Yoga with Melissa

Endurance

Today’s yoga class is about endurance. In our culture, it is unusual for us to stay with one thing for any length of time. There is so much choice with everything from yoga teachers, yoga styles, food, books, movies, entertainment, and education it is easy for us to go from one thing to the next when we come to an edge, come up against a difficulty, become bored or challenged.

Today we are focusing on endurance, the capacity to stay with something, without moving on. In this class I challenge you to stay with the difficulty, the boredom and the challenge and resist the urge to click off the video and find something more interesting, more engaging, more entertaining. Today you will be challenged stay with the sensations in your body, to stay with boredom when it comes up, to stay with the itch to move to something more “interesting” and just notice how often that happens for you.

This class will blend a combination of breathing or pranayama, strengthening yoga poses, hip openers and restorative yoga postures. We will explore the challenge of being in our bodies, connecting with the earth and yielding to the ground while letting go of effort and tension rather than pushing and doing in poses in order to succeed in sustaining the yoga poses for greater lengths of time.

Props Needed: Blocks, Bolster, Blanket

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Three Part Breathing, Setu Bandhasana or Bridge Pose, Lunge Pose or Anjaneyasana, Pigeon Pose or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, Child’s Pose or Balasana, Savasana or Corpse Pose

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

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Thank you for your donations: Linda, Lois, Hilary, Sonja,

If you are receiving value from Yoga with Melissa you can make a monetary donation below.

You can also contribute of your time and influence the direction of the next Yoga with Melissa by answering the following question in the comments:

What balancing poses do you find the most challenging and why? I am planning on doing a whole series on balance and I will include the yoga balancing poses that you find most challenging in this series if you leave them in the comments

Endurance

Today’s yoga class is about endurance. In our culture, it is unusual for us to stay with one thing for any length of time. There is so much choice with everything from yoga teachers, yoga styles, food, books, movies, entertainment, and education it is easy for us to go from one thing to the next when we come to an edge, come up against a difficulty, become bored or challenged.

Today we are focusing on endurance, the capacity to stay with something, without moving on. In this class I challenge you to stay with the difficulty, the boredom and the challenge and resist the urge to click off the video and find something more interesting, more engaging, more entertaining. Today you will be challenged stay with the sensations in your body, to stay with boredom when it comes up, to stay with the itch to move to something more “interesting” and just notice how often that happens for you.

This class will blend a combination of breathing or pranayama, strengthening yoga poses, hip openers and restorative yoga postures. We will explore the challenge of being in our bodies, connecting with the earth and yielding to the ground while letting go of effort and tension rather than pushing and doing in poses in order to succeed in sustaining the yoga poses for greater lengths of time.

Props Needed: Blocks, Bolster, Blanket

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Three Part Breathing, Setu Bandhasana or Bridge Pose, Lunge Pose or Anjaneyasana, Pigeon Pose or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, Child’s Pose or Balasana, Savasana or Corpse Pose

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Did you like today’s show?

* Share it with a friend, family member or email it to a coworker.

* Like

* Subscribe to our channel. Subscribe to my Living Your Yoga Channel

* Please leave us a 5-star review on Itunes

* Leave your comment below.

Thank you for your donations: Linda, Lois, Hilary, Sonja,

If you are receiving value from Yoga with Melissa you can make a monetary donation below.

You can also contribute of your time and influence the direction of the next Yoga with Melissa by answering the following question in the comments:

What balancing poses do you find the most challenging and why? I am planning on doing a whole series on balance and I will include the yoga balancing poses that you find most challenging in this series if you leave them in the comments :)

If you would like my Back to School List my list of 10 Essential Yoga Classes to get you through the back to school season then genter your email address below.

At the beginning of today’s class I led you through a guided meditation with three part breathing. In our membership community we are meeting this weekend to feature one of our members who is receiving great benefit from our current book club book on breathing and I will be taking you through some of the practices in this book live. Additionally we have live classes every Monday.

We’d love for you to join our Membership Community where we have

* value added content

* community of like-minded people coming together from all around the world

* receive ongoing support in deepening your yoga practice from myself, our leadership team, and our community through an online forum, weekly live classes on Mondays and monthly meetups and retreats.

Join our Membership Community: Click Here

Weekly Yoga with Melissa #355 Photos of Yoga Pose

Intention in Yoga Michael Lee, founder of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, translates intention as “that which we hold within.” Michael Lee says, “What we hold within us has a good chance of becoming our reality because we are holding it at a subconscious level.” I love this definition of intention because it lets go of […]

Intention in Yoga

Michael Lee, founder of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, translates intention as “that which we hold within.” Michael Lee says, “What we hold within us has a good chance of becoming our reality because we are holding it at a subconscious level.” I love this definition of intention because it lets go of doing and opens us to being. That which we hold within us, allows us to remember and connect to a way of being. Intention is an inward journey to our deepest aspiration and truest longing.

With intention we ask ourselves, why am I practicing yoga today?

Why am I here?

Why did I roll out my yoga mat today and show up?

What did I hope to receive by doing this?

There is always intention behind every action – it is important that we bring awareness to our motivations when we practice our yoga. We have an opportunity to connect to deep seated intentions each time we practice – to connect to something deeper within ourselves. We can ask ourselves, how is my yoga practice going to help me better understand myself?

Being clear on the reason behind why we are on our yoga mat helps us to connect with our most inspired Self. Intention allows us to align our personal will with our deeper needs.

Rod Stryker translates kalpa as vow or the rule to be followed above all other rules. He translates san as our connection with our highest truth. He translates sankalpa as our connection to our highest truth. When we think about creating a sankalpa we are committing to supporting our highest truth. We create sankalpa in our yoga practice to guide our choices and to bring our true nature to the foreground.

There is a difference between sankalpa/intention and goal setting. The difference is our why. Robert Butera says we should keep asking why until we reach a virtue: love, compassion, peace, joy, service, balance, faith, trust, hope, acceptance, forgiveness, patience, devotion. For example, wanting more abundance in your life may actually be a desire for more balance and peace in your life due to an overly packed schedule.

Your sankalpa will change over time. You may have an intention for your yoga practice, for the short term and a life long intention that shifts and changes as you shift and change. What was true for you five years ago will probably not be true for you now.

Sally Kempton suggests that you sit quietly following your breath, until you feel a sense of connection to Presence. Say to yourself, “May my deeper Self, the teacher inside me, tell me what is the right thing to do.”

Your intention will be clear, stated in the affirmative, and might be about creating, sustaining, nurturing, transforming or reflecting. For example, this autumn I had a sankalpa, “I am stronger for longer” I have a long term intention, “I place my awakening at the center of my life” Currently I am feeling the need to change my seasonal intention to turn inward and nurture myself more so something new is coming to the surface. Each time I come to my meditation practice, I open to my body and I listen to what my body is telling me, what I need on any given day.

Props Needed: chair or wall for balance, folded blanket,

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Guided Relaxation, Reclined Side Bend or Supta Ardha Chandrasana, Keyhole Stretch or Figure Four, Balasana or Child’s Pose, Cat Pose or Marjaryasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Tadasana or Mountain Pose, Warrior One or Virabhadrasana One, Warrior Three or Virabhadrasana Three, Dancer Pose or Natarajasana, Uttanasana or Standing Forward Fold, Locust Pose or Salabhasana, Seated Twist or Parivrtta Sukhasana, Ardha Gomukhasana or Half Cow’s Face Forward Fold, Savasana or Corpse Pose

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Body Image In my experience and from what I have heard of yours, is that when watching yoga videos on YouTube they tend to be focused externally on the mastery of the body in physical form in asana, that is yoga posture. Many of you have spoken of your frustration with other classes and the […]

Body Image

In my experience and from what I have heard of yours, is that when watching yoga videos on YouTube they tend to be focused externally on the mastery of the body in physical form in asana, that is yoga posture. Many of you have spoken of your frustration with other classes and the ease when you come here to Yoga with Melissa to bring acceptance to the realness of your bodies.

Our yoga practice shapes how we feel and think about our bodies. It also shapes how we imagine other people see us. The people around us and our culture strongly influence our body image. We are surrounded by images in the media that tell us we are not young enough, thin enough or beautiful enough. Many yoga videos contribute to negative body images with contortionist physical extremes being performed online. However in real life, only a small percentage of the population are hyperly mobile and bodies in real life are much more diverse than those in most yoga videos, human beings come in all ages, shapes, and gender identities.

In an online video culture that focuses predominantly on how the body looks in a yoga pose we are focusing on something quite different here. Rather than looking at our bodies from the outside, we are bringing awareness to our experience from the inside. In our yoga practice we ask the question: what is happening inside my body? Our awareness turns inward.

This way of experiencing our yoga practice from the inside out is a subtle and more mature form of awareness. When we turn our awareness inwards to mindfulness from the inside of our body, we let go of knowing what we will find when we turn our attention to our physical, mental, emotional and energetic experience. We come to our experience without expectation. Each time we turn inward it may be different.

When you turn inward and bring awareness to your experience your embodied experience know that your moment to moment experience changes. It may be tempting to stay with one sensation, however, being open to the sensations changing is part of mindful embodiment.

When we bring our awareness to our embodied experience it allows us to turn down the mental chatter. Our brains think, that is what they do. Their default is to think about the past, wish things were different, and plan for the future. Bo Forbes, an expert on interoception explains that this creates a tendency towards negative self talk, “I am not worthy” and “I will never get what I need” including negative body image. It is just the way our brain is wired. It is not personal.

Dropping inwards with awareness allows us to build a relationship between our body and our mind to pay attention at a deep level to what is happening in our bodies from moment to moment.

When we come to our physical bodies with this level of awareness we do so with loving kindness and tremendous tenderness. We are gentle and compassionate with the sensations, discomfort, pain, and tension that awaits our awareness.

Resource:

Mindfulness in the Body

Interoception in Practice with Bo Forbes

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Props Needed: Folded Blanket

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Knee to Chest Pose or Apanasana, jathara parivartanasana or reclined twist, Cat Pose or Marjaryasana, Pigeon Pose or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Tree Pose or Vrksasana, Reverse Warrior or Peaceful Warrior, Wide Legged Standing Forward Fold or Prasarita Padottanasana, Sphinx Pose or Salamba Bhujangasana, Parivrtta Upavistha Konasana, Upavistha Konasana, Savasana or Corpse Pose

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Strength At this time of year it is not unusual to feel run down worn out, and exhausted. Our schedules are filled to the brim and it is possible that our self-care suffers. In this class we are going to focus on strengthening our physical bodies and strengthening our immune system in preparation for winter. […]

Strength

At this time of year it is not unusual to feel run down worn out, and exhausted. Our schedules are filled to the brim and it is possible that our self-care suffers. In this class we are going to focus on strengthening our physical bodies and strengthening our immune system in preparation for winter.

In the Autumn it can be overwhelming to deal with all the demands placed on us, especially after a relaxing summer. Building strength, both in our physical body, but also internally, will help to support our bodies to have the fortitude and resilience.

Increasing our strength gives a sense of grounding, stability and focus and can ultimately have a deeply calming effect mentally, emotionally and energetically for our bodies.

In the Autumn it is important to strengthen our lungs in preparation for winter and so we will focus on our breathing.

By strengthening our physical body it allows us to be stronger internally as well and ultimately more internally focused and introspective as we move into a quieter and reflective time of year.

Props Needed: Bolster, Blocks,

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Guided Relaxation in Savasana, Bridge Pose or Setu Bandhasana, Samanasana or Side Lying Pose, Plank Pose, Chaturanga or Kumbhakasana , Side Plank or Vasthisasana, Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana, Warrior One or Virabhadrasana One, Warrior Two or Virabhadrasana Two, Goddess Victory Squat or Utkata Konasana, Dolphin Pose or Ardha Pincha Mayurasana, Upward Facing Dog or Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, Boat pose or Navasana, Janu Sirsasana or Head Beyond Knee Pose, Savasana or Corpse Pose

Did you like today’s show?

* Share it with a friend, family member or email it to a coworker.

* Like

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* Please leave us a 5-star review on Itunes

* Leave your comment below.

Thank you for your donations: Sonja, Hilary, and Diane

Yoga for Flexibility Dr. Steve Gangemi who is on a mission to stop mindless stretching reminds us that “Yoga is not sanskrit for stretching” Yoga connects us with our physical body, but also our mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual bodies. I think I am preaching to the choir now when I say yoga is so […]

Yoga for Flexibility

Dr. Steve Gangemi who is on a mission to stop mindless stretching reminds us that “Yoga is not sanskrit for stretching” Yoga connects us with our physical body, but also our mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual bodies. I think I am preaching to the choir now when I say yoga is so much more than flexibility and yet, the number one reason people tell me they practice yoga is to stay flexible.

Flexibility for flexibility sake ends up with useless flexibility and will lead to injury. More flexibility is not necessarily better. We need to have adequate range of motion to be functional human beings, that is to be able to get out of bed in the morning, sit on the toilet, get up from the toilet, practice basic hygiene, get dressed and undressed, make our meals, get up and down from chairs, walk, go up and down stairs. But the truth of the matter is, being uber flexible, that is being able to touch our toes, or put our foot behind our heads does not mean we will be out of pain or be a better person.

So what does flexibility really mean?

Why is flexibility important to you?

What do you want to receive by being flexible?

When I ask people why they want to be flexible they answer with responses like:

Lucille said, “I think I need flexibility in order to not get stuck in old patterns of reacting to stuff of life going on around me. Flexibility of body, mind and spirit can work together to help me stay centered in my own life lessons”

Tina explains, “Functional flexibility and increased ROM helps me in my daily living and with my responsibilities as a caregiver. Flexibility also improves my stamina as my day which can be more physical out of necessity. I suffer from osteoarthritis and I need to do yoga every day but haven’t, I am feeling the negative result of not having taken the time needed for the past month and feel I can hardly stand upright. All of it carries over to my mental state and how I approach my day or even how I feel I can handle my day. For me, I do find that physical immobility is so closely linked with mental flow.”

Nikki says, “Flexibility in my body equals flexibility in my life. Recovering from chronic fatigue, chronic body pain, and chronic headaches, it’s necessary to find flexibility again. It eases my anxiety, and improves my mood as my body returns to a softer, more natural state. I love a strong body…mine is when I’m healthy…but balance between strength and flexibility helps the energy within me run smoothly, making everything better!

What I love about your responses is that finding movement and flexibility in your physical body translates to flexibility in your mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual bodies as well as your daily life. It is about more than touching your toes, it is about mental flexibility, it is about less pain, anxiety, stress and being in a state of flow.

There is a significant correlation between rigidity, constriction and stiffness in our physical bodies and the tension we experience mentally, emotionally, energetically, spiritually and in our day to day lived experience. Dr. Steve Gangemi explains, “If you are under significant physical, emotional or nutritional stress, then your nervous system will respond by tightening certain muscles, it is a protective mechanism.” Whatever the stress is, whether is be physical, mental, emotional, nutritional, environmental, your entire nervous system and muscles react to the problem by tightening and constricting.”

One of the major sites of constriction of our psoas muscle. This muscle contracts from hours and hours of sitting, but also from emotional contracting in response to stressful situations.