The Art Getting it Down on Paper…

We have completed our first mindful creative writing workshop with the Chorlton Book Festival this week – The Art of Getting it Down on Paper.

We swung from Steve Jobs, Picasso, Denis Potter and David Lynch. We moved back and forth from the writing table (our doing space) to a our meditation circle (our being space) and then brought it all together with a series of mindful based creative exercises.

Each exercise was designed to point towards the experience and  techniques of non-doing or non-attachment. Knowing how this way of working can be ‘turned on’ we can develop an awareness of effortless flow which comes from just brining attention to the act of doing rather than expectation of future outcomes.

These simple mind/body techniques bring about a sense of the present and ourselves in the centre of it, moment by moment. When that happens we open up and allow ourselves to ‘receive’ creative flow. But as Picasso told us, the flow of inspiration is always there but it has to ‘catch you working’  – you don’t sit and wait. You use it.  You have to get out of the way and allow it flow.

This  is at the heart of all creative action. Its also where real happiness is found in the joy of just being and doing.

 

 

 

Staying in the middle…

Yoga practice is like life. It only works if you turn up!

Turning up simply means being here, in the now, moment-to-moment.

Very easy to say but very hard to do.

The masters tell us that yoga postures became effortless when the plays of opposites diminish.

In life we are shaped by what we think are opposites. Our likes, dislikes, our needs, wants and what we try to avoid. This is exhausting.

When we treat everything the same there are no opposites. There is just now. When we tune into now we are centred, balanced. When we tune in we are beautifully poised between opposites.

No worries, no you, no me, no outside, no inside, no past, no future…. just stuff…arising constantly.

This doesn’t mean you reject everything or fall asleep on the job. No.

It’s the opposite. When you pay attention in this way you become fully alive to what you are doing and who you are. The reality of now, its purpose, its whole reason for being becomes crystal clear.

Then you have moments of absolute clarity. They will pass, but the experience will stay with you. Then you will want to know more…

When you feel that don’t delay…..act on it!

In your hatha yoga practice every time you turn, move stretch, balance and breath; their combined practice creates a close localised context, a physical and spatial field into which your attention should be fully engaged.

But what sort of attention?

It’s a knowing, letting go of imagined outcomes and expectation. Your attention should simply be on the experience of being and doing and not on future reward or results.

Simply stay away from comparisons or judgments. What you are doing is fine for you in that moment.

All good artists know this. Stick with what you are doing. It will all come good in the end as long as it’s done with a knowing attention.

After some practice your ability to pay attention will grow. You will feel ‘embodied’. You will learn to be…. just as you are.

When you learn to apply this new perception into what you do day-to-day you begin to ‘switch-on’.

Then waiting for the bus, siting in meetings, listening to your friends all evolve into yoga practice. Where you are, what you are doing no matter how trivial become opportunities for deep connection with others and yourself.

Which is pretty much the meaning of yoga – union.

 

Changing things…

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

So many of the problems we face in life and in our world are rooted in us having a limited experience of who we really are.

If we could change our view and recognise ourselves not just as separate physical individuals, but part of a larger interconnected whole we may find ourselves leading a different life towards a more thriving, purposeful, sustainable world. Imagine what that new world would be like. Its starting to take hold in some places but there is a lot of work to do if this new model, as Bucky says, makes the current world obsolete.

The current model is clearly not working anymore. We are beginning to see that the existing paradigm – more of the same, will ultimately be self-digesting. We may need to move fast before it’s too late. Going to the odd yoga class may seem pointless, but the new model starts with you and your yoga practice- providing you with the tools to design and inhabit that world.

We now live in an age of conformity and control. Many of our institutions have succumbed to the idea that being rational, left brained, materialistic, economic, target driven survival of the fittest is the most important and that everything else is secondary. Just witness how education, health, environment, energy, transport, business, entertainment and building homes have all just been sucked dry by a market first, ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality. The world may appear to be bright, colourful, full of vitality and opportunity, but this is just maya (illusion).

None of the old paradigm is designed to help you regain or even realise an authentic, integration with your personal life and purpose. As soon you find that deeper awareness, the ‘unitive’ inner reality you will notice a softening of maya. It becomes translucent, allowing you to see and know a little more. When the world ‘everywhere’ seems a little brighter, more colourful, more purposeful, you know you have started to empower your inner architect towards designing and building the better model.  And then you start to explore that vital inner knowing of who you really are, what the cause of your ‘aliveness’ really is and how it shapes the world.

So choose the art and science of yoga to help you and others, your community, workplace and home thrive, adapt, change and grow. We all take small steps, but even these will bring profound change and expanded awareness in what you do and who you are – everyday.

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor. Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularising terms such as “Spaceship Earth”

A Natural Unfolding…

 

Many people are completely ‘wrapped up’ in themselves. You can see these wrapped people everywhere – in the way they dress, talk, act, think…..they are sometimes on the Six O’clock news. They live in your street, work in your office. They are everywhere!

They are wrapped up so tightly that you can’t see what’s inside. They also can’t see out, so neither of you get to know what is really there. The wrapped people often don’t know they are wrapped until its too late and the wrapping gets so tight, so overwhelming they they can’t breathe. They can’t see, they cant feel….

Yoga is the key to loosening and eventually removing the wrapping. To practice yoga in all its forms is to know and experience a gentle, natural unfolding of the wrapping. And instead a feeling exposed, the feeling is of freedom. The unfolding reveals a lightness, a confidence and creative momentum of purpose which previously went by un-noticed.

 

 

Drawing without purpose…

Last month we hosted an amazing Happy Spontaneous Me workshop as part of Chorlton’s famous Arts Festival. We are pleased to showcase a little piece from yogi Hannah Patterson who took part. We love the pictures from Hannah’s little shrine…

The combination of yoga and drawing is surprisingly beautiful. Not only will you express yourself from a deeper place, you create something to display that is a reminder of how perfect the present moment actually is, no matter how you’re feeling.

Within the workshop, we were guided through meditation and simple yoga postures and then asked to put pen/crayon to paper with some specific techniques. These techniques weren’t to teach you how to draw properly. Quite the opposite. You experienced how to draw without purpose, perfection or judgement. We were encouraged to draw with feeling, allowing our hand to wander across the blank page aimlessly. Very therapeutic.

The reason I love yoga so much is because it allows me to let go of the need to be perfect and achieve. I find peace in the postures and zone out from the people around me and I give up my urge to compete. In fact, I am merely comforted by the closeness of others. Happy Spontaneous Me gave me an opportunity to experience this two fold. After the yoga postures, we’d turn to the page to again connect with our inner world as well as having the closeness of those next to us – knowing that they too were connecting with their own self.

I’d really recommend attending one of Mick’s workshops or classes. If you’re new to yoga, it’ll be a beautiful introduction to your journey. If you’re a regular practitioner, you’ll experience an authentic class and gain a little more wisdom to add to your tool kit.

Here are some pictures of one of my drawings from the workshop – it is part of my shrine at home as I genuinely think it is a brilliant expression of myself at the time. It may look totally arbitrary but to me it’s a reminder of my happy spontaneous self.

Hannah undertaking jappa drawing

Hannah’s shrine

Hannah’s shrine

You get in touch with Hannah here and find out about her inspiring work with healthy foods and healthy living…

Happy Spontaneous Me 2015 Om Yoga Show

Here is a small gallery featuring some of the spontaneous work produced at this year’s Om Yoga Show in Manchester.

Happy Days…

This weekend at the Om Yoga Show, Manchester Mick led another Happy Spontaneous Me workshop. This Yoga in Action practice is at the heart of the YogalIfe Project, to bring yoga to life out into the world through you. This may look like wild scribbling. It is in fact deep  yoga practice where concentration is on the ‘doing and the making’ for its own sake, not on imagined future outcomes. This is a karma yoga experiment  where you can be free from always trying to judge and evaluate everything you do. To disentangle yourself from getting trapped in thinking about comparisons with others or wether what you do is good enough against an imagined ideal. This is action done without worrying about results leading to inner contentment, a timless feeling of being present in the now through the flowing action of mark making on paper. This sense of effortless, creative, moment-to- moment connection of flow is what is meant by yoga. Being and doing. Union. As the Bhagavad Gita tells us.

2.47 This is the secret to living a life of real achievement.

For those of you who worry about what you are doing –  just stop. Look inwards and let go… Your intuition, inner knowledge spontaneously applied is more than good enough. And because its coming from the true source of who you really are its perfect and right!

Here are two short videos and some pictures.

Next Wednesday we are hosting another session (a little longer) at Chorlton Central as part of the Chorlton Arts Festival. There are only a few spaces left…Book your place here.

Getting into the flow….

On Wednesday 20^th May Mick is leading the special yoga in action YLP workshop Happy Spontaneous Me, as part of the Chorlton Arts Festival.

Happy Spontaneous Me, combines ancient yoga science and practice with the latest thinking on ‘flow’, creativity and happiness. The workshop takes the form of an active meditation, merging being and doing into one – a favourite theme at the YogaLife Project. Using simple techniques such as repetitive and free mark making on large sheets of paper, using chalks, pastels, pens etc, we begin by utilising a yoga mind set to connect, moment-to-moment with what we are doing. You can chose any action to be a flow creating activity. What is key is your relationship to the activity. Its not what you do its how you do it that’s important, and this is where yoga science comes in.

Being and Doing…

This is yoga practice, which can be taken off the mat and into the realm of where everybody lives and works. It teaches you to take notice, observe and find harmony with what ever you are doing. This experience is sometimes defined as autotelic awareness, or ‘flow’ when we are fully and consciously immersed into, and with whatever you are doing purely for its own sake. The term autotelic derives from the Greek, ‘auto’ meaning, self, and ‘telos’ meaning goal or task. When we are in the flow, action is effortless and smooth. The moment fully lived.

Happy Spontaneous Me, points to a deeper form of yoga practice called Karma Yoga or the yoga of action. At the YLP we call this ‘Being and doing’, where work is done without some future expectation of reward in mind but just for the sheer joy of doing it. When we pay attention to the activity for its own sake, not thinking about future results or past mistakes we become centred, we stay present. We are in our own yoga state or ‘union’ – the goal of yoga.

To get into the flow experience we have to change our mode of thought from trying to exert force over what we are doing towards an imagined result, to aligning our action with an inner harmony and intuition. This is an essential and fundamental yoga teaching that leads towards a happier more creative and fulfilling life. We are in a world now of image, appearance and desire. Most people are fooled into confining themselves this world placing themselves onto never ending treadmill of expectation, desires, and rewards. We know this causes frustration, anger and unhappiness. But its possible to step off the treadmill, still be in the world, but free, once we realise where real happiness and creative contentment can be found.

But I am not creative…

Yes you are! If you breathe, you are creating yourself everyday moment-by-moment. Imagine if you could harness that amazing, powerful creativity and direct it with purpose into the heart of your everyday.

Everyone is creative – that’s the whole point. The fact is that when you are in your yoga flow, self created expectations, desires or limiting feelings about oneself are stilled. They simply do not matter. You will feel in total control, present and fulfilled. In the workshop, emphasis is on letting go, stepping outside your comfort zone and learning to get out of the way.

During the workshop we will learn to:

• Understand how to make any activity into a flow or yoga experience.
• Unlock your creative flow and liberate your inner joy
• Develop a sense of meaning, effortless control and involvement in what you are doing.
• Discover a deeper a sense of self and your purpose.
• Feel what it means to be totally present and not lost in an imagined future or past.

Life flows through you…

When we practice this technique correctly and with an open heart you will sense a new type of reality different to what you feel in your day. A world of effortless, creative being where your sense of self and purpose is there to be felt and acted upon. A richer, rewarding more creative life that flows from and through you and not determined by the imagined expectations but being right here, right now.

Happy Spontaneous Me workshop

At Happy Spontaneous Me we use mark making and drawing as a way of supplying a simple creative flow producing action. We use timed exercises, combined with breathing and drawing, fast mark making, flowing and mindful action techniques combined with guided relaxation and special pranayama. The main technique is karma yoga combined with jappa (simple repetitive) action. Mick will guide you through all of these techniques to get you into the flow…You will not need any art or yoga experience.

You can book you place at Happy Spontaneous Me here.

All material is provided

The constant architect…

Next Saturday Mick and the YLP is hosting its second workshop of 2015 ;

Inner Architecture: The art and science of Being.

This is a workshop we have been wanting to explore for some time. For many years Mick has given talks on architecture and creativity that were really about yoga. He also gave many talks on yoga that were really about creativity and architecture. So the solution? A workshop that that does both…

Inner Architecture, will distil the art and science of yoga into a three parts, introducing techniques to allow you plan and design and make changes that open you up to your potential and purpose which modern science tells us is almost unlimited. Utilising meditation, physical practice, creative action and guided relaxation, you can design, you can build,  you can inhabit your own world.

Book your place here…

You are the architect…start designing.

Architects help to shape the space and matter of the world to meet a specific purpose. If it can be done in a way that creates a little meaning, joy, harmony, without harm and with a sense of place then all well and good. That’s architecture. It gives us meaning. It gives us identity. It gives us a home.

You might think you are not creative, imaginative or artistic. I can’t draw… You think you don’t have the science or the maths. Nevertheless, you are an architect. And a pretty skillful, creative one too…you are the constant architect of your own world, your own life.

This is how it works.

Moment by moment we are all simultaneously creating and experiencing our own reality. That means that everything you experience, think, see, hear, react and respond to is your responsibility. You have a choice, you create it, you make it,  give your experience reality. This reality is shaped by how you have learned to design and build for yourself a set of attitudes, values, beliefs based on what you assume is real. Or what you have been told is real…

As an architect you can decide to design your world based on what you ‘think is real’ or what you feel intuitively is real.

However building your world based on wrong ideas, attitudes means you get distracted or confused and we create for ourselves a fragile architecture. The first thing we need to do as our own architect is to know how to observe the world around you and know the difference between looking and seeing…

The non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.”

The Bhagavad Gita 2.14, “

Get it right we find ourselves inhabiting a happier, fulfilling world of promise and love, seemingly designed to support  your intention and purpose. It’s an architecture that expresses who you are and what you can do. You are the architect. You can decide and shape the world, as you want it more importantly as you need it.

Deciding to be your own architect takes creativity, and compassion, trust and openness. These are tools you already have in abundance. But you only find them once you let go and turn your focus inwards.

Once you turn your attention inward, you can begin to design and create. Through yoga practice you will become aware of your levels of consciousness. You will find that the capacity to design and shape your world, and this realization will become a source of fulfillment to you. It will be your very own architecture from which to observe and operate in the world providing a sense of purpose, timelessness, stillness unaffected by events and external forces. In the world but not of it.

When we our plan our architecture around the present, the now, we you learn to enjoy life from moment to moment and do not worry about the future. If you take care of your present, you see your potential flows…ready to be shaped by you the architect of your life.

 

 

Zombies and handbags

 Falling out of the Guardian this weekend was another one of those pointless, highly produced, expensive looking supplements on fashion and design.

It didn’t really contain either. Most of the content was advertising trying to sell stuff none of us need and even if you did would wear it? The advert for The Coach New York 2015 Spring Collection, called Swagger, really excelled. 8 zombies cluster around an open top car. Judging by their lack of weight, lank hair and vacuous expressions they have been dead for sometime. If you have seen the 1970’s version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers you will know what we mean. In an effort to look arty and challenging the Coach reveal their real business model- to keep us all zombie-like so that we buy more and more of their pointless stuff. You don’t have to look dead to be dead, but in case there is any doubt the advertising executive have just gone a little further to put their point across. Which is if you want this stuff hard enough you can transcend death…you will be dead but what the heck you will look good and won’t stick out, appearing different from the other zombie friends. If you want to avoid the zombie in you the key is to know the difference between what you need and what you want. As the Rolling Stones told us…

You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes you just might find You get what you need

Or as we say in yoga: Breathe in, Breathe out, repeat.

Om Shanti everyone…