The Gift of YOGA

WELCOME to Day 10 of the 12-Days of Holiday Joy! Each day I will share with you valuable health, fitness, nutrition and/or wellness information and give lucky winners of the draw an amazing gift!

Today I give you the gift of YOGA!

I was blessed to find yoga about 15 years ago when the gym I worked for added it to the schedule. It was not as popular back then as it is today; however, I really enjoyed it. Since then I have been practicing on and off and more recently, since signing up to take yoga teacher training, I have been practicing daily.

Yoga means union or connection and regular practice of yoga will teach you how to live and love. There are eight limbs of yoga that act as guidelines to create a life of purpose, intention and direction.

The eight limbs of yoga, as outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are:

1) Yama: deals with one’s disciplined integrity in behaviour (the ethics of cleaning up one’s act)

Non-violence
Truth and honesty
Non-stealing
Non-lust
Non-possessiveness

2) Niyama: deals with discipline and spiritual observances (how we treat ourselves, or begin to cultivate the inner being)

Purity
Contentment
Austerity
Study of the sacred text and one’s self
Live with and awareness of the Divine

3) Asana: reattaches the mind and spirit to the body through movement

4) Pranayama: Respiratory practice that leads to the mastery of the connection between breath, mind, and emotions

5) Pratyahara: a conscious effort to draw awareness away from external stimuli and staying aware of the senses without attachment to gradually draw the attention inward.

6) Dharana: Concentrating on an object, sound or mantra to relieve the body from outside distractions to focus the mind.

7) Dhyana: Meditation that is an uninterrupted flow of concentration, or staying keenly aware without focus, to create devotion and connection

8) Samadhi: The connection with the Divine (interconnectedness with all living things) and the inherent state of being at one with the Universe

To learn more, and to being your practice of yoga, click the picture below to check out our new Mind-Body Fundamentals classes, starting January, 2017. Registration now open.