Grounded? Yes! Restricted? No!
by Amy Haysman
Thursday, 05 January 2012
Category Grounded-General
0 Comments
Amy Haysman
Amy's yoga practice began in 1995 and soon revealed itself as the answer in her
User is currently offline
For many of us, a new year represents a blank slate, a Tabula Rasa. Imagine being able to “refresh” any or all areas of your life. Now visualize this table with two columns, Yes and No. You create your truest life by thoughtfully choosing what goes in the No column and what is a Yes. Everything you say YES to and everything you say NO to matters. What if your yes’s and no’s were tabulated and at the end of a day, week, year, lifetime, you could see how the data, otherwise known as your life, balanced out?
Have you ever head the term "The Ground Truth"? Spies say it when they want to know what really went down, no cover-ups and no interpretations. Apparently in life or death spy situations it's important to know the ground truth in order to move forward in the mission. In NASA, the ground truth is part of the calibration process where a person on the ground makes a measurement of the same thing the satellite is trying to measure at the same time. The two answers are then compared to help evaluate how well the satellite instrument is performing.
Sedef Dion who co-created our Pre-Grounded program shared with me the story of a four year old girl who in the cutest way mistakenly called Savasana....Lasagna. This inspired me to write a Savasana visualization with a Lasagna theme that Amy and I recently used to connect with our Fernbank Elementary Yoga Club students. After we did our practice complete with the Lasagna Savasana, one of our students..the Principal's five year old daughter said..."that was so relaxing...this could help me fall asleep at night". Since it was her birthday that day, we wanted to put together a recording that her parents could play for her as she settles down for a good night rest after a long day. The artwork in the slideshow is that of our Fernbank students expressing themselves after the Savasana.
Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?" They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him. If you tell grown-ups, "I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof..." They won't be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them "I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs." Then they exclaim, "What a pretty house!"...That's the way they are. You must not hold it against them. Children should be very understanding of grown-ups.
1. HAVING A SECURE FEELING OF BEING IN TOUCH WITH REALITY AND YOUR PERSONAL FEELINGS.
It all began one morning while following Grounded Yoga's Facebook page. Co-Founder, Amy Haysman posted a super cool picture of Deepak Chopra's "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheros" that peeked my interest. On the cover of Chopra's book is a new super hero with the world in her hands and with text that reads, "Harnessing Our Power to Change the World". I had to go further and research more about the book and the author. In his book, Chopra teaches us that by exploring the boundaries of energy and awareness, allowing us to better understand ourselves and our potential, we are capable of changing the world. Yes! Of course!! This made total sense to me. So, I decided to take on the challenge of saving the world by tapping into my own Chakras. I found that I was becoming more grounded, more creative, more present, and more aware of my surroundings than ever before. My soul just opened up! This was only the beginning of my Chakra Adventure! I had to take what I was learning into my classes. I taught a six week Chakra System series to children ages 4-11 Super Hero style! It was Chakrariffic!!
On the eleventh of October,
how do you teach yoga to teens? you start by teaching Truth. speak to the highest in them. they will get it when you tell them that they are a spiritual being in a physical body and that they are immeasurably powerful. when they root their feet into their mat, into the earth in Mountain pose they will feel steady and strong; a steadiness they themselves create becomes a thing they can rely upon. when their feet are rooted into the earth, they will become rooted in their integrity. when they are faced with difficult situations they can breathe into steadiness, root into their integrity and make grounded choices. 
Feed Compassion, Starve Blame