This is Advanced Yoga.

I was talking to a friend today, another fellow yogi, about how I was feeling quite slow in flow of my writing and inspiration lately. He told me to get back to it quickly because he loved my work! His comment made me stop for a minute to ask him ‘Why do you love my work?’ He answered, “Ashleigh, I love your work because yours is the yoga of the mind. While everyone else is focusing on the pose, your yoga is beyond it.” (That’s honestly why you don’t see that many fancy yoga poses of me on my feed).

What he said stopped me in my tracks, and made sense as I have been feeling a little bored, and somewhat frustrated of late. I am so fascinated with the function of the mind and our emotions, and how they translate into us creating the life we desire. because of that I am honestly getting tired of scrolling through page after page of social media feeds, seeing picture after picture of folks doing yoga poses here there and everywhere, with little to know mental or emotional expression of what they truly mean, and represent in terms of our personal, and spiritual growth and expansion.

I truly mean no disrespect, because I respect everyone’s expression of yoga for where they are on their path. Of course, I also know that asana is an important factor of a well-rounded yoga practice (well, it is just 1 out of 8 limbs actually) as asana cleanses, strengthens and prepares the body for sitting in long periods of meditation, but can we have more substance now please? Can we see more than a headstand?

Believe me, I know full well that headstands and the like are hard, I get it. It takes mastery and balance, and strength to master advanced yoga poses yes, but so does standing up in the face of your fear as the dark night of the soul opens your deepest would for the light to pour in.

Honestly, when it comes to yoga and teaching the true essence of yoga, I am less interested in your posture, than I am in you telling me about how you stand up, and reach higher during the dark night of your Soul. How you feel it, do you have the humility to even let yourself feel? Where is your balance then? How strength then?

Yoga feeds these days are filled with fancy costumes, beautiful looking people, in all kinds of flexi and bendy postures, performed by people looking all serene, peaceful, happy and breathy. All spiritual, and nice with the strict diet, the Kombucha and incense but what is the TRUE point of it all?

The modern expression of yoga is all fine and dandy, but I’m honestly less interested in whether your wrist is properly aligned under your elbow, and your shoulder, or of your knees are directly under your hips.

What I AM interested in though, is how you are ACTUALLY LIVING YOUR YOGA. And no, I don't mean what a modern impression of what being a perfect yogi either, with the perfect postures, body, and your perfectly calm show of serenity, emotional stability, and behavioral expression in front of others. Because even yogi’s make mistakes, fall of the path and lose their grip, and that is okay. It is how you handle the way you feel about yourself after you slide, is when the real yoga begins.

I want to know more about how you REALLY FEEL, how you express your emotions, I mean the deep and hard ones, the raw ones, the Soul crying ones that bring you to your knees when you are alone, and the doors are closed, and it's just you, your breath, your pain and the beat of your heart.

I am interested in the rock hard, cold, suffocating emotions that are pointing you right toward your growth, toward your expansion, your evolution, your transcendence. This path is messy, and it hurts....hard.....because your soul wants you to feel it. It wants to shake you down, crack you open....wide....then ignite within you a huge desire for something more, and that's the birth of the new expanded version of you, with a new creative inspiration in you for something else, something bigger, something that makes you move, and change, and align. This is the path to alignment.

I want to know how more about you have grown to value the pains you have felt, and still feel. How how you recognise the challenges in your life, and that they are a gift, your best asset, the biggest tool to ever urge you on in your spiritual growth.

Do you see the opportunity in understanding your weakness?

Do you see the strength in embracing your vulnerabilities?

Do you see how embracing your pains, and transforming them into positive guidance can teach you more about more about who you truly are, the real you, the Soul of you?

Stop being faking it, hiding it, pretending, and putting up a front smiling and through your pains to look good, showing face and appear happy in front of everyone else. Start living your yoga. Face your pains, feel them, accept them, and embrace them. Listen to what the feelings are trying to tell you. Use them, they will show you how to allow the aligned Soul part of you to emerge, then just wait and see what happens next in your life!

This is the way of Mastery. The challenge is what ignites the birth of expansion in you, your job is to line up with it. Doing this is advanced yoga.

Until Next Time,

Don’t forget,

Be Realistic, daydream often

Ashleigh XO