On your path to enlightenment, it is advisable to look to others you admire for guidance. Although the path they have followed is their path, not yours, they may have useful information you can use for your own benefit. - Wu Wei
No one else can walk your path for you. No one else can achieve enlightenment for you. All anyone can do is to point you I the right direction and allow you to do the rest. - Wu Wei
More than 250,000 Americans fall every year and suffer a hip fracture. Within a year 1 in 5 dies from the fall. Among those who survive, nearly half never fully recover and require long term nursing care. This statistic can easily be changed. How? By improving your balance via yoga.
Many yoga poses commonly done in a regular class involve balance: tree pose, balancing half moon, hand to foot, dancer, and more. Our sense of balance is much like a muscle - use it or lose it. As we age, balance doesn't have to become a victim. Simply practicing balance poses will allow you to retain or regain a strong sense of balance. Here's a simple exercise to try in the comfort and privacy of your home. Stand on one leg and move the other, bent at the knee. Do this several times a day and several times a week. Once your balance is better, then do the same practice but with your eyes closed. When I teach yoga I often observe people yawing during the class. Some yoga teachers, upon seeing a yawn, panic internally mistakenly believing their class is dull or that the yogi is bored.
However, it's just the opposite. The No. #1 sign that yoga is really helping a yogi/yogini is reflected in a yawn. That's because a yawn is the sign that the person is relaxing, releasing and resetting. If you have a cat or a dog, you may have noticed that they yawn when they are very, very relaxed. The same is true for humans. Yawning also results in the body breathing more deeply, more slowly and exhaling more fully. This counteracts the fast shallow breathing experienced as a symptom of stress and anxiety. Furthermore, a yawn stretches the face, neck and even shoulder muscles creating the opposite effect of short, tense muscles. A Y A W N I S A G O O D S I G N I N YO G A Less well known and less familiar in yoga studios is the fact that there are yoga postures for specialized parts of the body: yoga for the eyes, yoga for the toes, and yoga for the face. Yoga tradition teaches that all yoga, including ones which focus on one area of the body, are highly beneficial.
In an experiment conducted at Northwestern University in Chicago, researchers found that by embarking on a regular 30-minute yoga facial exercise program for 20 weeks, participants lowered their average estimated age by roughly three years. Study participants, a group of 27 women aged between 40 and 65 years old, learned 32 different exercises and conducted each for about a minute for the duration of the experiment. Movements included opening the mouth to form an O, smiling to raise the cheek muscles and massaging the cheeks with the tips of your fingers. Another exercise involved smiling without showing teeth. In addition to looking younger, some benefits of face yoga include:
When you experience unwelcome or unpleasant situations, do not lose sight of the potential present for your growth and expansion. - Victor M. Parachin
Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, asked by a reporter about being raised by an alcoholic father, offered this insight:
It’s less about forgiveness than it is about acceptance. I can’t forgive my father for being an alcoholic — that has nothing to do with me. How can you forgive someone for being damaged? That’s for acceptance." K A R M A
Though the word Karma is commonly known and used, it's generally perceived in a negative way. Do something wrong, inappropriate and you'll "pay the price". More fully understood, Karma is cause and effect. Do good and good returns to you in more powerful ways. Karma is a way of understanding that you do have a huge influence over your life. By taking skillful actions issues such as illness can be moved in the direction of health, poverty can be moved into the direction of financial stability, anger can be transformed and one can live with peace and joy. The principle of karma simply means you can change a situation or condition into another situation or condition. Author Wu Wei explains karma this way: "Because of the law of cause and effect, a rock thrown into a pond makes ripples every time. The bigger the rock, the bigger the ripples. Just as we can depend on that to be true and never disappointed, we can depend on all the causes to produce their corresponding effects every time." One must allow the springs, summers, autumns, and winters, the winds, frosts, rains and snows to become causes and conditions of one’s growth. - Hsing Yun
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Victor M. Parachin ...is aVedic educator, yoga instructor, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of a dozen books. Buy his books at amazon or your local bookstore. Archives
July 2024
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