To me one of the most helpful ways of opening to the joys of yoga is to cultivate LovingKindness. The picture above represents a perfect example of loving kindness as two of my favorite yoga students, Kristi and Mark Berg practice Ardha Chandrasana together. Notice how connected they are!

The Dalai Lama says there is no other way to cultivate compassion for others, than to begin with yourself. No other way. And I believe that is true. You simply cannot just skip that rung on the ladder and expect to be kind to others from a ground of self-hatred, or self-judgement. I like to remind students that yoga doesn’t always need to feel strenuous. Sometimes after a long day we just need to practice more gently to feel the benefits.

Try this at home to help you develop your personal practice in a gentle way!

Sit quietly and feel how you are breathing. The breath is the most immediate and personal reminder of the precious moments of our lives.

Feel your rib cage, every rib and the muscles in between, all the way to your collarbones, under your armpits and finally down the sternum. Often when we think of opening our heart, we get too harsh and end up pushing our rib cage forward which doesn’t really open anything and in fact, smushes the back of the heart area. We need to move in two directions (yoga, right? union = integration of oppositional energies) to create opening. To cultivate lovingkindness those two forces can be gentlessness and fearlessness, but never aggression.

To create more awareness of how to create a gentle opening of your heart try these poses:

Downward puppy, tread feet in place.

Kneeling side angle pose which also opens side ribs, hips and shoulders and your mind. Practice two times on each side.

Chest expansion, gently and really feeling the heart opening!

Several Sun Salutations with arm variations

Powerful warrior with prayer twists knees together

Now we are warmed up and ready to sit quietly for Maitri Meditation.

Most of the time we relate to things and beings in three categories:

1. Attachment: I love this/you. I never it want it to end. I never want this moment to change!

2. Aversion: I hate this/you. I wish it would stop. I can’t be happy until this person leaves!

3. Ignorance: I’m so spaced out that I have no idea what’s going on.

We tend to box up our methods of relating to others in these ways, and even in how we relate to ourselves. We like to blame things on others, too, in these ways. You know, my relationship would be perfect if it wasn’t for my partner…or my yoga would be perfect if it wasn’t for my short legs…etc. etc. etc.

Lovingkindness is a new paradigm that invites us to be unconditionally kind to all beings everywhere. That is a sea change for most of us so we have to practice it. And we can, beginning with mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation is a way to clear the palate before we start to work with our thoughts.

There are many methods of meditation but they all fall into two major categories: mindfulness and contemplative or analytical. The first is a way to get to know our mind (”GOM, ” Tibetan for familiarization) so that we can work with it more effectively, and the second is a way to use the capacity of our mind, thinking, to develop ourselves in whatever ways we wish.

Here is a very simple Maitri (lovingkindness) Meditation:

May you be safe

May you be healthy

May you be happy

May you live with ease

Visualize someone you love unconditionally, then someone you are having a problem with, then a neutral person and each time say the above four lines. We extend this to all the people in the room, your neighborhood, the city and on out.

Then opening your eyes, just sit quietly and meditate for a few more minutes.

OM OM OM

Peace,

Yoga Jane