Principles of Practice

So there are three basic principles that I find are very useful in terms of the way that I like to hold space for yoga practice and these three principles you can come back to again and again throughout the whole practice and those principles are breath and presence and compassion. So I call these three the practice Trinity and I'll unpack them for you right now. So breath, presence and compassion. The idea with breath is to keep coming back again and again. Anytime that you notice you've wandered off somewhere else in your mind, come back to awareness of the breath as it moves in and out. Of course sometimes it's going to be deeper, sometimes it might be more shallow, that's okay. Just return to your breath and use your breath kind of as a way in to present attention, a way into cultivating a mindful state of awareness. And so that brings me to the second one which is presence. Now presence or mindfulness is not some glamorous far away goal that's only available to super enlightened people. I like to define it as a humble willingness to be with what is. So to really be with yourself and just pay attention to what's showing up for you while you're on the mat. So that's presence. And what I found over time is that if you really are staying with your breath and if you really are cultivating an open mindful awareness, it becomes absolutely essential that you engage your heart. That there's a sense of compassion toward yourself, toward the other people in the room, toward the people in your life. So breath and presence and compassion. Come back to them again and again as you're practicing and I think they'll serve you really well.