"Yoga is the art of getting out of your own way." Eoin Finn

Jesse Jackson said it perfectly, “Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.” Detroit is proof that sweat and tears play a significant roll, but to elicit change, there must be a balance between connection and conviction, community and individuality.

7 Ways To Stop Negativity And Boost Self-Worth

1. Practice yoga.

No surprise here, but my daily practice of yoga is a grounding force in my life that keeps me centred and calm in an otherwise often turbulent storm. Find a studio and give it a try — if you don’t fall in love immediately, try a new teacher or class.

2. Meditate.

Find an intro course in whatever style or technique of meditation you choose, then practice every day. I wake up early in order to give myself the gift of a clearer mind. I'm then able to begin each day with purpose, clarity and a level of calm that you won’t have without this centering practice.

3. Eat well.

Eat local, organic, raw, whole foods as much as possible. Feed your body with the fuel it needs for optimal health and development. Before you eat anything, ask yourself, "Is this something my body will use to build health or dis-ease? Am I craving this or do I truly feel hungry and need nourishment? Will I feel better or worse after eating this?"

4. Plan.

Set aside a bit of time each week to plan your meals, your physical activity and your self-care for the week ahead. Just as many of us create a strategic plan for our work life, the same thing needs to be applied to our entire life.

5. Journal.

Keep track of what triggers your ups and downs — keep a food journal and include anything that comes up for you physically, emotionally and mentally throughout the day. This will help you to discover possible food sensitivities, emotional triggers to eating habits and what foods help you feel truly energized.

6. Find your passion and pursue it.

Explore and discover what makes you feel purposeful and alive, then find ways to do more of it! Even if it’s just 10 minutes a day or an hour a week to begin with, if you find the time for your passions, the universe will conspire to help you find more and more time.

7. Seek out positive, like-minded people.

Like attracts like; if you're feeling crappy and focusing on the crappiness, then crappiness is what you are going to see and crappy is how you will continue to feel. I've been called a Pollyanna — and somehow this is supposed to be a bad thing?!

Ask yourself where you'll be in 75 years. Most likely dead, yes? Me too… so, between now and the inevitable then, I would much rather spend my time thinking positively and surrounding myself with positive thinkers than focusing on what seems to be not working and holding onto crap from the past that no longer exists.

Enjoy the journey with a light, playful and non-judgmental frame of mind… I look forward to seeing what else you have to add to this list!

How Yoga Became My Religion

I learned to breathe through both the easy and difficult.

Here's the deal with life: everyone experiences their own form of “good” and “bad," even if those experiences aren't someone else’s “good” or “bad.” But the point of religion – and for me yoga – is to learn to remain calm and centered through both the good and bad. To breathe the same no matter what is happening to you or around you means that you remain closer to your core vibration, have more mental clarity, and have space to let your authentic emotion guide you to an answer that will be the best for you.

Saying “om” to connect to the universe is one thing, but learning that yoga is as much a meditation as it is a physical challenge is the key to unlocking your own spirituality and perhaps making yoga your religion as well.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8950/how-yoga-became-my-religion.html

Intimacy

Can we allow another to deeply matter to us? Are we willing to take the risk to let them all the way inside – to really see, know, and touch our most core vulnerabilities; to open ourselves so profoundly that we’re left utterly naked and fully exposed, knowing that in any moment our hearts could shatter into millions of pieces? Many of our childhood biographies involved a very unstable environment, an uncertain reality where it was not safe to let another become too important, where we spent much of our time and energy learning exactly what we had to say and do in order to receive the love, care, affection, attention, and holding that we so sweetly needed. We can be quick to judge and admonish these early adaptive strategies, seeing them as “unspiritual” or neurotic or crazy, but perhaps they were in actuality the most luminous expressions of a certain kind of intelligence and creativity. Perhaps, upon deeper examination, they might come to be seen as special forms of grace, put in play by the great architect of love to ensure our own survival, as profound gifts sent to ensure the flowering of our precious hearts and nervous systems. As innocent little ones, we very naturally allow others to deeply matter; it is part of who we are. Over time, though, many of us have come to see that this sort of exposure is tremendously risky; it’s just too raw, too open, too scary. But as little ones we can’t really help it; we’re wired to connect.



Often in the challenges inherent in intimate relationship, we become convinced that it is our partner who is causing us to feel so bad. The evidence is so clear… isn’t it? They don’t respect us, they speak unkindly to us, they don’t understand us, they’re never there when we really need them, they just can’t quite connect with who we are at the deepest levels; and the big one – they just don’t meet our needs. We put a lot of pressure on our partners (and on ourselves, for that matter) to “meet our needs.” Before we know it, much of our lives become organized around getting our needs met; and there is something about this that can start to feel a bit off. It can be really helpful to take some time and look at this carefully. Of course there is likely some relative truth in these traits and behaviors in our partners, and they are worth exploring. This is not to say that the other person isn’t actually speaking and acting in unkind, overly defensive, or critical ways, and that this shouldn't be related with. But we might also come to see that just by being in relationship, we will be forced to feel feelings that we really don’t want to feel.

To allow in those intense and challenging emotions and sensations which have previously been lodged in the body can be terrifying. Do we really want to do this? Maybe tomorrow; for now, it’s best to go take a walk, listen to some music, write another rambling facebook post, contemplate how awakened we are, make another cup of tea, or do some meditation. It’s not so much that our partner is doing something *to* us, but rather when we open ourselves to love, there are previously unmet emotions and sensations there, lurking in the unconscious, seeking the light of day. For many, it is in the context of a vulnerable, naked, intimate relationship where that which is still unresolved will most powerfully present itself to be metabolized and healed. If we look closely, perhaps we can see how we organize our lives around not having to feel certain feelings. To see this can be quite illuminating – and often very disturbing. It is easy to then fall into our old habitual patterns of self-aggression or avoidance, to start to become unkind to ourselves, falling into spiritual superegoic judgment, self-hatred, and shame.

Another option is to make the radical commitment to practicing the yoga of love, of holding ourselves in an enormous environment of kindness. We stay unconditionally committed to the truth that whatever arises in our experience - no matter how disturbing, anxiety-provoking, "unspiritual," confusing, painful, or difficult - that it is ultimately workable, that it is a precious part of our own hearts that we wish to know deeper and to integrate into the entirety of what we are. We can be grateful for the gift of clear seeing, even if what we see is disturbing and anxiety provoking, for it is a certain kind of grace which allows us to finally see the ways we organize our experience, and how all of our neurosis and our strategies were our best efforts at the time to take care of ourselves. We are being given a gift, a fierce gift you could say, and an opportunity to let love dismantle those protective strategies that once served us, but no longer are.

Let us all hold those we’re in relationship with, including ourselves, by committing to taking love’s journey with them, knowing nothing about the route or the destination. Let us be kind to ourselves and our partners if we decide to truly take up the most vulnerable yoga of intimacy, knowing that it will take everything we have and are to navigate, as it offers fruits beyond this world.

Last night. 3.14.13
I don't think I've every cried like that. Anger were the shower of bullets coming from tears. I frantically wrote out my feelings and stained my sheet with my tears and snot before falling asleep.

I woke up in my sleep, fully conscious when it was still dark, awoken by the fear aroused in my dream. I woke to look all around me, on alert, before falling back asleep.

I woke up close to 9am again, realizing how deep my sleep was to bypass two alarms, bag around eyes swollen like raccoons.

I awoke to brush my do my morning salutation yoga outside in the sun, brush my teeth, play Common's tracks, and do a 7-minute morning work-out with Dr. Oz.

Life.