Yoga Bend Quotes

The real payoff of a yoga practice, I came to see, is not a perfect handstand or a deeper forward bend—it is the newly born self that each day steps off the yoga mat and back into life.

Happiness is when what you think, what you do, and what you say are in harmony.

What I have to say about meditation boils down to this: it never hurts. It always helps. It costs nothing, and it improves everything.

All we can control is our own corner of the universe. Ourselves. The goal is to create peace in our little corner.

The French painter Henri Matisse once declared, “Grace is an inner atmosphere.

The greatest miracle is that you are alive. And one breath can show you that. —THICH NHAT HANH

She lowers her forehead to the floor, curling starlight tendrils under her face when she rocks in the yoga pose, so tempting and sexy even in her deepest despair. Her courage is failing and I wait it out, watching the prone woman bend subconsciously in prostrate worship. She knows who I am or she wouldn't do that.

The image of the lotus flower, a beautiful blossom that grows out of the muddiest, murkiest waters is a prevalent one in yoga, as it symbolizes growth out of adversity. The flower doesn’t grow despite the muck. It grows because of it, just as spiritual transformations so often come from our darkest, muddiest moments. Gold

Do you do yoga?” she said. “No, but I bend over sometimes to pick up a beer.

A karmic yogi who truly lived his practice, Mahatma Gandhi, put it this way: “Happiness is when what you think, what you do, and what you say are in harmony.

Road rage, gossip, or glancing in the mirror and saying unthinkably cruel things to the reflection staring back at you are all subtly harmful behaviors that erode our sense of peace in daily life.

You are a human being, meaning you are flawed, prone to illness and aging, and inclined to wake up some days and want to pull the covers over your head until this whole thing called life blows over.

The miracle of yoga is not that we get to reshape the external world—to bend the laws of time and space. The miracle of yoga is that we get to reshape our perception of the external world. Where we once only perceived injuries, illness, and pain, we now see an opportunity for growth. Where we once perceived acrimony and discord in relationships, we are now able to experience deep empathy. Where we once perceived darkness, evil, injustice, and vexing social issues, we now perceive the opportunity to serve. Yoga is like a purifying fire that burns away false perceptions of the world and of ourselves to enable us to see clearly.

What then are the benefits of being mentally flexible? Imagine a storm brewing. Intense winds are blowing hard. Stiff trees are breaking under the pressure while softer more flexible trees are bending and will rise again when the strong winds subside. Now turn this image onto human beings. People who are narrow minded, opinionated, stubborn and bullheaded are more likely to crack under pressure than people who take up a more flexible attitude towards life. It is the difference between bending and breaking under pressure.

Maybe it’s something to do with the movements: the Cat and then the Cow, the twist to the left and then to the right, the reaching up, and then bending to the ground, the constant training of the body to move one way, and then to move in the opposite way. Hatha: sun, moon opposites, dark and light, yin and yang. This must be key in the way yoga shapes the mind and heart, in the way it helps one to understand that every movement has a counter movement, that every action has an opposing action, that the happy parts of life will be met by the sad, and the sad, in turn will be met by the happy.

Sometimes I feel like I have the spines of a hedgehog. They are a spiky barrier I just can’t retract. I thought I’d managed to lower them a little over the last few months, or at least to thin them out. But then, this week, there they were again: abrupt, prickly, impenetrable. I’ve had a weird, frustrated, angry week. Nothing in particular has happened, but it’s hot, I’m insanely busy at work and not everyone’s being co-operative. But more than that, I feel as though my body’s drawn in on itself. Everything feels and smells wrong. Quite often, just the sound of the radio has been too much for me. If Herbert has tried to talk to me at the same time that it’s on, I’ve barked at him. I can’t bear to be touched. I feel like my skin is too thin. Twice this week I’ve rushed out of bed in the middle of the night, convinced I’ve felt a glut of blood surge out over my legs. Twice I’ve realised I was only dreaming. The mind is slow to catch up with the body. Mine, it seems, is fearfully protective of it. I’m a meditator, and I know that these phases are necessary. Meditation is like the slow action of water on rock. Gradually, it wears through layers and layers of sediment, and every now and then something unknown is exposed to the light, a deposit of ancient bones. These too are eased away in time, but they must be revealed to be soothed away. Over the years, I’ve learned how my body holds an imprint of my fears, a physical defence against them that over the years becomes an immovable ache. This morning, for example, I went to yoga class, only the second one since my gynaecological problems made me give up. Once, I could fold myself in half like a deck-chair, not because of my yogi prowess, but because I had double-jointed hips. Today, I was shocked to discover that I couldn’t bend at all, that my pelvic girdle had tightened itself into a rigid knot. Once I’d got over the flush of humiliation (a seventy-year-old woman was performing a perfect forward bend next to me), I saw just how much I’ve been imagining my body as a fragile thing in need of protection. I have been curled inwards like that hedgehog, and even the parts of my body that I can’t command have joined in. But even realising this, what do I do with the information? It is one thing to understand that my body has rolled up to protect itself, but how can I make it unfurl?

Co-dependency essentially revolves around the sentence: “I am not enough.” A co-dependent person will always need another person to validate their worth, their feelings, their ideas and even their existence. This either shows itself as a need to manipulate and control surroundings; or as a need to bend over backwards to make other people feel good, the reason being that “I can’t feel good if you don’t feel good.

Yeah. It’s a reward. I wanted to bury myself inside you the moment I saw you on the plane. I wanted to rip those yoga pants off you and bend you over the seat and fuck you right there on the damned airplane. But I didn’t. And I wanted to fuck you here, last night. But I didn’t. I needed your pussy so bad, last night, but I had to wait. Now I’m inside you, and I’m not going to rush it.

People generally feel better when they do yoga of any kind, in any capacity. It strengthens bodies and minds, and it’s like weight lifting for the spirit. Yogis

Yoga, in Sanskrit, can be translated as "union". It originally comes from the root word yuj, which means "to yoke", to attach yourself to a task at hand with ox-like discipline. And the task at hand in yoga is to find union - between mind and body, between the individual and her god, between our thoughts and the source of our thoughts, between teacher and student, and even between ourselves and our sometimes hard-to-bend neighbors.

Since our Western cultural inheritance precludes a whole relationship to the body, it is not at all surprising that hatha yoga here has often been reinvented as a sophisticated form of calisthenics whose sole purpose is to make the body beautiful and to increase longevity. These things hatha yoga does well, but such goals are not the primary goal of yoga practice, and when we practice in a way that causes this unhealthy identification with the body, we are merely doing exercises with Sanskrit names. The practice becomes bent to accommodate the perception of the body as an “it” rather than requiring us to bend our minds and stretch beyond our objectified perceptual leanings. When our primary imperative shifts from attaining a form to developing an intimate connection with the life force moving through that form, we are reclaiming the only part of the practice that ultimately can have any relevance for us—finding out who we really are.

Stillness is a reflection of our growing openness to the unpredictable unfolding of the world as it is, a freedom from the constant effort to bend things to our liking, to make them conform to our conditioned notions of good and bad.

What unhealthy behavior or stuck energy do I want to change in myself? Before I engage in it, I will take five long, slow breaths (five-count inhale, five-count exhale). Repeat.

It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. The

The purpose of meditation is not to stop thinking. That’s impossible. The purpose of meditation is to observe our thoughts and develop the strength to unhook from them, to see them for what they are: passing and impermanent.

Think about the last time you were lost. Not emotionally, but geographically. Maybe you were driving or walking in a foreign city or another part of your town, attempting to read a street sign, looking for the number of a building, or searching for a house. You needed to focus, so you turned down the music, got off the phone, and squinted your eyes a little to sharpen your sight. You honed your attention toward one, crucial task: becoming un-lost. This is dharana, or cultivating the skill of concentration.

All the asanas fall into one of five categories: bending forward, bending to the side, bending backward, twisting, and balancing. These five actions can be done standing, sitting, lying face down, face up, on one’s side, or inverted. These five bodily positions correspond to the pancha mukhas (five faces) of Lord Shiva.

Baddha Konasana: Butterfly Pose Come to a seated position on your mat and bring the soles of your feet together to touch, your knees bent. Grab your ankles and inhale, lengthening the spine. Exhale; forward bend over your legs for Baddha Konasana, Butterfly Pose. While doing the physical pose, have the intention of practicing Bhakti Yoga. Connect to the devotion within you by seeing the divinity in yourself and around you. As you bow your head, imagine yourself offering up your practice to something higher and to that divinity. Find some humility in your heart while holding the pose for 10 breaths.

It's... One Batch, Two Batch, Penny and Dime, you know? It was her favorite book. You gotta cross the ocean, and go fight. You see, whole time you're thinking you're gonna be scared, right? But then you're not. See, that part of it was always easy for me. Killing. Even watching my buddies die, it just didn't mean nothing. The first time I got scared was on a plane on the way home. I kept thinking God was gonna pull the rug out from under us, you know? Shit, that's his kind of funny, you know. But the plane landed safe and we were home. Driving through traffic. Yeah, you pass fast food and donut shops and all that greasy shit, the shit you fought to protect, and then the car stops. We were outside her school. I get to her classroom, right? She's in there, but she's got no idea. She's got no idea Daddy's home. I walk in, these kids, they're not even studying, they're-they're doing some kind of yoga. Yeah. You know? She's there. She's doing her poses, you know, she's bending and, you know, she's moving. She looks like a flower. Yeah. And you know, you can't even understand it, you know, how does something like that have... How does something that beautiful have... How does that... how does that come from me, you know? And she looks up and she sees me. I see her. By God, that's real. That's real, Red. Boom. In an instant, she's across that classroom floor, she's in my arms. She's squeezing me so tight, I swear I was gonna bust a rib, you know? We just stayed there like that, we're holding each other. Teacher's filming the whole thing on her phone, you know, she's gonna put it on YouTube or some shit. She can't hold the thing steady, because, you know, she's... she's bawling so hard, and the kids are all wailing, you know, they're screaming. And me? Shit, I'm the worst of all. I'm a... I'm a rubber-faced clown, you know? I cried so hard. But not my baby. Not my girl. You know, she's my girl. She's... she's not crying, she's holding me up. My girl, she's keeping me on my feet. She says, "I knew it, Daddy. I knew it." And then we go home. To the wife, the boy. Place is the exact same, it's like it was just holding its breath waiting for me to get back, you know? Then it hit me. All of it, you know? The first time I felt how tired I was, you know, I was just tired, you know? You ever been tired, Red?

The art of yoga has nothing to do with bending and twisting your body, and everything to do with unbending your mind.

Preparation teaches me that we bend so we do not break, and that gravity is a field, not a force. I am vibration

This other colleague invited me to a yoga class. I was not, in any way, shape, or form, a yogi. I was, if anything at that point, a gym rat, and gym rats don’t bend or twist easily. I didn’t want to go, but I did, remembering James’s words that I would “cold-bloodedly” have to go through the motions of being happier in order to actually become so.

I don’t use these tools to “work out” per se; I use them for movement snacks—short, unplanned movement sessions, often only lasting a minute or two. I squeeze and bend the Flexbar as I’m reading emails or thinking through a problem. I hang from the TRX strap when my shoulders feel tight. I stretch my back against the yoga wheel after sitting for long periods. And I use the exercise bands and kettlebells randomly throughout the day to get some blood flowing. It not only gives me varied movement that I know my body needs, it keeps my mind fresh and my energy levels elevated.

Do not get discouraged with obstacles. Just persevere and be honest with yourself. If you really want it, life will bend before you.

Honoring the first yoga priority is simple: be kind. Cause less harm. Create more compassion.

Uttanasana—Standing Forward Bend

am enough. I have enough. I do enough. I

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease. May

There’s also the predicament that what I’ve described isn’t actually yoga; it’s bullshit.

Ahimsa, meaning non-harming or non-violence, reminds us not to act violently, speak carelessly or maliciously, or think harmful thoughts.

What I eventually came to realize was my truth wasn’t their truth. My path wasn’t their path. I needed to create my own map. The truth of my calling would reveal itself. The

Atheists, too, should not feel excluded by conversations about faith relative to yoga. A belief in the goodness of humanity and one’s highest Self are also life-affirming forces cultivated by the practice. If the word or concept of God doesn’t work for you, that’s absolutely OK. Through

A good generic sequence to use for your asana practice is — Warm-ups, standing poses, inverted poses, backbends, forward bends and twists, ending with Savasana.

Think of it this way: you cannot take a breath in the past nor can you take a breath in the future. Therefore, when you focus on a single exchange of inhaling and exhaling, you connect to the most important moment in your life, the one that is happening right now. The present moment. We have no influence over any other moment. Those behind us are memories. Those before us are guesses. Learn to focus on your breath, and you develop the power to simplify your life in a given moment and choose your conscious place in it.

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, “Sometimes, your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

any yogi could meditate in a dark room lit with candles and incense. But could you meditate at the dentist?

When something is your dharma (your sacred calling), you don’t choose it. It chooses you.

Be Careful of Potentially Unsafe Exercises While it is true that any bone in the body can fracture when exercising due to a fall or some other mishap, some exercises pose a higher risk for people with osteoporosis. As we learned in Chapter 1, fractures of the spine are the most common fractures that people experience, especially as they get older. Therefore, when we engage in controlled exercise poses or routines—for instance, in yoga or strength training—it is vital to protect the spine. Following are some of the exercises that are not recommended for people who have a moderate or high risk for fractures: • forward bending • shoulder stands • twists (rotational moves for the spine) • jackknife (legs bent over the head)