Mindful Monday: Day One or One Day?

Good morning, mindful ones!!!

It’s day one! The first day of another round of our 21 day detox.

For the next 21 days, our dedicated yogis will restrain from the following substances:

Sugar (processed and added)

Gluten

Caffeine

Alcohol

Animal products, meat, fish, dairy and eggs = essentially eating vegan for 21 days

On this journey together, we learn to take extremely great care of our bodies, and we experience real, discernible breakthroughs in mind, body and spirit.

Fasting and cleansing has been used throughout the centuries for physical healing and as a path toward enlightenment. Even the fathers of modern medicine Hippocrates and Galen learned that occasionally refraining from food was a proven way to cure disease and heal the body.

And the great philosophers Plato and Socrates regularly gave up certain foods to enhance the sense of physical well-being and to improve mental clarity.

It’s imperative to challenge yourself to let go of certain things you seemingly cannot live without.

All of our mindfulness practices: meditation, yoga, fasting and cleansing allow us to observe the deeper levels of our unconscious mind and uproot deep-seated complexes; current patterns; and fears. We may reveal a deeper sense of clarity within and break from the habit of instant gratification.

Removing these five substances will create space to observe a deeper connection to the role food plays in our lives and how it affects us on deeper levels. We give ourselves the opportunity to break from artificial stimulants and depressants and return to the natural rhythm and flow of the body thereby ending the vicious cycle of self- indulgence followed by self-flagellation.

Keep in mind that there are many ways to practice self-restraints according to our Buddhist teachings.

If you were unable to join our group this round, there are some other behaviors that you can observe and try to abstain from.

Gossip

Judging yourself and others

Over-scheduling yourself

Reacting to every feeling that you have or to the actions of others

Your day one could be anything that you want to observe and improve within your own life. And yoga reminds us that day one can start at any moment of any day. With each new breath that you draw into your body, you can begin again.

How will you use this precious gift of today to improve yourself and thereby elevating the entire universe?

Mindful Monday: Look Within

Happy Monday, mindful ones!

Have you ever wished things were different? Your relationships or perhaps work situations? Financial or social status? Or even your yoga practice?

Spending time lamenting is a colossal waste of your precious and valuable time! It certainly won’t change anything – in fact the more we focus on a certain feeling or circumstance, we are actually reinforcing the very thing we wish to change.

Where your mind goes is where your energy flows.

You would be much better served focusing on the present moment with acceptance, forgiveness and allowing. Releasing resistance to the circumstance and shifting awareness to your body.

When you think these thoughts, how does it feel in the body? Where specifically do you feel fear in your body? Anger? Sadness? Grief? How does your body react and process? Where does it clench and resist? How do you create tension and dis-ease in your physical body and correspondingly in your mind?

Allow yourself to feel and observe. As you make space for awareness, watch with interest but without attachment.

Life is giving you an opportunity: understand that this disturbance is an opportunity to heal and transform. You are not a victim! You are a powerful co-creator with Life.

What is showing up in your life is a meaningful disturbance designed to awaken you and give you an opportunity to elevate your soul’s growth.

We don’t have to love the circumstance or the person/teacher triggering the resistance, but with non-attachment we can practice releasing the resistance and creating a higher more powerful energy to transcend.

On some level, you have attracted and even created the very situation that is now causing dissatisfaction or discomfort. So that you can heal and grow.

But if we keep looking outside of ourselves for the answers, we will continue on blindly, stumbling and repeating the same Karma over and over.

He who looks outside, sleeps.

She who looks within awakens.

Today you have an opportunity to continue to sleepwalk or look within yourself and awaken. It’s your life and your choice.

I hope you choose yourself!

Make it a great week, yogis!

Mindful Monday: Spring Ahead

Happy Monday!

I love the Midwest. I’ve been here most of my life except for the few years I lived in Manila in high school.

Nobody is tougher than us midwesterners! We are survivors and adapters.

We are lucky, too! We experience four seasons each year. Each season brings its own special and unique enrichment to our lives.

But Spring!!!!!

Awwwwww yeah!!

After a particularly brutal winter season, this spring will be epic!

Daylight Savings is a great reminder that spring is just around the bend! (Yesss I get to bust out my trusty old Burberry rain gear ☔️👢)

When I think of spring, I think: St. Patrick’s Day! Nobody does St. Patrick’s Day better than the city of Chicago – I mean we dye our river green, people!

Spring Break! Longer days. More daylight. More energy. Shamrock shakes. Flowers blooming. For the sports junkies out there: March madness and baseball season. Spring cleaning.

This is the time of year when hope springs eternal. This is the time we plant seeds of new intentions. We capitalize on the renewed sense of energy and hope and catapult toward rapid growth and transformation.

Take some time this week to ask yourself what you will shed from the heavy winter months and where you want to focus your lighter energy moving forward.

What do you look forward to this time of year? I’d love to hear about your favorite spring rituals!

Make it a great week, yogis!

March 2019 Pose of the Month: Grasshopper

Happy March and Happy almost Spring! But we are here in the Midwest, so most likely there’s snow on the ground right now as you are reading this. 🤣

Our March 2019 pose of the month is Grasshopper pose! Here you can see this lovely arm balance in various expressions.

And here are five simple (not easy) steps to nail it, young grasshopper. < see what I just did?

1. Start out in Chair Pose, Utkatasana. Bring your feet together, zipper from your ankles all the way to your inner thighs as you bend your knees. Press weight towards your heels and lift your belly off of your lap.

2. Figure four pose. Shift weight to your right foot, lift your left knee towards your chest and place your left heel on top of your right thigh externally rotating left hip while flexing left toes towards left knee.

3. Prayer twist. Draw your palms together at heart center, rotate from your left obliques and twist to the right. Place your left elbow into the middle of your left foot, using your elbow as leverage to twist more deeply.

4. Lower to the ground. Keeping your deep twist, lower both of your palms to the right side of the mat bringing them down on the floor. Your left hip will rotate up so that your left knee is pointing towards the ceiling.

5. Fly. Find Chaturanga arms and slowly start to tip your weight into your hands. Engage your shoulders by pressing through your knuckles into the mat. As your weight transitions to your hands, lift your right foot off of the mat, eventually straightening your right leg and pressing through your right heel. Press your left foot into your left tricep for more engagement.

Mindful Monday: Success is an Iceberg

Good morning, successful, mindful ones!

It’s happened to all of us. We go to a yoga class, and there’s a yogi who flows from pose to pose with effortless grace. He practically levitates or she appears to have no bones!

Success is an iceberg. When we look at others (and when others look at us), we are only seeing a very limited representation of the complete picture.

It’s easy for us to think, “oh he must’ve been a gymnast” or “she was clearly a dancer before.”

What we see is a beautiful but tiny snapshot of their practice.

Well, in yoga (and life) things are not what they seem to be. What you see is just the tip of the iceberg.

The truth is sometimes a little bit darker and uglier than most of us think. To achieve excellence or success, years of struggle and sacrifice are precursors.

The “successful” ones know what hard work and dedication are, and most of them had many moments of desperation and failure.

They’ve fallen out of poses innumerable times and will continue to do so. What brought them to their mat likely may have been trauma or depression or unhappiness.

Don’t get fooled by the tip of the iceberg, people! It’s just that. Like many things in life, what you see (what’s visible) is not always, and even in most of the cases, what it actually is.

So whether it’s your yoga practice or any other aspects of your life, look at what’s below the water on the picture; do all of these things, and I guarantee you will achieve success.

Remember, it won’t get any easier, you’ll just get better!

Make it a great week friends!