Food for thought, food for the soul
by guest author Marianne Elliott, Off the Mat NZ It’s not exactly the kind of question people are likely to ask you at a cocktail party, but increasingly I hear people asking themselves and others: What is your purpose in life? Many of us long for a clear sense of purpose: one coherent story about what we are supposed to be doing with our life. We wish we could feel confident that we are spending our “one wild and precious life” in a way that is meaningful, that is contributing … [Read more...]
by guest author Marianne Elliot My path to yoga came via a decade as a human rights advocate, an activist and a humanitarian worker. Amongst other things, I needed to learn the lessons of yoga in order to make my activism more compassionate and sustainable. These days I see no separation between my yoga and my activism. In both I peel away the layers I’ve built up between my heart and all beings. In both I learn patience, acceptance and the transformative power of compassionate clarity. … [Read more...]
Are you ready to take your yoga practice/teaching to the next level? Do you feel as if you have authentic purpose in the world, but are not sure what it is or how to activate it? Do you feel ready to live your life in a more meaningful and connected way? Are you drawn to service but don’t know where or how to begin? The first ever Yoga-in-Action group in New Zealand is for you! WHAT IS IT? … [Read more...]
I first discovered the power of committing to do a new practice every day for a defined period of time when I was living in Afghanistan. I'd been having a really difficult time dealing with some of the suffering and injustice I was seeing every day and my anxiety levels were going through the roof. I'd dabbled in yoga and meditation and knew that both practices had helped me find a solid, calm space even in the midst of the most extreme circumstances but my practice was erratic and the … [Read more...]
If you started your 30 days of yoga sadhana on January 15th then you’ve been practicing for 10 days now. You are one third of the way through your sadhana. Are you having fun yet? Maybe that seems like a strange question. Maybe you expect yoga to be serious? It is. At least, it is profound. My experience of yoga has been that it leads me into all of my own darkest places and then helps me find the steadiness and the ease that I need to go through each of them. Missed the first … [Read more...]
No pain, no gain? We’ve been trained to think this way – to believe that we have to suffer in order to achieve anything of real merit. We’ve been taught to believe that things that come easily are not worth as much as those things that we struggle for. We’ve been educated to believe that being busy is a virtue. Doing less is one of those great ideas that we all love to ignore. Less is more, we say, while we rush about doing more, buying more, selling more, being more. So … [Read more...]
