Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

WWJD May 2, 2013

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:28 pm
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I was looking through my list of things I want to post about someday, and I came across the following link: Just Because You Love Jesus Doesn’t Mean You Have to Disrespect the Buddha, Dishonor Muhammad or Disregard Moses. Brian McLaren wrote that article to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, but it’s just as valuable today – perhaps even more so, in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. I’ve seen a lot of hateful press about Muslims recently, stories with strongly worded headlines above photos of wounded people. It’s propaganda, and it saddens me. After the bombing, the city of Boston came together in pride and strength, and the rest of the US sent our support and love. Now a few weeks later, that community feeling has degenerated into hatred for those who follow the same faith as the bombers. After a wound or a scare like this, it can be painfully difficult to be open-hearted, but Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna alike would call us to that challenge. I hope to see more articles like McLaren’s that make us think about what Jesus truly would do and say if he were here today and inspire us to be gentler and kinder.

 

 

 

Meditating Machinery April 25, 2013

Filed under: Miscellaneous — R. H. Ward @ 1:03 pm
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Well, this is the most fascinating thing I’ve seen all week: Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won

This artist creates sculptures that fuse figures of Buddha and Bodhisattva with gears and moving metal parts. (Make sure to watch the videos.) The result is both beautiful and kind of creepy, both meditative and totally sci fi in a way I haven’t ever really seen before. I can imagine that watching the sculptures move would be a kind of meditation in and of itself. Enjoy!

 

Profound Wisdom from Bob Ross April 18, 2013

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 2:29 pm
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In a week in which some really horrible violence happened in Boston, and in which a large portion of the US Senate voted to support violence, I think it’s a good idea to revisit the words of someone with a gentle spirit: Bob Ross.

Not long ago, I posted about a great inspirational Bob Ross video. Yesterday I saw this collection of 20 Essential Life Lessons from Bob, complete with quotes and images, and I knew I had to share. I hope it makes you smile and think peaceful thoughts about happy trees and beautiful safe places.

 

 

Stop Worrying April 4, 2013

Filed under: wellness,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 12:49 pm
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I was impressed with this article: The Most Surprising Regret Of The Very Old — And How You Can Avoid It. The author, Karl Pillemer, asked hundreds of older Americans what they regretted most, and the answer was often that they regretted the time they spent worrying. Here’s a quote:

Their advice on this issue is devastatingly simple and direct: Worry is an enormous waste of your precious and limited lifetime. They suggested training yourself to reduce or eliminate worrying as the single most positive step you can make toward greater happiness. The elders conveyed, in urgent terms, that worry is an unnecessary barrier to joy and contentment.

The implications of Pillemer’s research are clear: don’t waste time on worry. Instead, go out and live your precious life! The article includes three tips for how to accomplish this, including focusing on the short term instead of the long term (present moment!), and practicing an attitude of acceptance. This strategy fits right in with what Patanjali tells us in the Yoga Sutras: when negative thoughts arise, positive ones should be thought of instead. For more ideas along these lines, check out my past post on Yoga & Emotions: Worry.

What do you think? What are your techniques to reduce how much you worry?

 

All of my peeps do yoga April 2, 2013

Filed under: yoga — R. H. Ward @ 1:38 pm
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I hope you all had a happy Easter, a great Passover, or a pleasant spring holiday of your choice. (For more yoga peeps, check out this and this.)

 

What to really expect at your first yoga class March 21, 2013

Filed under: yoga — R. H. Ward @ 1:21 pm
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I love this fun snarky post by Rob Pollak: What to really expect at your first yoga class. Accurate in many ways, especially “you will have no idea what is happening” , and I love the ending. Because no matter how confusing, weird, and embarrassing yoga may seem the first time you try it, it’s totally worth sticking with it.

 

How to be a calm parent March 14, 2013

Filed under: yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:10 pm
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A friend sent me this great article: How to be a calm parent. I love this long list of ways to keep yourself calm when your children are inspiring not-calm. I’m going to file this away for future reference when YogaBaby becomes YogaKid. What things do you to keep calm in tough parenting situations? (Or any situations!)

 

Damsel, Arise February 12, 2013

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:00 pm
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Here at the yoga blog, I’ve often written in the past about the intersections of yoga with Christianity, and I’ve shared my opinion that yoga and Christianity are very compatible, because most of the things that Jesus says line up really nicely with most of the things that Patanjali says in the Yoga Sutras, or Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita. And I’ve shared my inability to understand the individuals of the Christian “religious right”, who say that God hates certain kinds of people, or who act hatefully towards certain groups. In my opinion, it’s more important to do the things that Jesus told us to do, like loving our neighbors and being kind, and I have trouble understanding how people who say they are Christian can act in ways that seem to be such a blatant contradiction of what Jesus actually said and how he himself acted.

And the other day, I read this article, Damsel, Arise: A Westboro Scion Leaves Her Church. And I was filled with hope. This person who genuinely wants to do good in the world, and who thought she was doing good, was still able to have an open mind, to engage in discussion on religious issues, to reconsider her actions and to change her life. I found the article, and Megan’s journey, to be incredibly inspiring, and I thank her deeply for sharing her story.

 

Meditation: It’s Good for Your Brain February 7, 2013

Filed under: yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 8:23 pm
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A while back (okay, a LONG while back) my husband F sent me a link to this article on ScienceDaily: Is Meditation the Push-Up for the Brain? The article discusses the work of researchers at UCLA, who found that the brains of long-term meditators had stronger connections between brain regions than non-meditators, and their brains showed less age-related atrophy. Stronger connections means that the brain can more quickly and efficiently relay signals from one region to another. Our brains shrink and become less efficient as we age, so meditation could help people to stay sharper longer.

But if you’re not a long-term meditator yet, take heart: another study shows positive effects on brain function for beginning meditators too. This article, Meditation’s Positive Residual Effects, reports research showing that after completing an eight-week meditation class, study participants demonstrated improved emotional regulation, even when not actively meditating. Tested before and after the class, the partcipants’ brains showed a reduction in response to emotional stimuli – perhaps this could translate to an increased ability to stay calm in frustrating situations?

The study also had another finding: participants who studied compassion meditation, as opposed to mindfulness meditation, and who practiced frequently outside of class, showed the decreased response to emotional stimuli overall, but they also showed an increased response to images depicting human suffering. By meditating, these people increased their own capacity to feel compassion for others. And the study showed that those who demonstrated increased compassion also had lower depression scores. It’s scientific evidence supporting what many meditation teachers and spiritual leaders have said all along: that compassion for others makes you happier too.

 

Another perspective on quinoa January 31, 2013

Filed under: yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 8:28 pm
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Last week I got all worked up about that quinoa article. It really upset me to think that my eating habits were in some small way causing problems for the farmers who grow my food. Now an article on Slate.com tells me not to worry: It’s OK to Eat Quinoa. Writer Ari LeVaux describes why the problem isn’t as simple as the article in the Guardian made it out to be, and why higher prices are actually a good thing for most quinoa growers.

Being incredibly busy as I am, the temptation for me is to heave a sigh of relief and file this issue away under “resolved”. After all, there are plenty of sources that tell you why a particular food is good for you and also a plethora of sources warning you never to eat that food. Meat, edamame, wheat, and dairy products are all examples of foods that have fervent defenders and equally fervent opponents. If you listened to everybody who told you not to eat a certain food, you’d never eat anything. So after reading the Guardian article, I didn’t have any plans to eliminate quinoa from my diet, and I still don’t. But this Slate article has reminded me that there are not just two sides to any story but many, and that global issues are rarely simple enough to be discussed in black and white, yes and no terms. My takeaway, I think, is to buy fair trade, and to remember that the food I eat – not just quinoa but all the food – was harvested or squeezed or gathered or or processed by someone’s hands somewhere, and it probably passed through a lot of other pairs of hands to get to me. It’d be a good idea to keep a sense of that, to keep things in perspective, and to remember to teach my daughter that food doesn’t just appear on shelves by magic.