Judith Hanson Lasater on Making Peace with the Present Moment

Judith Hanson Lasater with B. K. S. Iyengar

On  Monday, 1/28/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, 6-6:30 PM CST, for Tiferet Talk, I will have the honor of speaking with writer, yoga instructor, psychologist, and physical therapist Judith Hanson Lasater about how to live your yoga and other vital topics. Lasater, who has been teaching yoga since 1971 and is the president of the California Yoga Teachers' Association, is a founder of both the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco and Yoga Journal magazine. As well, Lasater is the author of many books, including What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication (with Ike Lasater, 2009), Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life (1999), A Year of Living Your Yoga (2006), and Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times (1995), all published by Rodmell Press. 

In praise of Lasater, Patricia Walden states, “Judith Lasater presents timeless wisdom with clarity and insight. She is a well-seasoned yogini, who writes from personal experience on how to use the events of daily life as yoga poses for the mind and heart.”

Erich Schiffmann states: "Yes! Living Your Yoga is what it's all about. Here is a clear and friendly book that will help anyone embody the wisdom of yoga by consciously bringing it into daily life. The exercises are fun. They can help you learn how to do yoga all the time—now and now and now—when you are in the yoga room and when you are not. Take this book to heart."

Below, you will find some words of wisdom that Judith was kind enough to share from her blog, as well as a link to the show. The link will become active once the show goes live on Monday.

Make Peace with the Present Moment

by Judith Hanson Lasater

Too often our mental process is to judge ourselves for what we are thinking or feeling. A thought arises and our inner dialogue says something like, “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking that” or “How can I be thinking/feeling that when I am a yoga student, teacher or meditator?”

Then we react to those judgments with even more judgments for judging, and we are caught in a repeating pattern from hell.

A practice I have been enjoying for some months now is to “make peace with the present moment.” That means that when thoughts arise followed by thoughts of judgment I tell myself that the whole process is part of my practice: the original thoughts and the secondary or following thoughts as well. I do this by saying to myself, “how human of me to have a thought of X.” This helps so much when I look at the behavior of others as well.

When I say silently to myself, “How human of him to act/react with anger or fear or disappointment” then there is a space for compassion to arise in me. And I like how that feels. Then I am at peace with the present moment.

Copyright 2013 by Judith Hanson Lasater. Reprinted with permission.

http://judithlasater.com/writings/index.html