Karoun Yoga Studio Blog

The color red is stimulating!

Published: Tuesday, February 09, 2010, 11:21 AM Updated: Tuesday, February 09, 2010, 5:49 PM

This Valentine's week let's practice unconditional love.

It's that time of the year, time for the holiday decorations to come down. Twinkling lights and glittery things back in the basement, champagne glasses back in their cupboard. And (perhaps exhausted?), we reappear as ourselves again.

This New Year, do something that makes you feel good!

Here's a unique and meaningful way to ring in the new and release the old:

This year, become an expert on receiving. Selfish, you might think? Actually, this is not as selfish as it sounds -- with all the emphasis on giving, we often miss the beauty of receiving.

We have officially entered the season of giving. As the focus is typically on giving to others, it is easy to forget about giving to ourselves. This is particularly ironic since we cannot truly give if we are living in a space of stress and exhaustion.

Last week away from my yoga students, I chose to be a yoga student, and was surprised and humbled by my experience.

This Thursday notice how you connect with your Thanksgiving meal. Perhaps thinking about calories, fat, guilt. Actually, many believe that health is not as much about the food we eat, as it is our relationship with the food, and our relationship with ourselves. Eating is as much a ritual as anything else: the loving process of making the food, setting out the food, sharing the food with one another, even chewing the food. So this week, with each breath and each bite, create a loving and nurturing space for the food to go to (yup, your own body). This is conscious eating. This is Thanksgiving.

The naked trees caught me off guard at my family's summer cabin today. We don't go there in the winter. The depth of the forest surprised me - every trunk, every branch surrounded me in a new leafless beauty.

There is so much to celebrate this week! While a yoga celebration allows us to uncover our masks of stress and anxiety and reveal our true selves, the Halloween celebration gives us an opportunity to hide beneath costumes of witches and goblins and act as we please. Each, a different form of celebration.