If you are exploring a “yogic” lifestyle, you can read and study about the subject but it’s the direct experience and repetition that teaches us the most. Perhaps look at the repetition (i.e. attending a weekly class) like your own personal weekly re-treat.
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Our yoga practice encourages us to explore our inner terrain, not only during our weekly class but daily (and often!). Here’s a book that I’d recommend about exploring our inner world: Tapping the Source by William Gladstone, Richard Greninger and John Selby. A nice one to add to the New Year reading list!
The New Year offers us a chance to align our actions with our deepest desires. For example, we may think that a lack of time prevents us from including yoga in our daily lives…in reality, it’s often the distraction of our emotions, negative thought patterns or prioritizing our time poorly that holds us back. Try one of these:
Off we go to the last week of 2015…a useful time to turn inward and introspective of where you are and how you feel about the year that is coming to an end. Without judging or comparing, look with that 10,000 foot view, like we do during yoga practice. This is yoga’s principle of Svadhyaya (Self-Study) in action where, as Deborah Adele in her book The Yamas & Niyamas, Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Principles states, “The profoundness of this watching is that we begin to know ourselves as something different than who we thought we were. It is this ability to watch that begins to bring healing to our lives.”
A noteworthy book to pick up and study, especially as we journey into the New Year! Many blessings and new found visions for you in the New Year! Happy Happy! One of yoga’s Niyamas (observances) includes practicing contentment, not looking outside of ourselves for fulfillment but in finding a calm place within ourselves and practicing gratitude for our blessings. This is helpful to do every day, especially during the busy holiday season.
May your experiences during the next few weeks be filled with contentment and peace. Happy Holidays! It’s helpful to look at how best to balance the energies of each day and each week…and use your yoga practice to discover where balance rests. This is especially important during the busier seasons of the year!
Sometimes, in the hurry and flurry of life, our yoga practice turns into an “exercise program” where we perform the postures to try to get our bodies to look a certain way. When this happens, we miss the mind-body connection and the pure joy of movement and tension release.
During your yoga practice this week, get in touch with how good it feels to relax and then move your body, relieving tension and rejuvenating your spirit. A recent ad I read described yoga as a way of life…this is well worth an inward inquiry on ways that yoga can become present during your day-to-day life.
We can take deep breaths to calm an agitated mood; we can take a mindful break and walk for 2 minutes to refocus; we can adjust our posture to a healthy position and stretch our bodies while at our desk. What else do you do? This week we’re reminded to count our blessings – for those close to our hearts and homes and for the greater world around us; and even for those people/experiences that challenge us, because they lead us to greater awareness, wisdom and new beginnings! Thank YOU for “being” a part of my life experience!
A strong foundation in a posture will lead to greater ease in its execution. Explore this during your standing postures by grounding through the feet and during the seated postures by grounding the sitting bones. Extend upward with the spine, creating space. Then, see how this might work in your day-to-day movement too.
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A Yen for Yoga
Yoga strengthens the mind and body, but sometimes the stress of daily life challenges our momentum. We hope this page inspires you and keeps you moving! Categories
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