Winter Solstice

"By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness." -Yoga Sutras 1:33

It has been my observation that the Winter Solstice awakens two types of people each year: the Scrooges and the "Buddy the Elves". Each are very distinct in their behavior and attitude toward the world and both trigger distinct reactions from people that interact with them. The sutras tell us that to calm the chatter of the mind we must maintain an attitude of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the sad, delight in the virtuous and ignore the mean spirited.

The Holiday season is very stressful for most people because of family visits, lack of family, work deadlines, etc. People tend to be working with shorter fuses than usual because of this at this time. It is our job as yogis to cultivate a spirit of calm, ease and non-judgment to help everyone through this time.

This week's yoga is about non-judgment and compassion. We can't control how everyone is going to behave over the holiday season, but we can control how we react to that behavior. By choosing to not react and to act without judgment toward those around us, we will find the holidays will pass by more peacefully for everyone.

Happy Holidays!

Meditation Anytime

Last week proved to be almost as challenging as the week before. I was back to work but the voice was still scratchy and the cold lingered. I didn't feel 100% enough to do full asana practices so I increased my time spent meditating. I thought, well, if the universe wants me to be quiet for awhile, perhaps I should pursue that.

It's almost the week before Christmas and parties are happening, clients want last minute appointments, there's shopping to be done, etc., etc. So there was a lot of hustle and bustle even with the physical limitations of the week.

I was able to break away from the hustle of the week and maintain a steady meditation practice everyday. Sometimes with a little distraction but it was more consistent and at about the same time daily. With the daily practice becoming more solid, I noticed that I was more peaceful during the other times during the day as well. When I was at the stores or on the freeway, I was less stressed out and went with the flow better than if I had not meditated at all. Although having the cold and scratchy voice were frustrating, there were limits to how much I could control the situation. I had to let go. The meditation practice helped to release me from my need to control everything in my life and relax and allow healing to happen. I applied that to the other aspects of life, work and everything as well.

The weather turned and made it less appealing to go out in the world and fight crowds. Even my dog doesn't like walking in the rain! Yoga last week was more internal, introspective, peaceful. It was a good time to read some books, watch old movies on tv and make fudge for my friends for our holiday get together.

Sitting watching the rain is a meditation in itself. Looks like I"ll have more time this week to do more of the same!

The Yoga of Silence

So this week my yoga was about living in almost silence. The cold I thought I was getting turned into laryngitis. A pretty severe case on top of it! It was so bad that it was difficult to whisper at times.

So I had to really adjust to listening to everything around me more and being very certain what I needed to say at times was important enough to risk trying to speak.

I found it almost easy at times to get around with saying very little and noticed that people listened a lot more when I had to whisper to speak to them. I managed to land a job subbing at a local studio during a very brief interview where I said maybe three or four words!

I did have to work a few days through this and the only way to get sound out on those days was for me to yell. The people in the classes didn't know I was yelling, I just sounded horse to them. But I got away with fewer queues for them to understand what to do. A really good lesson to learn. I don't need to fill the room with my voice for an hour at a time to teach a class. I recommend everyone try editing themselves in their teaching. It will be very satisfying for them as teachers and for the students.

The hardest parts of the week were when I was with my husband. He's so used to me ordering at restaurants, asking questions at stores and telling him the story of what we are watching on TV. He kept forgetting how difficult it was for me to speak but kept asking me questions. With him I had to learn patience and to just sit on my hands. He almost got smacked a couple times :) Having an actual chest cold with the laryngitis made me a little cranky too. He thought the whole week was fun. I see the humor in it too, it's just difficult not being able to communicate clearly.

I didn't always feel strong enough to do full asana practices. But I meditated and tried to be at peace with myself while my body worked on healing itself. For someone that is always on the go and has her life planned out for where she needs to be every minute of every day, staying home, taking care of myself and resting was very needed and the true yoga that was required for the week.

I'm hoping to start next week on a healthier note!

Getting Back on Track

With the holiday last week, I lost track of certain aspects of my living yoga. My healthy eating habits all but went out the window. Falling back into old habits seemed comfortable at first. But now, a few days later I'm definitely feeling the effects. Adding sugar back to the diet and having a few fast food meals created a huge change in my system. I'm feeling lethargic, cranky and my immune system has been compromised. Now I get to fight off a cold.

I was able to keep my spiritual practice in focus for the most part since I could meditate and practice pranayama. I missed some of my favorite yoga classes, which also affected my physical strength. Coming back to classes after time away, you feel more sore than usual. Again that messes with my mood too.

The best thing about experiencing this week is that I can really relate to others how great it feels to clean your body of junk both in what you eat and in movement practices (or lack there of). Its good to have the awareness of how good it feels to be eating healthy, practicing asana regularly and having the quiet time for myself for meditation.

This week was good also since I received two books in the mail about living a yogic lifestyle. They are written by Judith Lasater. They are called "Living Your Yoga" and " A Year of Living your Yoga".  The second offers a daily quote and and intention for living yoga each day of the year. The first talks about finding a more spiritual path with yoga for personal growth, with relationships and within your community. It quotes the sutras often and helps make them more accessible for everyday life. You'll be hearing more about this book in the next few weeks as I complete reading it.

The take away for this week was that although I was able to be focused on my spiritual practice, when I do not take care of my body by what I put in it and how/if I move it, the body eventually will break down making it difficult to practice any aspects of yoga until I make a change.

Thanks Universe! Message received---eating more veggies as we speak!

Zen In Vegas?

If there is Zen in Las Vegas, I didn't find it. It took me over a week to write this post because it has taken me that long to process my holiday experience.

Every year my sister visits for the Thanksgiving holiday and we spend the week casually hanging out chatting, shopping, cooking and just doing anything and nothing. This year we decided to mix things up a bit since she has a new man in her life and we thought he might find our traditions a bit boring. He also wanted very much to go to Vegas on vacation with her. To be budget conscious and to make everyone happy we decided to try having them come visit us for a few days and we would all go to Vegas together and have a nontraditional Thanksgiving. Seemed like a good plan until the last minute when my husband could not go since he had a deadline at work and had to stay behind.

Vegas is not my favorite place on earth. It's in fact my least favorite place. I've never been there with my husband so I thought I'd give it one more chance. When he was unable to go with us, I thought this must be the universe's way of testing my practice of yoga by sending me on this adventure without him. I'm not sure I passed with flying colors.

The Sutras tell us "The restrictions of these fluctuations is achieved through practice and dispassion." -- 1:12  I thought that on this trip I would practice non-attachment and try to go with the flow of things and see how I do. I wanted to try not to let my past experiences of Vegas cloud this new experience. I wanted to go and experience it as if for the first time much like my sister would be doing. What ended up happening was that I focused so hard on being unattached and unaffected, it was in fact the very last thing I got out of the trip. It seemed the more I tried to think "oh they don't know where they want to eat, no worries, we'll eat some time." I'd end up screaming in my head "Make up your minds already!!!" I wanted to go with the flow, but it sure felt like I was a small salmon swimming up stream and there were some bears on the top of the waterfall!

When I got some time alone in my room, I did take those times to be quiet, think, journal and meditate. But I clearly didn't bring enough of my A game yoga arsenal with me to make me fully enjoy that trip.

I did get to see the Bodies exhibit at the Luxor. I dragged my sister to that while her boyfriend went off to check out another building. She seemed almost as impressed with that show as I was. Probably not for the same reasons though.

I think they had a good time on their visit and the week did seem to go by very fast. When we got home at the end of the trip, my husband called me from his gym and told how beautiful it was in Newport and asked us to join him to view the sunset and go for cocktails. We did and it was spectacular! I felt right with the world again and back in alignment with the universe. The glass of wine at the Rusty Pelican didn't hurt either ! ;)

My sister and I decided we will go back to the traditional Thanksgiving again next year. If only to have left over turkey for sandwiches! I'm not sure if the boyfriend will return for that visit. But we'll find a way to entertain him if he does.

It's true, sometimes if you focus too hard, or on one thing too much, it will allude you. I guess the lesson from this week was maybe don't try so hard to be detached. Just be. This too shall pass.

Finding Focus

This week I spent a lot of time working on my meditation practice. I worked on doing it more frequently and tried different things to make it more focused.

First I tried listening to mantras set to music while meditating. My hope was that I'd focus on the mantra and go deeper into the meditation. What I found was that I actually became more distracted. I found myself planning my week ahead and was even more physically fidgety.

I tried sitting in a chair instead of on the floor. I fell asleep.

I finally went back to sitting quietly in a silent room with my eyes closed. I did notice thoughts coming and going but not as bad as when I played music. I was also able to sit still longer.

After my practices I thought a bit about a book I read a while back, "The Power of Now" Where he talks about thinking about the future is a waste because it never really comes. Worrying about the past is also a waste since it's gone and can't be changed. All we have is the present, the now. The hardest thing we can do is be present in the now and enjoy and live it. (I'm paraphrasing!)

Thinking about how to live in the now every day and not just in my meditation, helps heighten my experiences of life. I enjoy my friends, family, clients and people I meet.

I was able to consecutively meditate four days straight! Let's see if I can keep this up!

Next week: Zen in Vegas! Stay tuned!!

So it Begins...

The first week of this journey was interesting. Giving up sugar cold turkey was a lot harder than I remember from times past. So maybe I have a small cookie or a soda here and there, I'll survive! Going into the second week, having even less sugar than that went much more smoothly. I'm noticing a clarity of thought and focus, while being a little mellower. All good!

The positives about changing my eating habits and being more mindful about what is in my food is that I'm much more discerning while grocery shopping. Buying more fresh meats, vegetables, etc., our grocery bill has split in half! So, not eating processed foods or fast food frequently saves money. Not an earth shattering revelation by any means just an obvious reminder and the best incentive to keep moving on this path.

New foods I'm enjoying: Sweet potato chips (Low salt, even less fat!) quinoa, butternut squash anything!

Now that I'm exploring new food options and seeing the change in my body, I'm also noticing some clarity in focus. I don't seem to be as ADD as I seemed to be when I used to work on computers all day and ate from vending machines and junk food. I'm able to focus on my reading more and what I'm reading sinks in faster. Over all, I'm less distracted.

I'm already watching less TV (though did discover Conan this week--pretty funny!)

With the new focus I have, I'm becoming more aware of my stress points. Those little buttons that get pushed that send my into those moments when I want to pull my hair out. Not really game for being bald, (been there, another story...) I go back to my audio files, and my books and read some mantras and meditate. I'm starting to get to a place when I realize that I can't control everything. The things I know I can not control but also have trouble letting pass, drive me to go back and focus on my breathing and coach myself to let those things pass. They have to. They aren't mine to process or control. I need to get on with my things and not let all the chatter around me dig at me. It doesn't serve me or anyone else. I just have to keep saying that. Soon I will believe it and I will again meditate because I'm already at peace and want to stay that way, not just to bring down my blood pressure and stress levels.

Overall, the week reminded me that this is a process. I won't be an instant yogini. But with the awareness I'm gaining, I know from my yoga studies that I already have many tools at my disposal to assist me on my way to being the yogini I want to be.

Welcome to My Blog!

Welcome to my Blog! The purpose of the blog is to document my process of incorporating the eight limbs of yoga into my daily life. As a yoga instructor it is important to talk to your students from your own truth. Students expect yoga instructors to be fully immersed in the yogic lifestyle and to help guide them to a similar path if that's what they want.

In this blog I will document how I will expand my practice from simply doing asana to immersing myself in all eight limbs of yoga.

So, let's set the stage, show the 'before' image, shall we?

Where I am now: I practice asana about two times a week, three if lucky. I have little or no pranayama practice except during asana or in TT classes on Sundays. I meditate three, four times a week five on a good week. I'm truly a product of the western world in that I love fast food and processed food. I love TV and am getting addicted to reality shows (actually never saw that one coming!) My goal at the end of this is to change my lifestyle so that I live a more peaceful, fulfilling and healthful life. I hope to be able to share my challenges of accomplishing these goals with you and students to help them know that if I can do it, so can they. And they will be able to still live within their regular world without necessarily moving to the high mountains to obtain peace. (Unless they want to!)

So let's get started. Every week, sometimes more often, I'll post an update of my progress about where I am and what the challenges are at that time. I hope you will follow and find it interesting. Feel free to comment and let me know if you have good healthy recipes, meditation practice ideas or any other advice about living yoga. This is a learning process for me so I'd like to hear what worked for you and maybe I'll give that a try.

So, at the end of this process, will this mid-western, In-n-Out eating, "DWTS"-watching, jeans and t-shirt wearing girl turn into a granola eating, hemp wearing, chanting yogi? Stay tuned to find out!