This Shirt Will Change Your Life

I had a tough year.

Without going into gory details, let’s just say I lost myself, my hope, and my faith. I hit a wall. Really hard. And it knocked me down and knocked me out.

I knew that wasn’t me. I am not the kind of person who gets knocked down without getting back up again. And fast. It wasn’t me. And  yet…it was.

It was only after I went to dinner with a friend who I hadn’t seen in that whole year, that I finally woke up. We had what I thought was a very nice dinner. I put on my high heels and happy face and thought that was enough. I was shocked when my friend asked me, “Where’s Shana? I don’t even know who this person is in front of me.”

Mind you, this guy didn’t know anything about the year that had just transpired. He had no context other than what was directly in front of him. Or, I should say, what wasn’t.

I woke up the next day and, well, I woke up.

I decided that day that I was going to shift my life back into high gear where it belonged. I didn’t know how, but I was going to get my life back. I was going to get me back. And better. Period.

Though it’s been years since I played with The Law of Attraction, I figured it was a good place to start. I spent a day listening to “The Secret” on loop, and played it while I slept.

Literally the next morning, I got a call from a bona fide billionaire saying he would like me to work with his daughter. Oh…did I mention that not only did I disintegrate last year, but my business did, too? Well, it did.

This new mini yogis client seemed like a Godsend. And he wanted privates 4 – 5 times a week.

Surreal.

I get to their house and they have a dog named Bowie. As in, David Bowie. Stay tuned…this becomes important.

The little girl, as it turns out, has some pronounced special needs. Honestly, that is my favorite population to work with, because it gives me a chance to really make an impact.

And these kids make a real impact on me.

You see, this beautiful little girl may not be neurotypical, but she is superhuman in one incredible way: she has a direct connection to God. Her focus is inconsistent and challenged, but every few minutes, she pulls herself back into her body and touches her heart and says, “Jesus is in my heart,” or looks to heaven and says, “God loves me.”

I’m Jewish, but it is impossible not to be moved on a soul level to see how she connects with her faith.

And then I realized:

I thought this student was sent to me to help me with my income. I was wrong. She was sent to me to help me with my faith.

This girl has all the money in the world, anything she can dream of can be hers, sky’s the limit. But when she looks to the sky, all she sees is God. She doesn’t know or care about money. And she holds all the wisdom of the universe.

It was our third class together that I realized that though Bowie was named after a rockstar, the word “Bowie” means “Come To Me” in Hebrew.

בואי means come to me.

I had instituted the Law of Attraction and this girl came to me as a gift. Instantly.

To take it one step further: one of the things I have really been struggling with this past year has been validation. Feeling unappreciated and unvalued in this world. I kid you not, the next day–literally, the next day! that is how quickly my life is shifting!–I was running the Santa Monica Stairs and a woman in a David Bowie tee shirt stopped me in the middle of a set just to tell me how much I inspire her. I had never met this woman in my life. She just delivered a message I needed to hear.

And when I finished my sets, a man started talking to me. He flattered me a lot with his words and then I noticed he had a tattoo on his wrist that said “Psalm 23.” Anyone who followed me on Facebook during the pandemic knows that I did 365 consecutive days of Psalm 23 reflections and it was the cornerstone of my sanity. I also say it every night before bed. When we were done talking, I pulled out my phone to text him my Psalm 23 archive and the first thing to pop on my screen was a story about a songwriter who had just passed with a link to his most famous song, “My Cup Runneth Over.” An allusion to Psalm 23. And a pretty important reminder about my life, as well.

All is coming to me. Bowie. All is coming.

And this is just one cascading example. Truth be told, my entire life has shifted gears in just two weeks. And in too many ways to recount without putting you to sleep.

All this is to say: this shirt can change your life. (You can also get it on mugs, hats, and 128 different items)

How? Have you ever read about the water crystal experiment? In it, Japanese researcher, Masaru Emoto, put different words on the outside of a glass of water to see if they affected the crystals that formed when the water was frozen. What he found was astounding. The positive words like “love” or “happiness” created beautiful, magnificent crystals. And the negative words like “hate” or “anger” created dark and misshapen ones.

So, what do you think will happen when you wear this powerful word upon your heart?

In Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), it is said that merely scanning a word, focusing on the letters, or meditating on it can create a direct connection to the Divine.

For so many reasons, Bowie has now become my mantra, and wearing this powerful symbol across my heart reminds me every day that, like God Himself, I am a creator, and I create my life with my thoughts. Every minute of every day.

Anxiety Relief

It shouldn’t come as news to you that asana practice is a fabulous tool for quelling anxiety. Deep breathing and meditation, movement and mindfulness all work together to calm your nervous system and tame your brain.

But sometimes even the best of us succumb to stress and anxiety. Whether it comes in the form of panic attacks, insomnia, nausea or any other of a million manifestations, there are some thoughts and emotions that even yoga can’t seem to overcome.

When you get to that state–the one where you feel like you have lost all control–it may not be asana that saves you, but it might still be yoga.

As you may know, within the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there is a code of conduct laid out–the Yamas (abstentions) and Niyamas (observances)–that guides us in how to live the life of a yogi.

Briefly, I would like to mention the Niyama Santosa, contentment. When you are content, your happiness exists completely independent of your circumstance. When you master Santosa, nothing that occurs in your life can rock your serenity.

However, the Niyama I would really like to focus on is the tenth and most important one: Ishvara Pranidhana, submission to a Higher Power. Keep in mind that “submission to” is different than “belief in.” You can believe in a Higher Power (call Him God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, or any other name that resonates with you), without actually having faith in Him.

Faith, you see, is the unwavering belief that your Higher Power will always do what is best for you. That doesn’t always mean you will be happy. It doesn’t always mean that life will be easy or go the way you want it to. It means that you will have the experiences and the relationships, the victories and the challenges, that your soul needs to receive the lessons that you were sent to this earth to learn and grow from.

So what, you may ask, does faith have to do with anxiety?

Well, faith and anxiety cannot coexist in the same space. 

If you suffer from anxiety, it means that you don’t trust that your Higher Power has your best interests at heart.

It is the opposite of faith, where you hand your life over to your Higher Power, and you accept it as it comes. You don’t regret the past or fear the future. You treat the present as a gift.

Faith means that even in the darkest of days, you know everything will be okay. Because it will.

Have faith, my friend.

www.YOGAthletica.com

Well…I Gotta Have Faith…

In a recent personal exploration of faith, I came to an unexpected conclusion: that one can be a person of tremendous religious devotion without being a person of faith.

Typically, these words are used more or less interchangeably. Devout, faithful…same thing.

And yet…

My revelation emerged from an examination of prayer itself. The act of speaking directly to God and the things that we say.

For the last few decades, my daily prayers have mostly consisted of gratitude. Thanking God for the gifts of the day. I made a conscious shift around the beginning of my yoga journey to stop asking for things that I didn’t have and start saying thanks for the things that I do.

But…

I’d be lying if I said that I never ask–sometimes even beg–God to heal someone. Or that I never ask Him to take away someone’s pain or personal challenges.

And the conundrum that strikes me is: if I am asking God for something–anything, really–it implies that He has not granted something that should have been granted. Or perhaps He is somehow not aware of, or taking care of, people in need…? If I am asking, it means I don’t have true faith in His process and the knowledge that everything will unfold exactly the way He intended.

A highly devout person will pray daily, sometimes many times a day. A highly devout person believes in God and believes in His omnipotence. A highly devout person believes in and prays for His mercy. I will argue, however that devout people may or may not have true faith.

A highly faithful person never has to ask for anything, because s/he knows that everything is exactly as it should be. That everything follows a perfect order and reflects His will.

When you have faith, you submit to God’s wisdom and no longer have to wish or pray for things to be any different than they already are. Life isn’t always pretty. It’s not always kind and it’s certainly not always fair. But my journey to faith reminds me that, as a human, even though I can’t always understand or explain the world, I can strive to accept the Divine Order of it all.