Tag: #YogaMonday

Happy Yoga Monday: My Best Yoga Moments in 2013

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Ananda & her yoga teacher Danielle Polen

Happy Yoga Monday!

On Saturday, I attended my yoga teacher, Danielle Polen’s yin/yang yoga class at Tranquil Space yoga studio. During the yoga class, Danielle encouraged me and my fellow classmates to set an intention for the holiday season. My holiday intention revealed itself as a six-word memoir during a child’s pose: surrender – joy – gratitude – patience – love – abundance. By the end of class, my six-word memoir intention had become my 2014 life intention.

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Ananda & Julia Coney

After class, I shared my intention with my yoga digital sister, Julia Coney (@juliaconey on Twitter). I also thanked her for referring me to The Way of the Happy Woman by Sara Avant Stover. This year, Stover’s book helped me deepen my commitment to self care and my home yoga practice.

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While I was at Tranquil Space, I had a chance to learn more about my fellow Fabulous Women Business Owner DC member June’s new skincare line, lilikoi living living. It is lovely and makes for a wonderful holiday gift.

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Ananda at Tranquil Space

As I was walking home from Tranquil Space, I realized my best yoga moments in 2013 occurred while I was practicing yin yoga at home and with my Tranquil Space community in Danielle’s classes. What a yoga blessing!

What are your 2013 best yoga moments?

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PS: If you are in DC and looking for yoga-inspired holiday gifts, stop by Tranquil Space.

Happy Yoga Monday: Yoga in Winter

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Happy December and Happy Yoga Month!

December is my birthday month. It offers me a chance to reflect and give thanks for the blessings and lessons I have learned during the past year. Yoga is one of my greatest blessings.

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December also offers me a chance to prepare for yoga in winter. This year, I am reading the winter yoga sections of Sara Avant Stover’s The Way of the Happy Woman to create my home practice. 

This week, my morning and evening yoga practices are filled with some of the new poses I have discovered in Stover’s book. My iPad is set to Pandora.com’s Wah! Station. The music is OM groovy OM! It slows me down and allows me to feel the beauty of my spirit, heart, body and mind as I move in and out of each pose. It reminds me to be kind and gentle with myself. What a great way to bring yoga into my world during the holiday season!

What’s happening in your yoga world this holiday season?

Happy Yoga Monday: Yoga As Transformation

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Photo Credit: Smithsonian Museum's Yoga: The Art of Transformation
Photo Credit: Smithsonian Museum’s Yoga: The Art of Transformation

Happy Yoga Monday!

This month, I am participating in the 21 Day Meditation series led by Oprah Winifrey and Deepak Chopra. Today’s meditation focused on getting in touch with my heart’s desires. One of my heart’s desires is to deepen my connection and understanding of yoga. So I am headed to the Smithsonian Museum’s Sackler Gallery to see the Yoga: The Art of Transformation exhibition. I am really excited to see the groundbreaking exhibit. It is the world’s first exhibition on yoga. I will write about my visit next week.

How does yoga transform your life?

Happy Yoga Monday – What is the highlight of your yoga practice?

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Happy Yoga Monday!

What is the highlight of your yoga practice?

Ananda practicing yoga in Jamaica, 2011
Ananda practicing yoga in Jamaica, 2011

The highlight of my practice is being kind and gentle with myself and taking my practice off of the mat and into my daily life (doing Tadasana at work while I am seated or breathing deeply as a mindfulness reminder when I am doing email).

Yoga has given me an arsenal of tools that help me handle stress better. Here are some of my stress relief tools.

1) Taking a lot of time to center myself with pranayama exercises (three-part breath,  alternate nostril breathing, and humming).

2) Cleansing my chakras with sound vibration through  mantra chanting as I give myself reiki healing touch.

3) Yin poses that help me massage my connective tissue.

4) Learning sacred mantras (Gayatri Mantra) to close my practice and chanting a sea of OMs.

5) Saying Namaste and bowing at the end of my practice.

Happy Yoga Monday – Yoga and Alice Coltrane’s Music

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Photo Credit: AliceColtrane.org
Photo Credit: AliceColtrane.org

Happy Yoga Monday!

Today, I am remembering the beauty and power of Swamini Turiyasangitananda a/k/a Alice Coltrane and her music. In 2006, I had a chance to see Alice perform live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey. That evening was and remains a high point in my life. Words cannot begin to describe the beauty of what I witnessed. You had to be there.

Photo Credit: Alice Coltrane.org
Photo Credit: Alice Coltrane.org

Right now I am listening to her Astral Meditations CD. Track 10 entitled “Peace On Earth” is playing. It is a composition that was originally written and recorded by Alice’s beloved, John Coltrane in 1966. See the album — John Coltrane: Infinity.

Photo Credit: JohnColtrane.com
Photo Credit: JohnColtrane.com

There is a point in the composition where Alice’s divine talent as a harpist is prominently featured. My ears tingle as they hear her gracefully weave a golden thread through the entire composition. It connects all of the instruments and musicians as one. Together, they create a musical quilt of peace for humanity to enjoy. Their creative collaboration also reminds me that we can accept and honor humanity’s beautiful quilt of cultural diversity when we choose to practice peace.

The wonderful thing about peace is that it gives birth to ahimsa, a Sanskrit word that means nonviolence. In yoga, ahimsa represents the first of five yamas (satya – truthfulness, asteya – non stealing, brahmacharya – relating to another with unconditional love and integrity, and aparigraha – non-clinging/grasping). Yamas are ethical guidelines or levels of awareness that one aspires to achieve. They apply to our actions, words, and thoughts.

Through the principle of ahimsa, we are called to refrain from causing pain or harm to any living being through our thoughts, words, and actions. When we choose our thoughts, words, and actions carefully so that they do not harm others, we are creating peace. When we are peaceful and nonviolent, we are at ease. We are more relaxed.

Instead of becoming angry at ourselves and others because of the differences we share, we can use that ease to create understanding and tolerance. With understanding and tolerance, we create sacred space for the acceptance and appreciation of our cultural and individual differences. As we come to accept and appreciate the beauty of what makes us different, we can also accept and appreciate the love that connects us as one.

Happy Yoga Monday – Laughter Yoga

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Happy Yoga Monday!

Every culture in the world appreciates and understands laughter. It is part of the universal human vocabulary. It also helps us stay healthy by enriching the blood with ample supplies of oxygen. In addition, laughter helps to remove the negative effects of stress and boosts our immune systems. Other benefits of laughter include:

• controlling high blood pressure and heart disease

• increasing stamina through increased oxygen supply

• alleviating pain and giving a sense of well being by releasing endorphins

• serving as an effective antidote for depression, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders (laughter boosts the production of serotonin, a natural anti-depressant)

• massaging the digestive tract and enhancing blood supply to the liver, spleen, pancreas, kidneys and adrenal glands

• ensuring a good night sleep and reducing snoring because laughter is very good for the muscles of the soft palate and throat

Photo Credit: www.laughteryoga.org
Photo Credit: http://www.laughteryoga.org

Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of Laughter Yoga, discovered that anyone can laugh for fifteen to twenty minutes without depending upon a sense of humor or comedy. As a result, he designed a blend of playful, empowering laughter, gentle breathing, stretching, rhythmic clapping and chanting exercises to help release tension. Through his work, Dr. Kararia discovered that laughter yoga is a great way to distance yourself from anger, stress, fear, limitations, and anxiety.

Have you ever tried Laughter Yoga?

Happy Yoga Monday – What is your definition of yoga?

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Ananda in her chakra-inspired home
Ananda in her chakra-inspired home

Happy Yoga Monday,

What does the word yoga mean to you?

When I was training to be a yoga teacher at Flow Yoga Center in 2005 and 2006, my teacher, Debra Perlson-Mishalove, gave the class a homework assignment to define yoga. Her assignment me to develop a YOGA acronym.

Y – Your

O – Opportunity to

G – Graciously

A – Accept yourself in the present moment.

I still use this acronym and definition in my classes and workshops.

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In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am teaching the annual Frederica Leeke and Dorothy Gartin Breast Cancer Awareness Yoga Class on Sunday, October 27 from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. in Malcolm-Meridian Hill Park. Click here for more details. The kind and gentle yoga class honors my grandmothers who lived with breast cancer.

Happy Yoga Monday – Office Yoga: Destress at Your Desk – 10/14

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Photo Credit: YogaJournal.com
Photo Credit: YogaJournal.com

Happy Yoga Monday!

Today’s blog features my latest discovery, YogaJournal.com’s office yoga program. It offers 15 videos featuring yoga poses that can help you release tension in your neck, shoulders, wrists, lower back, and hips. Sienna Smith, a certified teacher of Viniyoga and Anusara yoga, provides instructions for each video. Click here to get started with the office yoga program.

Have you ever tried office yoga?

What are your favorite poses?

 

Happy Yoga Monday – Karma Yoga 10/7

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Happy Yoga Monday!

Today’s blog celebrates the power of Karma Yoga, the practice of serving others. After I completed my yoga teacher training at Flow Yoga Center in 2006, I created a Karma Yoga project that allowed me to teach a free monthly yoga class to my local community members in Malcolm X – Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C.

Yoga Meetup Class in 2008
Yoga Meetup Class in 2008

In 2007, I joined Meetup.com to expand my Karma Yoga project’s audience and renamed it the Kind and Gentle C-OM-MUNITY Yoga  Meetup Group. This year, I am celebrating my 8th year of teaching community yoga classes. If you are in the DC area on October 27, join me for the fifth annual Frederica Leeke and Dorothy Gartin Breast Cancer Awareness Yoga Class from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Click here for more details.

What type of Karma Yoga projects are you involved in?

Happy Yoga Monday – Yogi Tea – Honey Lavender

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Photo Credit: http://shop.yogiproducts.com
Photo Credit: http://shop.yogiproducts.com

Happy Yoga Monday!

Today’s blog is all about my new favorite thing to sip after my evening yoga practice — Honey Lavender tea by Yogi Tea. Tranquility is the best word to describe this magical elixir of relaxation. Each tea bag has a special message attached to it that I use as an evening reflection. It helps me set the tone for a peaceful night’s sleep.

What do you like to drink after your yoga practice or class?