January Snippets, 2017

Create Time for Yoga

In this new year, it is a perfect opportunity to look at our habits, dreams and goals.  Take some time to reflect on the past year.  Start to picture in your mind what you want your future to look like.  That is planting the seed that lets magic begin to take shape.  Once you truly decide to change, you are setting a direction in motion.

Creating a Life You Love

Yoga Journal Article by Nora Issacs, August 15, 2016

There are times when you know just what to do, and life seems to rise up and support you and your ideas. And then there are times when it is all a little murky, and you might feel a bit lost. Thankfully, you have your yoga practice to come to—a time to tap into a deep connection with yourself and remember who you really are and what is most important to you. Nothing could be better.

When you bring the spacious awareness that you experience in your yoga practice to your whole life, you’ll experience the kind of presence that will make you stop in your tracks, engage your senses, and find joy in daily life. But for most of us, accomplishing that is easier said than done. Often it requires a conscious effort to examine the status quo, push in new directions, and find fresh approaches to evoking that same sense of grounding, connection, and happiness we find on the mat.

Here, then, are 10 possibilities to help you get there. Put these ideas into practice one at a time, or try several at once. You might want to welcome one of them into your life as an offering to the New Year. Whatever approach you choose, here’s to feeling more alive, more present, and more aware of what makes you happy.

1. Get Energized About Your Future

Your yoga practice helps you live in the present, but life in the world demands a certain amount of decision making and planning. What’s your vision of where you want to go and how you’ll get there? When you take a proactive approach, your dreams are more likely to become reality. Knowing what you want is, of course, the first step.

If you need help discovering your life’s path, start by talking it out. You can develop a goal list and create affirmations, she says. You can draw a picture of your future—even pray for guidance. “There are so many ways to energize the new vision you want for your life. The more you energize it, the more you draw that energy to that vision. And the universe tends to support you,” she says.

Of course, your vision may change over time, but the important thing is that you’re an active participant in your future.

How to: Find a life coach near you, or an understanding friend to listen without judgement. Talk with someone who is doing what you want to do.

2. Plug Into Your Spiritual Self

Getting away from routine relationships and environments makes it easier to drop into stillness and examine the undercurrent of your life. Once you do, you can plug into a connection with your divine nature. On retreat, you can also practice accessing your true self so that you can call on it anytime in your life.

How to: Check with a favorite teacher or retreat center for upcoming dates. Even a weekend away that includes meditation, yoga, rest, and silence can be enlightening if you set an intention to retreat.

3. Let Go of the Old

Writing, drawing, doing yoga—there are many pathways to bringing all that’s inside of you out and into the world. For several years, Tiffanie Turner, an architect from San Francisco, felt creatively blocked. As an experiment, Turner began writing three pages in her journal each morning. After a few weeks, she noticed some dramatic changes in her life. “I drop off a lot of baggage in the morning and feel clear for the rest of the day,” she says. Turner found that her anxiety levels decreased, too. “I write down things that worry me in the morning, or a horrible dream that would normally stay with me all day. And when I do, these things pretty much don’t exist for me any more.”

“Once you let go of thoughts that aren’t truly serving you, you’ll feel lighter, more creative,” says Courtney Miller, a yoga teacher in Manhattan, who includes journaling in her yoga workshops. “It’s as if you have more space inside for noticing what makes you happy.”

How to: Dust off your journal, commit to a designated time frame each day, and stick to it. If writing isn’t your thing, try drawing your thoughts and feelings.

4. Serve Others

If you haven’t yet noticed, time spent trying to fulfill your desires usually isn’t that fulfilling—even when you achieve or get something that you think you want. But when you turn your attention to the needs of others, you often feel a huge sense of satisfaction. Focusing on other people enables you to be engaged without having to figure out what’s in it for you. And seva (selfless service) can be very empowering, showing you that your actions really do make a difference in the world.

How to: You can walk pups at the Humane Society, teach yoga at a community center, or bring your talents to an after-school tutoring program—the possibilities are endless. Many organizations ask for a six-month commitment, though, so it’s important to find something you’re passionate about and have time for.

5. Honor Your Physical Self

You often hear about spacious awareness in the mind, but it can also be found in your sense of physical self—in the way you move externally, and then process things internally. That’s why San Francisco chiropractor Colin Phipps does a seasonal cleanse about three times a year. He says that the cleanse cultivates awareness by giving him emotional clarity and providing a healthy ritual to follow. “It’s a conscious effort to become much more attuned to my sense of self and where I am in the world,” he says.

How to: Elson Haas, an integrative-medicine practitioner and author of The New Detox Diet, recommends a simple winter detox that anyone can follow: For three weeks this winter, base your three meals a day on soups, salads, fruits, and veggies. Drink lots of water and herbal teas, and stay warm. Omit sugar, alcohol, caffeine, wheat, and dairy—and don’t eat between meals. When the seasons change throughout the year, carve out anywhere between 3 and 21 days to repeat some version of the detox. “When you move toward fruits, veggies, and water, you are moving toward things that are less congesting and moving along the pathway to health.”

6. Be Daring

There’s a lot to be said for having the discipline to stick with a specific style of yoga, getting to know it well, and working through resistance to aspects that you know you don’t like. But exploring a new style of yoga can be revitalizing. Experimentation and play in your practice can teach you to be, more “flexible” in all of your life and more aware that there’s always more to learn and explore.  Delve into the scariness of something new, that’s usually the shock that you need to awaken your spiritual practice and passion.

How to: Chant if you normally focus on alignment, or experiment with holding poses for minutes at a time if you’re used to a more flowing practice.

7. Soothe Your Mind

Meditation quiets a busy mind and cultivates a witness who can watch what’s happening in your life with a bit of emotional distance. The benefits are enormous—many meditators say they have more clarity, experience less anxiety, and feel better physically. Most of all, the practice offers an experience of calm and contentment.

Are you willing to commit to meditating every day for 30 days? If so, you might find your whole life transformed. “An agitated mind squanders such an amazing amount of energy,”; says Richard Faulds, a senior meditation teacher at Kripalu Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “If you can still the surface of the mind, you’ll say ‘Wow! This is who I really am!’ You get a taste of something that’s quite profound. You will want to sustain it.”

How to: Find a comfortable seated position. Bring yourself to the present moment by breathing, relaxing, feeling, watching, and allowing any thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations to come and go. Instead of reacting to those things, simply be aware of them. Deepen the breath. Watch the breath. Let go of all technique and come into effortless being.  Work toward doing this 20 minutes each day.

8. Notice Your Surroundings

When you’re reassessing life, it’s tempting to spend a lot of time focusing on yourself. But it can be transformative to connect with the world around you, to meet your neighbors, to enjoy the changing of the seasons, to take an interest in what’s happening in your community. Simply being aware of your environs creates a sense of interconnectedness—and suddenly you can’t not care about how your actions affect people and your environment.

One way to feel that connection is to make a commitment to eating seasonal and locally grown foods. “Once people become dedicated seasonal eaters, suddenly they become aware of things like water issues, ranchers’ issues, and political issues in their community,” says Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets. Plus, these foods taste better, do less harm to the environment by reducing resources needed for shipping, and put you in touch with the cycles of nature.

How to: Eating seasonally and supporting farmers is as easy and delicious as visiting your local farmers’ market or joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program—a fancy term for a farm that grows and delivers produce near your home.

9. Create Community

How to: You can find some kind of sangha (community) at your local studio or through a favorite teacher. Many studios offer immersion programs that meet weekly to discuss philosophy, practice asana, chant, and spark renewed vitality, strength, and gratitude for the practices. Or you can organize your own group by inviting friends, posting flyers that give information about the meetings, and hosting yoga meet-ups in your town (visit meetup.com to post events).

10. Make a Nature Date

It’s easy to overlook the most obvious accessible antidote to stress, worry, and busyness: the outdoors. Sense the earth beneath your feet, watch birds soar, feel the wind on your face—these are all reminders that your troubles, and even your joys, need not be all consuming; you are part of something bigger.

Have you ever been in a tense or difficult situation when you suddenly burst into a fit of giggles? Or feel a release or rejuvenated after watching a side-splittingly funny movie?

It turns out there’s some scientific veracity behind the old adage “laughter is the best medicine.”

“Laughter activates the body’s natural relaxation response. It’s like internal jogging, providing a good massage to all internal organs while also toning abdominal muscles,” says Dr. Gulshan Sethi, head of cardiothoracic surgery at the Tucson Medical Center and faculty at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Perhaps that’s why Deepak Chopra says the healthiest response to life is laughter.

Studies have found that laughter can have healing properties; and it’s contagious. Here are six reasons why you should start laughing today.

6 Reasons Why Laughter Is the Best Medicine

By Tamara Lechner

Laughter is Contagious

The discovery of mirror neurons—what causes you to smile when someone smiles at you—gives credence to the belief that laughter is contagious.

When you’re feeling down finding friends to laugh with can help your brain trigger its own laughter response and foster closeness, both of which contribute to your sense of well-being. Why do you think that sense of humor is such an important trait when looking for a partner? We like the feeling of shared laughter and our body wants as much of this feeling as possible.

Laughter Reduces the Stress Response

When you laugh there’s a contraction of muscles, which increases blood flow and oxygenation. This stimulates the heart and lungs and triggers the release of endorphins that help you to feel more relaxed both physically and emotionally.

Laughter Boosts Immunity

According to one study at Indiana State School of Nursing, mirthful laughter may increase natural killer cell levels, a type of white blood cell that attacks cancer cells.

Laughter Increases Resilience

Resilience is the ability to see failure as natural progression to success rather than as a negative outcome. People who are resilient are happier and more successful. The ability to acknowledge mistakes without becoming angry or frustrated plays an important role in developing resilience. Laughing at mistakes allows us to recognize that making errors is a part of being human.

Laughter Combats Depression

Studies have shown that laughter is a great way to get outside the downward spiral to depression. Being unhappy can become a pattern or mindset if we don’t step outside of ourselves occasionally. By being a witness to our situation rather than allowing ourselves to feel the victim we can find the humor in it and see with fresh eyes. Even forced laughter releases a cocktail of hormones, neuropeptides, and dopamine that can start to improve your mood.

Laughter Relieves Pain

People who are laughing don’t experience less pain, however they report less bothered by the pain they do experience. It’s not about changing pain levels. The amount of pain remains the same, but your perceived pain levels reduce and your belief that you can cope increases. Laughter by itself isn’t the solution but it can help a person overcome discomfort.

Quick Hacks to Bring More Laughter Into Your Life

• Make humor a priority by reading a funny book, watching a comedy, or listening to your favorite comedian.
• Share laughter with friends. Spend more time with people who have fun.
• PracticeLaughter Yoga.
• Remember that life is funny. The ability to laugh at yourself makes you attractive to others and can help relieve your own stress. Focus on finding the laughable moments in your day, and then tell a friend your funny story to increase the power of laughter by sharing.
• Know what isn’t funny. Laughing at the expense of others isn’t funny. Be discerning about your humor by laughing with—not at—people.

Your ability to laugh can be cultivated with practice so start by prioritizing fun. Find occasion to be silly. Remember laughter, like smiling, is never depleted when you share it.

“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, It’s jolted by every pebble on the road”.  Henry Ward Beecher