BYC Newsletter #20

Dear Yoga students and those interested in Yoga,

As the opening session on Jan. 22 of No Stress Here approaches (that is the name of the stress removal class I chose), it’s seed ideas keep growing like a bed of tulips. Just as in the spring, we wait to see what comes up.

Once the idea is planted, we wait to see what the flower will become. Here’s what we have so far. First, there really is no essential difference between No Stress Here and the yoga sessions. Yoga is...No Stress Here.

The difference is in emphasis: in yoga the attention is on becoming aware of the body as it moves through it’s squeezing and stretching routine, while in NSH, the practice is going to be on how to watch the mind as it reacts to the movements we call stress. First we find it, then we can remove it. If stress were ice, then awareness would be warm water.

NSH will also provide the space for presence and the acceptance of our stress. The reason we have stress—and let’s understand stress as a relative term, which runs from slight to major—is that we don’t accept it. We are driven to get rid of it. Stress is a civil war, and not a war with the external world, as we have been conditioned to believe.

Stress is a tension in the mind that is painful, and we can feel it draining our bodies of peace and health. We know it is killing us, and that it is just a matter of time before our bodies give in to the waves of stress we have been pouring on it. Most of the modern ills we are suffering from come from stress. It’s the body’s way of saying, “I’ve had enough...We’re out of here.” Our earth, which is our larger body, is saying that to us as well, because all our bodies are crying out for relief.

So this workshop is about something larger than just handling stress from a bad boss or work load. NSH is about our quality of our life. Do we just put up with an acceptable load of stress—because we think stress if inevitable and normal—or do we go for a clean house and total freedom. Freedom is who we are. Stress is what we are not.

Another way of looking at NSH is that of a relationship of us with each other. The purpose of relationship is to experience our totality by giving our totality to it. Relationship, whether between individuals or in a group, is nothing more than what we put into it. We get what we give.

I intend to give all I have....will you join me. There are six spaces left on Monday at 7:30, and if more sign up, I’ll open up Thursday evening.
You have nothing to lose but your stress..

Thank you,
Ed
Om Peace
1/7/07
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