One day to go. Everything is ready. I´ve been a bit stressed this week, getting everything done. I like having control and being prepared when I travel. At the same time I am hoping that I will be able to just take in everthing that will happen in Mysore without expectations, to just let go and let everything happen. To surrender to the moment (something I need to work on- I´m hoping India will do this for me)!
So, how did it go with my headstand? Well, yesterday I had a breakthrough. I felt that now is the time. Now I have to do it on my own. Soon no wall and no teacher. I just did it! And it was easy. The fear of falling was gone. The inbalance in my shoulders didn´t matter. I just lifted and stood steady as a mountain. I think I needed the challenge. I needed a goal. I felt victorious.
I also got some good tips on how to work with my injured hip from a teacher who is also an osteopat. That felt very good too.
The last advice I got from my teacher Maria was:
Come just in time for practice. If they say be there at seven, be there at seven, not earlier.
Just surrender to what happens.
Do what the teacher tells you.
Do your thing, and don´t look at what the others do. It´s your journey.
Relax and enjoy!
See you in Mysore!
torsdag 25 september 2008
lördag 20 september 2008
Yoga and Skincare
As many of my friends know, I make many of my own skincare products. It is an interest that has developed over the years, coming from an endless search on how to get rid of my skin problems. I have tried the "common" way, ie using harsh chemical products, which have side effects, but I have come to realise that the only good and enduring way is to use natural products, reduce stress and have a healthy diet. The reason I am absolutely convinced that diet is a key factor is that when I have fasted, my skin became clear just in a few days (however when I ate again the problems returned). I was also a gluten free vegan for a while, and that was also a miracle for my skin and health! Unfortunately, it was death to my social life...I think maybe diet will be another post, there is so much to say there!So what does yoga say about skincare? Well, for one thing, ashtanga yoga is detoxing. You clean your organs through breathing and twisting and sweating. Since the skin is the body´s biggest organ of elimination, it´s helpful if your other elimination organs are working as they should.
Also, you should wash before practicing. After practice you don´t shower, but let the sweat be reabsorbed back into the skin. The skin then doesn´t loose the minerals it then would have lost in the sweat. When the skin is clean, the sweat doesn´t smell. However, I always wash my face after practice, to avoid the pores from clogging.
An ayurvedic practice I have adopted is to brusch my skin before showering with silk gloves (garshan massage), and then massaging my skin with oil after the shower, when the skin is still a bit wet (abyanga). The best thing is to massage the oil before the shower. This protects the skin from drying out, and the warm water makes the oil penetrate deeper into the skin. However, the pipes get clogged, so I do it after the shower.
Traditionally, warm, "prepared" sesame oil is used. I prefer to make my own, fantastic, wonderfully smelling oil. Here is the recipe:
Coconut/ Cocoa Oil
On very low heat, melt one tablespoon coconut oil (virgin, cold pressed) and one tablespoon cocoa butter. Poor into a small bottle. Add a tablespoon of jojoba oil. It already smells wonderful, but you can add your favorite essential oil to make it smell ever nicer! I use vanilla oil and Krishna Musk. Before massaging the oil into your skin, put the bottle under running, warm water a few minutes to make i warm. Since both coconut oil and cocoa butter are firm in room temperature, it will in a week or so return to that state, just warm the bottle and it will become liquid again.
On my face, I use Raw Gaias products. It´s the best. They also have skin care info on their page. Check it out: http://www.rawgaia.com/
To make a lighter facial cream, I mix jojoba oil with aloe vera gel.
The best website I have found on natural skincare: http://www.acne-advice.com/
More to come on this subject, I´m sure. If you have any tip, please comment!
onsdag 17 september 2008
Learning From Injury
Today I had an insight. -It´s not import how many asanas you do, but how you do them. How you do them....hmm
I have known this before, but not really understood. You know, with your whole being. I´ve been reading blogs and other texts about what Guruji says about the practice. This is what I have read:
If the breathing is ok, then the asana is ok.
The first series is enough. The second series is for those who don´t get it in the first series. The third is for thoses who don´t get it in the second.
Just because you can put your legs behind you ears does not mean you are a good yogi.
Here is a nice interview with Sharath: http://ashtangayogashala.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=165&Itemid=1
I have injured my hip this year, and I can´t go as deep in the asanas as I could before. I don´t do as many as I used to either. I have to do less to be able to heal. Even though I know this is good for me, I have felt a twinge of jealousy looking at other yogis doing more advanced postures, and thinking that I have taken a step back in my practice. I have been attached to the image of myself where I was before the injury. Also I am now rethinking the idea of progress.
I am now considering myself lucky to be doing fewer asanas. I can now concentrate on what is really important: breathing, concentration, awareness, bandhas, humilty, ahimsa and so on. Also my practice now is regular and steady. That´s a big step for me! And getting up in the morning! Wow, I´m lucky!
I have known this before, but not really understood. You know, with your whole being. I´ve been reading blogs and other texts about what Guruji says about the practice. This is what I have read:
If the breathing is ok, then the asana is ok.
The first series is enough. The second series is for those who don´t get it in the first series. The third is for thoses who don´t get it in the second.
Just because you can put your legs behind you ears does not mean you are a good yogi.
Here is a nice interview with Sharath: http://ashtangayogashala.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=165&Itemid=1
I have injured my hip this year, and I can´t go as deep in the asanas as I could before. I don´t do as many as I used to either. I have to do less to be able to heal. Even though I know this is good for me, I have felt a twinge of jealousy looking at other yogis doing more advanced postures, and thinking that I have taken a step back in my practice. I have been attached to the image of myself where I was before the injury. Also I am now rethinking the idea of progress.
I am now considering myself lucky to be doing fewer asanas. I can now concentrate on what is really important: breathing, concentration, awareness, bandhas, humilty, ahimsa and so on. Also my practice now is regular and steady. That´s a big step for me! And getting up in the morning! Wow, I´m lucky!
torsdag 11 september 2008
On Practicing When Ill
Today I woke up and felt that I might be having a cold coming. I decided not to practice. I really don´t have time to become ill right now. So much to do before leaving! So I´m hoping that my decision is a good one, and that my body can rest and fight whatever has gotten into it!
This thing about practicing or not practicing when ill is a tricky question. I´m not sure there is a right or a wrong. I guess it´s up to everyone to feel what is good for them. If you ask different teachers, they will have different attitudes on that. Some will say that it ok(or even good) to practice when ill, just as long as you don´t have a fever (like Lino Miele). Some teachers say to listen to your body, and you will know if it´s ok or not. Maria says never to practice with a soar throught.
My view is that I don´t practice when ill. I think the body needs to rest then. When feeling low of energy, having a headache and so on (like today), I think it´s ok to practice. If you´re lucky you will feel better afterwards, but if you´re unlucky, the cold might break out. Now we´re talking about vigorous ashtanga yoga. I think a restorative yoga session might have done me good this morning.
And we have the issue of ahimsa. Being kind to yourself. This morning I was being kind to myself and letting my body rest to be able to heal. But then I have my thoughts: "you´re a bad yogi for skipping practice this morning", "if you skip one practice, it´ll be easy to skip the next, you should have gone", and so on, and so on. That´s not ahimsa. This brings up the question about dicipline. To do you´re practice despite all the thoughts about why not to get up in the morning and practice. How do you distinguish between a good and healthy reason for not practicing from the lazy reason? I guess that takes practice too!
99% practice, 1 % theory!
Please share your thoughts on this.
This thing about practicing or not practicing when ill is a tricky question. I´m not sure there is a right or a wrong. I guess it´s up to everyone to feel what is good for them. If you ask different teachers, they will have different attitudes on that. Some will say that it ok(or even good) to practice when ill, just as long as you don´t have a fever (like Lino Miele). Some teachers say to listen to your body, and you will know if it´s ok or not. Maria says never to practice with a soar throught.
My view is that I don´t practice when ill. I think the body needs to rest then. When feeling low of energy, having a headache and so on (like today), I think it´s ok to practice. If you´re lucky you will feel better afterwards, but if you´re unlucky, the cold might break out. Now we´re talking about vigorous ashtanga yoga. I think a restorative yoga session might have done me good this morning.
And we have the issue of ahimsa. Being kind to yourself. This morning I was being kind to myself and letting my body rest to be able to heal. But then I have my thoughts: "you´re a bad yogi for skipping practice this morning", "if you skip one practice, it´ll be easy to skip the next, you should have gone", and so on, and so on. That´s not ahimsa. This brings up the question about dicipline. To do you´re practice despite all the thoughts about why not to get up in the morning and practice. How do you distinguish between a good and healthy reason for not practicing from the lazy reason? I guess that takes practice too!
99% practice, 1 % theory!
Please share your thoughts on this.
söndag 7 september 2008
Ayurveda & The Mind
Yesterday, I was at a lecture with Janesh Vaidya. He is an Indian ayurvedic physician practicing in Stockholm. I have several friends who go to him, and some of them have had remarkable healings. He had a lecture at Yogayama in Stockholm in spring this year, and it was very inspiring. So naturally I went to his second lecture there yesterday, equally inspiring! I would like to share my notes. They are a bit fragmented, but I hope you can get something from them anyway.
....................................................................................................
Adopt ayurveda to your life and culture. Don´t swallow everthing, and don´t try to change everthing at once. Do it little by little.
The base for good health is:
AHAR/ food
VIHAR/ lifestyle
VIJAR/ thoughts
AHAR/ FOOD
Food is my medicine, sleep is my therapy.
When you shop for food, know before what is good for you, and don´t buy it just becuse it´s a good offer. Get to know your dosha, and what your current imbalance is, and eat accordingly. Preparation; your kitchen is a pharmacy, respect your kitchen and make it a pleasant place. Cook with love and attention. Steamcooking is a good way of cooking, since it keeps most of the nutrition. Never reheat food, always eat fresh. Quality is a lot more important than quantity. Don´t eat too much. The amount that you can fit in your cuped hands is enough. When you eat too much, your body gets deprived of energy, since the body requires a lot of energyto digest food. Don´t eat out too often. The cooks at the restaurants don´t know what you need, and you´ll end up eating what is not good for you. Important to eat with focus (important to do everything in life with focus). He called it Ahar Dhyana- food meditiation. Also important to chew well to be able to absorb the nutrition (especially carbohydrates- my note).
VIHAR/ LIFESTYLE
Have a lifestyle that is good for YOU. Not one that is imposed on you by society, family, media or whatever. YOU have a choice. Your day is divided into 8h sleep, 8h work and 8h personal time. Use it well.
Sleep is extremely important. If you do not sleep well for a longer time, you will get sick. Go to bed at the same time every day, and wake up at the same time, Even if you do not fall asleep at once, keep to it, and in 21 days you will see that it has changed. Remember- sleep is therapy. In Indian culture, a mans lifetime is said to be 120 years. When you are 60 years old, life begins. Then you have struggled and learned what you need, and you can finally settle down and start living! Sounds very nice I think! In the west, many people think life ends at 60! Don´t focus too much on your body. The body grows old, but the mind doesn´t! The mind grows and expands continually!
Work: Choose a profession you love to do. If you are not satisfied, change! Change is part of life_-embrace it! Be bold, take risks! Beleive 100% , and you will get it. See failure as something positive, something you learn from.
Personal life: Spend a lot of time with family and friends. Communication is the base of any good relationship. Our family is our base, a place to come home to.
Get to know yourself. Selfstudy. Often when we feel that life is missing something, although we seem to have everything, we are missing the spiritual. And spirituality is knowing yourself.
VIJAR/ THOUGHTS
Happiness is what you think, not what you have.
You can see the mind like a computer. The brain is like a hard drive, your thoughts are the software. This means you can program the mind with positive or negative "programs".
Your thoughts, positive or negative, drop down like seeds into your heart/ stomach and create feelings. These feelings in turn drop down into your gut/ reproductive area and create emotions, which is the base of your energy level. This is a system that energizes itself. The more negative thoughts you have, the more negative emotions you will have, and they in turn create more negative thoughts, and the circle reinforces itself. But the same is true of positive thoughts, so work to reinfiorce those instead. Imagine that you have a filter (he drew a picture of a filter in the throat, I´m not sure if you were to imagine a filter there, or if it was just an image). If you have positive thoughts, imagine a filter like a convex lens. It will focus and sharpen the positive. If you have negative thoughts, see the filter like a concave lens. It will disperse the negative. Learn how to "spit out" the negative thoughts. This filter is your conciousness. Observe, classify and receive or reject. Don´t criticise, don´t judge- just analyse.
Finally some words on life energy.
Know how to use it. Focus your energy, don´t disperse it by doing too many things.
Important to have a vision in life. This vision will give you a goal. When you know your goal, you will find a way. He gave an example from his own life: his vision was to help people, his goal became to be an ayurvedic physician, the way was to study and then practice the profession. This gives meaning to his life, and makes it bigger than just waking up in the morning, going to work and so on, you know, the treadwheel of life. The one we all fear...
WHAT IS YOUR VISION?
....................................................................................................
Adopt ayurveda to your life and culture. Don´t swallow everthing, and don´t try to change everthing at once. Do it little by little.
The base for good health is:
AHAR/ food
VIHAR/ lifestyle
VIJAR/ thoughts
AHAR/ FOOD
Food is my medicine, sleep is my therapy.
When you shop for food, know before what is good for you, and don´t buy it just becuse it´s a good offer. Get to know your dosha, and what your current imbalance is, and eat accordingly. Preparation; your kitchen is a pharmacy, respect your kitchen and make it a pleasant place. Cook with love and attention. Steamcooking is a good way of cooking, since it keeps most of the nutrition. Never reheat food, always eat fresh. Quality is a lot more important than quantity. Don´t eat too much. The amount that you can fit in your cuped hands is enough. When you eat too much, your body gets deprived of energy, since the body requires a lot of energyto digest food. Don´t eat out too often. The cooks at the restaurants don´t know what you need, and you´ll end up eating what is not good for you. Important to eat with focus (important to do everything in life with focus). He called it Ahar Dhyana- food meditiation. Also important to chew well to be able to absorb the nutrition (especially carbohydrates- my note).
VIHAR/ LIFESTYLE
Have a lifestyle that is good for YOU. Not one that is imposed on you by society, family, media or whatever. YOU have a choice. Your day is divided into 8h sleep, 8h work and 8h personal time. Use it well.
Sleep is extremely important. If you do not sleep well for a longer time, you will get sick. Go to bed at the same time every day, and wake up at the same time, Even if you do not fall asleep at once, keep to it, and in 21 days you will see that it has changed. Remember- sleep is therapy. In Indian culture, a mans lifetime is said to be 120 years. When you are 60 years old, life begins. Then you have struggled and learned what you need, and you can finally settle down and start living! Sounds very nice I think! In the west, many people think life ends at 60! Don´t focus too much on your body. The body grows old, but the mind doesn´t! The mind grows and expands continually!
Work: Choose a profession you love to do. If you are not satisfied, change! Change is part of life_-embrace it! Be bold, take risks! Beleive 100% , and you will get it. See failure as something positive, something you learn from.
Personal life: Spend a lot of time with family and friends. Communication is the base of any good relationship. Our family is our base, a place to come home to.
Get to know yourself. Selfstudy. Often when we feel that life is missing something, although we seem to have everything, we are missing the spiritual. And spirituality is knowing yourself.
VIJAR/ THOUGHTS
Happiness is what you think, not what you have.
You can see the mind like a computer. The brain is like a hard drive, your thoughts are the software. This means you can program the mind with positive or negative "programs".
Your thoughts, positive or negative, drop down like seeds into your heart/ stomach and create feelings. These feelings in turn drop down into your gut/ reproductive area and create emotions, which is the base of your energy level. This is a system that energizes itself. The more negative thoughts you have, the more negative emotions you will have, and they in turn create more negative thoughts, and the circle reinforces itself. But the same is true of positive thoughts, so work to reinfiorce those instead. Imagine that you have a filter (he drew a picture of a filter in the throat, I´m not sure if you were to imagine a filter there, or if it was just an image). If you have positive thoughts, imagine a filter like a convex lens. It will focus and sharpen the positive. If you have negative thoughts, see the filter like a concave lens. It will disperse the negative. Learn how to "spit out" the negative thoughts. This filter is your conciousness. Observe, classify and receive or reject. Don´t criticise, don´t judge- just analyse.
Finally some words on life energy.
Know how to use it. Focus your energy, don´t disperse it by doing too many things.
Important to have a vision in life. This vision will give you a goal. When you know your goal, you will find a way. He gave an example from his own life: his vision was to help people, his goal became to be an ayurvedic physician, the way was to study and then practice the profession. This gives meaning to his life, and makes it bigger than just waking up in the morning, going to work and so on, you know, the treadwheel of life. The one we all fear...
WHAT IS YOUR VISION?
fredag 5 september 2008
I Will Stand On My Head
Only three weeks to go, and during these weeks I have to learn how to stand on my head without the wall, without the teacher. I have been struggling with this pose for three years now, and I still feel I need the wall! My teacher Maria is trying to prepare me for Mysore. She said that there will be no wall for me in Mysore. So I had better learn in three weeks! She is very firm, but in a warm and loving way.
I can stand, but I have problems getting up. My left shoulder is much weaker than my right one, so that makes me unbalanced and I can´t press my shoulders into the floor like I should. But teacher sais it is enough with the strength of just one shoulder. So, trust the teacher, trust the method....and we will see!
Also there is the fear of falling. This is a mental obstacle. One of my biggest aspirations in life is to be free. And I would really like to be free from the wall! Before going into headstand, I picture myself doing the pose perfectly. We will see if this helps! The body changes quicker than the mind. This is important to remember.
I can stand, but I have problems getting up. My left shoulder is much weaker than my right one, so that makes me unbalanced and I can´t press my shoulders into the floor like I should. But teacher sais it is enough with the strength of just one shoulder. So, trust the teacher, trust the method....and we will see!
Also there is the fear of falling. This is a mental obstacle. One of my biggest aspirations in life is to be free. And I would really like to be free from the wall! Before going into headstand, I picture myself doing the pose perfectly. We will see if this helps! The body changes quicker than the mind. This is important to remember.
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