Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

For most people, yoga represents a reprieve from everyday life. While on your mat, you can put your troubles aside and work on your strength, balance, and mobility. However, the Yogi ideals can make life off the mats that much more fulfilling, too. Yogi ideals can have a profound impact on the way you view life and help you develop self-love and awareness during your everyday life. The Yogi ideals can help you make better decisions, too. Following the yogi way of life can reduce the harm you cause and help you move through the world with grace, mindfulness, and love.

Transitions are part of life and the change of seasons is a perfect time to focus on transitions and transform your life. When we tap into the essence of the season and align ourselves with nature, we can create lasting change. Now that you’re in week two of the YogaDownload.com Pre-Holiday Challenge, we hope you’re feeling stronger and determined to stay the course.

Transformation is often touted in the yoga world as an aim for which we practice. In fact, the phrase “transformation starts here” is written on the door of one of the yoga studios where I teach. But what does that word really mean? What does the process of transformation look like? How do you teach it or guide that experience for someone else?

September features two eclipses in a row, starting with a solar eclipse during the new moon in Virgo on September 1st. The next event is a lunar eclipse during the full moon in Pisces on September 16th. This makes all of September an incredibly potent month to start, end, renew, reevaluate and deepen all areas of life. The energy of an eclipse lasts six month or more, so use the preliminary energy of Virgo in the month to be cautious and careful of all you cultivate during this cosmic time. The lunar eclipse in Pisces is a good time to immerse yourself in transcendence and oneness, and let go of all that doesn’t serve your spiritual needs.

Making the decision to sign up for a teacher training for most people is a big deal. Many register for programs in order to become a yoga instructor, but people also register in order to simply learn more about yoga. What most people don’t count on is how much you learn about yourself through the teacher training process. While learning alignment for Down Dog and how to cue people into a Warrior One is great, gaining tools to thrive and uncovering a new way of looking at life are even better.

Many of us begin our yoga practice after years of inactivity or as a result of injury, pain or limited mobility. Maybe we turn to yoga for stress relief, to increase our flexibility or offset the hours we spend in front of a computer. Whatever the reason, so many people choose yoga as a form of therapy – to improve themselves in some way. So it’s no surprise that our early days on the mat can sometimes be discouraging or frustrating as we are faced with body positions that seem impossible for our current state of physical fitness.

I’m not sure how alchemy landed in my lap this week as the theme, but it landed and it landed hard!

Want to change the world? “Be the change you wish to see.” Mahatma Ghandi said that. Don’t try to change the world, just change yourself. Sounds familiar right? I’m sure you’ve seen quotes like this everywhere. Seems easy enough right?

Do you believe that people change? I do. In fact, the reality is that we are always evolving. To be clear, we are given daily opportunities to evolve. Whether or not we choose to take those opportunities and use them for the evolution of our soul is another matter.