Do you feel free or are you free?
– How to release the body and mind from the chains and train to be free.
It is said that “Life without freedom is like a body without the spirit”, but what is the difference between feeling free and being free? What does it really mean to be free or to feel free?
Some might say that freedom is doing what you want, when you want. Always decide what we like
without compromising or having the freedom to change your choice at any time without suffering
the consequences. If we think this, are we sure that our thoughts and our choices are truly free
from external conditioning and are leading us on the path of happiness? Is our mind sincere
or does it lie to ourselves?
Feeling free can be a passing illusion that can actually make us slaves of the Ego and the
circumstances we live in, it offers us a moment of fleeting satisfaction and a whole life of
dissatisfaction, because we will not always have the opportunity and the ability to feel free.
Life requires strength, commitment, awareness and yes, sometimes even a certain amount of
patience and sacrifice. But if we choose to “Be free” we will be able to face every challenge with
a light spirit and every decision will bring us closer and closer to our dream and to that sense of completeness, joy and fulfillment that we deserve.
Some of wanting freedom. In reality they are very afraid of it. Why? Because freedom obliges them
to make decisions, and decisions requires risks and awareness.
We are truly free when we are silent in thoughts, when we put aside judgments, when we learn through discipline to keep a deliberately made commitment even if we have to cost effort; we are free when we choose to love, to follow our dreams, when we understand that the reasonings of the mind are not always true and complete, when we stop even believing what we think by observing things from multiple perspectives for what they are.
Being free is not an attitude for everyone, but with the wave transitions typical of the Odaka
Yoga practice it is possible to train to start by breaking the chains of the past and the future
and to release the body from standardized patterns and movements over time.
How many times, for example, have you been imprisoned by the whirlwind of your thoughts or by
those same asanas that your body refused to perform? While attending any Yoga class, have you
ever felt stuck or prevented from assuming a standard position or finishing a sequence? Maybe you
reached it even when your body told you that you couldn’t, for a moment you felt free but then you
had pain left or you injured yourself. Here, this happens when the mind is lying to us making us feel
free without actually really being free.
The transitions and biomechanical wave movements of Odaka Yoga instead make us free to
know and express ourselves typical while we reach the best asana for us, without effort but
with great naturalness and awareness. Practice becomes a journey in which to free ourselves from the burdens, tensions and conditionings that we sometimes ignore that we have. With Odaka Yoga the mind no longer anticipates the gesture and the freedom between one pose and another gives us the necessary awareness to rediscover our being in the Here and Now. We learn to accept our limits, to feel and choose what we “really” need at a given moment to feel good again. If you are free but sometimes you feel you are not free, remember: Freedom lies in the awareness of making choices that allow you to reach it.
Ready to fly to freedom? Unroll the mat and start your Odaka Yoga journey now.
Vivian Mil.
– Odaka Yoga Teacher RYT 500
Instagram: @ararisko_harmony_yoga_
