The Agreements of Siva Yoga

1. Renounce performance anxiety.
2. Always practice in such a manner that you can practice again tomorrow.
3. No comparisons.
4. As great a physical effort as you make, put forth just as great an effort mentally.

Renounce performance anxiety.

Yoga is not a performance art. The real yoga is inward: in the mind and in the breath. Non attachment to pose completion is essential to a joyous practice. As long as you are attached to the physical performance of the asana, you will always have a problem.

Always practice in such a manner that you can practice again tomorrow.

It is intelligent to practice in a safe manner. Be gentle and kind to yourself. The best safety features for your yoga practice is your own good judgment. Maintain nose breathing, “stack your joints”, and use the bandhas.

No comparisons.

Don’t compare what is happening on your mat with what is happening on other mats. Keep your eyes open, and learn “horizontally”, but don’t compete. Competition, frustration and quitting are the end results of comparative yoga.

As great a physical effort as you make, put forth just as great a mental effort.

Learn the series. Take responsibility for your own practice. Play the edge. Eat right. Meditate. Allow yourself go into the unknown.

Assignment

These Four Agreements are keys to building a strong foundation for you in your yoga journey and in life.

Each evening over the next 7 days, look at each of these agreements and notice how these impacted your day. Did you allow "comparisons' to affect your mood, your relationships, your energy? Are you pushing yourself to exhaustion or are you stopping when you feel it is enough? Are you trying to be a "superman" or "superwoman"? Why? We pend an enormous amount of energy promoting this "false self" this Performing Self.

Journal your daily observations here. Again no judgement. Just awareness of what you are doing.

Siva Yoga School, Siva, LLC ©2019           

Universal Principles Applied To Yoga

1. We Are Either Present or Not Here
2. Be in the Now and You’ll Know How
3. Growth Allows You To Stay in The Flow
4. Step Off The Edge
5. In Order to Heal, You Need to Feel
6. Think Less - Feel More
7. Create Space
8. Don’t Try Hard… Try Easy

We Are Either Present Or Not Here

• All life happens in the present moment.
• You are either HERE or you are stuck in PAST/FUTURE.

Be in the Now and You Will Know How

• When you shift from paying outward attention to paying inward attention, you can really hear what your body is telling you.
• The answer to “how” is always “be in the now”.

Growth Allows You To stay In The Flow

• We have two choices. We either grow or we die. It’s that simple.
• If I don’t grow, the world suffers, because we are all interconnected and impact one another in powerful ways.

Play The Edge

• Same action, same result. To change you must leap into new territory.
• You have more capability than you believe you do.

In Order to Heal, You Need to Feel

• The real irony of spiritual growth is that instead of it being some miraculous

          experience, it feels a lot more like going to pieces.

• If you are really wiling to feel, you can create real changes in your life.

Think Less - Feel More

• The key to learning yoga poses is to take the brain out of it.
• When you let go mentally, there is a shift physically.

Create Space

• Yoga practice gives you the opportunity to create a gap between stimulus and response that gets wider, and in that gap you have the choice to respond, rather than react.
• Just stay and breathe!

Don’t Try Hard - Try Easy

• Willpower vs. surrender.
• “Try easy” in yoga means that you go from seeking a better pose to just being in it...feeling comfortable in the pose.

Assignment

Each day focus on one of these principles. There are a total of eight listed but you will focus. So here is an idea of how to do this. Again you may chose your own way of applying this and doing this assignment.

Mon: Focus on trying to be present. Observe your thoughts and notice if it is a story of past/future or are you enjoying the present moment. If you have children, allow them to guide you into the present moment... a book to read them, a walk together, 10 minutes of focused play, etc.

Tue: Every hour allow yourself to connect with your body and your breath. Stop whatever you are doing and notice your feet touching the ground and your breath moving in and out through your nose. Do this when you feel overwhelmed, when you are feeling stuck, when you are needing to make a choice. Does that inward shift make a difference? Did it help?

Wed: Focus on making one change today. Make it a simple change and notice how it makes you feel.

Thu: Today we are focusing on creating space. Let go of one thing today. It could be stuff, an old hurt, etc. Start with something simple.

Fri: Try easy today. Pick one thing to focus this exercise on or it will be too overwhelming. Maybe you will try easy with your kids. Maybe you are struggling with a project...just try easy and see what happens. Remember try easy still means "doing". Apply this to your 20 Minute Yoga Flow Class this week.

Siva Yoga School, Siva, LLC ©2019