I’m trying to post ten things at once, so me being me, my update that I’m pregnant will probably upload LAST. But yes, I’m pregnant! Ta-daaah! I know, I disappear a few months and show up with news like this. Doesn’t it keep our conversations exciting though? No one can ever say my replies to “what’s new” are dull anymore.
Back to one of my favourite movements ever. Whilst I sleep A LOT, it also feels great to keep the body moving so I’ve been trying to work on strengthening my body to keep myself well for the remainder of my pregnancy, labour and then beyoooooond (LOTS OF BABY LUGGING). Cue a lot of Pilates exercises. Let’s get to it.
Triceps extension (top to match resistance band not needed!)
Baby bump not required – you don’t HAVE TO be pregnant to do this. Duh!
If you are pregnant, you should have already gotten an ok from your doctor to exercise.
Grip one end of your resistance band in each fist. Rest on fist down by your side and take your other arm up overhead to cradle your ear and messy top bun. (See vid below)
Breathing steadily the entire time, slowly extend the top arm straight without letting the elbow shift.
Bend the arm to return to start and repeat.
☄️I do 10 – 20 repetitions of each side, 10 normal speed and then 10 verrrrrry slowly. You can start by doing 5 at a normal speed and then 5 a little slower, gradually building up.
☄️If you don’t have a resistance band, you could hold a can or a small water bottle in your top hand. Nothing too heavy! The point is to focus on engaging your arm muscles for both directions of the movement, especially pay attention to resisting the return motion. You’ll get loads of strength benefits just from creating your own resistance.
☄️Be safe! Keep the working side shoulder down and the side of the body long. Avoid twisting in the torso. Keep the belly gently drawing inwards to protect the back. Pregnant ladies can visualise “hugging the baby”. At no point should you have any pain in your back or feel tension in your shoulder-neck region.
Let me know if you try this out and enjoy the rest of your day! xx
“perhaps just get more kind to yourself and those around you”
— apt words from my June horoscope
Once in a while I’ll stumble upon a horoscope, article, instagram and marvel at how perfectly these small happenings are timed to lessons and themes I am currently working on. For instance, the last few months have been really focused on the concept of kindness and softness. They’re NOT easy! It has taken so long for me to break down my need to never show softness and never backdown to really embrace how being soft can be a different kind of strength. Life isn’t just about how good a smackdown you can give or how feisty you can be. It’s terrifying and exhilarating to find that within all that being gentle, deep down there is a reservoir of true strength to withstand all outside forces as well as all the inner crazy. The best defence may be a good offence in sports but in life the best defence is inner strength.
Continuously working on the ability to stay perfectly gracefully still despite everything going on will build up your strength reserves mentally as well as physically. You’ll only get stronger this way and you’ll always feel centered, because your center is strong! Today’s drill is the perfect physical illustration of that wonderful kooky circular logic. You’re staying as still as you can, whilst working on strengthening your core and you won’t need to do a single crunch, hurray! It works for me and I hope it will for you too. Try it and let me know!
Enough chit-chat from me, let’s do this.
THE STAY STILL [Working title I’m sticking with this – besides aren’t we over ‘labels’ already?]
Repeat this exercise 3 to 5 times, several times a week and you’ll definitely feel stronger physically and hopefully get closer to experiencing grace under pressure, even if it’s merely during the course of a yoga class. It will be worth it – eventually that grace will translate to beyond your physical class!
Start in a kneeling position
Place your hands either side of your knees
Lean your weight into your hands and press strongly into the ground as you exhale
Breathe your belly button in and up towards your spine
On your next exhalation squeeze your knees towards your chest
Hold as you breathe in and out for 5 rounds of breathing (something like the picture above)
Inhale and squeeze your knees in a little more then
Lower down on your next exhalation. (Finally!)
Advance this by squeezing one heel off the floor and hold.
Super advance this by squeezing both heels off the floor. You’re basically ready to levitate.
If it feels horrible for the front of your feet then you can start off kneeling with your toes tucked under. As you press up you will come high up onto your toes. When you’re stronger you can try again with your feet flat.
Your back will naturally round — go with that instinct.
Use your midsection to pull your knees into the curve of your body. Squeezing your inner thighs together will help activate your core just that extra more. As much of your weight is off the floor, not just dangling into the fronts of your feet.
Even though your back is rounded, don’t hunch your shoulders into your ears! And don’t scrunch your face! All the work is deep, deep down in your core. The rest of you is to resemble the surface of still water.
What it do?
I’m glad you asked. This will work your entire core as well as your ability to maintain your straight-arm strength. With your knees sucked in as close to your body as you can you’ll notice how hard your belly is working to keep that knees to chest connection going. The back gets a great stretch too.
Alternatives for wrist issues
Just do the same thing but laying on your back and imagine your pressing your hands into the ceiling and pushing it away. You’ll still get all the benefits and you’ll have a great time curling your body away from the floor. NOT EASY. You’ll know you’re doing it right because you’ll just know.
You can build up as you get stronger by doing the alternative in addition. Make the two versions part of your regular strength exercise.
It’s starting to rain over here (which I love) but at the same time I can’t help wondering:
Who would like to go sit on the beach at sunset eating gooey pizza out of the box and talk about the universe and our souls and magic and maybe not talk at all because
I always think that good food IS made with love but also a relaxed spirit. I’m all about the right energy. For me that means listening to some chillout songs – I even have a playlist filled with songs I love to cook to. One of these days I’ll add a playlist of songs to eat to, ha!
I just heard this song for the first time this afternoon and it’s an instant favourite. It’s just so groovy and chill and casual. The title could not be more perfect! I’m listening to this now right now as I make dinner, which is some turmeric soup (I’m trying to crawl out of the flu) and some amazing thyme flavoured green lentils that I have mixed with spinach, chickpeas and bright yellow capsicum. I’m going to enjoy all of that on a bed of fluffy white rice. I snuck in a few taste tests and so delicious! It’s gotta be the music. Recipe will be up soon but for now enjoy this song! x
This is the most incredible remix and the singer has such a beautiful clear voice. I adore listening to the notes in this song not even hearing the lyrics. Take the advice of the singer and close your eyes.
B and I started a 40 day practice this month. Usually we have our own activities we like to do in order to feel good: mine would be yoga, Pilates, watching old TV shows, and his would be basketball (REAL and XBOX). This month we decided that the New Moon would be the perfect time to start a shared daily practice for 40 days to boost our energy and spirit levels.
We are STILL doing our favourite activities, naturally!
Everyday we practice a set sequence of yoga postures, followed by mantra meditation and we drink a green drink that I labelled our ‘Elixir’. This last part is major because B has never been on board with drinking anything green although I feel like that’s being very picky since he is slightly colour blind anyway? For all he knows it could be pink? SUDDENLY he can tell it’s green. I mean.
Anyway.
The mantra we chant is personal to each of us but I’ll share mine with you below. We chant out loud and with confidence, 11 times and then we sit quietly and let things marinate.
Somedays we do our practice in the evening like last night when we came home from a wedding party. We showered, changed and stepped on our mats. Then we had our green drink. We slept like babies even with both of us recovering from the flu.
It feels wonderful!
To go along with our 40 day practice we also cut out coffee. I typically drink a lot of coffee, alarming amounts even, but I’ve never had any issue with stopping. I never even get headaches if I go without coffee but it’s that comfort factor that I like. I love comfort! So when I want a warm drink I’ll make myself a Coconut Maca drink. I’m having one righttttttt now.
I’m very lucky I’ve never enjoyed soft drinks and I drink a lot of room temperature water. Even warm water in a mug can be comforting. I make a ritual out of heating the water up, choosing a favourite mug (B and I both like to hog the same mugs) and then enjoying the steam puff up. It’s all about the ritual and process! Aren’t humans funny?
We started out as a very small community of just two, but in just over a week a few of our friends have started to join in. One of my girlfriends asked for a shopping list so she could run out and grab all the ingredients for the ‘elixir’ the very next morning.
Which is great! The more the merrier, and slowly little by little we generate more good vibes. If you would like to join us (we’d love to have you!) feel free to come up with your own mantra, or use mine:
“These are amazing. What did you put in here?” he mumbled through a mouthful.
“My childhood memories.“
There are certain things that you can’t get at Chinese restaurants. You gotta go to someone’s home, sit in their kitchen and watch as wheat noodles are boiled, drained, tossed in sesame oil and then stir fried with some simple vegetables.
THE BEST.
You gotta.
I don’t even like noodles! So go figure. Ok that is a huge generalisation – I like rice noodles, spaghetti and those glass noodles made of green beans. But when my mum cooks noodles this way, I can’t get enough.
超级简单清炒面 | Ultra Simple Stir Fried Noodles
Vocab:
超级 (chāo jí) Super/Ultra
简单 (jiǎn dān) Simple
清炒 (qīng chǎo) Stir Fry
面 (miàn) Noodles! (the character doesn’t include the exclamation point but I just get really excited talking about food)
Doesn’t matter how many times I read the instructions on the back of the packet, I’ll always cook noodles for a small group of 10. Come over for dinner?
Or do it yourself:
1. Cook appropriate amount of noodles (ahem)
2. Drain noodles and toss with sesame oil and let cool, lift the noodles to let the steam escape. You don’t want the noodles to stick together. THIS TAKES AGES. Alternate arms and repeat. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
3. Stir fry veggies – heat the oil, then add in your crunchy veg, the less crunch stuff and then your flavourings.
(OIL, CRUNCHY, LEAFY, SAUCEY or OCLS which is not helpful at all, sounds like some kind of college and actually makes things worse?)
I like using coconut oil and then for flavouring I add chilli, white pepper, sea salt. I like my food light but you can add soy sauce of course. Also, I can’t eat too much soy products. IF you were to use soy sauce, get yourself a good quality ‘Light Soy Sauce’. Don’t just grab that bottle of soy sauce with the red pouring cap thingy, there is an entire world of soy sauce out there. I used to take people on tours of Asian supermarkets and we stood in the sauce aisle for ages discussing all the different flavours you can make. A world of soy sauce.
Tip: When stir frying veg, you want the pan to be HOT and you want to move FAST so the veg still says crunchy and the colours stay vibrant. Leafy greens can be thrown in last as they will cook so quickly.
I love when I get a bit of char on my veg. Just a little, not too much. It’s either a sign of a good hot wok OR a wok that needs washing. Let’s all agree it’s the first thing, ok?
Another tip: When adding your liquid flavourings, such as soy sauce, pour AROUND the sides not onto the stuff. And don’t go crazy, you can check later when the noodles go in if you need to add more to adjust the flavour. You want to be able to taste the strands of noodles that you just spent forever tossing with sesame oil. Not a mouthful of light soy sauce. The noodles are THE MAIN EVENT.
Oh, my mouth just filled up with saliva. Man, I love food!
4. Hurl everything together in the pan and toss somehow. You may want to add more sesame oil. The sesame oil just makes the noodles SO fragrant and helps with movement.
Oh, remember that sauce aisle? Get yourself a good quality sesame oil too. You should be able to SMELL the fragrance wafting from a sealed bottle. And it should smell like nothing on earth compared to the regular cheapo version.
I’m not asking you to sit down in the middle of the supermarket and taste test all the different varieties of sesame oil. Just have a sniff, don’t get the bottle too close to your snoz because that grosses people out. Once you get yourself one that smells amazing you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about and you will look back at the cheapo one you used to own and laugh and move on to bigger and better and brighter things.
Confession: My noodles were still a tad clumpy, I was too slow to get them out of the boiling water and I needed to let them cool a little longer but I was HUNGRY and my arms were bored with tossing. So it was go time! Hahaha. They were still AMAZINGLY tasty. This is meant to be an easy fool-proof recipe for hungry/lazy anyway, and turns out, IT IS! Trust! You WILL be triumphant, no matter what!
H-H-Ha-Happy days.
5. Eat and eat and eat (ABOUT TIME!)
🍜
If you have leftovers, they taste so good chilled!
Here’s another version that my mum did whilst she was in town to visit me. She used shredded omelette with shredded carrot and a little bit of spring onion. Again all done with the above steps and it was AMAZING. I want my Mommy now. And I want those noodles back in my life right now. Excuse me whilst my heart and stomach have a quick weep. Pretty much the best meal of my life. (I know, could I BE more dramatic?)
Those prawns were the size of my plate and they were so good and also they were about $10 each. I’ve never spent that much money on something that came wrapped up in A LEAF. But they were SO GOOD. Saving up my pennies to one day buy one more.
Look how shiny.
*DROOLS ALL OVER KEYBOARD AND SHORT CIRCUITS LAPTOP*
Ok, if you think shredded omelette is a great idea but who can be bothered, just fry an egg and slide it on top. I love when the yolk is still a little gooey and it MINGLES with the noodles.
Or just you know, whatever. They’re good any which way.
Plainish; with shredded chicken (or really just one shard because I got really lazy and really hungry); or with a fried egg.
It’s 9:30 in the morning and I must go get myself some noodles for breakfast. According to TCM it’s great to have warm meals.
Don’t quote me, I WILL manipulate random pieces of information to suit my wants. (I call these my convenient theories, of which I have many)
And right now noodles: I WANTS IT.
Enjoy and chat later! If you tried making these, lemme know! xx
To get straight into Compass Pose (after an appropriate warm up), head on over to the the middle bit, we’ll catch up with you!
One of the most helpful lessons I learned in Yoga was how sometimes all I need to do is take another look. Different postures are often the same but placed differently in space. Rather than trying to learn each posture on its own and find comfort on that island, I realised that many of these postures could be grouped together. If I could only find the thread that connected all of them.
A lot of mixed metaphors! Forgive me!
Compass Pose is usually done seated. With the back thigh lifting off this becomes a modified version of the arm balance posture often referred to as ‘Flying Compass Pose’. In the flying version, the back leg is outstretched in the manner of a side plank. Keeping the back knee down makes the posture more accessible as the balance requirement is reduced.
I have also come across the flying version being referred to as Visvamitrasana, Pose dedicated to the Sage Visvamitra. From what I understand, in Visvamitrasana, the top arm reaches up to the ceiling. The posture is advanced by reaching the top arm to catch hold of the floating foot.
Ok, let’s go back to this idea of finding comfort. Asana refers to being comfortable and steady in a posture. But, but, BUT.How does one get comfortable in a posture that is simply not comfortable? You know what would be comfortable in Chair Pose? An actual chair to sit on. Not a pretend chair made of the steam that rose up from my burning thighs. How does one find steadiness when balanced upside down on two hands? Aside from taking the variation of face-planting, which is steady but distinctly uncomfortable, ow my nose.
Finding Comfort:
Different people will have different ways to seek out comfort and steadiness.
A good rule of thumb to check how you’re doing is to ask yourself if you are breathing – slowly, steadily, with awareness or if you are holding your breath.
Another one is to check on your level of attention – are you focused, gazing steadily, or frowning hard at the current task.
You can also check how you are holding yourself – soft, relaxed but actively engaging your muscles, or tensing, hunching the shoulders around your ears, biting your lips and so on.
That last one will give you an idea of how okay you feel with the outcome of your practice. Ask: Do you have to nail this posture today?
Be calm and trust the unknown. For me, finding comfort means being okay with what is going on and feeling comfortable with my body and believing in the ability of it to support me wherever I end up. If I hold my breath I know I am fearful and tense. Knowing that being ‘successful’ in any posture won’t make me a better person, and ‘failing’ a posture won’t mean I am a bad person allows me to practice with detachment. I feel OKAY with the possibility that today may not be the day I get my leg behind my head or fly my compass, or leap like Hanuman into the splits. And I am then free to practice.
Understand the difference between challenge and strain. There may be awareness of some intense stretching sensations or a serious amount of strength being demanded or that, “Do you smell smoke? Because I KNOW my quads are on fire” feeling but through all of that I understand the individual actions I am performing and I am BREATHING calmly. Maintaining a steady and calm breath means I am less likely to exceed my limitations for the day and end up hurting myself, physically and emotionally. It’s so important to practice with compassion! Yoga practice is not a torture practice. If I get my breathing under control, my thought patterns change from scattered, critical, irrelevant, tense to focused, precise, quiet and steady. And I feel okay, fine, maybe even peaceful. Despite the smoke signals.
Learning New Poses, like Compass Pose
I’ve noticed that people learning a sequence like the Sun Salutations would try to hurry through the current posture to get into the next and become breathless. If they are asked to focus on breathwork, they report feeling less frazzled, especially if instructed to allow the breathing to slow down. It’s the same for learning a new pose. This was my personal experience as well.
The first time I saw someone in the full flying version of Compass Pose, I remember thinking, “HOW did you get there?”
The first time I experienced being taught the full flying version of Compass Pose with the body in an extended side plank position, I had forgotten about that person and was thinking to myself, “Where is this going?”
Anyway, once we were there* in the posture (as close to ‘there’ as a first attempt could feel, accompanied by me calling out, “Um, something like this?!”) I didn’t feel great, I just felt awkward, weird, gangly, tired, sore, confused, frustrated, and EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE. All my limbs were crying, “ARGH we don’t belong in this configuration.” My breath was erratic just like my thoughts. I didn’t recognise where I was and I was freaked. I had also forgotten about the idea of comfort and steadiness in my posture. I didn’t fall out of the posture but crashed, backwards on my bum.
You know how sometimes people learn a new posture and they seem so elated? That was not me. I was just bewildered. I couldn’t wait for naptime Savasana and then also lunch.
At the time of that class, I was familiar with side plank and had developed a healthy dislike of it. (I won’t pretend I like it much these days but I see the value in it and I appreciate it.) I had also experienced the seated compass pose. And although I knew how to add I wasn’t connecting the dots between the two postures and my current extremely uncomfortable mess of tangled limbs. I was so suspended in this huge reaction of being uncomfortable that there was just so much disconnect between my body and my mind.
But could I really claim to have learnt that posture that day?
Later on after a day or a week or let’s be honest, more like a month had gone by, I took a closer look at what went down. Ohhhhhhhhh heyyyyy…. that kind of looks like if I did that stretchy side thing with my top arm whilst balancing in a sideways plank.But how the heck do I get into it again? What leg goes with what hand? What does this foot back here do? If I go into side plank, I can’t get the front foot off the floor. If I lift the front foot off the floor, I can’t get into side plank. UGHHHHH.
Over time as I played around with the different shapes, I sort of made friends with this posture. I wouldn’t call us bosom buddies or the kind of friends that need to be together all the time, more like a long distance good friendship. We’re happy to see each other when we can but if we don’t, that’s okay too, maybe another time, we’ll catch up and see what the other is up to.
THE MIDDLE BIT: Finding Compass Pose
Let’s see if we can’t get you two acquainted:
To enter (hover over each photo for detailed instructions):
Step 1: Kneel on one knee, keeping the other leg upright, foot placed flat on the floor. Feet are roughly perpendicular: draw an imaginary straight line from the second toe of the foot out in front, down the heel, and intersecting with the ball of the back foot. The same hand as the foot in front threads through the inside of the front knee to the outside of the foot. Avoid sinking down into the back leg.
Step 2: Wriggle the front shoulder so that the front knee rests against and even slightly over the shoulder. If you have long arms like me you’ll probably bend the elbows to get under.Step 3: Get lifted by pressing your hips away from the floor and strengthening that front arm. Think about how your torso and supporting arm behave when you are in a sideways plank. As your supporting arm extends, let the front foot start to float off the floor, or just the heel. Keep the shin pressing firmly into the ground and the upper body light.Step 4: Stay chill! If you need a little more stability, tuck the back toes under. Keep the front shoulder and the inside of the front knee close.Step 5: Ok looking a little determined here, haha! Ignore me and take hold of the front foot with the opposite arm. Notice the grip, hold the foot from OVER the front of the foot and then wrap the fingers around the outside edge of the foot. Alot of people get the foot in their hand but sink down into the back leg and struggle to get back up again. Stay lifted by keeping the back leg engaged. Alternatively, just stay here like this, or don’t reach for the foot and keep the top arm along the top side of your body.Step 6: Ok, if you’re still feeling pretty comfortable so far, hang onto the foot whilst you start to let the leg straighten. As that happens, let the top arm slide behind your ear.
Got it?
From here: Gaze upwards, or if that is uncomfortable simply look ahead. In this instance I just gazed directly forwards rather than up as my torso wasn’t revolving as far as usual. What I would go on to do is go back to opening my hips a little more and do you see how that back thigh may want to press forward a little more? I’d work on those and then revisit the posture again and see if anything has changed.
Alternatively:
Keep the front leg bent
Float the front foot off the floor and keep the top arm flat against your side or reaching upwards
Feeling really steady? Try again with your back leg stretched out in one line with the rest of your body
Practice the seated version of the posture, back leg bent or stretched out directly in front or half crossed
Stop at whichever step is most appropriate to you and stay there
Whatever variation you take, keep breathing and stay calm!
Inhale, release the foot; exhale, take a moment. Switch sides. Let me know how you went!
Note: I cannot stress how important it is to practice with awareness. The most important tool for me has been to learn to understand my body. Learn about your body, become aware of what conditions it thrives under and what conditions it does not. Do not force. Find a teacher you can trust to guide you.
Take care and be well! x
*what does ‘there’ mean anyway? In the beginning of practice I would think of ‘there’ as the place where I matched the picture in Light on Yoga. I currently think of ‘there’ as where I can go based on who I am on a given day but I don’t know until I start moving where I will get to.
B goes through these phases of having a current word that he loves to use. His current one is ’empower’. Not a bad one to have. He uses it in a work context, empowering this associate, that manager, this director, etc.
We all know that I love myself some weheartit action. Whaddya know, there is an inspiration gallery on weheartit called ‘Empowerment’! Hello, this is Synchronicity calling. Oh, it’s for us! So, this gallery on weheartit is girl-power focused but there’s some stuff in there to support all genders as well. The images that caught my eye the most were the ones that remind me that girls need to support other girls. You know the ones:
One of my favourite comedians is Dylan Moran and he made an observation about women in one of his standups saying we will never have the rights we keep demanding because we keep bitching about each other. You could hear the sucked in breath of the audience, the outright guffaws of everyone, all the head nodding and people going, “Haha! So true!”.
I laughed too but on the inside, I was all, “Dammit, Team!”
A very good friend of mine once told me something when I expressed hurt feelings after discovering that someone I thought of as a very close friend had been talking about me behind my back. He said, “Dom, one of these days you’ll learn that not everyone likes everyone and not everyone will like you.”
Stranger things, hey. What are you gunna do.
Stranger things, hey. What are you gunna do.
I was like “Waaaaaaahhhh I don’t wanna learn” (The sound of me experiencing history repeating.)
Flashback to trying to introduce my different best friends in junior school to each other which felt like walking face on into a brick wall. Very painful. They all hated each other. For no reason that I could see. I liked them, we seemed to like similar things hence the bff-ness, so why didn’t they like each other? At least one of them explicitly stated, “If she’s coming, I’m not coming.” Tea parties and movie outings got very tricky.
My squads were more like Noah’s ark passengers and only came in sets of two. No chance of starting a girl band which is a shame because one of my bffs and I had this great dance routine down ahahahaha cue my #squadgoals gallery.
It was actually a killer routine, ok.
It was actually a killer routine, ok.
“This could have been us but you hatin’.“
No, I’m not bffs anymore with those girls.
Another odd thing that I observed over time was the refusal of women to accept each other.
Have you ever heard someone say, “Yes but she’s ugly.” as a means to downplay that person’s competence or worth? Or if someone is being praised for an accomplishment, another person says, “Too bad she’s fat.” Or about someone who has the figure of someone who works out alot, “She’s probably bulimic.” Or about someone who is beautifully dressed, “She’s a bimbo.” Or about someone who is just generally a lovely person, well off, doing well in her chosen field, beautiful inside and out, you might hear, “But she’s still single hey.”
?!
That’s super unchill and way harsh.
This hating thing seems to be something that has really picked up over the last couple of years. I’ve been the subject of some hate too: I have been fat-shamed AND thin-shamed, but then hello, who hasn’t had a little shade thrown at them by this point? There’s so much of it to go around.
Seriously, how much are we loving these images?! And also are those some kind of donut?
I don’t know if it has always been this way and I can’t speak to what guys talk about amongst themselves because I’m not a guy. But it feels horrible to me. This should not be the norm. Where have the compliments gone? I’m not interested in lip service and saying nice things that we don’t mean. But the more I see this sort of behaviour — and I know other people must be seeing this hence all the “Women empower each other” inspiration images — the more I think there seems to be this mindset that there is only a limited amount of beauty, brains, health, wealth, best friends, compliments, success, and other great things and it’s every woman for herself. We need to clear this misunderstanding up. There may be underlying issues like a feeling of lack (self-esteem, worth, value) and we need to deal with that too. Not that having issues is an excuse. We may not even be aware of any underlying issues. Although what kind of perfectly happy issue-free person walks around espousing hate? Happy people don’t kill people as Elle Woods puts it.
Hey girl, what lies beneath?
Dunno, but that won’t stop me from hating on other people.
And “she started it” is definitely not a valid reason, either.
The idea that a person may be deeply unhappy without even knowing suggests a general lack of awareness or cloudiness of mind. One of the Yoga Sutras talks about how to attain clarity of mind. It says, “Clarity of mind is produced by meditating on friendliness towards the happy, compassion toward the miserable, joy toward the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.” [1.33]
I think of this as one of several keys to ultimate freedom.
What better freedom can there be than to have total peace of mind? To not experience jealousy when one witnesses the success of another but to feel happy? Rather than tearing each other down and belittling the hard work of another we can feel inspired to do more and be more. No, we don’t need to do the old “Girls rule, boys suck” chant either. There is no need for us to put down another gender to feel better about our own. We don’t need to belittle someone else’s life to feel better about our own. True strength doesn’t depend on highlighting the weaknesses of others and we need to be stronger.
True strength NOT brute strength.
All of us are in this together and we have our own challenges to get through. My approach? Well, basically:
For those of us who have been bullied and pushed around: hey, you need to know that you’re a valuable person.
For those of us who have not made the best choice, let’s stop being so shady. I think kindness is a nicer shade on you.
So, if we really want world peace and universal love, let’s give ourselves permission to show each other kindness and find some peace. There are really important things happening out there, tearing each other down simply cannot be the way forward. This behaviour has become a bad habit but habits can be unlearned. It’s never too late to learn new tricks and bring about change. Change your thoughts, change your life.
This is one of the first postures I was taught; if I remember correctly it may even have come before Downward Facing Dog Posture.
It was a long time ago!
But I still get so many benefits every single time I practice it.
To enter:
From standing, step the feet out to the sides and raise your arms parallel to the floor, at shoulderheight, palms facing the floor. Wriggle the right foot 90 degrees and turn the left foot inwards towards the right. Inhale keep extending the spine long and stretching your arms out to the sides. Maintain muscular activation of the legs. Exhale and lean to the right, taking the right hand down.
There are variations on where you place the front hand:
If you practice Ashtanga, you work towards taking the front big toe.
If you practice Iyengar, the front hand rests flat on the floor outside of the front foot.
Or rest the hand on the shin.
Do what you can.
Gaze upwards, or if that is uncomfortable simply look down.
Extend and lengthen everything!
Whilst breathing!
Inhale, come up; exhale, switch sides.
Benefits (and my personal experience):
This pose strengthens the entire leg, develops the chest and improves posture. Mr Iyengar found it to help any respiratory conditions his students had and indeed it may very well have assisted in the reduction of my asthma. Or made me stronger. Any position which improves posture, strengthens the back and develops the chest seems to assist. The stamina you gain as you practice standing postures can help too. And of course learning to finally breathe through the nose rather than gasping for air helps.
Note: We are all wonderfully different so one person may have a totally different asthma experience to another. I just thought I would share my personal experience in case it is of use. The most important tool for me has been to learn to understand my body. Learn about your body, become aware of what conditions it thrives under and what conditions it does not. Find a teacher you can trust to guide you.
Utthita = Extended
Our Zenaissance 