Your Daily Yoga: Walk Your Yoga

Wow. I have not been writing much these past few months, but I have been getting on my mat, so there is some good juice that is coming through. My yoga has been not only the sacred time on the mat, but in my daily life. There are some alignment principles which I find key in maintaining a healthy and positive outlook, as well as core empowerment. I like to think of being in line as standing up dignified and tall, as if the best is yet to come.

When walking around, do you notice how your feet touch the ground? The relationship your legs have to your torso? Where your head is on top of your spine?

Here are some things to help keep yourself in line:
One step at a time, emphasize heel, then stretch the foot all the way to the ball
Visualize the outer shins hugging in towards the midline as you walk
Rotate your inner thighs back
Absorb your outer hips in
Grow long through the sides of the waist
Soften the front ribs in
Broaden across the collarbones
Melt shoulderblades down, away from the ears
Soften your gaze, not too close, yet not far in front of you

Whoa, that's a lot to think about! And, if you do think about it, this is an active meditation. While walking, you can be deeply entrenched in how you are walking, feeling the subtle shifts in your body, as well as inviting your body to optimize it's energy, shape and vitality through how you hold yourself in relationship to the earth and sky.

Happy Walking!

Shanti Love,
Waller

Juicy Savasana

What is the purpose of yoga but to create that sensation of flow? Even if you are going into a gentle practice, doesn't it restore that juicy feeling within yourself? Why is this? What is it about yoga that you can't quite get enough of? Why is yoga so healing? It is not just a trend. You may be into it today, and not next year, but your body will thank you for staying into yoga.

Flexibility is key for maintaining radiant health and youthfulness. A flexible body encourages a flexible mind which offers a refreshment of perspective. When you walk into yoga class in one mood, thinking perhaps about the day, what goes on from when you are on the mat until you leave once again? Magic. Intentional juiciness. Flow with spirit. Even if you do not take the time to cultivate gratitude, your yoga practice is still an act of devotion that impacts people in your life. Especially when you set an intention. Yoga teachers often times remind us to set an intention, even as simple as bringing your hands together at your heart center is an aknowledgement of self-love. Even if you don't hear it from your teacher throughout class, you are receiving the subtle benefits of mindfully cultivating a sense of compassion for yourself when you practice yoga. The intention can feed the benefits, and isn't awakening and feeling better a natural by-product of practicing yoga? From there, what is this juicy sensation that yoga creates within and all around us?

Could it be the prana, the natural life force coursing through the veins that feels so unbelievable after a yoga practice? Or is it just the feeling that you are free from the bondage of self that creates the juicy sensation? Perhaps it is both. Perhaps it is the energy that you put into your yoga is giving you vitality, as well as feeding others in your life. The more you yoga, the more others in your path will naturally be drawn to your light. Allow the juiciness to resonate with you in your life. Step on your mat and pray. And when you are complete with your practice, roll up your mat, mindfully carrying the juicy feeling into your life as you flow with grace and ease. Keep coming back to open to greater love each day through your yoga.

Relax more here

Yoga for a Healthy Cycle

Yoga is a way of healing our internal world to live in greater harmony with the world around us. Yoga is not only about the postures, but about creating deep, inner stillness in order that we enhance the peaceful space that we take up in the world and come together in a more balanced way.



The menstrual cycle is a natural time in a woman's life, that can occur monthly from puberty to menopause. Many hormonal changes take place during the cycle, which can last 2-7 days, with symptoms going on for more than a week prior. Yoga is an excellent way to help the menstrual cycle be a time for greater introspiection and healthy reflection in a woman’s life, as well as by practicing yoga during other times of the month, can lead to have a healthier and pain-free cycle.

Poses to practice while menstruating, include:

Sukhasana:
Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position, while gazing into the horizon and breathe for 1-2 minutes.

Bhujangasana: (good for the lower back)
Cobra Posture
Lie on your belly. Bend your elbows beneath your shoulders, spread palms wide, and have forearms making contact with the ground. Press the palms down and gently lift the gaze (avoiding overstretching in the neck) and lift your chest. Shine your hear foreward, and rest back down. Lift 2-3 times. Inhale as you extend, and exhale as you rest back down.

Pavanamuktasana: A good relaxing pose.
Wind relieving pose.
Lie down on your back. Lift your legs, bend your knees to your chest, simultaneously bring your chin to reach the knees. Don’t try too hard, inhale as you lift knees to chest, and exhale, rest your head back down and straighten the arms, taking the knees away from the chest.

Poses to avoid are as follows:
Inversions (any pose where your head is below your heart)
Such as headstand and handstand

Yoga is an elixir for the hormones. Wherever you are man, woman, young, old, flexible or not-so, yoga can balance your inner life with the world in which you live. Learn to breathe deeply, circulate the energy in order to create greater overall life balance and optimie well-being through your yoga practice. It does not have to be powerful, just what you need. Sometimes that may be as gentle as stepping in a creek and feeling the water brush across your legs. And other times, you may feel the need to dive straight into the waves, and so a power yoga practice may enhance your inner serenity. During the menstrual cycle, be mindful of slowing down a bit, listening to your inner world, and preparing to move forward with a cleansed and rejuvenated perspective.

Shantilove,
Waller

Shanti Love Yoga

Welcome, welcome to Shanti Love Yoga! This blog was created to inspire yogis and those who are drawn to the path of yoga to go within and find your own inner guru. Wherever you are on the yoga path, Shanti Love Yoga is for you to cultivate a beginners mind and to go deep within yourself and contemplate what you are learning through your practice and translate that to become a spiritual warrior!

Yoga is not only about flexibility, but about the ability to get still with yourself and be where you are. A flexible body happens to be a by-product of an open mind. As you may nitoce, the more you yoga, the more you clear the mind, open your heart and live from that place of mind-body integration which makes you a spiritual warrior! There is nothing you have to do to become amazing, you already are that, and yoga can guide you deep within where there is a resevoir of serenity, away from the events of the day, drama of relationships, or stress from work. Yoga is love, love is yoga.

Even if you are not drawn to the physical practive of yoga, you can practice yoga in your daily life by practicing ahimsa or non-violence. Start within yourself. Notice the conversations you are having. Erase the ones that feel limiting or punitive. By bounding yourself in restriction, you withhold your light, and put off the vibration of being unavailable, temporarily interrupted. Your work is to see beyond the messages that feel limiting, and to feel within the light and shine, baby, shine!