by Sarah Spence ‘Mindfulness’ is a buzz word these days. I ponder whether ‘reflection’ will join it, given that leadership teams in corporate organisations are now given journals to write in. Regardless, let’s celebrate that these kind of tools are making it to the mainstream. The quality of self-observation is key to both yoga, mindfulness and to managing the mind. I discovered reflection as a yogic tool when I showed up at a yoga ashram in Western Canada. I’d been attending Power … [Read more...]
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How Yoga Taught Me to Live a Fearless & Authentic Life
by Stephanie Spence, Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Yoga Wisdom: Warrior Tales Inspiring You On And Off Your Mat The setting: a luxurious villa on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. A wife and husband, along with several of his clients, are partying on a terrace overlooking the glittering ocean and sun-kissed beach. They flew in from Pittsburgh aboard his private jet that morning. The woman seems to have it all—she’s a self-made success story, wife, and mother. But beneath her mask … [Read more...]
Why The 3 Bandhas Are Not Optional in Yoga
by Daniel Fow, Cardinal Points: Healing Arts All of the muscles in the body need to be exercised, stretched and worked with. Most of us know this, and we do yoga, go to the gym, walk, hike, run, or do some sort of work with our skeletal muscles. But these muscles are all generally on the outside surface of the body, either on top of our skeleton or immediately beneath. What we often tend to forget about is the importance of muscles that exist on the inside of the body. The pelvic diaphragm … [Read more...]
Are Plant Medicines Part of Traditional Yoga?
by Daniel Fow, Cardinal Points: Healing Arts "The Mystic States (Siddhis) are attained by yogic practices from previous lifetimes, or by special plants, mantric repetition, asceticism, or by meditation." - Yoga Sutras of Patanjali The ancient Rishis and Yogis often spoke of an ancient plant medicine known as Soma which would be made into a tea. Upon drinking it, the third eye would awaken and mystical states would occur, even the state of samadhi or enlightenment. The use of Soma as a plant … [Read more...]
Best Guide to Australian Yoga Teacher Training 2017
The Best Guide to NZ Yoga Teacher Trainings 2017
Why Yogis Need The Deep Lessons of Karma Yoga
by Ram Davies, Sivananda Yoga Centre I was lying in bed in an apartment in South Beach, Florida, reading Meditations and Mantras by Swami Vishnudevananda, when it dawned on me: I don’t enjoy where I am and what I’m doing. Straight away I put the book down and emailed a yoga teacher that I had trained with the previous year. I asked him if I could stay at the ashram for a four month period as part of the karma yoga program. I heard back from him the following day, quit my job, and booked a … [Read more...]
The Unexpected Discoveries I Made on Yoga Teacher Training
by Bhavani Davies, Sivananda Yoga Centre and one of our Best Up-and-Coming Yoga Teachers for 2016 I enrolled to take my first yoga teacher training in 2008, in an ashram situated in the lush greenery of Val Morin, Canada. The ashram was founded in 1962 and is located on 350 acres in the beautiful Laurentian Mountains. In the first couple of days I struggled not only with the early starts and lack of communication with the outside world, but also with myself. On more than one occasion I … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me Find My True Voice and Share it With The World
By Premratna, Premratna Music If I try to imagine what the course of my life would have taken without yoga, I get an image of the movie Life of Pi: a small boat, huge swells, a tiger on board and a lot of fear. Yoga found me while I was doing my ‘big O.E.’; that phase of life where we are typically searching for adventure. I was no exception. In between hiking, skiing, singing and songwriting, I went to a yoga class at the gym in the Canadian Rockies where I was living and working. The … [Read more...]
The Yoga Body Myth & My Late-30s Body
In celebration of the launch of The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga, I’ve invited some friends and colleagues to write articles relating to the theme of the book’s subtitle: Because yoga is for every body. I'm delighted to introduce Roseanne Harvey for the first time on The Yoga Lunchbox. Roseanne is the woman behind It's All Yoga Baby and an out-spoken voice for diverse images of yoga bodies. She's helping to challenging the idea that there is a stereotypical yoga body and helping to encourage … [Read more...]