Christian Yoga for When You Need A Shake Up: Part 3: Balancing Flow

Welcome to Part 3 of the Christian Yoga for When You Need A Shake Up video series! 

This series is inspired by the book 40 Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole. This video draws from Day 29 of the book where we are challenged to fast intimidation and let go of fear.

Balancing Poses are great to do when you’re feeling fearful, anxious, overwhelmed, so we're incorporating a lot of them into this practice! The physical act of balancing forces your mind to focus...if you give in to the million thoughts swirling around in there, you’ll fall. And here’s how we strip fear of its power, we remind ourselves that it’s ok if we fall. It’s ok if we fall. Because it’s not perfection it’s after, it’s Jesus. Falling on our yoga mats doesn’t mean we’re an embarrassment or a failure.

The key to balancing is fluidity...the more rigid you are, the harder it will be to maintain balance. So we’re going to embrace more movement than usual in this practice – micro movement, subtle movement, movement that helps you connect with where your body is in space, helps you notice where you’re holding tension and where you can release.

We’ll move slowly and carefully, like we're moving through water, making space to actually listen to the Holy Spirit instead of just charging in guns blazing.

In her book 40 Days of Decrease, Alicia writes, “During the trials, Jesus’ words were manipulated, His faith doubted, and His character slandered...Jesus knew that man was neither the author nor the director of His life. He was certain that His future did not rest in the frail, fickle, fragile hands of human favor. Consequently, Jesus had no fear for Pilate to exploit. Jesus did not fear death. Jesus did not fear suffering. He possessed an authority that could neither be bought nor beaten: an interior authority that others could misrepresent but never intimidate.”

We explore this thought deeper in our practice and embrace the following prayer as we move:

“When you realize fear is being used to intimidate you, pause and verbalize this simple prayer: Jesus, you have already embraced everything that I fear. I renounce fear’s hold on me. By God’s grace I share Your victory. Will fear vaporize as you say ‘amen’? That would be lovely. But even more powerful is the fact that the cycle of awareness, resistance, and prayer decreases your vulnerability to intimidation by strengthening your will with Truth.”

Christian Yoga for When You Need A Shake Up: Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of the Christian Yoga for When You Need A Shake Up video series! 

This series is inspired by the book 40 Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole. This video draws from Day 15 of the book where we are challenged to fast spiritual self-protection. 

In Part 1 we focused on opening those bound up places in our heart, welcoming into the light those doubts and questions and disappointments that have been swirling around. God is more than big enough to handle them. Their power exists only in the darkness, but once they’re brought into the light, they lose their grip.

This week we’re drawing our attention to one of our most major coping strategies in the face of pain – self-protection.

In her book 40 Days of Decrease, Alicia writes, “Uncertain that God will protect us, we proactively protect ourselves. To avoid further emotional and theological pain, we lower our expectations, edit our dreams, and shrink back from God through fear-driven planning, endless worry, hypervigilance, or the numbing of hope. With each choice to self-protect, another layer is added to insulate our hearts from attentiveness to God’s presence.” 

The key to dusting off the numbness in our lives is presence.

When we read Bible stories we tend to zoom in on the one event at the expense of seeing the entire picture. You’ve probably heard the story about Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey with everyone laying palm branches and their coats along the road (maybe even as a kid you remember bringing palm branches to church). But I never really made the connection that just days later this same crowd who was shouting Jesus’ Kingship was calling for his crucifixion. The Disciples, who would soon lock themselves in a room after Jesus’ death were welcomed and affirmed, Judas was still invited to the communion table that night even though he was about to betray Jesus. But Jesus knew all this and yet He still showed up, He still participated fully, He stayed present.

What must Jesus have believed about Father God and about himself in order to stay present? What must you and I believe about Father God and about ourselves in order to feel safe enough to drop the wall of self-protection and remain present?

Christian Yoga for When You Need A Shake Up: Part 1

Welcome to Part 1 of the Christian Yoga for When You Need a Shake Up video series!

This video series is inspired by the book 40 Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole and this specific practice is based on Days 4 and 5 of the book. Over the course of this four part video series, we'll press in to shake off the dust that's been accumulating in our hearts, reignite freedom and passion when that familiar boredom and staleness sets in.

This 30 minute Christian yoga practice is full of deep breathing and quiet moments, a handful of simple flows to get you moving, and an invitation to wrestle with some of the harder questions in life.

We examine the story of John the Baptist, specifically the later part of his life when he finally meets Jesus (the Messiah he'd spent his entire life prophesying about!), baptizes Jesus, loses many of his own disciples to Jesus, and then finds himself sitting in a prison...a long cry from the crowds of people he used to attract. Prior to sitting in prison, John had boldly declared that Jesus was the one they'd been waiting for! But as he the days stretched into months in prison and Jesus was out performing miracles and training up his own radical disciples, John sent a message to Jesus inquiring, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3)

In her book 40 Days of Decrease, Alicia writes, “From within prisons of pain or persecution, injustice or accusation, limitations or unmet longings, we, too, can wonder if Jesus is truly who we thought He was. A key invitation of our spiritual journey is to be emotionally honest about our uncertainties.”

So in this yoga practice, we challenge our hearts to be honest about the doubts, questions, and confusion lurking in the dark. We trust that God is big enough to handle them, that he won't punish us for asking them, and believe that, like his response to John, he'll lovingly affirm His calling in our lives.

Christian Yoga Deep Stretching & Relaxation: 20 mins.

strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God

Flow Description

This twenty minute gentle yoga practice is full of deep easy stretches, perfect for winding down after a long day, or some deep stretching after a cardio workout! All the poses are seated which means you can do this right in bed ;)

There is a lot of silence built into this practice, a lot of space without my words so that you can wait on God, for His words.

Let’s ask Him for real goodness in our circumstances right now. Let’s choose to submit and surrender to it. Let’s ask for the Holy Spirit to fill us with Joy and not just happiness…Joy in the most trying and confusing of circumstances. Let’s make space for him to cultivate that in us. For us to quiet the chatter, calm the fear, and breathe in His goodness.

Scripture

“Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good; God probes for what is good.” – Proverbs 16:2 {MSG}

 

“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.” – Phil. 4: 6-9 {MSG}

Prayer

God, we don’t want that thing that looks satisfying in the moment but is just going to leave us empty, hungry, still searching for something better. We want the kind of perfect provision that only comes from you. We want to sow and reap good fruit, not fruit that dies in season. And so we’ll wait, hands open, hearts humbled, for the thing that is so unbelievably good through and through.

Amen.

Embrace Your Individuality: 50 min. Arm Balancing Christian Yoga Flow

strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God

Flow Description

Fire up your core, strengthen your upper body, embrace your uniqueness, and learn to take flight in this 50 minute arm balancing practice. Whether you’re brand new to arm balances or you’ve been building them into your practice for years, you’ll find something to challenge and encourage you in this practice.

We spend a lot of time working our core strength and play with two arm balances: Tolasana (Scale Pose) and Bakasana (Crow Pose). Having two yoga blocks, or a couple stacks of books nearby will be super helpful in exploring these poses, so make sure to grab them before you hit play.

Our theme for this practice is embracing our uniqueness and the importance of you and I running in our own lanes in order to best reflect God’s love to the world around us.

In an essay titled The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes, “Each of the Redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the divine beauty better than any other creature can…Each has something to tell all others – fresh and ever-fresh news of the ‘My God’ whom…all praise as ‘Our God.’” 

This is why we must stop the comparison game and choose instead to embrace our individuality…even (and especially) on our yoga mats.

So no matter where you are on your yoga journey, no matter what physical or emotional challenges you’re walking through, have grace for yourself and embrace the beautiful and unique calling on your life.

Scriptures

{1 Corinthians 12:12-31, emphasis added}

12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

27-31 You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:

apostles
prophets
teachers
miracle workers
healers
helpers
organizers
those who pray in tongues.

But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.

But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.

 

Questions

C.S. Lewis wrote that “Each of the Redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the divine beauty better than any other creature can.” What aspect of God’s beauty do you resonate with uniquely? What part of his character do you find yourself constantly soaking in and encouraging others in?

What truth do you need to remind yourself of today, to help you run in your lane, to sing your unique song?

Yoga for Today: A Gentle Christian Yoga Practice to Cultivate Presence

strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God

Flow Description

What if everything you needed today, in this moment, was already yours? What if we really believed that we were beloved children of God and not orphans?

These are the questions we move and breathe through in this gentle yoga practice, a practice designed to cultivate greater awareness of and gratefulness for God’s goodness in our lives.

We dive into the story of the Israelites wandering the desert for 40 years and explore how God provided for their every need every day. In the form of manna and quail from heaven, the Israelites never went hungry. Each morning these provisions were fresh, and God commanded them to only collect what they needed that day – if they tried to hoard up extras for the next day, they rotted overnight.

Julian Green says this: “The story of the manna gathered and set aside by the Hebrews is deeply significant. It so happened that the manna rotted when it was kept. And perhaps this means that all spiritual reading which is not consumed – by prayer and works – ends by causing a sort of rotting inside us. You die with a head full of fine sayings and a perfectly empty heart.” 

You see, we aren’t orphans left alone in the wilderness to starve. We are children of God, invited to come to the table and eat every day, every moment, to the full, so that we can be nourished and we can nourish others. Let’s set our gaze on this deep truth as we move and breath on our mats.

Scriptures

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. {Matthew 6:30-34 (MSG)}

Questions

Do you trust that God will give you what you need today?

And that he’ll also be there tomorrow?

And the next day?

Regardless of whether you put your time in?

Prayer

Father,  help us remember that we are your children, that we’re not abandoned, we’re not forgotten, we’re not orphans, we’re not strangers walking around on the street picking up nice sayings to put in an empty heart.

Father, we want to be children who are transformed by your love. Children who don’t hoard what you give us, but we let it transform us and then we give it away. We want more of you in our lives and in the world around us. Help us live in the present moment, with our eyes open to what you are doing right here, right now.

Thank you that you are alive and active and moving and that we get to be a part of this. Amen.