Tag: viniyoga

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Yoga classes in Altea – amazing! New as of 18-2-22

We are back to the mat, people! Group yoga classes are back, and I am truly thrilled to get back to teaching you the finer points of Hatha yoga.

yoga classes in Altea

A year has now passed since I last gave a group class. It has been a strange year, to say the least. The pandemic (which I know we are all bored of talking about) has exposed rifts both in our inner lives and in our societies. We just had to hunker down and do our best. I wasn’t on my best form for a few months there, so I felt like I didn’t have the energy to give as a teacher. I stuck with my massages, for sure, but yoga became about my personal practice and about teaching private yoga classes at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Luckily, I kept my skills fresh teaching yoga at this world-famous wellness hotel. There, I teach yoga, meditation, mindfulness and pranayama (breath work) and I truly love it. They are private classes, and so have a different feel than group classes. Group classes have their own special vibe, and I am so excited to get back to teaching them.

Group yoga classes are social

I once read a very interesting interview with an Indian yoga teacher from a very distinguished lineage. He was giving a seminar in Sweden and the interviewer stole (borrowed?) a few minutes of his time.

When asked about the differences between teaching yoga in India and teaching yoga in the West, he mentioned the predominance of group classes in the West. Traditional Indian teaching would have been one-to-one, guru to student. Outside of India, that tradition has been lost, or substituted. The teacher mentioned that in Western countries, loneliness is a major social and psychological problem and that group yoga classes play an important role in alleviating this loneliness.

Nice people go to yoga class

In yoga classes, we often meet like-minded people and the environment of yoga encourages a deeper kind of sharing and more intimate conversation that might feel out of place on a pub night out, for example.

Alone in company

I have personally experienced the extremely common situation of being really into personal growth whilst in a relationship with someone who is not. That provoked in me the deepest feelings of loneliness as I felt invalidated when trying to talk about issues that really mattered to me. I was lucky that I worked in the field of wellness and preventative medicine and that gave me an outlet. (Nevertheless, when you’re the teacher or therapist, you’re not expected to share so much as the role of the teacher is to hold space for others. But, that conversation is worthy of a whole other post! )

Entrainment

Have you ever seen those videos of metronomes spontaneously synchronising? There is a tendency for energy waves to fall into patterns, and this is observable in many different area. Birds flying in a swirling flock, feedback on a microphone…and humans meditating. Yep, the phenomenon is called “entrainment” and it happens.

Basically, when you do yoga or meditate, you reduce the frequency and amplitude of your brainwaves. SMB (slow-medium Beta) is the frequency associated with meditative movement modalities like yoga, tai chi or chi gong. If you are practising alone, your brainwaves will relax, but if you are with people who are doing the same practice, it seems like everyone’s brainwaves synchronise and you get to the happy place a little more easily. Also, when you are in the presence of the highly trained and experienced teacher, your brainwaves entrain to theirs. Fascinating to think about, no?

Come to class!

I will start by offering one class per week and take it from there. I am super busy, as is everyone, so I want to make this work.

Day: Fridays

Dates: 18-02-2022 until the end of June.

Time: 9.30-10.30

Studio: Qiyoga

Address: Calle la Mar 143, Altea

Price: 30€/month

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Orchids, yoga, and lying fallow

About to bud

Fallow land is land that is not planted with crops. It is left to lie uncultivated for a season in order to improve the quality of the soil. In the olden days, before chemical fertilisers forced land into continual productivity, parts of a farm would be left fallow for a short time before being replanted on a rotating basis.

Humans also need to lie fallow. Everything does. Everything needs a reset, and a downtime. Just like choosing not to reply is a form of replying, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The symbolism of the yin-yang teaches exactly this: everything has an equal and opposite. All activity requires rest, all restfulness requires its activity. Meditation is a lovely way to fallow from the activity of daily life.

Hibernating

Montreal is known for its vibrant cultural scene and especially its summer festivals. Canadians know this is possible partly because of the government’s massive investment in arts and culture and partly because of freezing Québec winter. Montrealers hibernate so that they can bloom in the long, warm summer days.

When it’s cold, you don’t hang out on café terraces. When it gets dark by 4PM, you tend to snuggle up at home. You lie, as it were, fallow. All that downtime can make for some great art, if you’re that way inclined.

Yoga and meditation invite us to lie fallow. They invite us to stop and observe and be still. They invite us to open up a space into which may arrive…anything. All that downtime can make for some great (re)awakenings, if you’re that way inclined.

Hello, little one!

Orchids

I am a lover of orchids. I am regularly given orchids who are lying fallow. Once the bright blooms wither and die, the plant itself is nothing special. Just a few thick and waxy leaves and some rather strange, grey, worm-like aerial roots. No, like this they are not eye-catching. But, give them some sunlight, a little fertiliser and a few months’ rest and they will reward you with dozens of delicate flowers that can last up to six months.

I grow orchids in my massage room. Orchids seem to thrive in the ambience of a therapy room. The stillness, the quiet, the controlled environment suits them just fine. I have tried growing other green plants – ferns, small palms, devil’s ivy – but with little success. They seem much happier in the upbeat and variable environment of a home. But orchids, conversely, in my home don’t thrive. They survive, they bloom, but they don’t burst forth as they do in my massage room.

Hey buddy!

I like to muse that this is because the massage room is a place where their fallow time is respected. They are just allowed to be, to not be beautiful, to receive no comments, to attract no admiration. They just sit, and wait, and gather strength. Perhaps they are meditating. Perhaps they are astral flying back to the South East Asian jungles from whence their ancestors came. I don’t ask and they don’t tell. I just watch them gather speed and know that, come February, their fallow time will end with a burst of colour, life and manifestation of their innate glory.

New shoot on an old shoot

Sit, be still, breathe

Think of meditation and yoga as the stillness before the flowering. The point of postures and breathing and contemplating is not the acts themselves but what comes after. It is not about how much you bend or how long you breathe, it is about what is created by those acts. The yoga is a vehicle, what comes next it totally unique, it the manifestation of YOU, your true nature.

I often say “I don’t do yoga, yoga does me”. Yoga and meditation have allowed me to see who I truly am and to be who I truly long to be. I was a shy and sensitive child who lived through various traumas which, cumulatively, made be edgy and nervous and hyper-vigilant. I was high-functioning and was no beast, but I consistently found myself acting in ways that I would later regret, making hasty decisions that I would later regret and, most importantly, NOT DOING things that I would later regret not doing. Yoga brought me down to Earth. It grounded me and cuddled me and calmed me and gave me a purpose. Yoga and meditation are unfailingly generous, and they are the best time investment I have ever made. I lay fallow for a long time, I lie fallow on a regular basis. But what came out of all this, the life that I am living right now, is marvellous.

As winter draws in, in the Northern Hemisphere, I encourage you to lie fallow. Take time out and watch the clouds, watch your mind, watch your emotions. Be still, breathe, all is coming.

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Yoga and minimalism

When I think of yoga imagery, minimalism the last thing that comes to mind. The Hindu aesthetic is quite clearly maximalist, full of colour, symbolism and detail. This spills over into Western yoga. Yoga leggings, to choose an obvious example, are often brightly coloured and patterned. Many yogis adorn their studio spaces with multi-hued batiks. This is super good, a few years ago I would have done the same. I really like colour. But, there has been an evolution in my consciousness and my yoga teaching and practice. I call it Y O G A | M I N I M A L I S M.

Am I minimalist in my home life?

Yes and no. It has been the work of my lifetime to overcome my hoarding habit. Not only am I born in the Year of the Rat (Rats are considered to be innate hoarders), but both my parents had a marked tendency to save everything for a rainy day. Add to this an exaggerated sense of responsibility for The World (I thought that if I *didn’t* recycle or dispose of ethically I would doom us all!) and some pretty tight years, economically, and you get a person who holds onto to stuff. A big part of my personal (r)evolution was learning to part with things – EVEN if I like them, EVEN if they’re useful.

It was hard at first, but I got the hang of it and now I can confidently say that my possessions do not overwhelm me and are manageable and useful. I had to do the same thing with my yoga. Beginning in 1999, I have practiced yogâsana, and was lucky to find Viniyoga in 2007. Since then, I have worked on focus and exclusivity, and it has brought such an enormous sense of peace and joy – as well as more minimalism. I just do this one thing – Viniyoga and mantra. (My thesis for my first YTT was on mantra and it is core element of my practice). Even so, I do always try to deepen certain poses (the progressive development over time is called “Vinyasa Krama”), and there are still moves that I would love to master. But, that is only desire and I can choose to act on it, or not. For now, I choose to gentle and calm postures, no straining, lots of rest. It works for me and I think that it can work for most practitioners with more than a decades’ practice on their mats.

Y O G A | C O N F U S I O N

Yoga is a bit of a hoarder. It has a lot of facets. You start with postures and suddenly find pranayama. You start with mantra and suddenly find yantra and suddenly you think “I am going to print some t-shirts”. Modern yoga is definitely NOT minimalist. Yoga is full to bursting with ideas, scriptures, imagery, history and options to personalise your practice. It is far too easy to be drawn into ever wider and more disperse circles of yoga.

For example, you begin by studying a 200-hr Sivananda YTT, and after a few months’ teaching, you understand that you need more depth. So you go on a 500-hr Yoga Therapy YTT. This helps, but by going to a different lineage, you find that the same posture is known by different names, depending on whom you study with. You start to investigate and find out that Kundalini yoga doesn’t even use Sanskrit, it uses Gurmukhi. You listen to the Kundalini bhajans and discover that you like chanting. Suddenly you have a white turban and a spiritual name. You get into White Tantra but find the scene a bit way-out. You pull away and suddenly you’re doing Beer Yoga…

Sounds funny, right? But it is not that far-fetched. It is modern yoga and it can pull you in all directions, if you’re not careful. Being pulled in all directions is the OPPOSITE of yoga, which, of course, means “to unite”. Yoga is about becoming united in body and mind, united in your path and your purpose and united in your heart and spirit.

Y O G A | M I N I M A L I S M

Minimalism, as applied to yoga, means sticking to one path, and using fewer and fewer props and postures. Yoga, union, is, after all, found in meditation. Meditation does not use anything at all. I have said many a time that meditation is profoundly counter-cultural as the one who meditates consumes nothing at all, hardly even air.

The more I practice and teach, the less I do. And I mean that in the gross, outerworld way. Of course, I try to stay “in yoga” all the time, even when I am out dancing or whatever. But I don’t feel the need to make challenging yoga shapes, post every day to Instagram whilst wearing cool yoga gear or even convince people of the many incredible benefits of yoga. In fact, I have become very minimalist in my approach to yoga.

My list:

  1. If someone hears the call to do yoga, they will. If not, don’t try to convince them.
  2. If a practice accelerates the breath, it may be good and fun, but it goes against yoga. They say you’re born with a certain number of breaths and using them up faster shortens your life. Move and breathe S L O W L Y.
  3. If you can stop, do. If you can just sit and breathe, do it.
  4. Focus on the exhale, not the inhale.
  5. Remember the Yamas ahimsa and santosha. Ahimsa is “no harming”. Don’t hurt yourself. Santosha is “enjoyment”. Make your practice fun and enjoyable.
  6. Gratitude. What a gift is it to practice yoga, to live in a time and a place in which yoga has travelled across the globe and embraced us all. Thank you, Purusha.

To close and honour the ending principle

Hindu philosophy, as applied to yoga, identifies Lord Shiva as the closer of things, the one who lets things end. As I finish this post, I offer my words to this principle. Ending, emptiness, the void – these are all quite frightening to the Western Mind. We see endings as finite, but if you see Life itself as a continuum, as energy gathering, unfolding and dispersing, then endings aren’t so scary. Minimalism in yoga is allowing your âsana practice to draw inwards, to become tighter and smaller and, well, more minimal. Don’t be afraid of letting a sweaty or active practice fade as you age. It may be just what you need. After all, if we don’t open space for the new, how can anything new enter our life?

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Alteayoga is back!

Dear yogis and yogis-to-be – I am back! Soooo happy to report that yoga did not let me go. I had a wobble, I admit, back in June. After lockdown eased and suddenly we were out on the streets again, I didn’t quite know where to situate myself. I had grown quite used to giving class via Facebook Live, every evening at 7. (If you want to check out those classes, pop on over to my YouTube channel and select the Playlist “Yoga for Small Spaces”).

When the new reality hit – the SHA still closed, the place where I had given class a closed space with no room for even four people, the prospect of wearing a mask whilst practising – it seemed insurmountable.

So, I just did my own practice. I kept hitting the mat. I healed a hurt right shoulder (darn dogs pulled me down…again) and I kept posting little reminders (on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter) that it is going to be ok, that yoga has answers for questions that you don’t even know how to formulate, but which are there, bubbling away under the surface. I just….kept practising.

Lo and behold, people starting asking me to teach again. I am not going to pretend that I have LOADS of students. But, the students that I do have are pure love, super cool people, a real “type” of person – creative, independent, a bit wacky. Hey, I guess I resonate with those kinds of people…wonder why?

Well, long story short, I started working at QIYoga here in Altea and the rest, as they say, is history. We had a few sweet months of classes in the centre, and are now practising online. But, we are there, we are checking in, we are a group, a little team of happy yogis and I am so, so, thrilled to be able to teach.

So, yoga, and yoga and more yoga. Oh, and some laughter, good food, good friends, sunshine and all those good time things. Blessings, catch you on the mat.

-RR

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How We Breathe: Moving things around

Introduction

We usually just think of the breath as being Oxygen in and CO2 out…if we think about the breath at all.  Yoga practitioners may think about prâna.  But few of us take the time to contemplate all the other things that move around because of the breath.

Most of us know a little about the blood.  We have all had a cut at one time of another, and we have all seen a butcher’s shop in our lives.

Most of us, however, know very little about the lymph, the interstitial fluid or the cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF).

While the blood is moved around the body by the heart, the other fluids don’t have such luck. The lymph is primarily moved by muscle flexion and breathing.  The cerebro-spinal fluid is mainly moved by the breath and pressure differences due to blood flow and heartbeat. Interstitial fluid is drained by the lymphatic system which, as already mentioned, is moved by the breath.  Are you beginning to see a pattern?

Lymphatic flow and the breath

The lymphatic system is an amazing semi-closed network of vessels and nodes that runs throughout the entire body.  Its anatomy is not yet fully understood.

Lymph is a somewhat thick liquid that carries junk from the cells back to the central circulation so that your body can dispose of it.  Lymph is not made by the body in the same way that blood or bone is made.  Lymph is a by-product of normal metabolism.  There are times when you make more lymph – ie:  a healing wound that is inflamed will produce more waste, which then becomes lymph.  There is a baseline lymph level called the lymph obligatory load.  When you have more lymph being produced, the lymph obligatory load increases.  Are you with me so far?

Lymph is created when the junk and water that is hanging around the cells in the interstitium gets swept up into the lymph pre-collector channels.  Once there, it is called lymph although, really, it hasn’t changed. It’s just that, now, it’s in the lymphatic system and gets called lymph. For the sake of simplicity, we shall lump lymph and interstitial fluid together.  So far, so good.

The lymph vessels get bigger and bigger as they get closer to the centre of the body.  At some stage, they become able to make little pulsations which push the lymph onwards. Backflow is impeded by valves that are similar to the valves in the veins.  These are called “bicuspid valves” and are one-way.  Side note:  varicose veins are caused, often, by malfunction of the biscuspid valves.

Still, the best way to pump lymph from out to in (distal to medial) is by moving muscles and by breathing.  The movement of the diaphragm down and up creates a relative vacuum with each breath.  This pressure difference acts like a piston-like pump, and sucks the lymph into the central lymph ducts.  To return to general circulation, the lymph accumulates in the “Cisterna Chyli” before moving into the thoracic duct. The Thoracic duct is the biggest lymph vessel in the body.  It crosses the diaphragm at the lowest and back-most of the holes in the diaphragm. It empties the lymph into the subclavian vein, just below the collarbone.  Once there, the liquid is no longer lymph.  It is now part of the blood.

So…lymph is created in the cells by normal metabolism.  It needs to get “home”.  It moves because of the breath.  If we breathe badly, lymph flow is slow and we may develop edema, which is swollen tissue, full of water.  So, breathe well and love your lymph.  On we go…

CSF Flow and the breath

“Breathing acts as a pump to propel CSF up the spine and around the brain.”

“With each breath the diaphragm descends and the rib cage expands, leading to a drop in pressure in the chest cavity. This drop in pressure draws blood from the brain in veins that empty into the heart. The skull is a rigid and confined space. As blood returns to the heart, CSF is drawn up the spinal column to replace the lost volume.”

source:  (https://goiheart.com/blog/brain-breathing-to-improve-internal-health)

This is very similar to the way the breath affects the lymph. Now, take a moment to contemplate this:  the Central Nervous System (CNS) is the brain and spinal column, put as simply as possible.  Most of you have heard about discs (ie:  “slipped disc” or “herniated disc”) and the meninges (ie:  “meningitis).  Well, the discs are like hard little sponges between the spine bones and the meninges are like cling-film coatings around the brain and spinal column. The meninges carry the Cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF).

Discs don’t have blood supply.  (“During development and at birth, vertebral discs have some vascular supply to the cartilage endplates and the anulus fibrosus. These quickly deteriorate leaving almost no direct blood supply in healthy adults.“)  It seems that there is some blood supply to the edges of the discs via capillaries, the smallest of the blood vessels, and that nutrients are diffused into the centre of the discs, but very slowly.  So, to nourish the intervertebral discs is quite a challenge.

Cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) is produced in the choroid plexus of the brain and then moves along slowly with each hearbeat, circulating through the ventricles of the brain and then throughout the subarachnoid space of the spinal cord and brain. Bathing and nourishing the nervous system, CSF also cushions the brain and spinal cord.

source:  https://www.conquerchiari.org/articles/special-topics/daily-living/nuts-and-bolts-of-spinal-anatomy.html

They are, instead, nourished by the CSF in the meninges.  We write “meninges” with an “s” because it’s plural:  there are three.  One is just around the brain, but two of them go all the way down the spine to the lower back.  And yes, they nourish and protect the bones, discs and nerves of the spinal column because they transport CSF.  So, it’s a nice thing to have that CSF moving, isn’t it?

If you are well hydrated, you should be able to influence the movement of CSF via breathing and movement.  Logically, when one is lying down, the CSF pressure is about the same all the way along the spinal column.  This is also the case for lymphatic flow:  it is greatly improved by simply lying down.  I am often asked to contrast yoga with Tai Chi or Qi Gong.  While no expert on either practice, and with a healthy respect for both, I always give the same answer:  I like yoga because of the floor work, specifically that part where you lie down and breathe deeply.

Viniyoga, the breath, and moving fluids

Yoga is a practice that is based upon linking the breath with movement.  In Viniyoga, we usually open the body on the Inhale and close on the Exhale.  We use some breath retentions (krama) for added effect.  We teach breathing in postures and in isolation (pranayama).  In addition to promoting flexibility in joints and muscles, yoga lengthens and deepens the breath.  Over time, the resting breathing pattern of the practitioner changes permanently.  Because Viniyoga focuses so much on the breath, it is a deeply healing form of hatha yoga.  It is also accessible to all.  A person may not be able to dominate a complex flow sequence, but they can probably work comfortably with Viniyoga’s more gentle but just as effective sequences.

Conclusion

Breathing is more than just gas exchange.  Breathing is a motor, a pump, and it moves fluids around the body.  Specifically, lymphatic fluid, interstitial fluid and cerebro-spinal fluid are moved by the pressure gradients created by deep diaphragmatic breathing.  Yoga is a practice that teaches people how to breathe, and through the correct use of postures and sequences, we can positively influence the practitioner’s health.

Further Reading:

“Why Yoga Works”  http://www.healtouch.com/csft/yoga.html

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Series: How we breathe – Introduction

Yoga can teach us many things, but perhaps the most important one is how to breathe.  Since I know a lot about breathing, I have decided to begin writing a little series entitled “How we breathe”.  I know that, with great frequency, bloggers start of with big plans to write a series, but things tail off after two or three entries.  Rest assured that here with Miss Rachel, this will not happen.  I am far, far too stubborn to do such a thing.  Ha!
Reflect, for a moment, if you will on this:  There is little else, other than the breath, that accompanies you, absolutely surely accompanies you, from the first moment you are born until the last moment you live.
You can lose a kidney, a spleen.  A heart can be transplanted.  A brain can be induced into a coma.  But the breath is there, coming and going, rising and falling.

Breathing and Anxiety

Anxiety is crippling us these days and the breath may hold one of the keys to overcoming it.  The defining quality of a panic attack is the feeling that one cannot breathe.  I have had two panic attacks in my life, now thankfully, many years ago.  But I recall the constricted feeling all too well.  I doubt that it could happen to me now.  Why?  Because I know “how to breathe”.  To touch ever so lightly on the matter, and more will follow, paradoxical breathing is the main problem here.

How does one breathe?

Breathing is one of those things that we thing we all just know.  But how many of you can name the accessory muscles of breathing?  Or say whether the internal or external intercostal muscles aid the inhale or the exhale?  Gotcha?  So, can you say you know how to breathe if you don’t know the mechanics of breathing?

Biochemistry of Breathing.

And how many of you know about the interchange of gases (CO2 and O2) across the alveolar wall?  Or the difference between breathing and respiration?  Or what the heck happens to all that oxygen, anyway?  There are so many facets to breathing and there is so much to learn.

Pranayama

Yoga has some amazing techniques to deepen and broaden the breath. I have tried many systems of yoga and practised for ages.  I will stand here and say that Viniyoga, the style I teach, is the one that taught me to breathe.  I can teach you what my teachers taught me.

—

Best of all, breathing properly is free!  Yes, people, you may have to invest in yoga lessons in order to learn, but once you’ve learnt, ain’t no one going to take it away from you…you are your master, baby!
So, this will be the first post in a series dedicated to the mechanics, biochemistry and yogic technique of breathing.  Like and subscribe, people.  And hey, if you have a coherent answer to any of the questions above, comment below.
Love,Rachel

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LUX (Nicolas Jaar Remix)

Here is a delightful, trippy, chilled-out track, just right for your yoga practice. Breathe deeply, be still on the inside but move on the outside. Practice and all is coming.  The guru is within you. Your path is just as personal and unique as you are.

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Yoga makes me feel…old. What's up with that?

The lady who asked the question I blogged about last week, “Yoga is meant to calm me, so why do I feel so nervous?” asked another great question yesterday.  Gosh, I love students who give honest reflections and ask questions!  Thanks, honey bunch.
After class I noticed that her face wasn’t 100% bliss.  Quite the opposite.  So, unlike a YouTube video would, I sat next to her and asked her what’s up.  She said:

“I couldn’t do some of the simplest poses.  It made me feel old.”

Ouch.  And yes, yoga does that.  You see, if you give someone a workout routine like Crossfit or marathon training, it is very normal that they will find, at first, themselves not able to do it.  But because it is hard, challenging, perhaps unattainable, they are quite happy to just thrust away at it for a long time until they reach the goal.  To not do something hard on the first go is quite normal and acceptable for the ego.
But when we are asked to do something simple like lie on our backs and stretch one side of the body and breathe deeply, and find that there is pain, discomfort, we say “hold on a second…what is happening here?”
What is happening here is that our bodies have aged, have adopted fixed patterns, have held onto thoughts and emotions and stored them in our abdominal muscles, our hips, our necks, and we have become unable to make those muscles do our bidding.  We try to move the ribs with the breath, and we can’t.  Upon finding that we can’t do something so seemingly simple, we reflect on how, once upon a time, we could.  As children, we were all free and loose and easy.  But time, and life, and blows, and ailments, and all that, steals our childhood from us and we become adults, then middle-aged and then, if we are lucky, old.  The body ages but so does the mind.  We swap physical agility for mental wisdom.  Or that is the idea, anyway.  There is concept that I love in yoga that goes like this:

Why do we do âsana?  We do âsana to  keep the body strong and supple and youthful so that we can live a long time.  And why do we want to live a long time?  So that we can gain wisdom.

Doing yoga is like holding a mirror up to our true selves and being forced to look.  Mostly, we won’t like all that we see.  The mirror as a symbol is powerful and appears all over in the popular culture.  In Jean Cocteau’s 1950 Movie Orphée, the mirror is the portal between two worlds, the living and the dead.  And in fact, a very eerie reflection uttered is :

“Les miroirs sont les portes par lesquelles la Mort va et vient. Du reste, regardez-vous toute votre vie dans une glace et vous verrez la Mort travailler commes les abeilles dans une ruche de verre.” (Mirrors are the doors by which Death comes and goes. You have only to look at yourself in the mirror every day and you will see Death at work there, like bees in a glass hive.)

Yes indeed.  When we look at the mirror every day, we look at the face of Death.  Our own death.  This is getting heavy, but the Yoga Sutras are very clear about all this, in the first 5-10 aphorisms of the very first Yoga Sutras book, Patanjali identifies the Kleshas, the mental patterns that cause the vrittis, the mental fluctuations that assail us all.  And right up there in spot number five is fear, abhinidvesa.  Principle fear? Death.
We are all aware of our mortality but none of us wants to admit it, to face it.  When we do, we cringe and shudder.  This is normal.  I love to ruminate on the human being’s awareness of the passage of time.  We are, I believe, the only animal that marks time with such precision.  We are time-obsessed species.  Why?  Because we are all unconsciously counting down the seconds of our lives.  And this is wildly uncomfortable.  Because what this forces us to do is to admit that our time is limited, that we must live fully in the present and create from our meagre and humble little lives the best and brightest creation that we can.  And any abstention from this duty, whether through fear, intransigence, obstinance or fakery, is a negation of our duty to grow and gain wisdom and be the best person we can be.
Uff. All that at 8 in the morning.  I think a lot.  That is why I do yoga.  So, I will leave you with a Joy Division song with footage from Orphée.  Enjoy it, and live this day fully.  And get on your  mats, and breathe deeply and feel the love.  It is there, all the time, and there is enough for everyone.