Related Posts

• An Invitation to Slow Down

  

  Every time your tablet, phone, or computer fails to function properly, experts will advise you to flip the switch off and wait. Most times, that momentary unplugging fixes the issue. When you slow down and shift your focus inward, even for a short time, you’re refilling your well and benefitting your nervous system. Yoga is an incredible way to reset your mind, body, and spirit. Simply by unrolling your mat for practice, you’re eliminating distractions and choosing self-care. All types of yoga will do the trick, but slower styles like Slow Flow, Yin, Gentle, and Restorative allow you to dive even deeper

• Why Shifting into Slow Gear Helps You Grow

  

  It’s universally acknowledged, that life feels too busy these days. While technology, growth, and progress are the way of the world, the acceleration of the daily pace of life can be exhausting. Between work, family, and fun, we’re often juggling a zillion tasks a day in order to “get it all done” or check off the boxes on our to-do lists. Slow down for a moment and see how you feel right now. Are you peaceful, joyous, and focused or frazzled? Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra1.2, Citta Vritti Nirodha, is the premise around which the entire Yoga Sutras are built. Yoga is all about calming the fluctuations of the mind or about learning to direct your attention where you want it to go. In our daily life, if we are slaves to the cult of “busy,” we’re at the mercy of distractions and lack of focus. Stepping onto your yoga mat is the first phase of eliminating distractions and slowing down those crazy thoughts careening around in your head

• Slow Down

  

  Transitions are the perfect moment to pause and observe how you are feeling in the present moment. This week, we mark the transition from summer to fall or winter to spring, depending upon where you’re located on the globe. Why not slow down, check in, and use this natural transition to appreciate your life? Savor your experiences instead of anticipating what’s next. Have you been to a concert lately? Noticed all the people with their phones up in front of their faces, videotaping a song instead of actually watching the show? They could be fully immersed in what’s happening on stage, but instead choose to create a barrier with a camera screen in order to save the moment for later. So, they never actually fully experience the gift of the live performance. Now consider in how many other areas of your life you are focused on the past or anticipating the future? It’s easy to be pulled into the “doing” pattern of life.

• Slow Yoga Revolution

  

  On the outskirts of the last decade, a small and humble minority has been pushing back against the pumped up power craze that swept through the nineties, and still largely has a hold on modern postural yoga. Now that the longstanding kingdoms that once guarded yoga's legacies have fallen, and individuals are left more to their own devices, this once obscure and unsung song is finding a new chorus of practitioners.

• Slow Down: Yoga to Relax and Recharge

  

  Are you already leaping into a New Year’s Resolution type of mindset, but haven’t taken enough time to relax after the hectic holiday season? Fostering a balance between action and rest is essential. The “doing” pattern of life is helpful to fulfill our desires and achieve our goals, but if we aren’t mindful, it’s easy to slip into only doing and not being. Why not try a less is more attitude this week? One of yoga’s true gifts is teaching us how to be present––not anticipating the future and not fixating on the past. If we are too focused on what is happening next, we cannot be fully present in what is happening right now. Consider a few of your favorite activities where you’re simply in the flow––running, surfing, gardening, dancing, listening to music or whatever is your perfect state.

• Walk Slowly With Your Emotions

  

  There is an interesting book, "The Healing Power of Meditation" I’ve been reading about meditation and it’s effect on the mind and body. It’s a collaborative piece written by multiple experts in the fields of Psycholoy, Buddhism, and health professions, such as neurology. In the portion of the book that talks about meditation and emotion, it describes the process the human body, and mind, goes through when experiencing an emotion. Emotion is a fast response and usually subside. When we say we’ve been “feeling bad all day” what we’re doing is revisiting the same emotion, over, and over. We think the whole day has been “bad” when we really are just thinking about the same thing that gave us that emotion, calling for the response again, and again.