How Yoga Affects Your Life - Ahimsa and the Yoga Diet with Kino MacGregor

Natural Flow

"Your mind's ability is limited in the way it thinks about itself, by the way you think about you. The process of Yoga is one of undoing the obstructions and limitations in your body and mind that inhibit the free flow of the creative life force." 

~Erich Schiffman

My Boycott Against Lululemon Ends in Happily Ever After

Well, here's another one for the "things I used to hate but now love" list.  I think I've had a grudge against Lululemon from the beginning, that is- when I learned how expensive their athletic wear was, in combination with the fact that it seemed EVERY single woman in my yoga classes was wearing head to toe Lululemon. 

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I'm kind of a rebel- at least in my own head. If "everyone's doing it", I want to do the opposite. Sort of like a reverse peer pressure I suppose, or just being a brat, more likely. So I've been living high on the hog (or in this case, low on the hog) and buying my yoga wear on sale at Marshall's and Target, with a few pieces from Sport Chalet which the hubs gifted me for Christmas. All the while thinking- take THAT Lululemon- my yoga wear is just as good and 1/4 of the price!!! Ha! 

Then it happened... I actually tried on a pair of their yoga pants last week for the first time and my resolve melted like hot fudge on an ice cream sundae. I have to admit it- Lululemon has THE. BEST. YOGA. PANTS. EVERRRRR. I don't even want to say that but I have to because it's the truth! They are insanely comfortable, the fit is perfection, the coverage is total- meaning no one can see through the pants (a fact I discovered about certain pairs of my yoga pants a little later in the game than I would have liked) and they make my bum look PHE-NOM-EN-AL. When I turned around and looked in the mirror in the dressing room, I had to do a double take because the vision of what I remembered my bum looking like was now a lifted, plumper and perkier version of it's former self. 

Lululemon, you had me at "OMG- that's MY butt?" Game over. I bought three pairs. 

The first, must-have purchase was the cropped Wunder Under  a basic cropped pant that fits like a glove and feels like a second skin.

image via Lululemon.com

the second is the Will Pant- a full length stretch pant with pockets and a higher rise (perfect for my long torso) that can also be folded over. These are SO comfortable that you will want to sleep in them and wear them all the time (and maybe you will for the first week or 2 because you're so excited but that's totally ok because you can do whatever you want- you spent $98 on these friggin' pants!)

image via Lululemon.com

Then to top it off, just for fun, I also bought the Wunder Under Crop *Special Edition which is exactly like the first pair only with a little extra length at the bottom that also houses a secret pocket for cards, keys and/or a phone supposedly- but I haven't tried that yet. All Wunder Unders have a secret pocket in the lining of the waistband as well, and you know how much I love secret pockets!

image via Lululemon.com

Lululemon- I'm pretty sure you have officially ruined me for any other yoga pant for the rest of my life. I spent about $260 ($68, $98, and $78 respectively- with tax) on these three pairs of pants, and I can honestly say without regret, it was the best investment I've made in a while! 

Happy First Friday of Spring Everyone!!!

Xo,

Abby

Learning to Unlearn

If there is one thing I've learned thus far in my Yoga Teacher Training, it's how much I don't know. Not only in Yoga, but in life. I have been broken open as far as thinking that my knowledge is enough. It is just a beginning of a long journey of unlearning what I thought was "right" and settling in to being comfortable in the unknown. This is a process I can't quite wrap my mind around yet, but feel in my heart and soul is true. I once heard a statement (from Marianne Williamson I believe), "In my defenselessness, my safety lies." Every time I repeat this mantra, I feel a little more at peace. I no longer feel the need to fight or defend, to argue or debate, to compete or have the desire to win. I have been through enough trauma and pain for this lifetime, to continue to beat myself up as I have. I just want to be open and absorb the good things left in this world- the simple things. Sunrises, sunsets, true friendship, genuine love, honesty at any cost, learning to love myself after years of being my own worst enemy- these are the things that matter most to me now. 

"You can enter yoga, or the path of yoga, only when you are totally frustrated with your own mind as it is. If you are still hoping that you can gain something through your mind, yoga is not for you."

~Osho

via dailycupofyoga.com

Funny...

...How it seems like yesterday I never thought I would ever be able to practice a pose like Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. Yoga is funny like that, you practice and practice and practice and then one day...your body says, ok- I'm ready, let's do this...

When you understand who and what you are, your radiance projects into the universal radiance and everything around you becomes creative and full of opportunity.

Yogi Bhajan 

What If...

What if our religion was each other

If our practice was our life

If prayer, our words

What if the temple was the earth

If forests were our church

If holy water- the rivers, lakes, and oceans

What if meditation was our relationships

If the Teacher was life

If wisdom was self-knowledge

If love was the center of our being.

~Ganga White

for the Rainforest Benefit

NYC April 1998

Yoga Teacher Training

Finally! A moment to breathe, meditate and reflect on the adventure that is yoga teacher training thus far, these are some of the notes I've taken from the first week...

Day 1: 

Exhilarating, exciting and a little scary. Didn't realize how much time, effort, and commitment (aka- discipline- an area I tend to fall short in) this would take... but I need this challenge. Having never been able to finish anything in my life- I am diving into this journey head first, acknowledging that it will be tough at times, knowing that I will want to quit but committing to staying present throughout and meeting the trials with honesty and awareness.

Day 2/3:

Wondering...can I do this? We've already started "practice teaching" each other in class and it is incredibly intimidating. I don't know what I was expecting but it appears as if I am not a "natural"- if there even is such a thing. I start giggling, laughing and apologizing when I get the cues wrong and/or completely forget the instructions altogether. It's more difficult than I imagined to coordinate the breath with movement and to remember what posture comes next (let alone which side of the body) when I'm not actually performing the sequence myself.

I find myself feeling uncomfortable when attempting to do adjustments (helping people correct their alignment by putting my hands on them to guide them into the best way to hold a posture to accomodate their individual bodies) but realize how healing and important they are for students, myself included- I love adjustments. I'm afraid of doing something wrong, hurting someone or knocking them over (something I almost did while adjusting another trainee).

Fear, it's all just fear...which only exists in my mind and is not real. I need to remember to tune in to my intuition, tune in to what the student needs. Let God guide me rather than my fearful ego.


Day 4:


I am humbly reminded of how important breath is in the Vinyasa yoga practice- of course I've always known this but putting it into practice and fully utilizing my Ujjayi breathing throughout the entire class is a different story. It's all goes back to mindfulness and discipline once again.

"Vinyasa" means combining breath with movement, so for every inhale and exhale there is a movement that follows- a chaturanga, upward facing dog, downward facing dog, etc., unless holding a particular posture for several breaths. This sounds easy in theory but in practice, if I am not mindful, I find myself breathing completely out of sequence and getting out of breath because I'm actually holding my breath when I don't even realize it or attempting to do a pose that I want to do but probably shouldn't because my breathing is labored. The breath should be slow, even and steady throughout.

Lesson learned- in order to get the most out of my yoga practice (and this teacher training for that matter), my ego is going to have to take a backseat. Once again, I'm reminded that slow and steady wins the race...or in this case, gets to practice a lifetime of healthy yoga without injury.

A quote from one of my textbooks that pretty much sums it up for me..."Yoga is an ancient science of health for the physical body and balance for the mind and emotions that provides the foundation for the spiritual journey whose destination is self-knowledge."

Let the spiritual journey continue...

via Google Images