I can’t remember how I heard about this book - The Translucent Revolution - but I read something interesting in it the other night. The writer, Ardagh, says that we take our thoughts to be Facts and The Truth, and of course they’re not. Thoughts are impermanent. Thoughts change and pass and morph and disappear just like water heading down a stream.

He also says that our thoughts promote action in our lives OR block action. And of course they don’t deserve to have that kind of power, they’re just thoughts. We think they’re real but when we try to poke at them we realize they’re just shadows. A little light of awareness and their power disappears.

This came back to me last night when we did a Back Bending class in Power Yoga. I didn’t tell everyone what the class was working up to, but after lots of juicy back bending poses and warm ups, we did the Wheel Pose in partners. I just love springing that on a class that’s ready to do it. I grab a couple people and we demonstrate (one helper lifting the person’s torso, and the other lifting the tops of their legs). You can feel the hush of everyone else in the room who hasn’t done the pose thinking “I dunno man. I just don’t know if I can do that”.

But then they try and it goes better than they thought it would and the look on their face is just priceless. And you want to say - now why did you trust those thoughts? They’re just thoughts. Try and see for yourself.

Next week’s Back Bending class will end with drop-backs into Wheel Pose. I can’t wait.