Tag Archive | Health

Yoga Therapy

Mar4

I may be a bit guilty of wanting to practice/teach a specific type of yoga every time I go to a class based on a new style or have a YTT workshop.  I get excited, what can I say?

Today, though, we had a workshop on Yoga Therapy, specifically middle-aged individuals (defined as anyone between the ages of 40-70).  It sounded interesting enough on the syllabus, but holy cow.  When you practice yoga therapy, you choose postures that will help your student based on their dosha (mind/body type), their current medical status, and their long term goals.  This is exactly what I want to do.  I mean, I want to teach group classes, too… but I really think that this is the thing that I am passionate about. To me, it seems like the same sort of idea as yoga for trauma, but with an even closer human connection, and can be more of a physical nature, depending on the individual.

In the workshop, groups of us were given cards with a case study on them.  Each was about a student with some sort of issue (menopause, stroke with one-sided weakness, etc) and we had to come up with 3 postures to teach them that would both help them with their issue, as well as mesh well with the dosha we thought they had.  So, my team got the case study of a a stroke victim.  It made life challenging, because every posture had to be majorly modified in some way, and we needed to use poses that she would be able to do, but would also build strength back. It seems like this avenue is a great blend of serenity, helping people out individually with real problems, and critical thinking.

I do not know where this yogic path will lead me, but this seems like it could be a very promising avenue.  I loved every second of it, and apparently my team was fairly good at it as well.  Things to think about! :)   Happy Sunday, yogis!

 

 

Forget regret…

Feb27

… or life is yours to miss.  -Rent

I was sitting around yesterday, not doing a whole lot of anything.  (We all have to have one of those days every now and again.)  I was looking through Facebook and happened upon my oldest childhood friend’s page.  As I tend to do when I am just staring at the computer, I started looking through her pictures, and was immediately filled with a wave of regret when I saw her wedding photos.  I remember her wedding day like it was yesterday – she looked absolutely radiant.  I went with my ex.  Mistake.  He was visiting, and his friends (who had not seen for a while) were having a party.  The whole time, he was clearly trying to get me to say we could leave and hang out with his friends.  (This was made more annoying because of the fact that if it was his friend’s wedding, we would have been the last ones to leave.) I should have told him to go screw himself.  But, I did not. Eventually, I relented and left with him.  I still feel terrible about this and wish I had stayed.

I pride myself on being able to see the sunny side of things.  I can usually look back at my mistakes and think, “Well – that sucked.  But, the good that came out of it was x, y, and z.”  I mean, I moved 200 miles away for a guy – gave up my job, left most of my friends, and started over.  It fell apart 8 months later.  As you can probably imagine, even if it seemed like it would be the right thing in the long run, it was totally devastating.  I hated where I was living, which meant that I was either happiest at my new job (side note – super fun when you leave work and are immediately depressed).  So, basically I had to decide – stay where I was and hate life, or take another leap of faith and move back where I came from.  Good stuff, right?  As crappy as that whole situation ended up being, I still do not regret moving for him.  I know that sounds crazy, but I do not regret it at all.  I learned a lot about myself in the entire process.  I now feel much stronger and that I know what I want out of life.  (Granted, I have not found anyone yet who IS what I want..beside the point.)

So… as you can see, I am pretty good at flipping my perception of a bad situation.  Sometimes, though, I really struggle with regret.  It does not have so much to do with my actions (like moving 200 miles away), but rather my passivity and desire to keep other people happy, regardless of my feelings.  Especially in romantic relationships, I put other people’s happiness above my own.  Not surprisingly, this causes even more problems when the two (or more) people I am trying to keep happy have opposing views.  Impossible, stressful, damaging.

As of late, I have been really trying to keep my own happiness and peaceful state of mind at the forefront of my thoughts.  Hence, all of the yoga.  And the blog.  For the most part, I am doing a lot better at keeping myself even-keeled.  The only way you can be truly happy is to make peace with the past, realize that the future is inevitable, and to just be present in the moment.  As per usual, one song (“Another Day”, from Rent) embodies exactly how I am feeling. 

There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last.

There’s only us, there’s only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.

No other road, no other way. No day but today.  

Message for today, friends: Be kind to others, but not at your own expense.  Love, light, and peace. Namaste.