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The Inner Voice
A weekly newsletter from Debbie Jensen-Grubb, RYT500
May 14, 2013 - Issue 35
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The Daily Yoga Poses Poster |  FREE!!! For all who receive this newsletter my first ever poster to download and print out! Thank you for joining The Inner Voice newsletter! (You need to open it in another window and print it from there.) |
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Quick Links
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This weeks reading can be seen here at The Daily OM.
Daily OM:
Effort and Understanding
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To access past issues click here:
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| Greetings! |
 At the beginning of each class I ask the my students to pause for a moment to be grateful for the blessings, joys, love and the challenges in their life. The first three are easy to be grateful for, but really... challenges? Why would we be grateful for our challenges? They completely frustrate us, waylay our plans, stress us out, and make life more difficult. Life would be so much more enjoyable if we didn't have challenges. And, now wait a minute, think about it. If everything was easy, enjoyable, happy, and carefree would you really want anything to change? Would you strive to achieve a goal? Would you need to learn anything new? That is the gift within a challenge, it forces us to change if we allow it. The key is our attitude about it, and since it is going to happen anyway why not have a good one towards the challenges in our lives? It is one of the keys to being happy, accepting to move through the challenges with ease and to learn from them. |
| Mantra | |
A mantra is a sound or phrase that aids in the concentration of meditation. It is a Sanskrit term and literally means 'instrument of thought'. Here you will find a suggested mantra to use during the week (from Louise Hay's 'Heal Your Body'). Just repeat it whenever you need a lift.
I make my decisions based on the principles of truth, and I rest securely knowing that only right action is taking place in my life. |
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Reverse Triangle (Pavritta Trikonasana)
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 The simplest yoga poses can be most challenging and the most challenging poses can be quite simple. It is all in how you approach them.
Moving slowly and methodically is the best way to move through any yoga pose. It allows you time to listen to the body and feel where you need to adjust your movements. It also can make easy poses taxing.
I like to approach the poses by focusing on the joints and their alignment. By addressing one joint at a time you build the pose into your perfect position. Stretching the muscles around it and aligning the bones into good position, using the breath as the integrator and bringing all of the components together.
In Reverse Triangle it is particularly important to move with focus. It is a challenging pose because it contains so many different aspects to it. It is a standing pose, a twisting pose, a balancing pose, and a pose in motion. All the while you must maintain alignment, breath, and gracefulness within it.
As with any test it invites us to face our fears and find the courage and strength that is inside of us. Once triumphant in the pose we feel reconditioned, renewed, and rejuvenated. These feelings of strength and confidence that then emanate into our life bringing conviction that we can face any challenge with composure.
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| Rib-Tickler of the Week - hee hee |
A customer was continually bothering the waiter in a restaurant; first, he'd asked that the air conditioning be turned up because he was too hot, then he asked it be turned down because he was too cold, and so on for about an hour.
Surprisingly, the waiter was very patient, walking back and forth and never once getting angry. So finally, a second customer asked why didn't they just
throw out the pest.
"Oh I don't care." said the waiter with a smile. "We don't even have an air conditioner."
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Nutrition Prescription - Alliums
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 Alliums may bring tears to your eyes, because when you cut in to one, a burst of sulphuric compound is released. (Did you know that if you burn a candle near by it helps to keep you from crying when cutting an onion?) They are bulbous plants related to the lily family that have relatively long leaves and flower stalks. These plants include onions, garlic, leeks, shallots and chives. Just about every recipe there is includes one of these foods to add flavor and spice.
We all know that eating garlic and onions are good for us. The challenge comes in eating them raw to get the most benefit from them! Eating raw allium vegetables such as these have, since ancient times, be known to cure many maladies. It has even been suggested that garlic juice may relieve earaches, onion syrup may cure laryngitis, and one old folk remedy for hair loss involves rubbing a cut onion against your scalp.
Research today supports that these aromatic foods are a good defense to have towards heart disease and cancer. Onions, whether they are red, yellow or white have antioxidants and are anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, anti-allergic and antiviral. They contain high levels of quercetin, a potent flavonoid that may help fight or prevent cancer. Some nutrients found in alliums include chromium, sulphides, vitamins B and C, potassium and selenium. Garlic also has the compound allicin, an antimicrobial agent.
I eat raw garlic and onions when I feel a cold coming on, put garlic infused olive oil in my grandchildren's ears for earaches, and sprinkle a little in my salads. So what do you think? Is it worth it to stink just a little to help you to feel better, build your immune system, and ward of potential disease? Are you up to the challenge of imbibing on raw alliums? I certainly think I will!
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Ponderings - Challenges
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 "To be tested is good.
The challenged life may be the best therapist."
Gail Sheehy
Life is full of challenges, in fact you could say life is the challenge. We know that, yet we have a talent to create even extra problems for ourselves for that's what many of us do by applying false or incomplete expectations to our major life goals. We think we must have the perfect relationships, successful careers and wealth, or beautiful and healthy bodies to be happy. This is just not so.
The definition of happiness most agreed upon by neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and Buddhist Monks is not one of happiness as the state of bursting with glee but of happiness as a sense of well being, contentment, the feeling of living a meaningful life, of utilizing one's gifts, of living with thought and purpose.
We also don't realize how strong and adaptable we are. We underestimate our abilities to face oppositions and come through the other side as even more capable and wise individuals. We have a tendency to focus on the problem at hand rather than the solution that is coming.
Yes, life is full of challenges, but could it be that we are our own worst enemy? Could it be that problems are here for our good? What if we changed how we think about them? According to psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky in her book, The Myths of Happiness, people who succeed at making sense of their lives achieve "autobiographical coherence", being able to view their activities as part of a coherent life story. This gives meaning and richness to events, making them part of a significant journey and not just "a collection of isolated, fleeting moments."
So how much difference can you create in your life with a little shift in perspective? How we represent things to ourselves determines how we will respond to them. Can you begin to see challenges as opportunities? Life as a great adventure? How can you shift your perspective of something you are challenged by and see the good in it? If you can't see the positive in it now, can you trust that hindsight will one day reveal it to you?Looking back over your life you might even be able to see some instances of that now. Besides, no one promised us that life would be without challenges, but wouldn't that be boring anyway?
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Being grateful for your challenges, that can be a challenge within itself. It changes you. It shows you how truly amazing you can be. Just begin to shift your awareness towards the positive, the beauty, and extra-ordinary. It is therein that you will find the happiness and the blessings of every challenge that life would share with you.
Thank you and Namaste,
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