Peace of mind is often elusive during the busy winter holiday season, and it’s during these times of excess activity and stress that we need to be even more mindful about taking time to decompress and just be.
Imagine believing that you will never walk without assistance or be off pain medication for the rest of your life. Imagine then deciding not to cooperate with that dismal prognosis with the help of a yoga instructor who saw you and had faith that you were destined for more than a life of pain management.
Do you lie in bed at night and struggle to slow down your mind? Do you hit the snooze button in the morning feeling too exhausted to get up? Having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting the right amount of sleep are all issues that plague 33% of our stressed, electronically driven, modern society.
Everything is energy and this energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it can only be transmuted from one form into another. Ultimately, energy can only do two things: expand or contract. High frequency vibrations expand energy, while low vibrational frequencies contract it.
When I first went public with my intention to open a yoga studio, several people who knew me responded with, "You? But you’re so energetic and fast-paced!” As right as they were about my true nature, the beauty of yoga is that it brings out the focus and “chill factor” some of us aren’t outwardly known for.
Despite having been active my whole life (dance, snowboarding, hiking, and the occasional gym membership), I realized as I was turning 50 in 2016 that a lot of things hurt. In the midst of focusing on “working out” I’d never really been introduced to real stretching and balance work.
Mats come in all kinds of materials, colors, sizes, and flavors. Some smell like flowers, some look like they should be in a museum, and others feel so soft I want to wear them around my shoulders like a bunch of blankets. Over my years as a yoga practitioner, yoga teacher, and yoga learner, I’ve tried as many mats as I can to find the right one for me
“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it.
As autumn chills the air, all of nature instinctively begins to draw inward for the harvest. If you’re anything like us Central Oregon denizens, you’ve been playing outdoors all summer on some kind of adventure.
Depending on who you ask, the human body and the earth are both comprised of 70-80% water. Water is essential for keeping the delicate tissue of the mouth, eyes, and nose moist. It lubricates joints, regulates body temperature, and transports nutrients while flushing out toxins and waste.
As more disturbing news about our healthcare industry and big pharmaceutical companies develops, my commitment to living a more natural lifestyle solidifies. I truly believe that everything we humans need to be healthy can be found in nature. We just need to know how to access and use it.
What I love most about language is its living eternal nature, which transcends the strongest boundaries of time and space. Words are, by their intrinsic nature, timely, limiting, and rigid constructs clumsily attempting to express the ineffably eternal. Chi is one of these words.
