You Take Care of Everyone, But Who Takes Care of You: Mediation as Self-Care

You take care of everyone. Who takes care of you? You do, that’s who. One of the greatest forms of self-care is a regular meditation practice.

“Just thinking about meditation stresses me out. I don’t need one more thing on my to-do list. Who has the time?”

But when we look at the data, who has time NOT to meditate? Yesterday, I shared a few scientific studies showing how meditation groups can change the world by reducing the crime rate and that by changing yourself through meditation you can change the world. But today I want to bring it home just a bit. Today, consider how much meditation is about taking care of YOU.

Studies show that regular meditators are more calm, less stressed, and sleep better. Meditators are also more productive, more creative, and learn faster. Here’s the kicker, though: meditators generally more content with their life than those who don’t. Wanna be happy? Meditate and learn that happiness comes from within. Plus, people who meditate in a group are more likely to stick with it and have a higher sense of purpose and satisfaction than those who meditate alone.

Get this…

Regular meditation has even been shown to dramatically improve your physical health. Scientific studies have shown that coronary disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes, and high blood pressure have lessened or otherwise depleted with the help of meditation. Health insurance stats show that people who meditate regularly have a reduced likelihood of being hospitalized for coronary disease by 87 percent (... I pause for effect… ), and the reduced possibility of getting cancer by 55 percent (... longer pause… for larger effect… ). And people who meditate are psychologically 12–15 years younger. Those stats are crazy, but at least YOU won’t be crazy, thank you very much! (read the full article here)

Paul McCartney has crooned some immutable truths but never has he said it better than when he said, “In moments of madness, meditation has helped me find moments of serenity—and I would like to think that it would help provide young people a quiet haven in a not-so-quiet world.”

(Drop the mic, leave the stage, raise the house lights.)

I heard this quote from a dear friend and very influential teacher of mine, Erin Geesaman Rabke, God bless her, who quoted one of her teachers, I believe: “Meditation is perhaps one of the most compassionate things we can do for other people because suddenly you’re not such a pain in the ass to be around anymore.” Amen.

So maybe you’re saying, “Ok, ok, maybe meditation could help but I would need some basic instruction, my mind wanders more than a drunken goat, and I could use a little encouragement to get going.”

This is where I come in. Come on, let’s do this together! (That’s a nicer way of saying the truth, that your nearest and dearest contacted me cuz they are concerned about your crankiness and well being and have asked me to stage an intervention.) So come on!!!

There’s no time like the beginning of the year to start something new. We are beginning a new year and a new decade. My 31-Day Meditation Challenge starts TOMORROW. Together we will transform our lives with simple, regular meditation practices. The challenge is to meditate every day for 31 days using whatever style of meditation you like for 15 minutes a day. That’s it! You got this!

Remember how I said that meditating in a group helps people to stick with the practice and have a higher sense of purpose and satisfaction than those who meditate alone? Well it’s still true and that’s another reason why you should join our merry group of meditators. One of the thrilling things about this challenge is that you’ll be doing this with a large group of people from all over the world. This will help increase your accountability and fun. We’ll even do a few live meditations where we will be meditating simultaneously with people around the globe. Cool! Also, you’ll be able to connect to each other for support and encouragement on our forum. We want you to be a part of our meditation community!

Not only will I and our community be helping you every step of the way, but if you call your mom and your best friends and let them know that you’re going to do the 31-Day Meditation Challenge and ask to be accountable to them, you’ll stick with it. Hell, invite them along for the ride and build a meditation posse, your sit crew. I know that whenever I want to make some positive changes in my life—I want to eat healthier, get more fit, save money—if I am accountable to other people I stick with the program. If I’ve promised my wife that I’m not eating sugar, I’ll walk by that incredible bakery that sells the best pain au chocolat in France and not even give it a second look. So tell your nearest and dearest that you’re doing this challenge and invite them along.

I’ll be helping you all month with encouragement and instruction via regular emails. I’ll give you some transformational and relaxing guided meditations to use if you want.

The 31-Day Meditation challenge only costs $31 and as an incentive, if you complete all 31 days of meditating for 15 minutes a day, you can opt to get your tuition back. This is easy and fun and you’ll see some beautiful and transformational changes occur in your life.

Do this with me. Invite your friends to join us and together let’s have an incredible 2020 and put an incredible beginning to an invincible decade.

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Mediation Under the Microscope: How to Change the World

Today on our walk home from the playground, I told my toddler that we are going to celebrate New Years in a few days. He me asked what New Years is and I told him that it’s kinda like the earth celebrating her birthday. “Papa,” he asked, “how does the earth eat cake and what does she want for her birthday?” I told him that the earth doesn’t mind if we eat cake on her behalf and that what she wants for her birthday is for us all to be more mindful. The earth wants us to meditate.

But let’s get real for a second—can meditation really make a difference in the world?

I know that those of us who are rationalists or scientifically-minded might be thinking that navel gazing is not going to solve the world’s problems. So I’d like to share a little bit of what the science says about how meditation can make a real difference in the world. It’s important to remember that first and foremost, science and meditation have the same purpose: both are simply methods of inquiry. Neither is designed to “prove” anything but rather to practice observing. Both practices point us toward our ground of Being, that of Awareness itself. But Awareness can change the world and many scientists have shown how.

In one such carefully controlled scientific experiment in Washington D.C., a group of meditators were shown to reverse the violent crime trend in the area by 23%. They wanted to show how easy it is to reduce crime and social stress by using meditation. The regular trend toward violent crime resumed after their meditation. These scientists weren’t alone. About 40 earlier studies already showed how meditation could create more coherence in society. Their aim in doing this D.C. study was to show key government officials and lawmakers the power that meditation can have to change the world. Citation

As scientists have continued to study this phenomenon of affecting the outside world through meditation, they have learned that the benefits come more from the quality of meditation rather than the quantity of meditators or time meditating. More focused meditation = better results

So how does that work? How can one, seemingly autonomous thing possibly affect another? Ancient wisdom may give us a clue. Perhaps you’ve heard the ancient Hermetic phrase, “As above, so below.” This same ancient wisdom is also contained in the Gayatri Mantra, a mantra contained within the ancient Vedic text, the Rig Veda, dating back to about 5 thousand years ago. The Gayatri Mantra states quite succinctly that everything comes from Source and we if truly understood this we would see that we are no different than the thing we seek. We are all a part of everything else and that one part of the world and Universe effects another.

Me and my twin brother, Chris, at my wedding, 2014.

In science, this principle is known as quantum entanglement. Dr. Nicolas Gisin of the University of Geneva conducted an experiment where they split a photon in two (a photon is an elementary particle which makes up the electromagnetic field atoms) and sent the now two different photons to different labs which were 14 miles apart. When they manipulated one photon in one lab, the other photon 14 miles away acted precisely in the same way as its twin, showing that it was still energetically linked even though it was in a different location.

And as a human twin, someone who was once one egg and split into two, I personally can tell you many fascinating stories that all could be chalked up to “quantum entanglement.”

In more ways than we might think, we are all like twins, like these photons, separate beings originating from the same egg, the same source. We all have the power to affect everything else that was also originated by that Source. Science is catching up with ancient wisdom that teaches us that changing the outer world depends on how we hold our inner world. Truly we must become the very thing we wish to see change in the world. Perhaps one of the modern world’s greatest authorities on changing the world, Mahatma Gandhi, said:

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

But what if our inner world isn’t leading us toward a better self or a better world? If history teaches us anything, it’s that it repeats itself. Many of the negative things that happen in the world are the product of individuals and nations continually reacting mindlessly to global events with fear, anger, and selfishness. While these are all natural, human qualities, we do have the power to wield other natural but more-elevated qualities like compassion in order to respond to these same events.

To respond mindfully means to act from a grounded place of observation, often with compassion, and without reactive judgement about it. This does not mean being passive; quite the opposite. And at crucial times when it is our responsibility to respond powerfully to important world events— like climate change, dramatic political polarization, hegemony, and massive unequal distribution of wealth— we may do so from a place of grounded compassion and not from a reactive place of anger or fear, in order to break the cycle of negative reactiveness.

The first order of operations for any individual to respond positively to world events, is to first practice personal responsiveness by simply learning to draw inward and mediate. Before they can positively affect the world outside, they must do so inside. “As above, so below.” One individual can change the world and meditation can help break the vicious cycle of repeating negative events and can change the world.

This New Year, let’s give the earth a marvelous birthday gift. Let’s change the world for the better by changing ourselves for the better through meditation. Start meditating today and practice responding to personal and global events from a place of grounded and compassionate responsiveness. Together we can change the world for the better!

31-Day Meditation Challenge

I truly believe in meditation and I consider it one of my most important missions in life to invite you to be your best self through the power of meditation. So, to make meditating fun and accessible I’m offering a 31-Day Meditation Challenge during the month of January. The challenge is to simply meditate at any time that works for you during the day, for 15 minutes a day, every day for 31 days. Many people have taken this challenge and have extended it to 60 days and even 6 months.

For the novice meditator, I’ll give you plenty of guides and even guided meditations you can follow all month through emails and a support page on my website full of articles, recordings, and helpful links. For the experienced meditator, just do what you normally do but by joining our group you’ll be part of a cyber sangha. Either way, I’ll be giving you regular support and encouragement throughout the month. We will even have the chance to meditate together with some live, online meditation sessions.

The challenge costs $31 and as an incentive to finish it, for everyone who succeeds, you will have the option to get 100% of your tuition refunded to you. Dead serious. Many people have even recruited their family and friends to enroll to create their own meditation tribe for added support and accountability.

Join me!

Visualizing How To Do The Impossible

If you read my email yesterday, you’re aware that I’m getting ready for the new year and new decade that is going to start in about a week and that I'm kicking it off with my 31-Day Meditation Challenge.

We are in a very unique and crucial time: it’s the time to prepare to create what we want to see in the next year and decade. Have you ever heard the saying, “If you’re not sure where you want to go, any path will take you there.” Knowing what you want and what’s possible are some of the keys to our happiness and fulfillment. Visualization is a key way of manifesting what we want in our lives.

Meditation, particularly Yoga Nidra, is a great way to practice visualizing what you’d like to see manifest in your life. If you are like I was, you might be a little skeptical about the idea of visualizations to manifest what you’d like to see in the world. But after practicing visualizing regularly, I can tell you that there’s some incredible mojo in visualization. That shit works!

In part, visualization works because for your brain and beliefs, seeing is believing. Even your most straight-laced neuroscientist will tell you that our brains don’t discern reality, they merely interpret it. Much of what we accomplish happens because we believe it can. Here’s a great example...

31-Day Meditation Challenge

Starts January 1, 2020. Start your decade off right.

For a long time, nobody believed that a human being could run a mile 4-minute mile. Impossible, they said. Then on May 6th 1954 Roger Bannister proved them wrong. What’s crazy is that as soon as Bannister showed people that it could be done, people started doing it right and left. Countless other high-performers from movie stars to CEOs to world-class athletes use visualization as their not-so-secret power for stellar performance. Each one of them, from Oprah to Muhammad Ali, will tell you that seeing is believing.

What do you believe is possible for your future? Are there any self-limiting beliefs that might be sabotaging you from accomplishing your potential? Yoga Nidra is an excellent way tapping what's possible for you.

Live, Online Yoga Nidra

Join us! Sundays at 9 am MST

Below, you'll see a button where I’m offering a free visualization for the New Year Yoga Nidra, guided meditation practice, that you can use to help set you up for what’s sure to be your best year and decade to come. And consider joining me this Sunday for my live, online Yoga NIdra class where this week we will be doing a live session as I offer visualizations for the new year.

I also invite you to join my 31-Day Meditation Challenge, starting January 1, where you will get the opportunity to use this and other visualizations regularly to set the trajectory for what’s to come. See what possibilities can happen when you start your year off with a simple, daily meditation for 15 minutes or more.

We’ve got a new year and a new decade ahead of us. What do you want to see arrive in your future? Are you willing to try visualizing what is possible? Please consider joining my 31-Day Meditation Challenge and invite your nearest and dearest to join too.

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I also wanted to share with you an excerpt from my new book, Practical Yoga Nidra, about the importance of Visualizations. I wrote an entire chapter on the topic.

Visualizations are scenes you evoke in your mind by using your senses. Your Inner Sanctuary is a good example of a visualization. Visualizations work with your unconscious mind to adjust ideas of what’s possible and help you live a more fulfilled life with deeper Awareness. The truth is, many of our actions are the product of our unconscious mind, and as you learned earlier, our unconscious mind could even be responsible for 95 percent of the actions we take. Therefore, visualization is a powerful way to understand, decode, and even rewire your unconscious mind.

For most of us, seeing is believing. Remember how your brain doesn’t differentiate very well between what you’re visualizing and what’s happening in real life? If you can see yourself succeeding, you can remove the unconscious blocks that prevent you from meeting your potential. Trust me, you are much more capable than you realize. But while visualizations can give you this deep personal insight, that’s really not their function in our Yoga Nidra practice.

The purpose of visualization in this step of the 10-step method is to practice seeing all parts of yourself to gain Awareness. If in your Awareness through visualization you see that you could respond to some stimuli a bit better in your life, then great. That’s a wonderful by-product of Awareness. Revealing something about your unconscious or gaining a message from your wise inner teacher could, in fact, be that tool that helps you become more aware.

Not all teachers use visualizations in Yoga Nidra, and those who do have their own takes—some simply invite the conscious mind to notice how it responds to concepts and phrases. For example, if you were to ask 10 people what their immediate response to the word “businessman” is, there would be 10 different responses. This kind of visualization reveals what kind of associations you may have and perhaps show how they affect your waking life. Other types of visualizations in Yoga Nidra include graduated exposure to emotional triggers, connecting to spirit guides, noticing and rewiring beliefs around money, and visualizing optimal performance. I personally find visualizations effective in creating powerful action in a person’s life through the practice of Awareness.

What This Practice Does for You

Visualizations in a Yoga Nidra practice help create a conversation between your conscious and unconscious mind. Like your conscious, or thinking, mind, your unconscious mind rests in the Vijnanamaya kosha. A good question might be how the conscious mind can be aware of the unconscious—isn’t that the point, that it’s unconscious? In Yoga Nidra, we go beyond the thinking mind to gain an Awareness that is broad enough to hold both conscious and unconscious mind alike. Yoga Nidra is like a handy bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind so there can be understanding and commerce between the two.

So much of what you believe about what’s possible or what you deserve in the world comes from your unconscious. As you relax and graduate into deepening layers of Awareness through Yoga Nidra, you can reveal some of the unconscious programming that’s running your life. This can be very illuminating to help to decode some of your unconscious actions and decisions like, for example, why you can never take a day off work even if you’re sick or why you keep losing at Scrabble with your best friend even though you can spell the pants off them. I can’t tell you why you don’t think you deserve a day off or why you take a nosedive at Scrabble, but with continued Yoga Nidra practice, including visualization, you can gain some insight and put some positive programming into your unconscious mind.

Aiming for a seven-letter word on the triple-word score square? Have an important presentation to give at work? Want to nail your next job interview? Wondering if you could ever find the love of your life? Using visualizations is an easy and effective way to access or program your unconscious mind to bring your best self forward into conscious action. A lot of famous people have used visualization to bring their best selves forward, including Muhammad Ali, Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Billie Jean King, Oprah Winfrey, and Carli Lloyd, to name just a few. In an interview recorded in the Harvard Business Review, Greg Louganis chalks up his ability for success and focus during competition to his practice of visualization.

Maybe Olympic diving isn’t your focus in life and what you’d love more than a gold medal is to learn to sleep well. Visualization through Yoga Nidra is a very powerful and effective way to help you achieve incredible sleep. One day a student came into Yoga Nidra class with desperation in her bloodshot eyes. “I haven’t slept well in over six months and I’m going crazy. Can Yoga Nidra help that?” she pleaded. “You’re in the right place,” I assured her.

During practice, we visualized getting very relaxed and achieving deep, peaceful, and nourishing sleep. After class she told me that she did not fall asleep during the practice but was the most relaxed she had been in months. She came back to class a few days later and reported that on the night of that Yoga Nidra class, she’d been able to achieve the first good night of sleep in six months. This student is not alone. Unfortunately, inadequate sleep is very common, and something as simple as a visualization through Yoga Nidra is a natural and effective way to help

One you understand the principles of why visualizations work and how to use them, you can guide yourself through your own visualizations independent of your Yoga Nidra practice

Remember, all parts of your visualization are parts of yourself speaking to your conscious mind. During your visualization, you may encounter an archetype. An archetype is a character or general model for something. Archetypes exist in your unconscious as symbols. For example, often when I tap into the wise person inside of me, it takes the form of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is the archetype of my wise person and helps put a face to something otherwise abstract. I understand that when I visualize Gandalf offering me advice, I’m merely tapping my own deep inner wisdom, which is speaking to my conscious mind. All parts of the vision are parts of myself.

Once during a Yoga Nidra practice, I wanted to hear a message from my wise inner teacher. After fostering a deepening Awareness by going through the steps of my Yoga Nidra practice, like my Sankalpa, Inner Sanctuary, body scan, and so on, to connect to the teacher that resides in my deeper unconscious, I visualized one of my favorite professors from college. We were sitting in his office having a warm chat. I could clearly see all the elements—from the lamp in the corner to the wood grain of his desk. I could hear the chair squeak as he leaned back in thought and stroked his beard. Then he looked at me, almost mischievously out of the corner of his eye, and said, “Whatever you believe in, practice it every day.” For me, that visualization was my wise inner teacher reminding me of the importance of practice.

A Radical Start to 2020

Will You Do Something Radical With Me?

Once I was on my way to a yoga class, stressed out because life had totally thrown me a curveball and I was completely unprepared for class. I was traveling to class with a friend and complained out loud, “Life has been so crazy this week that I have done exactly zero planning for this class and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to say to these people!” She turned to me and told me something life-changing. She said, “ I don’t know why you haven’t figured this out yet but people don’t come to your classes because of what you say. They come because of who you are.” I sat quietly absorbing her words for a moment before blurting out, “Well, who the hell am I?!”

Since that moment, through practice and deepening life events, I’ve started to discover a thing or two about myself, a journey that I’m sure will never end. So far, along the way, I’ve discovered something crucial about myself that might be obvious to you. I’ve discovered that, and I’m not overselling it when I say it, the secrets of the Universe lie not outside of us but inside of us and we all must learn to go inside to discover who we are to uncover them. In fact, one could sum up most practices like meditation and yoga as simply practices that un-layer all the things that obfuscate what’s already inside of us. They are practices that help us to come to know ourselves, and that when we know Self, we know the Universe.

To this end, each one of us is on a hero’s journey. Our destiny, similar to heroes like Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter, is to ultimately discover that the secret to our power already exists inside of us, albeit perhaps in some latent, unrealized form. For us, we don’t need to fight Darth Vader or Lord Voldemort in order to discover who we truly are. Actually, what we must do to discover the truth is even more radical, more daring. We must be willing to sit, close our eyes, and journey inside. We must come to know ourselves through practices like meditation. I know, I know. For some of us, it would seem easier just to fight Lord Voldemort.

The world doesn’t need another Luke Skywalker or a Harry Potter. What the world desperately needs is for you to be your best self, totally alive and in love with the world.

Philosopher and theologian Howard Thurman said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman

We come alive when we come to know ourselves and share whoever that is with the world. Above the temple gates at the Oracle of Delphi is inscribed the immortal words: “Know thyself.” I can think of no better way to know yourself and come alive than through a regular, simple meditation practice.

This is the reason I’m hosting my 31-Day Meditation Challenge, starting January 1, 2020. It’s meant to join a group of people together to help all of us start this next year decade from a place of grounded Self-knowledge and to share in global responsiveness, to empower ourselves with visions of what’s possible in our lives for the coming year and decade, and ultimately to source and share our eternal essence: love. This challenge helps and encourages you to start a simple, daily meditation practice of 15 minutes or more, using any style of meditation you like. If you've done this challenge in the past, I'm offer all new materials!

When you join, I’ll give you plenty of styles you can choose from including many of my recorded Yoga Nidra practices where all you have to do is lie down, close your eyes, and learn to wake up. We’ll even have some live, group meditations. All month long, I’ll support you with emails and with encouragement and information.

This challenge is perfect both for the novice as well as the experienced meditator. The challenge costs $31 and as an incentive to complete the challenge, if you meditate every day for 15 minutes or more, you have the option to get a 100% refund of your tuition. This will be fun, engaging, and necessary.

Consider inviting other people who you’d like to be in your meditation tribe to join because hey, this is going to be a party and it’s nice to have a team for accountability and added encouragement.

Over the next 7 days, I’m going to be sending a few more emails that offer thoughts and ideas about the importance and some stunning statistics about meditation, all to hopefully encourage you to continue or start a regular and simple meditation practice.

Please join this radical meditation movement. Start this new year and decade with some grounded mindfulness. Please join my 31-Day Meditation Challenge.

My Decade Playlist

What a year! What. A. Decade! (As I’m thinking about all that happened for me this decade, I gotta pause and do some Ujjayi breath or something… Ok, that’s better.)

I feel as if I lived at least 3 different lifetimes in the past decade. For me, though I love the idea, the jury is still out on the idea of reincarnation. However, I can assure you that I’ve lived several lives within this life. I feel like I was someone very different a decade ago.

Do you ever feel like this, that you were someone very different at the beginning of this decade?

If my past decade were a playlist, it might read like this:

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1. Wanna be Startin’ Somethin by Michael Jackson

2. Money for Nothin’ by the Dire Straights

3. She Works Hard for The Money by Donna Summers

4. Girlfriend In A Coma by The Smiths

5. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do Neil Sedaka

6. Cry Me a River by Billie Holiday

7. Losing My Religion by REM

8. I Can See Clearly Now by Otis Redding

9. I Got My Mojo Workin’ by Jimmy Smith

10. One Bourbon, Once Scotch, and One Beer by John Lee Hooker

11. Anthem by Leonard Cohen

12. You Are The Best Thing by Ray LaMontagne

13. This Must Be The Place by The Talking Heads

14. Into The Mystic by Van Morrison

15. Beautiful Boy by John Lennon

16. The Lion The Beast and the Beat by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

17. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

18. Don’t Fear The Reaper (More Cowbell!) by Blue Öyster Cult

19. Feelin’ Good by Nina Simone

20. Give Me One Reason by Tracy Chapman

21. New York, New York by Frank Sinatra

22. New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down by LDC Soundsystem

23. Afternoon in Paris by John Lewis

24. La Vie En Rose by Édith Piaf

25. Timeless by John Abercrombie

26. Suddhosi Buddhosi by Shimshai

27. Clare de Lune by Claude Debussy

28. All You Need is Love by The Beatles

What’s on your playlist for the past decade?

Does it ever feel like your decade playlist is playing too quickly or too slowly? One thing I’ve noticed is that when I’m really present, time doesn’t seem to move either fast or slow. When I’m not paying attention, it seems like life is moving at mach speeds. So, before another decade blazes by and all we feel is the wind blowing our hair as it passes, let’s start this year and decade by practicing presence.

Also, starting a new year and decade gives us a very unique opportunity to forge our path forward very mindfully and deliberately, charting the course toward our best decade EVER. There’s a saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

For all these reasons I want to invite you to join me as we start this decade with a simple dedication to mindfulness. I invite you to meditate with me every day during the month of January for at least 15 minutes a day with my 31-Day Meditation challenge. Truly, this challenge has the ability to start this next chapter of your life with power and presence.

The 31-Day Meditation Challenge is simple: meditate every day during the month of January for 15 minutes or more. That’s it. Choose whatever style of meditation works best for you. I’ll be supporting you every step of the way with emails filled with information and encouragement. I’ll also provide a resources page on my website with several links to guided meditations, explanations about different meditation styles, and links to poetry, blogs, and articles about meditation. For those new to meditation, this will lead you step by step through creating a simple yet effective meditation practice that may become a life practice. For those of you who are experienced meditators, this challenge gives you the opportunity to be doing your regular meditation in tandem with hundreds of other people, thus creating a cyber sangha. I believe that people meditating together can change the world. Let’s do it together!

This challenge costs $31 because in my experience, when there’s a buy-in, there’s a tendency to be more committed. I would even encourage you to enroll friends and family and create for yourself a mediation tribe for more accountability, support, and camaraderie. And, I’m so committed to your success that as an incentive to complete the challenge, everyone who finishes has the option to receive a 100% refund on their tuition. Boom, no joke.

To register CLICK HERE or the button below. It will take you to the registration on my website. Simply and fill out the form and pay your tuition. Then, forward this email or that page to anybody you’d love to have do this challenge with you. When you register, you’ll get a welcome email right away with all the details and you can start meditating today—why wait until the first of January? The official challenge begins January 1 and will last through the entire month. We will even have the opportunity to do some live meditations together via Zoom, an online meeting platform. If you've done this meditation challenge in the past, I'm offering all new content for the emails.

At only $31 there’s not much to lose but there’s so much to gain. Please consider joining me to start your year and decade off perfectly with regular mindfulness.

For those of you who purchased my book, Practical Yoga Nidra or my latest offering, Essential Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore: Volume 1, you could literally put on your favorite Yoga Nidra recording every day and feel your life open up before your eyes through this gentle but expansive practice.

As we go into this next decade it is my prayer that we do so from a grounded place of mindfulness and love. May we access the miraculous place of our hearts that gives us true and essential sight and may this heart-vision illuminate the best in others and ourselves. And may we allow this essential clarity to guide our lives in all our endeavors.

Thank you for being an important part of this last decade with me. I love you. It is my honest and sincere desire is that the playlist that presents itself for you over this next decade opens your heart, gives you pure delight, and makes you dance your ass off.

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Distinguish yourself from the thousands of other yoga teachers with your ability to teach this transformative practice in YOUR own voice and not some rote script.

More Merry Than a Santa Claus Pub Crawl

We are right in the thick of the Holidays and despite the crazy that seems to exist in the world right now and especially because of the holidays, I’m nonetheless feeling more merry than a Santa Claus pub-crawl.

Earlier in the week I announced that I’d be coming home to Salt Lake City mid-January. Thank you to everyone for your supportive emails and warm wishes, it warmed my heart and I really, really appreciate it.

Also in that email I mentioned some of my upcoming projects, and today I’m thrilled to tell you about two projects that I’ve been working hard on that I hope will help you to end this year, and start the next, with clarity, calm, and ease

The first is Essential Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore: Volume 1, a volume of over 7 hours of 15 different digital Yoga Nidra recordings that you can download immediately to help you source your best self.

Many of you bought my book which invites you to design your own Yoga Nidra practice. I've also had many requests from my students for easy-access pre-recorded Yoga Nidra meditations, so if this sounds like you, then I'd like to invite you to check out my Essential Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore Vol. 1 and immediately start napping your way to enlightenment!

I took the most commonly requested topics for these recordings, and I'm thrilled with how this project turned out. Each of the 15 recordings use Yoga Nidra’s powerful yet relaxing style of cultivating Awareness to help you live a more authentic, powerful, and happy life. These recordings are specifically designed to help you with every-day issues like: managing stress, getting better sleep, feeling grounded, starting your day, developing compassion, developing abundance, accomplishing goals, and more.

I’d love if you would take a look and give yourself the gift of Essential Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore Vol. 1 this season. Or, if you know someone who would enjoy this, you can gift it to them with a special message from you.

The other thing I’m so excited for is my 31-Day Meditation Challenge. Every time I run the Meditation Challenge I get so much glowing feedback about the community, the accountability, and the support that this challenge creates, I can't think of a better way to start off 2020 and the new decade!

The challenge is simple. Just meditate in any fashion you wish for 15 minutes a day, every day. That’s it. I’ll be cheering you on with tons of support and encouragement with regular emails that will give you plenty of information and ideas for meditating and explaining different styles of meditation. This is excellent for both the novice and the experienced meditator.

If you bought my book, Practical Yoga Nidra, or downloaded Essential Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore Volume 1, you’ve basically got this meditation challenge in the bag; just settle into a relaxing, daily Yoga Nidra practice led by yours truly and watch your life evolve before your eyes.

The challenge costs just $31 but as an incentive to finish the challenge, if you complete the challenge you have the option to get a full refund of your tuition. Boom! I've even had many people in the past uplevel the challenge by enrolling with a meditation tribe to do together for inner-circle support and accountability.

I hope you'll join us!

Lastly. . . . um . . . I don't know how to tell you this but . . . I think gentle honesty is the best way to say it . . . your nearest and dearest have contacted me and they've asked me to stage an intervention. Apparently, the holidays and crazy political stuff has turned you into, well, maybe not your most centered and grounded self so they've asked (insisted, rather) that something be done. Luckily, this Sunday, December 22nd at 9 am MST I’ll be hosting my weekly, live and online Yoga Nidra class where this week we will be using breathing, mindfulness, and especially Yoga Nidra to offer others the best gift of the holidays, A STRESS-FREE VERSION OF YOU. It cost $12 drop-in or you could buy a pass of 4 classes for $40 (if the condition is chronic). You'll thank you and your family with thank you. See you Sunday at 9 am MST.

Coming Home!!!

A year ago TODAY my wee family took a train from Paris to Nice to check out what would be our home for the next year. During this year, I have fallen in love with France and specifically Nice. I’ve loved learning and refining my French, I’ve soaked up the culture, I've made wonderful friends, and of course reveled in the incredible pastries, bread, cheeses, and wine. The motto for France has to be “Liberté, Egalité, and Gluten!”

But as we all know there are seasons for everything and Sen and I have decided that our season in France is coming to a close and so we've decided to move back to Salt Lake City. Coming back to Salt Lake City will be the beginning of a new and exiting chapter for us.

One of the biggest reasons for us coming back to Salt Lake City is to help launch Seneca's new business, an endeavor for which she's been studying and preparing over the past year. I'm really proud of the work she's been doing and will do and can't wait to tell you more about it. We are planning some fun and exciting ways in which we can even work together. But more about that later . . .

Another thing that will be different is that I'll be doing more traveling to work. Since I've moved away from Salt Lake City, I've been focused on building more of a global audience and that's paid off in some exciting ways. I already have plans for teaching workshops and trainings in different cities around the world, including New York and Hong Kong!

We will be arriving in mid-January. And while we never know what plans the Universe has for us next, we are nonetheless planning to stay in Salt Lake City for a few years.

I’m thrilled to be able to pick up classes again at 21st Yoga, to be offering workshops, and trainings, and to be working one on one with clients again. This year in France, and our time in New York before that, has been illuminating and wonderful and we will also be excited to come back to our community in Salt Lake City. We left Salt Lake City in June of 2017 and it will be nice to call it home again.

We will be visiting France next year to share with you my Bordeaux Yoga Retreat, June 13–19. If you’d like to see what I’ve been able to discover over this past year, I’d be honored to be your guide. This will be six days of savoring your life with yoga, wine, and presence, all while staying at an incredibly luxurious château.

My new book about Yoga Nidra dropped about a week ago and I’ve been so immensely touched by the response. Thank you with all my heart. I’m planning on having a Yoga Nidra and book signing event in Salt Lake City when I get back—a moment when we can practice some deeply needed Yoga Nidra, perhaps I will read an excerpt or two from my book, and maybe we can raise a celebratory glass of something afterwards. I’d be deeply honored if you could join me and of course I’ll provide information for that as it develops.

Over the next few days, I’ll send some more information about some exciting events I've been working hard on, namely my 31-Day Meditation Challenge starting January 1, as well as my Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore Volume 1, a series of Yoga Nidra recordings, but for today I want to let you know of a very special event I’m planning for TOMORROW with an incredible teacher, Rachel Posner: De-Stress For The Holidays

Together, Rachel and I are co-hosting a live, online event that will help you to de-stress from the holidays. Rachel is an incredible teacher and together we are going to offer some discussion about how we can manifest exactly the kinds of feelings we want for the holidays. Then we will put it into practice with some engaging breathwork, poses, meditations, and journaling. This is happening on Tuesday, December 17th at 9 am MST. You can join us from anywhere in the world. but we’ll be recording it so you can watch it later if you can’t make the exact time work. Plus, we’ll give you some take home materials including some meditations and other resources to help you be your best for the holidays. It costs $20 and you can register at my website, scottmooreyoga.com or by clicking the button either on my email or blog post, depending on where you’re reading or listening to this.

If you like the idea of catching up with live and online, I’ve also been hosting my live, online Yoga Nidra classes on Sundays at 9 am MST and I’ve really loved hosting those. We’ve had some great conversations and some excellent practices using Yoga Nidra to help us with all kinds of things from sleep, to stress, to connecting to our hearts. This week we will be focusing on giving the best gift possible for the holidays which is a stress-free version of yourself to all those who are privileged enough to be in your proximity.

Again, we have loved being in France but we will also be coming back to Salt Lake City to be close to family, friends and our community, and this of course includes you

Thank you for your wonderful support. I hope to see you tomorrow in my live, online workshop with Rachel

Yoga Nidra for Sleep

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Yoga Nidra means the yoga of sleep. More appropriately, it’s about waking up than going to sleep. Here are some ways Yoga Nidra can help you sleep.

Let me elaborate…

Yoga Nidra for Sleep

Yoga is the yoking of all things into Oneness. NIdra actually refers to the hypnogogic state BETWEEN dreaming and wakefullness. It’s a bridge that connects consciousness, and unconsciousness, dreaming and waking, form and sprit. But appropriately named, its super power is relaxation which helps to guide practitioners into deepening layers of awareness to arrive a the beautiful marriage of form and spirit. True, Yoga Nidra is very relaxing and can even cause people to fall asleep during the process. If that happens, I always tell my students not to worry because the part that I’m speaking to is still paying attention.

While practicing Yoga Nidra, you may fall asleep, you may stay awake, but Yoga Nidra can be a great way to develop regular deep, natural, and nourishing sleep. One of the ways it does this is through simply bringing practitioners into a great sense of Awareness. Tantra philosophy (the school of thought where Yoga Nidra comes from) states that our True Nature is that of Awareness. If you can experience your True Nature through practices like Yoga Nidra, you’ll find yourself more whole. As you experience your True Self, that of Awareness, you find yourself experiencing the part of you that is synonymous with Source. There’s nothing you lack or need in this state. Therefore, when you approach yourself to Source (your True Self) then any apparent lack goes away. Yoga Nidra is perhaps my favorite (and most relaxing) way of connecting to Source. If sleep is something that is troubling you, getting clear with Source is a great way to get back on track.

I’ve always said that wellness is the byproduct of Awareness.

Since Yoga Nidra is about deepening your Awareness, it’s also true that your nature state is that of relaxed Awareness. This is a very common state of mind during Yoga Nidra. The relaxation part of Yoga Nidra is very useful to practice. It trains you to deepen your relaxation when you really need it, especially during times when you’re trying to sleep.

Often times, not getting good or regular sleep, or bouts of insomnia, are symptoms of other things such as imbalance in body, mind, or spirit. Your energy could be off. Your diet could be skewed. Your stress could be through the roof. Either way, if your sleep is lacking, it’s an invitation to look at your life. Yoga Nidra is a great way to do just this. The practice invites us to simply be the observer of things as they are and see our lives with as much objectivity as possible. Though practicing Yoga Nidra, you might discover an imbalance or a faulty belief that is preventing you from thriving in your life and which might manifest as sleeplessness.

Resting is a skill. Like all skills, you can be good at it or bad at it. Yoga Nidra is a way of practicing the skill of relaxing. It does this in part by deepening your layers of Awareness through the different layers of your ego called Koshas. You’ll experience paying keen attention to body, energy, mind, beliefs and archetypes, and even you layers of joy and bliss—all as ways of learning to misidentify with them and see how they point yo–––u to your True Self, that of pure Awareness. The process is very relaxing. Truly, you’ll experience your Both And nature, the part of you that is married as both consciousness and physicality combined. As you experience your Both And nature, you’ll find yourself simultaneously relaxing deeper and deeper while also becoming more aware.

Yoga Nidra helps you to simply welcome, recognize and witness without opinions. Often times we get worked up when we can’t sleep. We find ourselves not sleeping and then get stressed about not sleeping, increasing our anxiety and making it even harder to sleep. Yoga Nidra helps you practice allowing things to be just as they are, neither good nor bad, but witnessing whatever is as mere information. Even sleeplessness. You can rest blissfully in a sleepless state simply being curious about sleeplessness rather than getting worked up over the fact that you’ve got a big day tomorrow and it’s 2 am and you still haven’t fallen asleep. Also, it’s said that Yoga Nidra is the rest equivalent of 4x sleep, so 30 minutes of Yoga Nidra is like a solid 2-hour nap. Even if you’re not sleeping, you can rest assured that you’re still getting some great rest.

Some things to consider regarding sleep

Your mind is a processing machine. It’s a computer. The brain isn’t very good about distinguishing between real events, scenes it sees on a screen like a moving, and things it pictures as images in your mind. If you’re laying there in bed, replaying the horrible things that could happen tomorrow over and over again in your mind, your brain is releasing the same fight or flight chemicals it would if you were literally in that situation. Instead, you can use one of the tools I often use in Yoga Nidra to help people tap into the rest and digest part of the nervous system. Because our mind isn’t great about differentiating scenes in the mind vs. scenes in reality, you can visualize peaceful scenes and release the same rest and digest chemicals in your brain as if you were literally in that scene, experiencing all that bliss. You get to make your own bliss. You simply tap into your senses and visualize as if seeing through your own eyes, smelling with your own nose, hearing with your own ears, all the things you’d see in your oasis of peace. This will help you to begin to relax and stop sending cortisol (stress hormone) through your system when you should be going to sleep.

To help your mind wind down before bed, you can also simply find a focus. Because the brain is meant to process, give your mind something simple and singular to process before going to bed rather than defaulting to process the worst-case-scenario of could happen tomorrow. Start counting your breaths down from 100. Exhale and think 100, inhale think 99, exhale 98, etc. It’s incredible how easily your mind will relax when it can focus on something simple. This works miracles.

Good Sleep Hygiene

You may consider a few tips to help you train your body to receive regular, deep, and nourishing sleep.

• Develop a sleep schedule. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Plan on a full 7–9 hours of sleep, even if you think you can get away with less.

• Have a bed-time ritual. Plan on winding down before bed and that means avoiding screens, big emotions, and drama before bed. Do some light reading with dim lights and some camomile tea.

• Avoid blue lights, fluorescents, and LED lights. All of these kinds of lights emit the kind of light that your body recognizes in sunlight and it messes up your circadian rhythm.

• Monitor your caffeine. You may think that caffeine is not causing you any problems but it can stay in your system for up to 48 hours and even if it doesn’t prevent you from falling asleep, it can prevent you from going into deep sleep, or staying asleep.

Please enjoy a free Yoga Nidra recording designed to help you practice getting relaxed and practice deep, peaceful and nourishing sleep.

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My Book Drops Today!!!!!

Today’s the day! I’m so thrilled. My publisher said that if everything goes as planned then my book would be published on December 10th. Well, everything has gone as planned and I’m so pleased to say that my book is LIVE!

So I’ve been talking about this for a while now but in case you have no clue what I’m talking about, I wrote a book called Practical Yoga Nidra: A 10-Step Method to Reducing Stress, Improving Sleep, and Restoring Your Spirit.

The publisher did a bang-up job on making it beautiful. I’m just so proud, I can’t even stand it! I really want to share it with you, and I’m even going to share with you an excerpt from the book, including a story about my dear, dear friend Kim Dastrup and her wonderful father and an unforgettable lesson he taught me about joy.

If you haven’t pre-ordered you book and are curious, you can get your copy on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and other places fine books are sold. My publisher says that there might even be a chance that Audible will want to do an audio version of this book, which makes sense cuz it has over 20 scripts for guided Yoga Nidra meditations. The book only costs $12.99

If you want to give the gift of bliss for the holidays, perhaps consider buying a few of these and handing them out to your nearest and dearest and everyone in between. And hey, a great way to become a NYT Bestseller is to have every one of my friends go to every book store they know and simply purchase all my books (individually) you see on the shelves. Think of all the people you could make happy over the holidays with a CASE of these books.

Also, if you’re looking for ways to de-stress over the holidays, I’m so excited to announce that I’ve teamed up with the inimitable Rachel Posner, a teacher that I revere to co-teach a live, online class that will feature discussion, breathwork, poses, meditations, and journaling. This will be live and online on Tuesday, December 17th at 9 am MST. It costs $20 and we will be recording it so if you can’t make the time, you can watch the recording later. You can register for this at my website, scottmooreyoga.com. If you belong to my email list, I’ll be sending an email specifically about this workshop with more deets, or like I said run over to my website.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful support. I’ll finish by reading this excerpt from my book about one of the crucial steps in our Yoga Nidra practice which is to tap into joy.

Tap Into Joy

Tapping into your joy means practicing daily happiness and pleasure. It’s about learning to see the myriad things around you all the time that can cause you joy. However, your joy is not actually dependent on events and circumstances, and it’s accessible whenever you wish. In Yoga Nidra, joy is found beyond the mind. When you have the know-how, there is little or no effort to connect to this part of your being. Eventually, with practice, you won’t need a trigger to feel this joy. You’ll simply be joy. This limitless joy is your True Nature.

Despite whatever pain you may have experienced or whatever scars are on your heart, you have unfettered joy waiting to be dusted off. This joy is your essence. It has always existed the same way you have always existed. Learning to tap into the joy that is always with you opens your heart to inexhaustible prana, or energy. For example, in his audio program Clear Mind, Wild Heart, writer and poet David Whyte shares a story about a time when he felt utterly exhausted by his work for a nonprofit. He asked his friend Brother David Steindl-Rast (a Catholic Benedictine monk) half-jokingly, “What’s the antidote to exhaustion?” His friend looked at him for a moment and then responded with something Whyte found life-changing: “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t necessarily rest. It’s wholeheartedness.”

Whyte realized that, at that moment in his life, his heart was yearning for him to devote himself to poetry instead of the work he was doing for the nonprofit. From that moment forward, he started letting go of what didn’t tap into his joy so that he could put all of his energies into what did. Whyte has since become a world-renowned poet, speaker, and author. That’s not to say you need to give up the work you do, of course; you can begin tapping into joy by simply noticing when you smile or laugh, remembering what you love, doing the things you enjoy wholeheartedly, and of course practicing Yoga Nidra.

Learning to tap into your limitless joy can be fun and easy. It’s the momentary joys in life that reveal your unchanging joy, the feeling of your True Self. Make it a regular practice to notice the things you love about life. You have an immense power to create or interpret your reality, and focusing on what brings you joy and what you want to see in your life is key to feeling in love with life.

If you adopt a Hobbesian approach to life, that it is “nasty, brutish, and short,” you’ll find endless proof to support that view. But if you adopt an It’s a Wonderful Life approach, you’ll find just as

much proof.

If you get to create your reality, why not make it as beautiful as possible by noticing all of its joy, love, and sensuality? As you allow joy, love, and sensuality to become regular features in your life, you’ll soon find that your entire life becomes an expression of this joy. Doing this regularly will also prime you to invite these elements into your Yoga Nidra practice.

What This Practice Does for You

Your complete happiness and sensuality lie within the subtle layer of your being called the Anandamaya kosha (the bliss body). This kind of joy isn’t momentary happiness that comes and goes; rather, it is the unlimited bliss you experience as your True Self. However, learning to witness life’s momentary joys helps prepare you to feel your True Self’s natural state of limitless joy. As I mentioned in chapter 3, the mind makes little distinction between what plays out on a screen, in your mind, or in real life. Your brain doesn’t differentiate between what’s real and imagined, so visualizing what makes you happy can have the same effect as actually experiencing it.

While our True Nature is joy, ironically, we have been programmed to be pretty negative. In fact, humanity’s survival may very well have depended on it. Think about it: You’re less likely to jump into a shallow lake if you think you might hit jagged rocks at the bottom. Therefore, finding your joy through Yoga Nidra and similar practices is a process that essentially rewires the brain from its negative default to inhabiting our birthright to be unfailingly happy. It’s the kind of happiness you don’t have to wait around for. No one’s going to give it to you, and it’s not tied to any event. Like it or not, no one and nothing is responsible for your happiness. You must decide to see what is joyful around you and make it a regular practice to invite joy into your life.

Several years ago, my friend Kim’s dad, Warren, suffered a serious spinal cord injury. He’s confined to a wheelchair, has very limited movement in his arms and legs, and requires daily help from nurses, especially after his wife and caretaker passed away. A while back, Kim and I were staying at Warren’s house along with Kim’s sister and two daughters. Warren and I were sharing a room, and as we were tucking into our beds, he began to muse about how many of his friends enjoy luxuries like big houses, boats, and cars. With tears in his eyes, he said, “You know, when I see my daughters and my granddaughters, I can’t help but feel like I’ve won in life. I’ve won!” Warren sat there in the dark with a wide grin on his face. He didn’t say a thing about any of the challenges that beset his life and chose only to see the joy.

Sankalpa: Being Known By The Universe Through Our Desires

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I'm so excited!!!!!!!

My new book, Practical Yoga Nidra, hits the shelves December 10th. That's like in 5 days! This is really a dream come true for me. I'm really proud of this book and I can't wait to share it with you.
The following is an excerpt from my book. My book offers a simple, 10-step guide to developing a Yoga Nidra practice, one that will help you reduce stress, improve sleep, and restore your spirit.

Preorder your book on Amazon ($12.99) by clicking on the photo and I’ll give you a FREE live, online Yoga Nidra class ($12 value).

Enjoy this excerpt and let me know what you think about the concept of Sankalpa and intentions. Keep in mind that though I’m writing about setting your intention for a Yoga Nidra practice, the practice of Sankalpa could be used for starting a yoga practice, meditation, or any project or goal.

Also, in my upcoming volume of Yoga Nidra recordings (available in a few weeks), I’ll have an entire practice dedicated to using Yoga Nidra, and in particular the use of Sankalpa, or intention setting, as a deeply mindful way of helping you to visualize your goals to make them into a reality.

Step 1 of the 10-Step Method is to set your intention. Sankalpa is a Sanskrit word that could most simply be translated as your intention. However, the practice of choosing your Sankalpa is a bit more entailed than merely stating your intention for your Yoga Nidra practice. Your Sankalpa is like a personal mantra or a statement of truth that you repeat in your mind as you begin your Yoga Nidra practice. I encourage you to sincerely consider your Sankalpa each time you begin a Yoga Nidra practice. If there’s something big in your life you feel you need, your Sankalpa could be the same each time. However try to picture what specifically you need today in relationship to that desire. In other words, don’t get stuck in the past with a Sankalpa that is outdated for you.

To choose your Sankalpa, it’s best to pause for a moment, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and become present by opening to your senses. Then reflect for a brief few seconds about what you need most in your life in the moment. Your Sankalpa might be for something practical and physical, something emotional, or something spiritual. You may even set an intention for the well-being of another person or whole group of people. Your Sankalpa doesn’t even have to be about what you want but rather maybe for the ability to articulate a recognition, appreciation, or gratitude for what you already have. It’s important that your Sankalpa is as short a sentence or phrase as possible. This helps you to gain clarity on what you really need or want. When choosing your Sankalpa, be positive, specific, and be present.

First, be positive. The Universe is one big, eternal yes. It’s inviting you to merge into its path of awakening to a complete understanding of this positivity and this yes. Yoga Nidra is about aligning with your True Nature and you can begin this essential alignment by choosing a Sankalpa that reflects this Universal positivity.

When choosing a Sankalpa, focus on what you want rather what you want to avoid. I heard one of my teachers, Judith Lasater, say, “What is worrying but praying for what you don’t want?” I grew up in Utah where everyone mountain bikes in the summer and skis in the winter. Coaches in both sports teach beginners to look where they want to go rather than where the don’t want to go. It’s incredible how focusing on something, good or bad, brings about its realization.

The next consideration in choosing your Sankalpa is specificity. Being specific paints a bullseye for the Universe to aim for. Make your Sankalpa one short sentence. Choose the exact thing you want rather than sweeping generalities. Once, a friend in her 20s asked the Universe for a car. Her intention was to own something with an automatic transmission and a sun roof. A week later, her family inherited a Lincoln town car that indeed had both automatic transmission and a sunroof but smelled like an ashtray, was 12 feet long, and probably older than she was. She drove that car gratefully but was sure that the next time she made her automotive intentions known to the Universe, she was sure to add that she wanted something a bit more sporty and hip.

Lastly, when choosing your Sankalpa, it’s essential to be present. The part of you that you’re communicating your Sankalpa to only understands the present. Past and future are abstract concepts regulated by different parts of your brain and being. When making your Sankalpa speak to what is rather than what isn’t. This means formulating something you’re searching for in present terms and focusing on where you’re at, what you have, and who you are now in relationship to where you wish to go.

Here are a few samples of Sankalpas that you can modify to help you create your Sankalpa that is positive, specific, and present:

• “I’m on my road to ___________.”
  
  
  
  

• “I already have everything inside of me that I need for ___________.”
  
  
  
  

• “The Universe is ready to give me __________.”

What This Practice Does for You 

Your Sankalpa acts as a guiding star for how your journey of Yoga Nidra will unfold, what kind of awareness will be revealed, and which layers will be removed which obfuscate your ability to experience your True Self.

When you state your Sankalpa, you plant a living seed of spirit, hope, and desire inside your mind and heart as a clear and direct invitation to the Universe to reveal to you your true identity through that intention. Your Yoga Nidra practice cultivates the fertile soil for your seed of Self-Awareness to grow and bloom.

The beautiful and ancient Gayatri Mantra is one of the oldest mantras we know of and comes from the Rig Veda, part of a body of texts called the Vedas dating between 1700–1100 BCE. The Gayatri Mantra teaches how stating your Sankalpa before your Yoga Nidra practice works to help manifest that thing. The Gayatri Mantra states:

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ suvaḥ
tatsaviturvareṇyaṃ
bhargo devasyadhīmahi
dhiyo yo naḥ prachodayāt

My favorite translation of this mantra from Donna Farhi goes something like:

Everything on the earth and in the sky and in between
Is arising from one effulgent source
If my thoughts, words, and deeds reflected a complete understanding of this unity
I would be the peace I am seeking in this moment.

As this mantra says, if I understood the essence of all things—including myself and the thing I want—I’d understand that everything comes from the same source. Ultimately, I’d see that I’m no different than the thing I want.

While this is nice to understand on a philosophical level, it will most likely take a lifetime of practice (or more lives if there are more to be had) to truly understand this truth. Yoga Nidra is a perfect way to practice coming to understand this truth, by aligning with our magnificent Source.

According to Yoga Nidra philosophy, everything in the Universe is boiled down to Awareness. When you align with your basic Awareness through presence, Yoga Nidra being my favorite way to practice presence, you align with the origin of all things, including you and including those things you feel separate from. Remember, Yoga Nidra is about remembering and experiencing our fundamental wholeness. This is why this is considered a practice of yoga or “yoking” together of all things.

Your Sankalpa speaks to the eternal part of you that isn’t dependent upon past or future. Therefore, planting the seed of Sankapla in your heart and mind is like planting iris bulbs in the fall—they bloom in the spring whether you remember planting them or not. Because your Sankalpa works for your benefit whether you remember it or not, it’s essential that we be mindful and deliberate when choosing a Salkalpa.

The practice of Yoga Nidra is simply about being present. Starting your Yoga Nidra practice with your Sankalpa makes you very present by first, taking a moment to recognize your needs and second, by alerting the Universe how to best awaken you to your ultimate Awareness. You do this by practicing Awareness and an understanding that you are no separate from what you seek.

It reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem,” where the artist meditates on how through our perceived brokenness or sense of lack, we come to understand our own wholeness and illumination. We aren’t perfect despite our brokenness but because of it. Stating our Sankalpa is alerting to ourselves and the Universe the avenue by which we are coming to know ourselves as perfect, whole beings.

I'd like to share with you the powerful Yoga Nidra practice we had last week during our live, online Yoga Nidra practice. It's is a practice that is designed to develop your Sankalpa, your powerful intention and manifestation to the Universe for whatever you feel you need in your life right now.

It's about 21 minutes long. I hope you love it. Tell me what you think.

Also, you can click below to join this week's class on Sunday, December 8 at 9 am MST. This class theme is : You Are Bigger Than Your Beliefs

How To Improve Your Sleep Naturally Without Medication

The following is a guest post by author Dylan Foster

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We all know that sleep is good for us. In fact, Mayo Clinic states the average adult needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. During those hours, our REM cycle helps process the events of the day. Lack of sleep, on the other hand, can contribute to issues such as heart disease and diabetes.

You do have several options for combating sleeplessness. Prescription medications can help; however, they also come with their side effects. Sleeping pills can be highly addictive, and even those who aren’t addicted may experience side effects, which are enhanced with alcohol consumption.

Here are some natural ways to improve your — and your health — without the use of prescription meds.

Upgrade Your Bed

If you’ve been sleeping on the same mattress for several years now, it might be time for a new one. On average, you should change your mattress every 10 years. After that, it can contribute to aches, pains, and generally poor sleep.

Before investing in a new mattress, it can help to determine what type of sleeper you are. By understanding your sleeping habits, you can put your money to good use on the best mattress to support your quality of sleep.

For instance, if you sleep on your back or stomach, look for a versatile mattress can provide you with the necessary support you need. You should sink into the mattress just enough to feel comfortable, but not enough to misalign your spine or cause tossing and turning throughout the night. Along those same lines, side sleepers can benefit from choosing pillows that support the head and neck.

Learn the incredible practice of Yoga Nidra, the Yoga of Sleep

Another comfort concern is what you put on your mattress. If you’re trying to sleep on scratchy, sweaty sheets, you can still end up tossing and turning. With that in mind, ensure you top it with well-chosen bedding. You might need linen sheets in summertime, and flannel in winter. Choose according to your comfort and the season for the best results.

Exercise

Even if you have a fairly new, comfortable mattress, you may still struggle to fall asleep. That’s where exercise can help. As little as a half-hour of moderate aerobic exercise— like swimming, running, or cycling— can help improve your sleep that same night.

However, in certain individuals, exercise signals the body that it’s time to wake up. If you find that exercise increases your insomnia rather than decreasing it, make sure you end your workouts at least two hours before hitting the bed.

If you need a gentler form of movement, yoga, especially Yoga Nidra, can improve your sleeping habits. Yoga Nidra, in particular, is known for improving sleep habits and can help you feel well-rested.

If you have a tough time maintaining your fitness routine, you can use a fitness tracker or smartwatch to monitor your progress and make exercising more enjoyable. These gadgets can count the steps you take and the calories you burn and can even monitor your heart rate. Some even feature emergency SOS, fall detection, an altimeter, and a heart rate sensor.

Eating Habits

Although your eating habits might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of treating your insomnia, what you put into your body is crucial. Getting proper health and nutrition can benefit not only your waistline but also your level of shuteye.

To improve your sleep, try to eat a balanced diet consisting of plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. When it comes to protein, choose options that are low in fat and high in vitamins. Some healthy choices include fish, poultry, lean meats, dairy, and eggs. Mood-boosting foods like kale, spinach, quinoa, and avocados are also nutritious options. Additionally, avoid drinking alcohol if you can. If you do choose to drink alcohol, try to have your beverage earlier in the day, so it’s less likely to interfere with your sleeping cycle.

If you’re having trouble getting to the root cause of your sleeplessness, it might be helpful to start a daily journal. Write down your experiences or use an app to provide clues into what could be triggering your lack of shuteye. Anything from eating a meal right before bed, to taking certain medications, or feeling anxious at night could be the culprit.

Consider sharing your journal with your doctors and other medical professionals to help manage your care. Once you know what’s causing your symptoms, you can take steps to improve your quality of sleep.

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Luxury Yoga Retreat at a Bordeaux Château. “Savor Your Life!” June 2020

The Practice of Gratitude

REGISTER FOR THE GRATITUDE CHALLENGE, FREE!

Pic by David Newkirk

The challenge is simply to write in your gratitude journal every day for two weeks. You may do whatever gratitude practice you wish, however I might suggest as your practice to simply write three things you're grateful for and choose one of those to extrapolate upon in a paragraph. That’s it!

If you miss a day, be grateful for a second chances and pick up where you left off or start over. No judgement.

I'll be sending regular emails with encouragement and fun things that I and other people are grateful for.

Thanks and please share this!

The US is celebrating Thanksgiving this week. Our family is living in France so we’ll be missing our families, but will be celebrating in our own way with a gratitude ritual and by going out to dinner. Maybe we’ll open a nice bottle of wine. We used to buy nice bottles of wine to open someday. Nowadays we realize that today is someday, and we open all the good wine!

This is the perfect week for a quick note about the science and spirituality of gratitude.

Your Brain on Gratitude

The amygdala is our brain’s stranger danger detector. The book The User Illusion, a great book about the brain and consciousness, reports that the brain takes in 400 BILLION bits of information each second. Our consciousness, all the stuff we are aware of, only produces 2000 bits of information. We are actually wired for negativity because any self-respecting organism prioritizes survival above everything else and this means noticing the negative and potentially dangerous stuff first. Looking for it even. Studies at Berkeley even suggest that for every positive bit of information, the amygdala picks up 6–9 bits of negative information, priming us to be on high alert all the time in a way that doesn’t even register in our consciousness.

So yeah, it seems we are wired to notice that the turkey was tougher than last year’s and that guy cousin Suzzy brought to dinner smells like moth balls.

But there’s hope! In the 90s there was a revolution in the world of psychology, changing from mostly using it to study all the ways humans are broken (read Freud), to using it to study all the ways that we might use it to make ourselves happier. Beyond the most obvious habit of self-monitoring your critical self-talk, two practices stand out above the crowd as powerful and lasting ways to change our psychology for long term happiness: gratitude and mindfulness.

Doctors and scientists are now saying what sages and saints have been saying for millennia: gratitude needs to be a daily practice and that doing so will change your happiness in profound ways. Gratitude can’t be that thing you do begrudgingly, once a year, strongarmed by your aunt Marge who insists that all 37 people around the Thanksgiving feast take turns rattling off lukewarm tokens of gratitude while the mashed potatoes are getting cold and a skin is forming on the gravy. No, gratitude needs to be a daily practice. And you gotta feel it for it to work. And it does. In longevity studies, gratitude is listed as one of the primary traits of people who live past 100!

How to Do a Daily Gratitude Practice

1. Get a notebook

2. Every day, first thing, write three things you’re honestly and sincerely grateful for

3. Choose one of those things and write a paragraph about how and why you’re grateful for that thing and try to describe as best you can how it makes you feel.

That’s it! Now make it a habit.

As you develop the habit of beginning your day with gratitude, you start to manually tilt your brain to begin to notice more of the positive things about your life and less of the negative things. As you do, you’ll begin to see yourself experience real and lasting happiness. It’s scientifically proven. Regardless of what science says, you gotta try it for yourself.

The Gratitude Challenge

So, I want to offer you a challenge: Can you do a gratitude challenge for 2 weeks straight, 14 days, pulling out your gratitude journal and listing 3 things you’re grateful for then writing a wee paragraph on one of them? Sure you can. And if you’re willing, I’d like to help.

If you like the idea and would like a little followup and accountability, click here and enter your name and email address to join my Gratitude Challenge. It’s free. All this challenge consists of is some regular emails I’ll send you to encourage you to keep going as well as some heart-felt stories about gratitude and the benefits of gratitude. I will also encourage you to send me stories or lists of things you’re grateful for. With your permission I may share your stories with the group.

If you don’t want to join this challenge, no worries. I still encourage you to begin a daily gratitude practice in your own way for you to experience this life-changing and affirming practice.

Here’s my gratitude practice for today.

I’m grateful for:

1. My loving family, especially my beautiful life and spirit-partner, Seneca

2. My wonderful, satisfying, and joyful career of teaching yoga and meditation

3. The opportunity to live in France

Expanded paragraph on point 1

Life is a wild ride and I am extremely grateful to Seneca for being on this ride with me. We’ve weathered some rough waters, changing businesses, moves, kids, etc. and we’ve navigated our way into some immensely beautiful and happy adventures as well. One of the things that I love the most about Seneca is that she helps me be a better man. Her support, love, and insight inspires me and pushes my best self to the forefront. I love Seneca’s spirit. I think of myself as a spiritual person, but she is a spiritual powerhouse. She is a goddess. Seneca has really ignited an adventurous spirit in me. She was the one with the wild idea to move to France and even though I’m the one who speaks French, she was willing to come to this country to have the adventure and to learn the language and do whatever necessary for our family to have this amazing experience. Seneca, I love you and I’m so grateful for you in my life.

What are you grateful for?

Meditation For Stress

Hey, right before I published this I realized that my friend and fellow teacher Rachel Posner wrote a great blog post about stress. I encourage you to also look at her blog. She’s a formidable teacher, very skilled and gentle and I think you’ll like it. My article is about using practices like meditation for stress relief.

Power Over Stress

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I believe that humans are often more powerful than we can imagine and that we have much more control than we think over common but debilitating emotions like stress. Part of our control over stress lies within our ability to understand and experience the most real part of ourselves, a part that we may readily access, one that is wholly unaffected by emotions, the part that many call the True Self. Learning to control stress might simply require one essential practice, a practice that is synonymous with our True Self, the practice of Awareness.

“Yeah, that’s great wisdom, Mr. Miyagi, but what does that really mean and how does being ‘aware’ help me not feel so much stress? Even this conversation is stressing me out.”

Ancient Wisdom

Well, there’s some ancient yoga wisdom that offers some pretty mind-blowing and yet direct, cut-to-the-chase ideas about this topic. And what amazes me is how often it seems that modern science, psychology, and spirituality are trying to catch up to some of what people figured out thousands of years ago. Sure, they hadn’t discovered Oreos yet but… Anyway, some of this ancient wisdom I’m talking about is found in the Vedas.

So, the Vedas are volumes of ancient texts from India. One of the Vedic teachings that I love so much is called the Gayatri Mantra and it broadly explains how to dissolve stress (and other debilitating emotions) by realizing that we all come from one, expansive Source. It explains that if we could truly understand and experience our True Self, that of Source, we wouldn’t experience ourselves as stress, but rather we would see ourselves as the very thing that we seek: peace, love, and joy. The Vedas also teach us that our true identity is that of Awareness itself, the nature of which is boundless peace, love, and joy.

Most human beings, across all time and distance, myself included, all seem to suffer from the same fundamental problem: feeling separate from Source. Truly I believe that the key message that most spiritual and religious traditions try to point to is the quintessential teaching that we all come from Source. That and perhaps the best way to describe what Source is could be summed up simply as love.

Stressed

In part, our difficulty in experiencing our True Selves, that of pure Awareness, peace, love, joy and all that, is because we too often identify with things like stress. We may not do this consciously, but when we feel stress, we often feel that stress is somehow what we are. Our language even reinforces this. We often say, “I’m so stressed, ” when it would be more inline with our True Self to say, “I’m so aware of stress.”

Many of us have come to regard stress as a normal part of life. While stress may be common, stress is nonetheless fundamentally contrary to our True Self. The problem is that emotions like stress feel real, especially when, oh, I don’t know, it’s raining outside, you’re late getting your toddler to school, and you’re riding on a jam-packed tram filled beyond capacity without any seats left making the ideal moment for your kid to start throwing a grand mal temper tantrum which in turn elicits the icy glares from a mob with hundreds of eyes, people who are uniformly doubting your parenting skills, meanwhile Drunk Guy, reeking of booze and piss, is pressed hotly against your side and breathing in your face as he gratuitously offers you his sage and honed parenting skills.

(Let me pause to breath for a second.)

More about stress… Stress is part of our ego, the part of our being that is not our True Self. Our ego experiences all the transient parts of our being, transient things like emotions. But before we start hating on the ego, consider that the ego actually has a very important role. The ego is meant to help reveal the REAL and permanent part of our being, our Awareness. Instead of identifying as stress we can use stress as something to be aware of, something that helps us to practice Awareness, that illuminates our Awareness, not something to latch onto like it were a life raft in the ocean of existence that is drawing you down into a vortex of despair.

Meditation for Stress

Practices like yoga, meditation, and especially Yoga Nidra, help us gain a facility to actually welcome, recognize, and witness things like stress as nothing more than just another thing in this vast Universe, something to be aware of. Once we can learn to witness these parts of our ego, parts like stress, we can separate ego from our True Self and open to experience our birthright of peace, love, and joy. After all, like ancient wisdom says, these good qualities are truly what we are and identifying as them is really the most natural thing ever. So easy.

“That sounds great but after practicing this magical ‘Awareness’ I imagine that I’m still going to feel stress from time to time.”

Probably, but with practice you might not feel stress in the same way and you may not feel it as often or as fiercely. In time, stress may even become something you can merely experience with a sense of interest and curiosity instead of resistance and aversion.

When you experience your True Self as Awareness through practices like Yoga Nidra, your entire perspective of life can change, especially your perspective about what stresses you out. Stress can become just a thing, not your entire world. In truth, you may even develop a feeling of gratitude for emotions like stress because they may give you a great opportunity to practice Awareness. Through practicing and identifying as Awareness you may become unidentified with stress and can thus allow that misguided life raft to just slip away with the next wave of thought or emotion that floats by.

Yoga Nidra is one of my favorite ways of developing this skill of experiencing yourself as Awareness. It’s an excellent practice for learning to control stress because its superpower is relaxation into Awareness. Modern psychology tells us that we can’t feel relaxed and stressed at the same time. So, when I lead a Yoga Nidra practice, I deliberately lead students through a deepening Awareness practice that makes them super relaxed. Then we practice witnessing, either by my suggestions or whatever spontaneously arises, everything and anything that comes up, including emotions like stress, as simply another thing to be aware of. With a foundation of relaxed Awareness, you experience things like stress with an entirely new perspective and it breaks the Full Nelson grip that stress can sometimes have on our lives.

We may not be completely stress free after our first session, but it’s quite possible that even after one session you’ll finish even feeling much more relaxed than you were before the session and with a different perspective about not only what stresses you out, but even the idea of stress itself. Plus, then the more you practice, the more you will find that in time your entire relationship to stress has evolved to be much more manageable.

But don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself. I’ve made a free Stress Free Yoga Nidra practice that I’d like to offer to you for free. This guided meditation lasts about 36 minutes and is designed specifically to manage stress. This is one of the tracks will be on my upcoming volume of Yoga Nidra recordings that I’m busy working on and will come out in a few weeks. This volume of Yoga Nidra recordings will also include a practice on working through grief, healing, creating abundance, getting grounded, setting goals, working with depression, and much more. I thought I’d give you a free practice to see what this volume of recordings is all about and because hey, the world could be a little bit better with you operating at your best and less stressed.

Truly my mission in teaching yoga and meditation is to help people be their best selves so they can go out into the world and kick ass at whatever they do be that babysitting or brain surgery.

I’d also love to hear the other positive ways that you’ve discovered to help you manage stress. Please leave a comment below

And hey, if you choose not to listen to my completely fantastic Yoga Nidra recording, well I’m not going to stress over it.

Photo by David Newkirk

By the way, my live, online Yoga Nidra session happening this and every Sunday (9 am MST) is devoted to the theme: Breaking the Stress Cycle. Please join me for a live Yoga Nidra session devoted to managing stress. I record each session so even if you can’t make the time, register ($12) and you’ll still receive the recordings.

Also, I’m still offering everyone who preorders my new book, Practical Yoga Nidra ($12.99), one free, online class. If you haven’t already and would like to, I’d be honored if you would click the picture of my book below to preorder your copy which comes out Dec. 10th. Send me a screenshot of your purchase before 9 am on Sunday morning and I’ll add you to the class roster.

Hey, everyone, I know that stress is a real and serious thing for many of us, myself included. I know for me that I’m a much better version of myself when I’m not hamstrung by stress. I really hope that you have good ways of managing stress. If you’re game, give Yoga Nidra a shot.

Blessings!

Limitless Energy: Your Heart

Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

Several months ago, I was at lunch with my friend, Philippe. He told me about how a mutual friend turned him on to an incredible book called The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer to help guide him through some transitions in his life. Have you read this book? I can't recommend it highly enough. I’ve since read it and I gotta tell you that it's a total life-changer. Seriously. It’s a simple, non-dogmatic guide to consciousness and arriving at your happiest, most in-love, and energized self.

Philippe told me about this book at the exact time in my life when I needed to be introduced to it. Figures. I was freaking out about life and questioning life's purpose and what my role is on this big blue marble and as I read that book, it totally clarified some of life's major themes for me.

One thing that made this book so powerful for me was what Michael Singer said about how how there is limitless resources in our hearts, that we think energy is a product of the amount of rest we get or the amount of calories we consume, bla ,bla bla, but in truth, we have a resource of limitless energy within our heats if we will only access it.

My friend, Philippe, is also an Aikido Master and we've discussed at length and even done a few Yoga+Aikido workshops together, to explore the idea of approaching the limitless energy that exists within all of us, that which exists within our hearts, and can be sourced through movement, practice, and breath.

The Antidote to Exhaustion

Writer, speaker, and poet David Whyte is my homeboy. I live by his wisdom and words. He tells a story about once when he was feeling crushed by the weight of doing all "right" things in life but feeling exhausted in the process. He told a story of mentioning this dilemma to his friend, the wise Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine Monk, writer and lecturer, who told him that "The antidote to exhaustion isn't necessarily rest, but whole heartedness."

Have you ever experienced a time when you felt like you could do anything with the energy that you felt in your heart, when you really cared about something and that feeling caused you to act on something? Or have you ever felt crushed by putting all of your energy into something you didn't really care about?

Well, what if you could access that limitless resource of energy as often as you wished and what if you could direct your entire life from that energy?

This is precisely what I want to explore in my Live, Online Yoga Nidra class this week, Sunday, Nov. 17th at 9 am MST. We will discuss the topic a bit, do some powerful breathwork together, then do an incredibly relaxing and energizing Yoga Nidra practice that will access the limitless resources that already exist within you.

I've hosted two of these online Yoga Nidra sessions so far and I'm absolutely thrilled how they've gone down.

Please consider joining me for my next, live and online Yoga Nidra session happening this Sunday, November 17th at 9 am MST. If you're interested but can't make it work in your schedule, please register and you'll receive the recording after it's done.

Whatever you do this week, consider doing it with a wholeness of heart.

Balance Your Life with Yoga Sadhna: A Guest Post by Chinmay Yoga

I read this great article by Chinmay Yoga and I thought it would be interesting to repost. Enjoy!

Photo by Alex Adams

Describing the concept of Sadhana can be a little tricky as every person experiences it differently. However, one could define Sadhana as “a means to achieve the goal of life.” The “means” may include incorporating practices of Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism in the routine or even the philosophy preached in these disciplines which will then help in changing the nature from human to divine. In order to achieve this transition, one must embrace things that are Satvik, like food, surroundings, thoughts and even conversations.

We tend to become a reflection of our thoughts. Our actions are led by our thoughts which then become a part of our routine in the form of a habit. The nature establishes itself in the subconscious mind first, then in actions. However, meditation can help in changing our subconscious mind, which in turn helps in changing our nature. Many people who have lived in ashrams or embraced a certain path of spirituality have thought of Sadhana at least once a day as a daily ritual and incorporated it as a daily practice. It has helped bring a clarity in what matters and what they expect out of their life. Through this practice, many people have unravelled their dharma and also have found the courage to walk the path that is led by it.

Though Sadhana may have a set of daily practices, its scope is much broader than that. It is also a practice that includes the application of awareness and insights during the daily routine. It surely helps when one has a set routine or a practice prescribed by an experienced instructor until one is able to understand the nuances themselves and is committed to the practice. Once the commitment to the practice is established, it is easy to understand what is going to work better in order to accomplish spiritual and material goals in life. Nevertheless, it is always advised to be totally well-versed with the set routine, practice for a minimum of three months to understand its benefits entirely and then modify it.

Sadhana, however, is not something that one does, but it is engaged with. It is more like a process. It will be more beneficial if you actually engage with it instead of doing it only for the sake of it or accomplishing something. One must be present fully to experience it perfectly while appreciating every moment. While it is possible to engage in Sadhana with a completely self-designed routine, it is advisable to seek help from an experienced teacher. Regardless, while in the process, it is important to appreciate every moment and experience it rather than focusing on the practice. This practice has transformed and changed many lives in various ways by doing yoga courses.

An example of the practice routine maybe as follows:

1. Waking up the body: After waking up early, wash the face and exercise, moving the body will awaken every muscle in the body, too.

2. Sync the movements of the body with the process of breathing: This helps in pumping more blood and following every movement with more energy. An exercise routine, like neck stretches, jumping jacks, rotating of the arms and body twists, while paying attention to the breathing, should be followed.

3. Engaging with self: Post the work out, walk up to a quiet and serene location and engage with yourself. Relax with the eyes closed and inhale deeply. Ask questions and pause, let the body answer instead of your mind. Once the distractions fade out, the mind clears itself and it gets easier to listen to the body. 4. Practicing Yoga along with meditation: Choose from the various asana of yoga and create a sequence. It is even more beneficial if meditation accompanies the practice of the asana. Once well-versed with this practice, one can realise their capacity to transform their lives.

5. Breathing and meditating: Once done with the sequence of yoga, it is ideal to sit quietly and meditate for a period of 10-15 minutes. Paying attention to the breathing and observing every moment without actively participating can help in focusing and being aware of the present. Sometimes, one may experience the state of profound wisdom when they are actually open to experiencing it.

6. Introspection: Reflect upon the practice and the observations made about the body and yourself. Think about the intentions and steps that can lead to manifestations. Think about the day ahead.

7. Make a commitment: Ask the body about how it wishes to be today and commit to the answer received.

Chinmay Yoga - BIO Chinmay Yoga is a Yoga School in India which conduct yoga teacher training in Dharamsala, Rishikesh and Gokarna. Chinmay Yoga works to spread yoga knowledge by provide free drop-in classes, conducting YTTC Courses in India (Yoga Alliance) for 799 USD with amazing homemade food, great accommodation with air conditioning and very knowledgeable yoga teachers from India. Chinmay Yoga also works for the nature and surroundings around it by planting trees and installing dustbins in the city.

Learn more about Chinmay Yoga:

www.chinmayyoga.com

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Author – BIO

Katherine Austin is a professional yoga teacher trainer with 10 years of experience in Yoga. She is certified yoga teacher trainer. She practiced in Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, Surya Namaskar. Katherine has worked with Chinmay Yoga School for 6 years. She is one of the favourite teachers of Chinmay’s students. Katherine loves to travel, reading books, spend quality time with new people.

Yoga Nidra and the Trinity: Your Both/And Nature

About a year ago, I hosted a special evening of Yoga Nidra exploring the theme of the sacred trinity of Self. We gathered at a friend’s house and discussed the idea of expanding your consciousness to its fullest by understanding the concept of your own sacred trinity.

During this event, I recounted some Hindu stories about Shiva, Shakti, and their marriage and subsequent creation of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god. We talked about other symbols of the Trinity, like in Christianity, eastern and Pagan spiritual traditions, etc.

We discussed the practical elements of this concept like experiencing different cycles in your life of birth, life, death, and rebirth, for the opening up of your eyes to the beauty of life and being born anew as something else entirely. We even discussed the dark night of the soul that accompanies some deep experiences of awakening. I told several very personal stories that illustrated the concepts as well.

Photo by Scott Moore—Hindu Monastery Kauai

The discussion was interesting and heart-felt. I recorded the entire event and I’ve been re-listening to the recordings of this evening. Doing so has been very inspiring for me and has taught me so much more about the subject the second go around. I believe we often learn in cycles instead of linearly and each revolution around a lesson helps me to learn it better and deeper. Maybe this is why some lessons in my life feel like they are on repeat. Can you relate? Groundhog’s Day, anyone?!

Anyway, I really want to share these recordings with you so I’m offering them to you for free. Treat it kind of like a podcast with a Yoga Nidra practice attached. We even do some yoga poses together, so wear your stretchy pants. Keep in mind that in the discussion I mention some breathing exercises that we did but they ended up being pretty intense so I would feel better sharing those with you only with some in-person guidance therefore I did not include these. Click the button on top to listen to entire discussion (1h 32 min) then check out the Yoga Nidra practice which is like another 30 minutes. Invite your bestie over and make it a date. Better than Netflix!

I love this idea of the Trinity so much that I’ll be expanding upon this theme THIS WEEK in my live, online Yoga Nidra class. This is a new class happening every Sunday at 9 am MST. I’d love for you to join me. It's live but since it's online, you can do it from the comfort of your own home using your smartphone, tablet, or computer. I will also record each of these classes, both audio/video and audio only, so you can either catch the recording of class later if you can’t make the live version and/or keep the recording for your Yoga Nidra library for future use and for your own cyclical learning and personal evolution.

This past Sunday was the first of these classes and it went smashingly well! I am giddy with the outcome of this past class and can’t wait to do it again this week. Please join me. Class costs $12. Register and I'll send you the link to join the class on Sunday.

Photo by David Newkirk

So many of you responded about the news of my book. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your support really means so much to me. If you haven't already and have the mind to, please preorder my book from amazon. These early sales make a big difference to the success of any writer. I'm really proud of the book and I think you'll love it. I can't wait to share it with you. Click the picture of the book below to preorder your copy. Remember that if you send me a screenshot of your purchase, I’ll say thank you with a free online YN class that you can either access live, or get the recording after or both.

I'm in the process of making Yoga Nidra with Scott Moore Volume 1. I'll let you know when that's done. Plus, I’ve had some orders for private Yoga Nidra recordings so if you’d like me to make YOU your private Yoga Nidra recording based on something you’re working on in your life, or if you’d prefer to have a private live session online, please reach out to me at scott@scottmooreyoga.com to arrange a time.

Luxury Bordeaux Yoga Retreat

June 13–19, 2019. Just a few spots left!

Last but not least I’ve got just a few spots left for my luxury retreat in Bordeaux June 13–19, 2020. I’d really love to share France with you and do yoga and Yoga Nidra with you for 6 days, not to mention visiting some world-renowned vineyards for some wine tastings. The theme for these 6 days will be learning to savor your life with presence.

Synopsis of Yoga Nidra and the Trinity: Your Both/And Nature

Click the link at the top of this post to hear the entire discussion and Yoga Nidra practice.

History is replete with different forms of sacred trinities. How many different forms of the trinity can you think of? Off hand a few that come to mind are: body, mind, and spirit; earth, wind, and fire; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva; Shiva, Shakti, and Ganesh; Buddha, Sangha, Dharma; peanut butter, jelly, and bread . . . the list is eternal.

The concept of the Trinity speaks to understanding our True Nature. A singular object in the Universe is in isolation, adding a second creates a binary, but when you can understand or experience these in what I call their Both/And Nature, your eyes open up to experience a truer, more expanded concept of beingness. I believe this is what is meant by seeing with your 3rd eye. In fact, by expanding beyond the singularity or duality of your own nature brings you into the full knowing of your truest Self.

Stay with me…

We come from Source, that which is everything. We are born into a human experience and our conscious is one of simple singularity—everything that exists in this form of consciousness is what can see or feel and that’s all I know. Then an infant experiences the entire world as an extension of herself. Natural differentiation happens between 6–18 months old and suddenly a duality is created. Now, the consciousness experiences a “this” and “that” which exist as two separate things. Many of us will live the rest of our lives in this sense of duality. Many different philosophies, including Yoga Nidra philosophy—rooted in Tantra, a school of eastern thought—suggest that to truly understand the essence of the Universe and ultimately your own essence, you must see beyond this dualist thinking into an expanded view, that of the Both/And nature, the trinity.

The Hindu god Ganesh is a perfect example of a trinity: He is the child of Shakti who represents form, and Shiva who represents consciousness. Half spirit, half physical being, he exists as something entirely new and completely necessary than his parents. It’s only through creating this new thing, that the trinity is born and through it all things can come into being. Otherwise all things in the Universe would have been locked into a state of duality or simple singularity. But as the symbol of Ganesh suggests, the entire world opens up to something bigger and more expansive thanks to the marriage of two things and the creation of another. Many people celebrate Ganesh for his hybrid nature which lends itself to great compassion, understanding, and direction.

Both/And Nature and the Trinity

Many practices such as yoga, meditation, and Yoga Nidra, expand the practitioner’s consciousness beyond a binary and help them to come to know themselves as part of a larger Singularity, Source, built as the Both/And consciousness. Through a lifetime (or lifetimes, I don’t know) of practice you might come back to experience yourself as Singularity, but not in any innocent way like the infant but rather one of wisdom and expansiveness. You are now birthed as a new being. This is what it means to open to the sacred trinity within you to reveal your True Nature.

Exploring the Trinity with Yoga Nidra

My favorite way to explore, and even better to experience, this unity of the Trinity, and allow it to open our consciousness into a unity of all things, is through Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra is a form of relaxing guided meditation, or guided awareness, where the practitioner is lead through deepening layers of awareness to come to know themselves as Awareness itself. One does this through practicing recognizing then letting go of objects of the ego, like the body, energy, mind, thoughts, etc.

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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