Our Namaste Tribe is a powerhouse of wise, talented, and experienced teachers who have dedicated their lives to sharing the gift of yoga with others. We are constantly in awe of the incredible offerings our teachers bring to this community. We are excited to share a new blog series focused on celebrating our teachers and hopefully giving you all a glimpse into the talented team that makes up Namaste Yoga + Wellness.
A blog that inspires and informs
Welcome to an area I fondly call "observing the world from upside down." What does OBSERVING THE WORLD FROM UPSIDE DOWN mean? We have the power within to CHANGE the world just by shifting the way we view things. Are you attempting to develop healthier lifestyle habits? Are you beginning a new endeavor? Try approaching that which challenges or perplexes you with a new perspective and see what happens next.
I am a fan of don Miguel Ruiz's simple yet profound masterpiece "The Four Agreements." It serves as a basic guide for any and all interactions with others. I couldn't imagine making it any easier than to take four statements and apply them to how I am in relationship to others and my endeavors in this world. I highly recommend any of Mr. Ruiz's works, which can be found here on his website. His Four Agreements are based on ancient Toltec wisdom. Just like the ancient science of yoga, they have stood the test of time. So, I began to think of how these four statements might be applied to one's yoga practice.
As a child, the man in the photo posted here was my hero. Jimmy Carter with his graceful and humble response to his cancer diagnosis have once again truly inspired me as a healer helping others to live mindfully and die consciously.
Keeping our cool during the hotter seasons can be a challenge. So I created a list of ways to stay balanced, keep your cool, and maintain our inner OM no matter what obstacles or temperatures we face. Check them out and feel free to let me know whats that you have found help you keep your cool. “Each experience of love nudges us toward the Story of Interbeing, because it only fits into that story and defies the logic of Separation.”
-Charles Eisenstein, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
Spring is here and change is the only constant in our lives. Connecting to nature is by far one of the most healing things we can do for ourselves and I hope that you take time to do so during this magical time of the year. And, in tuning into nature and our inner wisdom, we also face the impermanence that riddles our lives.
For the past several years, I have had the honor to hold space for hundreds of people in my Yoga for Grief workshops. I added the subtitle: Healing Hearts, Healing Bodies because I found that through a yoga practice that participants were able to release emotions that had become stuck in the body and helped them move through some very difficult mind states. I also always knew that just a half day of yoga was not a miralce cure for the bereaved heart. So what might one do to patiently tend to a healing heart during an extended time of grief? In my own personal journey and from hearing from others, I have found that the following three activities have been helpful during the darker days of loss to channel the pain, anguish or even work through the numbness. These three activities also provide a safe go to place even after the acute grief response has subsided and we come to realize that there will be waves of grief in the days, months, or years to come. Here is to a season of HUMIILITY, GRATITUDE, & truly recognizing that we already have all that we need!
HUMBLE PIE is delicious and best when enjoyed daily!Grief is a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something, who has passed away, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions. Source: Wikipedia - See more at: http://ilovenamaste.com/uncategorized/note-yoga-grief#sthash.gEJdonD6.dpuf As I sit here writing to you, I am resting my healing foot on a hot water bottle and I am sipping on my Chinese herbs that are helping my bones and ligaments heal. I feel blessed to have a healthy body and a loving community that has allowed me to take it easy over the past couple weeks. But I'm only just beginning to accept the yoga lesson this injury has brought me: |
As we head into springtime, I ponder..... How is it that we were born into a culture that promotes constant DOING but frowns upon just BEING?
“Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.”― George MacDonald
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"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." |
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.
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“Without difficulties, life would be like a stream without rocks and curves – about as interesting as concrete. Without problems, there can be no personal growth, no group achievement, no progress of humanity. But what mattes about problems is what one does with them.” |
“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.” ― Barbara Hall |
It's My Party and I'll OM if I Want To |
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It's......
Nope. It’s a human being!
While theater screens abound with heroic stories about ‘men of steel’ this summer, I would actually like to reflect on last year’s big hit: The Hunger Games. |
“Don’t take life so seriously, no one gets out alive.” -Elbert Hubbard
Someday, I will take my last breath and “I” will be no longer. This thought, well, to be quite honest, it sometimes almost scares me....death. But the more I practice yoga and incorporate other shamanic meditation techniques, the more my mortality intrigues me and gives my life a whole new level of richness. |
Hordes of Zombies….Hording Zombies… the REAL Zombie apocalypse is NOW! And here’s the spoiler alert: YOU already have the cure….
Like all trends, our culture’s macabre fascination with zombies comes and goes. In my lifetime alone, there have been several waves of zombie movies that have captured the imagination of many and offended the morals of many others. While there are some pre-George Romero zombie films, Mr. Romero deserves the credit for jumpstarting this genre with his low-budget, brain-feasting gore fests filmed in rural Pennsylvania (my home state!) back in 1968 (a year before I was born) and the world has never been the same. |