YOGA
“If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.”
Enjoy These Musings and Insights on Yoga and Life
Releasing and Refocusing
As we end 2020 and look to 2021, our minds naturally start to move towards the future.
However, we can’t successfully move forward until we release the past.
Have you taken time to stop and recognize all of the myriad of things you’ve accomplished this year?
Have you made time to celebrate your successes and reflect back on how far you’ve come?
Here are two videos to help you refocus your mind and thoughts to help you release the past and embrace what is to come in the year ahead!
Recitation of Dhanvantari Mantra
Dhanvantari is thought to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who comes into the world to bring health, healing, and protection against physical or mental disease through the practices and teachings of Ayurveda. He manifested to protect living beings from untimely death, disease, and sorrows.
We will be reciting this healing mantra collectively 80 million times: Oṃ Dhaṃ Dhanvantaraye Namaḥ
You can join in too… read more and follow along with a recording of 108 repetitions of this mantra.
Gratitude is the Heart of Love
Gratitude and appreciation is entwined with numerous health benefits including enhanced mood and self-esteem. We can develop gratitude by reflecting on the gifts that are already ours and by celebrating great and small things every day.
Research has demonstrated that a regular practice of gratitude releases toxic emotions, reduces bodily aches and pains, helps to improve sleep quality, aids in stress regulation, and helps to decrease feelings of anxiety and depression. Gratitude has psychological, physical, and social benefits, and is the foundation of any spiritual path.
Here are some simple ways that you can practice gratitude every day…
A Meditation To Reduce Fear and Anxiety
We often devote enormous amounts of energy to suppressing our feelings of anxiety, worry and fear.
Unfotunately, this only makes our fears worse! We often push these uncomfortable emotions to the dark corners of our minds, or hide it in areas of our body. Often we make ourselves overly busy to avoid having to sit with anxiety or uncertainty. However, fear thrives in the darkness of ignorance, so although these strategies may work in the short term, when we bury our negative feelings, they only tend to grow bigger. Alternatively, when we become attentive to ourselves, and shine the light of awareness on our feelings of fear, we can observe how it immediately effects us, and how it also changes. With a little time and steady practice we can watch our worries dissolve and disappear altogether.
Have you ever wondered what might happen if you took the time to consciously explore your fears and anxiety?
Read More…
Releasing Abdominal Tension
If you are struggling with upper abdominal tension, you are not alone.
Tension and rigidity in your deep core muscles not only inhibits your ability to breathe deep and fully relax, but it can also interfere with your digestion, creating symptoms like constipation, gas, bloating, and cramping.
Using some of the techniques suggested in this video can be extremely helpful for learning to relax and release that pattern of holding tension in your abdomen, and also increase parasympathetic stimulation in order to improve the resilience of your nervous system regulation.
5 Ways To Reduce Stress & Anxiety
As we transition out of our slow Summer pace into a new kind of speedy September mode, you might be feeling a little anxious at the prospect of sending the kids back to school, heading back into the office, or trying to create some kind of “normal” feeling into the weeks ahead. Especially during these stressful times, it is important to take care of yourself. Here are 5 simple things you can do to decrease any feelings of overwhelm as you make this transition… READ MORE
Simple Ways to Stretch Your Quadriceps
Feeling like your hamstrings are a little extra tight these days?
In this Wellness Wednesday video I offer several ways to stretch your tight Quadriceps. Creating more length through the front of your thighs can help deepen your back-bends and also open up other yoga postures.
Here you will find a few variations you can play with to stretch those tight quad muscles in the front of your legs!
An Introduction to Meditation
Are you’re feeling anxious or stressed-out and you’ve heard that meditation can help?
But is it safe to just sit down and try to meditate?
And what the heck does it mean to meditate anyway? Where should you begin?
Relax, you’ve come to the right place. In this video, I will answer all your questions, and guide you through a short practice that you can easily start to use on your own.
But first, a little about how I became interested in Buddhist meditation practices…
Self Care Tips While Doing The Work
Finding the right balance of self-care practices are important during times of stress or deep inner work. If you have been feeling a lot of different emotions coming to the surface these past weeks, or feeling overwhelmed or just plain old stressed out, you need to be sure you are making time to take care of yourself.
Five Signs That You Need A Retreat
Do you feel like your life is on autopilot? Are you exhausting yourself by burning the candle at both ends? Maybe you're beginning to feel a little burnt out?
Although yoga is a very therapeutic practice, healing (on any level) can only take place when we are relaxed. Right now we need the healing benefits of yoga more than ever, but we also have to create the space to allow it's effects to work on us….
READ MORE
Ouch! Was that my hamstring?
Hamstring injuries are one of the most common spots injuries that occur and most of the time they will heal without any kind of surgical intervention. But how can you continue your practice if you’ve injured your hamstring? It can feel very painful to continue stretching this area in forward folds while it’s healing. However, gently stretching the area is exactly what is needed to prevent scar tissue from forming a ball or knot while it’s repair the tissue tear.
Wellness Wednesday: Some Tips for Boosting Your Immune System
When we talk about ways to boost your immune system or increase immunity, we are really talking about the regular things you can do to reduce stress and toxicity within your physiological systems so that your body can do what it naturally does already more efficiently. When we're stressed, or already overloaded with harmful substances, the immune system's ability to fight off antigens is significantly reduced. That is why we become more susceptible to infections.