Sacrifice: Setting fire to that which no longer serves you.
When in service to our ego, sacrifice can be depleting and, ironically, at times even self-serving. When we make our sacrifice an offering, it can be healing and transformative. Although sacrifice may be inconvenient or uncomfortable, in order for it to be healthy it should not be forced if healing transformation is to occur.
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Staying cool with Ayurvedic practices!
Ayurveda is one of the oldest medical systems in the world. Like yoga, it comes from India. Ayurveda is said to be over 3,000 years old! Ayurvedic medicine is based on the body’s constitution and maintaining life-force. The life-force is optimized through balancing the three doshas, or energies: vata, pitta, and kapha.
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Samadhi: Follow your bliss.
Samadhi is an experiential state of being. Therefore, it is challenging to describe what exactly it is. We would not be inaccurate to describe Samadhi as bliss.Bliss itself is a state of perfect happiness and unconflicted joy. It occurs when one is completely present and fully absorbed in the moment at hand. Psychologists have another word for bliss. It is called “flow state”.
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Understanding the Yama and Niyama: Saucha.
Saucha is the first niyama. Saucha is usually translated as “purity” or “cleanliness”. It refers not only to purity and cleanliness of our physical body, but of our minds as well.
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Metta Meditation: Radical loving-kindness.
When most people think of meditation, they think of sitting quietly for an extended period of time while they try not to think. Actually, the goal of meditation is not to stop thinking. After all, our brains are made for thinking, and they do their jobs very well. The... read more
Chakra 101: The care and keeping of the Throat Chakra
The chakras are psycho-spiritual centers located throughout our body. They are similar to old CD-ROMs because they are said to be spinning disks that record our life experiences. This post is the fifth in our Chakra 101 series. To learn more about the chakras, please... read more
The Yoga of Living in Alignment with Nature’s Cycles
The Summer Solstice asks us to look at the world and our place in it and consider some pretty big questions: Is the way we have been doing working, not only for us, but also for our community? How will we ensure all of our people have enough resources to live well in the year to come? When it comes to the future, is the way we are living sustainable? Are we in it for the long haul?
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I don’t know what to do: Six ways Yoga practice teaches us to be better allies.
As a white woman of privilege, I do not claim to understand the experience of any other human being, much less marginalized people. However, it is my responsibility to use my privilege where I can to not only alleviate the suffering of others, but to disrupt and dismantle the structures that support it…. It is critical for those of us who have privilege to find ways to actively participate in the liberation of marginalized people. Through our Yoga practice we take time to do the inner-work for our external works to be authentic and effective.This post is certainly not an exhaustible list of ways our Yoga practice can fortify us to serve in the liberation of marginalized people. However, these six ideas can get us off to a good start!
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Understanding the yama and niyama: Bramahcharya.
Bramahcharya is a practice for making right use of our energy. As we begin to notice what we are putting our energy towards -food, sex, work, social media…- we can better determine if the way we use our energy are in alignment with our values.
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Saraswati: She through Whom creation flows.
When we share ourselves with the world without attaching ourselves to what we think we will get from doing so, we don’t have to carry the weight of insecurity, self-centeredness, and people-pleasing behaviors. Instead, we step into our power and embrace our greatness!
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