Balancing Your Practice

Life is serious...things happen that need serious attention and time. Life is also fun, happy, exciting, humorous and (if you're like me) a comic relief for the serious times. Funnily enough, yoga is the same way.

It is easy to think that yoga is a serious time for meditation, reflection and physical energy release. What we seem to forget about yoga is the emotional energy release that is also a HUGE part of the practice. Laughing, crying, giggling uncontrollably, these are all different types of emotional releases that are welcome sounds in the practice room, not interruptions.

Practice is all about balance, whether you're trying to balance your utthita trikonasana (triangle pose), balance your emotional health, or create a balance in your practice between physical and emotional release.

Bottom line... you need to feel free to release anything and everything in your yoga class. If you think that your current practice doesn't allow this, maybe it's time to do yourself a favor and shop around a little bit. Do what you need to do to discover the best version of yourself.

Who ever hear of cupcake flavored yogurt?

There's a new yogurt place in town. It's really cool actually. You can go in there, choose any flavor of soft serve yogurt you can imagine, put on as many toppings as you want, and then go to town. All for $.49 an ounce. That seems like a total STEAL...until you fill the only massive sized cup they offer with yogurt, chocolate chips (which are pretty heavy), peanut butter, strawberries, cookie dough pieces....you name it, it made it on there. Well, $7.00 later I had a good looking frozen yogurt, and I ate the whole thing in a matter of minutes.

Flash forward 20 minutes, WOW, what a sugary, yogurty stomach ache I had. When I was in the store, yogurt seemed like such a good idea. It's amazing how quickly that good idea went wrong.

This yogurt story is actually pretty applicable to life. You walk into the store and everything is all shiny and clean and inviting. You are tempted and tantalized with flavor choices such as white chocolate mousse and cupcake. Really, they should rename the flavors sugar and more sugar. There are times when you don't always end up getting what you think you're paying for, whether it's a financial payment or an physical/emotional one. Sometimes you think you're getting a delicious treat, and you're left with a sugary stomach-mess.

So, what exactly did I do to get rid of my sugar belly? Why, I ate more food of course. In hopes to offset the sugar rush, I drank some (ok, LOTS) of water and ate a hearty dinner. Go figure, nasty stomach GONE! Once again, a metaphor for life. When life throws you a nauseating blow, get back up and try again until you get it right.

Mintsummer Night's Dream and Cookie Dough

Lesson for the day....get an ice cream whenever the heck you want one, because you never know if your favorite ice cream place will be there tomorrow.....

Step 1: Read passage above
Step 2: Re-read passage above
Step 3: Apply passage to every single risk you're thinking about taking in life AS LONG AS the "pro" list outweighs the "con" list
Step 4: Be a happier person knowing you gave life your best shot

Peppermint Tea

A little Saturday morning blurb...While I was sitting in my kitchen this morning, drinking a cup of peppermint tea, I was thinking about how our thoughts affect the outcomes in our lives. If you look around town, it is fairly easy to spot those who are thinking with a positive outlook, and those who are not quite as positive. I believe that life is able to pick up on the energy that we send out into the world in the same exact way that we as humans can. Life takes the energy we send out, and returns to us the same.

As I finished my last sip of tea and watched a happy couple jog by in the streets below, I came to an understanding. Life gives you the same thing you give to the world. If you send out positive energy, you will receive positivity in your life, and vise versa. Not to bring it back to old time sayings but... does "You reap what you sow" ring a bell? If you make a cup of tea with dirty water and a broken tea bag you get gross tea. If you make your cup of tea with clean water and a fresh bag, you get a delicious start to your morning.

Have a great day all you blog readers out there, and try to make your tea with a good tea bag today!

Rocks and Ripples

Another quick post for all of my friends out there in the vast world of the internet...Life has the ability to throw ANYTHING it wants into your path to happiness. It could be work dissatisfaction, familial, friendly or romantic relationship issues, body image issues, social integration problems....you NAME it, they're there, and these "rocks" in our path do as much as they can to stop us from realizing our true happiness.

Now, it's EASY to let these rocks stay put, grow some moss, maybe have some insects create a home under them, so that when we do make some sort of attempt to move them, they don't BUDGE. Sometimes though, the easiest thing isn't necessarily the best thing to do for ourselves to find our way in life.

Have you ever heard of the path of least resistance? That is what the human being is trained to choose when faced with two options, mostly for the reason of pure physical survival. Sure, if you are upset about a relationship, your body, your job, you can still physically survive, but emotionally, psychosocially and spiritually you will find yourself unsatisfied and forever looking to fill a hole you didn't know you had in your being.

This is where I challenge you for the day: Find one rock today that is in your path. It doesn't have to be the rock with an inch-thick cushion of moss growing on there, and hundreds of potato bugs underneath. It can be a small pebble, but choose one and start to think about how you're going to move that rock out of your path to happiness.

Finding what one wants in life isn't something that happens overnight. You're not going to move that huge rock/boulder in one try. It is something that you work on for a lifetime, relishing every small step you make towards happiness, taking in the joy you get each time you toss a pebble from your path into the ocean to watch the ripples of negative energy work their way away from you.

A quick blurb...

Here's a quick post for the night! I just wanted to leave you all with a nice ending to your day...or beginning to your morning depending on when you're reading this post. Picture life like the ocean. It ebbs and flows depending on the cycles of the moon, and it is ever changing, fluid and dynamic. It never stays in the same space. Yet, at the same time, the ocean is constant. It is always there, always forgiving. It keeps us connected to the rest of the world whether through trade of goods, or even through nature. While one person is in the ocean, they are, in essence, reaching out and touching another person miles, even hundreds of miles, away. In life, we are all connected through people, through nature, through ideals and morals, yet we are always changing and forever dynamic as we adjust to our environments, and grow into our true selves.

This is my first post just to get the Portsmouth Yoga Shala blog up and running!! I am not going to write too much today, but I wanted to leave you all with a wholesome message...When life throws you a fast ball you weren't expecting, BREATHE. It is amazing what something as simple and taken for granted can do to calm the mind and ease the body.

See you all on your mats!