So if you know me, you know that I periodically go on sugar fasts. I do this a few times a year to clear my head and when I notice that chocolate has become a daily habit, and need a can’t go without! So when I get to that point, I go without. I am embarking on a 21 day odyssey of no sugar (arguably at one of the most challenging times of year) to stretch my discipline muscle and to see what clarity I can bring to my practice with this awareness. So to help myself succeed, I am going to go public with this journey and blog about it every day for the 21 days. Who knows what could happen?

Also, to give myself clear rules about what is allowed and what is not (as sugar can be a complex and hidden ingredient):

1. No processed sugar. This means no cakes, cookies, crackers (yes, they have often have hidden sugar!), candy, ice cream. juices etc.

2. Reduced intake of unprocessed sugar. I will allow myself one piece of fruit per day or equivalent (a food product that is not a sweet product but may contain sugar as an ingredient, such as in prepared sauces). I will allow one spoonful of raw honey as an equivalent as well.

3. No fake sugar. This means no stevia, nutrasweet (ick, I don’t normally eat that stuff anyways) or any of the other sugar imposters.

4. A commitment to blog every day about my feelings about sugar and to be radically honest about my intake (so you will hear about it even if I mess up) and radically compassionate towards myself if I do. No guilt, just awareness and determination.

5. A weight loss log. I will weigh myself every day and see what happens at the end of the 21 days.  I am not sure if I want to publish that yet.

If you would like to do this with me, comment on this post and we will set up an email support list, where you will get my daily blog post and a inspirational message to keep us all on track.

Namaste, friends! Heeeeeeere we go!

Anna

When I envision the yogi in the cave, sitting on her mountaintop, contemplating the world and attaining inner peace, the image I used to always get was one of overwhelming loneliness and sadness. Who would want to spend years by themselves, in a remote location, away from the world? I would get itchy in my soul when thinking about facing my darkness and sadness all alone, with no one to support me or share my journey. To some extent this is still true – I hunger for the companionship of other human beings, to share in our amazing journey in this body. But as my practice has evolved to include the quiet stillness of yin yoga, I am learning the value of silence, stillness and blessed alone time. Along with that stillness comes a blessed emptiness, as we unlayer and unfold ourselves – like peeling the onion back from our true selves, layer by layer.

There are so many things competing for our attention in this world. TV, bills, kids, jobs, work, food, sleep – am I naming a few of yours too? It feels to me that we can get so caught up in the world of “must do” that we lose the world of “just be.” Conversation after conversation runs around in our mind about how we are not good enough, fast enough, rich enough, thin enough – that its a miracle sometimes that anything we learn about yoga penetrates the deep fog of our critical mind.

What I have to offer today in this snippet of time you are spending with me is something revolutionary for my brain – methods to create space in your brain so that the things you have always wanted can come to fruition in your life. More and more I see the reason why we don’t get what we want is that we hold on to something because of the all-too-present boogeymonsters of FEAR, PAIN, BEING ALONE, and DEATH. Yikes! What scary four horsemen to have running around in our brains. The methods I have found to be tried and true are as follows:

1. Yin Yoga: This yoga rounds out a healthy vinyasa practice like no other. The long holds of deeply restorative and challenging postures allows you to wrestle with the distractions in your mind in a safe, supportive and loving environment. This type of yoga allows you to go deep, kind of like “yoga rolfing”  – a comment from one of my students the first time he took my class! The poses are held from 1-5 minutes typically, with longer holds up to 20 minutes in the more restorative postures. This allows the fascia, the connective tissues, of the body to safely stretch and reorganize and literally reshape your body! If you are curious to try this out, come check out my class at Asheville Yoga Center, Wednesdays at 2:30 p.m. I am also doing a workshop for MANNA Food Bank in Asheville, NC on September 5th that combines Yin and Yang yoga for a complete and well-rounded practice. Both worth checking out!

2. Morning Pages: This past year I have come across another amazing method of clearing out my head. I am lucky enough to be facilitating groups of artistic seekers through the process of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. There is something truly, truly, truly amazing about getting out three pages of word vomit from your head first thing in the morning – its a meditation in writing that has freed me up like nothing else to create new and amazing art that feeds my soul and energizes my whole being.

3. Meditation: There is something amazing about just taking time to sit still. To feel the breeze fly through your heart as you just listen to your breath – there is something so freeing, so simple and so rejuvenating about that I am still amazed. If you have never tried meditation, try a FREE class at Asheville Community Yoga Center, or if you don’t live in my area, just type in FREE YOGA into your Google search box along with your city. I am sure you will find something nearby – or check out the multiple resources on the internet to help you meditate, also most often for free. The information is out there, and the GURU is the SELF!

4. Creating Art: There is almost no better way to process your feelings that to create something that expresses what is going on inside you. When I create art, I don’t care about who sees it or how much it might be worth to someone else – what makes true art for me is if the image comes straight from within my heart, expressing what I am feeling at that moment or phase in my life. That, to me, is true art.

So if you are feeling like there is no space in your life for you these days, this is what the yoga doctor ordered – try one of these methods to create space in your heart and you just might be amazed at the result!

Namaste Friends,

Anna Ferguson

USHASYOGA.COM

So the thing I’ve been working with in my practice lately is – how do I CONSCIOUSLY blend what I learn on the mat and in meditation with my everyday, busy bee life? So often, we get into these lovely nirvana spaces in our practice, but when we roll up the mat, we roll up our consciousness as well. So how is it that we integrate it all into feeding the dog, cooking for our family, cleaning the home? Here are some ways I’ve observed my consciousness blending into modern reality in recent weeks, in the hopes it will help you too.

Take that yoga mind with you everywhere you go. I noticed that as soon as I forgot about my yoga in a moment of anger or irritation, all of my “commitment” to a yogic frame of mind went, you know, somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine. Most of the time, I figured out, it was when I was running late or feeling stressed. So I said to myself, how do I bring that little reminder to act like a yogi into the forefront of my mind?

Get space. The first thing I did was cut some stuff out of my schedule. Did I really need to do 5 part-time jobs and make myself nuts? Also, I went on a cleaning bender, being ruthless about donating stuff to Goodwill. I really didn’t need any more stuff in my life, because it became stuff in my head that clouded me up and prevented me from honoring my yamas and niyamas. As hard as it was to let go of stuff (hello Ego!), it felt SO good to have that space in my mind and my head once it was gone. Who knew? Patanjali, I’m sure.

Get organized. Another thing that was showing up for me was I wasn’t planning enough. Sure, it’s good to go by your intuition, but its so much less stressful to have a plan to deviate from than trying to make a plan in your head as you go along. So if you have a brain fart moment, you can always go back to your plan! So I made a commitment to plan everything that I was doing that week, and to honor that plan to the best of my ability. And guess what – SO much less stress! I didn’t do everything but not only was I not stressed, I felt really proud and happy with what I accomplished.

Get inspired. One of the last things I did was to up the passion quotient in my practice. I brought in some poetry. I had always done this from time to time, but now I am doing it in every class, matching the poem to the theme of the class. I find it is really lovely to hear some well-constructed words at the end of svasana, when our minds are really open and our hearts are ready to hear the lesson.

So that is all I have for now, but let me know if you have more ways that you are bringing the consciousness on your mat into your life! Remember, “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

Namaste!

Love, Always, Love,

Anna

After burning the seeds of desire yesterday, I went into our last day of training on the Sutras with a clear feeling. The clarity had a luminous quality to it, like the warmth of the fire we created morphed into light inside of my being. The tamas I worked through yesterday was fully evaporated and I felt truly sattvic for the first time in a really long time. It’s like my brain had been washed clean and everything was back in balance. What seemed impossible yesterday was possible today, and was almost effortless. The awareness was a complete upgrade!

We did another lovely practice this morning -what I am learning to love about Para Yoga and Rod’s teaching style is that employing the certain techniques in the order that we do them (lecture, asana, pranayama, meditation) in the balanced, measured way we do them, goes SO deep. So deep. There is a stillness of the soul that happens when I practice this way, a permission for the brain to be quiet and still. It feels like the combination of pranayama and asana, plus the methods of contemplation create just the right alchemy for the chemical reaction in the soul that is truly life-changing.

In the practice we focused on Maha Mudra. “Maha Mudra is a mirror, ” says Rod. “It’s the only practice that Krishnamacharya did in the last years of his life. The only one! Clearly he was making a point.” And I feel that I want to look deeper into that mirror, past the reflection of prakriti I see, but gazing deeper, inward, seeking out purusha (is that a redundant statement? LOL) and gaining self-mastery.

There is so much to say yet so little that seems to want to come out of my head tonight. And that’s a good feeling – I feel less cluttered, more clear. What I want to say about this training is that Rod and his training on the Sutras has given me the meat to sink my yogi teeth into. There is so much information, thoughtfully and completely represented, that I will be integrating it for months to come, that is sure. This has been my first experience with Rod Stryker, and I have to say it only whetted my appetite for more. I would highly recommend that if you get a chance to train with Rod, you do.

One of the last things that we had to do during the training was to answer three questions, here they were, along with my answers.

1. What was the most salient point you got out of the training?

Svadyaya – Self-Study

2. What is the more relevant point for teaching?

Dhyana (look it up, its complex) Hint: Be not the lover or the loved. Be Loving.

3. What new practice are you going to commit to as a result of this training?

Meditation to include Ishwara Pranidhana (again, look it up its complex!) Hint: Merging with God consciousness.

So I hope you all enjoyed the journey. I’ve really enjoyed meeting all the new faces and hearing from locals who couldn’t be in the training due to whatever reason, and they felt like they could share in the joy by reading these posts. I am grateful for you all, for AYC and Steph for hosting Rod, and also to my boyfriend Joe, who is so supportive of my journey. Thank you honey, I love you!

I will close with a quote that I got from Rod’s literature that i just love:

“For God to make love,

for the divine alchemy to work,

the Pitcher needs  a still cup.”

~ Hafiz

Until next time!

Namaste,

Anna

I must admit, I thought my brain was going to explode yesterday. Not only was I trying to process the mountain of information that was being funneled into my brain, I also was feeling this swell of well, feeling that felt like a big black dark wave threatening to take me over. Sounds really sinister, yes? Well, I will save that thriller for the end of this post, but rest assured it was not the big bad wolf or maybe my house was not made of straw.

Today was all about VICHARA for me – Vichara means “flash of insight” or literally, decoding the causes of your own suffering. Getting to the root of what is really bothering you can help free you from the things that cause you suffering. Rod made an interesting point today about meditation – to paraphrase, he said that sometimes in meditation we can dismiss the things we really need to be contemplating because for whatever reason, they don’t fit into what we think meditation “should be”.  The thoughts come up over and over and over again, but we don’t pay attention to the repeating themes. “Sometimes,” Rod said today, “Thoughts are the frog that needs to be kissed.” Naturally this was pretty amusing to the group, since he revealed that he has a daughter now and after having three boys, is looking to get familiar with girly fairy tales. Pretty darn loving, this guy is, I can tell. Those kids are lucky!

So to find out what frog I needed to kiss, during this afternoon’s lecture, we did a really awesome thing. We help each other decode some of our most tender issues, to see what the root of the problem, the seed of desire at Patanjali calls it, that is causing our suffering in this moment. We paired up and went at it with the help of a special set of questions provided by Rob in the Para Yoga manual. Due to copyright respect, I won’t repost them here but the general jist of it was to be really honest with ourselves and get down to the root of why we absolutely HAD to have an object of our desire – e.g. that new pair of green pants. Did I have a hot date? Was it insecurity? A feeling of value? A way to dull the pain of living? We spent an hour in partners dissecting each others chosen issue, and I have to thank Jessica, my partner, for being exactly who I needed in that moment. I will keep the subject matter private, but suffice it to say that I reached a new level of awareness about my self and where I was in that moment – enough I feel to launch me into a new level of the prakriti video game. I feel like this training upgraded me from an Atari to a new PS3 in the yoga dimension!

We closed the day with Ishwara Pradihana (spelling?). Suffice it to say that this is the meditation that has to be on everyone’s list. Remember that black wave that I told you about in the beginning? Well, the vision I got during this meditation, where you merge with the infinite consciousness of the universe (sounds pretty juicy, eh?) was that of the Hoover Dam breaking in my head – only this time it didn’t feel sinister, black or scary. As the waters broke through the dam I’d created in my brain (our Vichara exercise was the perfect prep for this),  I thought I was going to be drowned, but instead what happened in my vision in meditation was that I was washed clean, hydrated and fully loved. Sound great? It was and still is. I feel like I can finally master this issue I’ve been wrestling with for 10 years, now that I know the reason why (self-knowledge) and I asked Ishwara (my representation of the God consciousness) for help in dissolving the barriers in my Self.

It’s kind of hard to put this type of stuff into print – I hope that this all makes sense to you out there. I will close with a reference to the title of this post – “Be not the lover or the loved. Be Loving.” This is the essence of what I am talking about – an expression of Dhyana. Dhyana  means attention flows,  effortless towards an object, and I was imbued with the qualities of the object I was focusing on. There is a communication, a teaching from the object of your focus. You are the energetic interaction between subject and object. Once I took personal responsibility and fully understood my issue, I was no longer separated from that issue. That allowed me to dissolve it, wash it away, and know that I am whole. Again. What could possibly be next?

Day 3 of this amazing journey led me deeper into myself in ways I hadn’t really anticipated. This whole pranayama and meditation focus really brings the practice of yoga to a whole new level. In some ways, it feels like the svasanas, meditations and pranayamas are rich, dark chocolate desserts where just a few bites have you savoring the intense rich flavor so much so that you only need a couple of bites to feel satiated. And more than that can overwhelm you with sensation. Rod is doing a amazing job of  packing so much information into each lecture I feel like I could digest for weeks, months and probably years. My only wish is that I could digest it in smaller chunks to let it really sink in, but fortunately he is offering the lectures recorded for class participants. Phew! I am still note-taking madly, doing my best to digest it all in the moment. It really requires you being present in each moment to listen, and really hear what he is saying.

Todays lectures were about Kriya yoga and pranayama. I am really fascinated by his knowledge of pranayama – and it’s not just about how many techniques he knows. He really KNOWS what each one does and how to apply each one. The feeling I get listening to him is similar to Doug Keller – I get the solid feeling that the depth of his knowledge is so deep if it was materialized (prakriti) it might look like the Marianas Trench – really deep, with new discoveries just floating in there like ghost fish, strange jewels that glow in the dark. One thing that is really fascinating me is the Circular Breath – inhales and exhales that are exactly the same with no hesitations anywhere in the circle. It’s suprisingly challenging and hard to do – one thing that Rod said today that really struck home was if pranayama is hard, then you are probably doing it right. Not hard in the terms of breathing hard – that would be strain and Rod says that strain is not the point – it’s the mental challenge that is the hard part. (For more elaboration, go to the second chapter of the Sutras and find the ones on pranayama). That was a revelation! I had recently been relating to pranayama as a feel-good type of thing. Make no mistake, it certainly is, but when you are doing pranayama right, I’ve been learning, its the challenge that increases your awareness, increases your shakti, your power over the five Kleshas or causes of affliction. This increase in awareness is the point of it ALL – the more you are the seer and not the seen, the more you can be the observer and not the observed, the more pain  you can avoid – the more karma you can prevent from causing you pain in the future!

All of these lessons culminated in an epiphany about some of the events in my life. I have this saying that I tell my students, particularly those I work with who are struggling with chronic illness. I tell them that their illness is a gift in really ugly wrapping paper. (I actually came up with that one when my mom was facing some health issues – thanks Mom, for always being an inspiration to me!) That came through in spades in the teaching about Purusha and Prakriti today. One particular sentence I remember Rod saying is that Prakriti exists so that we can find a way out of it – to learn. This has direct application to how I feel about my struggles in life and with my health. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that my illness had to have a purpose – there was some lesson in each new twist and turn of each challenge. I became convinced that I just needed to pay attention and open myself to the answer, and it would present itself. Now, several years later, I can honestly say that is the truth. My gift in really ugly wrapping paper brought me closer to myself in ways that never would have happened if I had skipped the challenges of the past few years. Even when my boyfriend’s father passed away unexpectedly last year, I learned more about what real love was than I had in the previous 4 years of our relationship. Intellectually I had always understood the concept that struggle can be your teacher – now I really REALLY understand, deep in the visceral part of me why that is. Who would have thought the Sutras would be so powerful? Three days ago, not me. NOW I am a believer. Believer in what, you say – in the power of my own self. And that gives me more optimism than a lot of things I’ve heard in the teacher training room!

One last fundamental point – Rod told us to memorize Sutra 2.16. “HEYAM DUKHAM ANAGATAM.” Pain that hasn’t come around yet is avoidable. Hallelujah! No one needs to feel like they are destined for a supremely painful life – or than pain is the only way to increase awareness. For example, a really yummy asana practice can bring greater awareness and there may be effort involved, but there doesn’t have to be pain! In the end, all of the fluctuations of life are here to bring  you to the next, and the next, and the next. And doesn’t that sound like an adventure worth having?

“All of the conditions that we experience, from the fluctuations of nature to the limits of my own perceptions – the principle reason we are confined to prakriti, is to find a way out of prakriti.” ~ Rod Stryker

For more information and for the book we are studying from, it’s Called Four Paths to Freedom. It’s Rod’s preferred translation.

So we delved deeper into the labyrinth of the Sutras today. What was most evident to me today was the sheer depth and thought of the Sutras. Before this training (are we really only in day 2?) I admit, I related to them like Bible verses -  old, esoteric and not inspiring. I grew up Catholic and Irish in Chicago, so I am very familiar with Bible stories, but the way Rod talked about the Sutras was new and inspiring to me. He interwove the information from the Bible and other texts to help bring the Sutras to life, giving my former faith deep rich meaning I NEVER got from going to Church on Sunday for 22 something years of my life. That sounds like a huge statement, and I guess it is. But what made the most impression on me was the Rod said that yoga should enhance your faith, no matter what faith that is. He said he tells people that study with him that if his teachings make them uncomfortable in their faith, they should stop coming to see him as his intention is to enhance faith, no matter what the manifestation of faith you choose to follow. Sound labyrinthian? It was quite a bite for the mind to swallow, but one I feel like I had been thirsting to hear for a really long time. Now, I don’t think today will make me go back to the Catholic church, but it freed me from the feeling like I had been wasting my time as a Catholic all those years.

For those of you who didn’t know me as a young Catholic girl in Chicago, I was pretty dedicated. I was a lector, communion minister in the choir at various points and went to a Catholic high school, Fenwick in Oak Park, IL. The whole time I was very invested in my faith but there was always something missing, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Now, that discussion of my religion is a bit more than I want to go into tonight, but suffice it to say I broke with the Catholic church for a bunch of reasons. Our discussion today brought my whole break with Catholicism to some sense of closure. It wasn’t a waste to believe in the system of Catholicism, it was a method of reaching bliss – God consciousness. What I love about yoga is exactly what we discussed today. Yoga is available to all traditions. It is the thread that connects the world together for me – it doesn’t matter if you are a Hindu, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist or Atheist – you can tap into the techniques of yoga and improve your life and live in Sukha (“good space” in Sanskrit) and attain your version of nirvana, whatever that version may turn out to be.

What I am gaining most from this training so far is a deepening of awareness, with an obvious master of technique. Just on an introductory level, bringing a special attention of the breath has helped me look at teaching asana in a whole new way. I have always said its all about the breath – repeated it ad nauseum in my classes, to be sure – but did I ever really FEEL it to my core? When we practiced today, we said the mantra, “My mind is empty, and my body is as vast as the sky.” This mantra is the practice of Ananta – translated as “the infinite.” The interesting side effect of repeating this mantra is that my awareness of the asana increased, to a level of what I can best call softness I had never experienced before.

Interestingly enough, I expected a physically challenging practice. What is developing that this module on the Sutras is a tour ride through the Sutras in a way that is ever deeper than I have experienced in asana – the combination of mantra, pranayama, meditation and asana is great. It feels very comprehensive and complete in a new way! On to more adventures tomorrow!

So I went into this training with out expectations, which is a new thing for me. Usually when I go into a training, it’s with a generous dollop of expectation, an abundant scoop of determination and the drive to know more, do more, be MORE! What was unique about my entry into this training is that I purposely went in with no agenda. I decided, not wholly intentionally but resolutely once the idea occurred to me, to go in with as open a mind and heart as I could allow myself to have at this stage of my evolution. I arrived (yawn) at 8:15 a.m. at the Cooperative Body, a large space in West Asheville. Light streamed into the chilly room as I mentally made a note to wear socks tomorrow (this being a 5 day training).

All mental gymnastics aside, my first impressions of Rod were indifferent – he looked like a regular guy in yoga pants. I had no feelings towards this man, which I think was a direct result of my lack of expectations or assumptions about the training. It was nice to see some familiar faces as I settled into the next to last row. As Rod began speaking, it became evident to me that he is an extremely knowledgeable yogi with a firm love and settledness in his beliefs and the practice of yoga. He talked for a little while about what we were going to learn, and I was struck by his non-assuming way of talking to the group. There is no artifice with this guy, and a genuinely funny sense of humor. After the introduction, we got up to some asana. There were three things he wanted us to focus on during the asana practice and they were:

1. Making the In breath and the Out breath equal in length. This was harder than it seemed! As yogis, we are conditioned to focus on the exhale a lot of the time. An interesting thing happened when I put my focus on equality – I found the in-breath to surprisingly have some tension there, like I was resisting the inspiration for some reason. Rod remarked that those in positions of power don’t have this resistence to the inhale, which I thought very interesting.

2. Making one full movement on the inhale, one full movement on the exhale, and make sure they were equal. We did several flowing sequences that he told us to take 5-6 seconds in the inhale, and the same on the exhale. We also chanted as we moved through postures, which I thought was a little wierd at first, but I think only because I’d never done it before. After a while, it seemed like a natural extension of asana practice.

3. Hold the pose. Much like I’ve experienced in Forrest yoga, I experienced Rod’s methodology was to stop fidgeting and micro adjusting and stay in the pose for what was usually 4 breaths. All the while, he was encouraging us to keep that inhale and exhale equal. Phew! What I felt like was the mind bucking and whining and complaining, but once I settled into the posture, the mind settled too, and it was much easier to achieve a sattvic feeling or balanced state when I followed all three recommendations.

After a long and restorative Svasana, we meditated and chanted for a good long time. This had the most profound effect on me. I could tell he deeply felt his mantra/chanting practice and found myself attaching my mind to the quality of his voice – deep, true and powerful. My body absolutely fought the meditation at the beginning, but I found myself powerfully drawn to the meditation in a new way. Somehow the nexus of force – maybe the power of his years of practice and conviction – gave me new strength to stay with the meditation and engage the dragon of my mind with renewed enthusiasm.

Sheesh, and that was just the morning! In the afternoon we started to delve deep into the Sutras and I learned some suprising facts – did you know that the 8 limbs of yoga, commonly known as Ashtanga yoga, is considered the mild path of yoga? Basically the more rules you have to govern your behavior, the easier you have it, according to Patanjali.

There was lots more, but its late and I need to get up early for more enlightenment tomorrow! Good night, yogis of the world.

Namaste,

Anna

Published in Asheville Yoga Center’s Newsletter!  Check it out! Contests, Videos and tons of great workshops and classes. A world class studio!

So if we are what we eat, do we eat what we are? Do I really turn into the human equivalent of a jelly donut if I eat one? It’s an interesting question, and one that yogis frequently address on their journey to greater awareness. Just like not every type of asana practice fits every body, no one approach to eating is right for everyone. Some people are vegetarians, some are not. Some people can do well on all raw foods, some don’t. It’s a highly personal journey and one fraught with challenge at times, particularly for those of us who’ve grown up with typical American eating habits. On the funny side, it’s an amusing moment when you realize that the only reason you thought a particular food was good for you was because the TV told you so!

Listen to Your Gut

On the yogi’s journey towards finding a solution for their own particular constitution, intuition and balance are the keys to finding out what the map of your digestive needs looks like. Foods that might be ok in the morning can leave you too stimulated for sleep, and grounding foods might feel too heavy in the early hours of the day. As you progress on your yogic journey, you can find yourself sensitive to foods that you thought were fine before. A good way to get a guidelines for what might work for you is to find out your dosha. Dosha is a term in Ayurvedic medicine, that describes one of three types of energy types (kapha, pitta or vata) which combine in various proportions to determine individual constitution.

To Fast or Not To Fast

So most of us heard this before – something to the tune of “Don’t eat two hours before class!” Some people also experiment with other types of fasting as well. Just like food choices, fasting can be something highly personal. Pitta types can be really physically challenged by fasting – they do better when eating every three to four hours. As I Pitta type myself, I try to avoid large meals before classes (and particularly mexican foods!) – but that is just me. A good rule of thumb is to avoid any large or heavy meals before your practice, for the same reason your mom told you not to swim for 30 minutes after eating lunch. You’ve got to give your body time and peace to digest your food to get the maximum nutritional benefit. A good compromise is eating lightly at least 30 minutes before class – maybe a handful or two of nuts or something with protein, like a hard boiled egg. One thing never to skimp on is the water – drink drink drink!

The Definite Baddies

There are some pretty solid rules about food out there that don’t depend on your dosha. It’s fact that refined foods, sugars and fried foods play havoc with your health and should be minimized if not eliminated from your diet. What you might not expect is that some of these foods can hide out in products that you wouldn’t expect, like high fructose corn syrup in your crackers, for example. When I started paying attention to my diet, I became a label reader. That has given me the power to discern whether that healthy looking box of whatever is actually really healthy for me, because marketing and labeling can be really tricky sometimes. Another empowering trick is to find out what some ingredients like MSG can masquerade as; some alternative (and perfectly legal) names for MSG are glutamate, yeast extract and autolyzed yeast extract, just to name a few. (If you want to know more, visit www.truthinlabeling.org or www.msgmyth.com).

The Awesome Goodies

The good news is that there is so much local, organic and yummy food out there so you never have to feel deprived after kicking the foods out of your diet that aren’t serving you well. One thing I found after I eliminated gluten and wheat from my diet is that I kicked an 18 year old acne problem overnight! A lot of yogis who find out what is working for them and stick to it find immense benefits and the ability to be well. So the food story is not all deprivation and finger-wagging – immense freedom can come from finding out what really doesn’t work with your body. Once you find the right balance for you, the rewards can be more than you ever imagined. Plus, you might discover new foods you might never have tried before you brought more awareness to your eating habits.

Food All-Stars

There are some great foods for this time of year to help you get through the end of winter, support your kidneys (one of the organs that can get especially stressed at this time of year) and be well. Some of my favorites are below:
- Soaked almonds. A nutritional powerhouse. Soaking the almonds makes them more digestible.
- Royal Jelly. A substance made from young nurse bees as larvae food. Thought by acupuncturists to be deeply nourishing to the kidneys and adrenal glands.
- Seaweed. There are many kinds, dulse and kelp being just two available. For those with thyroid problems, it can deliver necessary and supportive iodine to facilitate hormone production. You can also get your seaweed by eating sushi!
- Turmeric. A spice used in a lot of Indian food. It has nutritional and immune system benefits like decreasing inflammation and boosting your immunity towards some types of cancers.

So, my advice: Set out on your food journey with a high sense of anticipation, an appetite for change and an openness to trying something new! Your reward for feeding your body well will be beyond whatever you can imagine (and isn’t that cool?).

Dear Sweet Yoga:

Surrendering to my Salvation.

Fresh, sweet morning dew when all seems lost and dark in the night before.

Red Red RED fire of passion. Tapas. Cleansing.

Dark Wine blood Pumping in Veins, Celebrating the Sacred.

Discipline of the Heart – Light shining into Hidden Spaces.

Even the Dark is Beautiful, intricately Carved Gargoyle

Sticking her tongue out in Simhasana,

Shouting GODDESS GODDESS GODDESS

Echoing in the Terrain of My Consciousness.

Tears of  Joy a Sparkling Ajna Chakra

Spinning, Glowing, Luminous

In the Dark of my Mind.

Diving deep into the Inky Cerulean Waves

Swimming in the Sea of Love

Weightless, Nothingness, Empty, Open.

Sailing into Stillness through the Storm.

Sit and be with me as One.

One Point of Light

Dancing with All One.

Infinite. Love.

Namaste,

Anna