Blog – Page 31 – Right to Joy

Awareness & Consciousness Arise from Nothingness

I return refreshed from a month of gardening followed by a week-long yoga intensive. Each summer at this time, I treat myself to these occasions of being purposefully led through a transformational experience. Always my intention is the same — to awaken to my unconscious habits and to continue the work of liberating these deeply held patterns from my body.

Fortunately, the physical body wisely shows us, through sensation, where to focus attention in order to heighten awareness and raise consciousness.

Move It or Lose It

A well-oiled machine performs much better and lasts considerably longer, as those of us who ride bicycles or drive cars know. The same mechanical principle applies to the joints in our bodies. Simply put, a joint is where two…

Effortless Effort Untethers the Soul

It takes great trust to be okay with everything and everyone. Believing in the inherent goodness of all circumstances and people is challenging enough in today’s climate.
Now add the ability to accept that whatever arises in the moment is exactly what you need. If you are capable of accepting each moment as it presents itself, you have the recipe for living life in an effortless fashion. By effortless, I do not mean without expending any energy, just without expending negative energy.

Getting a Leg Up

Many of us take our lower legs for granted, without realizing the significant role calf muscles play in circulating blood and oxygen. In yoga, we refer to the calf muscles as the “heart of the legs.” Through contracting and expanding,…

See with Intuition — not Illusion

Having a new perspective alludes to using all six senses — intuition as well as taste, touch, smell, sound and sight — to deduce what is real. Intuition, our sixth sense, is our brain’s and body’s ability to sense truth and make good decisions without having to rely solely on using empirical evidence (observation or experience) and analytical reasoning (theory or logic).

Chaos and Contentment — Two Sides of the Same Coin?

As I virtually witness outer world chaos materializing into global terrorism and other seeming madness, like Donald Trump’s ascendancy to presidential candidate, I wonder where this is leading. On the one hand, I feel far removed physically and psychologically from…

Never-ending Construction

Image courtesy of Toa55 FreeDigitalPhotos.net In January, I felt within me a growing sense of impending change. As each month unfolded, some event emerged to affirm this knowing amidst my uncertainty. Such is the paradox of life.

The Examined Life

Many Western societies have compartmentalized healthcare by focusing treatment and prevention on one aspect of our being — body or mind or spirit — rather than administering to all three. For physical pain, a physician tends to prescribe medication and…

Deep Listening — Breaking Through to Effortless Living

There comes a time in one’s wisdom journey where healing personal wounds is outgrown and replaced by a concern for the collective “woundedness” of our planet and humanity at large. These shared, universal wounds — poverty, pollution, oppression/terrorism, disease, etc.…

Keep On Keeping On

Whenever life invites me to participate in change — which is pretty much every day — I am excited to dive into these new adventures. For someone whose attention and energy can get distracted by “little shiny bits,” the beginning stage of any change easily draws me in. Of course, these little shiny bits of inspiration are the drawing card for most of us.

Keeping Your Cool

Each season brings its own benefits and challenges. Hot humid summer days help to unwind tension and tightness built up from fortifying against the blustery chill of winter. However, too much of a good thing also takes a toll. Prolonged…

Immortality — A Journey to the Soul

Today is my first day back from an annual yoga retreat in which we (six yoginis) diagnosed and designed a weekend experience to suit our current development and growth needs. We used the 5 Koshas as a conceptual model to frame…