MyLifeYoga

A newlywed couple moved to an apartment in a very busy neighborhood. On the first morning in their new home, after she had made coffee, the young bride looked through the window and watched her neighbor hanging sheets out to dry. “What dirty sheets!” she thought to herself.

“Maybe she needs to buy a different kind of detergent. I should go and teach her how to wash them properly.” Every few days, she muttered the same thing to her husband with disdain while watching her neighbor hanging out the dirty laundry in the early-morning light.

A month passed, and one day the young wife was surprised to see that her neighbor was hanging out perfectly clean sheets. She exclaimed to her husband, “Look! She finally learned to wash her clothes. I wonder who taught her how.”

The husband replied, “Well, in reality, darling, the only difference is that I got up early this morning and cleaned the window.

Too often we are willing to judge people, without realizing that what we perceive may not reflect the real situation. We view the world through the lens of our pre-conceptions. In many cases, the fault may not be with the other person but in our perception. Yoga can help bring clarity to our mind. This allows us to more easily get rid of our inherent biases. When we become less judgmental, love and light flows into our heart.

Credits
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Angela Patton lives in Richmond, Viginia and is the founder and executive director of Camp DIVA. This is a non-profit dedicated to the needs of African-American girls, allowing them to grow into healthy women. In 2011, Angela was voted one of the Top 40 Under 40 community leaders in the Richmond Metropolitan Area. She also received the Chesterfield County Outstanding Youth Awards’ “Quiet Heroes” Award from the Chesterfield County Department of Youth Planning and Development.

In this short but inspring video Angela describes the evolution of a program devoted to develop a healthy relationship between daughters and their fathers.

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Camp Diva

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The healing powers of Yoga are now quite well known. But how does yoga work its magic? This posts explores six ways how yoga helps us:

1. Turns down the volume knob on our emotions

Yoga helps reduce the overall level of stress in our system. When stress levels go down the volume level of our emotions also comes down. Our emotional reaction to events reduces and we gain more control of our lives. When we have exaggerated emotional outbursts our stress levels go up, and this sets the stage for a higher emotional reaction, and the cycle continues and gets worse. For some this may lead to emotional breakdown or other mental or psychological problems. Yoga breaks this cycle by reducing stress levels. It also allows emotions to come out in a healthy way without increasing stress levels. This allows emotional healing to take place.

2. Reduces stress for physical healing

The stress response is a “fight-or-flight” response. This puts our mind-body system in an emergency mode that postpones repairs and healing. This allows the body to conserve energy that may be required to respond to a “fight-or-flee” situation. This is why chronic stress is the leading cause of ill health and visits to the doctor. Because yoga is the best known antidote for stress it allows our body to restore itself back to health.

“The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what’s been called the relaxation response. When you do yoga — the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body — you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the relaxation response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms.”
~Richard Faulds

3. Allows cartilages to heal

Cartilages get their blood supply not through blood vessels but indirectly through diffusion and pumping action of nearby tissue. Non-impact physical activity is therefore necessary to keep our cartilages healthy as we age. If this is absent cartilages ossify leading to problems. Since yoga postures bend, twist, and stretch muscles and cartilages they are perfect for restoring blood supply and health to cartilages. Continue reading →