The Thing About Overthinking

There is no rush, there is only now. Tapping into patience.

I haven’t written in the past ten days. Writer’s block, stuck in a rut, loss of inspiration … you name it. I’ve come to terms with the fact that my writing usually happens when I write from a place of inspiration and peace, instead of fear and must.

In the past year, something has shifted within me. It is both confusing and wonderful. I cannot put my finger on exactly what is going on, but it seems to be happening in just the right way. One of my favorite quotes is by Arthur Rubinstein: “There are no formulas for living the life you secretly dream about, because if you simply accept and welcome life, it’ll reveal itself to you.”

It is not through effort that you mold the universe to your liking, but from allowing the universe to mold you, and show you the way. When I began doing what I love, which is guiding people how to move their body safely and with intention, I had so much fear. I remember going into my first official yoga class to teach; I felt like I was going to pass out from my nerves. When I look back now, after teaching over 100 classes, I can see clearly that I entered that studio from a place of fear, certainly not a place of love.

And for a second, I almost stopped myself even before I began, because I didn’t believe in myself. I saw so many other teachers doing what I wanted to do, and they were more accomplished, had more knowledge, and were more successful.

Or, so it seemed.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was trying to find the answers outside of myself. I followed this teacher here and that teacher there, I kept reaching for goals, I kept making lists, I began to over think everything, and soon I realized that creating shapes was just the topping on the cake, and that the real ingredients involved self-compassion, contentment, love and patience. There was no magic pose that made all my challenges go away. If I couldn’tunderstand the meaning and purpose of my life, and moreover, if I wasn’t working on fulfilling that meaning and purpose, it really didn’t matter how long I could stand on my head — that wasn’t going to make me a happy person.

When I came to a point where I had to listen to my heart and feel where I should go, I stopped trying to figure things out. I realized that I don’t know it all, and when I listened to my heart, things seemed to lead to more happiness, peace and freedom in my life.

Problems come and go. Patterns come and go. Sometimes I’m more in tune with my inner wisdom, and sometimes I’m not. On the days that I’m not, I do my best to relax and do something else.

I do my best creative work when I’m connected to that inner wisdom, and it is that inner wisdom that guides me toward the life I’m creating. When I don’t write for ten days, I’m not hard on myself. When I don’t step on my mat for a week, I drop my inner critic, drop my expectations of myself and tell my mind to bugger off.

There will also be days where you feel like nothing is going wrong. Those are the most exciting days to stay present; because they help you grow your awareness muscle. When I stay present, not only am I more connected to that inner wisdom and stillness, but I feel calmer and more at peace with myself. I also realize that I don’t have to identify with my thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings arise, sure, but I don’t have to feed the fire.

The problems begin when I create thoughts about the initial thoughts or feelings. This is also what stops me from simply allowing my dreams to unfold. If I get a thought that’s fearful, doubtful or uncertain, and if I believe that thought, I’m trapped until I see through it. When you stay present, as best you can, you let life unfold. Sometimes it’ll feel like chaos inside of your body, but that’s okay, that too shall pass. It’s the human experience.

Learn to trust that inner voice and when your heart speaks, take good notes.

The Most Important Part of a Yoga Pose

Have you ever wondered what to prioritize when you are doing ayoga pose? What is the most important thing to focus on when doing Triangle? Or Downward Dog? Or Savasana? Ask 15 different yoga teachers from different yoga lineages and you will likely get 15 different answers. Is alignment the most important? Is it the breath? Awareness? Eye gaze? What is it? I have wrestled with this question myself and have attempted to deconstruct hundreds of poses to figure out what is most important … but after 29 years of practice (yep, I’ve been practicing since I was a kid!) there is one element that I come back to again and again — and it might surprise you! Relaxation is the doorway The backbone of every pose is not your vertebrae, but rather what lies inside of them: your nervous system. Your brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves are gateways of input and output for our bodies. Their ability to relay messages to and from our tissues is critical for being able to perform a pose (or any movement whatsoever). But if your mind is caught up in a bind, stressing out about how to do a pose or “getting it right,” you add tension to your whole system. What I am suggesting here is that we need to consciously dampen our stress response in order to create a better environment for the full spectrum of sensing into our tissues and our movements. In other words, we must imbue our mind with relaxation as a prelude to posing. The yogis call this Unmani Mudra, or “no-thought mind.” Line the mind with meditation It is fairly easy to flip the ON switch in the body, as most of our brain is actually dedicated to helping the body be aroused and alert. But how do you flip your OFF switch? Much less of our brain-space is dedicated to chilling out and it becomes even more challenging when we ask ourselves to let go but are unsure whether or not we’re still holding on. When a body deeply relaxes, it temporarily loses muscle tone (as soon as you start using your body again, the muscles spring back into action), breathing slows down, heart rate slows, body temperature drops and the mind begins to experience space between thoughts. This “space between thoughts” is exactly the entry point the yogis were seeking in coining the term Unmani Mudra. The challenge when doing poses is to rid yourself of both physical and mental tensions so that you can enter and exit poses with such deep relaxation and concentration that the body and mind experience each pose in its totality. In other words, the mind becomes quiet enough that it can “listen” to all of the nuances of motion, position and sensation that the pose exposes to the nervous system. How to relax before your yoga practice There are a few quick ways that you can target the relaxation response in your body so that your poses emerge from a place of deep calm rather than a frenzied effort. Choose one or several of the un-actvities listed below, then proceed into the rest of your yoga practice sedated, yet alert. 1. Extend your exhales. A breathing technique or Pranayama that focuses on lengthening the duration of the exhale so that it is longer than the inhale is a way to sedate and soothe the whole nervous system. This can be done either in a reclined position or as a seated meditation. Index fingers and thumbs touch in Jnana Mudra. Feel your pulse in the fingertips. a) Place gentle pressure on a pulse point anywhere on your body. This can be as simple as pressing the index finger and thumb together, touching the inside of one wrist, or placing a finger alongside the neck. b) Observe the throb of the heart at this pulse point. c) Using your heartbeat as a metronome, inhale for four heartbeats and then exhale for eight. d) Remain for 3-5 minutes. 2. Veeparita Korani Mudra. Place your heart above your head — a gentle inversion like Veeparita will provide just enough of an inverted slope to alter the brain’s signals from arousal to “drousal.” If this is too much for your legs or back, try the simpler Legs Up the Wall Pose. Raising the heart above the head on a gentle incline promotes whole-body relaxation. a) Lay on your back and place a yoga block at any height that feels stable and comfortable underneath your pelvis. b) Raise your knees towards the sky, keeping them bent. If this feels like too much effort, keep the feet rooted on the floor. c) Slowly inhale to swell the belly, then allow it to passively deflate. When your body feels ready for the next inhale, slowly inhale, then passively allow the exhale to exit. d) Remain for 3-5 minutes. 3) Roll out the restrictions. Self-massage before activity will help to eradicate the tension in hypertonic muscles that are unconsciously contracting and potentially creating pain. Using a self-massage implement like Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls or Gaiam’s Massage balls or a foam roller can help to turn OFF muscles that think they need to be ON. This ushers in global relaxation for the whole body, and it also helps all the layers of your tissues to warm-up and be more efficient for practicing poses. Rub out your kinks and fast track a sense of total-body calm. a) Choose a tight area of your body, such as the upper back, low back or buttocks, and place the balls or roller into positions where you can tolerate the pressure and still breathe deeply. Create small slow gentle movements that help the massage tool roll into, along and around the area of tension. If you cannot breathe, or if you experience deep discomfort, move the tool slightly higher, lower or to the right or left so that you can return to tolerance and relaxation. These un-activities are effective in as little as three minutes, or can be implemented for up to 10 minutes prior to your yoga practice. If you do them longer, you may become too relaxed, and have a hard time during your more active practice. Any of these sedating techniques can tune down your stress and will deeply enrich your presence during your practice. Let me know how the rest of your practice goes. And remember to always make relaxation the most important part of your practice. Namaste!

The Hope That Travels With You

As an online travel company, TravelShark interacts with many different people throughout all phases of their travels — from picking out a hotel to finding the best crepes in Paris. From these interactions, we have come to realize thattravel means something different to everyone.

For some, travel means saving up for years and taking that long-anticipated trip to Disney World with the family.

For others, travel means stuffing the bare essentials into a backpack and buying a one-way ticket to a place as far away as possible.

For many people, traveling — on a budget, with your life savings, for a weekend, or for months at a time — is also inherently full of hope.

Hope is why people spend months planning out every tiny detail of a five-day vacation. It’s why people throw caution to the wind and decide to follow their intuition instead of their itinerary. It’s why people still talk about the most positive aspects of a trip years after they’ve returned home.

As a company, we love being a part of people’s trips and seeing the different types of hope people take on their travels.

There are the small hopes: You hope your plane will take off on time. You hope that it will be sunny in Mexico. You hope it’s easy to find your hotel. You hope that you don’t take a picture of your thumb instead of an elephant.

There are the worry-hopes: You hope that you’ll be able to understand the language (or get by on your native tongue). You hope that you’ll be able to find that childhood friend of yours for dinner, even though neither of your phones will work in Buenos Aires. You hope the famous wild game restaurant people recommended in Calgary will have a kids’ menu.

There are the exciting hopes: You hope that you finally get to see that painting you studied in college. You hope you will meet a handsome stranger who drives a moped. You hope your kids will come home and tell their friends that it was the “best vacation ever.”

… And then there is something bigger beneath it all: the hope that travel will somehow change things. It will change your mood. It will change the way you see the world. It might even change the way you see yourself.

While not everyone actively thinks to themselves, “Hey, I hope this next trip really changes things for me” (personal discovery and making sure no one gets a sunburn at the beach are not exactly synonymous), the concept of change is implicit in any trip. You want to escape, get away, do something different, do the same thing you always do but do it somewhere else. Travel is changing your location on the map with the hope that something else — something inside you — will change, too.

Top 10 Immunity Superheroes You've Never Heard Of (But Should)

The superfoods and herbs you need to live healthier, sexier and longer!

Your immune system is vast and complex. It is designed to detoxify your body as well as protect it from illness and foreign invaders.

Harmful bacteria, viruses, calcium-forming micro-organisms and candida are part of our world. Unfortunately, so are toxic chemicals, including everything from pesticides to car pollution to nuclear radiation to most municipal tap waters. In our world these harmful micro-organisms and the endless list of toxic chemicals assault our immune system consistently. Coupled with these assaults are the daily stresses of life and their deleterious effects upon us.

All of these add up to a weakened immune system: colds and flus, coughs, fevers, chronic health problems, skin disorders, digestive distress, nervous conditions, chronic fatigue and even cancer. When the body has too much to deal with, it stops being able to get rid of its waste efficiently and requires more support to help it fight off what is attacking it.

Fortunately, our immune system can be improved and empowered to such a point that not only can the harmful microbes be halted and the chemicals detoxified, but also a “stress defense shield” may be built up that can even drive off the effects of daily stress.

We all can learn more about how to empower our own immunity. I believe the best way to activate genius within the immune system is by ingesting certain superherbs and superfoods, taking probiotics and cultured foods, minimizing toxic food exposure by eating pure, organic, raw-living foods and making appropriate healthy lifestyle improvements.

In 400 BC Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine and let medicine be your food.” Both aspects of this phrase must be considered — not just food as medicine, but also medicine as food — that means superfoods (the most nutrient-rich plant foods in the world) and tonic superherbs (herbs that can be taken regularly like food). Out of 40,000 herbs used worldwide, perhaps only 50-60 of them are tonic superherbs. These superherbs should be taken for long periods, because, like all tonics, they are more like food and they build health treasures within and nourish our “stress defense shield.”

Whenever possible, try to include the following superfoods, superherbs and super products in your daily regime:

1. Reishi Mushroom

Reishi is Queen of the Medicinal Mushrooms. Reishi is the most well-studied herb in the history of the world. She has been the most revered herbal mushroom in Asia for over 2,000 years. The Daoists consider Reishi an “elixir of immortality” that is celebrated for its ability to significantly improve the functioning of the immune system by protecting us from the onslaught of viruses, bacteria, unwanted guests, pollution, chemicals, molds, and the toxicity that we are often subjected to in our world. Reishi helps build up our “stress defense shield” creating feelings of well-being within in spite of outer stresses.

2. Chaga Mushroom

Chaga is the King of the Medicinal Mushrooms. It contains the highest amounts of anti-tumor compounds of any herb. These compounds are in the form of betulin, betulinic acid and lupeol, which are powerful anti-mutagenic compounds naturally present in the white part of the birch tree’s bark (in which the chaga typically grows). Chaga is also extremely high in nourishing phytochemicals, nutrients, and free-radical scavenging antioxidants, especially melanin. Chaga is second only to cacao in antioxidant content. Chaga is the most powerful cancer-fighting herb known.

3. Gynostemma

According to the scientific herbal research being conducted in the People’s Republic of China, gynostemma has been identified as the most medicinal of all the Chinese herbs. It contains 120 saponins (immune modulating molecules that are fat soluble on one side of the molecule and water soluble on the other side) — all of which possess unique and specific health-giving properties. Gynostemma is a true tonic — you can take it or make tea out of it nearly every day with benefits that accrue the more you consume it. Gypenoside 49 (49th of the 120 saponins) has been identified as a telomerase activator that youthens us genetically.

4. Ginseng

Known throughout the world for its amazing energy-restoring and strength-building properties, ginseng is an adaptogen that helps our bodies “adapt” to stressful environmental conditions. Ginseng root can boost energy, induce mental alertness and increase endurance. Ginseng also helps fight pain and alleviate radiation damage to healthy tissues.

5. Chlorella

Chlorella is a natural green micro-algae, and a superfood detoxifier. It contains high levels of complete protein with properties that bond with heavy metalsand chemical toxins, helping to eliminate them from the brain and nervous system. Chlorella is the highest chlorophyll-containing plant in the world with 40 times the chlorophyll content of the best wheatgrass juice known.

6. Zeolites

Zeolites are a form of unique, volcanic mineral compounds with crystalline structures that form a sort of “cage.” This “cage” works like a magnet to attract heavy metals, chemicals and other pollutants (e.g. radioactive isotopes), capturing them and allowing their easy removal (without being re-absorbed) from the body. Zeolites have been shown to have anti-viral and cancer-fighting effects.

7. Shilajit

Contains 80+ minerals and fulvic acid which assists in the removal of toxins, improves nutrition to cells and helps restore electricity to the blood. Shilajit promotes the movement of minerals into muscle, tissue and bone. It is anAyurvedic mineral-herb which translates as the “conqueror of mountains and destroyer of weakness.”

8. Astragalus Root

One of the most potent immune tonics used to improve the lungs, strengthen muscles, increase metabolism, reduce stress and strengthen the genetics. The first telomerase activator product to make it into the market is TA-65, an extract of astragalus.

9. Camu Camu Berry

This plant-derived Vitamin C source will super-boost your immune system and help repair connective tissue. Camu Camu is one of the most concentrated supplies of Vitamin C in the world, and a powerful antioxidant.

10. Probiotics

Consuming a combination of good quality probiotics (these include friendly bacteria such as: Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidus infantis, B. longum, L.bulgaricus, S. thermophilus, L. plantarum, L. salivarius, Enterococcus faecium, etc.) and cultured and fermented foods like coconut kefir will lead to enhanced immunity as the beneficial probiotic bacteria are symbiotic allies to your body that help: fight viruses, candida and other infections; produce B vitamins; and assist in detoxification. Probiotics help build up that “stress defense shield.”

We live in a time of unprecedented abundance. Through the Internet and the advancing health freedoms we are all enjoying, we have easy access to these superfoods, superherbs and super health products.

When you start investigating and utilizing these substances consistently and regularly, you will notice that your immunity will step-by-step be enhanced. Your thoughts will have more clarity. Your overall energy will increase. You will also likely sleep better and perform better in athletic activities. Your overall productivity will improve. Digestive distress decreases. Feelings of well-being begin to dominate your life.

Superfoods and tonic superherbs can be added into anyone’s diet. Simply begin with the first one or few that you’re drawn to and go from there. Get out a blender and have fun. Make different teas with the superherbs or smoothies with the superfoods. Better yet, take your superherb tea and blend it with your superfoods to make the best elixirs ever. Getting healthier and healthier is fun!

Sourced from Gaiam Life

Coverage - Chat, 29th May

Inspiration in a Minute: The Lifelong Gift

What do Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, music entrepreneur Russell Simmons and 1 million school kids have in common? Meditation! Check out this clip from the documentary School of Thoughtto see why they call meditation the gift you can call on anytime.

We asked experts, authors and readers like you to share their stories of Hope. Every day for the next month, you’ll find new tips for optimism on Gaiam Life, theStream of Consciousness blog and our social media sites: Facebook,Twitter and Pinterest. And don’t miss the GaiamTV.com Hope Film Festival, with FREE films all month long.

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO HERE ON GAIAM LIFE!

Coverage - Natural Health, June