Eating/Thinking for Greater Mind & Body Balance

Happy heat of the summer. I remember years ago reading Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and just totally loving all the characters and the magic fairies deep in the woods. Well, my latest blog is brought to you from Middlesex Fells in the woods of MA! I love doing these video blogs in the woods and outside. I might just keep doing that. Here I'm surrounded by the fresh air and trees. As you can see I am getting a little bit eaten by mosquitoes but, such are all good things tempered with challenges-yes? The mosquitoes quickly ground me back in reality and remind me about the balance in all things.

In this month's woods ramblings, I speak about Ayurveda, the sister science of yoga. Ayurveda is most concerned with lifestyle than physical postures. This past week I did an ayurveda workshop at Kripalu Retreat Center (holy moly, I love this retreat center and am so fortunate to be able to attend from time to time.) Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about that workshop and how the philosophy of ayurveda relates to our tendency to think in terms of black and white, though most of life is gray. If you look at the world and nature itself, everything is about BALANCE. This is why I love Reiki. It's all about helping to rebalance. Same with yoga. Same with Chinese medicine and many other healing traditions.

In ayurveda, everything can be medicine or everything can be poison. It just depends on the person's dosha, the time of day, and the season. It brings a whole new meaning to "everything in moderation." The basis of the philosophy is that your digestion is like a fire. To get the best out of your food, you need to feed the fire adequately. There are warming foods and cooling foods and wet foods and dry foods. We need to find the balance of these elements with what we eat for proper digestion.

Some things I learned based on the Ayurvedic Perspective:

Did you know that eating cold foods can aggravate digestion?

Did you know that our biggest meal of the day should be lunch because that's when the sun is strongest and therefore, that is when our digestion in strongest?

Did you know that eating a salad every day could be not so great for you depending on your constitution?

Anyway, I am fascinated by this perspective and learned a lot. One thing I do in my blog is I relate it to how much we human beings SO want to categorize things as either good or bad. We look at things as right or wrong. How many studies out there are trying to prove whether coffee is good for you or bad for you?! 

In this blog the main thing I state is to think more expansively. When we can do this, we tend to have more tolerance for ourselves and understanding about our digestion.

3 Step Manifesting Ritual

I'm so excited about my new video blog all about manifesting your desires! I believe we need to feel the energy of whatever it is that we want in our lives. And that definitely starts with letting go of what's no longer serving us.

In this video blog, I share a powerful 3 step manifesting ritual-I use it all the time, including with my chair yogis! It’s a process to help you manifest love, joy, abundance, career confidence, and more. When you feel the feelings of what you desire, like it's already here in the present moment, THAT is what attracts all the goodness to you!

The Power of Surrender

I laid in bed last night thinking and thinking about a certain situation in my life. I was trying very hard to control the outcome to this situation and obsessively thinking about it in my head. My body felt tense and anxious. I could tell I felt very blocked by fear and disconnected from my true self.

I remembered this 'surrender' visualization. This powerful visualization that has helped me release fear and anxiety in regards to this situation in my life. After I did it, I was asleep within a couple minutes. I couldn’t believe the relief I felt. It helped me to come back to faith and trust in the universe and get a lot more sleep after laying awake thinking about it so much. Watch the video below.

Copy of Copy of Copy of Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find within yourself all of the barriers youve put against it.-Rumi.png

Do More Non-Doing

You can see that in this video I am enjoying hanging out at a wildlife preservation. I'm relaxing and enjoying the important practice of non-doing. Often we can feel as if we need to be doing stuff all of the time in our go-go-go lives with an overcrowded to-do list . When we take time to do-nothing and relax and play, we reconnect with a neglected part of ourself---our truest self. In this video I also ask some questions to help you get back to what brings you joy so you can reconnect with this part of yourself and schedule more time for it in your life.

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, says that we are most nearly ourself when we achieve the seriousness of a child at play. What brings you joy? What awakens your playful childlike curiosity? Make time for it so that it may deeply nourish your soul.

Copy of Copy of Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find within yourself all of the barriers youve put against it.-Rumi.png

What Would You Do if You Knew You Couldn't Fail?

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In this week's video, I reveal a question that changed my life. A couple years ago, I was working a job I did not like. I was stuck in fear and lack of self-confidence. I went to a yoga retreat and the yoga teacher asked us this question. I began to journal about it and realized a ton of things.

My answer to this question made me quit the job I had. I began to pursue the work I truly wanted to be doing. I became more confident in my path because I realized why I felt so stuck before. Now that I knew the truth, there was nothing that was going to stop me.

Now just tonight, I asked myself the question again. It helped me get to core of what I truly want at this point in my life and what will make me happy. Fear can hold us back. Don't let it hold you back. In this week's video, I ask you this question and tell you more about why it can be so transformative.

The 3 Steps to Process Life Change with Grace

How've you been dealing with change lately?  I've been speaking to a lot of students recently going through some big shifts.Change can be hard. There's been a lot of change in my life as of late and it has been a lot to handle. I'm feeling excitement, anxiousness, and a slew of other emotions. It can be challenging to face the unknown and all the emotions that come with it.

When I feel like I'm about to explode with all of these emotions, I come back to my mat and meditation cushion. I take the time to connect to the silent space within and remember that this moment is exactly as it needs to be. I'm reminded that I don't need to be anywhere else but here right now and that everything is in process to a greater evolution of being. It's sometimes hard, though. And, I am not always ready to see the positive.

Inspired by my mediations this past week, I wrote a simple blog entitled, "The 3 Steps to Process Change With Grace." It's short and sweet and I hope it helps you to best process everything you're feeling and to move forward in the most positive way. Enjoy.

Step 1) Honor all of your feelings.

With change, it's natural for fears to come up. It's important to honor these changes and the feelings that come up. Validate them. Go through the grieving process if you need to. That's the first step. Carl Jung said, “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. ... Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness.” Here he is saying that we wouldn’t know true happiness if we didn’t feel sadness and other uncomfortable emotions. The key is learning how to manage them with grace without freaking out.

 

Step 2) Let it Breathe.

It's important to breathe deep when fear and anxiety come up. When we take deep diaphragmatic breaths, we stimulate our parasympathetic nervous system, (our relaxation response). This keeps up from freaking out and calms us down. When we repeat this pattern, our mind will start to calm our body down faster and faster overtime, because it develops new neural pathways. The other meaning of "let it breathe," is to give whatever situation you're going through time and space to heal. Don't make strong decisions when strong emotions are present. Take time to process them and think things through. Processing time is key.

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Step 3) See the Positive.

We can often tend to only focus on we've lost in the midst of change. But we might get stuck along the way and become blind to the opportunities present. There might be some positive things opening up waiting to be discovered. Don't forget to look at these positive shifts. There are always silver linings everywhere. Everything might not happen for a reason but, it's our job to make meaning out of what does happen. How do you focus on the positive when fear is taking over? Start with the little things. Look at the small ways in which you are grateful. Look for the small bright spots in any challenging situation. You will start to build a sense of resilience and inner strength each time you do and you will be able to take the necessary steps to move forward in your life in a positive way.