How yoga helps make 11 year old certified grounded Clare feel like a better person

IMG_8911How Yoga Makes Me Feel Like a Better Person

Yoga makes me feel like I’m fearless, more important to this world than I thought I was. It teaches me to be proud and positive, to respect others and understand what they may be going through.  It tells me to do what I need to do instead of holding it in~such as crying.

Because of yoga, I know now not to let people judge me, to listen when someone is speaking to me. Instead of hiding in my own world I should shine but with confidence.

I don’t know what my life would be like if I haven’t done yoga, but I know I have become respectful, thankful, loving, friendly, and fearless.

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My name is Clare. I am in the 5th grade. I work hard in school thinking about my future. I have a learning disorder that makes it hard for me to learn fast, but I only study harder because I’m not going to let a little devil saying, ” I can’t do it.” hold me back.

Next year for middle school I’m going to Druid Hills. My best subject is math. I’m interested in animals and nature. I want the earth creatures to be respected.

My favorite color is red. Some people  say that red shouldn’t be my favorite color because it means stop, but I think of it as stop disrepect.

My name is Clare. I am 11 years old, and I do yoga.

Editor/Teacher note: Clare has been in yoga club since she was 5 and has had all these heart virtues all along. She just didn’t see it. Her perseverance, her loving family, and her open-hearted school environment, and of course her mindful breathing have helped clear the dust covering up the real Clare.

More will be revealed, I’m sure.

I feel so lucky to have witnessed her transformation and am delighted she wanted to share her journey with you.

Sat Nam

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  • The Okey Dokey Yogi

    On The Path2

    inspired by Dr. Seuss’s Sutra: the Zax and Patanjali’s Sutra: yatha abhimata dhyanadva (Chapter 1, v. 39)

    One day, making Okeys
    In the mountain of Dokey,
    Posed a West-Going Yogi
    And an East-Going Yogi.

    {See, an Okey is approval,
    An endorsement as such.
    Each yogi seeked okeys
    So very much.}

    And it happened that both of them posed in a place
    Where they bumped. There they stood.
    Foot to foot. Face to face.

    “Look here, now!” the West-Going Yogi said. “I say!
    You are blocking my mind. You are right in my way.
    I’m a West-Going Yogi and I always think west.
    Get out of my way, now, and let me do best!”

    “Who’s in whose way?” snapped the East-Going Yogi.
    “I always think east, making east-going okeys.
    So you’re in MY way! And I ask you to move.
    And let me go east in my east-going groove.

    Then the West-Going Yogi puffed his chest up with pride.
    “I never,” he said, “take a step to one side,
    And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways
    If I have to keep posing here thirty-nine days!”

    “And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the West-Going Yogi,
    “That I can pose here in the mountain of Dokey
    for thirty-nine years! For I live by a mantra
    that I learned way back in West-Going Tantra.
    “Still the mind! That’s my mantra. Still the mind is the best!
    I’ll pose here, quite still! I can and I will
    If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still.

    Hey… said East-Going Yogi
    I learned that as well.
    Let’s check yoga sutras
    Won’t that be swell?

    Chapter1, verse 39
    to be quite exact.
    Focus on things that
    you won’t find distract.

    There are numbers of ways
    For the mind to become still.
    Focus on what you please
    To Fulfill!

    It is the process of focus
    Which makes us a yogi
    Not the specific practice
    You see, Okey-Dokey?

    Patanjali says to practice
    Right from the heart
    Allow this to deepen,
    For that is the art.

    Fix the mind!
    Any object you choose,
    As a focusing prop to
    Fully fix and bemuse.

    Get absorbed in your focus,
    Without distraction.
    You can attain stillness
    And sweet satisfaction.