“Relax your breath…more…”

We are on our backs in shavasana, the final ‘corpse pose’ that closes a yoga session. The deep and gentle voice guiding our bodies and minds through this belongs to Max Strom, a renowned yogi traveling the world teaching yoga. The voice continues,

“Relax your entire life…more…”

Now this was a new one. After my initial surprise, I gave relaxing my entire life a try. Strangely enough, it was a completely easy and natural thing to do. In a split second, I realized that ‘my entire life’ wasn’t like a building that I put together brick by brick, year by year, that I now have to live in. I could just relax my whole life since my life is played out from the inside. Or at least the way I live it. So there I was, relaxing my entire life just like that, laying between 25-some other people that, I hope, were doing the same.

Last weekend I had the pleasure to be one of Max Strom’s grateful yoga students three mornings in a row at the beautiful rebuild yoga studio of Yoga Moves in Utrecht, Holland, where he drops by almost every year. His style of teaching feels like a relief. As he says on his website, “The goal (of yoga) is not to tie ourselves into knots –we’re already tied in knots. The aim is to untie the knots in our heart.” The knots in my heart indeed became untied when Max guided us into a visual meditation after shavasana:

“Sit up tall and easy, close your eyes. Now imagine the person who in this life has taught you what love is…”

-I was attending the workshop with my fabulous mom –

“Visualize this person sitting right in front of you…”

-My mom was-

“and radiate out all the gratitude you feel towards this person.”
 
It’s so simple yet so profound. Maybe this is a good thing to do right now at the beginning of your week. Who was the person that taught you what love is?

If you ever get a chance to practice with Max Strom, I would recommend you do. His teaching schedule can be found on his website.


Wishing you untied knots and free hearts,

Geertje