Reconnect with the source of your happiness.
up and support you and your ideas. And then there are times when it is
all a little murky, and you might feel a bit lost. Thankfully, you have
your yoga practice to come to—a time to tap into a deep connection with
yourself and remember who you really are and what is most important to
you. Nothing could be better.
When you bring the spacious awareness you experience in your yoga
practice to your whole life, you'll experience the kind of presence
that will make you stop in your tracks, engage your senses, and find
joy in daily life. But for most of us, accomplishing that is easier
said than done. Often it requires a conscious effort to examine the
status quo, push in new directions, and find fresh approaches to
evoking that same sense of grounding, connection, and happiness we find
on the mat.
ideas into practice one at a time, or try several at once. You might
want to welcome one of them into your life as an offering to the New
Year. Whatever approach you choose, here's to feeling more alive, more
present, and more aware of what makes you happy.
Your yoga practice helps you live in the present, but life in the
world demands a certain amount of decision making and planning. What's
your vision of where you want to go and how you'll get there? When you
take a proactive approach, your dreams are more likely to become
reality. Knowing what you want is, of course, the first step.
If you need help discovering your life's path, start by talking it
out, says Nancy Wagaman, a life coach in San Diego. You can develop a
goal list and create affirmations, she says. You can draw a picture of
your future—even pray for guidance. "There are so many ways to energize
the new vision you want for your life. The more you energize it, the
more you draw that energy to that vision. And the universe tends to
support you," she says.
Of course, your vision may change over time, but the important thing is that you're an active participant in your future.
Reconnecting with your innermost self can open the doors to an entirely
new and unpredictable path. At 33 years old, Susan Nicolas was a yoga
teacher living in San Francisco and dating. But her singular focus on
meeting a husband and starting a family was causing her heartache. On
the advice of friends, she signed up for a vipassana retreat. During 10
days of silence and insight meditation, she came face-to-face with her
attachment to getting married and to the unfinished dynamics of past
relationships. "Through a lot of struggle and occasional glimpses of
true stillness, it seemed the obstacles in my life dissolved," she
says. "I felt more in touch with my true self than I ever had."
Getting away from routine relationships and environments makes it
easier to drop into stillness and examine the undercurrent of your
life. Once you do, you can plug into a connection with your divine
nature. On retreat, you can also practice accessing your true self so
that you can call on it anytime in your life.
A month after her retreat, Nicolas unexpectedly reconnected with an
old sweetheart who is now her husband of eight years. "The experience
during those sometimes difficult 10 days was like removing a stopper in
the mouth of my life," she says. "Everything simply flowed forth as it
should."
HOW TO Check with a favorite teacher or retreat center for
upcoming dates. Even a weekend away that includes meditation, yoga,
rest, and silence can be enlightening if you set an intention to
retreat.
3. Let Go of the Old
Writing, drawing, doing yoga—there are many pathways to bringing all
that's inside of you out and into the world. For several years,
Tiffanie Turner, an architect from San Francisco, felt creatively
blocked. As an experiment, Turner began writing three pages in her
journal each morning. After a few weeks, she noticed some dramatic
changes in her life. "I drop off a lot of baggage in the morning and
feel clear for the rest of the day," she says. Turner found that her
anxiety levels decreased, too. "I write down things that worry me in
the morning, or a horrible dream that would normally stay with me all
day. And when I do, these things pretty much don't exist for me any
more."
"Once you let go of thoughts that aren't truly serving you, you'll feel
lighter, more creative," says Courtney Miller, a yoga teacher in
Manhattan, who includes journaling in her yoga workshops. "It's as if
you have more space inside for noticing what makes you happy."
HOW TO Dust off your journal, commit to a designated time frame
each day, and stick to it. If writing isn't your thing, try drawing
your thoughts and feelings.
4. Serve Others
If you haven't yet noticed, time spent trying to fulfill your desires
usually isn't that fulfilling—even when you achieve or get something
that you think you want. But when you turn your attention to the needs
of others, you often feel a huge sense of satisfaction. Focusing on
other people enables you to be engaged without having to figure out
what's in it for you. And seva (selfless service) can be very empowering, showing you that your actions really do make a difference in the world.
HOW TO You can walk pups at the Humane Society, teach yoga at a
community center, or bring your talents to an after-school tutoring
program—the possibilities are endless. Many organizations ask for a
six-month commitment, though, so it's important to find something
you're passionate about and have time for. Log on to volunteermatch.org and type in your interests and Zip Code to find a perfect volunteer fit.
5. Honor Your Physical Self
You often hear about spacious awareness in the mind, but it can also be
found in your sense of physical self—in the way you move externally,
and then process things internally. That's why San Francisco
chiropractor Colin Phipps does a seasonal cleanse about three times a
year. He says that the cleanse cultivates awareness by giving him
emotional clarity and providing a healthy ritual to follow. "It's a
conscious effort to become much more attuned to my sense of self and
where I am in the world," he says.
HOW TO Elson Haas, an integrative-medicine practitioner and author of The New Detox Diet,
recommends a simple winter detox that anyone can follow: For three
weeks this winter, base your three meals a day on soups, salads,
fruits, and veggies. Drink lots of water and herbal teas, and stay
warm. Omit sugar, alcohol, caffeine, wheat, and dairy—and don't eat
between meals. When the seasons change throughout the year, carve out
anywhere between 3 and 21 days to repeat some version of the detox.
"When you move toward fruits, veggies, and water, you are moving toward
things that are less congesting and moving along the pathway to
health," says Haas. Find more detox tips at elsonhaas.com.
6. Be Daring
There's a lot to be said for having the discipline to stick with a
specific style of yoga, getting to know it well, and working through
resistance to aspects that you know you don't like. But exploring a new
style of yoga can be revitalizing. Experimentation and play in your
practice can teach you to be, err, more "flexible" in all of your life
and more aware that there's always more to learn and explore.
Jay Maldonado, a 29-year-old director of a literacy program who lives
in Brooklyn, says her long-term study of one style of yoga left her
with a good understanding of alignment but not a lot of spiritual
depth. So she pounded the Manhattan pavement looking for something that
resonated. She found it at Laughing Lotus, a studio whose philosophy
centers on joy and playfulness. "It opened the doors to my creativity
and self-expression, and just really enjoying who I am," she says. "It
allowed my yoga practice to become something that's not so regimented.
Instead, it evolves every day."
Maldonado is also transgendered, and finding a new style helped her
greatly during her transition. "As my practice became freer, everything
else in my life freed up, and I made the changes I needed to honor
myself as a transgendered being," she says. "When you delve into the
scariness of something new, that's usually the shock that you need to
awaken your spiritual practice and passion."
HOW TO Chant if you normally focus on alignment, or experiment
with holding poses for minutes at a time if you're used to a more
flowing practice. For other ideas, go to yogajournal.com/styleguide.
7. Soothe Your Mind
Meditation quiets a busy mind and cultivates a witness who can watch
what's happening in your life with a bit of emotional distance. The
benefits are enormous—many meditators say they have more clarity,
experience less anxiety, and feel better physically. Most of all, the
practice offers an experience of calm and contentment.
Are you willing to commit to meditating every day for 30 days? If
so, you might find your whole life transformed. "An agitated mind
squanders such an amazing amount of energy," says Richard Faulds, a
senior meditation teacher at Kripalu Center in Stockbridge,
Massachusetts. "If you can still the surface of the mind, you'll say
'Wow! This is who I really am!' You get a taste of something that's
really quite profound. You will want to sustain it."
HOW TO Faulds recommends meditating on the breath for 20 minutes
each day. To do this, follow his guidelines: Find a comfortable seated
position. Bring yourself to the present moment by breathing, relaxing,
feeling, watching, and allowing any thoughts, emotions, or physical
sensations to come and go. Instead of reacting to those things, simply
be aware of them. Deepen the breath. Watch the breath. Let go of all
technique and come into effortless being. You can find another Kripalu
Yoga guided meditation at yogajournal.com/kripalumed.
8. Notice Your Surroundings
When you're reassessing life, it's tempting to spend a lot of time
focusing on yourself. But it can be transformative to connect with the
world around you, to meet your neighbors, to enjoy the changing of the
seasons, to take an interest in what's happening in your community.
Simply being aware of your environs creates a sense of
interconnectedness—and suddenly you can't not care about how your
actions affect people and your environment.
One way to feel that connection is to make a commitment to eating
seasonal and locally grown foods. "Once people become dedicated
seasonal eaters, suddenly they become aware of things like water
issues, ranchers' issues, and political issues in their community,"
says Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets.
Plus, these foods taste better, do less harm to the environment by
reducing resources needed for shipping, and put you in touch with the
cycles of nature.
HOW TO Eating seasonally and supporting farmers is as easy and
delicious as visiting your local farmers' market or joining a Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) program—a fancy term for a farm that grows
and delivers produce near your home. Visit the United States Department
of Agriculture's website (ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm) and click on your state to locate a local farmers' market, or check out localharvest.org/csa to find a CSA.
9. Create Community
Karen Habib had been plagued for years by a feeling of emptiness that
she couldn't quite name. Habib, who lives in Manhattan and worked in
corporate marketing at that time, craved meaning, community, and a
place where she could feel grounded amid the hustle and bustle of New
York. So when the opportunity arose for her to move into the Integral
Yoga Institute in the West Village, she went for it.
When you live in close quarters with other people, they can certainly
press your buttons. But when that happens, Habib thinks of a statement
attributed to Integral Yoga founder, Swami Satchidananda: "The stones
in a river start out rough, but with the current continually bumping
and polishing them, they end up being beautiful." Since moving into the
institute, Habib has gained clarity to pursue a life-long interest in
interior design. She has also discovered a renewed sense of vitality,
strength, and gratitude. With her yoga community, she now has a sacred
center to come home to, daily yoga classes and workshops at her
disposal, and a place to meet like-minded yogis she can relate to.
"When I walk into the center, I breathe and sit to do pranayama and
think, 'God, am I lucky!'"
HOW TO While you may not choose to move into an ashram, you can find some kind of sangha
(community) at your local studio or through a favorite teacher. Many
studios offer immersion programs that meet weekly to discuss
philosophy, practice asana, chant, and spark renewed vitality,
strength, and gratitude for the practices. Or you can organize your own
group by inviting friends, posting flyers that give information about
the meetings, and hosting yoga meet-ups in your town (visit meetup.com to post events).
10. Make a Nature Date
It's easy to overlook the most obvious accessible antidote to stress,
worry, and busyness: the outdoors. Sense the earth beneath your feet,
watch birds soar, feel the wind on your face—these are all reminders
that your troubles, and even your joys, need not be all consuming; you
are part of something bigger.
Carol Tonelli, a Spanish interpreter living in San Francisco, heads to
the ocean for a swim when she wants to reconnect. "There, I can
surrender to the water, to the sun, to the flow of life," she says.
Immersing herself in natural beauty, says Tonelli, allows her to
release stress and to access a deep sense of serenity that carries her
through tougher times.
HOW TO Whether you decide to head for the mountains, streams, or
sea, take time out of your schedule to make a nature date once a week.
When you're outdoors, allow your thoughts and concerns to float away
like clouds. Stay present to the natural beauty that surrounds you;
cultivate a sense of gratitude for the abundance that is right in front
of your nose.
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