When I feel unsettled, or somehow not quite in the flow, I realize that in some way, I am in resistance to what is. So I go inside and practice non-resistance. Here is what I do. Give it a try if you like.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, if you notice you feel disconnected, immediately pause. Notice that you feel unsettled, and begin your non-resistance practice. Start simply, with just looking at your surroundings, and noticing what you see. Just watch, without adding stories to things. For example, you see a tree out the window. Just watch it. Notice the tree, the dancing leaves, the light and the colour. Should you hear a car drive by, just notice it. You hear it drive towards you then past you. So it is.
Then feel your body within your surroundings. If you are sitting, feel your body on the chair. If you are lying down, feel the weight of your body towards the ground. Just notice how you feel. Notice the softness or hardness of the surface supporting you.
Then draw your attention to your breath. What does it feel like? Breathe in. Breathe out. Move your awareness inward and just notice. Feel the quality of breathing. Is it heavy? Is it light? Is it easy? Is it restricted?
In this, everything begins to settle and you feel not limited to your thoughts, to the sense of being separate in a body. You begin to feel divisiveness dissolve, replaced by energy, flow and abundance. You feel connected and interconnected. You feel flow. Just stay with that, watching.
When you start to think about what you will have for dinner, or if you will get that call, notice you are going into thinking. Simply and gently bring your attention back to the feeling of being rooted and expansive, here and now.
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Feel Alive and Inspired with YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine Canadian yogini, musician, activist and author Parvati invites you to look at yoga in a whole new way with guided practices that combine yoga with chi-energy work. A wise, compassionate and adept teacher, Parvati is the founder of YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. Her workshops have toured North America and the UK to rave reviews. Parvati is now launching a YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine guided audio CD and DVD to help everyone enjoy the benefits of YEM. Beyond a simple hybrid of yoga and chi-energy work, YEM is a revolutionary practice for cultivating a life rooted in ease, joy and abundance. It surpasses the boundaries of today’s yoga market to reach a broader audience that includes healing arts, personal growth, global awareness and meditation. Parvati says, “YEM differs from other current yoga styles in that it is not about how far you may be able to physically stretch or bend, but about the deep and subtle awareness you develop in every position, about how you are vastly interconnected within a loving whole, a force that is expressed through you in every moment. By contacting this life force, you can cultivate a conscious relationship with it so that your yoga pose – and ultimately your life…
Hello friends, I am excited to let you know that I am officially launching my YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine CD and DVD this week! Though they have been unofficially available for a while, I never actually launched them, sent out a press release, or got them into stores. That is changing now, and as a loyal reader of this blog you are the first to know. Yoga has been a love affair for me since I took my first class at sixteen. I have studied yoga through the Sivananda, Iyengar, Scaravelli and Ashtanga schools, and studied Ayurveda and Chi Kung. While I was learning and practicing yoga in India, I had a near death experience that changed my life forever. It amplified the intuitive skills I have had since I was a child and confirmed that we are so much more than physical beings. YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine came to me effortlessly as I honoured a natural arising of energy through my body that was showing me that what I am is far beyond my limited ego or will. I was one with this life force energy. I brought these insights to serve students in the yoga classes that I taught, and clients in the intuitive healing sessions I facilitated. I was overjoyed with…
The Sun Salutation: Your Portable Gym (Continued from Roots and Inspiration) Bearing in mind the breathing exercises from the past two weeks, here is a simple flow called Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation), which touches all the basic muscle groups and nerve centers: READY: Stand at the front of a yoga mat or non-slip surface, feet hip width apart. PRAYER: Inhale. Bring your palms together in front of your chest. Breathe. Become aware of your breath and bodily sensations. Imagine your body is a tube of breath. You breathe in life-force from the crown of your head, through your spine, right down to your toes. Root into the ground and allow the crown of your head to gently float and broaden. Your spine feels open and long, not stretched. Do not rush this process. FORWARD BEND: Inhale. Raise your arms above your head, palms together. Exhale. Roll forward, vertebra by vertebra, so you end up folded over, hands by your feet. Keep your knees slightly bent to protect your lower back. Take a few breaths. Feel your head respond to gravity, and your legs and spine lengthen. LUNGE: Bend your knees to place both hands on the floor by your feet. Inhale. Step your right leg back, placing the knee on the floor. Your left knee is…
YOGA EXERCISES FOR MUSICIANS [continued from Part 3] Standing: Roots and Inspiration The vertical zero point is called Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Let’s give Mountain Pose a try: 1. Stand, feet hip width apart, knees relaxed. Your navel moves gently back towards your spine, tailbone slightly tilted towards the front of your body so that it releases like a plumb line towards the Earth. Eyes are relaxed yet focused on a point in front of you. The crown of your head broadens and floats gently upward. Shoulders are relaxed. 2. Breathe in. Breathe out. Awareness of your breath deepens. Notice what you feel in your body. Imagine that your spine is the central channel of energy that runs through your body/being. It connects the sky and the earth through you. 3. Feel your feet. Feel your energy move downward, towards the core of the Earth. 4. Notice the crown of your head. Let it float upward. Feel your connection to the sky and the whole. As your feet release into the ground, the Earth meets you. A wave of energy flows up through your body towards the crown of your head. 5. Inhale, draw energy through the crown of your head, through your spine, into your body/being. 6. Exhale. Allow this energy to fill your entire being.…
In the previous two weeks’ posts, we looked at how yoga is relevant to you as a musician. This week and next, I will guide you through exercises from my practice called YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. You can do them anywhere to keep you fit in body, mind and spirit. But first, a couple of things: Keep the Body-Instrument in the Tune of Health Hatha yoga helps your body-instrument stay in the tune of health. When you practice, be aware of your spine. Think of the spine like a flute, through which vital life-force flows. We don’t want to force our sound or damage our instrument. We learn to allow the music of life to flow us. The spine is also like a piano. Each key on a piano must be in tune to make good music. Similarly, when one of our vertebrae is out, we know it through pain and discomfort. String players know that a string must be neither too tight nor too slack. The spine is like a string instrument tuned in perfect resonance, for optimal musicality. Before You Start It is best to practice yoga on an empty stomach. When you do a little light stretching, this does not matter as much, but it is good to keep in…
[Continued from The Power of Yoga] YOGA IS A PRACTICE Healthy In the Midst of It All We are organic, dynamic beings that are meant to move and flow. Enduring long touring car/bus/plane rides, or long stints in the studio, we need to move and stretch regularly to keep our muscles limber and fit for shows. I describe life as producer and touring musician being like moving from zero to 100, when we have to quickly shift from more sedentary creative and administrative work, to jumping up on stage and giving the performance of our life that will woo our fans. We need to learn how to make our life flow with more wholeness and fluidity if we are going to last through it all. The physical exercises found in Hatha Yoga are a series of bodily postures that transition smoothly from one to the next. Each pose is like a position in which we may find ourselves in life. The child pose, for example, when you curl up, folded inward with your head on your knees, shins on the floor, is introverted and rejuvenating, a bit womb-like. We have all been there, and we need to go back to that inner child, in our inner space to create and rejuvenate. Tadasana, or mountain pose, is…
Hello friends, While we are still full tilt on video production for “Yoga in the Nightclub” and “Shanti Om”, my blog postings in the coming weeks will discuss yoga for musicians. Here is part 1. Enjoy! Parvati Finding Balance in a Rock ‘n’ Roll World
The music business is built on rock ‘n’ roll ethics – partying hard and living large – as aspiring stars and executives strive to make their immortal mark on the world and live like gods. When injuries, exhaustion, discontent, overdoses and addictions set in, all artists and business heads must make peace with the sobering fact that we are actually part of nature, and as such, must live by earthly, mortal laws. For some, that may sounds like a drag. But the good news is, living in alignment with nature lets us tap into an infinite well of power and creativity, the very life-force that continually creates this amazing universe in which we live. So why not trade in the never ending, rollercoaster search for temporary highs for a life that welcomes eternal bliss? Trade in Fool’s Gold for the Real Thing If you are tired of fool’s gold not delivering the goods you seek, take a look instead at a radiant, ancient practice and science of life that…
Dear friends, I’m writing from the UK, where the Transcendent Luminosity tour has gotten under way. Yesterday, I was at the wonderful York Yoga Studio where I had an excellent Yoga and Sound workshop with beautiful souls. After that, I met with the owners of Millers Yard to plan the February 2014 Yoga In the Nightclub show. Today, it is off to Bath for a YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshop this evening at Yoga Bodhi. All the details of my tour are available on my website. The weather has been mild here. I hear I am missing some bluster and cold rain back home in Toronto! If you are feeling the chill, have some warming soups at mealtime, and warm drinks through the day such as ginger tea. Foods with rooting energy are also helpful at this time. Until next week, here is another excerpt from my book Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie: A Revolutionary Life Makeover for the Sincere Spiritual Seeker. Wishing you a rooted, vital and expansive week, Parvati GETTING UNSTUCK We each have a place in the tapestry of life. We are born with unique talents and gifts to enjoy and share with the world. Yet most of us, to some degree or another, due to conditioning from our past,…
(Continued from last week’s post) THE PRACTICE OF UJJAYI PRANAYAMA In order to practice ujjayi, a subtle shift takes place in the movement of air-flow, which creates a flowing ocean-like sound. However, too often I have seen an attachment to using this breath create deeper tension in both the physical and energy systems of the practitioner, rather than burning up the ego’s sense of separate self-importance. Aspiring yogis may tend to “manufacture” ujjayi, which creates tension and defeats the purpose of its energetic flow. I have spent a lot of time with students and teachers in yoga sessions undoing a block that is created in the physical and energy body from this type of effortful practice. Effort of any kind requires a certain willpower. But where does this willpower come from? Does it arise from our effortless interconnection with nature? Does is come from our idea of what yoga is? Where are we trying to get to in applying it? If this moment contains all we need to fully realize the oneness of all that is, then any use of wanting to get somewhere else arises from a disconnected state that will only perpetuate more of the same. When practicing Hatha yoga of any kind, we need to cultivate witness consciousness, that is, witnessing the arising…