just want to organically move from my heart into whatever shapes my body seems inspired to move into.

"Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning;  I wanted to know what I was going to say." Sharon O'Brien

When I am done, I'm done. I close the journal for another time. I roll up my mat and do likewise.

Don't let the fear of what's to be written or done stop you from exploring. Maybe your story is more about what you cannot or do not write down than what you do. Maybe your dharma on the mat is revealed more by the poses that you choose not to do then those you do.

The unwritten words. The unformed poses. Blank pages. Stillness. Silence.

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