We experience happiness as a series of pleasing moments. They come and go like clouds, unpredictable, fleeting, and without responsibility to our desires. Through honest self-work, reflection, and meditation, we begin to string more of these moments together, creating a web-like design of happiness that drapes around our lives.
Tara Stiles
Efficiency is a great secret that can drop us right into our ideal life path, but it is a hard one to practice and something that takes constant maintenance and work.
We all strive for balance, often moving to extremes to find ourselves somewhere in the middle where we can sustainably exist in optimal inspiration. Working toward balance takes a lot of ingredients. We need courage, reflection, attention, action, and a push-and-pull relationship between effort and relaxation.
Tension can be useful, exciting, flirtatious, strength-building, or destructive. Put yourself in charge of how you direct it.
There are people who intensely clutch an idea that yoga is a higher system, not to be lowered to the weight loss or even fitness category. This is the same kind of clutching that has kept yoga part of a tightly knit club for so long since its introduction in America.
When we find comfort in knowing that all the love and support we need is housed inside us, we can honestly share that joy with others without needing anything in return.
There is no limit on life besides the one we put on ourselves.
Balance takes work. Lots of it. There is no endpoint in balance, no goal, no finalization. Balance requires practice, patience, and - most importantly - movement. We often get stuck in our ways and form habits based on our fears and driven by our insecurities.
We are all connected. The pain and suffering of others is yours also, on some level, whether you choose to pay attention or not. The reason we can't achieve total bliss is because you're not here solo.
I think yoga should be for everyone, not just the folks who change their name to something Hindu.
We spend so much time closing ourselves to protect from scary things that we forget that when we do open to the world, inspiration can flow.
Stress happens. In different ways, we all hold unnecessary tension in our bodies all day long. Shoulders, neck, wrists, hips, hamstrings, back, oh my!
I've had a righteous streak since as long as I can remember. I never tolerated bullying from kids or authority, no matter the case. I got into trouble for calling things how I saw it in my early years at Catholic school, but I couldn't help myself.
Over-working gets less done. We all have experienced this. We can push ourselves to exhaustion, but things get done with less attention, and our bodies eventually break down.
Yoga and mediation exist whether we choose to acknowledge or practice. It's like a tree. You can walk by the tree and inhale the oxygen it provides consciously or unconsciously. You'll still be benefiting from the tree.
Friendships naturally shift over life. We have different friends for different times in our lives, and sometimes it's not the best idea to hang on to a friendship to try to make it work if it's an unhealthy connection.
Distractions can take us in an exciting direction but most often borrow our attention briefly without much resistance and take their sweet time giving it back. Distractions lure us in with an easy escape and then trick us by stealing our attention.
Yoga practice is therapeutic for the body and mind, reminds us of our goodness, energizes our creativity, and inspires.
One of my favorite teachers is Osho, mainly because he liked to push people's buttons just to get them to think and live outside of their comfort zone.
Yoga can get at the roots of issues that cause behaviors leading to obesity, heart disease, and stress.
When doing something you love, no matter what you'd be getting paid or think the outcome might be, not only will you enjoy yourself more, but you have a better chance of actually creating a sustainable life. Happiness is contagious.
Tension happens. It will continue to happen. If we didn't have tension, we wouldn't be alive. How we maintenance ourselves makes all the difference in how we live our lives.
Living, breathing, and being present is the practice that can lead us to having a full and authentic in-the-body experience. If we can shift our perspective from being separate to being part of it all, psychological hang-ups, insecurities, fears, and disorders dissolve.
We get so caught up in doing everything for ourselves, including inspiring ourselves, that it's exhausting and not at all useful. Take a look around you. Look at your friends. Open up to your friends and take in the caring and good intentions they hold toward you.
Meditation has taught me to be in the present moment and observe the present moment at the same time. Just breathe, follow your breath, and your intuition can take you from there.
Our state of mind affects completely how we treat our bodies.
The first rule of negotiation is to always be willing to walk away from the deal. The first rule of happiness is to not be attached to pleasing moments.
I started practicing yoga when I was a teenager, studying classical dance. My body and mind were very open but not very strong. I was trusting, excited, passionate, and receptive. All good qualities when balanced with the proper amount of strength and awareness.
Meditation will sharpen your senses and your awareness.
Wal-Mart is like a physical version of YouTube. You can find anything you want on YouTube. It let me access millions of people online who maybe wouldn't have tried yoga. Wal-Mart carries a similar heavy weight in its ability to reach people.
Extra weight - whether it's physical, emotional, or spiritual - holds us back from our health and our potential. Overeating is a behavior caused by stress, depression, excitement, fun with friends, self-sabotage, and countless other feelings, emotions, and circumstances. There can always be an occasion to eat and overeat.
Filter from your tap, and if you do occasionally buy the bottles, please recycle.
It's hard to escape bullies that come in many shapes and forms. The processed food industry, corrupt religious organizations, and celebrity worship culture are just a few that we deal with in modern times.
The mere acknowledgment that 'God is watching' can act as a trap, fueling bad behavior, corruption, and guilt, all remedied by God's forgiveness. No personal responsibility is needed - someone on the outside sees whatever we're doing and makes it all OK.
A swollen belly is a lot of pressure on the back.
When you practice yoga regularly, you get more then you will from jogging on the treadmill catching up on the last season of 'Lost.' When you practice yoga, you use your body and your mind, and you're gaining awareness and intuition.
Yoga puts us back in touch with our bodies' needs and equips us with the tools we already have: the intuition and awareness to nourish our bodies properly with wholesome, healthy foods. Yoga doesn't show us how to starve ourselves. That is a terrible disorder, as terrible as overeating.
Inspiration is a force not to be wrestled with. You can try, but it will slip under the cracks every time.
Read labels in your favorite products. Look for short lists of simple, less-processed ingredients with names you recognize as food. If you find some of the same ingredients in your cereal as your shampoo, maybe it's time to switch to something simpler.
We all have insecurities. It takes maintenance and constant practice to first identify what they are so we can have an understanding of how we tick and, second, to put forth the action to deal with them.
This idea of bringing awareness to our lives seems like a good idea, right? We'll gain a productive, enjoyable, reflective life and be able to extend compassion, empathy, and joy to others. That seems like a pretty good deal.
You are the only thing holding you back from happiness. You have the ability to change your life radically for better or worse.
A huge problem we face when we're in need is giving up our intuition and blindly following instruction. Letting go works when we are following our hearts, but not so well when we are following a leader.
If you are inflexible in the body, look at what you are holding onto unnecessarily in your life. Release tension, and life will open up.
Yoga is not about the history of yoga. Yoga is not about being in a sacred community of the initiated few. Yoga is about uniting inward, which takes place in the present, not the past, in each and every moment.
If we eat healthy and live healthy, then that's sustainable.
Holiday drinking in my family happens about as often as Sarah Palin is spotted reading the 'New York Times.' Neither of my parents are big drinkers, probably because they each had a parent that was.
Our lives are full of distractions, and that's life. The sounds of the street, the thoughts in our minds, family on-goings, tasks at work, and Facebook friends, oh my!
I'm a pushover for cleaning items that come in packages of three or more.
I've never had a problem with Jesus. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's just the kind of guy you'd always want to have around. But I have had a big problem with his agents, publicists, and managers. They've abused his message for power and converted moldable, excited people into bullied believers and followers.
