Category: Wellness Tips

Why should you set intentions ( vs resolutions ) for the New Year?

An intention ( in Yoga, called a Sankalpa) ,  is a vow or heart felt desire.

Please enjoy the following readings from Three Teachings:

Whether or not you plan to set New Year’s resolutions for 2021, the beginning of the year is a natural time to reflect on your goals, habits, and the changes you’d like to make in your life.

One powerful way to bring our lives into alignment with our deeper aspirations is to work with intention. An intention is the motivating force behind a particular action. Unlike a goal, which has to do with achieving a desired future outcome, an intention is something that we practice in the present moment. When we set an intention—like cultivating compassion or reducing stress—we continuously align and realign ourselves and our actions with that which we wish to create. Continue reading “New Year, New Intentions”

Spiritual life should include a great measure of common sense.

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion. ~Jack Kornfield

The year 2020 has taught us all the lesson of impermanence. “The plans we thought we were making, the lives we thought we were living – 2020 has taught us just how illusory they were.”~Dan Zigmond, Lions Roar

We faced the unthinkable daily – a global pandemic coupled with racial injustice, political instability, economic hardships, and social isolation. We are familiar with, directly or indirectly, the pain, suffering and losses of our loved ones. The ongoing emotional toll on healthcare professionals and essential workers has been heart breaking.

The New Year will be another lesson in impermanence. The late Leonard Cohen reminds us: “Ring the bell that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”
Continue reading “HOW TO CULTIVATE A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE IN DIFFICULT TIMES”

“Spring has returned.
The Earth is like a child that knows poems.” ~ Rilke

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
Are moving across the landscape,
Over the prairie and the deep trees.
The mountains and the river.
Meanwhile the wild geese high in the clean blue air
Are heading home again.” ~ from Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

“If these poems repeat themselves,
Then so does Spring.” ~ Rumi

So how is everyone doing? Has Zoom fatigue set in?  Hulu fatigue?

The unimaginable has happened. The Covid-19 crisis has changed our lives. Continue reading “Yoga for Spring”

Summer is a time of light and warmth.  Cultivate opposite environment on inside of the body – cool and calm.

Pitta is the dosha of summer – driven by solar force (high energy, heat) so we can balance pitta energy – create lunar current within the body – by choosing foods and activities that are cooling.

Cooling yoga poses

• Moon salutation
• Bridge with a yoga block
• Legs up the wall
• Supported shoulder stand
• Forward folds-seating-wide leg
• Floor twists

Continue reading “Yoga for Summer”

Ayurvedic medicine is one of the world’s oldest holistic healing systems. It was developed more than 3000 years ago in India and is the sister science of Yoga. It is a system that aims to create equilibrium in the body by balancing our three body types, qualities or doshas.

The doshas are derived from the five elements and are in combination as follows:
Vata- Ether (Space) and Air
Pitta- Fire and Water
Kapha- Earth and Water. Continue reading “Calming the Winds of Vata”

Winter is a time when energy of the Earth is drawn inward. Animals hibernate. We, too, can use this time for introspection and restoration as our energy is drawn inward as well.

Ayurvedic medicine tells us that winter provokes kappa and vata doshas. With decreased digestive fire we are more prone to colds, poor circulation, joint pain and even negative emotions. Yoga can help. We choose poses to balance the doshas creating our own inner fire, increase energy levels and promote wellness.

A few suggestions are listed below:

• Poses to open the chest-sinus-relieves congestion, create warmth, improve circulation, warm the kidneys and build heat in the body
• Sun salutation-builds heat
• Fish pose-opens the chest
• Bow pose-opens chest
• Shoulder stand-move lymph (can do legs on the block or wall)
• locust pose
• Goddess, Child’s pose, other restorative poses.
• kapalabhati breathing-breath of fire –rapid short exhales-passive inhales-“snapping” of lower abdomen
• Lion’s breath
• Last but never least a warm and cozy long savasana.

Dietary Suggestions:

• Warm foods-soups, stews, oatmeal, barley, quinoa, healthy oils, root vegetables, warm liquids, glass of lemon water and some people say-a glass of wine cannot hurt-improves circulation.
• Warming spices-cinnamon cloves, cardamom, black pepper, coriander, nutmeg, fennel etc.
• Go to bed earlier.
• Invigorating exercise in morning to gets lymph draining and, peaceful and calming activities at night-try to get sun every day or use light therapy
• Netty pot
• Take your vitamin D

The sister science of yoga is Ayurveda. Ayurveda Medicine was developed in India more than 3000 years ago. It is one of the oldest “whole-body healing systems”.  It is defined as the science of life. Ayurveda is a system of balancing the energies in the body as well as their connection to nature, including the seasons. The main energies are known as doshas. The doshas are vata, pitta and kapha. Briefly speaking vata is wind energy, pitta is fire and water, and kapha is water and earth.

We each have a dosha that predominates. Seasons as well are also dominated by a particular dosha. The Vata dosha is prominent in fall. Vata, as mentioned, is composed of the elements of air and space. Some qualities of vata are dryness, roughness and cold. Continue reading “Yoga for Fall”