Surround Yourself With Strength

I am so grateful for the truly amazing girlfriends I have found through my yoga practice. Over the years of teaching, many of my yoga students have become good friends. I have met many strong and independent women through my teaching in various studios and health clubs. I have found that the support of these magnificent women has helped me to grow as a person.

We feed off the energy of the people we surround ourselves with daily. I have been fortunate to befriend intelligent, funny, intuitive and motivated women. My friends/yoga students help me to find contentment and joy in the world around me. There is a positive outlook that each woman carries that I appreciate and glean from each of them. We understand each other, and promote continued understanding and growth within each other. Through these realtionships, I have learned to be a better friend.

Yoga cultivates individuals that express caring and understanding for others, and I have found yoga's ability to encourage practitioners to continually look within themselves.

Take an inventory of the people you surround yourself with daily. Do they encourage you to grow? Do they help you to find happiness and fun in your life? Do they promote positivity? If not, find people that can help you to do these things in life; it will allow you to be happiest. Who knows, your new best friend might be next to you in your yoga class!

Quiet the Mind

Our asanas, postures, calm the vrittis of our mind. My yoga teacher, Kathleen Kastner, recently spoke of the mind being like a ping pong machine. I found this simile to be very realistic to my mind most days. I have also heard comparisons to the mind being like a monkey swinging from tree to tree. I think we can all relate to these sensations of the mind.

After vinyasa practice and meditation, my mind is finally at rest. I am able to feel peace and think clearly. Yoga is a part of my life that is crucial to mental and physical health. My mind and my body function healthier with regular yoga practice. Finding regular time to sit and just be slows down the demands of daily life. I often sit quietly while my classes are in savasana, and I am able to close my eyes and just be present. I am practicing trying to do this at the end of each of my own practices for at least five minutes.

I encourage you to journal your mind and body observations before and after your practice and recognize the changes that occur. Dedicate yourself to finding personal peace this new year. Find yoga classes that meet the needs of your mind and body. Seek out classes or workshops on meditation and pranayama. Remember to breathe! Sami Aaron will be teaching a Sunday 4pm class at Darling Yoga weekly. Join us (as I will be attending regularly) and learn how to deepen your yoga practice with meditation and pranayama practice. (Pranayama & Meditation)

Happiness

Henry David Thoreau said, "There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it, and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself."

"Happiness is a choice you must make every day. It is not merely the effect of a positive experience. Many people who have struggled with hardship and fought to stay alive still remain happy, regardless of the negative circumstances which affect them.

Challenges do not need to still your joy, There are many things that can be taken from you in human life, but no one can steal your happiness unless you choose to let them. " ~ PRactice the Presence by Edward Viljoen and Chris Micheals

Try to remind yourself today and everyday, that no matter who cuts you off while driving, how many bad things come your way, regardless of the rude person in the line by you at the store, you can control your own happiness and "think" your way to a happier day. Do not allow anyone the power to change your day, make it a happy one yourself.

Smiles

Mother Teresa said "Peace begins with a smile."

Finding your inner peace can be done anywhere, walking down the street, sitting while you work, quietly in your mind you can take yourself there. That great feeling after a yoga class is attainable anywhere and at anytime. Put a smile on your face and boldly take your smile with you in your day. Observe your surroundings and make an effort to find the peacefulness around you today.

Peace

Robert Fulghum said: "Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away."

Notice around you peacefulness in ideas, people, environment and actions. What actions have you committed today that brought you or someone else more peace? It is often that we know the answers to finding more peace in our lives, but we rarely listen to our intuition to embrace this peace. Follow your own advice today, do what feels right, and find that peacefulness from within.

Kindness

Lao Tzu said: "Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

Be committed to spreading joy in the world. Want everything you say and so and think to result in more happiness, and value kindness, while you allow it to govern your life. If you do thinks rooted in kindness, your results will give you and others around you more happiness in their lives. Look for the good in every situation and share that goodness with others. (Practice the Presence by Edward Viljoen and Chris Micheals)

Patience

Reading from Thursday 4:30 class:
"Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success." ~Napoleon Hill~

Yoga, as a practice, takes patience. We hold poses for numerous breaths, we try week after week to do a new balance pose, or we wait for weeks to find changes in flexibility. In our daily life our patience is tried. When driving, working, in our relationships, and we can practice patience in your practice and allow it to blend into patience in our daily lives.

"When I accept the world around me, I am not giving up; I am shifting mental gears, so that I can become engaged in the world with a dynamic, yet relaxed, frame of mind. In this state of relaxed attentiveness, I begin to notice that all of life is about perfect timing, and that patience is necessary to truly witness what is going on. Without patience, we stand a very good change of missing some perfect detail." ~ Practice the Presence by Edward Viljoen and Chris Michaels

Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way. ~Florence Scovel Shinn

Tonight's reading at the 4:30 Mixed Level Flow:
"Sitting still with a question and allowing answers to rise up from within you is a powerful practice of accessing intuition, which is the activity of the Presence within you.

Intuition requires patience and gentleness. It is not accomplished by trying to hush the mind or stop the thoughts, or even change them. It is to be approached with serenity and a willingness to sift through the myriad thoughts until, at last, a stress-free and beautiful voice emerges from within." ~Practice the Presence by Edward Viljoen and Chris Michaels

Many people do not meditate because they think they should be "doing something," but meditation is the act of doing nothing. Meditation is allowing the stillness to do the work. If we are still enough we can see through the thoughts that cause noise from within. It is allowing thoughts to pass through the mind. It is not passing judgment upon those thoughts. It is being witness to what your inner being has to say to you. The vrittas or thought patterns of the mind are often distracting and do not allow us to listen within ourselves. Meditating is allowing the vrittas to pass and being still enough to see through the smog of our minds.

For more information on finding stillness in breath and meditation visit: http://www.beingontosomething.org/index.htm Sami and Patricia are very wise and have a lot to offer the yoga community. They have an upcoming workshop in Overland Park! Check their site for details.

Simplifying Things

I recently returned from a trip to Vermont to visit my Grandmother and my Uncle at their home in Cavendish. I was impressed by their life they had made on the farm land in the mountains. Morning chores, evening chores, farm animals, large gardens of vegetables and another of flowers. Apple, cherry and peach trees. It was a delightful environment to be in, and I realized that I, too, would like to incorporate these connections with my yard, my animals, my home life.

Those of you that know me, know that I tend to carry a full schedule of "to dos" in my life. I took this past weekend to start that "to do" list at home. I started my first garden. I do not know much about gardening, just enough to know I like the idea of growing and eating my own foods. I know that I like the idea of composting to prevent waste, and I support being mindful of recycling. I spent two days in my new garden and the work is not nearly completed, but I am beginning to value the simple things at home. My life with my husband, my evenings with my pets, and now my garden. This weekend we also began feeding our pets rice and chicken (it does not really cost that much more than we were spending already) and we reorganized our recycling, making it a simpler task to encourage us to do more of it.

I am already setting a new routine with my home life as the priority, and I am excited to carry these new priorities into the work year in August.


Article about Simplifying Life

Growth in Yoga

As I have stepped out into other yoga venues, I have noticed that the word "vinyasa" seems to scare some people. Vinyasa can be challenging if you are in an advanced class, but the word in itself simply means practice poses and movement in conjunction with breath. The option to skip a vinyasa (or sun salutation) is always available to your practice. The purpose in challenging your body is to learn more about your body. If you stay where you are comfortable, you will not find the full potential that your body can provide for you. Even if a practice is hard, within an hour of finishing your practice, your body will recover, your anxiousness in mind and body will subside and your stress levels can lower.

I challenge you to step into a vinyasa style of yoga and see where it takes you. Step out of the "yoga basics" classes after you have learned the basics. "Play" on your yoga mat. It is okay if you fall if your balance is rocky, or if you cannot do a pose because of flexibility limits, and it is okay to experiment with a pose and make it your own. Take ownership in your practice and challenge yourself to growth.

Open your practice

As I finish my first week of a new teaching schedule I was pleased to see some returning clients, but equally glad to see new faces to work with. The class sizes were packed, probably due to New Years Resolutions. My regualar clientele were eager to be taking from me again. However, in the new students I could see some with a peacefulness of their practice, and they were uncaring of who the teacher seemed to be that day. Other new students were curious who I was, what music I was playing, focused on the room temperature. It is easy to be distracted from your practice when the environment of your practice changes. We have all struggled with this inner monologue. As yogis, we must remember that the overall point of our practice is to overcome distractions. To be present in the moment, whether it is a similar or different practice moment that we are used to.

I used to be very dedicated to my original instructor. She is still the one I go to when I feel my practice needs a tweak or a push, but anymore, I am grateful just to get a yoga practice in. I learn new techniques of practice and teaching from each new instructor. New experiences in practice can open our eyes and broaden our growth.

I encourage you to take a new class this week with an open mind and peaceful practice!

What our practice can teach us

As we move into 2010, it is a good time to take a second look at our practice. Yoga teaches us more than just asanas and breath. Yoga is a teacher of ourselves. We learn how we move through life and how we interact with the world around us. For instance, I know that in life I like to be in control. I like to be organized and prepared. In yoga I used to be this way as well. Now, after much practice, when I step onto my mat I am able to let go. My yoga mat has become one of the only places in my life I do not worry about time, that I am no longer afraid to fail, and that I do not plan ahead. I love the ability to flow through my practice without concern. I can learn from my practice that this is also how I need to strive to be in the world. Eventually, with more practice off the mat, I will be able to feel this bliss in everyday interactions with life.