Yoga & mindfulness inspiration for moms including Prenatal Yoga, Postnatal Yoga, Mom & Baby, Yoga Inspiration for Moms - online & in Charleston SC
1. My other teacher says you should never do it that way..
2. OUCH! My back!! …(Teacher comes running)… Just kidding. Bahahahaha!
3. Don’t touch that. My fungus might be contagious.
4. You’re really flexible.. I bet your husband likes that.
5. It may not look like, but my shoulders ARE relaxed. Promise.
It’s wedding season. I just returned from my second of two out-of-town weddings in the past two weeks. I traveled far and near. I bought a new dress. My bridesmaid duties have been fulfilled.
But all this wedding business has me thinking a lot about veils. In a traditional white-dress wedding, the bride’s veil is symbolic of the bride’s purity.
From Wikipedia: “The lifting of the veil was often a part of ancient wedding ritual, symbolising the groom taking possession of the wife, either as lover or as property, or the revelation of the bride by her parents to the groom for his approval.”
Romantic, huh?
I don’t have any statistics to prove it, but I think all this virginal bride stuff isn’t very common today. Brides do the whole veil thing because it’s tradition or fashionable … but it’s usually kind of a facade.
This past weekend, as I traveled for a wedding, I read an article by Sally Kempton about avidya, meaning delusion or ignorance. It’s like we’re walking through life with a veil in front of our faces, unable to see who we really are. We’re not trying to fool our friends and families into thinking we’re virgins, but we’re fooling ourselves. As humans, we identify with our emotions, thoughts, and feelings, but that’s not who we really are. When sadness emerges, we think “I’m sad.” Kempton suggests a change in that inner dialogue. Instead of thinking “I’m sad,” what if we thought, “Here’s some sadness”? Instead of identifying with feelings (both good and bad), just notice them and observe without judgment. It’s only when we lift the veil that can we can begin to see that we are much more than our emotions and thoughts. I think it’s still OK to wear them as a fashion statement, though.
I am perhaps the girliest of girly girls. I like pink, tutus, and tiaras. I have been known to wear high heels to the grocery store. I doodle flowers, rainbows, unicorns, and Care Bears in the margins of my notebooks. And I have been looking forward to Prince Williams wedding since I was 14 years old. Of course, at the time, I had envisioned it going down a little differently… For one, I was going to be there.. in a tiara.. You know, Princess Diaries style (I was recently told I look like Anne Hathaway, after all.)
Anyway, it recently dawned on me that I will never be crowned the princess of Wales. I will never be Miss America. I will not be a ballerina, Olympic ice skater, or even homecoming queen. My childhood ambitions are slipping away before my very eyes. (Sigh.)
But I can still be a yoga goddess!
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| Image: Womenfitness.net |
There are plenty of poses that make me feel like a princess. I feel pampered every time I get on my mat because I’m doing something that’s just for me. But no pose makes me feel more princess-y than Supta Baddha Konasana. When I’m propped up on blankets and bolsters, I even feel like I’m sitting on a throne. There better not be a pea under those blankets….
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| Image by Flickr User: roxanneparker |
What pose makes you feel like a princess?
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| To-Go Ware |
1. Take one. Sometimes I work right through lunch without even noticing that I missed it. This is very, very bad. It makes for a very long day and a head ache. I am going to start setting an alarm so this never happens again.
2. Meditate. I don’t go sit under a tree outside my office and meditate because my co-workers already think I’m weird because I sit in Lotus at my desk… But I do try to at least get out of the office and take 10 deep breaths. And I’ve always felt a bazillion-kajillion times better afterward.
3. Stretch. Oh, how I long for the days when I could practice yoga every single day during my lunch breaks! Alas, I am no longer spoiled in this way. I practice yoga at my desk all day long by taking a lot off stretch breaks. Lunch is the perfect opportunity to squeeze in a few extra ones.
4. Do something that fulfills you. For me, sometimes it’s blogging or tweeting with my pals. Other times, it’s thumbing through a fashion magazine, taking a walk, or logging into my puppy cam to see what my sweet Penny is up to.
5. Do nothing. When you finish eating before your hour is up… don’t you DARE go back to your desk! Put your legs up the wall. Close your eyes. Take a Siesta. But don’t short-change yourself by going back to work early. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will.
Besides, the next time you take a nice, refreshing break in the middle of your day, notice how productive you are in the afternoon. I’ve noticed that I actually accomplish MORE by taking a full hour lunch break than hen I try to power through it and get everything done.
How do you make the most of your lunch break?
OK.. I admit it. One of my guiltiest of all pleasures is American Idol.
I’m the first to admit that my time would be better spent if I devoted some of the time I’ve wasted watching mindless television to something more productive… yoga, meditation, community service, blogging…
But this show has caused me to think a lot about what makes a great performer and great leader. Contestants on American Idol have many of the same qualities that great yoga teachers have… Coincidentally, I think they are also characteristics that yoga can help cultivate.
1. Voice. Will practicing yoga give you an amazing singing voice? Nope. But it can help you become more clear about the message that it conveys.
2. Confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should anyone else? To be an idol you have to be Nothing makes you more confident than arm balances.
3. Grace. It takes a special personality to take criticism in stride. It takes incredible resolve to believe in yourself no matter what anyone else says.
4. Charisma. How can yoga give you more charisma? It makes you more comfortable in who you are … so you stop holding back and let it all hang out–your humor, goofiness, flaws and failures. That’s my definition of charisma.
5. Empathy. If you want others to relate to you and your stories, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes. When you start to understand yourself more clearly through practicing yoga, helps you to understand how others feel. Whether you’re looking to connect with people as a performer or just in your everyday life, this is what makes people shine.
Do you agree?
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| Image: http://www.padma-yoga.net/ |
Dear Hamstrings,
Are you mad at me? I know I haven’t been paying you enough attention lately. I’m sorry I’m always sitting for long hours at a desk without taking enough stretch breaks. But it’s not very mature of you to stand your ground like that when I finally have a few minutes to practice my Paschimottanasana. Your behavior really hurt my feelings.. and it didn’t help my ego much either. Let’s make a deal. If I promise to stretch with you every night this week, and let you take as much time as you need to open… can we be friends again?
xoxoxoxo,
Erica
Would you like to take part in this project as a model? Please be in touch by emailing this address sohum.selfexpression@gmail.com and we’ll send more information. If you are not in the Bay Area or planning a visit, do not worry, there are travel plans afoot, subscribe to the blogs http://www.faern-in-the-works.com and http://spoiledyogi.blogspot.com/ to keep in touch and get updates on travel plans”
“Yoga is like a friend–and you want to keep friends for a long time,” said the amazing Cora Wen during the Friday night workshop I had to pleasure of attending. “Sometimes you might get mad at your friend and not talk to her for a while. But if you’re good friends, you will usually come around. That’s how it is with yoga, you might drift away for a while, but yogis almost always come back.”
It’s an extremely comforting thought.
I am incredibly blessed … but after moving across the country a few months ago and starting a demanding job there are two things I could use more of in my life: yoga and friends. One brief encounter with Cora Wen gave me a healthy dose of both! She taught me yoga AND invited me to dinner with a group of amazing (and local) yogis! (See? I told you I’m spoiled..)
I’ve had a yoga crush on Cora ever since the first time I laid eyes on her amazing headstand pictures. This woman has no problem inverting (and having her photo snapped) in front of all kinds of beauty–in nature, in the city, and across the world! Of course, she also has the most amazing presence online through blogging and social media. All of her personality and enthusiasm for life had me fooled into believing she must be a younger teacher… After all, there aren’t many older teachers out there sharing their teachings through tweets or standing on their heads at street fairs. But she brings so much experience and knowledge to her teachings, it’s mind-blowing.
Much of what’s written about Cora talks about how she bridges the gap between the East and the West, and I certainly agree. But to me it’s more interesting how she bridges the gap between the traditional, old-school yoga and the emerging, new yoga community. Tradition is important to her. She passes down the legacy of her teachers with such honor and respect, but brings those teachings to the rest of us through Tweets, blog posts, over cocktails, or wherever she is. I, for one, am immensely grateful for teachers like her, who take yoga seriously … but not so seriously that it’s hard for us to relate to them.
For me, yoga is more than a practice. It’s an art form. So when I look for yoga clothes, I look for something that can help me to express the beauty, originality, and serenity I feel when I practice.
That’s exactly what I found when I got an unexpected package in the mail from a Twitter friend, Mish Volonino, the founder and designer at MishogaWear. She sent me the most sophisticated pair of tie-dyed yoga pants I’ve ever seen! (And you KNOW I have a lot of yoga pants!) The image above shows the hand painted Buddha on the pant leg right beneath the Tibetan writing that says “Om Mani Padme Hum,” the universal mantra of Tibet. This is admittedly a foreign concept to me, but I love the sweet sentiment. My photography does not do it justice.
You see, Mish is more than a designer… She’s real artist. Mish paints the designs onto her custom-made yoga clothes by hand. She also does hand embroidery, screen printing, drawing of designs, and crystal embellishments. The result is a unique, but totally wearable work of art!
