Yoga With Yvette
  • Home
    • Blog
    • Contact Us
  • Vision Quest
  • Beyond Beliefs Holistic Mind Coaching
  • Therapeutic Yoga
  • 50 is the new 30
  • 300 Hour Teacher Training
  • Events
  • Private Lessons
  • Vision Quest
  • Mandala Workshop
  • New Year - New You 5 day Silent Vision Quest

Reflections

Every day is a gift

9/18/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Oh Savasana (insert sigh)…I spend the whole practice in the 'present moment' only to be flooded with thoughts in savasana.
“It goes by so fast”. 
One thought turns into a story in a few minutes of time. When you are young, 45 years seems like an eternity. But after you have lived it, you realize it is but a moment. We believe we have forever, but soon we realize it isn’t so. Every moment and every breath is a gift. If you look up the word ‘gift' in the dictionary this is what you will find: 'a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present’. Present also means according to the dictionary, 'existing or occurring now’. 

 Live in the present moment and each day becomes a great gift.

Now this we all heard many times but it is still hard to practice so maybe if we remind ourselves just one more time. To live in the moment means to not to judge our lives, not to focus on the past or the future but experience each moment with gratitude and purpose, to live life fully. To choose contentment and happiness. Appreciate every moment being aware of what a gift it is to live and most importantly starting and ending each day with a ritual. A preyer, meditation, expressing gratitude and thankfulness, recounting all good things from the day.

Some people live their lives but most simply plan their lives. Getting through things. On their way to what they think will bring them happiness. You know the ones that say ‘when I find a partner, when I get married, when I have kids, when I get a house, when I get a better paying job then I’ll be happy’. You know who you are. We all do or have done it before. Time to stop planning and start living. Take chances. Listen to your heart.

Each time I find myself in a moment of joy I remind myself to practice breathing them in. One never knows how many more moments like this will come. The one right now is the one I’m living for and grateful for. The present moment is the only moment.
We have no power over the past or the future, non at all. Focusing on the past, especially on regret, has the power only to rob the present moment of its happiness. We have 40,000-60,000 thoughts a day and if we allow them to live in the past or the future, by regretting things or thinking about where we want to be will keep us from living life now. Use your thoughts wisely. We have the power to train our minds. Happy people know that we are more in control of our minds then we realize. The greatest practice for training our minds to be present is meditation. When you don’t have time to sit in silence try enjoying your task at hand. Forget multitasking! Doing the dishes, cleaning, walking the dog can be meditation as long as you’re being mindful and joyful doing it. Not just every day but every moment of every day is a gift. A present.

Namaste my friends

1 Comment

Love is a choice

9/16/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
                        Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
                                                                -Leo Buscaglia


Can I be happy if I’m truly loved? On the other hand can I be happy if I love with all my heart ? 
Love is likely both the greatest source of happiness and the greatest source of regret. It is not just the receiving of love that matters but one of the secrets to happiness and purpose is also to be a loving a person, to become love.

Love is a choice.

It is essential to understand the difference between the emotion of love and the choice to love. There is the love of food, activities even another person but that is referring to the emotion of feeling love. The secret to a happy and purposeful life is to choose to be a loving person, to become love. To do that first we must  love ourselves and choose to see ourselves worthy as spiritually healthy human beings. Second, we choose to act with love towards the people around us. And yes that includes our family and friends. It is a choice to act lovingly towards others. At the end its about seeing the big picture, that love matters more then things. And finally we must choose love in our connections, communications and dealings with others. Choosing to see others with kindness. It is in all of us to change the negative messages to positive, to affirm and uplift one another.  Do good if you can but make sure not to harm, hurt or cause pain. We can choose to see the larger picture.

Namaste my friends
LUVS to all

0 Comments

More secrets

9/15/2014

0 Comments

 
If there is a first secret there must be more. What do we all fear the most? The one possible thing at the end when we look back at our lives and wish that we have done things differently, that we had no regrets. Non of us want to say “I wish I had done…” but rather say “I have tried”. 
At the end of our lives we will not regret the risks that we took even if they did not work out the way we hoped. No one regrets having tried something and failed, yet most of us don’t take enough risks. Often what we call “mistakes” turn out to be the greatest moments of learning. If there is no guarantee to success in our lives, since every attempt at anything might be a possible failure then why even bother trying right? Wrong! If we love there is always the risk of rejection. If we follow a dream, there is always the possibility of falling short. We cannot guarantee success, but we can guarantee failure merely by choosing not to try at all.
So if we want to find true happiness and purpose in life we must embrace the second secret: Leave no regrets.

Namaste my friends
0 Comments

Finding true meaning in life

9/14/2014

1 Comment

 
The thought came to my mind in my very first savasana, why am I here?
Not in the sense of why am I lying on this smelly carpeted floor with a bunch of sweaty people in the same room but contemplating the reason of my existence on Earth. What is the purpose of my being?

When you ask people what they want the most, the number one answer is "to find happiness". Every human being wants to experience joy and a deep sense of contentment. We want to know that we have lived fully and experienced what it means to be a human being. Joseph Campbell put in this way: "I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

I think that happiness is  not enough for us as human beings. I believe we also want to find meaning. If happiness is about the day-to-day experience of contentment and joy, meaning is about the sense that one's life has purpose. We want, most of all, to know that it mattered we were here, to find a reason for being alive. I believe that we become wise by listening to other's stories. I have heard it said that "wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." Knowing the reason tho is not enough. We all know things that we don't put into practice: exercise is good for us, eating a balanced diet can lead to good health, smoking is bad for our health, relationships matter more then things, and so forth. Yet, many of us live life not practicing the "wisdom" we already have.

So what gives us meaning and purpose and how do we practice it?
I believe there is one such secret, and it is the first thing we must discover about life if we are to live wisely.
You have to follow your heart, you have to be true to your own self, your have to know who you are and why you are here and you have to know what matters to you. What separates those who live well and die happy from most of us is that they continually ask themselves whether they are living the life they want to live and following their heart toward the answer. The first secret is to be true to you, to your self and live with intention.


Namaste my friends






1 Comment

    Author

    Yvette is a  Hatha, Yin and Power Flow Yoga Instructor from Kamloops, British Columbia

    Archives

    September 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

We Would Love to Have You Visit Soon!


Hours

Telephone

250-000-0000

Email

yogawithyvette.ca@gmail.com
  • Home
    • Blog
    • Contact Us
  • Vision Quest
  • Beyond Beliefs Holistic Mind Coaching
  • Therapeutic Yoga
  • 50 is the new 30
  • 300 Hour Teacher Training
  • Events
  • Private Lessons
  • Vision Quest
  • Mandala Workshop
  • New Year - New You 5 day Silent Vision Quest