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Yoga Over and Under 40

It is true I have been doing yoga for a good, long time but it wasn’t until I hit my 40’s that I really found what I believe to be the truth of the practice. There is something about forty that just makes you wiser. How could it not, more years on the planet more opportunities to learn from my mistakes!

The older, and perhaps wiser, I became the more I understood the innate beauty of this ancient practice for a woman of any age.

It seems to me that women spend a lifetime trying to get and or stay skinny! It is one of the things we think about a good part of our day and typically, we are dissatisfied with the results! What yoga and the deeper practices can teach us is not about being thin, but being healthy — then we are always the perfect shape! We don’t try to lose weight, but by being more connected to our bodies, we stop eating what isn’t good for us. It just doesn’t taste or feel right. We understand that it isn’t about another, better, diet but about getting to know ourselves. When we are feeling angry or lonely, we might reach for our yoga mat or even a hug instead of a doughnut because we know what will really make us feel better in the long run.

Yoga teaches us to listen. It brings us back to an intuitive nature that is the true gift of the feminine. Yoga helps us to see the body as sacred and suddenly we stop dragging it around like an old purse. We become wiser about how and with whom we spend our time as we come to understand that what we surround ourselves molds who we are. We begin to make choices that bring us less stress and more joy.

The yoga poses will surely make us fit and help us to look youthful longer, but perhaps not in the way you might think.

Striving is something we have all gotten too good at. Listening to ourselves has become much more difficult. Yoga teaches us how to pause, accept and more then that, love who we are as we are.

Yoga is a way of live and a life long friend. Its wisdom teaches us how to find self-respect and thus self-love. Yoga asks us to practice presences and to appreciate everything exactly as it– because it is as it should be– us included.

Does this story resonate with you?  Join Paula, as she continues to discover the wisdom of yoga, every Monday night at 6:30pm (Foundations 1) and Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm (Meditation thru the senses).

Yoga is for all ages. There is no “too” old or “too” young for yoga.

When Art and I registered for the yoga teacher training, we were not really thinking about teaching yoga, we mainly wanted to experience ourselves in a different way – to get out of our boxes, so to speak. When we returned home, and the Friends of the Chamblee Library asked me to teach, I was happy with the opportunity to give free classes to share what I had learned – those classes are coming up soon.

Two months ago, when an acquaintance said she and two of her friends wanted to meet with me to learn yoga, I thought “Sure, why not?” Even though I wasn’t sure how I’d find time, I knew I could help them to safely learn the basics and then they could take more advanced classes elsewhere. We meet in my living room. The fee is $10 per person, far less than what I make as a massage therapist, but it’s been an incredible gift to share with these 68 year old gals. They say it’s an incredible gift to study with me and have individual instruction. Their bodies are already changing – backs are straighter and stronger for meditation. The meditations are good – we do a few minutes at the start of class and a longer one at the end. Even if they are a little tired from asanas, they perk up after breathing and meditation.

I am learning so much more and becoming a better person too. As I mentioned to you and our class – I am so lucky!

Thank you again for your wonderful and thorough teaching of yoga.

Bonnie G. Gibert

“What does a hen have to do to ensure the birth of her chicks? Just four things: relax, breathe, feel the earth beneath her, and then do nothing extra.” 

-The Healing Art of Tai-Chi” by Martin Lee and Joyce Lee

The month of May is ruled by the sign Taurus. The sign Taurus is an earth sign, known for being practical, taking her time and also enjoying all of her senses. Sometimes Taureans are mislabeled as being lazy, mostly because we live in a world where we respect and uphold people who are always doing something, and sometimes the Taurus is fine with doing nothing, but being.

What would it look like if you ripped up your to-do list, shredded your calendar, and turned off your cell phone? When I think of possibly doing that, I get scared. I can hear an inner voice panicking and asking, “how will things get done?” What is underneath this voice of panic is fear and a lack of trust. If I trusted that it is all getting done, then I would allow myself to just relax more often.

Many of us grew up thinking and believing that we need to work hard and we need to deny ourselves any pleasure or gratification unless everything gets done. Rarely is everything done. That is because life is not a series of photo stilts. Life is real, it is moving, it is unfolding. And it is unfolding whether we hit the snooze button or awake at the crack of dawn.

This month, we can learn from Taurus and from watching nature. Everything is getting done, so relax and make time to enjoy and be in your life.

Important Astrology Dates:
May 2: Mercury Moves Into Mars
May 9: Taurus New Moon + Solar Eclipse
May 10: Venus Moves Into Gemini
May 21: Sun Moves Into Gemini

Taurus: Dear Taurus, this is the time to enjoy YOURSELF. Especially if you are single, this is a good time to reflect on what you want in a relationship and how you want to be treated. And now start treating yourself like that! If you want someone who adores you, how can you adore yourself? How can you show yourself adoration? Take time to adore yourself in ALL ways possible.

Gemini: Your active mind needs a break this month Gemini. This month, practice not over-thinking your choices and actions. Trust your first instinct and go from there.

Cancer: Relax with what you expect from other people and friends. Other people have their own things going on, and it’s time to stop taking everyone else’s actions personally. Instead focus on being the type of friend you want to yourself.

Leo: Perhaps there has been some pressure around work and career. If that is the case, this is the month to sit back. Allow the work to come to you, rather than trying to go to the work. Become a magnet.

Virgo: You are always learning. Despite the concepts that learning can only take place in certain places, you are constantly gaining knowledge. Know that even if it is not a formal training going on right now, you are learning many important things that benefit you in the future.

Libra: The judgments that you have about yourself and others are actually not helping anything change. Instead, use acceptance toward yourself and the areas of your life that you want to change. By accepting things as they are, they change immediately.

Scorpio: Indeed relationships take work, but with too much work, they lose the ability to be spontaneous and surprising. This month, allow yourself to be surprised. Let go of trying to plan everything out, and let it plan itself out.

Sagittarius: Slow and steady wins the race. Instead of pushing yourself at a grueling rate at work or in life, slow down, and practice moderation. Be gentle with yourself and your body.

Capricorn: It is time for some fun! You are a hard worker and have spent months behind books, computer screens and who knows what else. Go with the flow this month, paint, sing, draw and dance, and embrace all things fun!

Aquarius: This month invite you to cultivate receptivity. This concept may be more challenging in some areas than in others. What are you ready to receive? Are you ready to receive it for no reason or do you think you need to do something for it? This month, notice what you think you must do in order to receive what you want, and notice that that idea might be in the way of the actual receiving.

Pisces: This month, let go of some of the responsibility that you feel you need to carry for others. Share the responsibility and lighten your load. Use that lightness to just enjoy the sweetness of life.

Aries: Where have you been being critical of yourself? It is time to bring awareness to this critical voice and take authority in reclaiming your voice and your thoughts of yourself. Be kind to yourself with loving and accepting words. You are deserving.

Join Shirley for an Taurus New Moon Telecircle by-donation on Saturday May 11, 2013 at 8am PT/11am EST.  Contribute any amount that you wish, and join in from the comfort of your own home with a mug of tea to create intention around the New Moon and build community.  To register, click HERE

Shirley Kali Johnson, native New Yorker and San Francisco Bay Area-based, is a student of transpersonal psychology, yoga, and astrology. She has been studying astrology since the tender age of 5 years old and is thankful to share her love for the celestial bodies. She is available for Astrology Counseling, Reiki Healing, and Yoga. For more info or to join her mailing list, please go to www.soulisticwellness.com

One of yoga's gifts is the cultivation of witness consciousness. By teaching us to watch, with compassionate detachment, the fluctuations of our minds and bodies, yoga shows us that everything is always arising or dissolving.

We start with the breath and watch its fluctuations, its rise and fall in our bodies. Then we begin to extend our awareness to our bodies, and watch sensations rise and fall in them as we move through the poses. Another way to help us build awareness is to watch our thoughts and the attitude we bring to practice. By checking in with how we're feeling when we sit in those first few opening breaths of class, we can set a baseline of tone or attitude that we can compare against once practice is over, and then see again the cycle of arising and dissolving.

To see everything as either arising or dissolving helps us when life takes its inevitable challenging turns. Cultivating witness consciousness and compassion towards yourself on your mat can help you bring this same watchfulness to your life. Instead of being caught in the drama of things ending or the exultation of things beginning, what would happen if you took an attitude of equanimity and allowed things to simply settle into place?

For many of us, the idea of letting go of control is very threatening. We have agendas that want fulfilling and we have invested in things turning out such and such a way. When things don't go as we hoped, many of us suffer twice: once for not getting what we wanted, and twice for having our expectations thrashed. And yet we keep fantasizing into the future and sowing the seeds of our disappointment.

When meeting the edge of a challenging yoga pose, our teachers usually tell us to slow down, approach with respect and awareness, breathe, and feel. Witness consciousness is doing this before every big and small decision, before each potential argument, before each potential disappointment, before each conversation, before we deepen into another yoga pose, in short, always! If we can pause long enough to not barge ahead when a mindful step is a more skillful choice, we may find the rough edges of our lives becoming smoother. Instead of a series of ups and downs, we can learn to navigate ourselves right down the middle, riding the edge with grace and mindfulness.

~Post written by Lola Rephann

Lola teaches at Reflections Wednesday nights at 6:30pm (Foundations 1), Fridays at 6pm (Yin Yoga) and Sundays at 12:30 (Quick Fix)

Why we cant meditate?

Why we cant meditate ?

Lucky for me my intense curiosity for other worldly dimensions kept me steadfast on my cushion. I meditated in the hopes of finding the ultimate enlightened state where all of my troubles would fall away and I would be one with the divine! I swear this is true!

Needless to say this never happened. What I did find was a way to be kind to others as well as my self, I found the path to humility, true compassion and a lifetime companion.

In my years of teaching meditation and yoga I think I have heard every excuse as to why one just can’t meditate:

“I don’t have the time”, “I can’t sit still”, “I find it boring”,

“I’m afraid to be alone with my thoughts”, “It doesn’t work for me”

“I'm too busy”, “My mind is too busy for meditation”, “I can’t sit on the floor” “I’ll start once my alter is set up, after I buy the mala beads” and so it goes.

I understand how true each of these reasons can feel, but I also know how important it is to invite the possibility of a peaceful mind into your life. I explain in my teaching that mediation is like brushing your teeth. You wouldn’t leave the house with dirty teeth, why would you leave with a cluttered mind? Meditation, in my experience, is a way to purify the thoughts by placing them one by one into the heart and loving them, so that I can learn to love all of me and as an extension all of humanity. I do this for myself, and so all those around me can experience a clean, tidy and peaceful me.  Without my practice I find I am less smooth and much more prone to impulsive reactions instead of thoughtful responses. I often feel what I explain as “outside of myself” on those days I don’t sit.

When I am teaching class or on retreat one of the biggest resistances I get from my students is the story of time —  there simply isn’t enough.  I always reply, “Do you have 5 minutes? Cause that’s all it takes!”  It is true in days gone by we would be made to sit for hours. We would often be shamed if we didn’t sit for an hour in the morning and one before bed. I will say,  I'm glad I did it, but I am also not entirely certain it was necessary.

You see, ultimately, we are working to re-pattern our nervous system.  In that light if you show up for yourself for 5 minutes every day you are certainly making an effect. If you can do it for 10 or 20 minutes, all the better. The longer you sit with you the more “you” will resist. It’s all that resistance we need to practice loving. Before long that resistance smooths out and you are left with acceptance and compassion– the only true  ingredient for happiness

My students also tell me how busy their minds are!  To that I reply, “Whose aren’t!?” A busy mind is not the issue. Meditation is not the act of clearing the mind as much as it is what you do with the thoughts. Can you notice them enough not to think them through, but instead love each and every one – both the positive and the negative?  Then, by doing this, you have spent your time in a loving vibration instead of aggression and self-hatred. I can guarantee if you do that five minutes each day you will most certainly be a happier person and you will have found the beauty of self-love.

 I never did get enlightened, but I feel each time I sit in meditation I am sitting in a divine vibration, a companion I could not do without!

Want to expand your meditation practice?  Paula is offering meditation in NYC by donation on Wed nights at 6:15-7:15pm starting 4/10.  Guided meditation followed by discussion on how to live beautifully in challenging times.  

Want to go even deeper?  Join Paula for her 7 day Spiritual Retreat in Costa Rica September!

The message I received during this time was: SLOW DOWN.  I realized that I have been trying to rush through life lately.  Sometimes it seems like I am in such a rush that I cannot even enjoy how life is.  I decided to drop some hours at work to help lighten my load and commit to enjoying all that is life a little more.  What’s the point of all the things we do, if we are not enjoying them?  What are we rushing towards that we can’t enjoy the sweetness of now?

As we move into April, and the sign of Aries, I am reminded of new beginnings.  Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac and reminds us a new path cleared for our journey.  Sometimes we are so used to a certain behavior that we think it is normal.  This month we are reminded that we are constantly shaping our life and can change the patterns that we know as normal.  The energy of Aries and the upcoming Aries moon supports us in planting seeds in the direction of the life that we truly want to experience.

April Astrology Dates:

April 10: Aries New Moon in

April 14: Mercury Moves into Aries

April 16: Venus Moves into Taurus

April 20: Sun Moves into Taurus

April 21: Mars Moves into Taurus

April 25: Scorpio Full Moon + Lunar Eclipse

New Moon Mini-Horoscopes

Aries:  The beauty of being an Aries is that you are constantly aware of new beginnings.  This month with the new moon in your house of self, you are given a birthday gift to start over in a major way.  You may be noticing some endings that are coming up, have faith that they are starting beautiful new beginnings!

Taurus:  This month asks you to look at your subconscious and unconscious behaviors.  Your new beginnings are supported by meditation, mantra, affirmation and practices that get behind the conscious mind.  Commit to a 21-day practice and surrender to the transformation.

Gemini: This could be a fun and fabulous month of new friends and community.  With the new moon in your 11th house of friendships and society, new beginnings are abundant in the company of new people and groups.  Let yourself explore new people this month and let opportunity unravel.

Cancer: Look out for new opportunities in your career with the new moon.  Be patient, but keep planting the seeds of what you want in your career.  Act in accordance to what you want.  Plan on big opportunities!

Leo:  The new moon is in your 9th house this month, which is the house of voyage and journey.  It’s time to set out on a voyage – be it big or small.  Start planning a voyage that you have wanted to take, and watch it come together serendipitously.  

Virgo:  This month is a powerful month to look at desire.  There is a difference between what we want and what we desire.  What we desire we feel in our heart and soul.  Make time to ask yourself and journal about what you truly desire in your life over the next year.  Then create time to receive guidance.

Libra:  Relationships are on the horizon with this new moon.  This is a beautiful time to renew and revive an existing relationship with healthy care and attention.  If you aren’t in a romantic relationship, use this month to reflect on what you truly value in a relationship and start to actually behave as the partner you desire.

Scorpio:  With the new moon in your house of health and routine, this is the perfect time to slow down, for real.  Make a practice to slow it down and commit to a realistic self care routine that you will actually do.  

Sagittarius:  The new moon is encouraging you this month to have FUN!  You may have spent the winter working intensely or cooped up in the office.  Now is the time to get out, sit in the sunshine, dance and enjoy your life.  Don’t delay a second more.

Capricorn:  With the new moon in your 4th house, house of home, this might signify a time to move homes or to start looking to move homes.  It is never to early to dream.  Reflect on what your ideal house looks like, smells like, and feels like.  Commit to it, and it will commit to you.

Aquarius:  This month the area of communication receives extra support from you.  Communication is key, and this is a powerful time to make clear communication central to interactions.  Say what you mean, mean what you say.

Pisces:  It’s a powerful time to start a stream of income.  Whether that new income is $1/month of $1,000/month, it is a stream, and it will continue to flow as long as you nourish it and give it its space to do its own thing.

Join Shirley for an Aries New Moon Telecircle by-donation on Wednesday April 10, 2013  Contribute any amount that you wish, and join in from the comfort of your own home with a mug of tea to create intention around the New Moon and build community.  To register, click HERE

Shirley Kali Johnson, native New Yorker and San Francisco Bay Area-based, is a student of transpersonal psychology, yoga, and astrology. She has been studying astrology since the tender age of 5 years old and is thankful to share her love for the celestial bodies. She is available for Astrology Counseling, Reiki Healing, and Yoga. For more info or to join her mailing list, please go to www.soulisticwellness.com

Scared?  GOOD!  

In the past few weeks, I have decided to face my fears head on. In this process, I had a choice:  I could get the the edge of fear, get overwhelmed, and retreat to my place of comfort or harmful (but comfortable) habits…. OR, I could get to the edge, accept the feelings and emotions that were surfacing, and jump in anyway.  So I jumped… a lot!

So what happens when you jump into fear?  From my experience, the thought of what will happen is usually dreadful.  The reality of what happens is the exact opposite.  When you don't jump, you remain in a gray area.  In an area of self doubt, frustration, self pity and uncertainty.  When you dive straight into the scary place, you live!  You may laugh, you may cry, but either way you take control of your life!  You move with intention towards something that you want that you never thought you could have… because you were too scared.  Whether the outcome is what you expected or not… it doesn't matter! You did it and that is the most powerful thing you can do.

~Post by Hedy Iankelevich

Hedy teaches Monday's at 12:30 (Quick Fix) and, starting in April, she will be teaching Thursdays at 6pm (Foundations).  Her classes integrate awareness of breath, moving with ease and calming the mind.  

I feel so blessed and aware of my good fortune to have you as my teacher. It is because of yoga and because of your dedicated, conscientious, centered, intelligent, compassionate and wise instruction that I have been able to regain health, hope, wisdom and personal spiritual growth.

Your teaching and heartfelt sharing of knowledge made this a much better experience then i could have ever imagined. Your leadership and insight have helped me get through a very difficult time. Now I know I will not only survive but be stronger, more aware and at peace. Yoga will be a part of my life always.

I will never be able to express to you how important you and your healing skills have been to me over the course of the trip.You have helped to keep me sane through some really difficult self-healing. I am looking forward to continue with the spiritual healing work with you. I know your leadership and insight will continue to help me get through the difficult times in my life.

I have continued my meditation practice since I have came home, I plan to continue my yoga practice on the mat as well.

Thank you with all my heart,
Yulia M.