Category: Personal Growth

Engaging the Subtle Body: Yoga Actions to Alleviate Deep Depression

The human experience often feels like a navigation through shifting landscapes. When that landscape darkens into the heavy, persistent fog of deep depression, the journey can feel impossible. While modern medicine provides essential tools for mental health, many individuals seek…

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching:  Wisdom Follows Composed Waiting

Arguably, our spiritual-human purpose is to ask and answer the bold question “Who am I?” Whether our age is 16, 36, 66, or 86, the discovery is a source of anxiety, inspiration, and celebration. Moreover, it is not a one-time…

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching: We Are All Creators

At its core, “We Are All Creators” reflects the fundamental human reality that we constantly shape our lives, relationships, and environments through our daily thoughts, words, and deeds. Whether intentionally building art or simply navigating interactions, creativity is inherently woven…

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching: Only Knowledge Removes Fear

When we arrive on this planet, it seems to me that we are born fearless. It is our journey through life that cultivates strengths and fears, thereby setting us on a path of discovering who we are and why we…

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching: Rainbows are Power Sources

Spiritually, a rainbow (ROYGBIV) symbolizes hope, renewal, and divine connection. Emerging after a storm, it represents the light and peace that follow life’s difficulties. It is a reminder to us that storms/challenges are temporary, and better days lie ahead. It…

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching: To Worry is to be Addicted

Worry wastes time.Mind spins endlessly through past or futurenever resting in the present. The Tao and Yoga, as foundational concepts in East Asian philosophy and religion, share several core tenets. Tao (or Dao) literally means “the way” or “the path.”…

Helen Maupin

Engaging the Subtle Body: Jaw & Eye Bands

In Rolfing, the “7 Tension Bands” refer to seven specific zones within the body where unresolved emotional and physical tension becomes locked into the myofascial network. These anatomical regions are commonly explored during structural integration and myofascial release practices. These…

Helen Maupin

Engaging the Subtle Body: Collar Bone Tension Band

Philosopher and writer, Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote above reminds us that all we really have control over is how we choose to respond to life’s events. If we are unaware or not mindful of these events, in all likelihood, we react…

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching: To Desire is to Suffer

Be very careful what you wish for, as you may get it, not in the form you wish but in the nature of the desire and the actions that you set in motion. Do not trust your mind to always…

Helen Maupin

Engaging the Subtle Body: Navel & Diaphragm Tension Bands

Band 3 – NAVEL: runs from the lumbar-thoracic joint around the waist to the navel (above or below).  Band 4 – DIAPHRAGM: runs from the DORSAL thoracic hinge around the rib cage to the bottom of the sternum (xyphoid process).  …

Helen Maupin

A Yoga Teaching: Curiosity

Recently, during a yoga class, I attempted a two-legged “Malasana (Squat) to Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana)” and succeeded on the first attempt. When I returned to my feet to try again, my following attempts were unsuccessful. Needless to say, my…

Helen Maupin

Engaging the Subtle Body: Finding Ease

Self-deception and repressed feelings manifest in our physical body as tension, numbness, and/or disease. Tension, in the form of gripping or holding, is revealed through sensations such as tightness, strain, and pain. A human self-deception is the belief that we…

Helen Maupin