Yoga Journal

For me, when my interest starts to get a little sluggish, my next issue will show up in the mail box. I think it is a cosmic plot!

The first thing I do I scan through and look at all the pictures. Just seeing those people in poses and showing off their fantastically fit bodies makes me want to jump up and do some postures too!

Then I read the articles and that really get me going. Sometimes, living in the day to day world, I forget about some of the yoga principles and how much they mean to my life. Reading through the articles reminds me of them.

I really like the recipes too. I know, that’s not usually what a guy likes, but I do much of the cooking at our house and I have gotten many great recipes and ideas from their “eating wisely” section.

I also love the “YJ Interviews” They often interview people who have been in yoga for a long time and it encourages me seeing these folks who are my age and still going strong!

If you are into yoga at all and are not a subscriber, I highly recommend you do so. It is well worth the money! Just the motivational factor alone is worth it.

Yoga Journal is the last word in yoga publications. Why miss a single issue?

P.S. Another magazine that I do not subscribe to, but I have seen many times and enjoy reading is Yoga and Health

How can yoga be effective for all those differing types of problems? It can be.

Yoga brings the person doing the practice to a place of calm and relaxation. The more they are relaxed the more the body is able to heal itself. This includes bodily healing and mental/emotional healing. All the people in class left with a sense of having been somewhere, having done something beneficial.

We all need healing of one sort or another. My wife is a Reiki master and she sees it all the time. Someone will come to her for a specific problem and leaves with something quite different having been dealt with. In yoga I see people who are so uptight they look like they could pop and when class is over, they are more relaxed and smiling.

Is there a reason to find a teacher and learn yoga? I would say there is. If you are wondering about the cost, then what is you life worth? Ask the instructor what they change and if there is any way to work with them. Many teachers are only in it for the money,but if they truly love the life yoga can give, they will find a way to help you.

I probably don’t practice like some twenty year olds. I probably practice harder than others.

What I have learned in my time studying this way of life, is that as you grow older, you begin to practice less hard and spend more time in meditation. I find that to be true in my life. Although I did not practice this morning, I did sit for nearly twice as long as my usual meditation time.

There is nothing wrong with this! As we age, we begin to find that doing a headstand for ten minutes may be good, but finding our center within the Universe is even better! I guess you could chock it up to priorities.

However you practice, I encourage you to always push the boundaries! It is how you grow.

Solstice

Today is officially solstice. Last night was solstice eve. My wife and I have been celebrating solstice eve for the last three or four years. It is a very special and holy time for us.

For us, it is almost like a New Years celebration. I really don’t understand why New Years is when it is. I suppose I could look it up, but I don’t really care that much. Anyway, for us it is like New Years. We light a fire in the fireplace, if we are home, and we sit in silence for a little while. Then we each write on a piece of paper the things we want to give up in ourselves and the things we want to take up. This is sort of like New Years resolutions.

When we are done, we fold the paper and seal it with candle wax. When the paper is sealed, we throw it into the fire. We each sit with our “resolutions” for a time in silence. Some years we share what we wrote and others, like this one, we don’t.

The Celts used to say that winter solstice was one of the “thin times”. What this meant was that it was a time when the veil between this life and the next is thin and those on each side can see into the other dimension. I don’t know about that, but it is a very holy time for us.

I don’t think it needs to be on winter solstice, it can be any time at all, but I encourage you to take a time like this. It seems much more that simply saying “next year will be better.” Develop your own little ceremony and look to the next year.

Namaste!

P.S. Tell me about your ceremonies or rituals. Let me know what you do to deepen your walk!

Achieve Your Goals

Now I have never been able to do a headstand, even as a kid, when nearly every other kid I knew could stand on their head, I could not. Well today, I can stand on my head. You can do whatever you want if you know how to achieve your goals.

What are your goals for your yoga practice? What is it you would like to do? As a teacher,

I see so many students come to class and it is pretty clear that they really have no goals as far as their practice goes. They just come to class, go through the postures, grunt and groan a little and go home.

I think you need to have goals. I have a posture that I am working on now. I can’t do it yet, but I know I will be able to by June, my deadline for this posture. I’m pretty sure I will get there before June, but I decided to give myself plenty of time. I am ancient you know!

Each day I work on this posture. You need to work at your goals. You have to put in a little effort or you will never get there. Just a small step each day will have you achieving whatever goal you set for yourself.

Think about it! What goals do you have for yourself? Maybe it isn’t in your practice, maybe it is in your everyday life. What are your goals and what are you doing to reach them?

P.S. Here is a post that explains setting and achieving goals a little better!

These conversations were about how to best reach people who are seeking not only a connection to the Infinite, to God, but also seeking a better life. The general consensus was that the old wisdom of how to go about that does not meet the issue anymore. I thought it was most interesting to hear these people talk about what they thought and how like each other they were, although not together at the time or place.

I recently read something in a course on online SEO that I am taking from Dan Thies. What he said was that following conventional wisdom without thinking can lead to trouble. I thought this was a insight!
Albert Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How is it that we look to conventional wisdom, that may have been very true at one point and not see that time, circumstance, and culture may make that wisdom less or completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what the subject.

I once worked in industry and had to deal with people coming into our shop and telling us how to produce product. These “customers” would try to force us into doing things their way when it was obvious to all that it wouldn’t work as well as what we already had. Conversely, there were times when a new idea worked very well, but the workers didn’t want to change because, “we’ve never done it that way.”

What is the insane thing you are doing over and over and expecting different results? How are you trying to better your life, but using the things you have done before and didn’t work? Do you even know where you want to go and what you want to do? Take sometime to evaluate your life. Are you going where conventional wisdom says to go, even though you feel strongly that it is not the right way? You are in charge of your life. You determine where to go and what to do. Don’t let faulty wisdom interfere with your goals in life.

Stephen

A Common Path

What would you give to become a new person? Have you ever gone on vacation and tried to change your personality so that you could play at being someone else? Perhaps you would like to be more assertive or, at least, not so shy.

It might be the best thing to totally change who you are. After all, you do have some good qualities. However, we each have things about us that we could change to benefit ourselves and the world.

One way to make a change is sort of like using the vacation game. I’m sure you have heard the old “fake it ‘till you make it” phrase. Well, to some degree, this is ok. Sure, it will feel a little phony to you and, this is the bad part about it, but it does help you to try on a different trait to see how it fits. Some of the experts will say that as you work at faking it, the trait becomes more who you are and soon you aren’t faking it, the trait has become a part of you.

Another way to make a life change like this is to consciously work at it. This is not the same as faking it. In this method, you simply work at the trait you want. Let’s say that it is to become more assertive. Instead of faking that you are assertive, you work at small things at first and then larger. You remind the waitress that she forgot your water, or you speak up when someone steps in front of you in line. At first this might seem uncomfortable, but, as time goes on, it will become more of who you
are.

You can have a better life! Many people have overcome great personality issues to become something much grander than they ever believed they could be. You are no different! The success you want, the better life you want is there for you if you will try. It is up to you to decide!

Does your life seem to go from one drudgery type experience to another? You get up and go to work, drudgery, then you come home and do
around the house chores, more drudgery. Everything you do seems to be a “have to” type situation. Well, not only is there hope, you are wrong to boot!

You don’t have to do anything you don’t want! That’s right! You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You may be thinking that I’m wrong, you do have to go to that job you hate. After all, there are bills to pay. The truth is, you choose to go to work. You choose to because you choose to pay the bills. I know, you’re thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about, but give me a chance. You don’t have to do those things. You can choose not to.
Sure there are repercussions! Your house may be taken away, your partner might leave you, any number of things, but in the end, you choose. There is a principle that states that ultimately, you are responsible for your own life
and happiness. That means you take responsibility for making the choices you do.

I once had an employee that wanted a job that would be a promotion. I had to tell him that he was not going to get it since someone else was more qualified. He wasn’t happy! He started to get angry and I told him he didn’t have to stay working for us if he didn’t want to. I would understand if he felt under-appreciated and wanted to go somewhere else. He got angrier and
said he had to be there. I told him no one was chaining his leg to his desk. He
said he had bills and a family. I said I knew that, but he still had a choice.
He started to speak, but then thought for a minute. He admitted I was right. He could just quit and take the consequences or, he could stay. He stayed and was promoted about a year later.

The truth is we choose, and by choosing, we are expressing our wants. You may not want to work where you do, but you want to make money and you want to not have to look for another job.

We all have choice. Once we realize that our lives are our own responsibility, we can begin to have personal growth and success. We begin to feel more in control and our life improves.

I had to run some errands today, which is why my blog is late today. While I was out I decided to give a big smile to every person I could, to everyone I could make eye contact with. It was actually a lot of fun!

The interesting thing about this was that I could actually see the energy of the other person rise as they made eye contact, saw my smile and, in turn, smiled back at me. I could also see the energy stay the same, or actually appear to drop if they saw me and looked away without the smile. Now there is a lesson here.

We are made to be happy, to be joyful co-creators with the Source. We cannot do that if we are down or angry. Anger and depression destroys. The bible tells us that God loves a cheerful giver. It could just as easily say that God loves a cheerful creator, a cheerful image of the One.

Try it for yourself. Especially if you are not feeling happy; smile. Put a smile on your face and keep it there. If I’m alone, I find that making a silly, super smile on my face helps me to really get in the mood. Anyway, put that smile on your face and keep it there. Smile at everyone you meet. I give a full money back guarantee that you will feel your energy rise and you will see it in other people. You may find that it is a self perpetuating experience; the more you see other people’s energy rise the more yours will, the happier you will be the more you will give it to others the more. . .

Thoughts are energy! What you think about has its basis in the electric energy of the brain, the mind uses this thought energy to delegate action to the body. The thing you think about has energy. It may not actually come to an action, but it tries to. That thought bouncing around in your head is working at becoming reality. There are several scriptures of several faiths that tell us that what we believe, what we think, becomes reality.

What have you thought about today? What were the thoughts that were trying to become your reality? Were they good thoughts full of positive energy, working toward bettering your life?

Have you ever had the experience of waking in the morning with thoughts, positive thoughts, which seemed to practically jump out of your mind? You can’t wait to get out of bed. You can’t wait to go out and do whatever it was those thoughts told you to do. The energy you felt was so intense, you thought you might burst.

What about the opposite? Have you ever come awake with such a sense of dread that you could barely force yourself out of bed? We all have had both. The sad truth is that many of us have too many of the latter and too few of those exciting energy filled days.

Your thoughts are energy! It is up to you which of the two types of thoughts you allow yourself to have. You can turn off the negative thoughts. You can foster and build the ability to have the positive thoughts. You can link to the Source of that positive energy any time, night or day.

Spend some time today connecting to that Source. Let your mind fill with the thoughts of the Creative Force that surrounds each and every one of us. It is there for the taking, just as the air we breathe.