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YOGA AT WORK

December 5, 2013 //
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YOGA AT YOUR DESK & MINDFUL BREATHING

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Gentle stretching throughout the day helps to reduce shoulder rounding, takes pressure off the lower back, and allows you to breathe more deeply.

  1. Seated Spinal Twist – Twisting at your desk helps to gently detoxify throughout the day. Moving the spine, relieves lower back pain, improves digestion, and even reduces stress.
  2. Seated Ankle to Knee – Draw you ankle to knee on each side and gently lean forward until you feel the opening of your outer hip. Hold for about a minute and deepen your breath.
  3. Reverse Prayer Pose – Start by grabbing alternate elbows behind you.  If you have more range, press your hands together. If you can, bring the pinkies and thumbs to touch. This posture stretches the wrists, hands and chest.

STRESS REDUCTION – The simple act of bringing mindfulness to your breath throughout the day can be a powerful tool to better manage and cope with stress. The key is start simple.

Begin by sitting at your desk and lengthening your inhales and exhales. Plant your feet firmly on the ground while sitting up straight and broadening across your chest. Inhale and count: 1…2…3…4…5….Now Exhale: 5…4…2…1.

As you continue to practice, increase the count.  Direct the breath to the lower belly and back. This is a simple technique, known as, Full and Complete Breath. Focusing on the breath helps to increase concentration and focus, calm the mind, and it physiologically increases oxygen intake in the body.

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Categories Uncategorized

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

November 6, 2013 //
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The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

 

To read more work by Oriah, check out her blog: http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/

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YOGA FOR RUNNERS – Brooklyn

October 3, 2013 //
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For many, running is a treasured form of exercise, offering physical, emotional and spiritual benefits. Yoga is an excellent supplemental tool for runners to build core strength, loosen and lengthen muscles and improve oxygen intake. In this workshop, we will explore ways to keep your muscles open and limber to help increase range of motion, improve flexibility, build core strength and prevent injury. In addition, we will explore pranayama to link breath and movement and create greater relaxation during rigorous activity.

This workshop is open to all levels. 

WORKSHOP DETAILS

  • DATE: Sunday October 13th 2013
  • TIME: 2pm -4pm
  • RATE: $20 Early Bird Registration/ $25 Day of Registration Fee
  • PLACE: HOSH YOGA, 55 Nassau Ave  Brooklyn, NY

Props and mats will be provided. All participants must come with an open imagination.

N     A    M    A    S    T    E               A    M    I    G    O    S

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Categories Happiness, Meditation, Uncategorized, Yoga

Anti-Romance Under the Brooklyn Moon

July 2, 2013 //
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Anti-Romance Under the Brooklyn Moon

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By Mikaela Conley (Copyright 2013 The Daily Saint/Mikaela Conley Photo: Erin Conley)

 

You are not good for me, and I, not for you
Perhaps this decade-long anti-romance
is meant to be a connection at a distance,
Across countries and oceans and bridges
and years and computer screens.

You brought me to a barbecue steak house
I ordered a vegetable plate.
I still remember the pain that flashed across
your normally overly confident face,
and I took too long to justify my food choice.

You passed me a drawing of a dinosaur in law class.
I laughed indifferently, but I later wondered the meaning.
I was the most and least special person in an instant,
and that feeling dragged through the years.

I went away.
You did, too.
You told me to come back.
I did.
You were with someone else.
I was, too.

And we danced this dance under the Brooklyn moon.

You were broken.
I was, too.
We wanted to be fixed,
but we were both addicted
to the broken pieces of glass that surrounded us,
the ones that drew blood,
the ones that, when the light caught them just right,
shimmered deceivingly at sunset.

You asked me to marry you,
several times,
drunk and high and more charming than ever,
and I laughed it off, rolled my eyes, walked away,
cool and indifferent.

When really I thought,
Maybe this is just us.
Perhaps this can be us.

And an image flashed over my mind,
like a ticker on a newsfeed:
I sat at a computer, writing yet another verse,
you smoked a cigarette,
hunched over a workbench, sharpening knives
and listening to notes so melancholy
the imagined music created puddles in my human eyes.

Eight years after the vegetable plate,
we reconnected on Broadway.
And we drank tea and whiskey and cheap beer all at once.
And you kissed me once under a haze of toxicity
and like the days long lost,
that moment felt real.

And we danced this dance under the Brooklyn moon.

But then you were gone again.
And I was, too.
Beaten down by the city’s sights,
I left in an instant.

You check in now and again,
a photo, a saying, a Happy “Miscellaneous Holiday,”
something indifferent and connectively undone,
and I will do the same.

And in that way,
We are connected and unraveling all at once.

A good invention that never found its purpose.

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Yoga Off the Mat {Podcast}

June 26, 2013 //
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Mikaela Conley, founder and director of The Daily Saint, recently invited me to participate in her podcast to discuss the daily saints in my life. The Daily Saint is an initiative focused on seeing the good all around. Small, seemingly trivial moments of kindness to grand gestures of love are highlighted on the site.

The words, thoughts and musings of Kurt Vonnegut, one of Mikaela’s favorite writers, were a source of great inspiration for The Daily Saint. In fact, it was an excerpt from a commencement speech that Vonnegut gave at The University of Wisconsin in 2003 that inspired the website’s name. He told this story: “A sappy woman sent me a letter a few years back. She knew I was sappy, too, which is to say a lifelong northern Democrat in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt mode, a friend of the working stiffs. She was about to have a baby, not mine, and wished to know if it was a bad thing to bring such a sweet and innocent creature into a world as bad as this one is. I replied that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me, besides music, was all the saints I met, who could be anywhere. By saints I meant people who behaved decently in a strikingly indecent society. Perhaps some of you are or will become saints for her child to meet.”

The Daily Saint caused me to start thinking more about my own happiness, expression of gratitude, and compassion. It made me realize that we choose the lens by which we view the world. Acts of beauty and kindness are sprinkled everywhere, much more plentifully than anger and hate. It is within our power to see the good.

Mikaela invited me to join her on a recent Podcast to discuss my Daily Saints. I realized that The Daily Saint, in many ways, represents yoga off the mat. Making shapes, connecting the body, mind, breath, and spirit are simply means to an end. At its core, yoga is a practice of unity and love. It is about being connected to our individual essence. The love and purity a yoga practice has the power to cultivate helps individuals click into their true essence and greatness.

The Daily Saint highlights real people in real places in real situations. There are no fairy Godmothers or haloed visionaries.  They are real people doing real things. The people acknowledged are not seeking accolades or recognition. They are not looking for fame or fortune. Daily Saints simply follow their truest selves. Yoga at its core is about disconnecting from our ego and reconnecting to humanity and to ourselves. Yoga and The Daily Saint go hand and hand. Luckily, as sisters, we can share the journey.

Check out our podcast by clicking here:

http://www.creatorsbroadcast.com/episodes/listen/the-daily-saint/erin-conley-06-21-13.html

Thank you for your support. And, as always, NAMASTE. XO

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