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.
Benefits of Uddiyana Bandha Kriya - The "Abdominal Lock"
The practice of Uddiyana Bandha Kriya increases blood circulation throughout your body and brain. It stimulates the vagus nerve by putting a little pressure on it, which strengthens and tones your parasympathetic response, which creates a calming and balancing effect on our nervous system. Through this practice, your brain becomes healthier and you will experience more clarity in your thinking.
This bandha also massages the internal organs and on a more subtle level, it stimulates the inner agni, or digestive fire, which resides around your navel. By strengthening this fire you will experience better digestion and assimilation, and it also helps to purify the subtle energy channels, or nadis. READ MORE…
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…
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
Walking Meditation
This kind of meditation practice can be a very helpful way to feel grounded and connected to the earth, while bring more awareness and presence into both your body and mind. Each mindful breath, each mindful step, reminds us that we are alive on this beautiful planet…
Learn how to do this practice… 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!
Supta Virasana - Sleeping Hero's Pose
This is an excellent restorative yoga posture that can be of great benefit to your back-bends and can also help heal minor aches and pains in the knees. With time and practice, this restorative posture can very easily become a resting pose that can deeply renew and rejuvenate the entire body.
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.
Why Would You Want Two Legs Behind Your Head?
To begin… there really isn’t a good “reason” to ever put both legs behind your head! However, if you practice Ashtanga yoga following the sequencing of Sri K Pattabhi Jois, then you will inevitibly reach this tricky posture about a third of the way through the Intermediate Series.
To begin with, I would recommend spending a significant amount time in the posture that comes right before this one: Eka-Pada-Sirsasana…
How You Can Get A Better Backbend in 3 Simple Steps
Are you struggling with you backbends? Can’t figure out where it’s all going wrong?
In this Wellness Wednesday video, I demonstrate the how you can find a better backbend with 3 simple steps. Now, I said the steps were simple, that doesn’t mean they are easy!