We are still basking in the magic of Sedona and the Sedona Yoga Festival. Deep gratitude and love to everyone who came to our workshops, and huge high five to Heather and Marc Titus for organizing the best Sedona Yoga event yet! Thanks also to Ruth at Seven Centers for hosting the first of our workshops in Sedona. Seven Centers is an amazing space with beautiful energy!
We know that the official Valentines Day has passed but in this "Love is All You Need" newsletter we reveal how to make every day of our lives Valentines Day. This means listening to our Aquarian brain, coming from our Heart, and continually cultivating a wider view so we can be sure to curb the many ways we trip ourselves up in our love lives. Love is all we need and we'll explain more below.
By the Numbers
In February we pay homage to the second body of light. The Second Body is called Negative Mind but its truer definition is discerning mind (crap detector), as in: not that, not this, but... THAT! In honor of Valentines Day we need to cultivate the clarity to discern between romance and reality. It's great to be wide open, but in life as we know it, we have to temper that with critical thinking. May we have the temperance, temerity, and good sense to surrender to the things that will never let us down: The Teachings of Spirit. The Universe. A true Teacher who truly empowers us.
Saturday, March 7 - Sonora, CA
Sonora is at the base of the high Sierra Mountains. Its an amazingly beautiful area of California. There are scenic mountain passes here, old gold rush towns, and more. We are so excited to visit this area! Our workshop will be: Shake Your Chakras & Rock Your Soul at The Yoga Loft - 72 S. Stewart St. - 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. $40 We hope to see you. Consider combining this workshop with the Walnut Creek, CA workshop below and make a weekend of it! Reg. Info: Tonya at 575. 654.0493 or Cherie at 209.484.4940 / www.yogaloftsonora.com Download Flier Here
Sunday March 8th: Indigo Yoga, Walnut Creek, CA
We're excited to be heading back to Indigo Yoga where we recently presented a Teacher Training. Shed your winter toxins for the advent of Spring! This workshop, Yoga Cleanse, Lighten Up & Purify will be 1-3 p.m. and is $40. To register:
Congratulations to our newest crop of Teacher Trainees who just completed our 200 hr. Training in Springfield, MO. We loved spending time with all of the beautiful Keep-Up'ers in Springfield. Very special thanks to Rod Buckner and Cheryl Hemmert who went above and beyond to organize this event. Special thanks also to Dustin Turner (owner of Yoga Studio 72) as well as Mark Beck and Christine Rogers, 300 hr. graduates who taught so wonderfully in this course.
Our next Teacher Training will be in Orwigsburg, PA (only 2 hrs. from NYC!). Module 1 begins on April 10th! You may not want to be a Teacher of Kundalini Yoga right away but possibly you want to enter into this Soul Training to deepen your practice and accelerate your inner evolution.
Download flier here!
Treat Yourself (or a Loved One) to a Phone Consult with Ravi Are you ready for a breakthrough? Do you have specific goals for which you would like to apply the most appropriate inner technology? Would you like some clarity with regard to the person you're meant to be and your Mission on this earth? Do you have an emotional or physical health issue which has resisted your best attempts? Ravi Singh will draw upon his long experience as a Teacher and Spiritual Adviser and provide counseling and a recommendation for a Meditation practice going forward. Each consultation is one hour and 108 dollars. Please reply to this e-mail if you'd like to set up and appointment. Let us know the best day/time for you and your birth date.
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Love is All You Need!
We are social beings. We are born into relationship, relationship is where we are wounded, and relationships are ultimately where we find healing. There is no getting around relationship!
Internal work on ourselves is essential, but we never will know if all that good work "took" until it's confirmed in the context of relationship.
Once there was yogi who spend years and years meditating in a mountain cave. One day he decided to go down into the nearest town to be among other people and gauge his Spiritual progress. Later that day he was walking through a bazaar when someone bumped into him. Without thinking he rudely retorted, "Hey watch where you're going." At that moment he knew that despite all of his meditating, he still had much work to do to curb his reactive awareness. This of course is an analogy for all of us in relationship. No matter how together we think we are, the moment we get into an intimate relationship, all bets are off.
This is in keeping with our "Make your yoga your life and your life your yoga," maxim. Yoga Bhajan called relationship the highest yoga. He also called marriage "...the carriage to Infinity" When we get our buttons pressed may we learn to light up instead of implode!
Old Brain vs. New (Aquarian Brain)
There is a shifty eyed lizard living at the base of our skull. It's called our old brain. It gives orders to our First Chakra. The First Chakra, being all about survival, is hyper-vigilant for any sign of a threat. In fact, it magnifies threats just to make sure we get the message. It's M.O. is overkill. Our old brain doesn't live by clocks and calendars. Every past pain is still happening in its cloistered world. In relationship our unconscious brain's agenda is isolation as well as the recreation of the initial conditions for old hurts in the attempt to generate a different outcome. This is not to place blame on our parents: even the most wonderful, loving parents in the world can't respond perfectly to all the needs of us "insatiable beings (Freud)!"
The Old Brain / First Chakra is the domain of all of those pesky traits that generate a dysfunctional dynamic in relationship: jealousy, rage, the need to control, and the unwillingness to let our partner be who they truly are. The polarity to these traits come under the aegis of our neo-cortex or New Brain (our Aquarian Brain). The New Brain is what makes humans human. It relates to social graces and the evolutionary trend towards group consciousness (one large tribe). It also gives us sensitivity to the web of life and our place in the Universe. Our New Brain knows how to talk to our Old Brain in a way that "soothes the savage beast." Our New Brain inspires us to be our best self.
Many couples have a hard time staying together because after the initial honeymoon period, each begins to feel that they've had to give up too much to be who the other person needs them to be. An inevitable backlash occurs. Hell hath no fury like our Old Brain feeling boxed in.
Understanding this basic fact about the nature of our unconscious can help us understand why we sometimes have feelings in our relationship that seem alarmingly out of proportion to the events that triggered them. When our partners seem insensitive or unavailable, a red warning light starts flashing deep in our brain.
The old brain, like the first chakra, is entirely self-referential. The path to wholeness entails moving from self-referential to referencing the Self! This is the province of our New Brain. The New Brain understands that the other person is us. It helps us learn to not take things personally but Universally!
Carl Jung said that, "The birth of consciousness can not occur without experiencing pain." The drama of our life is trying to turn wounds into blessings. Just as a raindrop can't come into being without a particle to form around, the unfolding of essence can't happen unless we are willing to be a little vulnerable and turn past pain into Infinite gain.
How to keep our Old Brain from raining on our parade and bring our New Brain online? We recommend our Journey thru the Chakras DVD, our Kundalini Yoga Transformer DVD, and of course our Meditation DVD. Triple Kriya, which entails doing Sat Kriya, the Sa Ta Na Ma Meditation and So Darshan Chakra Kriya is an amazing practice to cultivate the inner tools to thrive in relationship.
Ten Characteristics of a Conscious Relationship
The Kundalini Yoga path to relationship success is all about the willingness to honor being together with someone as a sacred path. Relationship is not a static state between two static people. It's a psyche and soul journey that begins in the joy of new love, winds through a maze of tough lessons, and culminates in the creation of an intimate, ecstatic, lifelong union. It's a journey of discovery to liberate the hidden parts of ourselves and honor shared Destiny. Conscious relationship is a venue in which we can satisfy our unmet childhood needs in positive ways and express our deep soul.
The Kundalini Yoga way is to ask ourselves this question whenever we enter into a relationship with someone: "Am I going to create karma with this person or Dharma?" Karma perpetuates suffering. Dharma represents a legacy of healing and grace. When two people encourage each other to live their best self, by example, then the world and all the generations of follow benefit.
A relationship's saving grace is in expressing compassion and validating our partner's essence. When a couple combines their uniqueness they create something greater than either can create alone. By giving up something we gain a great deal more. This is relationship alchemy.
On the Path to wholeness in relationship:
1. Spend some time each day on things of the Spirit (if possible, a spirtual practice is ideal) with the understanding that the healing of childhood wounds is a deep metaphor for the journey from self to Self. 2. We learn to see our partner not as someone there to save us, but as a partner on our healing path. 3 We don't expect our partner to magically intuit our needs. We take responsibility for communicating our needs and desires to our partner. 4. We do our best to give our partner the love they never received. 5. We create an atmosphere in which each can be true to themselves and grow. 6. We do things for each other in the spirit of joy rather than obligation. 7. We work together to cultivate truth, Spirit, and beauty and continue the work on ourselves to develop our strengths and gifts. 8. We remember to have fun together. 9. We embrace the timeless truth that a successful relationship requires commitment, discipline, and the courage to grow and change. 10. We commit to commitment and cultivate an ecstatic overview.
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Get Ready for Spirit Rising Spring!
It's the time of year when to enact our most fervent resolutions. That means to get down on the floor and rock our practice. And of course it's always Soul Fitness season!
Fun Trim/Tone Rotation:
Be Flexible & Free
Move Your Energy Move Your LIfe!
Emotion to Devotion
Up Your Personal Power Quotient
Sparkle and Shine!
Our DVD's are also available on
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Anger to Inspiration
A few days ago I made a promise to myself to not get angry for 40 days. Then this morning I changed the headlights in my 1999 Saab (Saabs are notoriously amazingly weird and difficult to work on. There's a reason the mechanics charge $150/hr to work on them) and it took me two hours, dismantling the front end to get to the lights, and copious voluminous swearing. So I guess the next time I promise to give up anger for a period of time I will pay someone else to work on my car should the need arise. I'm sure there's another lesson in there somewhere. :)
The effort to change anger into inspiration is one of life's great projects! Anger is not necessarily a bad thing. If we can be conscious about it it can become inspiration in a moment. The bedrock issue is learning to overcome reactive awareness.
The chakra associated with anger is the Navel Chakra (rage would be the First Chakra). Many high-powered people are infamous for their hair-trigger temper. The Navel Chakra also relates to patience. When our Navel Chakra is well-aspected we can be self-contained and learn to think before we act. For anger issues we recommend our Yoga Cleanse DVD which focuses on the liver. Our Kundalini Yoga Transformer DVD is designed to turn buried rage into energy we can use to do great things. And of course our Navel Power DVD is a must have to turn anger into inspiration.
Our Secret
Hi Ravi and Ana, I hope you don't mind me asking this: you guys seem so in sync. Do you care to share any of your secrets for keeping things fresh. I really appreciate whatever you want to share.
When we first moved in together we were living in Ravi's tiny studio apartment in New York City. We both had to make a lot of adjustments to accommodate each other. What got us through the first year was doing So Darshan Chakra Kriya for 62 min. in the pre-dawn. That helped us to burn through a lot of things that probably would've been major obstacles down the road. Each night before bed Ravi gives this lucky girl a foot massage as he chants mantras. This simple ritual keeps things very harmonious and prevents the type of fights that start over nothing and devolve from there.
We have another ritual. One of us will say to the other: "Quick tell me five things you love about me." That immediately takes us out of tense moments into a deep appreciation of what we have together. Another things that bonds us is a feeling of shared Destiny and our love for all you guys out there! :)
Insomnia
Lately I've been having trouble staying asleep and then I'm up half the night. I'm a little desperate! Which of your DVD's do you think can help me? I really appreciate you help with this!
We are sorry to hear of your struggle with this issue. We recommend the PM set on our Am/Pm Yoga DVD, especially the Shabd Kriya Meditation. It helps to clear away the stress of the day and put us in sleep mode. Simply sit up in bed and start that Meditation until you feel sleepy. When sleep issues are compromising us it's very important to regulate our pineal gland. The pineal gland is responsible for our daily rhythms. So many things can upset our natural rhythms. We suggest turning off all of your electronics, including your TV an hour before bed. The Deep Meditation in Thoughtlessness on our Meditation DVD can help to reset the pineal gland.
Heartache
Good morning. Oh, how I love love love your DVDs!!! Will you please tell me what in Kundalini Yoga can help to ease heartache??? (Relationship with boyfriend of 3+ years is unravelling)...Thank you so much for everything...
We are sorry to hear of your life challenge. We recommend the SaTaNaMa Meditation which is taught on our Yoga Quick Fixes and Yoga House Call DVD's. We suggest an extended version: 5 min. out loud, 5 min. whisper, 10 min. in silence, 5 min whisper, 5 min. out loud. You are pressing your thumb tips against our index (Sa), middle (Ta), ring (Na), and little fingers (Ma). Feel the consonants (S,T,N,M) coming in through the top of the head, and the "ah" sound on a parallel plane out the brow, like the letter "L." As you are doing this Meditation, feel the feelings you've been going through. Sa Ta Na Ma means: existence, life, transformation, rebirth, and represents the rhythm of the Universe. This Meditation will give you some solace and an overview so that you can function somewhat normally. It's like a Divine lullaby which will help to remind you that "All things come from God and all things to go God." When one is in a hurtful or intense relationship those influences stay in a woman's energy field (aura) for up to a year and continue to effect her. The Sa-Ta-Na-Ma Meditation will 'wash that man right out of your aura,' a much more quickly. It's also for emotional healing.In additional to Sa-Ta-Na-Ma we also recommend a daily Kundalini Yoga practice. We want to emphasize that you will smile and laugh again. Whatever happens, you're still you (beautiful, bright, creative, capable, calm), and that forever!
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Meditation for Powerful Communication from the Heart
Sit in Easy Pose with a straight spine. Interlace your fingers with your thumbs pointing straight up. Your hands are at sternum level away from your body. Your elbows are at the base of your ribs. Your eyes are 1/10 open looking down and in towards the tip of your nose. Inhale and chant melodiously once per breath:
Ra Ra Ra Ra Ma Ma Ma Ma Sa Sa Sa Sat Hari Har Hari Har
Inhale deeply and continue for 11min.
Comments: This Meditation balances our polarities so that we can honor our polarity in relationship. Ra is Sun (Masculine). Ma is Moon (Feminine). Sa is ether, of the heavens, beyond polarity. Hari Har is the Creativity of Creation. Creativity is one of the most powerful tools in a successful relationship. It helps keep things fresh and helps us to be conscious contrarians. That means to communicate compassionately when our inclination is to be reactive.
Our thumbs relate to our ego or fixed self, but in this Meditation we are stretching our thumbs to open ourselves to greater possibilities of Self. Our thumbs also relate to the lung meridian. The emotion associated with our lungs is grief. Part of us is grieving for love lost or never found. This Meditation will open us to the Love which is eternal and which will never let us down. In the Sufi tradition it is said that there our 99 veils between us and God. Even when the first veil is stripped away the Love we feel is so intense that our body can barely contain it. Love is Infinite. The more we express it the more comes in.
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Ana on Twitter - Tweet! Tweet! Be the recipient of Ana's sky blue tweets!
Our Website- Check out our tour schedule, A - Z Health Archive, More!
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We wish you an exhilarating, fun, and joyful February!
Sat Nam & Blessings!
Ana Brett & Ravi Singh
Disclaimer: The advice we give is in no way intended as a substitute for medical counseling. Please consult your physician before beginning any exercise program or nutritional protocol
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