10 Ideas for Creating a Sacred Space in Any Place!

04/29/2012

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1.        Location, location, location.  Think of where you would want this space.  Somewhere tucked away, somewhere you pass daily in your home or office.  Your night stand, a living room shelf, maybe a set aside room.  For me I have 2, my kitchen sink, here I have displayed sacred, meaningful things that remind me to get centered.  And my second is my office/yoga room; here my books and yoga mat and props are waiting for me each day.  If you are going to practice in that space maybe consider facing east if you are going to practice in the morning and west if you are to practice in the evening.

2.       Create an altar, or some sort of stand or focal point.  Where can you look to as a reminder each day a mini temple of sorts.

3.       Go green, plants that is.  Having live foliage is a wonderful way to clear the air and give a feeling of new life and energy.  Choose plants that are soothing, uplifting and centering. 

4.       Daily inspiration at your fingertips.  Have available and waiting things like angel cards, devotional prayer books, meditations, possibly your rosary or mala; something that you can go to each time you step into the space.

5.       Photographs of teachers, places family and friends.  These are all good reminders to keep you grounded and remember you have a great support team. 

6.       Meaningful items.  Is there anything meaningful to you that you use for inspiration, centering, keep that in your sacred space.  A letter from a close friend, a favorite stone, a memento from a passed elder or teacher.  Something that allows you to connect.

7.       A journal.  If it allows journal daily and this is the perfect place to do this, your thoughts, intentions, desires and what it is you are hoping to release.  Here it can manifest in a safe, healthy environment.

8.       Don’t forget to clear the clutter.  Our energy can often times get misdirected when clutter is present.  Remove old useless items, garbage, and put away items that have been left out before and after you use the space to keep good energy flowing.

9.       If possible have a no cell phone policy.  If this space is going to be the place that you go to refuel and reload, if possible keep the electronics at bay, if possible place a sign on the door that says do not disturb.  Even just 5 minutes for you a day can make a world of wonder.

10.   Use the space.  Remember to create a space in a space that will be user-friendly to you and workable for your lifestyle.  For me that is why I have two spaces, one that is solely mine and one that is more of a family space.  No matter what you do, or where you decide to create this space know that it will hold everything for you that you put into it.  Namaste.

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10 Tips for a Functional Body: Here are ten key tips to stop treating pain and to start treating dysfunction:

04/20/2012

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10 Tips for a Functional Body By Hope Zvara Here are ten key tips to stop treating pain and to start treating dysfunction:

1. Get off the floor. Unless you are a mechanic, training yourself, especially your core, solely (or the majority of the time) on the floor will not get you the results you are hoping to achieve. Think about how you can do what you are trying to do on the floor standing up. Lying flat on your back for core work only triggers about 10% of your transversus abdominus, your core most muscle (which is also a back muscle). So how about a standing “Pilates” 100 or what about the standing “Saw”?  Look at what the movement is trying to achieve, not necessarily what it looks like, so you can morph it into a more body-friendly version.

Please visit Mindbodygreen.com to view the rest of this post! And feel free to leave a great comment!
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5 Tips to Make You a Top-Notch Yoga Teacher

04/19/2012

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Do you want to be the best yoga teacher you can possibly be? Here are five simple tips to help:

1. Share a part of yourself in class. Be real, and make yourself relatable. I encourage all my teacher trainers to reference themselves in class just like they would a statistic about back pain. This makes you the instructor more real and relatable. I often talk about how I have a cranky psoas that I am working on, or as I explain what we are about to do I note that this is the side I have to work on more because balance is challenging for me. A good teacher teaches on the same level as his or her students not above them.

Please visit MindBodyGreen.com to view the rest of this guest blog post by Hope Zvara.
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10 Yoga or Pilates Teacher Red Flags

04/19/2012

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Please visit Mindbodygreen.com for this guest blog post by Hope Zvara
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Frustration....It's Simply Mental Confusion Or Is It?

04/03/2012

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So as many of you know, I tend to write about my own personal experiences and my life.  And as I continue to grow and evolve with the rest of the “willing” world, I am continually awed at the notion of what growth is.  Many of us like the idea of growth, but what we often leave out is that we like it on our own terms.  We prefer it to be how we see fit, how it “makes sense to us”. I say HA! You wish, heck, I wish!  It can’t be growth if you are controlling it.  A great teacher of mine says that “you can’t engage in anger and frustration and still expect to grow spiritually, you are just kidding yourself. The only thing that grows is your ego to thinking you have grown”.  Frustration simply put, is mental confusion.  And so, when I get frustrated am I always able to stay cool and calm, not 100%, but what I am really working on is noticing that when I do get frustrated it’s usually not the other person, but me that needs to learn something (well them too but that is for them to see).  And so we have a choice. Do I stay as I am or breathe, and see if there is a different way to look at what is in front of me? 

There is a big world out there and you will only be holding yourself back if you continually pride yourself on remembering every little thing someone did to you and that you are older and wiser that everyone else.  Wisdom is not counted by the number of years on this earth in this lifetime, but rather if you have taken the knowledge you have and applied it to life, you have actually “learned”.   Rudi, a great Swami says in many of his books, that a teacher will want to be on your level with you and grow with you, not want to be above you or put you below him or herself, but rather be side by side.  And I think of this only because I was just talking about Kids Yoga classes with a instructor friend and I told her the number one thing to remember is “play with the kids” their whole life is people telling them what to do, you can reach them in a much better way if you become a child, and simply maintain a understanding that you are leading the group.  For me this is something I often try to implement into my teaching and life. So to all my yogi friends, my hope is that we walk side by side rather than in a single file line. That when growth is stunted we are all a big enough person to look to ourselves first, that at the end of the day real growth has to do with the total annihilation of your limited definition of self.  So grow to your potential, because you are the only one holding you back. 

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