Rites of Passage to Evolve Your Yoga Practice (DEEP and FARR)
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
— Alan Watts
One of my least favorite questions in the world is… “what do you do (for work)?” And not because I don’t feel delighted and supremely grateful to teach yoga. I dread the knee jerk reaction most people have to “yoga teacher”. For example, my dental hygienist immediately started to tell me about how many calories she burns during her hot yoga classes. I almost fell out of my chair.
Because we practice yoga as more than pose performance and exercise. But what makes it more? What takes us deeper and farther into yoga?
I see a few distinct Rites of Passage that evolve posture practice into yoga. These Rites of Passage are like doorways. When you cross through, the potential of your practice expands. It’s like graduating to another level or earning another belt.
One Rite of Passage is to calibrate your inner compass for yoga. We do this with Aligned Motives. We all begin practice with faulty programming picked up from society, culture and families of origin. For example, the belief that more is always better. Or something inside of you is inherently wrong, bad, broken, needs fixed/transformed.
With Aligned Motives, you re-write these internal narratives. This is deeply healing and makes your practice more effective. You have a recording of an Aligned Motives webinar in your Virtual Library.
Another Rite of Passage is shifting from the physical body into the subtle body. This means the practice penetrates deeper than physical alignment and performance of poses. You develop a relationship with the subtle body, including your nervous system, connective tissue, and energetic currents like nadis, vayus, and bandhas.
I’ve been teaching a methodology to move through this Rite of Passage. It’s based on the acronyms D.E.E.P. and F.A.R.R.
You want to practice D.E.E.P. not shallow. And go F.A.R.R. not fast.
Let’s look at D.E.E.P. vs shallow first.
D.E.E.P. stands for:
Distant
Energetic
Experiencing of
Pose/Practice
DEEP is experiencing the energetic currents of the pose/practice. Awareness is anchored in the subtle body. It’s about what’s-right-right-now. DEEP is not organized by the mind. Instead, it is a wise response to your felt sense using a solid inner guidance system.
Shallow is skin deep. The physical expression of the pose. It’s typically performance-based and defined by right/good alignment. For your practice to be truly therapeutic, it needs to be DEEP.
If you’re going through a mental checklist with alignment, you’re practicing shallow.
If you’re striving or pushing the body, you’re in the shallow.
When alignment is emerging from the body, you’re in deep.
When your breath is guiding alignment, you’re in deep.
DEEP is about perspective.
FARR is about action.
You want to go F.A.R.R. not fast.
F.A.R.R. stands for
Feel
Allow
Respond
Respectfully
FARR requires slowing down enough to fully feel and allow whatever is arising - physically, mentally, emotionally. Then responding (not reacting!) respectfully, with kindness, compassion, and honoring the wisdom of the body.
Fast is just how it sounds. Fast paced. It’s staying in the go-go-go, do-do-do. More is better. Productivity at all costs. We all get swept up in this because it’s all around us. As Tias Little says, “speed gets trapped in the body”. So expect slowing down to be challenging.
You can’t blaze through or make aggressive adjustments if you want to go FARR. This principle asks you to dance delicately, refine and recalibrate gently, while keeping your ear to the ground of being.
These principles are part of the navigation system you learn in Inner Sanctuary. If you’re ready to go DEEP and FARR, join us for the fall course. To apply, click here.
May your practice take you FARR and DEEP into this long vast lineage of yoga.
