ATTENTIVE HEART

June 11th 2013

My Daily Ritual

My Daily Rituals

In 2011 I was working 4 days at a restaurant, going to college, teaching yoga classes at 2 different studios, taking care of a dog and trying to take care of a relationship. I was all over the place, my mind fell scattered, all my days and hours were completely different and sometimes I would get confused where was I scheduled to teach or where to go.

My life was chaotic.

I needed something constant in my life that would ground me. I went to an ayurvedic doctor (Indian medicine) and she recommended that I had a daily ritual. The ritual that I needed was one where I could soothe my senses, calm my mind and find stillness. Find centeredness. It made a huge difference in my life. It consisted of self-massage, breathing techniques, inspirational readings and meditation.

Although I don’t do this everyday and I don’t do it exactly the same, 3-4 days of the week I incorporate in my morning this special moment to feed my mind and spirit. It reminds me of the quiet and peaceful place that I can find within myself, and even in the midst of chaos I can still have access to it. It sets the tone for the rest of the day, maybe even hopefully until the next day.

Not everyone needs to meditate, or read or do yoga but we all certainly would benefit tremendously if we took time daily to remind ourselves that love, peace and many of the things and feelings we constantly drive us to reach outside of ourselves are right here in the core of our being.

These Rituals for me are not negotiable anymore, they are part of my life and they always will be. What’s your nourishing ritual?

Posted at 7:41pm and tagged with: Ritual, meditation, peace, love, health, mind, body, spirit, spiritual, comfort, yoga, chaos, life,.

June 11th 2013

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My yoga Teacher asked us to fill out this paper bill with things that makes us spiritually rich and keep it our wallets. Here is my list!!!!

Posted at 12:37am.

May 6th 2013

Can male and female both be feminine?

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A student asked me one time if I was a mother. I said “no”. She replied with a “really? because you look very motherly like”. I don’t know if she was saying this referring to my wide childbearing hips or referring to maybe some mother qualities that I was exuding. I hope it was the second one.

Being a mother represents not only to have a child but it also represents being the container of life, the vessel of creation, the incubator of dreams, of hopes, of ideas. In order for creation to flourish, qualities of understanding, softness, letting go, compassion, patience, peace, creativity and wisdom need to be cultivated. Both female and male possess the power of the divine mother but our minds, our systems, our jobs, our lifestyles has dissociated from this part of our nature. Instead, competition, power, ego, control, drivenness are associated with success, throwing us all out of balance with our true nature. Some men call each other “softy” if they show any signs of sensitivity as if being a real men means to be tough and disconnected from their emotions.

As Deepak Chopra state in an article I just read: As we continue our evolutionary journey, it is absolutely important for both men and women to embrace feminine power. In fact, this may be our best hope for inspiring global change. Gandhi and Lincoln were markedly feminine in their image and vision; so were Jesus and Buddha. Their love, forgiveness, and wisdom transformed the lives of millions”.

I know, that I have to practice connecting to the power of the divine mother as I cultivate more patience and compassion as I do my yoga practice, peacefulness as I deal with others, letting go as things don’t turn out the way I wanted to. Where in your life can you put some thought and practice connecting to your femininity? And yes!! Men too!!!

Posted at 5:50pm and tagged with: feminine, femininity, female, yin, yoga, mother's day, love, patience, compassion, nurture, motherhood, sensitivity, gandhi, jesus, buddha, creativity, wisdom, asana,.

April 29th 2013

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i really like your written posts, good blog :)

transluzent

Thank you translucent, I really appreciate your feeback. LEt me know if you have any questions.

Posted at 9:21pm.

April 28th 2013

Lessons from an achy back!!

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I have always suffered from a tight low back but since January of this year the pain was so severe that I had to be extremely careful when teaching yoga, barely being able to demonstrate postures and not being able to practice as much as I used to made me a grumpy yogi.

One of my teachers told me “your back pain is your dharma”. In Hinduism, dharma means the path that takes an individual to enlightenment. Seriously? Excruciating back pain that makes me grumpy, that makes me angry? Is going to enlighten me? This just made me even more frustrated.

Nevertheless, my teacher’s words marinated in my mind for a bit and I started to flirt with the idea that maybe, maybe, maybe, she could partially be right. After all, yoga is not just postures, not just asanas. Yoga is a holistic practice that includes 7 other limbs, or 7 other paths. These other limbs are the hardest parts of the practice. These seven other limbs are part of the mental internal work of self discipline, concentration, meditation, guidelines on how to live a meaningful life. Yoga Journal says it best: “They serve as a prescription for moral and ethical conduct.

My body and my teacher and the practice forced me to look deeper beyond the physical aspect of myself. My concentration got better, my breathing was fluid, even, more profound and I learned to continually engage inner layers of my core (bandhas) to protect my back. One of the best lessons my back pain taught me was, to slow down, to listen to my body,to treat my body like a baby, to have compassion for it and to take child’s pose a lot. A lot. And to be ok with it. Child’s pose is the new handstand for me. It rocks!!!

I am not enlightened (yet) but the most profound transformation that the path of yoga offers is the shifting of our perceptions. The practice offers an opportunity to be aware and not step into being the victim. Yoga, life, god, the universe or whatever we identify with as the source of life, has placed this situations on our life to grow. Invite all the ups and downs in your life, make the best of them, and love love love yourself and others.

Posted at 11:56pm and tagged with: yoga, sutras, asana, ashtanga, dharma, buddhism, life, lessons, love, selfesteem, self-reflection, body, bakc, pain,.

April 25th 2013

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Full Moon Bath!!

Posted at 10:40pm.

April 24th 2013

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Yogi Tea talks to me with brutal honesty men!

Posted at 12:58pm.

April 22nd 2013

5 notes |#

A Return To Nature

Posted at 2:19pm and tagged with: wild thing, nature, yoga, love, simplicity, strenght, faith, spiritual practice, asana, ashtanga, vinyasa, ritual,.

April 22nd 2013

Why do I feel like getting rid of all my belonging sometimes

3 notes |#

Why sometimes I feel like getting rid of almost all my belongings.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed when you go to the store and don’t know what brand of toothpaste to get because there are about 30 different ones?

Have you ever come back to your house from a relaxing vacation and realized that you don’t need all that you have accumulated in your house to be happy?

That is the case with me many times. I recently went through a big change in my life and had to move to my lovely mother’s house. My big concern was where was I going to store everything I have. I took with me most of my clothes and left every thing else at my old place with plans of packing it up with me soon. It’s been over 2 months and I still have not picked it up and guess what? I realized that I don’t need it.

We live in a society that glorifies acquisition and rejects simplicity. Women do it mostly through shopping for clothes; things for the house and men tend to do it with big toys. The quest for more seems endless. We work more, to spend more, to work more.

We are separating ourselves from nature and from our planet by searching for this quest as our demand as consumers requires taking away from our planet and instead fabricating more waste.

We love to sing “one love one heart” but do we really mean it? Do we really feel and act like we are one with other humans, like we are one with the earth? Or are we just doing what is convenient?

For peace to exist, we need to understand intellectually and embrace in our guts that we are all one with nature and with one another. We resonate and vibrate at the same frequencies as nature. In nature, we are in our natural state. Out of nature, out of tune, imbalances begin to occur. Stress, pollution, out of tune with our bodies, out of tune with our emotional needs.

We cannot always get to the beach or the mountains, but we can slow down and appreciate nature which is all around us, sustaining us, uplifiting us, giving us all that we need.

This is why I love yoga, it is my daily personal stability and centering ritual that helps me slow down, to return to my nature, to my breath, to love. All that I need is comfortable clothes and my intention to stay present. As I am more present with myself, I am more present with others. As I am more present with myself I feel oneness with others and with all the elements in nature. Interconnected is more accessible as I connect to my soul.

When we are aware of this interconnectedness of the microcosm and the macrocosm all of our actions, thoughts, words, what we buy what we do is not only for the benefit of ourselves or our loved ones but for the benefit of the planet as a whole.

What personal centering and stability rituals do you practice?

Do meditate, exercise or anything in the morning or evening to unwind yourself?

If not try establishing a daily personal ritual that works best for you and decide to be disciplined and do it every day at the same time.

With all the ups and downs and changes in your life, this practice will give you a space to find peace internally.

Include this affirmation before or after your practice.

I know my life is peaceful and harmonious.

I simplify my life.

I release unnecessary possessions.

I follow my inner guidance and the wisdom of nature.

I communicate simply and honestly.

I use my time wisely.

I respect myself and the process.

I harmonize with nature and all others in my world.

I accept greater peace in my life now.

And so it is.

Posted at 2:10pm and tagged with: yoga, nature, earth, simplicity, love, discipline, ritual, practice, asana, spiritual, spirituality,.

April 15th 2013

That special time of the month!

1 note |#

“The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

“Today we pretend to live in such busy lives that time for ourselves and time to gather with friends is neglected. Women’s nature is to nurture and give but some of us many times tend to forget to grant this gift to ourselves. The gift to connect to our world sisters, mothers, daughters, friends. No wonder why we have gained the reputation of being bitchy or cranky that special time of the month.

Aboriginal women and women from native tribes withdrew themselves from the world in order to nurture and revive themselves during their cycles. I see this monthly time as a way that nature tells us to retreat within, to commune with other women. It forces us to slow down and take care of our inner self. Women roommates or mothers and daughters cycles will sync up from time to time symbolizing their deep inner connectedness of mind body and soul. Connection to a male is a tremendously important part of a woman’s life. Nevertheless, the level of bonding when women get together is different than when men friends meet.

During women’s gatherings, etc. we share with each other our dreams, our inspirations, our sorrows our joys and our sadness. We share what fills us, what depletes us. We unload what is inside us, we lay it out and reload confidence with the space that has been created to allow this release. It is a must to tend to our deeper emotions and feelings as we share our stories”

Barbara Campins

“As more women take their roles in the modern world of corporations and business, they often find themselves losing touch with the feminine. This is almost expected since the corporate work force is dominated by men. The role models of the ancient clan mothers can assist these modern women in maintaining their sense of Self and enable them to become leaders through example rather than through competition, backstabbing, or conquest, but the challenge to accomplish these goals depends upon the strength of the Sisterhood.”

“Women must support other women in a way that allows those who chose difficult paths to learn to call upon their sisters, maintaining the understanding of who they are and what they can become. In this manner we can also support the development of the female aspect in our male counterparts, and then pass the legacy of wholeness to all of our children.”

~From the wonderful Jami Sams and her book, The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers:

Posted at 12:48pm and tagged with: friends, women, cycles, moon, spiritual, love, communication,.

April 10th 2013

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Happy Aries New Moon!!!

Posted at 6:17pm.

April 10th 2013

My perfectly perfect virtual life

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“Not this picture, my left nostril looks 3x bigger than my right one. Oh heavens no!! This one either!!! I look like a swallowed a baby kangaroo!! I wonder if I can photoshop this one?” We all want to be and look our best most of the time. It is just our human nature.

We want people to like us, to befriend us, and to think the highest of us. The bottom line is we all want to be loved! I love love love Facebook, instagram, pinterest, twitterests, fake-nerest? But sometimes we can get caught up into thinking that the images we see are 100% real 100% of the time. WHat I am trying to say is that we upload pictures of the best moments of our days, our happy family vacations, our beautiful recipes, our social gatherings and we begin to forget that this is just the half of what our lives are really like.

When we begin to use this sources as the standard of how others protray their lives and compare ours to theirs it becomes detrimental to ourselves? I have many friends that will not participate in any social media and I understand why. They say they hate it, but what I believe they might hate the most is the feelings that are fired up when they compare their lives to other people’s perfectly picture perfect virtual lives. Like anything in life, facebook, instragram, etc.. are not good or bad, they just are. We can use it for our personal growth or we can use to feed our egos. To get validation, attention, in other words imaginary love.

Next time you go into any of this sites, block the people that you don’t need to connect with anymore, filter people’s notifications on your wall, give a call to that friend that you keep checking on facebook to see what they are up to, post a real picture of your proud beautiful natural self. Connect on a deeper level to the ones you love, connect to what is real, connect to what is to be human. Connect to the messy kitchens, to the disorganized living rooms. Connect to the joy and sadness. Connect to real life!!!

Posted at 12:23am and tagged with: yoga, social media, spirituality, yoga sutras, love, friendship, relationships, nature, joy,.

April 4th 2013

1 note |#

Lately I have been hearing and reading about “bad girls” teaching yoga, yoga for hangovers at a bar and just yoga combined with any sort of alcoholic beverage. All sounds fun ha? I would definitely take one of the wine yoga retreats that have been organized lately. I am not a puritan trust me. I like having a glass of wine or two on the weekends, I don’t meditate everyday, the competitor inside me is still kind of loud, I don’t consider myself flexible and I am ok with all of it. As yoga hits the mainstream more and more, some people are trying to commercialize yoga and make profits to the cost of losing the whole point of the practice but others genuinely have an intention to share the benefits of the practice. The intentions of this physical and mental art are many. Cleansing the body from the inside out, help the mind become a little calmer and to build a deep sense connection to yourself, to others and to the life force, among many other benefits. Ultimately, all of these benefits leading to feeling more freedom from a bunch of crap we attach ourselves to which does not help us grow. If the message of “do whatever feels good to you and do yoga” is being spread out by yoga capitalists trying to attract the masses at any cost, the next yoga class might be happy hour and cigarette smoking yoga rooms sponsored by Marlboro and Patron? Nothing against smokers or drinkers, I was a light smoker and one day I just started to repel it. Anyhow, yoga was brought by many gurus from India with the whole intention of helping us to return to the simplicity of being in love with the pure essence of our being. We can start doing this by accepting where we are, either drinkers, workaholics, smokers, gamblers, emotional eaters, even yoga fanatics with a deep sense of love and compassion towards ourselves. Something tells me the reason that some of us start doing yoga is because we want to find that freedom where we don’t have to reach outside of ourselves to find happiness or fulfillment. Connection to people and nature are essential elements of our lives that magnify this already sense of freedom and happiness, but even attachment to any of these though it’s not freedom. Yoga for hangovers I think is an excellent idea to detoxify and hopefully the person feels so great being clean that does not need to drink so frequently. But seriously? Offering more alcohol after the cleansing yoga class sounds like it kind of defeats the purpose. Are these yoga teachers really concerned about their customer’s health or are they just trying increase their alcohol sales? If yoga keeps being commercialized without aligning the business side of it with one of the most important principles of yoga, which is Ahimsa or nonharming, then we cannot call it yoga anymore. Why not call it intoxicating-detox gymnastics? Let me know what you think. Cheers!!!

Posted at 5:56pm.

April 4th 2013

Drunken yogis or detox/intox gymnastics?

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Lately I have been hearing and reading about “bad girls” teaching yoga, yoga for hangovers at a bar and just yoga combined with any sort of alcoholic beverage. All sounds fun ha? I would definitely take one of the wine yoga retreats that have been organized lately. I am not a puritan trust me. I like having a glass of wine or two on the weekends, I don’t meditate everyday, the competitor inside me is still kind of loud, I don’t consider myself flexible and I am ok with all of it. As yoga hits the mainstream more and more, some people are trying to commercialize yoga and make profits to the cost of losing the whole point of the practice but others genuinely have an intention to share the benefits of the practice. The intentions of this physical and mental art are many. Cleansing the body from the inside out, help the mind become a little calmer and to build a deep sense connection to yourself, to others and to the life force, among many other benefits. Ultimately, all of these benefits leading to feeling more freedom from a bunch of crap we attach ourselves to which does not help us grow. If the message of “do whatever feels good to you and do yoga” is being spread out by yoga capitalists trying to attract the masses at any cost, the next yoga class might be happy hour and cigarette smoking yoga rooms sponsored by Marlboro and Patron? Nothing against smokers or drinkers, I was a light smoker and one day I just started to repel it. Anyhow, yoga was brought by many gurus from India with the whole intention of helping us to return to the simplicity of being in love with the pure essence of our being. We can start doing this by accepting where we are, either drinkers, workaholics, smokers, gamblers, emotional eaters, even yoga fanatics with a deep sense of love and compassion towards ourselves. Something tells me the reason that some of us start doing yoga is because we want to find that freedom where we don’t have to reach outside of ourselves to find happiness or fulfillment. Connection to people and nature are essential elements of our lives that magnify this already sense of freedom and happiness, but even attachment to any of these though it’s not freedom. Yoga for hangovers I think is an excellent idea to detoxify and hopefully the person feels so great being clean that does not need to drink so frequently. But seriously? Offering more alcohol after the cleansing yoga class sounds like it kind of defeats the purpose. Are these yoga teachers really concerned about their customer’s health or are they just trying increase their alcohol sales? If yoga keeps being commercialized without aligning the business side of it with one of the most important principles of yoga, which is Ahimsa or nonharming, then we cannot call it yoga anymore. Why not call it intoxicating-detox gymnastics? Let me know what you think. Cheers!!!

Posted at 5:50pm.

March 25th 2013

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Awesome weirdness!

Posted at 11:24pm.