Yoga

Straddling the edge is a practice in and of itself… it’s one of balance… of curiosity… opening to new possibilities and increased freedom within the body and within life.

By gaining control of and focusing on the breath, we tell the body that we are in control and everything is well. The reptilian brain says, “Well if she’s breathing so deeply and peacefully, we must have a false alarm here. Let’s abort the mission and kick our feet up instead.”

Regular physical practice allows your thought patterns to rise to the surface so that you become more aware of the repeating patterns in them. It’s also a place where you can see the changes in your thought patterns more clearly. One day you’ll look back and realize, “Wow! This used to be something that I hated and now it’s my favorite posture.”

Looking back, even the guided meditations I thought I was “failing at” were done correctly. Through them I was eventually able to see my perfectionist tendencies more clearly at work; the part of me that brashly shouted, “Get it right! Will you! You aren’t doing this good enough!”

It is impossible to have contentment without surrender. In order to remain content, we must surrender our ideas of what “should be” knowing that we can only experience what is and that to wish for “what is” to be anything other is a waste of energy. When we let go of the idea that things should be as we desire them to be, we are free to find gratitude right where we are.

The more you own, the more you feel responsible for. It takes energy to store, clean, and care for whatever you possess. When we let go of that which we don’t really need, more energy is reserved for what is most important to us.

In essence brahmacharya requires us to abstain from acts that lessen our prana (life energy / zeal for life). When we find ourselves shackled to desire without exercising conscious control over what we allow into our lives, we become prisoners to life rather than creators of it.

When we think of stealing, we often think about the very clear act of taking something that does not belong to you. Things like robbing a store, taking something from someone who hasn’t given us permission, or embezzling may jump out at you. However, the yogic yama of asteya speaks much more deeply than this. Not only is it possible to steal in a material sense, but it is also possible to steal in a nonphysical one.

Truthfulness… how many of us can say that we are 100% honest all of the time? This is what the yama of satya aka truthfulness asks of us. Again, just as with ahimsa, we must first learn how to be honest with ourselves… to look at our current reality and the actions that have led

Now that I’ve covered the basic premise of yoga, we’ll lead into the 8-fold path carved out by Patanjali within the yoga sutras. They are as follows and future writings during yoga month will cover each concept in a bit more depth: Prior to ever setting foot on a mat, traditional yogis spend years familiarizing

When we chant OM, it signifies the cycle of all life on this planet and in the universe… birth, life, death. It is a celebration of all that is and invokes vibration within one’s being as it is being chanted.

Patanjali cites several methods by which to realize (make real – internalize – fully understand who you are) the big “I” (or the energy that has the power to create worlds)…

Perfectionism, the beast that refuses to die within me. It’s the sneaky one who takes me out when I least expect it and hits me with the sucker punch more often than I’d like to admit. It’s the demon that I can never seem to spot right away. Most times it’s dragging me into its

Truth… Satya, as it is called in the Yamas. Today’s reading during the close of yoga practice really hit home for me. The reading described how not living in our truth saps the life out of us. It’s as though God says, “Well, since you aren’t doing what I created you to do… I guess

Play… that’s the word that came to mind the other day during my yoga asana practice. In the midst of savasana, my wandering mind suddenly started pondering how yoga invites us to play with contraction and extension, tension and relaxation, strength and flexibility, comfort and discomfort. Life also is constantly knocking at our door asking

“Practice” is what we call our inner work and the movement through the asanas when on the mat. Has anyone ever questioned what we are practicing for or what practice actually means? Many that show up for yoga practice often don’t realize that not only are they practicing in the verb tense, but that they

I’ve just completed my first weekend of the long anticipated 200 hour yoga teacher training and it was full of emotions. As someone who is very self-aware, I realized several things over the course of this weekend. I noticed how expectation of my own performance and capability consistently has a negative impact within my life.