Being "Present" by Dan Houston

I'm getting more and more present to the notion that it's impossible to be present. YES, you heard correctly! It's impossible to be completely, 100%, unequivocally present. 

OK, take a moment and try something. Speak - and consider - the sentence again: I'm getting more and more present to the notion that it's impossible to be present. 

This revelation grew out of a conversation with a prison inmate with whom I share the practice of yoga. During our conversation I noticed that David's dialogue continued to slide into stories, words, and experiences from his past. I also noticed that he was operating primarily from a context of guilt and fear.

Yoga has empowered me to create a life of abundance from a context of possibility - a forward and upward trajectory in life. So, as David began to slide into his past, and resign himself to a heavy, energetic reaction, I committed to sharing a question that has empowered me to live in the realm of creation.

Question: Based on where you are right now...what's possible for you as you move forward? 

Initially, David became excited and shared, "What's possible is that I be a man of honor."

Without realizing it, I had launched into coaching mode. My next question burst forward led by sheer intuition and genuine interest. I asked, "What, specifically, does that look like for you?" It became immediately clear that the question shook David slightly, and he openly expressed a feeling of uncertainty and fear around going back to the "free world".

I asked him to draw in a single, full breath and take on the idea that he and I get to create our futures by "being present." That the best time for our future is right NOW. I sensed that the idea landed well as I watch a shining smile grow on David's face.

At that moment, stirred by the energy of David's expression, an entirely novel thought crashed into my consciousness. It hit me that we have two essential ways of living: We're either living in the a passive past...OR we're constantly actioning our future.

Aside from my own intuition, my only evidence here is my scant knowledge of the anatomical systems of the body. My understanding is that human sensory systems function on a perpetual delay. By the time your brain fully absorbs the words you're reading in this sentence, the "present" moment is already in the past.

We're constantly chasing a train of conscious presence; yet, we never quite reach the caboose to hop aboard.

I'm learning that the collective joy, mystery, and beauty of life resides in the chase itself. My conversation with David opened me up to the experience that yoga is really about becoming "more and more 'present'" - a continuous and unattainable practice of moving toward a positive, empowering future.   

In-Powered Guest Blog by Luis

Ms. Cash’s YES Prep Yoga Class

My experience with yoga all started with me not being able to find a class that would provide a gym credit and fit my schedule. So I looked at the possible class I could take during my 6^th period. And there it was...yoga. 

I thought about it for a while. What if I do take yoga? Would people laugh at me? Would they think I’m weird or something along the nature of that?  

I pondered it over for a day and decided to try it out. If I didn’t enjoy then I would just look for another class to be in. So I tried it for a few days and I enjoyed it. It was something I had never tried before nor did I ever think that I would try it. 

The whole philosophy of yoga just induced me more. It was an oasis of calmness from my everyday routine. It’s a good thing providing this class to kids in school. All day we carry baggage that burdens us. And in yoga we get to release it. We get the opportunity to find that equilibrium that we once lost. 

In yoga I can actually feel the limitations that my body puts on me. And I like that. I like being able to feel my boundaries, so then I can overcome it at some point. Mentally it has opened me up even more. Deeper thoughts flow, understanding and compassion compose more of my thoughts. 

I have even reached the point unconscious consciousness. The point of when one is aware that they are unconsciously awake, and it’s a profound state of being. 

I even enjoy the mats. They feel like small vessels of blissfulness. It’s like having your own space to be free. As a senior in high school I would have never fathomed the thought of joining yoga, but I’m glad that I did. Now I know that there is more to it than just stretching and meditating. It’s about change and transformation for the better of one’s self. It is something that should be shared with the world. And I do commit to be a part of this movement.    

YES Prep Guest Blog - Karina

Guest Blog by Karina 

Ms. Cash’s YES Prep Yoga Class

It was the beginning of the school year and all of our schedules were messed up. Every time the school “fixed” the schedules, I was placed in a different elective every time until they finally placed me in yoga. 

At first, I didn’t really want to take the class, I was iffy and closed-minded about it. I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t really like yoga, but at the end of the day I gave it a shot. 

At first it was somewhat difficult to get use to because it’s something that I’ve never tried before. Yoga came to be the best thing I ever experienced. I just fell in love with it. 

I found it amazing to find so much self confidence and happiness just by taking yoga. Ms. Cash told us that In-Powered by One Significant Act was a non-profit organization that reached out to places that didn’t have yoga such as school and prisons and I thought that this organization was great way of giving back to the community and giving a chance for people to practice yoga who weren’t really able to.

Yoga helped me found a way to free my mind instead of keeping it imprisoned. It has helped me find peace with myself and has helped me balance my life more. Before yoga, my life was unstable and just unorganized. Yoga has taught me to enjoy life more. It has also taught me how to breathe because breathing is the most important part of yoga. 

When practicing yoga at school with Ms. Cash, I feel very relaxed and calm. It sets my mind free, even for just a bit, from running on and on. It feels great when you don’t have to worry about anything while practicing yoga. 

All I really pay attention to is my breathing and where I’d like my breath to go in my body. Yoga helps me stabilize my body as well as my mind. When I am not practicing yoga, I think about the things that I learned in the course, such as breathing and meditating. I do these two things often when I am going under a lot of stress because of school and work. 

I just take a couple of minutes to breathe and meditate and then get back to what I was doing.

I believe that yoga is a great thing and that everyone who has a chance should practice it. It helps balance the heart, mind, and soul, and it is also a great workout. 

A Flood of Insight

Some of our most interesting insights show up immediately after we give up trying to manage and manufacture them. They often appear when we ourselves become present and experience full ease.

Many of us are conditioned to "do", to "know", and to "be productive" - to the point of utter exhaustion, illness and disease. Ask yourself a few honest questions: If you were told you had one week of vibrant life left in your body, what would you do? If you had one week to live, how would you choose to live?

Have you ever used the excuse that "there isn't enough time to practice, to meditate, to show appreciation to others, to clean the house, to create ease, to...(you get the picture)? When I catch myself falling into this trap, I'm quickly reminded of this adage:

If you don't have 10 minutes to meditate, you should probably stop and meditate for 20. 

If you think that you're too busy, or you've been committing your attention to what matters least, here's your wake up call: You have even less time that you think, so use it wisely.

So, be open to the realization that you can create ease...all of the time...everywhere... even where you're sitting right now. Considering the self-deluge of anxiety and expectation we often pile on, our bodies and minds are ripe for the tool/experience I'd like to share. Here it is...

***********************************************************************************

On the I was scheduled to lead a group of teenage yogis at a YES Prep school, Houston was inundated with heavy rain, flash floods, and skies so dreary it looked like they were ready to collapse inward. My morning began with text messages of a flooded kitchen in my new apartment, but that's not the type of flood I'm interested in here.

After arriving to the campus I learned that most of the students were absent because the school's water system had been shut off. My class consisted of six students, which presented a beautiful opportunity to lead a supine meditation for 30 delicious minutes.

I joined the group in quiet, ease-filled silence for the final 15 minutes. Then...a fresh, beautiful insight flickered and burst into my consciousness:

Everything in our external environment is a gift that serves our internal self.

 

I'm always amazed by my students' responses when I share my insights. Honestly, I used to expect their initial responses to resemble that of Hindu cows (mostly blank, mostly empty, mostly confused), but they get it. They started sharing that "yeah, we can either complain about the rain, or we can play in the puddles and feel the drops on our face."

How's that for a flood of insight?

Other related insights we created that day: Traffic is here to help you meditate; parents are here to help you be a parent one day; children are here to remind adults that they too were children once; your enemies and friends are there to teach you compassion.

I invite you to live a life in praise of slow. A life that honors time, especially what little we have with others. That way, when you take your final breaths, you can smile and be happy because you'll know that you lived fully. You'll be at ease because you'll have seize every opportunity to feel rain beat against you face and squish between your toes. And, guess what, you won't even remember that your apartment flooded.

Much love,
Dan 

The Daily Devotion: A Universe Within

OK, I'm going to totally geek out here. I recently watched the first installment of a (very retro) series titled Cosmos, which is narrated by famed American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and science guru, Carl Sagan.

At the outset Sagan details the enormous and expansive galaxies that surround the curious sphere on which we all live. Hearing Sagan's warm, intelligent and exuberant explanations is so very fascinating. However, one simple truth stuck out.

In juxtapose to humans' exploration of the expanse of stars and planets that surround us, Sagan reminds the audience that our inner contents are, in fact, the very same elements that make up the universe around us.

What a powerful thought: We have an entire universe within our selves.

As mere individuals we have no tools for the exploration of the external cosmos. Yet, through the practice of becoming present to my physiological experience, I've explored novel adventures time and again. That is what's so exciting about the experience of yoga. With each new physical breakthrough we make a new internal discovery. We become present to a new sensation. A new feeling. A new experience.

Today's new and random discovery: While in utkatasana, as I separated my fingers as widely as possible, I could actually feel my heartbeat in the palm of my left hand. Why only one hand? Why the right side? Why had I never noticed this before? Like all truly critical thinking, questions are more important than answers.

The truth is that, as a society, we're obsessed with exploring and understanding our external world, yet we still know so little about our inner selves. Over a span of thousands of years, we've conquered and comprehended nearly every area and culture upon our earth, yet we still cannot account for a great area of our inner content.

Luckily, the practice of breath and asana serve as an amazing and simply vehicle to explore our many uncharted inner landscapes.

The Daily Devotion: Creating Space to Expand

As my wife, Cristina, knows, things can certainly become a little grandiose whenever my creative juice begin to flow.

I'd like to share a few, random thought that I've been creating within my mind regarding my future - particularly, within In-Powered by OSA.

First, I've definitely been thinking a great deal about the overall sustainability and mission of any nonprofit organization. I can't quiet remember where I adopted this belief, but my understanding that a truly successful nonprofit will, eventually, put itself out of business.

I'm not fully convinced that this sentiment applies to In-Powered by OSA. However, a mental door has opened that has made me understand a new micro-purpose as far as our school-based programming. Specifically, our mission should be to ignite programs, offer training and program mentorship to in-house teachers who are already employees of a given district. Then, after the teacher has received certification, and has fully taken over a program, it is our responsibility to step back and support programs from the periphery. So, in essence, we are actually putting ourselves out of business. Like yogi pioneers, we should then endeavor to expand out reach and share yoga with more people.

My intuition tells me that that is a critical point of our mission: Create (new and sustainable) space to expand.

The Daily Devotion: Your Own Duty

The Bhagavad Gita says:

It is better to do your own duty
badly, than to perfectly do another's; you are safe from harm
when you do what you should be doing.

Seneca also mused that "life is long if you know how to use it." In short, he held that one's full appreciation and presence in daily living was essential - whether such events were perceived as trivial or otherwise.

What is our duty in life? Where is that kind and protective refuge wherein we can truly serve perfectly? How can we live in the space of Seneca's suggestions, while also creating balance between contentment and inspired, wild inspiration?

I can remember - even before joining forces with Roger Rippy - that many people questioned my intention behind wanting to teach yoga in prisons. Many still do. Yet, I've noticed an encouraging trend in each of my recent experiences: (1) someone implies that my an idea is preposterous, ill-intentioned, or foolish; (2) I typically acknowledge their logic and gravitate toward their warnings; then, inevitably, (3) I am overcome with that wild passion once again and I cast off all doubt and pursue my vision. With this in mind, I'd rather be wild and wreckless than banal and pedestrian.

I'm still not sure how to make it happen, but I truly believe that my life's mission is to serve through In-Powered by OSA. I simply can't deny the shifts, changes and inspiring connections I've observed in those I've worked with.

I love achievement. But, more than that, I love connection. I love seeing others realize that they can learn, grow and, ultimately, create shifts in their own lives. This is my life's purpose. I wasn't meant to be held up in an office, or filing paper work, or creating online courses, or pursuing wealth. My purpose is service. My purpose is connection. My purpose is working with others through the practice of yoga and meditation.

Ask yourself these questions: What is your duty? What is your purpose? Why are you on this planet? Maybe your only reason in life is, in fact, to die. Even if that's the case, that should be your reason to live more fully.

If you're both unfortunate and fortunate enough to experience the loss of a loved one, you are immediately imprinted with a sense of urgent purpose in life. At the age of 22, I witnessed the last breath of my dear mother after her brave and painful battle with the cancer that had ravaged her entire body. I spent months sleeping beside her as she moaned and called out for relief. Years later, I discovered that my father had been diagnosed with lung cancer. And, after blatantly asking my father what scared him most about having cancer, he simply and quietly said, "Dying."

I feel that my work, my service, and my devotion is a mere reflection of my urgent intention to live to the fullest. I may not be rich in possessions, but I am, indeed, rich beyond measure...through my daily experience.

Upon being asked if he was a millionaire and had a great deal of possessions, Bob Marley said it best. He said, "My richness is life...forever." I feel the same.