by Kara-Leah Grant This week, I took part in an exorcism. But let's just call it a healing, because that word exorcism caries all kinds of connotations that can stop us from bringing our hearts and awareness into the moment. There was nothing to fear in this healing, except, of course, fear itself. More than ten years ago, I took on an energy, an entity, a being of the subtle realms... it's not something I've talked about much because, you know, crazy. Yet it wasn't crazy for me. It was … [Read more...]
How to Re-Write Your Past and Free up Your Future
by Kara-Leah Grant In practice this week, I noticed that when I've told the story of my awakening/psychosis experience, it's always been focused on the relationship I was in, and how that contributed to the experience. But there's another big piece to that story. And it's one I've never told before. That intrigued me. Why had I not looked at that aspect of the story before? Scanning through my life's history, I saw the pattern repeated over and over again: My story has always been told … [Read more...]
12 Things You Must Know About Kambo Before Getting Pricked
by Chris Kelly, If you’d told me years ago that the slimy secretion from an Amazonian tree frog - sometimes called “ordeal medicine” - was incredible for my health, I’d think you were a little nuts. If you told me it was applied directly into the lymphatic system through small little burn marks on the skin, I’d think you were completely nuts! I never would have believed that I’d be applying these very same burn marks and this slimy frog secretion to myself, let alone regularly serving it … [Read more...]
You Don’t Need to Know the Origins of an Issue to Heal it
by Kara-Leah Grant You don't have to know WHY you carry a particular belief to completely heal & release it. A story that illustrates this... It's April 2017. I'm on a camping road trip of the South Island with my partner and child. I take us to Lake Middleton - my family camping spot from about age 8 until I was 17. Every summer, and many holidays, we would pack everything into the car, hook on the Nifty Nomad Camper, pack our tents and kayaks and fishing gear, and head up to the Lakes for … [Read more...]
Am I Endorsing Obesity by Telling Bigger- Bodied Yogis to Love Themselves?
By guest author Nityda Bhakti "I am so interested in trying yoga- I just need to wait until I lose this last fifteen pounds." "Yoga? Me?! Do you see my size? I could never lift myself off the ground like that!" I’ve heard comments like these for the past decade that I’ve been teaching. I’ve made it my mission to make friends, family, acquaintances, even strangers for that matter, see that you don’t have to be a certain weight, body-type, gender, age or race to begin a yoga practice. I’ve … [Read more...]
How Yoga Kirtan 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...]
Is Ancestral Trauma a Source of Modern Day Depression and Anxiety?
by Kara-Leah Grant Since 2004 I have progressively healed myself through a combination of yoga, meditation and a wide variety of healing techniques. As I went through this process, my old coping techniques slowly but surely fell away - in the past I've used everything from drugs, alcohol, exercise and relationships to distract myself. Dropping these various distraction techniques was never easy. I didn't give up marijuana until I was pregnant. When life got really tough and I found … [Read more...]
Peering into the Darkness with Ashtanga Yoga
by guest author Pip Bennett I’ve had some dark, dark clouds following me around these past couple of weeks. One day at a work lunch I found myself judging everyone for how happy they were. I was thinking, they are only happy because they have such-and-such. If I had those things, I would be happy. They don’t understand what it is like to not have choice, be in a difficult situation. Oh dear. I’ve listened to enough Buddhist teachings to know that these thoughts are not true. Things … [Read more...]
Oil Pulling – What’s All the Fuss About?
by guest author Kate McLeay Oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic health tradition for oral hygiene, detox and rejuvenation. I have been doing this practice daily for just over three years now with many benefits and really love it! I often recommend oil pulling to students and friends and keep getting asked to write down some directions. So here goes… How I got into Oil Pulling As I'm an A type personality, after I received a brief email about oil pulling from my Mum’s wise white witch … [Read more...]
Free your pelvis and the rest will follow
by Kara-Leah Grant Years of yoga practice and yoga teaching has taught me that our ability to freely move our pelvis is a key aspect to unlocking our spines, and releasing any chronic low back issues or holding patterns. I've also learned that it's not always the muscles, ligaments and tendons that are locking our pelvis in place. It can be our minds. Yes, the psyche can affect the way that our pelvis moves. Fortunately, over time, yoga practice can unlock both the physical body and the … [Read more...]