I Wrote a Book! Practical Yoga Nidra: A 10-Step Method to Reduce Stress, Improve Sleep, and Restore Your Spirit

Photo by Alex Adams

I’ve been so tight-lipped about some exciting news that I’ve almost given myself TMJ. Fortunately I’ve now been given the green light to open my mouth and tell you all about it.

Drum roll please…

I’ve written a book!

This spring, I was contacted by a publishing company who was curious if I might be the right person to write a book for them about Yoga Nidra. After a few phone interviews and me sending them a writing sample, we decided that we were a good fit for each other and we decided to push go on this project: Practical Yoga Nidra: A 10-Step Method to Reduce Stress, Improve Sleep, and Restore Your Spirit

What it’s about

Pre-order or Purchase your copy by clicking the above

This book is an easy-to-follow guide that gives you 10 steps to help you find wellness in body, mind, and spirit by developing an effective personal Yoga Nidra practice which you can start practicing from day 1. It’s written for both the total newbie as well as those in the know. In it, I break down each step, how it’s useful, and how to build a Yoga Nidra practice. I offer more than 20 Yoga Nidra meditation scripts that are each tailored to one of the 10 steps. You can read, record, and play back your own recordings for a relaxing and transformative Yoga Nidra meditation experience. At the end of the book, I put all the 10 steps together and give you a deeper, more integrated Yoga Nidra practice script to record. When all is said and done, you’ll have an impressive library of Yoga Nidra recordings.

I also share my own stories and experiences about life, Yoga Nidra, and mindfulness. Hopefully you will feel my nerdy personality come out through my writing. I wrote this book to put a very human face to an important but sometimes esoteric subject in order to help you create a simple practice that can transform your life. My deep desire is that this book teaches you more about yourself and through the process of reading about and practicing Yoga Nidra, you feel more alive, at peace, and excited about your life.

More about writing the book

Once my publisher and I ironed out the details, I had just about a month to write the thing, roughly three chapters a week. I spent many hours in outdoor cafes, holed up at the library, or at the kitchen table late at night pounding it out. For some authors, the writing process is easy—words flow from their minds onto the page in nice, coherent, and organized lines. Not me. For me, writing is hard work. I just don’t write good. But this book was different. It seemed to slide right out of my fingers onto the page. I felt a magical sense of flow while writing it.

Some mind-blowing things happened for me during my process of writing. Ignoring the fact that I wrote the entire thing in little over a month, one of the most profound things that happened was that I received some seriously prophetic and profound cosmic downloads about Yoga Nidra and the purpose of life during my writing process. I’m thrilled that those bolts of insight made their way into this book. I also often found myself writing this book in sense of timelessness. It’s very common to feel time dissolve during Awareness practices like Yoga Nidra, and writing this book was itself another deep practice of Awareness. It wasn’t so surprising that it had the same effect. It wasn’t until I was done writing that I realized the song I’d been listening to on repeat to put me into my writing trance was a jazz song called Timeless, by John Abercrombie. Obvious.That song must have repeated a thousand times and I’m sure I’ll always think of this book when I hear it.

It was a great pleasure to work with several editors and designers throughout this project. They were pleasant and professional and truly did stellar work with my book. I got misty-eyed the day that the graphic department sent me a visual copy of the book. They did a SMASH job and I feel that they made this book look as beautiful on the outside as the ideas and concepts within. I’m copiously proud of it and I hope you’ll love it, too.

Can I ask for your support?

So, I’m asking for your support. Pre-orders, early sales, and reviews make or break the success of a book in a publishers eyes. A physical book will be available December 10th, just in time for the holidays, BUT my book is available NOW to pre-order through Amazon. It only costs $12.99 and will look great in your library. Well worth it, in my humble opinion.

Would you mind showing me your support by taking a few seconds to click here and pre-purchase your copy of my book on Amazon? Maybe consider buying some as gifts for anybody you can think of who could use a dose of calm for the holidays.

As a way of saying thank you, if you send me a copy or screenshot of your purchase(s), I’ll give you a giant hug AND one free session to a live, virtual Yoga Nidra class. I’ll be starting these classes this Sunday, November 3rd at 9 am MST and they will be held online via Zoom at the same time each week. If it’s not this Sunday, let me know which one works for you. I’ll send you the nitty-gritty details when you let me know if you want to join. I’ll be recording each session so if the timing doesn’t work for you, I can still send you the recording of the class. These live, online classes will be a great opportunity to have a live Yoga Nidra practice with me. You can even ask questions about the book, if you want. This Sunday in class we’re exploring the theme Relaxed Alertness.

Thank You

Also, thank you for the great responses from the last email about which topics you’d like to see in the forthcoming volume of Yoga Nidra recordings. This is a completely different project than my book. Expect to see that available soon as a digital download.

Seriously, thank you for your unyielding support. Thank you for showing up for me as students, peers, and friends during my career of teaching yoga and mindfulness. It has truly been an illuminating and humbling process of coming to know myself and the Universe. One of the greatest things I’ve learned in this process is that we are all in this together.

Thank you and I love you.

And, I’ve already started writing my next book!

Online Yoga Nidra: The Practice That Makes You Whole

More than a decade ago, I took a Yoga Nidra training. If you’ve never done it, Yoga Nidra acts like a guided meditation where you lay down, become very relaxed, and listen to a facilitator guide you through deepening layers of Awareness. During my training, though I hadn’t done very much Yoga Nidra at all, I nonetheless experienced a session that led me through one of the most profound experiences of my life. It was cosmic. It was expansive. It was healing. It was pure happiness. The effect was like someone pulling back the curtain in Oz to reveal... ME. The TRUE me.

This was one of the experiences that told me that I’d be practicing, studying, and teaching Yoga Nidra for the rest of my life. Yoga Nidra has become a veritable passion of mine.

One of the things I love about Yoga Nidra is that you don’t need to “earn” you way to having a profound experience. Not that a dedicated practice of Yoga Nidra or any discipline isn’t very beneficial. It’s just that Yoga Nidra, maybe even on your first session ever, has the power to to remind you, by way of first-hand experience, of who you are.

Like it says over the gates at the Oracle of Delphi, “KNOW THYSELF.” Yoga Nidra acts like an oracle who tells you who you really are, whispers to you your destiny. Knowing who you are makes you whole. It puts you into a right perspective of your world, your problems, and your priorities. It shows you your heart’s gift to the world.

Yoga Nidra is an ancient practice that has found a renaissance today. It’s just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago because no matter when you live on this planet, one of humanity’s biggest problems has always been the simple but pervasive misapprehension that you are anything other than what you came from. In other words, Yoga Nidra’s superpower is to show you by direct experience that what you are is Source—call that whatever you want, a child of the Universe, a child of God, a child of Krusty The Clown—whatever.
With this sure knowledge of your True Being, you see your purpose and your life with immense clarity, beauty, and gratitude. With this sure knowledge, your entire life feels different. You don’t react to problems in the same way. You see a connectedness in everything. You begin to see everything as love.

And while not every person emerges from every Yoga Nidra session with a “hallelujah” on their lips, it’s nonetheless quite often a profound experience.

Yoga is defined classically as the “yoking” of all things to Oneness. Nidra literally means sleep but Yoga Nidra is more about waking up to your True Self than it is falling into a stupor. Nidra more appropriately means that hypnagogic state between dreaming and consciousness. When you are led into this relaxed state, you open yourself into a keener state of Awareness. Indeed you arrive to a place of deeply relaxed Awareness, the natural state of your True Self. In this state you can gain clarity, and find peace. You can heal physically, spiritually, mentally. Yoga Nidra is one practice that can help you feel yourself as Source, and as Source there’s nothing you can’t do, be, or love.

I’ve seen hundreds of people receive profound benefits from Yoga Nidra. Most of the time when I conduct a Yoga Nidra class, instead of telling students the benefits of Yoga Nidra, I ask those who have done it in the past to share what they’ve experienced by practicing it. My students have told me that Yoga Nidra has helped them with:

• Stress

• Sleep

• Productivity

• Relaxation

• Anger

• High blood pressure

• Depression

• Creativity

• Spirituality (whatever denomination or non-denomination you are)

• Performance

• Confidence

• Self-worth

• Trauma

• Happiness

• Love

• Forgiveness
  

So how does it work? How does lying down, getting relaxed, and listening to someone talk you through a meditation help you achieve these things? In Yoga Nidra, you practice heightened Awareness. This aligns you with your True Self because according to its ancient philosophy, at the end of the day, what you are is Awareness. Yoga Nidra differs from other forms of meditation in part because of its emphasis to identify the practitioner as Awareness itself. It can work these wonderful benefits through your life because when you experience yourself as Source, there’s nothing you lack. You can know that you are whole. Whole is another way of saying healed.

Practicing Yoga Nidra is easy. You simply lie down, become relaxed, and listen to a facilitator lead you into deepening layers of Awareness. It sounds crazy but it still works even if you fall asleep. The part of you that I’m speaking to in a Yoga Nidra meditation is still paying attention, even if your waking mind is sleeping. You don’t need to have ever practiced yoga or meditation to practice Yoga Nidra.

While practicing it is easy, teaching it effectively can be quite complicated. That’s why I’ve spent the last decade learning to teach this practice well, and have taught thousands of hours of Yoga Nidra in the process. I’ve even created an Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training that has trained people around the world to teach this practice in their own voice to benefit the lives of their students.

One thing that my students have asked for regularly is to curate a Yoga Nidra experience that focuses on a particular benefit, like stress, forgiveness, or sleep. I’ve taught many private sessions to individuals where we go into depth on a personal issue and use Yoga Nidra to help them find their own solace, calm, and peace. Yoga Nidra helps people heal themselves.

With the idea that there are many people who need something particular from a Yoga Nidra experience, I’ve decided to create a volume of Yoga Nidra recordings that can be accessed anytime. These recordings will vary in length from 15–35 minutes, and will be curated around an intent or goal. One session for managing anxiety, another to manage anger, another to practice compassion, etc.

This will be a volume of around 15 Yoga Nidra recordings that can be downloaded to a phone, computer, or tablet. It will also come with a nice and neat booklet that gives information and helpful tips on getting the most out of your Yoga Nidra practice, and some supplemental breathing and mindfulness practices.

I’m currently building this project and I’m taking suggestions for subjects. If there’s a Yoga Nidra practice you’d like to have access to regularly, please let me know what you want. Say you want a Yoga Nidra practice to help you relax at the end of the day. Maybe you want a Yoga Nidra practice to help you have focus and clarity at the beginning of the day. Maybe you work with insomnia and would love something to help you sleep better. I’m open to suggestions, so please let me know what you’d like.

I’m also going to start holding a regular, live Yoga Nidra class online at the same time each week. This is open to anyone, no matter where you live in the world, and will start with each person registering for each class as a drop-in. Class will cost $12. This online Yoga Nidra class will be starting Sunday, November 3rd at 9 am MST. You can do this class from the comfort of your own home, wherever you live in the world. Each class will have a brief discussion about Yoga Nidra, will be centered on a theme, and will include some mindfulness and breathwork practices. There will be a 30–40 minute Yoga Nidra practice with each online session. The entire session will last 60–75 minutes. These live sessions will give you the chance to share your experiences with Yoga Nidra with others and ask any questions.

I will be recording these classes so if you love the topic of the class but can’t make it, you can still register and have the recording after. Everyone who purchases the class will have access to the recording.

Also, if you think you could benefit from a private, one-one-one Yoga Nidra session with me, we can arrange a live, virtual session. Or maybe you have a very specific need for a Yoga Nidra recording. I can make you your own personal Yoga Nidra recording tailored to meet your specific needs.

If you love Yoga Nidra or are interested in any of these offerings please:

Email me at scott@scottmooreyoga.com and let me know if there’s a practice you’d like to see on this first volume of recordings.

Register for the live Yoga Nidra class on Sunday, November 3rd at 9:00 am MST

Contact me to book your own private Yoga Nidra session.

Fill out this form to request your own private Yoga Nidra recording tailored to your specific needs ($100)

Please enjoy this Free Yoga Nidra recording I made about connecting to the heart. This is powerful

The Poison That Makes Us Holy

Happy Monday! I hope your week is starting off marvelously.

This morning I dropped Elio off from school and then decided to walk around a bit to record the audio of this post. Ultimately, I decided not to use that recording because there was too much traffic and it was too distracting so I re-recorded this and I think that is better.

Elio is getting used to his new school and is still having a little bit of a problem using the bathroom by himself so some mornings, like this morning, I drop him off at school, go to the gym or do some work at a cafe, then head back to school to encourage him to use the bathroom.

As I was walking around this morning, not far from Elio’s school, there is a beautiful, modern cathedral here in Nice. It’s got a very unique, rounded architecture and it’s gleaming while. This cathedral is dedicated to the Saint of Joan of Arc.

If you don’t remember the story of Joan of Arc, she was a peasant girl in the 1400s who as a teenager received a revelation from God that she was supposed to lead the French army against the English and the Burgundians, a French dynasty who were at the time in league with the English and who today produce lovely wines— but that’s neither here nor there.

So against all rationale, the prince Charles of Valois agreed to allow Joan of Arc to lead the army. She did. They won. She was lauded and revered. Unfortunately, about a year later, she was captured by the English and the Burgundians and was burned at the stake as a heretic. She’s been held as someone very special to the spirit of France and it wasn’t until the 1920s that she was actually canonized and considered a saint and this church is dedicated to her.

I’m so happy that I walked by this church because it relates to the myth I want to tell today:

Today, I want to tell my rendition of the ancient Hindu myth about the Asuras and the Devas.

Long ago, in time out of mind, there were two groups of beings, the Asuras and the Devas. There couldn’t be a different sort of people. The asuras were earthly people, thought mostly of themselves, were a bit selfish. They probably loved Nascar, ate pork rinds, and didn’t recycle. The Devas on the other hand were beings that were very heavenly and always thinking of their inner divine nature. I imagine them dressed in gossamer white clothing, subsisting on tofu and vegetable broth, meditating for several hours a day, and leaving behind a faint smell of patchouli or incense whenever they left a room.

Well, those two kinds of being were about as opposite as you could imagine but they both wanted one thing and that was Soma. Soma was the elixur of eternal life. The Asuras wanted it because it felt so good to be eternal and the Devas wanted it so they could further devote themselves to the Divine. Now, the only way to get Soma was to ask Vishnu and if on the off chance that he granted you to have it, he would allow Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune and gifts to bestow it upon you.

So united in this common desire, the Asuras and the Devas got together and timidly asked Vishnu if they could have some Soma. He agreed but told them what they must do to get it. He was going to lend them his Sesha, Vishnu’s giant snake. They were to wrap this snake around a mountain which was to rest atop the giant tortoise Korma. If you’ve ever done Kormasana in yoga class, this is where that gets its name. Once the snake was wrapped around the mountain and placed on top of the Korma’s shell, they were to pull back and forth and oscillate it enough that they should somehow get the Soma. Grateful, the Asuras and the Devas agreed and began their task.

The Devas being smarter than the Asuras opted to take the relatively benign tail of the snake, which had but four ends which some Sanskrit scholars say relate to the 4 bases of DNA structure, something that the ancients discovered long before Watson, Crick, both of whom studied the work of their colleague Franklin. The Asuras therefore received the head end of the sesha and were blasted by countless heads of a snake, each one shooting fiery blasts like a dragon.

The Asuras and the Devas began to pull on the sesha with all of their might and in their lust for Soma, they started to pull so hard that the sesha, as strong and divine as a character as he may be, became nonetheless very ill and began to vomit venomous bile which started to cover and poison the entire earth. Seeing the problem, the Asuras and Devas stopped their movement and decided that something must be done before the entire earth is engulfed with this poison.

They weren’t about to go back to Vishnu. He was kind enough to let them have the chance to get Soma in the first place. They didn’t want to return to Vishnu and tell him how in their blind lust for Soma, they made his snake sick and now the entire earth was starting to be covered in poisonous puke. Instead, they importuned Shiva. They asked him if he could help them out.

Siva surveyed the situation and gathered up all of the bile and drank it, neither swallowing it to digest it nor spitting it back up. Siva held it in his throat and sanctified it, turning his throat blue.

Saved, the Asuras and the Devas continued their task, this time taking great care to have a balance between steadiness and ease. After they developed a good rhythm, eventually the sea began to boil and riches started popping up out of the ocean. Soma was about to come at any minute.

Vishnu decided to give them one last temptation to see if they were worthy of the Soma and he sent a temptations out to see if the Asuras and Devas really had purity in their hearts to receive the Soma. I imagine Vishnu sending onto the beach a bunch of speedo and bikini-clad partiers, barbecues wafting the smell of rib-eye steaks, not to mention volleyball nets, beers, and music. To the Devas he sent over all the unicorn amulets, treasure troves of yoga pants, sensible shoes, and all organic produce that a healthy, spiritual person could ever want.

Well, despite all of their efforts to get to that moment, the Asuras caved and headed to the beach for beers and babes. The Devas stayed and soon Lakshmi gave them each a single drop of Soma which turned them into immortal beings like angels.

I love myths like that because we can interpret them in many ways. They speak to a truth that is large enough mean something different fo whomever hears it, regardless of spiritual orientation, practice, discipline, or period of life.

I love the idea in this myth about the balance of steadiness and ease. In the Yoga Sutras, the book where we get a lot of the philosophy of yoga from, there are really very few instructions for how we are to practice yoga, the physical practice. It does say, however that no matter what, you’ve got to find the balance between steadiness and ease. Whatever your physical, spiritual, and I would even say political practice might be, this story illustrations the value of balance. What’s more is how when you’re trying to improve your situation but approach your improvement with a fundamental lack of balance, how that can make things worse off than they were before.

And when things are bad, and even when they seem like they are going to poison the entire world, like the snake’s venomous puke, that somehow the Divine can help you hold that in such a way as to sanctify it

You’ve probably heard me mention this more times than you can count but it is a truth that has become imperative to my own personal spiritual evolution, and that is Leonard Cohen’s lyric from his song Anthem that says, Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything and that’s how the light gets in. This says that just like the poison of whatever may befall us, we become sanctified, the light gets in, when we learn to hold our imperfections. That it’s because of these faults, this brokenness, this poison, that we are rendered holy.

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It makes me think of our situation with Elio, learning to use the bathroom by himself at school. How he is struggling being the only kid at school who doesn’t speak French and how he is learning to have more independence and things and how we are the unique family at school because we don’t quite understand exactly how things work yet, at least not like the other French families. But how me going back to school is strengthening him and teaching him and how it gives me an opportunity to build a rapport with the directorice of the school and talk with his teachers regularly. This is building a special relationship between our family and the school.

It also makes me think about Joan of Arc and how she was killed for fundamentally backward, misogynist, and in my mind evil reasons, but how her spirit has endured and how she’s given hope and courage to countless French people and how she was like the original Wonder Woman in some ways and that she’s become a divine symbol which celebrates a woman’s power, intuition, and spirit and which is so strong that it’s still celebrated 600 years later.

I hope you enjoyed the myth. I’d love to hear about what you heard in this myth.

I hope that you can find ways in your life to celebrate balance in all of your practices. I hope that you’ll be able to find the divinity in the challenges that beset you and see how that all of our challenges are making us into the greater angels of our True Nature.

I hope you have a great week. Please stay tuned for some Yoga Nidra offerings I am going to announce coming up.

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Global Story Jam

Photo by Sarah Wolfe

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I hope your week is starting off well. I hope you’re full of love and goodness and aware of your own innate awesomeness.

Terrible working conditions.

Here in Nice, it's starting to become autumn, my favorite season. Temperatures are still wonderful, hovering around the mid-70s. A little crisp in the morning, but often times I’ll be sitting outside writing at a cafe at 9 am sans jacket and it nonetheless feels balmy.

It’s feeling more and more like home in Nice. I loved going back to the states last month to teach and things but I gotta admit, it was great to get back to Nice. You know, moving to France has been much, much more work than being on vacation to France. Figuring out how to actually live in a new place has been sometimes difficult. Getting the essentials set up like establishing a bank account, getting an apartment, and enrolling Elio to school have been sometimes been bureaucratic nightmares. The stories I could share... But now, it feels like we got that stuff worked out and things are moving in a groove and I'm just really grateful to be here.

This week, I'm thinking about the end goal of yoga which is to yoke yourself to all things and in truth, come to know yourself as One. Seems like a lofty endeavor but I would proffer that the better you come to know your self, the more you'll see how similar you are to everyone around you—a unique expression of something vast and beautiful. As you come to know yourself, you'll start to see parts of yourself in everyone and everything.

Maybe this is why I love stories so much. There are few better ways to explore the our mutual connections by sharing and receiving each others stories. In an age where hate and division runs rampant, I believe that it's hard to hate someone when you know their story. I believe that stories dissolve hate by giving us a snapshot of the human behind every person's experience. I believe that human beings love to tell stories because it reminds us of who we are fundamentally.

When I was in New Jersey and New York last month offering workshops and visiting family, I had the great pleasure to be interviewed on Tiffany Curren's incredible podcast called Access + Expand. We share stories about what it means to teach yoga and mediation, the practicalities of being conscious beings, how to engage with our own humanity through meditation, yoga and breathwork, and simply about living a good life. I hope you'll take a moment to check it out.

And speaking of stories, NEXT Saturday, October 19th from 10 am to 12 pm MST I'm going to host my first ever virtual GLOBAL STORY JAM. This idea is inspired by Salt Lake City's own The Bee, an incredible storytelling event that I've had the pleasure of attending on several occasions. I have been so inspired by The Bee that I wanted to host my own storytelling event so last year I hosted a really special evening of storytelling where I told some heart-touching and hilarious stories about dying, deep revelations, and even one about why Heavy Metal matters. We laughed, cried, and had truly special evening. The picture at the top of this email or blog post was taken by Sarah Wolfe at that event.

I really wanted to do something like that again and being in France, I thought that we could do it live and virtual through an online platform called Zoom. This lets you join in to listen and share from wherever you are in the world. This is going to be so cool, please consider joining us.

I’m sure you have a story to tell. And if you don’t want to share a story, you’re still welcome to join and listen to others’ story. This will be a unique opportunity to connect to people world-wide.

The theme of the event is, SHOCKED: Electrifying Stories About Surprises, Revelations, and Rude Awakenings.

Here's how this works...

Click the register button below to register for the event ($10). Once you register, you’ll get a welcome email with some of the finer details, including the Zoom link. If you'd like to share a story, and I hope that you will, please either respond to this email or the welcome email and tell me that that you'd like to share a story. If we have more storytellers than there is time for I’ll pick random storytellers to share their story with us.

We'll all connect on Zoom at the same time. Zoom is easy to use. Each story teller will have 5 minutes to tell the their story. Around the world, we will listen and silently root for others as they tell their stories. We'll all do the same for you. This will be fun, funny, touching, and inspiring. Join me! You can enjoy this from the comfort of your own home.

Like they say on one of my favorite storytelling podcasts, “I hope you have a story-worthy week.”

I love to get your emails so if you have a great story and are NOT planning on joining me at the event or just want to drop a line and say hello, I’d love to hear from you.

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A Week of Yoga, Meditation, Luxury Accommodations and Exquisite Vineyards

June 13–19 2020

Simple Hacks That Can Make Your Yoga Practice More Effective

Guest post by Joniel Suezo

When you have an established yoga practice, sometimes it’s easy to become complacent. Not advancing or mixing up your practice can make your practice turn stale. Avoid this by seeking different ways to approach every yoga session and not being afraid to try new things.

Here are some simple hacks to become more effective and not get bored when you’re dedicated to yoga workouts as part of a total fitness routine.

Find a Routine that Works

Whilst you may include other types of exercises like spinning, jogging, rowing or even weightlifting, it’s still important to block out a period of time to perform yoga.

If you’re dedicated to committing time to yoga and wish to perform it one or more times per week, then add a block of time to your calendar reflecting that decision. Even if something comes up, just relocate that block to another day that week. After all, you cannot become more effective at yoga if you practice it too infrequently.

Let Your Body Dictate What You Can Do

When you enjoy variety in your yoga routine but lack confidence, don’t let your mind hold your progress back. Instead, trust your body to dictate what poses you can try and those that are best avoided for now.

It’s all too easy to talk yourself out of doing things in life. Yoga is no different. Apply the ‘try it and see’ approach to living. When you see that you’re able to do more than you thought possible, take that discovery into other areas of your life too.

Gain Fluidity by Moving Smoothly Through Different Poses

To gain fluidity, it’s useful to intentionally move through a series of yoga poses once you’ve mastered them.

The idea with this type of movement is to get your body warmed up. It’s simpler to do than trying to hold a difficult, stagnant pose for a period of time. The ligaments, tendons, and joints become better lubricated through this type of continuous flowing motion. It’s also less likely to cause a fresh injury compared to trying to stay in a fixed pose.

For muscular development without building mass, moving through different positions in a sequence creates healthier muscles and active strength. Many yoga poses include movements that mimic everyday life, so running through a sequence feels comfortable. Doing repetitive movements with yoga poses can cause problems for tight muscles. By contrast, going through a smooth routine allows tension to get released.

Increase the Intensity

To really get your heat levels up and your sweat on, it’s time to mix it up. You’ll sweat more with a sauna vest than when wearing regular workout gear. They’re made of Neoprene which is extremely snug and comfortable. As you try out different positions, it will amplify the experience because it gets you hotter, faster. Sweating more during a workout is cleansing for the body, and your skin cells, especially.

Refuel with drinking water to rebalance after the workout.

Avoid Abandoning Fixed Poses Too Quickly

Don’t be in a hurry to move onto a new routine. Once you are comfortable within each pose and moving between them with ease, you’re not done yet.

It’s time to work on your form and get better alignment. If you want to, attend a yoga class and practice a new pose as if it’s your first attempt. Study each small element and the little nuances that you were unable to spot when first learning it. Get the details right which will lead to a more refined position. Focus on excellence; not knowing several poses that you can perform in an average way.

Raise your yoga game!

With a few simple hacks, a staid yoga practice can become new again. Then enthusiasm will return, and progress will be made once more.

Nice to Be Back: A Return Trip from Hell

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Photo by Alex Adams

I’m sitting at a park in Nice having just arrived home on Wednesday after the a return trip from hell.

I left for Salt Lake City airport at 8:30 am Monday morning and didn’t arrive in Nice for another 42 hours. I had 4 legs of the journey (I know, the added price of a cheap airline ticket is the pain-in-the-ass tax) My second leg was delayed significantly—I had to hang at Oakland International for 12 hours! From Oakland I flew to Stockholm and was able to catch an earlier flight toward my next connection in Copenhagen in the stretched out saga to get back to my loves in Nice but the airline had scheduled me to land and catch my next flight with only 15 minutes to get from one gate to the next and the gate was all the way across to the other side of the airport. I landed in Copenhagen, rushed off the plane and sprinted like an airport olympian. I made it to the gate in record time but nonetheless got there right as the plane was scheduled to depart. They’d closed the boarding and even though the plane was sitting there, staring at me smugly through the window, they wouldn’t let me board. Then, to add insult to injury, they said that the next flight to Nice wasn’t until the following day and that I’d have to spend the night in Copenhagen. Then, if this weren’t bad enough, they didn’t know where my bag was so I had to go to the hotel without a change of clothes or my toothbrush.

And as I was walking through the Copenhagen airport, tired and cranky, I reminded myself over and over the essential lesson I learned from Lionel Richie which is, “I don’t need to have an opinion about this. It’s all just information. I’ll just make the situation worse by complaining about it. Just do whatever you need to in order to get to the hotel.” Once I got the the airline fix-it desk, they had a hotel voucher waiting for me, they had arranged a taxi ride both to the hotel and back to the airport for me, and had given me a meal voucher. When I got to the hotel I was pleased that it was lovely and before long, I was relaxing in a nice, quiet, and comfortable room having showered and lounging in bed with room service and Netflix. I thought to myself, I’d rather be snuggling with my loves in Nice but I gotta say, as a consolation, this really isn’t bad. I turned off the lights and sank into an incredibly soft bed in a wonderfully quiet room.

The change of timezones caused me to wake up at 4 am feeling rested and alert and I enjoyed the quiet of the morning with a very centering 30-minute meditation. I’m in the middle of my 30-day meditation challenge and I’m loving the ritual of a daily meditation. After another shower, coffee, and breakfast, I decided to go on a walk through Copenhagen before I took a taxi back to the airport. I immediately fell in love with Copenhagen. The early-autumn morning was cool and crisp having rained much of the night before. To me it looked like everyone had just walked out of the European equivalent of an Eddie Bower magazine. And one of the things that struck me was the bike lanes teaming with cyclists on their way to work. People were friendly and polite and my walk completely set my mood for my final flight back to Nice.

Despite rush hour traffic, I got the airport in plenty of time. The Copenhagen airport has got to be the friendliest, cleanest, most modern and civilized airports in the world. Have you been there? The security lines were quick, automated, and efficient and the personnel were all smiles and courtesy, a stark contrast to the TSA in the Oakland airport who barked orders at the long lines of doe-eyed travelers. After going through security, which was decidedly a pleasant experience, I had plenty of time to wander around the airport. This airport was lovely! If I lived in Copenhagen, I would almost want to buy an airplane ticket somewhere just so I could have an excuse to hang out at the airport, it was that nice.

I got on my last flight without issue and landed in Nice. It was so great to get back. Funny how even though I’ve only lived in Nice for 8 months it felt so much like coming home when I saw that beautiful coastline and azure waters out of the airplane window. As I stepped off the plane, I was met with warm and slightly humid air and I took a fat breath in followed by a sigh of relief. They had found my bag and I was grateful for that. I jumped on the tram and it made for a very easily trip to our apartment. Seneca and Elio met me at the tram stop and as soon as I stepped off Elio saw me at ran, jumped in my arms and held on tight and didn’t let go for several minutes. We had a lovely 3-way hug for a long wile, reuniting and kissing and loving each other. I’d been gone for almost 5 weeks, waaay too long, and it was such a beautiful reunion.

We changed apartments since I left for the states and Sen and Elio took me back to our new digs and showed me around. It’s small and quaint but works great for our family. It’s in a part of town we love and we’re quite happy there.

The weather is lovely in Nice, in the mid-70s and sunny. Sen made us a lovely lunch of salad and lentil soup and after we strolled down to the beach and sat on a straw mat as we opened a bottle of Rosé. Then Elio stripped down to his unds and I rolled up my pants as we waded into the surf and I threw rocks into the ocean.

It’s so nice to be back with my loves. I love France!

It’s great to be back and I also loved being in the States! I really loved teaching all the classes, workshops, trainings and retreats. I really had a marvelous time. This adventure in France has been really wonderful and has given me an opportunity to focus on my writing. I spent a good part of the summer on a writing project that I’ll let you know about soon. I can’t say much about it yet but I recently sent my final edits off to a publisher so if it all goes as planned, I’ll have a big announcement by the end of the year. So that’s thrilling. More about that later . . .

I taught a yoga retreat with my dear friend Kim in Tuscany this summer and have been teaching a few classes at a studio in Nice but have been spending most of my working time writing and supporting my online offerings like my Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training. So it was nice to come back to the states and do a lot of teaching. It was really great to connect with friends and students and it was great to be reminded that my teaching makes a difference to people. I can’t tell you what that means to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So, now that I’m back in France, what’s next for me . . .

Luxury Yoga Retreat at a Bordeaux Château

Well, if you haven’t heard already, I’m hoping that you’ll join me for my next big European yoga retreat in June of 2020. I’ve always wanted to host a yoga retreat at a Chateau in France. I lived in Bordeaux for 2 years more than 20 years ago, that’s how I learned to speak French. I absolutely adore this region and I’ve always thought that it would be such an adventure to revisit and host a yoga retreat. So, I researched online and found THE PERFECT place and this spring, Sen, Elio, and I drove out there to see for ourselves if it was as good as it looked online. And it was like 10x better than it looked online. This place has been owned by the same family for more than 400 years and was sold to the current owners about 20 years ago who renovated it, keeping its natural splendor but updating it, sprucing it up, and adding a few essentials like a beautiful indoor yoga room as well as an outdoor yoga deck. Oh, and an incredible swimming pool outdoors. This place has an incredible history including underground tunnels which were used to hide people in the 100 years war as well as allied spies in WWII. I’m billing this yoga retreat as a “luxury” yoga retreat. You’ve got to see the bedrooms in this place, each one looks like it should be a suite in the most expensive French hotel ever. The pictures are absolutely amazing and rest assured that they don’t do this place justice.

So, at this retreat we’re going to spend 6 days together doing all-levels yoga, breath work, meditation and Yoga Nidra and also enjoying ourselves as we lounge around the pool, take French cooking classes, and if you want to, biking around and exploring the vineyards and countryside. We are going to take a day-excursion to one of Bordeaux’s most notable vineyards, the world-class Saint-Émilion. We’ll also have a sommelier come in to the chateau for our own private wine tasting. I find that wine pairs very well with Yoga.

The theme for this retreat will be learning to savor your life with presence. The idea is that without presence even a life-changing retreat in France will go unnoticed. With presence, everything in your life is a miracle. Many of the spots are sold already but I still have some left. Don’t worry about the time off work, I spoke to your boss and they said that it’s fine to have the time off. Also, this retreat is set up really well for you if you wanted to bring a friend, spouse, or partner. Maybe you’re celebrating an anniversary, or a special birthday, or just want a mindful and delicious vacation your favorite person ever. Plan on this joining me. If your special person doesn’t do yoga, no worries. They can come and enjoy all of the OTHER, amazing things in this area.

This retreat is going down during the best week of the year to be in France— it’ll be from June 13–19 of 2020.

AND, since I love France and have come to love Paris so much, I’m also offering a Prelude in Paris, it’s a three-day pre-treat al personally guided walking tour through some of my favorite places in Paris. I’ll personally walk you around and show you some of my favorite neighborhoods, some of the lesser-known but fascinating corners of that incredible city, as well as some of the best museums, quaint cafes, and best shopping spots in perhaps the most romantic city in the world. Then, when that’s done, we can take a short flight or train ride from Paris down to Bordeaux for the Chateau retreat.

Even though this is going to be a luxury retreat, I’ve still priced this to be affordable. I’ve got a few spots left and I’d love to have you join me. Please go to scottmooreyoga.com, under Courses, Retreats, and Events, go to Bordeaux Yoga Retreat, and make your deposit for this adventure. This will certainly be epic and I want you to come so do what you need to do to make this happen.

New Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

Also, I wanted to tell you that the last few days that I was in Salt Lake City, I connected with my friend and filmmaker, Natalie Cass to film a new Online Yoga Nidra teacher training. A while ago I launched an online Yoga Nidra teacher training and I’ve been immensely pleased by all the responses I’ve received. I’m thrilled that people from all over the world are discovering this training and using it to learn how to teach what I feel is one of the most fascinating practices EVER in a way that trains people to deliver this practice uniquely and with their own voice.

I’m always looking for ways to make my offerings better and better so I thought I’d take the time to take this Online Yoga Nidra teacher training to the next level. I just barely filmed it and I’m looking forward to the editing process. I am organizing this training to be more comprehensive, more accessible, and frankly, more beautiful.

This training will be a multi-media experience that gives you a ton of information about the in-depth philosophy behind Yoga Nidra as well as how to teach it effectively. There will be easily digestible videos, a full Yoga Nidra library, PDFs, handouts, stories, chants, links, and other stuff to give you an excellent Yoga Nidra education. By the end of the training, you’ll get a certificate of completion and you’ll have all the tools and experience necessary to teach Yoga Nidra with your own voice. It even counts as continuing education hours with Yoga Alliance. If you’re interested in learning more about Yoga Nidra check it out. Plus, if you register for my existing training which is already amazing, as soon as the new training is done, you’ll get the second one FOR. FREE.

New Yoga Nidra Course Coming…

Also, If you’re interested in how Yoga Nidra can benefit your every-day life but not necessarily interested in teaching it, I’ll be offering a new Yoga Nidra course next month so stay tuned for that, it’s going to be amazing.

Global Story Jam

So, I’m a storyteller at heart and whenever I’m in Salt Lake City, I love to attend a storytelling event called the Bee. On several occasions I’ve told stories there, along with several other storytellers, in front of hundreds of people and I did so recently just before leaving Salt Lake CityI had such a blast doing it. The Bee archives many of the stories so if you ever want to hear some of those stories I’ve told you can click the link here.

Anyway, several months ago, I hosted what’s called a Speakeasy, where I invited a bunch of people to get together at a friend’s house and we all brought drinks and food to share and I spent the evening telling some truly heart-felt stories. We cried and laughed together and had a very special evening and by the end of the evening I felt very close to everyone.

I’d love to do another storytelling event but this time with a different twist. This time I’d like to invite you to tell the stories. I’m calling it Global Story Jam. My vision is to have a global storytelling event where everyone who wants to can share a story based on the theme: Shocked. It’ll be a live, virtual storytelling experience and it’s going to be incredible. What we’ll do is log on to zoom all across the world at the same time and everyone who wants to tell a story will submit their names to be selected randomly. I’ll announce names in real-time and that person can tell their stories. Everyone will get 5 minutes to tell a story. It’s going to be so much fun! This will be Saturday, October 12th at 10 am to 12 pm MST (you can do the math for whichever time zone you live in).

200-Hr. Yoga Teacher Training Certification

Another project I’ve been working on this summer is to get approved to be a registered yoga school with Yoga Alliance. I’ve created curriculum for universities which was a piece of cake compared to the effort of getting my curriculum approved for Yoga Alliance. Anyway, if you’d like to study with me and earn your 200-hr Yoga Alliance teacher certification, let me know. I’d like to start a program around the beginning of the year. I’d like to gauge interest on this so give me a shout out if you would like to do something like this.

Yoga Teacher Mentor Program

If you’re already a yoga teacher and would like to up-level your teaching with a private teacher mentor program I’ve also got one or two spots open. Maybe you need to gain confidence as a teacher and get some personalized feedback about your teaching. Maybe you’d like to learn how to conduct workshops, masterclasses, and retreats. Maybe you need help getting you yoga teaching business up to speed. I’ve mentored many teachers who’ve been interested in improving their teaching. If you’re interested we’ll chat and see if we are a right fit for each other. Then, what I’ll have you do is take a strengths test to illuminate to us both how you operate best. Then we figure out your long-term and short-term goals and from there we set up regular appointments where my job is to give you information and encouragement and accountability as you steadily work toward those goals. My goal is to have this mentorship pay for itself right away as the result of your improved teaching and teaching opportunities that result from this mentorship and of course have this new information surge you forward in your career. Often times, what I’ve found is that existing teachers don’t need another training to know more, they need a mentorship with someone who’s doing what they’d like to be doing. If that speaks to you, please let me know. I’d love to work with you and help you shape your own teaching. I believe that you have unique gifts that allow you to teach people in only the way that you can. Let’s work together to get your voice heard.

There are more things I’d love to tell you about but they’ll have to wait.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for all of your love. Thanks as always for pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.

My New Online Yoga Nidra Training!!

Here’s what people are saying about my existing training and the new one is only going to get better.

I’ve just spent the last few days filming a NEW Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training. I can’t believe how much hard work it is to film but I know that it’s going to be worth it.

“As a yoga teacher, I always enjoyed guiding people through meditation and into savasana. I thought that I was guiding similar to Yoga Nidra the whole time. Still, I knew that more education would benefit me, so I registered for Scott Moore’s Yoga Nidra course. It blew my mind. I had no idea that Nidra was different than guided meditation. I loved learning about the structure of the practice, it’s benefits, and all off the important aspects of this incredible healing practice. Scott is a fabulous teacher. I love the conversational way that he teaches, and found his comparisons to the Matrix to be funny, but also very contemporary and present. I also wrote down a lot of what he said, to quote him. I have to say, this has become my favorite yoga practice, both to teach and to take. I highly recommend Scott Moore’s Yoga Nidra course. Don’t sleep on this! (pun intended)”

— Tiffany Curren RYT 200, Breathwork Healer + Reiki Practitioner

“I recommend this Yoga Nidra Teacher Training to absolutely everyone- and I have! Whether or not you plan on actually teaching- this practice is something that everyone needs. We all need to tune in deeper and into our true selves. I have found peace and an uncluttered mind in this practice- it is the most beautiful thing. Scott’s passion for Yoga Nidra is evident in the careful construction of the information as well as the organic flow of the conversation that he facilitates. The information and training was so easy to follow, which isn’t always the case in an online training scenario. He brought up engaging and provocative points and always applied the information back into everyday life. I left the training feeling very confident in my ability to lead classes and to help individuals get to a point where they can truly discover themselves. This training is 100% life changing and totally worth it. ”

— Robyn Hiebert

“I was so happy to find Scott offered a Yoga Nidra Teacher training course online! I am a certified meditation instructor and I really wanted to add Yoga Nidra to my repertoire as it has been life changing for me. I found it very easy to register and I received all the materials I needed to participate right away. I registered at the end of July and made my own sort of ‘Immersion Weekend” and learned so much! Scott’s inclusive style of teaching also made me feel like I was attending the weekend in person-it was a wonderful experience. I found his course very detailed and informative. Scott’s presentation of the material makes it easily understood and his teaching style is very engaging and down to earth. I really enjoyed the Yoga Nidra meditations he facilitated and came away from my “Immersion Weekend” feeling refreshed, renewed, and ready to share this lovely practice. I appreciate so much that Scott offers this unique online training! ”

— Erika Gargis

Several months ago, I launched an online Yoga Nidra teacher training and I’ve been immensely pleased by all the responses I’ve received. I love that people from all over the world are discovering this training and using it to learn how teach this essential practice in a way that is unique and with their own voice.

I’m always looking for ways to make my offerings better and better . . .

My New Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

I’ve been living in France all year and on a trip back to the States to do some live Yoga Nidra trainings, retreats, and workshops, I thought I’d take the time to take this Online Yoga Nidra teacher training to the next level. I just finished filming (yesterday) and I’m looking forward to the editing process and organizing this training to be more comprehensive, more accessible, and frankly, more beautiful.

What’s In This New Training

I’m almost giddy at what this training will offer. Here’s what the training will offer. Check it out, you’ll get:

• In-depth videos about learning the philosophy of Yoga Nidra, what Yoga Nidra is pointing to so you know how to personalize your practices rather than repeating some rote version of Yoga Nidra. You’ll learn about:

  • What is Yoga Nidra: Waking from the dream into a truer reality?

  • Coming to know your True Self through Yoga Nidra

  • The True Self vs. The Ego

  • Coming to know your Both And Nature

  • Not identifying as your opinions

  • An in-depth study of the Koshas and how they guide us through our Yoga Nidra experience

  • Stages and states of consciousness.

• Teaching videos that teach you all about the ins and outs of actually teaching a Yoga Nidra class including

  • A Yoga Nidra Roadmap that will guide your teaching

  • Your role as a teacher and creating a good learning environment

  • How Yoga Nidra can be used for profound healing

  • Using binaries, visualizations to get into a flow state

  • How Yoga Nidra releases oxytocin and serotonin into your brain.

  • Best teaching practices

  • How to make a Yoga Nidra successful class at your yoga studio

• Chants, myths, stories, and mantras

• A vast Yoga Nidra Audio Library

• A 50+-page manual to help guide your learning

• Several Yoga Nidra scripts that you can use to teach Yoga Nidra from day 1 and which serve as guides to help you build your own practices from your own voice.

• PDFs that you can print out and give to your students that explain:

  • pre-Nidra breathing techniques

  • Easy, pre-Nidra mindfulness practices

  • Chakra Charts

  • An easy to follow Yoga Nidra roadmap to guide your teaching

• Helpful links to other interviews, podcasts, articles, blog posts, poems, etc.

• A certificate of completion upon finishing the training

Buy the Current Training and Get BOTH!

I believe in making these trainings as affordable as possible. For my current Online Yoga Nidra training, I only charge $295. For the new and improved training with so much more content, for a limited time I’m still only charging $295. PLUS, if you buy my current online training, as soon as I get the new one all built, you can have the new one COMPLETELY FREE.

With the current online Yoga Nidra training you still get:

• 20-hrs audio/video training that:

  • Allows you to study at your own pace.

  • Gives you thoughtful, real conversations about both profound and practical Yoga Nidra philosophy

  • In-depth instruction and best practices for how to effectively teach Yoga Nidra from your own voice

  • Video demonstrations for how to do 1:1 Yoga Nidra dyads

  • How to employ Yoga Nidra into a regular asana class

• In-depth discussion about all the above content done in a group class setting.

• The same 50+-page manual

• Yoga Nidra scripts to start teaching Yoga Nidra on day 1

• Helpful links to articles, blogs, podcasts, books, poetry

• A vast Yoga Nidra library of dozens of recordings to both practice Yoga Nidra as well as to learn how to develop your own voice in Yoga Nidra

It's Never Too Late: Starting Your Yoga Practice as an Older Adult

Guest Post by Joniel Suezo

Yoga is something that can offer a huge range of benefits. It can help you improve your strength, balance and posture, improve your muscle tone, and can also help you combat stress and sleep better. Yoga can start with easy movements that are relaxing and invigorating and progress to more challenging poses making it a satisfying activity that allows you to see your progress quickly.

There are dozens of styles of yoga to match and complement your current level of experience or fitness. This fact makes yoga a great choice for seniors who are looking for a good health practice. Of course with any activity one must be cautious, especially if you are an older person. Here is our advice on how to get started in regular yoga practice as an older adult:

Get an Instructor - at Least at First

You may be able to find DVDs or online video yoga workouts that look easy enough to follow, or even try and learn it from books or from things like the Wii Fit! However, as a beginner you will benefit greatly from having one-on-one attention to gain personalized instruction about the proper form which is right for you. Without skillful instruction you could risk injuring yourself. You may want to do this by attending a class or having private sessions with a yoga trainer, but either way, do not attempt to do any new poses on your own or using videos as guidance until you've had them shown to you properly. After that, videos and apps can be a good way to structure your home yoga workouts if you want them.

Make Sure You Are Safe

If you are beginning a home practice, make sure to have safeguards in place in case you fall or injure yourself. The best way to do this is to get a health monitoring alert system, which will make sure you get help if you run into any trouble. Avoid potentially risky poses but it is best to know you'll get help if you accidentally fall and can't get up. Details on Bay Alarm Medical, which is one of your options, can be found here.

Set Some Goals

It is best to know what you want to get out of your yoga. If you want to build a routine where you include some yoga every day, then it is good to think about when you want to do this, and set yourself goals to make room for your yoga workout each day. If you want to use yoga to improve an aspect of your physical health, for instance to get more toned muscles, to alleviate pain, or to increase flexibility, then it is also worth thinking about these objectives as they can inform what kind of yoga poses and stretches are best for you to focus on, and how much you should be doing.

So, if you are ready to get started, why not look for a yoga teacher in your area today, and begin your journey?

Finding Relief from Chronic Conditions with Yoga

Guest Post by Joniel Suezo

A chronic condition or illness is a health problem that is long-lasting or persistent and significantly disrupts an individual’s way of life. Chronic health conditions can develop in time, but the term is generally applied to a condition after around three months of severe symptoms. There are many different types of chronic conditions, from arthritis to diabetes, and according the the National Health Council around 40 percent of the American population is currently diagnosed with ongoing and often incurable chronic diseases.

Suffering from a chronic condition is often a difficult diagnosis to get your head around and more people are finding solace and relief from their conditions in yoga. Many people have found yoga to be a helpful tool when it comes to improving their overall wellbeing and easing common chronic symptoms such as anxiety, stress, and pain. Therefore, if you suffer from a chronic condition and are interested in finding relief, here are some of the ways that yoga may be able to help you.

You Can Take Yoga at Your Own Pace

When you suffer from a chronic condition, you can often find that medical professionals encourage you to get involved in physical activity and exercise, in order to help ease any pain or other symptoms that you suffer from. However, having a chronic illness can make this difficult as your symptoms can change from one day to the next. Even though one day you can feel great and able, the following day you can be in the middle of a flare-up and unable to move. Yoga can be very beneficial because it encourages you to listen to your body and set your own comfortable limitations for each posture that feels right for you.

Anyone Can Get Involved

Despite your age or health condition there is a style of yoga that will help you benefit physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you enjoy practicing yoga on your own and maybe suffer from arthritis, you might consider investing in a medical alert system, you can safely practice yoga. These alert systems are good for active seniors who live alone.

Yoga Can Help You Cope with Chronic Illness

Having a chronic condition can be life-changing, and not always in a positive way, so it is natural for you to feel like you need your own coping mechanisms to get you through the bad times. There are many different elements of yoga, from hatha yoga which focuses on the physical type of yoga, to restorative yoga which focuses on deep relaxation. Therefore, no matter what chronic illness you suffer from, there is a strand of yoga that you will be able to benefit from.

Clears Your Mind

Research has shown that there can be a link between suffering from a chronic illness and having difficulties with your memory, due to symptoms such as stress and phases of slow cognition. Therefore, yoga can provide you with the much-needed opportunity to clear your mind and fully relax. With the added pressures that a chronic condition puts on your everyday life, such as medication side effects, yoga is a great chance to breathe, relax, and refocus your mind on things other than the constant health problem that you are suffering from.

Living with a chronic condition isn’t easy, so it is important that you find relief wherever you can, and by engaging in yoga you will be able to take the time for yourself that you need, while also engaging in a form of exercise that may help to ease your symptoms.

Safely Getting On The Mat After An Injury

Guest post written by Joniel Suezo

Yoga practitioners are able to reap a number of significant benefits from their practice. Evidence abounds showing that yoga can improve both our physical and mental health and many people are turning to it as an adjunct to other physical or psychological therapies.

However, because yoga can be quite physically demanding, depending on the style of yoga, even a relatively minor injury can make it impractical or impossible to run through your usual yoga practice. If you are recovering from an injury but can’t wait to get back on the mat, here’s what you need to know to do so safely.

Don’t Let Your Injury Dominate Your Life

When your body is healing from an injury, it can sometimes affect your entire life in ways that you aren’t prepared for, especially if you’re a daily practitioner. Even the smallest of injuries, whether yoga related or not, can make the most mundane activities difficult.

If your injury means that you have to take some time away from your yoga practice, it can sometimes have an impact on your emotional health. After all, many of us take up yoga as a way of improving our mental health and generally reducing stress in our lives. It’s normal to want to get back to the mat ASAP but you need to let yourself heal sufficiently. While you are healing, find something to replace yoga so that you aren’t always thinking about your injury.

Make Sure You Feel Safe

If you do suffer a serious injury while doing yoga, you might be nervous about getting back into it. Similarly, if you sustained your injury off the mat, you might be worried about whether your body is still up to yoga.

If you are are concerned about your ability to respond to an injury whether on or off the mat, you may consider a medical alert device. Should you become injured and are immobilized, your medical alert device can summon help for you. If you are looking for a medical alert device, you might compare Life Alert to Bay Alarm Medical and decide which of these reliable systems is best for you.

Restore Yoga

Consult a Doctor or Physical Therapist

When an injury is keeping you from doing the thing that you’re most passionate about in life, it is only natural to want to get over it and get back to your old routine as soon as possible. However, even if you think you are fine if your doctor or physical therapist has advised you to avoid straining the injured area, follow their advice.

You may well feel like everything is fine, but lots of us have made the mistake of working out with an injury that was so close to being healed that we assumed it wouldn’t matter. Big mistake! If there is any doubt at all in your mind as to whether your injury is fully healed or not, err on the side of caution.

Work on Areas That are Unaffected

Depending on the nature of your injury, you may still be able to do some yoga while you are healing, but you may need to be sensitive to the injured areas. You may also consider choosing a style of yoga that is more gentle like Restore yoga or Yoga Nidra. Some people find that they feel depressed and suffer from anxiety when they aren’t able to practice yoga. Others have this kind of reaction to any unexpected and unwanted change in their daily routine. Doing a some yoga might help with this but make sure you’re listening to your body and avoid any sort of strain or pain, especially when recovering from an injury. Also, if you’re practicing at a studio, alert your teacher of your injuries so hey can help to provide support and modifications for your practice.

Injuries are tough. Please remember that it you go back to the mat too soon you could exacerbate your injury and end up having to spend even more time recuperating. Don’t rush into things and make sure to always listen to your body.

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On The Corner of Justice and Compassion: Audio

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As I write this, I'm sitting at a cafe in Manhattan called Nice Matin (Morning in Nice) at the corner of Amsterdam Ave and 80th. It's crazy cuz my beautiful wife and adorable kid are back in Nice and I'm in NYC at a cafe called Nice Matin thinking about them. My little guy started preschool today and I was heartbroken not to be there with him.

I'm aware of other crossroads too, particularly that intersection of life and death. I'm only a few blocks from where John Lennon was shot and killed. I'm drinking a glass of Chardonnay because a few weeks ago was the 3-year anniversary of my sister's death. She died not long after we'd visited NYC together. Chardonnay was her favorite.

It has me thinking about all the crossroads I'm experiencing in my life and I thought I'd share a story today about the crossroads between justice and compassion. I think you'll like it.

While I'm in NYC I'm teaching a Yoga Nidra for Happiness workshop at Pure Yoga on Wednesday evening and a Freeing Breath and Yoga Nidra workshop with Tiffany Curren at Nirvana Wellness in New Jersey on Thursday evening. On Friday I'll be teaching a Glow Yoga event at Rose Wagner Theater and on Saturday I'll be teaching a 2-day silent retreat. All of these events have room in them, though many are nearly full. Visit my calendar to get more information and to register.

Last year I was walking to meet my dad for lunch while listening to voicemails. I was alarmed to get a message from the Salt Lake City Police Department. We live within spewing distance of a hospital and the officer in the voicemail informed me that someone that morning had left the ER feeling, “grumpy” and decided to bash in my truck’s passenger window with a rock outside my house. After a moment to process this information, I decided that it was decidedly glass-shattering only and not earth-shattering. I hung up the phone and I said out loud to myself, “Meh. I’ll fix the window. I’ve been dealt worse. Next, please.” And with that continued down the street toward enchiladas and my dad.

Perhaps I’ve become immune to the mishaps of Nina, my trusty, rusty truck. This is the second time that someone has purposely broken my passenger-side window. And two years ago this same truck was stolen right out of my hands—literally, I was holding onto it as it went.

Nina was found almost a month later but without a catalytic converter and a stereo, which incidentally was already broken so I guess the joke’s on him. Instead of grand theft auto, it was more like mediocre theft auto.

Between vandalism, theft, and occasionally breaking down, it sometimes feels like my truck is cursed. But then I have to remember the fact that my truck was very generously GIVEN to me with no strings attached at a desperate time of my life and for over 10 years it’s been fairly reliable. With all of its bumpy roads, and despite logic or reason, one thing about this truck is true: This. Truck. Won’t. Die. Regardless, I plan on finding an auto-shaman to smudge it or conduct some sort of auto-exorcism.

While I decided to respond to the news of my broken window with a, “Meh,” to say that I was entirely nonplused about my broken window would be to largely oversimplify my emotions. I was relieved that the call from the police revealed something as benign as a broken window but money was tight and I was not jazzed about paying for a new window simply because someone couldn’t deal with feeling, “grumpy” in a way that was more productive than bashing in my window. After a little more thought about my broken window and what it would cost to fix, I started to get fully pissed off.

I teach yoga and mindfulness for a living yet I’m not immune from feeling anger. I believe the mindful approach to anger is not to ignore nor react to it but instead to acknowledge and to respond to it with my whole body, mind, and spirit. If anger arises in me, I must satisfy the animal instinct of that energy maybe by busting out some yoga postures, crush up a hill on a run, or by sitting in my truck alone (preferably with all the windows intact) and screaming all the four-letter words I know, four-letter words other than love, hope, . . . and nice.

Bordeaux Château Yoga Retreat

June 13–29, 2020

But before I teach others about the mindful approach to anger, I have to do the work on myself. One thing I’ve learned from yoga as well as many misguided years of trying to “control” my emotions, is that everything is connected and if my body can’t express emotions, then they will shut off or express themselves in other ways which are usually destructive or alienating.

One beautiful reward of this inner-work is the love I have developed for all emotions, including anger. I’ve learned that every emotion is a powerful tool that helps ground me to the present moment. As I work to understand my True Identity, that biggest part of me which can’t be defined by where I live, what degree I have, or which kind of car I drive (or don’t drive if it’s been recently stolen), the more I feel comfortable when an emotion rolls by because I know that I don’t have to define myself by that emotion. This emotion is just doing a drive-by and like everything else in this dynamic universe, it will eventually pass on down the road.

Knowing that this emotion will soon drive away actually frees me up to truly experience it to the fullest. It takes practice but when I feel anger, I try to experience the feeling to the fullest, to be grounded by it, rendered present by it, and then hopefully respond to it by maybe busting out some sun salutations or strapping on my running shoes and going for a run for an incredible release. All in a good day.

Back to the broken window . . . After first hearing about my broken window and deciding that it wasn’t a life-ending tragedy, the reality of the situation began to set in. I started to think about who bashed in my window, how even if they did catch the guy, that chances were that I’d have to go through the effort and pay to have the window fixed. I started to get pissed.

But fortunately, after only a few minutes of fantasizing about retribution, what I’d say to the guy who broke my window if given the chance, this lust for justice as well as my anger, drifted away and out of sight. Somehow justice grew into compassion for whomever bashed in my window because when I play out the more-than-likely scenario in my head, anger or retribution seemed frankly absurd.

When I truly thought about it, I realized that nobody feels great after leaving the ER. Or maybe this person experienced something supremely tragic in the ER, either to himself or someone he cared about, and had emerged with such emotional cataclysm, one that had risen to what was probably blandly described as, “grumpy” by the SLCPD, such that the only response in this blind fit of emotion was to bash in a window.

Out of the ER, there’s really nowhere to go but past my house. Perhaps the first objects one would most likely see after leaving the ER is my truck parked at the curb in front of my house. It’s bright red, you can’t miss it. It would almost scream, “Hey, you! Upset? Need something to hit? I’m ugly, inanimate, and insured. Hit me!”

He must have strode directly toward my house and recently landscaped yard, a project I took on a couple of summers ago as an emotional life raft against the raging sea of my own craziness when my two yoga studios were terminally sinking. During that project I discovered the healing magic of pulling weeds! There are few things more satisfying than looking over a plot of newly cleared soil with a mountain of weeds next to it.

This guy must have seen one of the 10-pound rocks I placed decoratively on top of the bark chips, contemplated the hard and unforgiving truth of rock bottom, then looked at my unblemished car window, back at the rock, back at the window. . . The temptation was no doubt irresistible. I think a message written on the rock that said, “Hey, friend! Could I suggest maybe pulling a few weeds to remedy your upset?” may have proven fruitless.

My brave Chubby Hula Dancer attached to the dash of my truck (actually, re-attached after her kidnapping two summers ago) was thankfully unharmed in the event. I bet she was nervous as she heard the commotion of this disturbed fellow coming her direction, saw him approaching like a drunken bear. And as he was wheeling back his arm, rock in hand, her fears confirmed, I bet if you were listening closely you might have been able to hear her soft, consoling voice now resigned to the inevitable, speaking to him under the din of his furry, “Come on, Honey. Make it good. Make it count. And don’t worry about me. I’ve dealt with worse than a rock through a window.”

After one explosive crash it was done. Chubby Hula Dancer didn’t even flinch. Eager to leave the scene, I’m sure the disturbed man continued on downhill like a storm cloud rolling across the landscape. And if you were listening closely you could probably hear my Chubby Hula Dancer say, “I hope you feel better, Punkin.”

Now as I think about it, I bet smashing that window felt fucking amazing. And for all I know, they guy who smashed my window was completely lucid, deciding that smashing the window was the best way to respond to what he was feeling. I have to concede that.

That day I received the news about my window, many different emotions passed by me like cars wizzing by me on the freeway. By the time I got home I had largely processed my anger and fleeting desire for justice. By then I’d firmly decided that my broken window was just information, nothing more and nothing less. At home, I found the big rock tucked under the pedals on the driver side.

As I swept up the glass, despite all my frustrations, I hoped he hadn’t hurt himself. I didn’t see any blood. Glass everywhere, all over in the cab, all over the street, all over my bark chips, but nothing else was disturbed. My stereo had been conveniently stolen when my truck was jacked so there was no worry about that going missing. After sweeping glass, I went on an exhilarating run fueled by my former frustrations.

I fixed the window and 12 hours later my truck was back to normal. The world turns. Both the smashed window and the run were just occurrences, and somehow both were necessary.

If ever you find yourself leaving the ER near my house, first let me offer my condolences; I’m sure you weren’t there by choice. When you leave, you’ll see my truck parked outside of the first house you might come to. If you’re feeling upset, could I suggest maybe pulling some weeds? But if weeds just won’t do and you somehow have the wits to be fully connected in body, mind, and spirit and decide that smashing my trucks window is really the only solution that feels right, then God bless. There’s a rock nearby with your name on it.

And after, please know that this is getting expensive. Maybe you could also please leave a few bucks in the broken glass somewhere for a replacement. Or maybe a pie.

And if you’re wondering which house is mine, you can’t miss it. It’s the one with a red truck parked out front near the corner of Justice and Compassion.

---

Whatever You Believe In, Practice It Every Day.

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So, you may have heard me tell this story before but several years ago, I was leading myself through a deep Yoga Nidra meditation. My aim for this meditation was to channel the wise person that resides within my own heart to see what kind of message my own inner wise person would give me. I got very relaxed and went deep. Really deep.

I tried to think of the wisest person I knew immediately an image of one of my favorite professors from college jumped into my mind. In this vision, completely of my own imagination, I was sitting in his office and asking him for some guidance. In my mind, I could see the tawny grain of the wood of his desk. I could hear the soft buzz of the fluorescent lights above muted slightly by the plaintive squeak of his office chair as leaned back to think to survey the ceiling. He stroked his beard as he thought about what to say to me. Then, he looked at me slyly with a sideways glance and said something I’ll never forget. He said, “Whatever you believe in, practice it every day,” and then simply nodded.

“Whatever you believe in, practice it every day!” That revelation hit me like a ton of Norton Anthology of Poetry books. It was my own inner-wisdom reminding me of the importance of a daily practice

30-Day Meditation Challenge

If the wise person inside of you also values a daily practice, if meditation is something you believe in or are at least curious about, and if you want to explore what happens when you make meditation a daily practice, I invite you to register for my 30-Day Meditation challenge. It begins September 1st and runs for 30 days. It’s going to be fun and easy. All you do is meditate for 15 minutes a day, every day for 30 days. You’ll start to notice right away how you become more mindful, more calm, less provoked, and less reactive. Everyone you live with and work with will wonder what has happened to you.

Once you register for the challenge, you’ll start to receive emails that will support you with information, guidance, and encouragement about making meditation a regular practice for the month of September. You can do this challenge wherever you live in the world. You can meditate at any time of day that works best for you, and choose any style of meditation that suits you. I’ll give you several options that you can choose from if you’re newer to meditation

This costs $30 and if you complete all 30 days you can even have the option to receive your tuition back.

Tell your friends that you’ll be doing this to help keep you accountable and even invite them to join you because there’s nothing like mindfulness to bind a friendship together.

This thing starts Sunday, September 1st so sign up now and start your meditation practice now.

If you’re in NYC, I’ll be coming to town the first week of September and offering two amazing workshops. The first will be a Yoga Nidra for Happiness workshop at Pure Yoga West on Wednesday, September 4th from 6:30–9 pm. We will explore through poses, discussion, and Yoga Nidra the happiness that exists always within you despite events and circumstances. I’m really excited to offering a workshop at my old studio and hope you join me if you live in NYC. Also, I’ll be co-hosting a Yoga Nidra and Freeing breathwork workshop with an amazing teacher Tiffany Curren at Nirvana Yoga and Wellness in Wayne, New Jersey the next day on Thursday, September 5th from 6:30–9 pm. I’m really excited to work with Tiffany and this will be an incredible offering. If you live in the area, I’d love to see you at one or both of these events. I’m not sure when I’ll be back to this area.

Thanks for considering all of these offerings. Please forward this email by pressing the share link either below in the email or the Facebook share and like button near the top of the page if you’re listening to this email via my blog.

Hey, thanks again for being you and everything you do

And most of all, thanks for pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.

Going Into Shock: Rock Out Then meditate

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I've really been enjoying me time back in the U.S. I have loved seeing friends and family, teaching classes and my Yoga Nidra Immersion and teacher training which I did over the weekend, which was illuminating and beautiful.

While I'm in Salt Lake City, I'm really excited to be subbing a bunch of yoga classes however, most of my offerings—retreats and workshops— center around meditation. And whether or not you'll be joining me for any of these events, there's no better way dive into meditation than with a fun, approachable, 30-day meditation challenge, which I'm hosting all through the month of September.

You've probably heard it a hundred times, and I'm sure you've heard if from me at least 90 times, that you should meditate but there are so many different ways to meditate and really, how do you really do it anyway?

Everyone says the same thing: my mind is too busy to meditate. Meditating doesn't have to be complicated. It's simply focusing on this moment and whenever your mind wanders, come back to this moment. If you're new to meditation, I'd love to help you learn how to meditate, and if you're a seasoned practitioner, I'd love to facilitate your commitment to do this practice every day.

I love to teach yoga and meditation because I feel it's my calling to help people become the best versions of themselves so that they can go and bless the world in best ways they know how.

I really believe that world needs people who are present, living their lives mindfully, and growing into their best selves with a regular, dedicated meditation practice. The world needs YOU to be operating at your highest potential.

Regular meditation is perhaps the most effective way to evolve into your highest self. Presence is the key to experiencing your birthright of magnificence.

Plus, a group of meditators benefits the world in vast ways, bringing goodness into the world like expanding ripples in a pond.

Some of the most common personal benefits of regular mediation are:

• Spiritual awakening

• Reduced stress

• Greater focus

• Understanding your purpose for the world

• Greater compassion

• Being less reactive more responsive

• Greater happiness

Like any worthwhile endeavor, meditation takes practice. So let's do it together!

Join me in a meditation challenge, a group that will meditate every day for 30 days. This challenge will benefit you personally and will make the world a better place.

The Challenge

You will meditate every day for 30 days for 15 minutes or more. That's it! With the support of the group, you will have the encouragement and connection to tap into the power that happens when a collective of people are meditating together. Even if you meditate at different times, the power of intention that connects us will empower you and enable your greatest benefit.

If you are new to meditation, this is a perfect way to start a new life-long practice. You will receive in-depth explanations, teachings, and follow up to demystify the art and science of meditation, and establish yourself firmly in your practice.

If you are an experienced meditator, this is also a perfect way to join this powerful collective to bring new heights to your practice and open new doors and awarenesses.

All month, I'll be supporting you with emails filled with encouragement and instruction. You can choose any style of meditation you'd like. We will each be tracking our meditations every day using Insight Timer, a mobile app designed to help you time and track your meditations and which provides thousands of guided meditations.

Once you register, you'll receive regular emails and resources to encourage you and support you along the way, including teachings and explanations about the why and how of meditation. You'll be able to see and comment to the others in our group who are also doing this 30-day challenge.

This next 30 days will change your life as well as the lives of everyone around you!

Once you Register

Once you register, you'll receive a welcome email with information about:

• Specifics of the challenge

• Many forms of meditation you might choose to do

• Downloading the app

• A catalogue of guided meditations, both my catalogue of recordings as well as literally thousands on Insight Timer, which you can keep to help support you on your meditative journey.

• Receiving supportive emails

What does this cost?

In my experience, if I'm offered something for free, I don't really value it. That's why the 30-Day Meditation Challenge costs $30, so that you'll commit to it. But, everyone who completes the challenge, meditates everyday using the app for 15 minutes or more, can opt to get a FULL refund of their tuition or spend that credit on other mindfulness offerings I have. No hassle. No questions. So, essentially this is free!

I invite you to commit to your own wellbeing. I know you can do it and I'll support you every step of the way.

Join me!

Other News

In other news, if you live in Salt Lake City, I'll be subbing classes at 21st Yoga while I'm here. This week, I'll be teaching:

• Monday Aug. 26 Forest Yoga 4:30

• Tuesday Aug. 27 Stiff Bods 4:15

• Wednesday Aug 28 Yoga Nidra 6 pm

• Thursday Aug. 29 Power 1&2 9:15 am

On Thursday, I'll be traveling to Idaho for my Yoga + Writing + Nature retreat with Nan Seymour and special guest Maya Stein.

Then, I'll be heading to New York and New Jersey where I'll be teaching:

Yoga Nidra for Happiness workshop at Pure Yoga West in Manhattan on Wednesday Sept. 4 from 6:30–9 pm

Freeing Breathwork and Yoga Nidra workshop with Tiffany Curren at Nirvana Wellness in Wayne New Jersey on Thursday September 5th from 6:30–9:00 pm

From there, I'll be coming back to Salt lake City in time to offer a really fun event: Glow Yoga to the music of Bonobos at the Rose Wagner Theater on Sept. 6 from 8–10 pm. This is a really fun event hosted by One Love Yoga, my good friend James Hardy. This will be a wild and fun yoga experience where we will get to paint ourselves in non-toxic glow paint, turn on the black lights and turn up the music and do yoga like you've never done it before.

Then, to quiet everything right back down, starting the very next morning, September 7–8, I'll be co-hosting a silent meditation weekend with my friend and expert meditation teacher, Vicki Overfelt at our Wasatch Silent Retreat. I'll probably go into shock differentiating between the loud, glow yoga and the silent mediation retreat. It's all part of livin' the dream!

Check out my calendar for all the information and registration links for these events. You can also see my class schedule on my website.

Keep doing everything you do and have a wonderful week.

Namaste,

My Heart Was Full

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Yoga Nidra

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Yoga Nidra is better than drugs. If you don’t know, it’s a guided meditation where you lie down and get extremely relaxed, and drift into that in-between state of consciousness to actually become very aware. As you listen to me lead you through the practice, you gain a beautiful and broad perspective about life, problems, and the simple joy of being awake to the beauties of this world. I’ve been studying and practicing Yoga Nidra for over a decade and anymore when I do Yoga Nidra I am led through the very same process of keen awareness as I am facilitating for my students.

So, one evening when I lived in New York, I had just finished a particularly beautiful and heart opening Yoga Nidra practice. I was teaching at Pure Yoga in Manhattan and as I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue to go and catch the red line back home to Brooklyn. And because of this Yoga Nidra practice that I’d just taught and simultaneously experienced, my entire being felt an absolute surge of well-being and love— I was absolutely brimming with joy. At that moment, it felt as if my eyes suddenly had a super-human focus, like I could see more than 77 blocks down Amsterdam Ave, all the way to the Hudson and that they could see every detail, from the birds landing on the light posts to the dirt in the gutter and all of it felt somehow like an expression of love. I floated down the street with a smile on my face feeling like nothing could ever be so perfect. As I passed people on the street, everyone from the homeless guy to the stressed out business guy, it felt like I could feel into everyone’s heart and could feel everyone’s inherent goodness. Experiences like this are not rare in Yoga Nidra and they are one of the simple reasons that I love this practice so much.

My Heart Was Full

It reminds me of a story that one of my favorite profs in college told me. His name was Leslie Norris and he was an old, wise, and brilliant poet. He knew the Romantic poets so well he could talk about them like they were his neighbors. By the way, if you’re curious what an English major does for a living, this is it. So, in this real-life story, poet William Wordsworth is feeling a lot of pressure from his guardians. His parents have died, as he is emerging into adulthood, he will soon be in charge of taking care of himself and his sister. All he wants to do in life is to write poetry but that doesn’t pay the bills so he’s receiving a lot of pressure to join the clergy instead. Well, one morning he’s walking home in the early twilight through the hills and grasslands near the sea. The landscape is blowing his mind, totally gorgeous, and his senses are completely alive. He’s about ready to burst from joy. And in that moment of intense beauty he gets a revelation from the powers that be that poetry was what he is meant to do in life. He clearly understood that the Universe was telling him loud and clear that poetry was his path. And from that moment forward never looked back. He went on to be, well, William Wordsworth, the Michael Jordan of the Romantic poets. The poem goes like this, it’s from his magnum opus The Prelude.

Leslie Norris

Magnificent

The morning was, a memorable pomp,

More glorious than I ever had beheld.

The sea was laughing at a distance; all

The solid mountains were as bright as clouds,

Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;

And in the meadows and the lower grounds

Was all sweetness of a common dawn –

Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,

And labourers going forth into the fields.

Ah, need I say, dear friend, that to the brim

My heart was full? I made no vows, but vows

Were then made for me: bond unknown to me

Was given, that I should be – else sinning greatly –

A dedicated spirit. On I walked

In blessedness, which even yet remains.

Expert from Prelude by William Wordsworth

All that to say, that on that day after teaching Yoga Nidra, as I was walking down Amsterdam Ave totally brimming with life’s fullness, I had a Wordsworth moment. I felt that this practice of sharing Yoga Nidra with the world is the way in which the Universe has blessed me to feel Universal love and the way in which I get to share it back to the Universe and that it was a responsibility to share it lest I be “sinning greatly.”

Yoga Nidra Training

So I have the privilege, and frankly the responsibility, to share Yoga Nidra. It’s totally my jam and I love it. I’ll be sharing it tonight at a Yoga Nidra class at 21st Yoga and for those who want to really go deep, I’m so thrilled to be spending 20 hours teaching Yoga Nidra in a teacher training/immersion—This. Weekend.

About the training, if you’re a yoga teacher, awesome—Yoga Nidra is an essential tool to add to your teaching tool belt. If you’re just interested in the practice, there’s no better way to understand it than diving deep. If you’re a parent, teacher, or therapist, this could be an essential tool to help you help the people you are privileged to guide and nurture. The last time I did this training someone joined so they could learn to help their therapy clients better deal with stress. Someone else joined because they wanted to lower the teen-suicide rates in their school district. Another person joined because she was a family law attorney and wanted something to help her clients meet the challenge of divorce as mindfully as possible.

So how does it work, how does this relaxing guided meditation have such a powerful effect on people? It’s so powerful because this practice very skillfully leads you experience your True Nature, the part of you that feels wholeness and Universal love. When you are in conversation with the part of you that is fundamentally whole, everything heals.

This weekend is going to be life-changing. I’m not over selling this. There will be a lot of Yoga Nidra practice, chances to practice teaching to each other. You’ll learn how to lead yourself through this practice. You’ll receive a really solid PDF manual with Yoga Nidra scripts that you can start using on day 1 and which will serve as a foundation from which you can learn to personalize and build your own practices. Also, I’m offering this either virtually or in-person if you’re in Salt Lake City. People from all over the world will be joining us. I’ll be recording the entire thing, both audio and video, so if the timing doesn’t work you can always watch it later. This recording will also give you an incredible Yoga Nidra library.

I really hope you can make it this weekend. Regardless, I’d love to offer this Yoga Nidra practice as a chance to experience Yoga Nidra’s power to open your heart, cuz hey all the love songs are right and all you need is love.

So as I’m wrapping this up, I want to let you know that Aug. 29–Sept.1 I’m hosting a Writing + Yoga + Nature Retreat in Harriman State Park with the one and only Nan Seymour. We’ve invited special guest, poet Maya Stein to blow our socks off with her incredible poetry. We are going to explore what happens when we open to deep awareness through Yoga Nidra and then put pen to paper and see what comes out. This is the 4th year we’ve done it and it’s been amazing every year. We have only 1 spot left and we’d love for that spot to be filled by you.

There’s no better way to practice Yoga Nidra or any other form of mindfulness than with my 30-Day Meditation challenge. It’s happening the entire month of September. The challenge is to simply meditate every day for 15 minutes or more using this great app called Insight Timer. All month I’ll be sending you instructions and encouragement. The challenge costs $30 and if you complete the challenge you can choose to either receive a full refund of your tuition or roll that into other cool meditation products that I have.

No matter what you do or don’t do with mindfulness, I just want to say thank you for picking up what I’m puttin’ down. I love doing this and it’s so nice to be on this journey with you.

May the Source be with you.

Namaste.

Please Listen to this heart-centered Yoga Nidra practice

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The Art of Yoga

What is the marriage between inner and outer beauty? What is the Art of Yoga

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Yoga is many things. It’s a science, a philosophy, a mode of spirituality, and a method of therapy to name a few. Sometimes I forget that yoga is also an art. Yoga is an art, beautiful, pure and simple. It’s beautiful to watch and to experience. Yoga, like many other disciplines, explores and celebrates what it means to be human. Through the form of our poses we understand our inner-realm and celebrate being alive. We celebrate being.

It’s true that it’s not what’s on the outside that counts; you don’t win when you’ve accomplished a pose. Yet, there is something sublimely beautiful in the simplest form, the humblest yoga posture. When I teach yoga, I am privileged to witness the beauty of all different body types, ages, and walks of life practice being human. I see lines, curves, and angles come alive and flow. I see the magical bleed between effort and ease dancing before me. I see the embodiment of bliss and understanding as well as struggle and frustration. I can feel what’s happening on the inside of my students because it’s manifesting on the outside right before me like a living poem, like sculpture that moves, like a painting that comes alive, or a boisterous Rock Opera turned up to 11. Sure, it’s not about how the pose looks but rather how it feels that is important. Regardless, your inner beauty manifests outwardly. It is still true that the poses are beautiful. We are living art.

And yet this being human, this living art, is like a sand painting that even as we speak is withering to its demise to become part of the elements from whence we came. This notion reminds me that art (human or otherwise) is just as much if not more expressed in its becoming than in its arrival. It shows me that the entire process of our lives is like one long, beautiful play full of tragedies, joys, doldrums, and loves.

Understanding the art of becoming rather than arriving emphasizes presence, the sublime of right now. And perhaps that is the intersection between inner and outer beauty, the place where inner presence and outer form meet. In this sacred marriage, our form helps us to understand that numinous realm within and our presence helps us to live outwardly with heath, clarity, and yes, beauty.

You are an artist whether you think of yourself as an artist or not. An artist, whether dancer, painter, musician, sculptor, or liver of life, must practice presence to honestly and bravely witness this world. The unconscious or the busy mind would pass by such beauty. The artist doesn’t only celebrate sunrises and rainbows. The artist finds beauty also in dark lines and shadow. Landscapes that don’t make sense or that paint a picture that is tragic, disturbing, and poignant, are nonetheless beautifully human. Indeed, that’s why we love tragedies and the dark side because this beautiful tapestry of life isn’t limited by only sunrises and rainbows. With presence, we can truly see the beauty in all things, especially ourselves.

Live and Online Yoga Nidra Training

I invite you to celebrate the full beauty of your life this week through yoga and mindfulness. Celebrate what it means to be human.

You are beautiful.

You are art.

Poem of the One World

This morning

the beautiful white heron

was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this

the one world

we all belong to

where everything

sooner or later

is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel

for a little while

quite, beautiful, myself.

~Mary Oliver

THREE IN TRANSITION

(FOR WCW)

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom

are we beautiful

as we go?

I lie in the field

still, absorbing the stars

and silently throwing off

their presence. Silently

I breathe and die

by turns.

He was ripe

and fell to the ground

from a bough

out where the wind

is free

of the branches

~David Ignatow

The Benefits of Starting Your Day with Meditation

Periodically, I get requests for people to write articles for me. Here’s one about the benefits of meditation by Stephanie James. Tell me what you think.

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Written by guest writer Stephanie James

How you spend your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. If you hit the snooze button one too many times, rush through your morning tasks, and grab your cup of coffee to go, you will most likely feel like you are in a race against time for most of the day. Starting your day feeling relaxed and centered, on the other hand, will also carry into the rest of your day. You have the choice as to how your day unfolds based on your morning rituals, or lack thereof, in other words. A solid morning routine is a primary key to success.

One activity that you can incorporate into your morning routine is meditation, whether guided or self-lead. Here are just a few of the many benefits starting your day with meditation has to offer

No Need for Caffeine

Even if you wake up feeling tired, 15 to 20 minutes of meditation upon awakening will supply you with endorphins that will boost your energy without the need for caffeine. Although meditation provides deep relaxation by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, it also offers the benefit of longer-lasting, natural energy with no risk of a subsequent crash.

Mindful Mountain Retreat

Bozeman, Montana Sept. 12–15 2019

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Part of what can contribute to a really good day is being able to sort through mental clutter as you work to be productive. Especially in our fast-paced world, there are numerous distractions that can interfere with our productivity, both internally and externally. Setting a positive mindset through meditation allows you to filter out the clamor and negative self-talk that can make accomplishing daily goals difficult and stressful. 

Increases Ability to Multitask

A recent NSF-funded study at the University of Washington revealed that people who practice meditation regularly are better able to multitask. Participants who practiced mindfulness two hours a week for eight weeks performed better in multitasking tests than those who did not meditate. And if multitasking doesn’t seem like an important skill, keep in mind that one by-product of poor multitasking ability is distracted driving. Improving this ability, then, can help you be safer while on the road.

Enhances Your Sense of Well-Being

Another amazing effect that meditation has is that it changes the way you look at things rather than changing circumstances directly. It provides a calm and accepting mindset that you can carry with you, regardless of difficult situations. Many times, we can’t change daily events in our lives that are causing us stress, but we can choose to approach them with more serenity and acceptance, making each day flow more smoothly.

Fosters a Cleaner Diet

Research has shown that when you’re sleep-deprived or stressed, you crave unhealthy foods. Incorporating meditation into your morning routine allows you to begin your day with a calm and rested mind that is conducive to craving healthier food choices. As you evolve in your meditation practice, you will notice that urges to reach for sugary, fatty foods will dissipate, and choosing healthier foods will increase your energy level and restore emotional balance.

Meditation is for Everyone

Many times, people are intimidated by meditation because they mistakenly believe that it takes a certain know-how or special ability. However, meditating takes no special talent or predisposition to be effective. In addition, meditation is not about perfecting serenity or reaching a certain level of enlightenment. Instead, it is about continuing to evolve in your practice, with no focus on perfection. You also don’t have to rush headlong into one-hour sessions to benefit from meditation. You can start with five-minute sessions and build up as you begin to see how practicing meditation is an ongoing process.

You’re More in the Now

Your head is much clearer when you first wake up than after you have met distractions later in the day. This leaves a clean mental slate that can become even clearer after 15 to 20 minutes of meditation. You add to your calmness of mind exponentially by practicing meditation first thing in the morning. In short, you want to maximize on your mental inventory by filling “empty” brain space with positive thoughts and energy.

There are countless overall health benefits of meditation and starting your day with the practice is a great idea. It’s a way to set the mood, focus, and momentum for the rest of your day, as well as keep you in the moment and not concentrating on the past and the future.

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Human Doing vs. Human Being

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Your identity is your foundation of existence. Too often we tend to identify with things that don’t support the truth of what we are, our beingness. Too often we get caught up as human doings rather than human beings. Too often we equate our value on what we can do rather than the fact that we simply are. 

Tantra is a school of eastern thought. One of the many facets to Tantra is its emphasis on non-dualism or all things belonging to a larger whole. When you can expand your Awareness from being either this or that, you tap into what I call your Both And Nature. This Both And Nature speaks to your higher beingness and embraces all the elements of you for optimal expression. 

Ironically, the person who doesn’t know their Both And Nature, identifies only as body or with their actions, equates their existence with only what they can do. Ability and doing is by nature volatile and changeable so their sense of identity lacks a real foundation. This lack of existential foundation invariably affects performance because each act becomes a desperate grope for identity when there’s none to be had merely by performing an action. 

During my career, I’ve taught yoga and meditation to dozens of world-class athletes and performers. Often when these performers retire, still quite young, they sometimes go into an existential crisis if their entire identity was wrapped up in solely what they could do. Now that they can no longer perform at the level they felt defined them, they have no idea who they are. 

By contrast, the person who is identified as a Being rather than a doer knows their Both And Nature and can act invincibly from that place because they realize that they and each of their actions are an expression of their Being, of Source. The person connected to their Being through practices like the Yoga Nidra, graduate from a level of merely doing an action to Being it. 

Yoga Nidra is a form of Tantric guided meditation that is both relaxing and very useful to reinforce your sense of your own Being. The aim in Yoga Nidra is to disidentify from anything in the realm of the changeable, like body or thoughts, and learn to identify as Awareness itself. Typically, a Yoga Nidra session will last anywhere from 15–40 minutes where you simply lie down, close your eyes, and listen to a facilitator (or recording) lead you through paying attention to things like your body, your breath, energy, thoughts, etc. This process leads you deeper and deeper both into relaxation as well as into Awareness. 

Since it’s also true that while you cannot identify solely as body, your body is an important (though changeable) part of who you are. It also exists as one of the greatest tools you possess to open yourself to the experience of Awareness. As you learn to inhabit your body with deeper Awareness, you tune into your Both And Nature and from that place of embodied Awareness, you can go out and perform at your best. 

Click here to hear a free Yoga Nidra recording and experience for yourself the transformative of your own Both And Nature.

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Be The Shit

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“What does the mighty oak care if the warthog scratches its rump against its bark?

Right before I moved from Salt Lake City, I had my last session with a wonderful private client, and friend. She began our session with a comment about how difficult she found it to be around people who are constantly bragging about who they are or what they own. This comment sparked a wonderful discussion and subsequent Yoga Nidra practice dedicated to the differences between a human being and a human doing. We discussed the idea of aiming to be so secure in our being that we didn’t need to try to prove anything to anyone else. We could just be.

I said to her, “When you’re The Shit, you don’t have to go around town bragging about it. You just go be The Shit.”

It reminds me of something I heard poet and writer David Whyte say, “Constantly explaining who you are is a gospel of despair.” Why does it seem that when we are the least secure in who we are, we tend to brag about ourselves the most? Probably because when we equate our value based on what we can do rather than a sure sense of our own beingness, we’re constantly trying to affirm something that really doesn’t exist. By contrast, we as human beings are valuable simply because we exist. We don’t need to prove anything because we simply are. If we're identified as something as fragile as our action or a title, then we're constantly fearing not being that thing anymore, we fear annihilation.

It’s also true that when we can be secure in our own being, other people don’t ruffle our feathers. The best antidote in response to the braggart is to be so solid in our own beingness that another person could say or do whatever they wish and it wouldn’t bend us one way or the other. Like the fantastic German quote, “What does the mighty oak care if the warthog scratches its rump against its bark?”

This is what we are doing in our yoga and meditation practices: we are affirming our beingness, and steeling ourselves against anything that could arise in our lives by simply learning to pay attention, to have Awareness. Here’s the kicker: our beingness is somehow wrapped around our ability to pay attention to the world, to listen and be. Not to do. The doing comes as the response to the being. The ancient teaching says that consciousness precedes form.

That day, my client and I had a great session. I led her through a personalized Yoga Nidra practice that helped her to feel solid in her own being to go out and be the mighty oak so that others could say or do whatever and she didn’t have to worry about it one way or the other. I recorded the practice and left it with her so she could continue to practice this concept.

After the session, as I was rushing out to go home and pack for France, I was half-way out the door, when I heard her shout after me, “Hey Scott!” I turned back to see her with a wide smile on her face. “Be The Shit,” she said as wise parting advice.

So, may I also extend this invitation to you: Be The Shit.

Living On The Edge

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I’ve been practicing all my life. Since childhood I’ve practiced everything from music to magic, baseball to baking. So when I started practicing yoga and meditation it just felt natural to begin a new practice. One day when I was a kid, I was practicing the saxophone and I realized something essential about the notion of practice: practice is the end, not the means to the end. Sure, I get better at playing the sax by practicing it, but the point is to be playing. Practice is being at the edge, at the frontier of experience. Also, sometime in the last 20 years of practicing and teaching yoga, it dawned on me that there’s never a yoga performance, no yoga recital. It’s always only a practice.

Today I want to talk about the practice of living at the frontier. I’d like to invite you to reconsider the purpose of practice. Consider that maybe the goal of any practice isn’t to improve, it’s simply to be present at the frontier. I know, I know, I know, why do we practice if it’s not to grow? The thing is that you do grow when you practice but maybe growth is just the byproduct, not the purpose. Being at the frontier means regularly leaving the comfort of what we know, abandoning what’s automatic and easy, and stepping onto unsure ground to truly learn to know ourselves. Therefore, it’s our life’s practice to simply be at the frontier.

Frontier=Presence=Self-Knowledge

To my mind, the word “frontier” conjures images of gritty people working with the land and wrestling with the unknown as they learn and grow. Our frontier could be our edge in a yoga posture, our edge in our awareness in meditation, or perhaps simply the edge of entering a new stage in life. Being at the frontier isn't always easy but isn’t that the point? While it’s not always easy, it is always real. Our frontier is a place we’ve never been before and being there helps us to truly come alive because it quickens our minds, makes our senses come alive, and forces us into radical presence. There is no coasting or autopilot at the frontier.

For me, traveling has been a practice of being at the frontier. More than geographical frontiers, traveling regularly takes me to cultural, philosophical, and humanitarian frontiers I would have never known had I lived out my days in Smalltown, Utah where I was born. But more important than learning about another place, traveling always involves a healthy dose of getting knowing myself—there’s usually a steep learning curve to making your way somewhere else, one that unavoidably makes you look inside. More than learning about someone else, traveling puts you at the rugged frontier of knowing whoever the hell YOU are, a frontier that is invariably west of wild.

While our goal in practice may not necessarily be to grow, it happens regardless and you can’t grow without challenges. I once heard someone say, “If you ever find yourself coasting in life it probably means you’re going downhill.” In yoga philosophy, this heat necessary for growth is called Tapas and is the driver toward self-knowledge. Experiencing Tapas, being a little on edge or confronted with challenges, is an essential part of our awakening because in a very real way it wakes us up from the anesthesia of easy, and puts us into a place of fierce presence, and presence is the secret that whispers to us our true, universal identity. Presence teaches you who you are.

Flowing At Your Edge

Sometimes breaking out of the stupor of easy to be present means doing something big, something drastic. I can tell you from experience that nothing wakes you up like a psychedelic trip with a shaman in the jungle or jogging around the conservative state capital wearing nothing but your best set of briefs, running shoes, and your hands-free device. But a regular practice of being at your frontier doesn’t mean regularly stepping to the edge of stupidity. For example, it’s hard to be present to the full grandeur of the Grand Canyon when your toes are dangling over its edge. Instead, you’ll grow far more from your every-day practice if you allow it to be a comfortable step away from both boredom and your absolute edge.

Steven Kotler is a NYT Bestselling author who studies and writes about how uber-performers thrive at their edge by achieving a state of flow, an optimal state of consciousness where people can both feel their best and perform their best. One of the ways he’s discovered that people can get into flow is by regularly stepping up to their comfortable edge. Steven Kotler has learned how to write while in a state of flow and through his words how to put his readers into the same state. In December of 2018, right on the frontier of embarking on my journey to live and work in France, I attended Steven Kotler’s Flow for Writers Workshop in San Francisco. For three days, our intimate group of writers holed up in a chic San Francisco loft as Steven revealed to us some of the secrets of good writing where he taught quite succinctly: write from your edge and readers will read from theirs.

And while performance maybe isn’t the point of practice, being at your comfortable edge is the secret sauce to great performance. Whether it’s writing or rock climbing, being at your edge and in flow stimulates your brain into a deeper awareness that illuminates the microscopic but essential details that would otherwise fly under the radar. Being at your edge and in flow releases all the feel-good chemicals in your brain. Chemicals that catalyzes your performance around the subject by focusing your mind on its subtleties and nuances, by illuminating long-chain connections to otherwise disparate ideas, and by unlocking your boundless creativity. In yoga class, I encourage my students to negotiate their edge of each pose by finding the version that is just north of comfortable, what I call the “comfortably-intense” version of every pose. Also, I often ask if they could become just 10% more relaxed.Flow simply can’t happen when you’re either bored or panicked to tears.

The Only Way To Get There Is To Be Here

After developing a regular practice of being present at our edge and bravely taking those essential, small steps forward, one day we’ll look back to see that we’ve covered a lot of ground. When you look back, it will feel like you’ve spanned a damn-near impossible distance. But here’s the deal with forward movement, whatever your next horizon—be it it be becoming more flexible, more focused, or more financially sound—the only way to get there is to be here. Be exactly here at the frontier that presents itself to you at this moment. But the thing about here is that it’s always changing. No sooner do you get comfortable with the grass at your feet than do you naturally grow toward your next horizon.

When you take ambition out of the practice, you give yourself the perspective of working with your actual edge rather than the edge you hope to be at one day. It’s being present at your actual frontier that gives you the firm ground to step forward into that next step, and the next, and the next… For example, I can’t learn to play Coltrane until I first experience the frontier of learning to play the sax, how to read music and the rudiments of jazz, etc. It’s not until I’m present at those frontiers that new frontiers will open up until one day I’ll find Coltrane’s masterpiece, Giant Steps, dancing out of the bell of my horn while wondering, “How the hell did I ever do that?”

It’s presence that promotes growth because it’s the only thing that’s real. Sure, find your star that guides you forward in your endeavors but the practice itself keeps you grounded in the frontier of the moment. Isn’t that what life is, being present at our frontier of experience while watching our own inevitable evolution? Growth will naturally happen as you’re present with your frontier and making the essential trek of 1 inch, the spot directly in front of your toes.

Finally, the paradox of the frontier is that you’ve already arrived and arrival means never stopping. We must find home by being comfortable in our discomfort. This home is our birthright and the eternal and joyful journey toward our highest self. We have arrived the moment we put ourselves at the frontier and open our vision to simply witness ourselves grow.

Conclusion

Several years ago, I experienced a great revelation about the importance of regularly visiting my frontier through practice. I was leading myself through a Yoga Nidra practice and wanted to hear the wisdom of my own heart to hear whatever it might tell me. I visualized the wisest person I could think of in order to tap into my own inner wisdom. A vision of my favorite prof from college popped into my mind with stark clarity. All my senses were popping: I was sitting in his office and could smell the oiled wood of his desk, see it’s tight-knit, tawny grain, and could hear the buzz of the lights and the squeak of his chair as he leaned back, pondering at the ceiling. There was a moment of generous silence between us as he stroked his beard. Then he looked at me out the corner of his eye. And with a sly, paternal, and loving air said something I’ll never forget. He said, “Whatever you believe in . . . practice it every day.” This event never happened except for in my mind but the truth of it became more real that if it actually had. This was my wise inner-self reminding me to always be at my frontier through practice.

If you’re interested, click here to listen to that same Yoga Nidra practice where I lead you hear the wise person inside of you.

I invite you to consider reevaluating your relationship to practice from being something you do in order to improve to something you do in order to regularly be at your frontier. I invite you to forget about the ambition of practice and simply be present at that frontier and watch how growth naturally happens. And I invite you celebrate the many frontiers you find yourself at in this moment of your life.

Whatever you practice, do it regularly. I hope to practice with you soon

PS

I used to drive around town with a sticker on the back of my truck that read 1,” a nod to a poem that speaks to the greatest frontier I ever hope to arrive at.

“A Spiritual Journey” by Wendell Berry

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,

no matter how long,

but only by a spiritual journey,

a journey of one inch,

very arduous and humbling and joyful,

by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,

and learn to be at home.

Mantras and Visualizations: Meditations that Sting Like A Bee

“Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.”

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This was Muhammad Ali’s mantra. Perhaps yoga and mindfulness isn’t often associated with Muhammad Ali, yoga's first principle of non-harming and all that, but he was someone who was particularly adroit in his use of the yogic principle of mantra and visualization. His iconic mantra has become synonymous with a champion. What is the power of mantra and visualization and how can they be used to mold reality like they did for Muhammad Ali, and how can we use these tools to achieve our dreams?

Writing the Script on Reality

Although his mantra practically became his sonic name tag, it wasn’t just a pithy phrase he liked to throw around because it was catchy; it wasn’t his slogan or his attempt at branding himself. Maybe few understood that Ali’s mantra was his access point into his deep inner-source that believed he would be the boxing heavyweight champion of the world. Saying it over and over again was his craft, the practice of helping the logical part of his mind both believe and expect this belief to become reality.

In addition to using his mantra, Muhammad Ali visualized over and over his fight with Sonny Liston where he would win the heavyweight championship. He saw himself win the title thousands of times in his head before ever stepping into the ring. By the time he stepped into the ring, all that was left to do was the final step, the physical practice of what he already knew was true. And Muhammad Ali isn't alone. It was like he theatre of life—he knew the script and on opening night he simply needed to go on stage and perform the play.

It reminds me of a story in the Hindu scripture, The Bhagavad Gita, where the God-turned-mortal Krishna is instructing the warrior prince Arjuna about his duty to fight in an epic battle. At Arjuna’s reluctance, Krishna pulls him aside and informs him that truth and time is not so linear and that the battle has already been fought and won. Knowing this, Krishna told Arujuna that the important thing is that he must go out there and fulfill his dharma, his destiny. Similar to what Ali told himself through visualization and mantra, Krishna told Arjuna to tap into the source of belief of what was already true.

Thought Precedes Form

Many psychologists and neuroscientists will affirm that despite our trust in it, our mind isn’t necessarily the best preceptor of reality; it’s readily subject to prejudice, interpretations, and misapprehension. In yoga philosophy the name for this misapprehension is Avidya, the opposite of clear seeing. Like modern brain science suggests, two people might see the same facts and both have wildly different beliefs about translating those facts. They might even debate what is real. Thus our mind is subject to our own personal beliefs and prejudices. Our mind creates a "reality" from a dizzying array of options suggested by our perceptions, interpretations, and desires. This subjectivity tugs at the very fabric the notion of reality.

Yoga suggests that since our beliefs are so powerful in contributing to our reality, we can use things like mantras and visualization to help us create our reality, perhaps like Muhammad Ali and Arjuna, a reality that somehow in our hearts what we know is already true. We have a bigger part to play in creating our reality than we think. Mantra and visualizations can help.

Beliefs change all the time. One minute you believe in the Tooth Fairy and the next you don’t. In Vedanta, a school of yogic philosophy, the sheath or layer of our being that negotiates beliefs, both conscious and subconscious, is called the Vignana Mayakosha. Yeah, it’s a crazy name this part of our being is perhaps more powerful than we sometimes give it credit.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, an internationally recognized biologist and author who works to bridge science and spirit, says that 95% of our decision making comes from our subconscious. If we can learn to source and even manipulate our subconscious, there's no telling what power we might have over our own world. Visualizations and mantra are two very effective and powerful ways of shaping our world. Muhammad Ali powerfully demonstrated his ability mold his reality of being the heavyweight champion of the world using mantra and visualization.

The Power of Words

Words are powerful. Religious texts like The Bible even says that “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God.” In the Hindu scripture, The Yoga Sutras, the principle of Satya or truth is the second highest principle behind non-harming because of the power of words. For longer than recorded history, magic, mythic, and religious traditions have regarded certain words, whether vocalized or thought, as both sacred and powerful. I heard one of my yoga teachers, Judeth Lasater, say, “What is worrying but praying for what you don’t want.” Thus is the power of thoughts and words.

So put words to the test. I invite you to choose those words that, like Muhammad Ali, like Arjuna, will manifest your sacred destiny. And I invite you to find a way of reciting them to manifest their power in your life. Maybe you know already your mantra, what words you need to evoke for you to live into your true destiny. Perhaps words like: Power, Clarity, Forgiveness, Strength, etc. Maybe you need to discover what your mantra is.

I invite you to do a meditation in order to distill your clarity on which words are right for you. This meditation doesn’t have to come by spending months in the desert in deep contemplation. Rather, maybe 10 minutes concentrating on clearly answering a few questions for yourself. You’ll know it when it comes. Maybe it will take a few days of meditating for a few minutes each day.

Here’s the mantra-finding process: First, ask yourself what has been reoccurring in your life recently as a theme that you need to pay attention to. Another way to answer this question is to think about what ways the Universe is asking you to grow right now—what challenges are presenting themselves to you now, asking you to grow? Next, don’t allow your thinking mind to take over, here, but rather let the answer to this next question be instinct, the first thing that comes to mind: What does your heart know is your purpose for this world? Distill the answer to these questions down to a phrase or maybe even one word (don’t worry, you can change it if you need to, you don’t have to marry that word for life) but allow yourself to use that word or phrase as your powerful catalyst forward to what you already believe about yourself.

Then, if you’re inclined, grab a mala (you can get these at any crystal and incese, dragon and rainbows shop). They are beaded necklaces with 108 beads on them. The Mala’s will usually have a tassel on them representing the beginning and the end. Hold the mala on the first bead between your right thumb and middle finger, just beyond the tassel. In your mind or aloud, repeat your word or phrase then move to the next bead. Do this over and over again until you come to the end of the mala. If it’s short and you’d like a longer meditation, turn the mala around and repeat the mantra going the other way on the mala until you come back to the tassel. After your meditation watch to see how you see the world differently and how you live into the beliefs that you bring to your mind through mantra.

In addition to discovering your mantra, create a visualization where you see yourself perform what you'd like to arrive for yourself over and over. Remember to use all of your senses and think about it happening in the moment, instead of dreaming for a future. The part of our brain and the part of our consciousness that we are accessing only understand now. Spend a few minutes in visualization to see yourself succeed and just like Muhammad Ali, become the champion of your world.

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