Is your soul shining through?

Today I am focusing on the soul, that deep part of us that is unique, and when we connect to it and to each other, it is a magical experience.  I am attracted to people who let their energy shine, they are fully expressing themselves, making no excuses, and just being genuine and present.

“Souls are funny things. They stay constant even when the outside changes, or when the heart makes mistakes. Souls don’t really care about good or bad, right or wrong — they’re just true. Everlasting.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/t-magazine/rihanna-miranda-july-interview

I always say in Yoga that we start thinking and we stop breathing, and that thinking is bad for your Yoga, because we learn by doing.  If we let our mind get in the way, it can make us feel things and do things that take us away from our inward path and connection.  The cowardly terrorist attacks keep happening, below is a beautiful tribute to Turkey.

Cassie Kang in Istanbul, Turkey.
Turkey is bordered by eight different countries. Often being strategically placed comes with lots undeserved burdens and troubles. This sign was just outside of the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul, where the two heads of Medusa are located. I took a picture of this sign because it represents the complex relationships and rich history of this beautiful country and people I fell in love with during my solo travel to Turkey last September. 

I cannot wait to go back!! ‪#‎turkey‬ ‪#‎istanbul‬ ‪#‎whereeastmeetswest‬‪#‎iloveturkey‬ ‪#‎peace‬ ‪#‎love‬ ‪#‎europe‬ ‪#‎wanderlust‬ ‪#‎traveligram‬ ‪#‎igtravel‬

It is unfathomable how a mind can be convinced that violence, especially against innocent civilians, children, and elderly is justified.  Especially young terrorists, a 17 year old boy went into a bedroom of a 13 year old girl and murdered her yesterday in Israel.

Tzipora Lifchitz
The news that Hallel had passed came through right as I was sitting to lunch with Ryan and our oldest daughter.

Today is our daughter’s birthday, she woke up and jumped into our bed at daybreak too excited to sleep – and today another girl not too far from here was butchered while she slept. She was sleeping and she was stabbed. A girl. Asleep. Stabbed.

And while buying milkshakes and jewelry and discussing the year ahead, my heart is exploding with pain and injustice for another mother being crushed under a loss I cannot bear to fathom.

I should end this little thought process of mine with something hopeful, something about life going on despite death something about light triumphing — but all of that rings hollow. I’m angry and in pain and so so weary.

‘My daughter was just sleeping – and he came and murdered her’
‘Please tell me Kiryat Arba – our home – is still a place where we can live and not die.’
ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.COM

I will finish with an amazing discussion below about how every person has a different path, and it is personal, and it is OK, and there is no one way.  My hope is that everyone searches deep to do good, and let their soul shine through in a positive, conscious, and present state of mind.
Coach Yulia

THIS IS FROM A PRIVATE GROUP THAT I AM PART OF SO I HAVE LEFT OUT THE NAMES AND JUST SHARING THE ORIGINAL QUESTION AND CONVERSATION: 

Sarah Kaiserman Wunder

Holy, creative Jews, answer this: how important is it for people to explore every aspect of themselves? Do you think that people really need to know what makes them tick? If a person is ambling along in life, living and doing, sometimes reasonably content, sometimes less so, why rock the boat?

(EACH PARAGRAPH IS A DIFFERENT RESPONSE)
I don’t think it’s a priority, but rather a calling/urgency. Some people are blessed/cursed with being super self-aware while others are blissfully ignorant of everything except that which needs to get done. I’m a little jealous of the latter…

Yes to this. I feel you, bro.

Yes. This is what I’m referring to.

I read this awesome quote once… wish I could remember the exact words and who said it… but it was something to the effect of this: self-improvement is good and healthy, but even that can be done to an extreme. At a certain point it becomes like picking at the scabs of our wounds, trying to uncover the cause of each of them and through exploration, heal. But picking at the scabs isn’t what heals, letting them be and learning to love yourself, wounds and all, does. A life unexamined isn’t worth living, but neither is a life under the microscope. Guess it’s like everything else: balance.

Ok. I hear that. Some things are better left untouched?

Some things, yeah. Not all. I’d argue that, if you have to choose, being loving and doing good is more important.

More important, maybe. But not necessarily relevant.

I don’t think it’s important to endlessly explore every single aspect of oneself. I don’t think that people who judge themselves to be “more self awareness than others are doing anything more than putting others down – we can never tell what goes on inside another soul.

But it is a balance, of course. And an individually weighted one at that.

I feel much less need to be endlessly self reflective now (42) than I did 20 years ago, but when I do reflect it is more useful 🙂

I’m not the most interesting, I try choose things that are more constructive and invest energy in moving forward instead of picking bones of the past. I like to find and explore other people and what makes them tick, finding that other people are numbingly ambling along is kind of disappointing.

General rule on this though is,

I’m not talking about the past. I’m talking about being who I am now, in the present. I’m talking about walking around in a haze and *finally* opening my eyes. But maybe the haze is better, in some ways?
Therapy. This is work where you need to maintain perspective as you go and see what you’re avoiding and why and to build yourself from it not destroy yourself…
Ugh… 

Sorry. I’ve been in unsuccessful therapy. What a waste of time!

same!
I think it’s just all very personal, I’m the type of person that has to be connected to my higher purpose in life, others want to live simply, I need to vibrate with Hashem
I think our job in life is to always try to do better – be a better child, better parent, better friend, better spouse, better prayer, better doer, better teacher/landscaper/doctor/waitress/whatever. You can learn a lot of tricks and techniques to improve in each of these areas, but if you reflect on the “what makes you tick” you refer to, the changes are broader and deeper, I think.
What if being connected to oneself happens to pull him away from one of those things? (Some of them are less of an issue than others, of course. If I realize that I hate waitressing and it makes me miserable, I can pursue something else. But relationships with other people, not so much. )
B’H Life is growth. As long as we continue to learn about ourselves, and walk the path of self-awareness we are alive. When we stop we are truly, the walking dead. On the other hand if I am only concerned with my self, that is not self growth nor self awareness. It is self-absorption. In other words, I am concerned with becoming more self-aware but I am not going to drive myself or my friends and family crazy.
No worries. In my experience at least the boat will rock you when it’s ready! 🙂
One can become to invested in “knowing yourself” I think. It’s always one of those tricky questions for an artist, & I think one of the failsafes is, what is the art doing, how is it functioning not only for yourself but others? Is it moving people toward the Light of G*d or away? Usually the key factor there is ego. Maybe the same can be said for regular life-living.
Love this question!! I just love it. . .i’m with Yehuda on this one
Yulia Medovoy Edelshtain I am so inspired by this thread, I am posting it anonymously on my blog, if anybody wants to be credited, I can link you, but my whole thought process is about this amazing idea that we are all different, unique, individual, there is no one way, there is no perfect way, there is just your way

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