Stand Up in Your Spirit

One of my favorite life-goofs that seems to happen to me all the time, and that I have no good explanation for, is that I constantly mishear what people say. I took yoga class a few days ago with a wonderful teacher (Daniel Stewart of Rising Lotus Yoga) and, to be fair, I was still in yoga hangover from teacher training, but I could have sworn at one point he said “Stand UP in your SPIRIT!” Although on reflection, I think it was something about expanding, or – I don’t really know.

What I love about this phenomenon is that although sometimes the phrases I re-make in my brain mean absolutely nothing (and I get to delight in the absurdity of ‘walking bananas’ or the like) sometimes they seem like a message from the Universe. Stand up in your spirit, indeed! What an affirmation of the power of connecting to our highest Self, of being in the present moment, of embracing that which we are.

I was in the bank yesterday enjoying the soporific calm (all that marble and efficiency) when suddenly a cell phone rang, zinging through the silence, immediately irritating. And I thought to myself, do we really need cell phones to ring, ever, when they are usually attached to your waist, or in your pocket, or bag? Could we not instead work on our own capacity to tune into the world around us so that we become more sensitive and would easily respond to a vibration?

We’re so constantly bombarded with sounds and images clamoring for our attention that we do a fair amount of blocking out just to get by. But yoga is asking us to tune in, on a deep, deep level, and hear the vibration that is our life energy, the very sound of our existence.

If we listen well enough there are messages out there everywhere, dropping hints and clues as to where and what our next best step will be. Hear the message, then stand up in your spirit and take the step. And please keep your phone on vibrate at all times.