KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

by Meagan McCrary

Very few students begin practicing yoga with overt spiritual ambitions; they simply want to feel and move better in their body. However, it doesn't matter whether or not your initial intentions are purely physical. What's important is that you're in your body, consciously moving and breathing, establishing a stronger mind-body connection, and cultivating a little self-awareness. Intentionally or not, you begin a process of personal growth and transformation just by practicing yoga. You might even say that yoga is for the people who are open to change, and the ones who want to stay exactly the same don't stay with yoga for very long. Your yoga practice will shift you in some way on some level, if not on all levels. In addition to helping the body gain strength and flexibility, a steady practice helps build concentration, create emotional balance, and cultivate positive qualities such as compassion, patience, joy, and confidence.

During class you will experience profound moments of stillness, even if only for a few seconds at a time. The full yogic breathing helps quiet the analytical mind, which never seems to stop weighing options and considering consequences, finally allowing the intuitive mind to have a voice. The internal awareness and mental clarity cultivated in yoga help you realize certain things about yourself and your life. Over time, you become skilled at recognizing that which no longer serves you — the relationships, default tendencies, reactions and other thought patterns, and roles that don't contribute to your overall happiness.

In fact, your yoga practice will typically have an interesting way of creeping into your life off the mat as you become more aware of how you feel and increasingly conscious of the choices you make. Yoga doesn't require you to change your lifestyle overnight or conform to any outside standards, but you naturally begin to gravitate toward feeling better, making better decisions and choices in your eating and lifestyle habits (and no, that doesn't mean you have to become a vegetarian to practice yoga).

You may also notice that your yoga practice is a microcosm for your life. The way you are on your mat — how you respond to challenges, handle disappointment, and relate to yourself, how present you are, how willing you are to try new things — is the way you'll be off your mat as well. In yoga, you get to practice being the way you want to be in a safe, contained environment. (After all, yoga practice is just that: practice.)

Therefore, when you are practicing, attitude is everything, as it is in life in general. To begin with, your overriding intention for practicing must be rooted in something more meaningful than external appearances or physical achievements, or your asana practice runs the risk of becoming just another outlet for ego gratification, and you've missed the bigger, overriding message of yoga. That means your intention for practicing doesn't necessarily have to be god-consciousness or Self-realization (although that's a good intention), but rather can and perhaps should be something personal, whether that is to feel better overall, learn more about yourself or foster self-acceptance, become a better mother or spouse, be more present or experience more joy, cultivate more peace, clarity, or ease in your life, whatever — something more meaningful than having a tight bum or being able to do the splits. Wanting to achieve an advanced posture isn't wrong; in fact, the desire can increase your dedication and drive. However, it shouldn't be your only reason for practicing. What if you never nail the pose? Then what? Without a higher intention, it's easy to become defeated.

Yoga is in the business of self-acceptance and exploration, which by definition can have no expectations. Sometimes, you'll step onto the mat only to discover your body isn't on board to practice at the level you were hoping it was. And that's okay. In fact, it's better than okay; you get to practice listening to your body and doing what's best for you in the moment. Yoga gives you permission to give yourself a break.

Of course, in a class setting, it's easy to become caught up in comparing (joy's most brutal thief). As easy as it is to compare yourself to others and feel less than, it's just as easy to compare yourself and feel more than, or somehow superior, when you can out-perform the other students in class. As you advance in your asana practice, it's crucial to remain humble with an open attitude and a beginner's mind. With a beginner's mind, you enter each yoga posture with the excitement and eagerness of a first-time practitioner, gently exploring new ways of aligning or moving your body in and out of the postures.

Meagan McCrary is a Los Angeles based yoga teacher and the author of Pick Your Yoga Practice. She teaches for Equinox Sports Clubs, works one-on-one with some of the entertainment industry's leading professionals, and holds workshops and retreats nationally and internationally. Visit her online at meaganmccrary.com. Based on the book Pick Your Yoga Practice © 2013 by Meagan McCrary. Printed here with permission of New World Library.

Are you able to do psychic readings for yourself or do you know any readers who can? I would love to be able to get guidance for myself, but I find it much harder than reading for others. When I tune in for myself, it's like I get a whole mix of images and messages that don't add up to a clear answer. When I use tarot, I find my interpretations are often inaccurate compared to the readings I do for others. Any advice would be appreciated!
Loren

Susyn:

One of the most difficult things to master in psychic development is reading for yourself. In fact, very few psychics even attempt this because their emotional attachments to certain outcomes influence how they interpret the answers they receive. When I teach tarot classes, I always tell my students that it's not a good idea to try to read for themselves.

When we attempt to read for ourselves, we may come from a place of fear, worry or frustration. This in itself will color the answers we get. You may note that when you do readings for others, the answers you give them often surprise them. The solutions may be obvious to you, but your clients can't see this because they are blinded by emotion.

Iíve been conducting psychic readings for over twenty years, and I still find that I need the help of a trusted psychic to find answers to my own questions and problems. I can assure you that even if I do a good reading on a subject, another psychic will always see things differently and more accurately.

We can all benefit from the objective perspective of a third party sometimes. When we read for ourselves, we tend to doubt what we get, filter the information according to our preferences, or flat-out misread what we're given. Just as a surgeon wouldn't perform surgery on his own child, when we're in need of psychic or spiritual guidance, we're wise to ask for help from someone who can be calm and objective.

If you would still like to develop this skill, I recommend practicing with questions that aren't too serious or important to you. You may be able to get accurate guidance on those matters even though more emotional answers elude you. I also recommend trading readings with a trusted fellow psychic. If you still want to attempt doing your own readings, you can have this other psychic give you a second opinion in order to validate what you got. This would be an effective way to ensure you get the most accurate information possible.

I don't believe we are meant to figure out our problems alone, for the Universe is quick to channel information to us from outside sources. Allowing another psychic to read for us can help us avoid a lot of uncertainty, confusion and disappointment, for Spirit is usually quite clear when it presents us with information from another person.

*****

Mata:

The main key to being able to read for yourself is being able to emotionally detach from what you think you need to have happen in order for you to be happy. While I have many times successfully gotten psychic information for myself, that doesn't mean it is always possible. The more anxious I am about the subject at hand, the harder it is to see it clearly. I suppose this is why I find it hardest to get psychic information about my own children, for nothing is more important to a mother than the well-being of her child.

You must also be able to think outside the box. Many of the readings I do for others begin with a question something like: I'm trying to decide between choice A and choice B, and so far it has proven to be an impossible decision. When I tune in to read for them, I see that the reason they haven't been able to feel their way through this decision is because the right path for them is really C, or perhaps AB with some C thrown in. They felt no pull toward any of the options they were contemplating because they were contemplating the wrong options!

Due to our past experiences and personal beliefs systems, we are all limited in our thinking and blinded by assumptions. This is a big reason why it can be helpful to have third parties who don't share our prejudices tune in for us: they are open to a far greater range of information from Spirit than we may be able to allow into our conscious awareness.

This doesn't mean we can't regularly receive guidance from Spirit, though in my own experience, this tends to come more from my intuition and signs and synchronicities than it does from psychic reading processes. As with being able to read for yourself, however, the more calm, objective and open-minded you are, the more helpful guidance you'll tend to receive.

To develop this calm objectivity, it is imperative to cultivate faith in a higher plan. When you believe that everything happens for a good reason, it is easy to relax about how your good comes to you and assume that whatever happens will work out for the best. To cultivate the open-mindedness necessary to seeing the big picture and the infinite possibilities before you, meditation is again the answer, for this will enable you to observe yourself and your life from a much higher perspective.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.