In this course, you receive a 220 page printable copy of Shannon’s first book that we coin “The Resource.” Shannon shares the recipe of Alchemy and how the practice of yoga bridges God’s creativity and love into reality through you. This ReSource is a guide of the soul’s path towards consciousness and a “how to” in co-creation.
Addiction is the inability to face the present moment. The motivation of addictive behavior is not bad. Usually when we engage in an addictive behavior we are seeking relief, love, control, release, attention or we just want to hide. Although the underlying emotional need is natural, the addictive behavior comes at a cost to the physical body and to our health.
It is good to know what we need in the present moment, but it is also the hardest thing. It is hard to know what we need in the present moment if we are not used to presence. Changing habits are really hard. We have to awake before the unhealthy action and choose a different and healthy action.
The Five States of Mental Activity
Patanjali, author of The Yoga Sutras, shares that there are five states of mental activity. They are understanding, misunderstanding, memory, sleeping, and imagination. Patanjali says that these five states of mental activity may, or may not, cause us suffering. Patanjali reminds us that our essential nature is often hidden due to the activity of the mind, and that we will experience yoga when we are able to settle the mind and connect with our essential consciousness.
Yoga reminds us that having a human birth is an awesome opportunity! In the eyes of God it does not matter if you are physically beautiful, or materially rich. Yea it’s maybe some good karma, but what we do with the life we live is how we approach freedom for not just us, but for all.
The superficial is not important to the yogi. The connection to cosmic consciousness is important. Consciousness is connection. Through the practices of yoga the body will be its most beautiful, yet as yogis we are most interested in the quality of consciousness. Life is limited. Take good care of your body so you can become conscious.
I chose to have my career as a yoga instructor. There is a lot that goes into it and it constantly develops my public speaking, my creativity, courage, and motivates me to show up to the moment. What qualifies us to teach yoga is that we practice yoga. We must practice what we teach. We also must really love people.
Like any other mission, or purpose in life, it will present us with challenge and some heart break, but as yoga teachers we are humbly willing to show up and rise to the moment, heal our selves, and do all that we can to be of service to our community. It is a great honor to be of service, to inspire people back to their true nature, back to joy.
The goal of teaching yoga is to assist others in the experience of yoga, in enlightenment, consciousness, and liberation from attachment and separation. If we are teaching yoga we have probably experienced moments of this bliss in our personal practice, and we want to share it with every body.
Remember that you now call the shots in your life. You are totally empowered to affect what ever change you desire for your life. You are a resonance and a co creator. You can have everything you desire for your life. You just have to know that with your whole being.
The mind is the most powerful tool.
When the thoughts of the mind are unconscious, they can cause all sorts of problems. Usually most of unconscious thinking is not even real. It is usually governed by our past, or our fear/desire for the future.
Right here, right now is the only true reality that will remain with us throughout our existence.
Here is a recipe I learned from my teachers and from my experience with yoga:
We are constantly presented with choices. What do I want to eat? Am I even hungry? Do I need this or that? Should I resign the lease? Should I stay in this relationship? Should I stay another year with my job? Etc. Our choices will determine our reality of the here and now. The here and now is really all there is. Commitment to the moment helps us to make good decisions. Staying grounded in the here and now will assist in the ability to choose consciously. Some choices can cause us to become ungrounded. Some choices expend incredible amounts of energy. Yoga reminds us that it doesn’t have to.
Tapas is the third of Patanjali’s Niyamas (personal observances), in Sanskrit it is heat, transformation, austerity, discipline, and the burning up of impurities. It is related to the Solar Plexus chakra, Manipura, which element is fire. Fire is the most transformative element. To cultivate more personal power, inner strength, and self confidence it is important to practice Tapas.
Will power will grow if you decide to do something and do it. Will power will decrease if you decide to do something and don’t do it. We work our will power just like a muscle. We have to train for it.
Our body, our being, our spinal cord, and our nervous system is like an antenna, a satellite. We receive all that is coming in. We have to feel it because we are on a path to something. It is vital to our health that we learn to listen and respect all that is coming in. We are a resonance. We must bring consciousness to our resonance.
We are constantly being fed with sources of inspiration. Whether it comes from the world, from our community, our culture, our relationships, our past, or our desire for our future, it is important to bring mindfulness into how we metabolize these things. If we are interested in a happy life, we must purify our nervous system, and become responsible for our resonance.
Most of us are in a co-dependent, and dysfunctional relationship with our mind. Most of us are unconsciously creating excessive and psychological reliance that is dependent on our identification to our thoughts. This is a one sided relationship. The mind should not be relied upon for our self-esteem, and for self-identification. This is abusive.
True self confidence comes from the connection to the inherent self, which nature is, joy, peace, and love. Begin the psychotherapeutic process that clears the lens of perception, revealing to you, your inherent nature, which lives in each and every cell of the body and lives within the mind, and it’s every thought. Strive to dis-identify first with the thoughts of the mind that are unconscious and not serving in order to begin to co create with the mind. We start this through cultivating the art of observation. The art of mindfulness. We begin to observe the mind think.
Usually we observe that the thoughts are either governed by our past, our memories, our perception of our memories, our emotional storage, attachments, etc., or our thoughts are governed by our desires or fears about the future. Both of these goverences are not grounded in reality. Reality is only true in the here and now moment. There are infinite possibilities of outcomes. We have to bring our mindfulness to how our present reality and resonance is being guided by these things of past, or future. And then we have to ask ourselves if that is even real. If that is even true for us, or the vibe we would like to co create with.