hey lovies ~
As i mentioned in an earlier post i am currently enrolled in and taking an online training course Beyond Duality: Yoga and Social Justice taught by yoga teachers Hala Khouri and Nikki Myers, as well as many other Amazing guest speakers. In this course, yoga practitioners and teachers interact through lecture and break out into groups to discuss race, equality and oppression with honesty and compassion. We are about half way through the course and we are covering extremely sensitive and difficult topics such as Compassionate Communication, Social Justice Basics, the School to Prison Pipeline and Mindfulness, Gender Justice and so much more. It is a course which challenges each of us in our yoga communities to confront our privilege or underprivileged position, whatever spectrum, and communicate through these topics with compassion. To discuss and gain knowledge on the systemic problems we have in this country and where we fit in it all as we share our own struggles.
a few quotes from my notes:
~ humble if arrogant, soften if hard, always return to love. ~ Nikki Myers
~ one of the most sacred things we can do is to bear witness to another beings suffering. we don’t know how to stay with discomfort, stay present. if we can shift into discomfort, someone else can shift out of pain. this is huge in terms of radically transforming space. ~ Compassionate Communication – Teo Drake
~ 3 ways to Transformation: Conscious thought – Conscious Speech – Conscious Action. there is no coming into consciousness without pain. people will do anything , no matter how how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness concsious. – C.G.Jung
~ committed to examining our socially conditioned life – to learn a whole new acceptance ~ Nikki Myers
~ social justice – different things to different people depending on where you are – Tessa Hicks
~ we act differently under chronic stress. – BJ
~ model of Transformation: Stress management – Self awareness – Self regulation – Healthy relationships = Self Mastery. – B.J Niroga Institute
~ we hold stress in our bodies, we hold our issues in our tissues, we need to move our bodies. – B.J Niroga Institute
~ spiritual arrogance in yoga. – a discussion
A place i’ve grown to love and appreciate – Niroga Institute in Berkeley California. The work of Niroga directly uplifts thousands of people every week in schools, juvenile halls, homeless shelters, cancer hospitals and rehab centers. Here is a link – <http://www.niroga.org/>
mahalo.
nikki doodles 