MyLifeYoga

We all want to be happy, healthy and strong. Taking this train of thought a step further, you could probably add the desire to be more at peace, less reactive, and more balanced to the list. Creating these qualities in ourselves can seem like a daunting task. You know what you’d like to have and who you’d like to be, but how do you get there?

In the new movie “The Avengers”, Thor is one of the superheroes who have pledged their lives to fight the bad guys. (There’s no need for a spoiler alert here, I’m not giving anything away.) Unfortunately, the biggest bad guy is Thor’s brother, a circumstance that causes Thor some conflict. At one point in the movie Thor is confronted with the question, “What are you prepared to do?”

As a yoga teacher, I often see students experimenting with yoga as a way to achieve some very admirable goals. They come to the mat, and go through the physical motions of a practice. Then they wait to feel their bodies and lives improve. What these students often don’t realize is that they can make a choice to take a more active role in achieving their goals. You have a say in how you view yourself and your experiences. You can choose your level of conviction and commitment. You can decide how you act, and how you react, to the circumstances in your life. You can make the choice to be a bystander or an active participant. But, “What are you prepared to do?” What are you willing to step up on, to have your feet held to the fire on?

Transforming yourself and your health isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s a process of revealing who you really are when you’re not playing it safe, or pretending, or trying to please other people. On the mat, when you put yourself into a new pose and you stick with it, even though it’s uncomfortable and foreign to you, you learn how to change your body. Once you learn that you can transform your body, you realize that you can do the same thing with the way you think, your habits, and your perspectives.

The happiness, balance, peace and health that you want are available to you. Sit down, find the time and space to be truly honest with yourself, and to listen. When you’re ready to be honest, radically honest, ask yourself “What are you prepared to do?”

Credits: This is a post by Kim Shand of Rethink Yoga. You can find Rethink Yoga’s Facebook page here. This has been posted with permission. You can find the original here.

You may also like: You Don’t Need Permission

In the past few years there has been tremendous progress in understanding meditation. It is now scientifically recognized that the Samadhi state (achieved in deep meditation) is the 4th state of consciousness, distinct from the usual states of consciousness we commonly experience while awake, dreaming, and in deep sleep. This 4th state of consciousness is a deeply restful and rejuvenating state that puts the brain in state of coherence. The ability to increase the orderly functioning of brain has tremendous applications in all fields. It has now been established that this can be done systematically at any age and can help increase IQ, improve decision-making, and increase efficiency.

The medical applications for meditation are simply startling. A 9 year longitudinal study done by American Medical Association, has just concluded that meditation is effective in reducing incidence of heart attacks and deaths from heart attacks. Other studies have shown that meditation is also effective in helping with almost all categories of medical problems. More important findings are related to ability of meditation to reduce stress and help with stress related issues. In addition meditation has been shown to slow down aging and help improve mental functioning in the elderly.

Armies all around the world are now discovering that meditation is the most effective treatment for those suffering from PTSD. In addition millions of school children are already going through meditation programs in public schools because it improves learning and reduces ADHD. The question now for societies is on how to rapidly tap into the power of meditation to improve health and quality of life of its citizens and give it a competitive edge.

Related: Getting Started With Meditation In Nine Easy Steps

Lucy: You learn more when you lose
Charlie Brown: Well then I must be the smartest person in world!!

If failure would guarantee us success wouldn’t we all be very successful? Isn’t it what all the experts are saying: that failure is necessary stepping-stone to success? So what is missing? Why do so many remain stuck on this side of failure while a select few are able to leap over failure and be successful?

The missing ingredient is mastering the art of failure. Here are seven key lessons that will show you how to recover and learn from failure and be successful:

1. Stuck with explaining failure than learning from it

You have to make a critical decision when faced with failure. Rather than remain stuck on trying to “explain” what has happened it may be time to move on. Pick up the pieces, salvage whatever lessons you can learn and focus your energy on the road ahead.

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping-stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” – Johnny Cash

2. Stuck in blame game

A key insight in mastering the art of failure is to answer the question: do you want to be right or do you want to be successful? If your focus is in proving a point then success may remain a distant goal. If on the other hand you want to be successful you will have to accept responsibility for the mistakes you commit. The first step is to stop the blame game. The first question to ask is: What is my role? What did I do wrong? Without accepting responsibility no learning is possible.

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. – John Burroughs Continue reading →