I know. You’re saying how can you move and meditate at the same time? Didn’t you say you sat in a trance like state for thirty minutes while doing the Silent Journey meditations? Yes, you’re right, I did. In fact I just finished the one on Gratitude and I feel wonderful, energized, and ready to start my day – and it’s only 6:34 am. After I do my mediation, I sit with my email and read blogs. The post I just read was by called Sitting In Peace, from the blog My Bikram Yoga Life.
Bikram yoga was where I was first introduced to the concept of a moving meditation. It takes some people longer to get it, but I immediately got it. Even though I was constantly moving in and out of postures for 90 minutes, my mind was away from my life outside the studio, totally focused on what the teacher was instructing me to do with my body. To quote my teacher “It’s a 90 minute vacation for your mind.” This concept is perhaps the biggest thing I’ve learned in three years of Bikram, and now it travels outside the studio with me.
I’ve transferred it to my new job at Koko Fit Club. I have clients to train that come in totally opposed to exercise, but due to health concerns their doctor sent them here with the “do it or else” philosophy. It’s my job as a fit coach to change that attitude. The concept of a moving meditation and a mind vacation intrigues them. You can actually see their faces soften and change when presented with a new way of reframing adopting a consistent exercise program. I simply explain to them that their 15 minutes of cardio and thirty minutes of weight training will fly by because their mind will be busy listening to Michael Wood on the treadmill and watching the pace bar on the Smart Trainer, while their body is engaged in exercise. Their jobs and the whole outside world will be put on hold for their hour in the club, just as mine was in Bikram.
Reframing exercise as an hour of vacation from their everyday lives immediately changes their attitude. Koko becomes a place they want to come. A craving sets in – their bodies know it’s good for them and crave it – and they develop a positive addiction. Also, just like in Bikram, they begin to crave healthy foods. The similarities between the two are striking. I see many lives being changed between Bikram and Koko here on the Cape, and the common tie is a moving meditation.
The idea of engaging the body and the mind to fully focus on the task at hand and participate simultaneously is one of the best stress and anxiety relievers I have ever seen and experienced.
What about you this new year? Do you know in your mind you have to do something about exercise, but are having a hard time taking that first step? Ok. Don’t take a step. Pick up your iPad and start there. First look up Silent Journey and get yourself started on a path of “not moving meditation.” Then begin researching exercise programs and yoga programs in your area. See if there is a Koko near you. If so, run, don’t walk, there. Just take the first step inside the door and your fit coach will do the rest. We do change lives. Take a glance at finding a Bikram yoga studio in your area. I know, I know, hot yoga, I’ll die, I can’t breathe, yadda yadda , but what a sad way to live if we defeat ourselves before we even got off the couch. I was there. I fought it. Read some of my posts from October – November 2010 to see what my first steps were like. I died many deaths on a Bikram yoga mat whose brand name was “Breathe”.
The very things we hate and are hard for us, are the very things we need the most. Nothing easy ever changed a life. True change takes place in our very core, not on the peripheral edges of our lives, and when you crack that core to initiate change, it’s hard – it hurts – but you will never feel more alive.
And so, before another day goes by, take that first step toward doing what you know needs to be done, my thoughts and prayers are with you on this, and…I have written. (Two days in a row! Yay!)
And for your listening pleasure.. get:
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