“Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.” – Eckhart Tolle
This weekend I completed Restorative Yoga Training at Joy. The teacher leading the training, Brittany Kraft, talked about how the body has waves that you move with. For example, there’s a healthy wave at the cervical spine, the thoracic spine, the lumbar spine, and the sacrum. You don’t want to develop totally straight spine, especially not at the cervical space by your neck. Keep that in mind when you hear “lengthen your spine” or “lengthen through the crown of your head”. Most of the time you probably do need to lengthen and find fluency there, but you don’t want to always be lengthening and then develop a straight cervical spine over time. The curve helps support the weight of your head, and there are important rotational movements that happen there too. The head can turn side to side, lift up and down, and also tilt side to side. There’s an immense range between those six points. Ride the wave.
We learned all about the benefits of Restorative Yoga, and a strong vocabulary of modifications for the poses. Resting is so underrated! Culturally we value action a bit more, but at some point if you don’t rest your body will break. Benefits of restorative yoga include pain relief, weight loss, stress relief, and more.
One of my favorite benefits of restorative yoga is that it stimulates creativity. The creative pursuits I used to spend so much time doing have become interesting again since starting a more gentle practice.
Anyway, these photos are from a trip to Matagorda a few weeks ago! The days are long and beautiful, even if the surf is a little weak.
Live in the sunshine. In a maxi dress.
Watch out for rattlesnakes.
