yoga4healthyliving

Yoga wisdom

Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.

Joan Lunden, in Healthy Living

NLP, yoga and fear

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and yoga link together beautifully.  In every yoga class I teach I use NLP language to help people to achieve their best both emotionally and physically.  (More about that on a later post.) As a yoga instructor I firmly believe that if we are sound in mind then we are far more likely to be sound in body.  However, controlling the mind can be a constant battle. 

Recently I have learnt of the 'spinning process' devised by Richard Bandler (co-creator of NLP) to rapidly undo feelings of fear.

All you do is notice where the feeling of fear begins; in other words where in the body is its source.  Know that all 'emotion has motion'.  Spend a moment considering which way this emotion currently spins.  Use your imagination to reverse the direction of spin which, becaue you have changed the structure, changes the experiences; the fear stops.    Now don't take my word for it, you won't know if it works unless you do it.   

Legs up the Wall pose

Legs up the Wall pose is a great inversion posture that is safe for most yoga students.  One of the main benefits is that it enhances the return of the venous blood into the body, thereby reducing the risk of developing varicose veins.  In my class I can show you how to take this pose into a shoulder stand supported by the wall which will create further health benefits, such as stimulating the thymus gland, balancing the thyroid, flushing the brain with fresh blood and many more.

Here's a great link to Legs up the Wall pose http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/690