Every wonder why we have the same thoughts every day? Every day the same fears? The same hopes? Why is it that 99% of our thoughts are the same thoughts every single day? Do you wonder how much power your thoughts have? Ever wondered how you could create new thoughts?
I’ve been reading one of Wayne Dyer’s books on and off over the last 6 months, although other spiritual leaders such as the ones who wrote “The Secret”, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Lynn Grabhorn who are all about of gratitude and self-love. I wondered…. instead of these mundane things that seem to jump run, race and jump like a track event in my head what if I didn’t let those thoughts frolick and swim amuck inside. This personal self-help guru and master teacher of the power of thought has been very influential to me lately. Before I go to bed, I have been making it a point to consciously create thoughts that could marinate in my unconscious. I started to choose thoughts using the power of your own mind to alter your destiny. My hubby and I have a rule about what we talk about right before we drift off to sleep – no business talk in bed. I don’t want profit and loss statements dancing in my head in my slumber.
What would happen…. I bemused out loud… instead of wondering if I had enough money left in my bank account to pay all my bills and how I was going to get more…… what if my predominant thought was ” I love myself”. So for the last few weeks, this has been my predominant thought…. when I go to sleep, when I wake up and often during the day. My wild-elephant-that-just-escaped-from-the-circus-mind always wanted to come back to thoughts of my Verizon balance, emails to check, my endless well of Twitter feeds, laundry to change or groceries to buy. I would sometimes catch myself and then use my own Jedi mind trick on myself to not indulge in thoughts of the mundane, errands, work or my declining bank account.
Using the Power of Thought
So what are the results? I feel like I am starting to get results in areas of business and finance with less pushing and more allowing. Instead of feeling like I have to hustle and pressure, I just detach from the outcome and let my thought of ” I love myself take” over. I am especially mindful of my thoughts first thing in the morning so I can plant seeds of positivity that can sprout during the day and at night where these uplifting mantra can marinate and percolate. I’ve found that instead of struggling so much with finances that for the first time I had 4 digits in my account by the end of the month instead of 2 digits. Wow! That has not happened in awhile. YAY!
So I am just in the beginning of my own science experiment.
Have you ever done a thought control experiment? What was your internal monologue? What ended up shifting for you?
The promise of yoga is to unite your finite self with the Infinite Self. There’s no better way to enhance that journey than to practice yoga with your partner or yoga for couples. Sexuality and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the ancient yogis understood that a worshipful attitude towards your partner created a neuro-chemical change in the brain that allowed for the experience of ecstasy and bliss in couples meditation and couples yoga.
Meditation is a very private, internal experience that a person has with his or her inner Self. It is an important technique in the quest for a sacred sexual relationship. Meditation improves self-esteem and heals individual wounds, allowing the development of self-awareness that can lead to a heart-centered opening in the love relationship with one’s self or one’s partner. Meditation also connects one to one’s soul and balances the female and male energies in the body. Certain meditations can enhance the feeling of ecstasy experienced during sex. Other meditations have been known to end arguments, get rid of grudges and clear the clouds between couples. Couples Yoga uses a variety of sacred yogic meditations for couples as a way to augment the experience of oneness. These couples’ meditations are an especially beautiful practice that can elevate your relationship to a higher level.
1. Can couples yoga foster romance?
If you begin a couples yoga class with an existing partner, talk with each other before going to the first class about what you want from this. Try not to let your expectations get overblown in terms of how the class can remedy any specific relationship challenges you’re having. Go in with an open mind and heart — not with a sense that this is going to fix something, but a willingness to learn and grow together by sharing and connecting through yoga. It can be sensual though, if practiced with loving intention and can secretly set the mood. If the low lighting and candles — two things that most yoga masters recommend to help de-stress while doing yoga — don’t help set the tone, doing yoga together allows you to perform partner-assisted poses. These types of postures require a partner to help the other person get a full stretch or just get into position. Having to focus on your partner’s body, plus all that extra touching, lets you be playful as you exercise together
Spirituality Merge in Yoga Poses and Couples Meditation
2. What is the purpose of specific moves?
The first part of the class is a time to ground, center, learn to synchronize energy and breath and become sensitive to your partner’s rythms as well as start to gently warm up the body. The second part of the class is a time to build up more heat in the body with some balancing poses that challenge somewhat as well. As partners are able to get into more difficult poses, this builds self-esteem, confidence, emotional mastery, focus and this can heighten the bond as well. Some of the poses are aesthetically wondrous when you are juxtaposing bodies or mirroring. Some poses are childlike and playful and bring you back to a place of wonder and innocence. The last part of the class is both restorative with poses that you melt into in order to rebalance the central nervous system or there is guided Thai massage where intention, rather than technique is emphasized. The last pose is “Corpse” pose where student are able to integrate and process all the deep work and the body can reset itself from a place of renewal and rejuvenation.
3. How does yoga for couples allow one to experience another?
It makes you more attractive. This may not seem important, but the truth is, the more thoughtful and focused on your partner you are, the more endearing you will seem to her or him. . That’s because anytime a person expresses genuine interest in someone else and committed to just being physically and emotionally present — you will feel a sense of safety and support on a purely kinesthetic level. When you experience a profound truth through the experience of the body, it becomes ingrained in your mind and heart as well. Without realizing it, simply committing time to doing yoga with your partner becomes an opportunity to strengthen your level of intimacy — something that always adds strength and solidity to any partnership. It can reveal interpersonal dynamics about the couples that lead to inner growth and intimacy. Learning how to become really attune to your inner world while simultaneously being totally present to your partner is not a gift we often receive.
4. What are we meant to experience?
As each participant learns to let go and trust, the partners begins to explore spiritual levels of the practice together. They build on the energy of each other and create a better understanding of their connection as well as the practice of yoga. It removes distractions that keep humans from focusing on each other.
Deva Premal and Miten… how do I idolize thee…. let me count the ways.
For those of you that have never had sacred ecstatic chant connect you to the ether of the universe if you live near Philadelphia, your chance is coming up in 10 days.
I remember my first concert or “satsang” with them. They don’t consider their events concerts but since the audience is participating by singing along they use the sanskrit word which means’ communal gathering”.
A few hippy dippy friends of mine had invited me to their concert and I had never heard of them before. I remember being so moved by the experience… the soul-touching way that community, music and intention can bond a group of strangers and transport you to a feeling of oneness and peace. I had never experienced that before with a bunch of strangers in a dark room and words escaped me and all I could do was cry.
That was the first of about a dozen concerts from them I attended over the last 15 years or so. I’ve have since gone to many of their other satsangs in Philadelphia, New York, another time in San Diego and also at the Omega Center outside of New York City.
They also led a dolphin retreat in the Bahamas which I was Jonesing to go. They actually lead a few retreats around the world…. I think in Costa Rica and Greece.
If you are a yoga or tantra teacher, I think there is an unwritten rule in the manual that you have to own at least three of their CDs. I think I have four of them…. one of them I thought I lost and I bought it twice so not sure how that counts.
Although they usually sing in sanskrit, my favorite chant is ” There is So Much Magnificence”… often at concert Miten will divide the audience into two parts so there is a call and response aspect to it……. awe-inspiring!
The North America tour, which kicks off Sep 10, 2013, will reach from Miami to Vancouver and Montreal to Phoenix.
Miten comments: “For Deva and me, this tour is about coming together in celebration of a New Beginning—an invitation to celebrate the momentous shift in humanity’s planetary attitudes that is currently underway—a positive change in the way we view the resources we consume, a change in how we view ourselves as messengers of this transformation that is now upon us all.
The direct, daily experience that Deva and I have is that mantras support us through every challenge. Our mission is to share this powerful healing tool with the world. And we know that this is a mission we share with GuruGanesha. His music has always been remarkable for a depth of spiritual connection that has a real sparkle and twinkle.”
With a dozen beautiful albums and countless inspiring live performances to their credit, Deva Premal & Miten have become the foremost and best-selling duo in mantra music, with a fan base that includes everyone from Cher to the Dali Lama.
It all began in 1998, when Deva and Miten’s groundbreaking recording of the ancient Sanskrit “Gayatri Mantra” became the soundtrack for the burgeoning worldwide Yoga movement.
If practicing yoga for its calm-inducing, stress-reduction, weight loss, flexibility-increasing and/or fitness maintenance benefits doesn’t strike your fancy, fret not – you don’t have to practice yoga for any of those reasons. If, however, you want to be a better lover, you may want to reconsider.
Inherent in the magic spell of yoga is its ability to calm you down, connect you to yourself, the present moment and those around you, and help you feel less reactive, aggressive and more open, loving and appreciative. Being a better lover involves shifting from a space of reactive defensiveness to receptive openness.
5 Ways Yoga Makes You A Better Lover
How yoga makes you a better lover
Relaxation
To be a good lover, we must move away from our fast-paced, high-stress state when we come home to our partner and families. Staying in a stressful state is dangerous as it leads to chronic stress, which can manifest as physical, mental and emotional pain down the road. You’ve probably known someone who’s had a breakdown, a hospital scare or an illness brought on and amplified by stress.
Yoga helps you relieve stress, as it focuses not only on physical poses that stretch and strengthen the body but also because it focuses on breathing, which counters cortisol (the stress chemical) released in the body. Anything you can do to release your stress will help you be more available to love your partner and enjoy his or her company.
Plus, to have good sex, you must know how to relax. It’s a physiological fact.
Giving AND Receiving
Yoga also teaches you how to give and receive. Practicing yoga can be very challenging, but also extremely rewarding. Understanding the balance between pushing yourself to your limits and easing off to receive the benefits of relaxation during a yoga class is similar to the play between giving and receiving between partners.
Couples yoga is especially beneficial, as most poses require each partner to communicate and work together before either partner can experience the true benefits of the pose. While understanding balance for yourself is a big win, learning how to understand it between you and your partner is a relationship saver.
Strength
It’s hard to argue that yoga does not make you strong. Many a muscly man walks into a yoga class skeptical about such “sissy” workouts, only to leave drenched in his own sweat, appalled at how hard yoga actually can be and somewhat ashamed that his big muscles couldn’t power him through the same poses petite ladies all around him naturally and effortlessly complete.
Besides the physical strength and tone yoga can provide to the body (and the eyes of your partners), the emotional and mental strength yoga builds must not be neglected. Emotionally, yoga makes you less reactive and more receptive, less assuming and more questioning, less freaking out and more calm and in control.
Oh, and women, it also helps you tone up your pelvic floor muscles, which happens to be one component of experiencing better orgasm.
Connection
Practicing yoga by yourself also strengthens your connection to your Self and your spirit. There is nothing religious about yoga in and of itself, but you can certainly feel more connected to God, Buddha, Allah, Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, whoever.
Practicing yoga with your partner naturally makes you feel more connected to your partner. Besides the fact that you get a full session of yoga touching each other for the majority of the time, you get to experience gentle, relaxing and compassionate touch. For some couples, this is a rarity.
Focus & Self-control
Finally, yoga helps you increase your focus and self-control. What does this have to do with making you a better lover? Increasing your focus helps you perform better at work but also helps you pay more attention to your significant other. It helps you put down the phone and get rid of distractions so that you can better connect with your partner.
Increasing self-control comes from the mental and emotional benefits of yoga, but also a particular muscular engagement called mula bandha. Similar to a Kegel exercise, engaging mula bandha holds your energy in, rather than allowing it to flow out, if you get my gist men. Over time, this increased focus and self-control can account for longer and more enjoyable sack sessions.
Whether you’re looking to feel more connected to your partner, be a better person for yourself and others, increase strength and flexibility, decrease stress and anxiety or just have better sex, yoga can definitely help you out on all fronts.
Ashley Josephine Herzberger helps busy women relax. She integrates yoga, meditation, energy practices and self-care exercises to empower women to redefine and rediscover balance in their work and lives. She recently published her first ebook, available for free download on her website, “The Unconventional Beginner’s Guide to Yoga.” Check out her online yoga community for women at AshleyJosephine.com.
Yogadork.com satisfies two needs of mine… the need to keep on what is fresh in ooooming-land and juicy tidbits about high profile yoga figure and pop culture celebs and yoga……. kind of like Yogajournal meet People magazine. She also wrote a very introspective and heartfelt peace about the impact of Hurricane Sandy. This is a fun yoga-centric blog to follow.
When Jelly Donut & Daveed Diggs are the only dudes in a class of beautiful yoga girls, they rise to the occasion. Get it? Warning – this is NOT appropriate for work so if you are at your desk or in church then watch this later. Another warning – spontaneous gaffaws likely as a result of watching this video. For those of you that take your yoga seriously and are easily offended, don’t watch. (I guess now that I have put on these don’t watch warning, y’all just have to see it now, huh?)
Elephant Journal is another progressive but non-new-agey blog with a variety of topics. Erin explores how to connect with the ether of the universe without the teacher or other students bugging her. Savasana is such a previous time… it feels like graduation since you work so hard to do your practice, make sacrifices to just get to your mat and then you have the most lovely float-y feeling when you finally get to this part. As the teacher, I strongly encourage eye pillows or at least eye coverings and I also offer to spray aromatherapy on my students’s feet ( they let me know by just putting a hand on their belly). I actually have the polar opposite needs as Erin though…. I used to love it when the teacher came by (only in the beginning of Savasana) and adjusted my shoulders and put a drop of lavender oil on my feet. It’s pretty rare that teachers do this. I think when I was single and not dating in New York, I literally did not have physical human contact for days at a time and I just craved the innocent non-sexual touch of another person…. ok…. maybe I have overshared but that is why I have a different preference than Erin.
Staying as impartial as I can on my blog ( my personal Facebook page is another thing…), it’s time to use your voice at the polling station. Can you imagine if everyone thought their vote didn’t count? If your vote doesn’t count, then whose does? You’re never too small too matter… just ask someone sleeping with a buzzing mosquito in the room. This is one of the most emotionally charged elections and we can make a commitment. You matter.
Anyone else want to send me suggestions for what yoga blog posts I should put in the next curated list?
In Corporate America, a Shell engineer starts a meditation program that helps innovation & creativity
Far be it from me to promote any oil or gas company. I like to keep track of which oil companies are involved with the most unsavory labor or environmental practices and avoid buying my gas at these stations…. often driving a bit farther to do so and usually going to a locally owned station which according to my husband makes worse quality gas. I’m not actually that educated or knowledgeable about this subject so chime in if you have more info about this subject…. seems hard to find a gas station that runs on sustainable environmental practice and fair trade as part of their governing practices.
I was reading in the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business school newsletter about noteworthy practices in the corporate and government world. I can across an article about “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” at Shell, which had an example of using conscious breathwork and meditation in order to be more creative and productive.
Mandar Apte, a chemical engineer, has worked at Shell for 12 years. He is part of Shell’s Game Changer program, whose mission is to provide seed funding and guidance to cutting-edge ideas and foster a culture of innovation.
Mandar Apte is also the founder of a staff-led initiative called Empower, which uses breathing and meditation exercises to nurture personal creativity as well as inter-personal skills. So far, some 2,000 employees at Shell offices in the U.S., U.K., the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates have gone through classes that are part of the Empower program.
In a conversation with Knowledge@Wharton, Apte discusses the impact that Empower has had on him and his colleagues and his hopes for its future. (Video with transcript) http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/3063.cfm
As part of an initiative to make Shell the most innovative energy company in that industry. Apte ‘s regular job involves encouraging innovation and weeding out limiting or disruptive ideas. According to Apte, “Game Changer is a program where you can bring out-of-the-box thinking to our team, and we are licensed to give you not only a budget but also the support structure and network that you need to build that idea into a proof of concept. In today’s world, innovation happens when you make non-traditional connections. The skills you require to foster this innovation culture are mental and social. You need courage to think out of the box. You need to forget past failures. You have to have the skills to manage anxiety because when you are trying something new, you are stepping into the unknown. You need to build a circle of trust around you where you get positive criticism. By enabling staff to develop these mental and social skills, the Empower program has enhanced the ability of Shell employees to innovate.”
Innovation is about thinking of new things. You learn how to drop the old habits, the old ideas, taking a pause from the day to day task of business That’s what meditation allows you. It gives you tools and techniques to pause. And silence is the mother of creativity. That’s the first step. The second step involves social processes and interpersonal skills. If you can invoke that quality of compassion or empathy in yourself, where you are not judging yourself, you’re not criticizing yourself, nor are you judging somebody else, then I think there is a space for insights to be created. How much energy do we spend negatively judging not only ourselves but also our friends, family, co-workers, managers and even strangers? These qualities of non-judgement, acceptance, open-mindedness are crucial for grooming and harnessing your own innovative skills and nourishing the innovation culture in an organization.
Have you ever participated in a course like this at your company that taught you skills to help you nourish your creativity and innovation through holistic practices? What was it like? How did it impact you?
