March 26, 2013 at 7:30 pm (Ananda Balasana, Connecting to self, Happy Baby, Journey, Stress, Yoga, Zen)
Hello Beautiful ones. I appreciate you for taking a minute or two to read about the little nuggets that I find along the way on my Journey to Zen. As a business owner, its quite cathartic to come here to release and rejuvenate my spirit by sharing a little of me with you. This blog originally started out in my head to be a source for sharing my yoga journey and the beauty I find in the practice. Instead I have decided to just let the present moments lead me in my writing and just go with the flow of what pours out from my heart to the pages of this blog. Today I will speak Yoga and tell you about one of my favorite poses. I must say the first time that I did it, I felt a little exposed and a tad bit self conscious. It took me all the way back to the birth of my son. Truth is I LOVE this pose because not only does it loosen up my hips but it stretches out my inner thigh and groin muscles that don’t typically come in to play while I’m sitting at my desk handling business all day. The benefits of this lovely pose is that it will gently stretch the inner groins and the back along the spine. It calms the brain and helps relieve stress and fatigue.
I think of the little babies always seemingly fixated with grabbing their little tootsies and the bubbly smiles they have on their little faces while doing so. I have to admit at my age it brings a broad smile to my face as well. Why?? Because I can still reach both of my tootsies at the same time. Oh yes my muscles put up a little fuss and resist sometimes but eventually, breathing into the pose gives way to that opposition and the resistance just melts away. So next time you have a really hectic day where any and everything plucks your last nerve. Come on home, kick off your shoes, lay back on the floor or the bed and grab those tootsies. Let go of the day’s stress and return to the happy little baby that still resides somewhere deep inside all of us. Your brain and your body will love you for it. Ananda Balasana
Namaste
Yogini Kp
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February 14, 2013 at 12:01 am (Connecting to self, Grateful, Heartfelt, Journal, Journey, Kindness, Zen)
Tags: giving, heart, Journey to Zen, Little, quiet, things
I was writing in my gratitude journal this morning and after doing so, I glanced back at some of the previous entries. I made mental note that there were several things I had repeated more than once or twice. Of course I am grateful for my family and friends and I repeat that often in one entry or another but I noticed the artwork that I had gleefully penned beside some of the entries.
Small things like, I am grateful for the little tin Angel that someone I’ve never met in person so graciously sent to me (smiley face). I’m grateful for a moon stone given to me by the sister of one of my best friends who has passed on (hearts). Every time I look at that stone I can’t help but smile about all the good times we shared. I miss him immensely but somehow I still feel connected through something as simple as a little stone. I am grateful for a card that showed up in the mail from my second Mom for no reason other than to say she loves me and that I’m appreciated(daisies and butterflies). I am grateful for a birthday card that my youngest brother sent to me a couple of years ago that had a hand written note that reduced me to tears in a matter of seconds (hearts). I will never ever throw that card away. The artwork beside those entries remind me of how I was feeling in that very moment.
For this Yogini, it isn’t the Armani suits, Dooney Bourke handbags, or grand gestures that cost lots of money. It’s picking up the phone to say I’m thinking of you. It’s sending a hand written note or making someone laugh when they are down. It’s an email that just contains a smiley face. It’s answering my phone and hearing my Granddaughter’s little voice on the other end saying “I love you Grandma” “I wanna come to you house”. Little things do count and if you have doubts, just reflect back on how you felt when someone said something kind or offered to make you a cup of tea or handed you a plate of home made cookies. One of the dearest friends I have, calls me often just to say “I love you, bye”. In less than 10 seconds, she can make my day. On my journey to zen, I have realized that I prefer to give the little things and I hope that the recipient of that small little gift gleans as much happiness from receiving it as I have in giving it. My hope is that I am an entry in several gratitude journals for that is something I can add to my list of what I’m grateful for. It’s the little things that mean the most, so today give away a kind word, a smile, a little note or a hug. Lift someone’s heart just because and I can guarantee that your heart will also be lifted.
Namaste
Yogini Kp
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February 7, 2013 at 5:29 pm (Connecting to self, God, holistic, Journey, Reiki, Spiritual, Spirituality, Stress, Yoga, Zen)
Tags: Breathe, Connect, Journey, letting go, praying, Reiki, Spirituality, Stress, yoga, Zen
When I woke up this morning, I made a call to my brother but strangely his phone went straight to voice mail. Even though we are miles and miles apart, I typically talk to him several times during the week before he goes to work. This morning I called him because I saw a story of a highway pile up on the news, where several people had died and quite a few were injured. Whenever I hear stories about severe weather or something going on in his residential state, I give him a call to make sure he is safe and far, far away from whatever is going on down there. This morning he didn’t answer his phone and instead I got a text message a few minutes later telling me he was in the ER. I know things have been really weighing heavily on him lately and even though he puts on a good poker face it has not been easy. His stress levels have been intense for several years and now that stress is showing up physically much more often.
That text message caught me off guard but more than that it made me take note of how I handle my stress. How do I handle it? Does my body react to the daily stresses that I incur while running a small business? Have I simply ignored the signs? Do the little aches and pains that just don’t seem to ever completely go away, take up residence in my body because of stress? Do I allow outside forces, something or someone I can’t control cause me stress? I practice yoga, I practice Reiki, I sit in meditation but have I truly learned the art of “stress-less-ness”? I’d like to think so but if I’m truthful with myself, I still allow things that others do or don’t do effect me immensely even if only for a short while.
All of the practices that I have put into place have certainly helped me to talk myself back from the ledge many, many times. Yoga helps me to energize and focus on my breath. Reiki is a very calming practice that puts me in tune with areas of my body that are blocked or stagnant. Meditation is my favorite but oh how I wish that just for that small span of time I could turn the volume of the world to silence. I am grateful that I have an arsenal of holistic and spiritual weapons to draw from. I am grateful that I have found a connection to God that allows me to speak effortlessly from my heart and then listen for an answer. On this, my journey to Zen I am grateful for another day to practice all the things I love and stay mindful to stress LESS.
Namaste
Yogini KP
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January 12, 2013 at 12:28 am (Connecting to self, Thoughts, Yoga, Zen)
Tags: age, ardha chandrasana, Bakasana, Balance, Chaturanga Dandasana, Pattabhi Joi, practice, Virabhadrasana, yoga, Zen
Hello Beautiful Souls, today during my morning practice, I made a mental note that my balance was off. During the short meditation that followed I had a chance to ponder where I am in my life and what is in and out of balance. I noticed that as I have aged, my physical balance has decided that it no longer wants to be taken for granted. It will show up when it wants, just to say hello and remind me that while I’m no longer 20 my balance is still in there hiding. There are days when I am steady and strong in my poses and there are days like today where props were not only needed but required. So how do I fix that?? ahhh yes practice.
Let’s see there’s quite a few asanas (poses) that could help convince my balance that I am no longer taking it for granted, that I am paying attention. There’s Virabhadrasana III, Chaturanga Dandasana, Bakasana, Ardha Chandrasana and who could forget Garudasana (or what I fondly refer to as my I’m a pretzel pose) just to name a few. Age is just a number, so practice I will, practice I must.
My time on the mat this morning also left me reflecting on the non-physical things that are out of balance in my life. My diet is out of balance, my thought process is out of balance, my schedule is out of balance and even some of my relationships are out of balance. So how do I fix it? What came to mind is something that I learned while becoming an instructor. A simple quote by Ashtanga Yoga Guru Pattabhi Joi which says “Practice and all is coming”. I want to thank my brain for allowing that one quote to show up this morning right when I needed to hear it most.
Namaste
Yogini Kp
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January 5, 2013 at 5:13 am (Connecting to self, Yoga, Zen)
Tags: choose, Intentions, Journey, Path, yoga, Zen
How do I get there?
Sometimes the best of intentions are sidetracked for one reason or another. We give ourselves so many excuses to stop start, stop start, stop start. However many excuses we give ourselves it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we start again. Your Journey is just that, your journey. There is no perfect method, right or wrong way to go about it, it is simply your journey. I am guilty of examining my journey every step of the way, from every angle. I stop to ponder why, I stop to wonder how, I certainly wonder if. I have a pattern of allowing such fervent examination of my journey that it often comes to a grinding halt, where I usually put it up on a shelf to collect the proverbial dust only to be revisited again at a later date. I know what I want, so why do I spend so much time off of the path just looking at it? There are certainly things I have been considering needlessly that don’t have anything to do with the end result I am trying to achieve. I must stop trying to give my journey a rigid outline and trying to force the inclusion of things that don’t fit.
The word Journey is a verb for me. It means movement, going somewhere, putting one foot in front of the other. I decided several months ago to start my journey again with new resolve to stop examining it and just “BE” the journey itself. No questioning just stay in the moment and go with the flow and guess what, the accomplishments have been steady. I am now a certified Reiki II practitioner and considering Reiki III. I have stayed with my yoga practice and even did 108 sun salutations to bring in the New Year (OK, minus a few here and there while I rested in child’s pose). Intention means aim or objective: something that somebody plans to do. Not a bad word but for me planning or aiming gives me too much time to examine it again. It gives me too much time to consider what others think and what part they play in my journey. I think I’ve finally learned my lesson about that. What truly excites me is NOW, this moment, this space in time. Now is important. For a Yogini like me who is methodical in thought and a procrastinator by nature, it is imperative that I live in the now. Commitment in the moment is what has propelled me forward. I am happy with that.
Namaskar
Yogini Kp
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October 12, 2011 at 2:17 am (Connecting to self, Zen)
Tags: frenzy, Journey, manifest, Path, wishing, Zen
Hello beautiful spirits, it’s been a minute since I’ve been here and boy how I’ve missed this place. I stepped away from my journey to handle a sudden influx of new business. You know the saying “it’s either feast or famine”. I’m grateful for the feast but oh how I cherish my quiet slower moments. I seem to lose my balance and flow in the hurried frenzy of the business world and I wonder when and how I will summon up the courage to let go of the familiar grind and do what my heart song sings to me daily. I’m reminded of something my Grandma used to say to me. She’d say baby “wishing don’t make it so”.
I spend a lot of time wishing that the life I truly want to live would just manifest in the morning when I wake up, that I’d simply wake up, walk out on to my veranda of my little chalet and smell and hear the ocean in the distance. I find myself wondering, what must I do to manifest that little home off the beach with the organic garden in the back yard. What must I do to turn my life into what I see in my minds eye as my place of Zen? Every time I feel as if I’ve gained a rhythm on my journey something comes along to disturb that rhythm. Is it me? Am I drawing this confusion to myself? How do I set a vision so vividly that it has no choice but to show up? I have all the tools so what is that thing I am not doing or seeing? Today, right now is all there is. Right now I will step back on to my path, back onto my mat, back into my flow and begin to find a way to gain the courage and the strength to keep moving forward. Thanks Grandma for whispering in my ear today and reminding me that it’s not wishing but seeing it clearly and then taking action that brings me the keys to that which is mine to have.
Namaste
Yogini KP
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August 31, 2011 at 4:47 pm (Connecting to self, Journey, Thoughts, Yoga, Zen)
Tags: ardha chandrasana, Journey to Zen, virasana, yoga, Zen
Namaste beautiful ones. Recently I was called upon to step up and take care of a “little people” who just happens to be my great niece. She’s all of 5 years old, a breath of fresh air and has come to live with me for a while. Her small frame is packed with energy and flexibility that I long to regain in my life. Oh I do OK for 56. I still work out regularly and of course I practice Yoga almost daily but when I look at the unbridled energy that this rambunctious little 5 year old possesses, I feel a since of urgency to make much more of an effort to get back to a place in my life where I could be described as energetic and rambunctious….the thought of that almost makes me giggle.
During my practice earlier today I took stock of where the resistance has chosen to take up residency and I again resolved to focus on those trouble spots. Instead of going through a familiar flow such as my Sun salutations, pay much more attention to the asanas that I have avoided because it has just been easier to skip them. For example there is virasana (hero pose) that my thighs and knee’s have repeatedly told me that I should avoid and Ardha Chandrasana (half moon pose) that challenges my balance or the lack there of. To date I’ve been able to do most asanas with assistance from props but I always wonder how long it will take until I reach a place where the props will be left in the corner and no longer needed. Perhaps my approach in the beginning was a a little over zealous and I didn’t give myself enough credit for the Asanas that I was able to perfect. Maybe in the beginning I did too much too soon and when it caused me pain, I backed off of that asana and gave up on some of them all together.
Perhaps I should listen to my great niece when she says to me “it’s OK Aunt Karen, you can try it again” “it’s Ok to make mistakes, right Aunt Karen?” This evening she showed me her bridge pose which was really the wheel pose and I smiled and asked her where she had learned it. She told me she learned it last time in her gymnastic class. I smiled at her little face when she told me, she would teach me how to do it. I love Little people…they are so very very wise. I invited her to join me tomorrow evening for some time on the mat and she is so excited to do so as long as we can hula hoop afterwards too. Of course we can, I’m pretty good at that.
Namaste
Yogini KP
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August 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm (Connecting to self, Spiritual, Yoga, Zen)
Tags: Ahimsa, harm, Sutras
On this, my journey to zen I am learning so many things. I am excited to open my eyes each morning in anticipation of what light bulb moment will present itself to me today. I wake up grateful and the frenzied state that I use to call my mornings has suddenly taken a prolonged vacation. Yoga is such a beautiful practice and I am becoming this spiritually connected being. We are all connected even if the thought of that sometimes gives me pause. Today I will share my observation of what Yoga has meant for me thus far and then I will share a recent event and how Yoga has changed the way I look at things in my life. I believe the change in my thinking started to occur after reading the Yoga Sutras which if I give a brief description of, I would say that the Sutras, unlike scriptural teachings do not chastise behaviors or define them as good or bad but rather tell us that if we choose a certain behavior then we can expect a certain result. It can be difficult to unlearn a lifetime worth of beliefs that have been pounded into the very core of who we are. For instance let’s take a look at the Sanskrit word Ahimsa. In short it basically means to “do no harm”. Not just physical harm but mentally and verbally as well. It means that we need to see our interconnectedness. Ok so now I will share the event that raised my awareness today that I was indeed starting to look at life differently.
Today an employee of mine called to inform me that an ex-employee of mine was trying to sabotage a relationship that I have had with a certain company for over 11 years. This ex-employee of mine was a great worker and represented my company well. So much so that she was offered a job by the very company that I had contracted with for years and suddenly and without warning her loyalties shifted and all the things I had done for her seemingly meant nothing. I was told that she was actively trying to keep my company from returning to provide the service that I have provided them for more than a decade. In the past I would have allowed my anger to get the best of me. I would have reached out to someone to try and change or control the situation. Instead of anger I felt a kind of sadness creep up. I felt bad, not so much for my possible loss of opportunity but more so for her. What had I done to merit such an action from her? Certainly if I believe that certain behaviors will bring certain results, I had to honestly ask myself that question. I may never know why she has chosen to do something so harmful or if in fact it is even true but I do know the way I have chosen to deal with the information feels right. There is no need to return the harm, there is no need to control the situation. I want the actions that I take to bring results that are best for all. If you find yourself in a situation such as this, stop to reflect a moment on the outcome you want to see and then act accordingly. Yoga has certainly changed the way I look at life and the Sutras have given me my road map to Zen.
Namaste
Yogini Kp
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July 13, 2011 at 1:32 am (Connecting to self, Spiritual, Thoughts, Yoga, Zen)
This past weekend I joined my husband on a project he has been working on for a neighbor of ours. He has been painting a rental property and asked me to come along to take a look at some holes in the wall to see if it was something I could fix. When I entered the house, there were mirrors on every wall in the living room. Not the little tiny decorative mirrors but mirrors that virtually hid the entire wall. My first thought was, wow how wonderful it would be to have these at my home to check my alignment as I practice yoga but then I caught a 360 degree glimpse of my hips, stomach, thighs, and rear end. The self sabotaging, negative thoughts came flying in as if they were invited to some black tie affair. I immediately started beating myself up quietly in my head, so much so that I couldn’t even concentrate on what my husband was saying to me at the time. His voice became not unlike the teacher in Charlie Brown. I started to really feel down about how much weight I had re-gained when I remembered that I am in control. The voice I allow to speak those abusive things to me was my own, so what am I telling myself? I shook my head and began to speak positivity to the negativity.
Before I accompanied my husband this morning, I woke up, brushed my teeth and headed straight to the basement level to do 7 Sun salutations. I am proud of my accomplishments even though there have been setbacks along the way. Sun salutations make me happy and Yoga doesn’t come in one size fits “ALL” but rather “ALL” size fits Yoga. We must love ourselves and honor ourselves where we are. It is ego that tells us we are not good enough or that we should fret about our perceived imperfections. Beyond our egos there are no limitations. I told my ego to simply shut up and then banished it to a field of lavender. I am learning to accept and love me and each day it becomes easier to silence the negative thoughts and replace them with the truth. Sun Salutation
Namaste
Yogini KP
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Hello Beautiful ones. I appreciate you for taking a minute or two to read about the little nuggets that I find along the way on my Journey to Zen. As a business owner, its quite cathartic to come here to release and rejuvenate my spirit by sharing a little of me with you. This blog originally started out in my head to be a source for sharing my yoga journey and the beauty I find in the practice. Instead I have decided to just let the present moments lead me in my writing and just go with the flow of what pours out from my heart to the pages of this blog. Today I will speak Yoga and tell you about one of my favorite poses. I must say the first time that I did it, I felt a little exposed and a tad bit self conscious. It took me all the way back to the birth of my son. Truth is I LOVE this pose because not only does it loosen up my hips but it stretches out my inner thigh and groin muscles that don’t typically come in to play while I’m sitting at my desk handling business all day. The benefits of this lovely pose is that it will gently stretch the inner groins and the back along the spine. It calms the brain and helps relieve stress and fatigue.
Journey to zen 