Tag: yoga

Less can be more

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From time to time, forget about complex practices, challenging asanas and go back to the basics. Doing less, with more awareness.
Simple Sun Salutations invite the mind, body, breath, and consciousness into a deep experience of harmony and balance within.
While going within more and more though repetition, the body gets a nice workout too.
I like to end this practice with some deep stretches, which I hold for a few minutes. Being in a posture for some time releases the deeper tissues, the fascia.

Less can be more, give it a try!

Wild thing

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When I ask my students to feel a pose, it’s not about good or bad, right or wrong. It’s about digging into its energy.

The energy you create in each pose, the pulsation of stretching and release, which happens simultaneously. It‘s about feeling these lines of energy – nothing to ask your mind, but noticing the sensations in your body. Without judging or even labeling them.

Singing bowl

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Not sure why I don’t play them more often – I feel the vibrations in my entire body, calming and yet like an extra boost of energy.
Singing bowls create vibrations that are similar to the frequencies of the brain’s alpha waves.

By playing and creating these frequencies, they can entrain the brain, allowing it to relax and become more focused as it transitions to a theta wave state.

🙏🏼

What is yoga?

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The question that comes up frequently – what is yoga and what makes it different from any other “fitness style”?

I was teaching the Ashtanga module in a teacher training this weekend and it showed up so beautifully what yoga actually is.

After practicing the primary series, a student told me how she felt her body speaking to her. Telling her what she should look into, not just on a physical, but also on a mental level. She was amazed on how she could focus on herself, not looking at others, but go internal. She practiced yoga.

Another student was struggling a lot with postures, being rather upset after. He wasn’t even willing to share his experience, so I won’t judge, but it felt as if he was caught up in performing.

It doesn‘t really matter if your body can make it into a pretzel or if it doesn‘t find the sweet spot in a balance; what matters is being open to what an asana teaches. We receive lessons on all levels, body, mind and spirit. We can learn so much, If only we would listen.

This is where the yoga starts. 

Let me give you an example. To go deep into backbends, we need to open the front side, particularly the chest area (very simplified!), and if this is difficult for you, ask yourself where else in your life does this show up? How open is your heart? How willing are you to show up as your true self?

Balancing postures are telling us a lot about our stress level…

Asanas can work in both directions, as pointers, and they can also help to address and eventually solve an issue you might face in other ares of your life. 

Yoga isn‘t a fitness regime, although it helps on this level too!

We went on retreat!

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What does it actually mean to go on a retreat?

Literally to retreat means to move back or withdraw. Step back from our daily tasks and habits, spend time in community, reset and open up to new inputs, eventually extend our comfort zone and deepen practices.

We went to the beautiful island of Mallorca, away from tourism, staying at a magical place, where the energy of the place and the people were welcoming us.  

When hosting a retreat, I’m fully committed to be authentically me. While all practices are properly planned, I’m open for the dynamics of the group to change plans for the better. Flexibility is key! 

Not just a variety of different yoga practices, also spirituality is a huge part, but never as a doctrine, it comes naturally as an experience for the participants.

And yes, there was more! 

Healthy and tasty food, no so healthy (but nevertheless yummy) drinks, a lot of laughter, great talks, quiet times, the nourishing spring sun, massages, sound healing, breathwork, and and and…. And the fun of good company!

We had a blast and I’m already thinking about the next one…. stay tuned!

Embrace where you are

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„From chasing to embracing.“

Jeff Foster

I learned this in my asana practice. Not chasing anymore, I don’t need to be able to do any fancy posture. I embrace what I can do and also what I can’t. Eventually this will merge. Or not. It doesn’t really matter. 

Just be consistent in your practice, your body will change and open. 

Mama India

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A week ago I arrived in Goa and can hardly express my feelings. It‘s been 7 years that I was here last time. So much changed, but not the mood, the energy and the lovely people. I still love all the smells here (ok, almost all), the food, the heat, although it‘s winter here. Which for me only means less humidity and eventually a bit chilly at night.

Usually it takes a while to settle after traveling for almost 24hrs, but this time, apart from the lack of sleep, I felt being there instantly. My mind calm, without the usual chatter and hearing the waves day and night was just pure bliss.

I had such a beautiful week at the beach with a friend I know from here and we only met now again. A week filled with loads of talks and laughter, many drinks, amazing food, sand and salty water. Thank you hon for your time and company, I miss you already!

Now I changed places, and with the new moon a new start into a week full of yoga with the teacher I learned it all from. It‘ll be tough, age kicked in some time ago and my body pushes back. Something I have to accept and handle mindfully. And same time getting fully back into the discipline of Ashtanga yoga.

Thank you mama India for calming my mind and letting my heart jump! Grateful to be back and I promise, I‘ll be never again that stupid to come here for two weeks only 😅

STOP COMPARING; YOU ARE LIFE ITSELF! 

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You are unique; your journey is wholly original. We may all be expressions of the very same ocean of consciousness, but at the same time, we are all unique expressions of that very ocean, totally unique in our wave-ness! Don’t compare yourself with anyone else! 

When you start comparing, you devalue your own unique, irreplaceable gifts, talents and truths and disconnect from your unique present experience. Don’t compare this moment with any image of how it could, should, or might have been. Healing is possible when you say YES to where you are now, even if it’s not where you dreamed you would be ‘by now’. 

Trust, and trust sometimes that you cannot trust. Perhaps even your inability to trust can be trusted here, and even the feeling that you cannot hold the moment, is itself already being held…

– Jeff Foster

Failure

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I hear this word quite often, particularly in the corporate world it seems trendy to name one’s „failures“ and learn from them. 

I don’t agree at all. Please don’t use this word. It simply doesn’t exists. It’s used to blame people (or oneself!), that’s all. There is no such thing as failure. Maybe you did something not the way expected, you forgot something, interpreted in a different way or didn’t meet a timeline. And this is what it is. There are reasons for it, you didn’t „fail“. 

Same for relationships. Did I do or say anything inappropriate? Yes. Did I fail? No!

And on the mat? There’s no failure in your yoga practice either. You can’t do a posture although you’re working on it for a long time? So it is. No failure, you’re just not there yet. You fell off your headstand while demonstrating it? So you fell, no failure. Honestly, this is an example of rather the contrary. Your student can live experience that there’s no issue to fall, you can explain about it and tell why you fell that moment.

Be true to yourself and name things as they are, instead of putting a destructive label on them.

Failure is such a harsh word, even if you only tell it to yourself, your entire body, each and every cell is listening. Your whole body mind filled up with the strong negative energy of this simple word. 

Treat yourself and your body properly, also with the words you choose. „Failure“ is a word that should leave you. Once and forever. 

Embrace it all

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There’s no way out.
But through.
Let energy in and through.
The the only purpose of emotion is to let this streaming beauty flow through you. All emotions, negative, positive. 
Live pulsating.