Category: Beautiful Things

Categories
Beautiful Things

Tiramisu of Delight NOT Stress

Referring to this post from few days ago – click here. I think either with or without children, single and alone or whatever the marital status, young, old and in-between – it does not matter – everyone, especially the most conscientious, studious and the highly driven, hard-working types have that risk of becoming “maxed out” and burning out. Yoga practice has really taught me what I need to do (or not do as the case may be) to best take care of myself and those who I care about – family, friends, students … I’ve also found Judith Hanson Lasater’s book, “Living Your Yoga” really insightful to take yoga practice from ON the mat to OFF the mat into the everyday life. Highly recommended as it was one of many books on my teacher training MUST-books. It’s a gem of a book that helps you deal with life’s disruptions, struggles, and disturbances culminating to agitations and generalized anxieties with a little more equanimity and grace – wait, that’s yoga!

tiramisugreen Here’s the green Matcha Tiramisu
teramisucoco & the traditional Cocoa/Cacao Tiramisu

BTW, right after scrumptious tiramisu cake photos, this may seem at odds BUT … it’s true – we are balancing out our neural pathways when we engage in poses well sequenced … physically, we are more than just our muscles, skeletal bones and connective tissues and internal organs and brains …all those parts of the whole and MORE get a boost when we practice – we are complicated but sometimes there’s a simple solution, i.e., YOGA:

nervous systemFeeling so blessed to find this practice – Delicious Yin & Vinyasa Flow in the mornings; Gentle Flow, Yin and if I’m lucky, Restorative in the Evenings- flushing out the system but not losing the essence … Just feel GOOD. ENERGIZED in one’s own skin – feeling that clarity like azure blue ocean glistening. Thank you for this practice.

Categories
Beautiful Deeds Beautiful People Beautiful Things

“GOING HOME” framed…

I shared the story of how I finally framed Amaey’s painting acquired from Kids & Art fundraiser awhile ago. I hadn’t posted the actual final framed painting because my limited photography skill does not seem to capture what I see – what is it that I see that the everyday camera does not capture? It’s a soft shroud of light, there’s sort of what you might call an aura about this painting. The frame I found was wood with golden wash of paint … simple, elegant and … golden to bring out the colors of the painting:

IMG_1445See what I mean – whenever I hold the camera in front where it hangs, there’s always a reflection … here you see the white dotted lights I have no idea where they came from … so I took it down to see how I may take a better photo of it and here comes my helper …woof, woof.
IMG_1527
IMG_1668
IMG_1576

It hangs in a room with much foot traffic, as it is a place of gathering. Thus, I am constantly reminded of this precious gift we are given. Quite central, it comes into my view often. How lucky we are to be in this particular “home”, how lucky we are for our souls are abiding within us, our eternal home. I live with gratitude, that we all live under the sun and the moon, the rays of light that does not dispel the darkness, but sometimes shines onto the darker shadowy corners and deeper pits hidden under the layers – light and darkness; happiness and grief … yes, joy and sorrow; health and disease; laughter and tears, or is it anger, sweet and bitter – polar opposites and all the subtle range in-between that are the undeniable human experiences. Through acceptance, learning to know that opposites are actually complementary and finding to calibrate that homeostasis in the middle.

This unpretentious painting sends a powerful message to me. It’s pure; it’s innocent and honest like children are. Thank you for leaving behind such beauty Amaey, the brave soul who faced death squarely so early in life with …hope and faith. I know you didn’t even think in such terms when engaged and focused in doing what you loved doing – all the while there might have been dread, fear, sadness … a longing for normalcy by “going home”. Just painting, creating, expressing in the moment; never thinking past that. Living in the present.

More often than not, we learn our profound teachings of resilience from our youngest teachers.

Categories
Beautiful Places Beautiful Things Healthy Activities Healthy Food Healthy Living Yoga

Neuroplasticity – it’s in the groove!

IMG_1475First time visiting – my kind of place !!!

IMG_1469Sun Salutation Wrap !!! Yum!
IMG_1348

Srivatsa Ramaswami was a direct student of late Krishnamacharya (known as father of modern yoga) for over 30 years. Other than Krishnamacharya’s son, TKV Desikachar, Ramaswami is probably one of the oldest students, outside of Krishnamacharya’s family. In one of the workshops “Yoga for Internal Organs”, I had the luck of attending, Ramaswami commented how there are people who embrace practice of meditation only and feel no need for other more physical movement based practice, but he says, “it’s both”. You need both. AND true yoga practice is just that – most people associate yoga with just pretzel poses but that’s just one of eight limbs – meditation and pranayama practice is just as important and should be weaved into that “yoga” practice of our’s. Here’s some definitions straight from Wikipedia on Neuroplasticity … which is about how we are empowered to heal and regenerate ourselves – Yoga can play a big part in that process, I am learning.

Meditation
A number of studies have linked meditation practice to differences in cortical thickness or density of gray matter. One of the most well-known studies to demonstrate this was led by Sara Lazar, from Harvard University, in 2000. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has led experiments in cooperation with the Dalai Lama on effects of meditation on the brain. His results suggest that long-term, or short-term practice of meditation results in different levels of activity in brain regions associated with such qualities as attention, anxiety, depression, fear, anger, the ability of the body to heal itself, and so on. These functional changes may be caused by changes in the physical structure of the brain.

Fitness and exercise
Aerobic exercise promotes adult neurogenesis by increasing the production of neurotrophic factors (compounds which promote the growth or survival of neurons), such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), insulin-like growth factor, and vascular endothelial growth factor. Exercise-induced neurogenesis in the hippocampus is associated with measurable improvements in spatial memory.Consistent aerobic exercise over a period of several months induces marked clinically significant improvements in executive function (i.e., the “cognitive control” of behavior) and increased gray matter volume in multiple brain regions, particularly those which give rise to cognitive control.The brain structures that show the greatest improvements in gray matter volume in response to aerobic exercise are the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus;moderate improvements seen in the anterior cingulate cortex, parietal cortex, cerebellum, caudate nucleus, and nucleus accumbens.Higher physical fitness scores (measured by VO2 max) are associated with better executive function, faster processing speed, and greater volume of the hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and nucleus accumbens.

– excerpt from wikipedia

I am so in awe of YOGA because the practice in so many different styles covers both: the need for stillness as well as need for movement – both yielding the benefit of meditation when you engage in yoga. Yoga does not fix any particular disease, illness or a condition; BUT the person engaged in the practice of yoga changes – the PERSON, the practitioner changes – it’s not a cure of the condition but … it’s getting to the person; not the illness. It’s not a prescription – but healing that’s self-generated … in short, it’s a discovery of yourself as a healer of self and then … the world around you. You are the healer when you listen to your inner wisdom and connect to the higher self.
IMG_1343