About The Yoga Sutras and other ponderings.
Bad days happen to all of us. Sometimes you just know the day is not going to be the best one straight after waking up. Sometimes a bad day creeps up on you slowly, starting with an innocent coffee spill, followed by signal failure in the tube and the realisation the keys were left at home… When things start going wrong it can feel like you are watching…
This past week has been the Mental Health Awareness Week. However, mental health is obviously not an issue just for one week a year, just like a good mental health is more than just absence of a mental health problem. Stress and anxiety for instance are issues that touch all of us at least some point in our lives: school or university exams, professional demands and relationship challenges…
Practise and non-attachment can seem to be very contradictory terms as we usually associate practise with the expectation of some sort of results. Yet together these two form the principles that the whole yoga system as we know it today rests. You might have heard your yoga teacher to say the words ”just let everything go that does not serve you”. Maybe you even liked that phrase because…
In the eight limb system of yoga outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali the the first limb, the yamas, are about our relationship with the outside. The second step, the niyamas, are more about the relationship we have with ourselves. You can view them as a form of a self-training to prepare mind, body and senses on the yogic path. They also offer great material for all…
Earlier I wrote a brief post about the eight limbs of yoga as described by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras. Most students of yoga are familiar with three of them: breath (pranayama), posture (asana) and meditation. The remaining five are not often even mentioned in many (asana) classes and if we were to come across them somewhere they can understandably seem a bit hard to grasp. What is…
“Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, difficulty, or annoyance without getting angry or upset.” Patience can mean different things to us, and its definition can also vary depending on the situation. Usually patience has an underlying realisation that we want, need – or lack – more self-control in situation we face. Here are few thoughts on how to map where we stand on this issue and…
In our lifes, we all have the right for the following: The right to be treated with respect The right to say “no” and not feel guilty The right to experience and express our feelings The right to take time to slow down and think The right to change our minds The right to ask what we want The right to do less than we are humanly capable…
This post was first published in HappyGirlYoga. Lue suomalainen versio teksistä tästä. No matter how busy we are, there are several ways to practice self-care everyday., These are the moments we put ourselves first. It’s not necessarily about getting a mani-pedi ahead of a an event, or having time for a cup of coffee. In addition to taking care of our basic needs, we also need to decompress…
Mudra is a Sanskrit word that means ”seal” or ”closure.” The idea is that different parts of our body and brain are connected and with our hands we can make gestures – yoga mudras – to direct the flow of energy within the body. Positioning the fingers in different mudras are a way to bring our body balance and help to stimulate a specific state of mind. Yoga…
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.33 offers us an useful – but not always easy to follow – advise on how to cultivate a calm and clear mind, even in challenging situation. Sounds good right? This Sutra is often referred as ”four locks and four keys” Sutra, as 4 locks and 4 keys comes – you guessed it – with four points, or actions to practise. There are various translations…