by Matt Calman, The Longest Day I regard it as a minor miracle I became a yogi. For as long as I can remember, in the four-decade-long pre-yoga phase of my life I was horribly inflexible, and unable to get within a foot of touching my toes. My main pastimes in my 20s included playing rugby and drinking beer with my teammates. In my mind, activities such as yoga and ballet dwelt at the opposite end of the spectrum from my modus operandi. If anyone had suggested to the younger me that I … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me Combat Depression & Heartbreaking Loss (Without Medication)
By Adrienne Smith, Power of Your OM It is estimated that by the year 2020, anxiety and depression will be the leading cause of death - over heart disease and over cancer. Yikes! While anxiety and depression can come from legitimate chemical imbalances that require medication to curb them, medical researchers are finding that cultivating awareness of our thoughts and the physical state of our being, in combination with medication (if necessary), will prove a better defense to anxiety and … [Read more...]
What Is iRest® Yoga Nidra Meditation and How Can It Help You?
by Neal Ghoshal, Sacred Moves As the popularity of Yoga continues to expand, more and more people are being drawn into practices beyond Yoga asana (posture), into breath work, into meditation, into the subtler aspects of the tradition. One of the practices that is becoming increasingly lauded is Yoga Nidra. I first came across Yoga Nidra back in 2003 when learning to teach at the Ashram Yoga School in Parnell, Auckland. Ashram Yoga, a Satyananda style inspired Yoga school, included Yoga Nidra … [Read more...]
How to Calm an Overactive Mind with Yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant There are days when I spend too much time commuting, too much time on my computer, and have far too many balls in the air. My mind feels like it's going a million miles a minute, flitting first from one thing, then to the next. Sometimes this monkey mind is shadowed by anxiety or fear, lurking deep in the belly and driving me out of my body and up into my head. It's exhausting. And on days like that, I know exactly what kind of yoga I need to do - yoga to still the … [Read more...]
How Brandon Bays’ ‘The Journey’ Helped me Open up to Real Intimacy
By guest author Jacinta Aalsma I am always wondering if I would have chosen the path of yoga with the same passion and intensity if I didn't come across the Journey work. Would I be brave enough to follow my passion by facing my insecurity, fear of exposure and perfectionism? Would I dare to stand for a group of exciting yogis and teach them in English, my second language? Would I dare to show the real Jacinta? I guess we will never know. Clearly, Journey work has transformed my yoga … [Read more...]
Why Letting Go is a Crucial Aspect of Loving Well
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's the summer of 2000 and I've just come back to Whistler, BC after nine weeks living on the side of a volcano in Maui. I'd been on a mad adventure with a man I'd meet waitressing that winter in Whistler - but that's another story. My life is packed full of stories from that time, many of them involving men. I was young, carefree and a permanent traveller. It was four years since I'd graduated my Journalism Course and bailed on New Zealand, … [Read more...]
Nadine Fawell shares why Yoga is her chosen faith
by guest author Nadine Fawell, a Melbourne-based yoga teacher, blogger, and author of the yogAttitude cards. She is most interested in yoga's power to heal body, mind, and spirit. I’ve just come back from leading a yoga retreat in Bali. I got on the airplane feeling anxious, for all sorts of reasons: I was about to shoot my first yoga DVD: strong*stretched*serene (which put me so far out of my comfort zone, I couldn’t even see the horizon), I didn’t know whether the hotel would take good care … [Read more...]
How do I Stop These Compulsive Thoughts Invading My Brain?
by Kara-Leah Grant It happens all the time - people tell me they can't meditate because they think too much. They can't stop themselves from thinking... But none of us can stop ourselves from thinking, even when we've been meditating for a long time. Meditation is the process of being aware of the thoughts... The following dialogue was inspired by a couple of emails from readers, who wanted to know how to control their thoughts. How do we stop compulsive thoughts from invading and taking over … [Read more...]