The Freedom to Be
Spring is in full effect! We made it to the other side of what felt like a pretty harsh Winter and into the next phase of Nature’s cycle where everything is popping with light, color and vibrant energy.
We can completely forget as humans how animalistic and of the Natural world we are. We’re just like everything else here on this planet, affected by the turn of the seasons and the shifts that come with them. Now that Winter is over and we’ve gone full throttle into more consistent blue skies, warmer weather and bloom season, we’re seeing it and we’re feeling it. The thawing has taken place, there is rebirth, new life, and the energy is high. It’s like we’re coming out of hibernation and it feels freeing and damn good.
There’s more to us than it has maybe seemed for a few months and we just naturally want to embody “the rest” of who we are. It’s naturally “time” to feel ourselves again (as if we weren’t before?) and we want to go out and do that more fully. We’re not tied down by the restrictive weather conditions limiting our play time and our mood. There’s more daylight and more sun which is all the encouragement our warm-blooded bodies need for that energetic boost.
With the coming of Spring has come the gift of being able to spend more time outdoors recently. Being outdoors and seeing the current state of Nature has been so inspiring. I go outdoors because I love it and it makes me personally feel good. That ‘feel good’ becomes an assist to my mental, emotional and spiritual health. And while I know that fully and even have it written down on something I call my “Best Life List” (which I’ll introduce in more depth later), going outside isn’t always possible and honestly I don’t always feel motivated. Name a reason that we feel limited and it’s probably one of those. Anything that feels oppressive (limiting internal ebbs or external circumstances) draws me away from being outside as well as other things that are on the list of being a part of life that make me feel full, expansive and free. Thankfully with the breaking of Winter, this new energy has melted off the old and I feel more awake, more alive. The outdoors are more accessible which makes it easier to get inspired and reconnect in a bigger way. So, naturally (no pun intended), so much of the inspiration I gather comes directly from the source itself - Mother Nature, Pachamama, the Earth. Everything on this Earth is offering us lessons at every second. With the intensity of this blooming energy is this incredible blanket of blooming flora and fauna. There are flowers showing off in the biggest way with intense color, height, and amount- they have been top of mind and constantly in sight. Literally so many flowers! We all know what flowers and plants look like and we see them all the time, but this year’s bloom is an extra display of their character in full-form and free-form.
And so, this week, we learn our yoga through the spirit of the flowers, the spirit of Spring energy, and the freeing vibration that we are all feeling in some way.
One of my favorite aspects of this yoga practice is it’s universality. Every concept, every philosophical idea is meant to serve us in a no-matter-what way and on an anytime-anywhere-basis. This is how we push our consciousness further.
This vibrational shift coming in full swing with a change of season and the wild bloom of life has been drawing to focus the idea of freedom. The ability to be without reservation, without limitation. Fully liberated expressions of creation.
We all want to be free. So often we seek our freedom through sensation and through the world outside of ourselves. We do things that make us feel free so we can find a connection to it. In the yoga practice, for thousands of years, yogis have been finding this connection by going inward. Connecting to this concept through the portals of their hearts, their Spiritual centers, in full recognition, and for full realization. Ultimately looking to find within us the same center of being that a flower, which blooms without questioning, contains. Ultimate Freedom. Svatantrya.
Svtantrya can be understood to mean the unbounded freedom found when we stand firmly on our path and stay true to our hearts.
Complete and total liberation.
No matter the conditions we are faced with or the limitations we feel or perceive, there is and cannot every truly exist anything that can restrict who we are in our hearts. Should we open up to that as fact, we may find the likeness in ourselves to the parts of Nature that inspire us.
Imagine that? Feeling as free as we want and as free as the practice believes us to be. Feeling so free that we expand and express ourselves fully no matter the circumstance. Being bold in our growth and blooming as if nothing were in our way.
This is our practice this week and it isn’t an easy one. But the saving Grace, because there always is one, is that we all know it on a pretty easy-to-understand level. Those things that we all do to make us feel free, make us feel like ourselves, make us feel like we’re “living our best lives” and getting our fullest expression on? All of those are reminders are hits of the bigger freedom that lives in our hearts at all times but more often than not needs tending to, recognition, and coaxing. All of those things also serve as ways to connect to who we are within, what we align with that makes us feel like ourselves- full and free, and what encourages us to grow without restriction. If we are able to sense those things, then we have first hand-experience with the idea. That is our glimpse into something that is in fact already a part of us and is not in the thing we seek. The freedom itself cannot exist in the thing if we are the finders and harborers of the feeling we call freedom. The freedom is in the same place the feelings are conjured. Within.
The flowers grow wild. They grow through cracks in the cement on curb-sides and freeway shoulders. They grow despite harsh winters. Some of the wildest of them grow taller than our human bodies and take over entire hillsides. Despite 7 years of drought and just after raging fires making some of the land barren, just enough rain in one year has been enough for the flowers to shock the world with their attention-grabbing life. They’re here. They’re flowers. They grow. They are.
We sing, we dance, we socialize, we get active. We open our windows to let more air in. We shed layers and expose a little more skin when it’s warm. We spend time doing even the smallest of things that get us to be who we are at whatever level we reach for. We are alive. Even when we aren’t consciously doing what we do as a means to make us feel alive, we’re alive. And then beyond that, each of us does our best to fully live. We can and sometimes do make those bigger, more conscious decisions that allow us to feel like we’re thriving in deep connection to who we are deep in our hearts. But living isn’t easy. Living fully isn’t easy. Full expression is often limited because freedom doesn’t always feel like a given and isn’t perceived in all situations.
Our practice reminds us of our ability to make the bigger, more conscious decisions as often as we can, as much as we can. Not because it will bring us closer to being a spiritual person, but because we are Natural, Spiritual beings who deserve to feel and know our True free Nature. We deserve to feel at home in ourselves, to feel connected to our hearts, to who we are, and to express ourselves authentically as often as possible. Knowing that there will be times that invite us back into a shell and put us back in energetic hiding. That freedom in our human experience is what separates us from the flowers. Our level of consciousness gives us a different way of experiencing life. We have thinking minds. Meanwhile flowers are just doing their thing. They get nourished and they grow. There’s no question. Flowers are flowers and no matter what they look like or how they grow in comparison to others, they’re still absolutely flowers. We, on the other hand, feel the limits that life offers us in a conscious way and when we feel limited we can feel smaller than we are or less like ourselves. It becomes a frame-of-mind, a perception, and in some instances an absolute. From this can creep up inside a feeling that we are actually not free at all. We have naturally limiting and questioning minds. Beautiful but in need of opening and reconnecting.
Relatable? Definitely. Especially when we think in the context of the body.
There are so many poses in which I don’t feel full in my power or feel that I am the power to express through them. Physical limitation, perceived limitations, mental roadblocks. They become hurdles in our practice that we overcome by learning to see ourselves in. We put effort into connecting to ourselves without distraction and focus on what already exists that we can continue nourishing so that the pose grows to its fullest. Some poses naturally feel more free than others. Some look freeing. Some we have to work to find the freedom in. It is a process of re-conceptualizing and re-associating so that we can connect more deeply.
This is example is a common one in yoga class:
We enter a pose that makes us feel limited in some way and we feel a little less connected to our fullest potential. In that moment we maybe feel totally disconnected from the practice and even discouraged about ours. This happens to me too. I have full faith and all hope in my backbends one day feeling as free as my arm balances and as free as they look when others do them. For now they feel less free for my physical body but when I am in them and the teacher invites me into working toward the fullest expression of the pose- whatever I can do, I will do and that is a backbend with me in it!
Maybe you’ve experienced this in class? And when this happens it changes where we come from and how we express ourselves in our shapes. The expression of our pose becomes one that might end up smaller because we on the inside we feel smaller, so we don’t exude all of who we are through that pose. When in reality everything that we are, no matter what or who we are, is all we are looking to radiate through our postures. The truth is that there is nothing that can limit that, not as long as we are. As long as we are what? Literally, as long as we are. Our freedom exists within our existence and that’s the key to unlocking the liberation we seek. So in our shapes, we take our energy away from the limitations and ideas that make us feel limited. Those things that take away our power don’t deserve our energy and don’t fuel our growth. Instead we draw our connection to our truth. We apply our highest level of determination to stay firmly grounded in that truth. We dedicate ourselves to that truth. From that truth we expand. We radiate and express ourselves through our poses as if to show the world who we are in that pose.
We stay the path and stay on the trail that is ours. That path will always be the one that frees us. And maybe it isn’t about attaining the biggest feeling. Freedom maybe isn’t about feeling something in such a big way that we can’t retain it or keep the connection to it after it’s gone. We hope to feel it as much as possible, but our hope is to more simply remember that we are free no matter what and to explore the things that offer us expansion. In our bodies maybe it’s a big, expansive stretch- which I don’t often cue until the very end of the posture. Honestly because it isn’t the stage of the post that we can maintain for very long. Connecting to freedom in our posture maybe in going a little bit further than last class. Perhaps feeling less strain than before. Maybe we get our freedom in standing taller on our mats or realizing after class that something in the body feels better. We learn to liberate bits and pieces of us which help us connect more to the idea that we were always free to begin with and those limitations always had the potential to change.
Less encouraging circumstances exist off of our mats as well and we experience them, though usually not as consciously as we do in our yoga practice, all the time. From one environment to the next, one season to the next, one social situation to the next we are between feeling freely able to express ourselves and in full connection to who we are and then alternately, not so much.
On a more personal note:
I mentioned going outdoors as a way for me to reconnect, stay inspired and do something that makes me feel very true to who I am. Living in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, which is where the majority of my time is spent, isn’t awful but it can feel constricting. It is a wonderful, thriving and crowded place with constant, loud and busy energy. So much life and so much of it’s own inspiration from which I draw and love. I also love open, natural and wild spaces. For living in a city like this one, I’m grateful for relatively close, incredible nature in all directions. Ensuring that I feel myself fully require has been a practice of good weather (which we’re lucky to have most of the time here), opening my mind and heart, and conscious effort. I make sure to get out of the city to nurture other parts of my soul. The freedom I feel from the unshackled energy of the outdoors reminds me that I am always free. I practice connecting myself to the sources that keep my heart happy and my spirit expressing itself highly. A short hike, camping, backpacking, climbing, a short visit to the park between work hours, sitting outside in the sun or even the rain, looking at the clouds or the moon. All of it fills me and frees me. Nature is a light in this life that I reach for whether I can do it big on an outdoor adventure or small in the parking lot of grocery store for 1 minute. The restrictions don’t exist. Not outdoors nor in the city. And knowing that in my heart Nature is a calling drives me to it as much as I can and as often as I can and work to see it in places where it may seem like it doesn’t exist. We all have our own versions of this outside of the yoga practice.
Questions I ask myself and ask my students:
What can we draw our awareness to that makes us feel connected to who we are? Can we dedicate ourselves so much to those things, to our hearts, that we take conscious strides toward staying true to them, so that we feel and recognize the freedom that allows us to express who we are without question, doubt or hesitation?
In my personal practice this is some of the murkier water and continued space of challenge. Earlier on I mentioned something called my Best Life List which included going outdoors…
The Best Life List
I could write about this for just about any Practice Journal but I find my way into writing about it here because it is a list that ended up reminding me of the things that free me from the parts of myself that have for a long time believed needed to be hidden and not expressed. It’s for the most part a quiet struggle and one that isn’t as outwardly expressed as the more extroverted and positive character I know I have. But it is real and because it is so real, this list has been a wonderful, ever-expanding tool I’ve been grateful to have made.
The Best Life List exists in a few different forms. One version for when the struggle is real. One for the times when I’m experiencing struggle-light. And another for when things are feeling big, open and struggle-free. The more struggle, the more basic the list is. Simple things like staying hydrated, making sure I eat, doing a shorter list of productive things, journaling, spend any portion of time outside you can, move on your mat and meditate at home, have some chocolate. These are things that connect me to me when it is really hard to do so and pull me above the perceived limitations that can often feel stunting. When there is less to no struggle, the list enhances upon those things and becomes more and more lively. The list expands to include things like yoga class, more time outdoors for longer periods of time- maybe a trail run or hike, certain music playlists get played, climbing, time with friends in bigger and bigger ways. In its fullness the Best Life list is a specific list of the array of things that make Samantha feel the most Samantha, without a doubt and without reservation. I know that this list is a condensed version of me when I don’t hold back and what my heart is gravitationally pulled to when there is nothing standing in the way. But with each version of a list are different levels of expression. Like a flower that is smaller or bigger or super depending on the circumstances, but is always a flower being a flower.
Now I don’t religiously abide by the Best Life List or use the things on the list as rule. I don’t even refer to it all of the time, though I did a lot at one point and I still add to it or change it when inspired. More than anything, it was created out of a totally free spirit and from the joy in my heart. But in the last 3 or so years, it has also become a reminder to myself- a helpful guide- for when I feel tucked away or stuck… similar to the way I feel in backbends. It has been a materialization of my dedication to myself first and foremost. But also the dedication to my practice beyond my mat. An integration of my devotion to full mental-emotional-spiritual freedom into my every day life and my perceptions of it. I’ve even taught it in class and offered it as a wellness practice technique with private students. Because it works. In the same way it works to open our perception of our experiences in every different type of pose and stage in the practice. This list, our yoga practice, encourages growth with a focus on the path and keeping it clear. And just like the practice, this list has simply been a way to slowly connect to all of the things on any version of those lists more and more while needing them less and less. The freedom has grown because the path, though it was laid out before these lists were written, was cleared. Again, ultimately, my freedom is already within. But- just like I believe a lot of us have to do get to that feeling of freedom where we are our fully-expressed, superbloomed selves- I’ve had to work toward recognizing it, realizing it, and knowing it. And I believe that both on and off the mat, the work is paying off. And I will never stop attributing the things that I’ve done off of the mat to the things that I learned on it. Best Life came from partaking in a practice that opened my eyes, mind and heart to what was already within. And with time comes a continued understanding that deepens and manifests with less and less effort. Big philosophical concepts like Svatantrya are not too big to explore nor are they beyond our realm of understanding. It takes time.
The concept of ultimate freedom forces us to ask ourselves what holds us back when we feel like something is holding us back? What’s stopping us from doing our thing? What’s actually stopping any of us from “living our truth”, “living our best life”, expressing ourselves fully? We are conscious. We are of this Earth. We are Cosmic creatures. We hold deep and vibrant power. We are unique expressions of cosmic energy. Like flowers, we are here to be! Why can’t we express ourselves? Through a firm connection to ourselves we have the power to remember, to know and to experience who we are. The flowers remind us to grow boldly, to be radiant in our expression so that both we and the world get the gift of knowing who we are and how we are bringing life to this place. It is ultimately our Divine right to be what we are, just like the flowers. To be who we are and how we are. And it is just as much our Divine right as conscious creatures to know that. That is liberation.
If our freedom is a boundless vibration that comes from staying true to ourselves, then the practice teaches us to do that no matter what. Staying true to ourselves means we also have to break through anything that has ever told us we are or are not something that a pose or circumstance maybe makes us feel. Staying true to ourselves is in part being honest about what we can and cannot do while also remembering that whatever we can do is our expression and our freedom and so we consciously express it with that very freedom. What does a full yoga pose look like? It depends on where we are that day and then being on our own side as we allow our pose to grow in whatever way it grows and to whatever capacity. We stand firmly on our path. We do our best pose. And whatever we have and all that we are, we radiate. It’s a conscious & often challenging choice and a practice until the parts we feel we need to hide for certain reasons begin to naturally blossom more and more, no matter what. And because something will always comes up both on and off the mat, we remember that through dedication and determination of staying firmly on our path we continue to bloom boundlessly more and more.
We are made of magic. Being reminded of who we are when we look around, when we experience ourselves is our reconnection back to the key to all of the gates that will feel locked from time to time. Remembering who we are will always be our invitation back home to ourselves.
We are made of magic. What we see in the flowers and what we see in Nature is ultimately also what we see in ourselves. Nature’s ways are our ways. Being reminded of who we are when we look around, when we experience ourselves through different circumstances is our reconnection back to the key to all of the gates that might feel locked from time to time. Remembering who we are will always be our invitation back home to ourselves. These connections are empowering and reaffirming as we continue on the path to freeing our hearts and souls.
It’s the season of blooming! Le't’s take up more space on our mats and in life. May this Spring energy and the wild, superblooming flowers remind us to grow boundlessly toward our truest selves.
the flowers are free to be,
and so are we