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.

 

 

 

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.

Mapping out your intentions…

This weekend we completed our first workshop for 2015 with the third annual hosting of our popular new year, Back On Track workshop.  Based on intense practice combined with moments of complete stillness through deep Yoga nidra and Sankalpa making this workshop was based on three key principles:

1. Your Passion: When you just feel compelled to do.

2. Your Purpose: When what you do feels right. When you feel your most creative, purposeful and productive.

3. Your Potential: When what you do makes a real and lasting  difference for  others and yourself.

When we practice yoga we begin to know what makes us do what we do. When we know what is useful or can be discarded in our thinking, we make changes knowing that like a good building  everyone is designed and constructed for a certain purpose. Our roll as yogis, as a human beings to is allow that purpose to flow into the world.

This year we put a new creative spin on our Sankalpa by asking our YLP yogis to make a map, firstly describing where they are right now (location) where they want to go (destination)  and the route they would need to take  to get there (intention) .  The map would serve as a  tool to  describe self observations – and then how to intuitively move on towards what ever goals or tasks they are designed to do.

To support this, Mick gave a short talk on looking, knowing and observation in yoga. Describing,  piece by piece the difference between the observed and observer, from the external to internal experience  finally leading to an experience (however partial) of  our deeper consciousness, the observer of who and what we are. The witness which knows where we are going and how…..The Sankalpa is the result of this experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on Track is one of the YLP’s, Yoga in Action workshops, designed to show how yoga science and practice can be used to reveal  a more creative, fruitful and meaningful life.

 

Yoga in Action. No: 473

 

 

Yoga in Action = A human, seemingly random creative act of spontaneity that brings joy and compassion into the world by pointing to a deeper, ideal reality.

Fourteen going on fifteen…

So 2014 is nearly over, although as yogis we know there is no such thing as time….just change.

First, a big thank you to our YogaLife Project tribe who had to put up with building works for the last month or so. The church space is now nearly finished and we start on the hall January 5^th. Our classes and workshop will take place in the new church space.

Witnessing change all around us, even in the form of builder’s dust reminds us that nothing is permanent other than the continuous moment of stillness inside you. The goal of our practice is to experience that stillness so that we can project it out into the world. It doesn’t require anything extraordinary other than you just being yourself.  That’s when yoga really takes off and impacts on everyone and everything around you. You can be a force for change. In fact without you, change would never happen and that simple goal will continue to underpin the YLP.

This year, the support shown from all of you has given us the confidence to ramp up our projects and activities in 2015. We start with our usual Back On Track workshop on 17^th January. A yoga intensive to help refocus your intention for the coming year combined with a Sankelpa, a personal yogic business plan – a self generated reminder to help you keep focused on what you need to do.

Next year also sees the start of our YogaLife Project Teacher Training School. We are very excited about this new venture which is planned to start around August- September. We are also starting a brand new Beginner’s Class called, Yoga Basics on 6th. January. This is designed to help rationalise the class levels more efficiently so that everyone can get what they need from the YLP (remember you need to book ahead now except for the Thursday Drop-in). Other ideas include a whole day workshop called: ‘Live like a Yogi for a Day’. Where we will offer a pocket sized ashram experience of full on yoga, meditation, eating, teaching and talking. The whole event will be a dry run to future longer events such as retreats. We are also continuing to develop our Beginner’s Meditation Course held at YLP HQ starting 24^th January 2015.

We are also making better use of social media. We have a new twitter, @YogaLifeProject so that you can easily keep in contact with Mick and the YLP.  We also plan to make a couple of short films explaining  how we bring real yoga, to real people, who live real lives…Other plans include more downloadable stuff such as short, How To eBooks and apps featuring more of Mick’s guided relaxation and meditation.

If there is one thing we can take with us into next year – it’s the idea that everything good in the world starts with you. Try if you can to see the whole thing, the bigger picture, the wood, not the trees. It’s a message we are beginning to hear a lot, and have to act on, if we want to live sustainable, happier, purposeful lives. Mick, this year joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Based in California and founded by one of his heroes, Dr. Ed Mitchell the sixth man to walk on the Moon (Apollo 14). This team of scientists are researching into consciousness with a mission to help bring profound change on how we live in the world. This is yoga by another means and IONS have developed  the world’s largest on-line resource on meditation research. Here is Mitchell in 2012 asking us to see a bigger picture. Not me, or you but all of us.

So thank you everyone for your support. It has been brilliant. Next year we plan to go both higher and deeper.

Falling…

This weekend we hosted our last YogaLife Project workshop for 2014. Based on the Autumn Equinox the theme was balance, inner reflection and stillness as a way of responding the changing world around us. In amongst fallen leaves we held our balance, attempted to find the still point in our breath and know what it is to be centered, moment-by-moment. Towards the end we did a nice little writing meditation (or drawing depending on your flow) in answer to four questions, before concluding with a deep –guided relaxation and pear drop scones made from the falling fruit in the YLP gardens.

Wonderful.