Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Health, Fitness, Fit Yoga
Sometimes all you need to turn things around is a fresh perspective. Or a new path, a different take and a jolt from your comfort zone. And I’ve got just the thing, let me introduce inversion poses.
In short, inversions are poses that put feet … Read more
Filed under: Happiness, Fitness, Fit Yoga
I love music. And I don’t discriminate against genres. When I was young, I rocked out in my basement to Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tears For Fears, Wham, and Corey Hart. As I grew older, I listened to New Order, Depeche Mode, 80’s rap, 90’s hip-hop … Read more
If you are a regular yoga practitioner, at some point you would have realized that yoga isn’t just a physical practice. In fact, yoga has the power to transform not only your physical body, but your life too because as the body starts to change and … Read more
Filed under: Happiness, Fit Yoga
On my birthday last July, in addition to receiving an awesome collection of homemade CDs from my boyfriend, I was given a card that had a simple, yet profound quote. It read: “Leap and the net will appear.”
At the time of reading this wisdom from naturalist and essayist John Burroughs, I had some big career decisions to make and I was feeling overwhelmed. While I had a sense of what direction I wanted to take, there were so many ways to get from A to B that made me apprehensive. There were many times in my life that I had started a project or path, only to quit or not give it a real chance. You could say I had a fear of failure — and this time I wanted to commit to something wholeheartedly and follow through from start to end. Receiving this card, I believed, was a sign that it was time for me to commit and see things through to the end, no matter what. I had to take the leap.
Continue reading How Yoga Practice Can Make You Brave: Take a Leap With the Monkey Pose
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Fit Yoga
Each and every morning we wake up, we get dressed, and we head out into the world, taking care of our responsibilities and interacting with any number of people: family, co-workers and strangers, and that is what we do.
And throughout each of these days, we may face a spectrum of small hiccups to large setbacks. Life is not one smooth ride; it is a path of bumps and potholes, re-routes and dead ends. We get cut off while we drive, we walk amongst the mad rush of commuters, we order coffee from a less than pleasant barista, we slosh our way through a stormy day, we disagree with our boss’ decision, we wait 30 minutes for a late friend, we listen to mom complain about how dad is a grump, we cry over a lost relationship and so on. The list is endless and slowly, but surely all of these things start to add up, and our poor hearts begin to take cover from all the annoyances and pain.
It’s natural to shield our hearts, but it’s not beneficial. When we protect our hearts, we remove ourselves from feeling love and being happy. Just like a mother can’t always protect her child from harm, we can’t always protect our hearts from pain, we must feel ALL our experiences, and then we must learn to let go. It is important that we let go and keep our hearts open, if we do not, we face a life of dissatisfaction.
Why is it important to open your heart?
Continue reading Six Ways To Open Your Heart: Increase Happiness, Lessen Stress
Filed under: Advice, Fitness, Fit Yoga
When I was in my yoga teacher training program, I often heard my teacher say in class, “less is more.” It’s the last thing you want to hear as an eager yoga student, striving for optimum output. We’ve been brought up in a society where we’ve been led to believe in the idea of “no pain, no gain.” Many yoga practitioners, myself included, have been wired to think this way. And yet, going beyond our limits, huffing and puffing, and forcing our way into poses are as far from yogic as we could possibly be.
An article by yoga philosopher Joel Kramer called ‘Yoga as Self-Transformation,’ examines what Kramer calls “playing the edge.” Our bodies have edges that mark our limits in strength, stretch, endurance, and balance. For example, there is a limit to our stretch that he calls the “maximum edge.” The edge is a feeling of intensity and, it comes right before pain. The edge changes constantly, from breath to breath, pose to pose, practice to practice. Sometimes it moves forward, and other times, it retreats. With this in mind, no two yoga practices will ever be the same.
Continue reading Why Less is More in Your Yoga Practice
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Fitness, Fit Yoga
While taking a leisurely walk through my neighborhood the other day, I noticed a rather large tree in front of one of the houses. The tree’s trunk was a sizeable width and it stood high and branched out on an angle, over-powering the house behind … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Fit Yoga
Waiting is one of my pet peeves. I once had an ex-boyfriend who was notoriously late; sometimes I waited up to twenty to thirty minutes for him, it would drive me crazy; I would get so angry that it would spark a fight between us. This experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that I started to become very agitated when I got together with friends who were even five minutes late.
Many years later, I came to the conclusion that perhaps I was not a very patient person, and it was for this very reason that I was experiencing ‘late’ people all the time.
I recalled interactions with my family that left me hot-tempered with nostrils flaring after a telephone conversation. Or the many times I ferociously packed back a meal in five minutes. Or the occasions when I thought I was too busy to hold a door for someone walking a few steps behind me. I believe in the idea that other people act as mirrors, and my own lack of patience was being reflected back to me clear as day, it just took me a while to figure that out.
Continue reading Cultivating Patience Through Yoga
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Health, Fit Yoga
When I lead my yoga classes through a sequence of hip openers, there’s bound to be a few grunts and moans; looks of fear creep up onto some of my students’ faces. Those of us who run, bike, play sports and even sit at desks all day can find hip openers to be very intense — and sometimes, very scary — but it’s safe to say that all of us could benefit from them. Hip openers are a really great way to release and practicing “letting go.”
The hips are the foundation of our lower bodies. Our hips connect our pelvis to our leg bones and support the spine, and when we walk, run, or do any kind of movement with our legs, our hips keep the pelvis balanced. If we do not dedicate time to opening up our hips, we are in store for future pain and suffering: tight hips contribute to back pain and tight hamstrings. When we do hip openers, we increase the range of motion in our femur bones in our hip sockets, we lengthen our hip flexors, and this also helps us with back bends and seated postures in our yoga practice.
Continue reading Open Your Hips for Better Yoga and a Better Life
Filed under: Friends & Family, Happiness, How to Be Happy
I just came back from dinner with a friend who I’ve kind of known for about three years. He is someone who lives in my neighborhood, and who I’ve run into numerous times, exchanging pleasantries on the street, at a café, at a restaurant, at … Read more
A few weeks ago, while attending a Wellness Fair at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, I took a twenty minute break and sat in a booth sipping a green tea latte while watching the world go by. I saw young, old, men, women, children, tall, short, thin, … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Health, Fit Yoga
Last week I went out to dinner and decided to get all dolled up for the occasion. It’s a rare event for me to wear high heels, but I got all glammed up and went for it. Fast forward to the end of the evening, after my shoes had been removed, and I’m shaking my head in dismay at toes all squished together like sardines and red indentations from the shoe straps. The pressure of all one hundred and thirty pounds of me weighing on the ball of each foot definitely can’t be good. I tucked the heels away and won’t be taking them out for a very long time.
We don’t give our feet enough credit for all the work they do. Think about the fact that for a good part of our day they serve as our body’s foundation and our connection to the earth. And as our body shifts from walking to sitting to running to jumping, our feet need to be balanced and strong to help facilitate that movement.
And we do awful things to our feet! Specifically, we wear restrictive footwear such as high heels, cleats, ski boots, ballet points, rock-climbing shoes and cowboy boots, which all significantly contribute to the weakening of our feet. Many of our foot problems can be attributed to shoes. It’s understandable that three out of four people will develop a serious foot problem in their lifetime.
Five ways to keep feet happy and healthy after the jump.
Continue reading 5 Ways to Improve the Health of Your Feet
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Health, Fit Yoga
I love my work as a yoga teacher but I also have a real love for graphic design. There is an art to organizing type and pictures on a page and making it look beautiful. Many years ago, I went to school for graphic design and although I didn’t have the yearning to pursue a career in it, I’m glad I learned how to use the various design and layout programs; I can’t tell you how often it has come in handy in my own business.
I was designing a brochure for a friend the other day and it occurred to me that a typical mistake non-designers make when doing a layout of a document is using every inch of space on the page and filling it with text, pictures, lines, boxes, etc. I didn’t realize until now, what a valuable commodity space is.
Space is important and often, the more space you don’t use on a page, the clearer your message becomes. Take a look at a document that is filled from top to bottom, where do you set your eyes first? After a while of staring at the document, your eyes get tired and you abandon the document altogether. I thought to myself, this idea of creating space on a document is synonymous with life as well; we also need to create space in our lives, to help us see a clearer picture.
Continue reading Benefits of Creating Space in Your Mind and Life
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Fitness, Fit Yoga
Have you ever taken a moment to listen to your breath? In yoga, we try to settle our minds to the sound of our breath, which can be very relaxing. I like to use the analogy of the breath sounding like the waves of the ocean: the inhalations and … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, How to Be Happy
Now that the holidays are over, the ice-cold weather has set in and it’s back to school or work, it’s easy to feel down and depressed. Here are 10 easy ways to get out of your winter blues. 1. Dance: Put on your favourite song and turn up the … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Fitness, Fit Yoga
I meet people all the time who tell me that they can’t do yoga because they’re not flexible enough. Time and time again, I say the same thing to each and every person; yoga isn’t about putting your leg over your head.
Here’s what else I say to them. If you want to: increase your strength, improve your stability, practice patience, learn to ‘let go’, reduce stress, develop awareness, reduce pain, sleep better or nurture a relationship with yourself, then you should definitely be doing yoga!
Entering a yoga class for the very first time can be very intimidating. At my very first class, I sat at the back of the room with a friend who was also new to the practice. The class was packed, and I felt my stomach doing back flips. I remember the teacher walking in and placing her mat at the front and the room going quiet. All of sudden, she started to give directions and people started to move. I followed with uneasiness. I kept looking up every few seconds to see what everyone else was doing. I was always a few seconds behind. Everyone seemed like they were breathing in unison, while every time I tried to breathe deeply, I coughed. My whole body felt tight. I especially felt self-conscious when the teacher would come up to me and make adjustments. That said, it felt within the blink of an eye that ninety minutes had passed and next thing I knew I was at a restaurant with my friend toasting each other for getting through our first yoga class.
Continue reading Health Benefits of Yoga: 5 Tips to Get You Started
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, How to Be Happy
I heard about this NFL commentator whose job was to watch the Monday night football games and then come into work on Tuesday mornings and do an analysis of the game. The games were televised late on Monday nights, so he found himself getting to … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, How to Be Happy
One day, when emailing back and forth with my friend Karen, I noticed below her signature a very simple statement, ‘Know what makes you happy.’ I thought to myself, do most people know what makes them happy? With the alarming rates in … Read more