Roxtar Yoga

Teaching and Practicing Through Tough Times August 28, 2008

Learn how to use your personal challenges to find your authentic voice, fortify your teachings and practice, and inspire your students and yourself.

An article on YogaJournal.com By Sara Avant Stover

“Yoga is a way to live.  We use the yoga mat to practice on and take our thoughts and beliefs into the world so that we may touch others. Yoga actually is the process of skillfully turning challenges, failures, hurts, and mistakes into opportunities.  As bad as it was is how good it can be.”

“Interruptions to one’s yoga practice or teaching are not necessarily bad things.  They are opportunities to realize that yoga never leaves you. Yoga waits. Returning from a hiatus also allows you to start fresh, to revisit old ground and discover new things. Often it has been briefly starting over that has made me love yoga all the more.”

• If you have lost a loved one, dedicate your class/practice to their specific virtues and acknowledge how every life leaves blessings behind for us all to bathe in. Use the opportunity to explore the idea of living fully now and guide students/yourself to consider the powerful legacy you might also want to leave behind.
• If you have been betrayed, consider how yoga philosophy and deeper self-awareness could have been applied to prevent the betrayal, and teach your class/remember the virtues of truth, friendship, integrity, and making life-affirming choices.
• If you are going through a crisis, teach/remember that the only constant in life is change, and that from crisis always comes opportunity.
• Take time in private to cry, grieve, and feel your experience fully.
• Make very sure you have an outlet for anger, disappointment, and hurt (so that your students never have to be your therapists). Reach out to peers, counselors, and your teachers for support.

Throughout, no matter how you are feeling inside, resist wishing your difficult experiences away. Trust that by feeling it deeply and sharing it honestly with others greater openness, happiness, and freedom await you. When this happens, there is no division between practicing yoga and living your life.

“Yoga and life cannot be separated—they exist simultaneously,” Sanford says. “Teaching and practicing through difficult times is part of grounding this realization.”

Group Detox August 21, 2008

A group of friends and I are detoxifying our bodies together starting September 8th thru September 21st.  Some people are doing the Master Cleanse for 14 days, some are going to eat a cleaner, vegan diet, some of us are doing some version of a juice fast, some of us are only doing it for a week or whatever our schedule allows.  We felt like we needed a time to reset our bodies and minds, give ourselves a little rest, and a little love.  We are going to post our comments, trials, and tribulations here.  Interested in joining us?  Please do!  Post your intentions and questions here.

Some resources:

I recommend any book by Elson Haas.  I really liked The New Detox Diet.  It’s a book that promotes healthfulness by choosing a wholesome, healthy diet, and cleansing at a level you can handle.  It’s not a strict diet bible, but more of a book with lots of information and ideas.

The Detox Book by Bruce Fife.

The Master Cleanse by Stanley Burroughs.  There is also a pretty funny, but honest message board.

Detox Week August 19, 2008

I have chosen to do a little detox this week. It’s about 2 weeks until my birthday and I have always felt like fall and my birthday are perfect opportunities to evaluate myself and my health and make any adjustments to be sure I’m living the lifestyle I want to live. I detoxed once before and it was quite the experience. I did a combination of the Master Cleanse and a juice fast for 3 days. The Master Cleanse is also known as the lemonade diet and it has been around for about 50 years. It entails drinking lots of a special lemonade concoction and flushing your digestive system with a salt water flush each day. Juice fasting is nothing more than consuming fresh fruit and veggie juices. The first day was by far the worst and I had to adjust what I was doing so I could at least function in my day to day life. I noticed how food and eating is such an emotional habit. I have always turned to food in times of stress and boredom and it was great to realize how unnecessary that was. I felt lighter and energized by the end and my yoga practice was freer in many ways. I was sometimes weak and tired, I swear I slept 10 hours a day, and I had some cramping when I tried to do an intense yoga class, but overall at the end I felt great.

This time I want to consume enough fruit and veggie juices to keep my energy up for teaching yoga and for my other responsibilities and work. If I feel too weak, I will eat fresh fruit, veggies, and possibly brown rice until I’ve reached my goal of 5 days! I am debating on the salt water flush though. My detox books say it’s necessary to flush the toxins. They say that not doing it will just make me feel worse because my body will be going through a ‘cleansing/healing crisis’ during which you feel symptoms of sickness while your body heals itself. The sick feeling should be temporary. All that is fine and dandy, but I had a very bad time with it last time and am afraid of doing it again. It was just wrong and I felt like death. I won’t do it these first 2 days, but if I’m going to do this, I shouldn’t do it half-assed, don’t you think? I will also try to just take it easy in general, trying to get some rest and enjoy some quiet time. Detoxing is not only about detoxifying your body, but also your mind, so going out and being crazy social and wearing myself out is contradictory to the whole purpose. I will try my best to honor my true needs, because I can’t exactly be a shut in or I’ll just go crazy when I come off the cleanse.

Wish me luck! If you are interested in what detoxing is all about, there are some pretty good books out there. The New Detox Diet & The Detox Book are great resources. The Master Cleanse is also interesting. I have also posted some of my favorite parts of The Detox Book on my online reader’s journal.