My Yoga Mat IS My Magic Carpet

OR... Why I Love Yoga, Take 3!

5 years ago I wrote an article titled Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing that has been published on several Yoga, Mindfulness, Health, & Healing websites (In a professional holistic Nursing journal as well). This writing was/is my attempt to lure you into a personal practice that will transform the manner in which you exist in this world and support you making the best health and healing choices with each and every choice you need to make.

Did I lure you? Are you immersing into yoga to change your inner landscape so your outer world blossoms?

Yoga plants seeds. Seeds that are possibilities for life long change. 

Yoga lifts you up (body, mind, and spirit) so you can soar and sway with the breezes of life, being calmly flexible.  Yoga also roots you down and grounds you into your life so you can be stable and steady no matter what comes your way.

Yoga has taught me, reminded me, that my human body is a sacred vessel for spirit. My body is the home of the divine essence that is me.

I am a soul in a human existence not a human walking around with a soul (Wayne Dyer, one of many, kindly reminded us of this).  Once we embrace our divine essence and purpose, in our human form, it becomes easier to make those healing lifestyle changes and stick to them.

Your lifestyle choices can and will build your soul a home that is a castle that can weather life with grace.  Your lifestyle choices can also cobble together a shack that feels unwell, daily, and falls apart easily.

When we come home to this, truly embody the fact that we are divine beings within a human body, it makes the task of choosing healthy lifestyle habits the path of least resistance. 

Our inner conversation goes from impulsively eating, without conscious thought, those two pieces of cake sitting there just because they ARE sitting there to being about making choices that are best for body-mind-spirit.

Building Castles not Shacks.

A regular Yoga practice creates new neural pathways of thinking in body, mind, heart, and spirit. These pathways create inner calm, peace, and presence in the hear & now. I have always called this Inner Conscious Connection. Mindfulness is the word we all here now.

Stepping off of my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet, navigating the world in a magical way, transforms the whole world into my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet. 

Sending Love from My Castle to Yours. Namaste. 

Join Shelby Connelly & I at Five Elements Living Retreat Center for a 3 hour Yoga - Acupuncture Mini-Retreat: April 8th (evening retreat) or April 11th (morning retreat), 2018

                                                       Beginner's Yoga : Letting Go Of Awkward                                                         Yoga-Acupuncture-Self Care Evening Or Morning Retreat

More articles to inspire you to jump on a Magic Carpet of your own:

• Why I love Yoga... Take 2

• More Yoga inspiring posts from Paula

Green is the Heart Chakra... Love Your Yoga!

Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing

1.    Remind yourself that you are in complete control of you.

2.   Start your day with an AM grounding experience. I do a blended visualization / meditation that takes 5-7 minutes and grounds me for the day.  I sit on the stone steps in my back yard with my feet in contact with the ground. (Urban dwellers, sit and visualize your feet in the grass, connected to Mother Earth!) I close my eyes and visualize white light coming from the ground, up through my Chakras and Nadis, then turns around at the crown Chakra and goes back into the earth taking all negative (dark light) energy back into the earth to be absorbed. I visualize white light coming from above, through my crown Chakra, and circling back up at my root Chakra taking negative energy back into the atmosphere. I do both of these twice.  Next I visualize white light coming from the earth again, up through my root Chakra.  When It turns the corner at my crown, this time it goes back into the earth and creates a root system from my tailbone down into the earth. Now visualize white light from the crown Chakra, turns at the root Chakra and turns again at the crown Chakra to go back into the earth.  Again, visualize the roots coming from your tailbone deep into the earth to ground you for the day’s challenges. Finally, I swirl white light energy around my body, from feet to head, like a twister moving up my body. This is to protect me from negative energy and other’s stress.

3.   Create peace in your life with a regular yoga practice. The benefits of Yoga are profound.  You will intuitively move towards healthier choices in your life. Your mind will become calm. Your body will respond physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually to the beauty of yoga.  Your body will be in the flow of life. This is true mind -body -spirit healing.

4.   Nourish your body with 100% whole foods. To get started on whole food eating, pick up a copy of my book, Hands On Health: Take Your Vibrant, Whole Health Back Into Your Healing Hands. Read the Free info on my website: Principles of Whole Food Eating,  Whole Health Lifestyle Choices, & more Free Health Info

5.   Get to bed and be asleep before 10 PM.  When your body is asleep before 10 PM, the level of stress hormones in your body drops. When you stay up late, burning the midnight oil, your body pays through higher levels of cortisol hormones. This is stress.  Sleep, sweet dream sleep, before 10 PM and your body’s glandular system works for you in a balanced manner, making happy feel-good hormones!

6.   Get outside every day, preferably moving your body. Yes, I mean exercise. Call it movement magic that heals the divine you!  Something as simple as a brisk paced walk in the fresh air and natural light can do much to reduce stress, create feel good hormones, help you sleep better at night, and ease the challenges of daily life so you can think clearly and make healing choices around food and your health habits. Get outside in sun/wind/rain/snow/fog, walk barefoot, sit on ground, hug a tree, rest your spine against an old growth tree… just breathe in the world around you. Your body, mind, and soul will thank you for this grounding, earthy experience.

Positive, holistically-minded, lifestyle choices make for healthier, happier living.  For a full list of lifestyle choices I recommend to my holistic health coaching clients, click here.     More Free Health & Self Healing Info, click here.

7.    Create a grounding habit you can return to, in a moment's notice, for immediate calming energy. Here is how...

• Find a body motion (hands in Namaste or prayer position or a Yoga Mudra that calls to you),
• a "saying" or mantra* (Amen, Namaste, Blessed Be, Mitakuye Oyasin, Om mani padme hum), and
• a visualization of a space in nature that is sacred to you.

When you close your eyes and do all three you will bring yourself to a place of inner calm. Proceed forth from a space of thoughtful action as opposed to emotional reacting.  The ideas in parenthesis are just that, ideas. Create a 5 second ritual that is your special way of coming into your calm. Use it daily. Use it in any moment that you need to stop and think rationally before you proceed forward in your next step or choice. This is a quick grounding experience.

Be Well; Very, Very Well, Paula   ; )

Extra posts on creating calm, grounding, and healing eating/health habits: 

• Create Constant Calm
• Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing

To find more related posts do a search on my blog for: yoga, weight loss, &/or mindfulness.

*Saying or Mantra meanings, they are all Blessings

• Amen: So be it, the well wishing of your prayers & meditation being sealed for integration and to come to fruition in the world
• Namaste: Sanskrit, the Divine in me honors the Divine in you
• Blessed Be: Wish good and positive things upon self & others
• Mitakuye Oyasin: Lakota, we are all related, interconnectedness of everything, we are all brothers & sisters (all beings on Earth, not just humans)
• Om mani padme hum: Buddhist, No literal English translations, jewel in the lotus, invokes compassion

5 Easy Ways To Shift The Energy Of Your Life's Path

Easy is a relative word and is subject to much subjectivity. 

1. Practice being mindful in every moment.  

Excerpted from an article I wrote in 2012 for the Potsdam Food Coop's newsletter, {in my day, you know the uphill both ways to school - barefoot AND in the snow, mindfulness was simply called yoga,  ; ) }      

I have always urged and supported others to practice some form of mind, body, spirit "exercise" to bring a centered awareness into their life as this daily habit makes the process of healthy lifestyle change flow with ease & grace (seriously my friends, I am not pulling your yoga leg here): 

When we stop the constant chatter inside our heads and still our minds through mindfulness activities (yoga and other body awareness exercises), we tend to make choices that are in alignment with what is best for our health without feeling deprived.  This is because we have learned to live in the present moment and are aligned in body, mind, and spirit.  That is the awareness that Yoga brings to our being.
A cluttered "chattery" mind and a body that is not aligned in mind, body, and spirit tends to make decisions based upon impulse and cravings without regard to what is best for long term health.

2. Practice daily mindlessness!  Zone out. Stop the chatter. Pay attention to breath only.  

When we are so bent on living a life of being mindful in every moment we forget to just let go and be... be mindless for a bit. Literally people, NOTHING, going on in our heads!

Check out this Daily OM post by Madisyn Taylor. It was fitting to this thought of mindlessness.

3. Sign up for someone's daily email or social media posts that are positive and inspirational.

Read them. Reflect on them. Allow the words to weave their magic into your body, mind, and spirit. Live the words for your own peace and for the peace of all who walk your path with you.

Hey... I wrote a book on daily reflections and inspirations. This book will gift you a year's worth of body, mind, & spirit magic. Go ahead... cast a spell for yourself.

4. Revel, truly revel, in who you are and your life's purpose on this planet.

Let your true self shine, shine, shine.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

Check out this youtube link for a bit of musical inspiration. 

5. Offer kindness and compassion every where you go to everyone, every being, & everything. Seriously.

The natural - spiritual law of 3 fold:

"For all that we say and we do "for good or for ill, shall be returned to us threefold."

What goes around comes around baby!  Make your karma & dharma shine, shine, shine! See the above song link for another deep dose of musical inspiration.

May Your Life Be Full Of Wild & Fun Adventures

&

Free From Ordeals.  

: )

Walking The Red Road

22 years ago I was teaching School Health Education in the Syracuse City School District. The district graciously sent me "home" to a week long health conference at St. Lawrence University, Canton. I attended an amazing workshop presented by Ed McGaa, Eagle Man, Sioux Tribal Leader and purchased both of his books.

Now this was not my 1st experience with Native American culture; growing up 20 minutes from the Mohawk Nation and involved with the local lacrosse team, I was exposed to and aware of Native culture and philosophy. But honestly, traditional Native American spirituality is not something that was shared openly.

Over the past 22 years I have read many books by great Native American writers, healers, and visionaries. My latest book by Ehanamani, Dr. A.C. Ross, member of the Dakota Nation - Sioux Native Americans is titled "Mitakuye Oyasin." In this book, Ehanamani introduces me to the Native American principle of the Red Road.

The Red Road is a mind set, a way of thinking that carries one through their day's decisions. It is a way to make the best decision for you and the greater good, right now in this moment, without having that decision be the only choice you have for the rest of your life.

Let me give you an example:

• Someone offers me a large chunk of gooey dessert. My Red Road decision looks like this: "Not now, not today, this is not best for my health." Now this does not mean I can't decide tomorrow to have a gooey hunk of dessert. It just means that right now I am going to make the best decision for my health, for my higher self, for the greater good.

Taking the Red Road path in life gives you the emotional / spiritual comfort of not crossing out the possibility forever.

We have all done this sort of lifestyle planning... "I am not going to" 

• eat desserts ever again
• drink alcohol ever again
• eat pasta and bread ever again...

Then maybe 2 days or 2 weeks into our "not going to" lifestyle plan we have gooey desserts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Taking the Red Road path in life spares the feeling of deprivation. It is a choice to do the best right now, in this moment.

I find that all paths of spiritual growth and transformation work on this same principle of mindfulness and choosing to do what is best for our personal growth or higher self. I have practiced yoga daily for 16 years and yoga teachings us, through practice, to make healing choices without our feeling deprived. A post I wrote in 2013 delves deeper into this Red Road perk of yoga: Why I Love Yoga And Other Thoughts On Whole Food, Whole Health Healing

We can also compare Red Road and yoga to other spiritual teachings:  Tae Kwon Do, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Reiki... any deep and true spiritual teachings.

Open the door to new possibilities, take the first step on your personal Red Road Path... a lifestyle that supports health and healing.

If I can be a helpful part of your health repair plan, give me a shout! Happy Spring.