Spring is here and love is in the air!  At least that’s how it feels, doesn’t it?  When the days start getting longer, the birds are singing their sweet song, and the flowers are starting to show their beauty to us.  It all makes me just want to slow down and allow my senses to sip in every bit of it!  And so, these past couple of weeks, I have been doing just that - honoring Nature’s signals to slow down as She transitions from the cold, dry winter to the cool, moist Spring.  

We were lucky to get snow in Virginia last week as Nature’s reminder of this beautiful, and seemingly slow, transition of seasons.  As I watched the snow soften and melt last week, I was reminded of the popular metaphor in Ayurveda of Spring having the qualities of snow melting on a mountaintop.  As the snow melts, the sweet water flows down the mountain nourishing the earth below and allowing for new growth of plants and lifeforms.  Similarly, in the Spring, we are called to slow down and flow softly through our days.  We are invited to stretch and bring easeful movement into our body and lifestyle.  We begin the transition out of our winter hibernation that can often leave us feeling restless due to the Winter qualities of Vata dosha (air and ether).  We enter into the Spring season, which is governed by Kapha dosha.

Kapha, composed of Earth and Water elements, brings a feeling of softness and slowing down.  It brings moisture, which leads to a dampness and heaviness in the air.  It is the dosha of growth and structure; interestingly, it is also the dosha that predominates in childhood, the period of time that our body undergoes the most rapid growth.  No wonder then that Spring is a time of growth, fresh beginnings, and the blossoming of new ideas and experiences!

Depending on your individual dosha (your unique Ayurvedic body-mind constitution), the Spring can have varying effects on your body, mind, and emotions.  As a predominantly Vata-Pitta individual, I love the Spring!  The water and earth elements naturally ground my mobile and light energy.  I enjoy the call to slow down and soften.  On the other hand, for a Kapha-predominant individual, the season’s heavy and damp qualities can lead to imbalance of excessive sluggishness, nasal and chest congestion, and emotional attachment.  Perhaps one of the most effective and fast-acting antidotes is to simply exercise.  Vigorous movement such as vinyasa yoga, running, or other forms of intense exercise is generally quite balancing for excess Kapha.  

As we are just beginning the transition of seasons, I invite you to observe the qualities that arise in your life.  No matter how the season affects you, it is Nature’s way of reminding us to simply pay attention.  Nature reminds us, if we allow ourselves to listen, that we are most in balance when we align ourselves with Her Universal rhythms.  

Happy Spring, my friends!

Read More…
Ayurveda Self-Care Practices for the Spring
Spark Joy your Spring Cleaning!

​Today’s blog is brought to you by special request!  I was requested to create a video blog on happy feet and ankles 😊  I am thrilled to bring this blog to you because our feet are so important.  They are our foundation, literally the base supporting our body as we move throughout the day.  We hardly ever think about our feet, yet they do so much for us.  A few years ago, I jammed my pinky toe on a piece of furniture.  I never thought much about my pinky toe until I jammed it on that piece of furniture, because after that it hurt like heck with every step I took for six weeks straight!  All of a sudden, I was paying a lot more attention to my feet!

Our feet have 26 bones and 4 layers of muscle.  This is just amazing to me!  A long, long time ago, when we used to spend much of our days walking barefoot on the earth, we needed all four layers of those muscles to be engaged to support us on the uneven terrain of the earth.  These days, we are so accustomed to walking in shoes with firm soles so that all of those muscles are no longer engaged.  Since our feet are our foundation, any weakness in the feet or ankles can radiate upwards to affect our knees, hips, and lower back.  This is where yoga and Ayurveda can help!  Watch this week’s video to learn some simple self-care techniques to give your feet the tender love and care that they so deserve!

​Hello amazing friends! First, I want to express my deep heartfelt thank you to all of you for tuning in this week as I've offered you bonus blogs and videos throughout the week of our official launch of online classes! I also want to thank all of you who participated in our classes. Your presence, energy and feedback has been so amazing and tremendous!

Today, I want to talk to you about gratitude and celebration.  I will start with sharing my journey with these two practices, and then we will explore ways that you can begin to incorporate these concepts into your daily life.  I have been intentionally engaging in gratitude practice for the past few years.  It started out with me just saying “thank you.”  I would take just a few minutes each day to find things in my life that I could feel grateful for, and I found so many beautiful things!  As it turns out, once we start finding things in our life to feel grateful for, we start finding even more things and the practice becomes really fun!

This gratitude practice and the idea of celebration jumped to another level for me over the past few months since attending some Tony Robbins’ events. If you're not familiar with Tony Robbins, he is a personal development life coach, philanthropist, strategist, and entrepreneur. He wears many hats, and one is that he leads seminars for thousands people all over the world.  I attended a few of his seminars over the past few months, and they’ve been a really interesting complement to my yoga and meditation practices.  One of the concepts that he describes is that there are two master skills of life:

1. The science of achievement, and 
2. The art of fulfillment 

Many of us are well-versed in the science of achievement.  In my case, I have spent much of my life working towards degrees and certifications, excelling in my profession, and competing in athletics.  When I was younger, I also spent a good amount of time in the art of fulfillment.  I am blessed with an amazing family and we would often celebrate various achievements by going out to dinner and spending time together to really honor various aspects of our lives.  Throughout college and graduate school, my friends and I definitely had the “work hard, play hard” philosophy, and so we took time to celebrate after major exams and other milestones.  Somehow, as I entered my 30s, this art of fulfillment and celebration started to slip away.  I am the type of person who can just go through my day constantly finding things to do!  My yoga and meditation practices have certainly helped me to slow down, pause, and savor the moment.  But this idea of “celebrating” was not something I was doing much of anymore, until it was really brought to light for me at these recent Tony Robbins’ events.  I have now started to incorporate more celebration practices into my daily life, and it is amazing how good it feels!  

If you are interested in starting a gratitude and celebration practice, here are a few ideas to help get you started.  These are practices that I have been doing for the past few years, and more so over the past few months:

1. Simple daily gratitude practice
I do this every morning before I even get out of bed.  My first thought every morning is “thank you” -  thank you for this day, thank you for my life, thank you to the birds that are chirping outside of my windows singing their song as I wake up.  It literally takes only seconds!  As you're laying in bed, just saying thank you. 

2. Magic Moments
Every week, I spend five to ten minutes to sit down with my gratitude journal.  I think back to my past week and recall any moments that made me smile really big, laugh out loud, or brought tears of joy to my face.  Tony Robbins calls these types of memories “magic moments.” I jot down these magic moments in my journal and allow myself to relive those moments.  This practice creates a stacking effect of super positive emotions in my body and mind.  

​3. Dance
Most everyday, I turn on music and dance in my apartment!  I know it may sound so silly, but it is so much fun!  And, I cannot think about anything else when I am dancing.

Those are just a few ideas based on my own practices.  You can choose any practice that speaks to your heart so long as it cultivates feelings of gratitude and celebration.  These have been incredibly powerful tools in my life and I would love to hear how this works out for you!  If you decide to incorporate some of these tools into your daily life, please leave a comment below or send me a message to let me know how it's working out for you!

​Sending you love and positive vibes!!

​Perhaps one of my favorite subjects, Ayurveda encompasses yoga, meditation, breathwork, life style, daily routines, diet, and more!  Ayurveda literally translates to “the study of life.”  It is just so amazing!  Unlike the other topics I covered this week, Ayurveda is not one of the steps on Hatha Yoga’s eight limbed path.  But, Ayurveda originated from the Vedas, which is same source as yoga.  Ayurveda is the oldest medical system of India.  It is a holistic system that is all about connecting ourselves with nature - our own true nature and the Nature within which we live.

Ayurveda says that, as individuals, we are simply a microcosm of the macrocosm that is the Universe.  Ayurveda goes on to describe that all things in the Universe are comprised of five basic elements – ether, air, fire, water, and earth. Since we are simply a microcosm of the Universe, we are also comprised of these same five elements. The different proportions of these elements within each of us determines our individual body-mind constitution.  Once we understand what our specific body-mind constitution is, then we are able to gain greater understanding into our nature.  Ayurveda explains why we are drawn to certain interests, hobbies, and foods; it explains why we prefer a certain climate or season; it describes why it is easier for us to work or exercise during certain times of the day.  

You see, the elements govern all things, including the weather, season, food, and time of day.  As an example, one of the primary aspects of my constitution is “Vata,” which is characterized by  the elements air and ether.  Autumn is the season governed by air and ether.  The combination of Vata in my constitution and Vata in the Autumn season has often led me to feel qualities of air and ether – dry skin, restless mind, feeling ungrounded. I have always noticed that I feel a bit unsettled and ungrounded as I transitioned into the Fall season, but I never knew why until I discovered Ayurveda!  Now that I understand this dynamic of excess air/ether in the climate exacerbating those same qualities within myself, I have specific tools from Ayurveda that I can implement every Fall to help ease my transition into the season.  These tools include self-care practices of massage, diet, yoga practices, and daily routines.

This is a huge topic, and one that I am very passionate about!  I wanted to offer you a brief introduction today.  If you would like to dive deeper into this topic through a live webinar or personal consultation, then let me know by liking this video, leaving a comment, or sending me a message! 

Sending you so much love!!