Henri German

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Creating Your Own Sanctuary

henri_german — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 15:06:28 +0000

You’re finally home after a long day. You’re tired and you want to rest but when you open the front door, you see that you need to tidy your house. You pick up a few things and see the kitchen in your periphery reminding you that you have to get dinner started. You feel stressed and think of the yoga class you’re going to miss tonight because you don’t have time to get there. The yogi inside of you starts to feel stressed, and you realize…this isn’t very yoga-like.

Consider what your sanctuary will provide. Seek out the perfect spot. Create your space with intention but keep it simple.

Think about what your needs are when it comes to your own sacred space. Maybe you’ve been seeking a place where you can be still and meditate. Perhaps you want to have a convenient spot to do yoga when time allows. If you’re artistic, you may want to create a space that brings out your creative side. Do you need to relax and let go? Do you need to get your creative juices flowing? Know that your needs and desires may change over time, but the initial intention–to create your own personal space–will always be there. Whatever your interests may be, create this space from a place of purity within. The energy of the external world and everything you do day-to-day can be left outside of this space you create. Make it a place you want to be.

The priority is to have a refuge for your mind, body, and soul to rejuvenate itself.

You probably have an area of your home where you feel safe and relaxed. If you’ve never noticed, take a walk around and sense what place feels good. Trust your intuition as you seek out the right spot. This aspect is more important than any other detail.

An ideal space is near a window that lets light in and has a good flow of energy. If that’s not possible, your sanctuary can be as simple as being at the end of the kitchen table. It doesn’t even have to be an entire room. You can create a space outside in your garden or even a larger closet that isn’t being utilized. You may want privacy but having your sanctuary exposed allows you to notice it. Even if you can’t enter your space, seeing it will remind you of stillness, peace, and safety. If you’ve thought about what you want out of your sanctuary and where it will be, it’s now time to create your space. You know what your emotional, mental, and spiritual needs are so you can incorporate objects to support those needs.

Become More Mindful Each Day

henri_german — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:04:50 +0000

When I opened my eyes this morning, I looked over at the corner of the room and took a deep breath. It was the corner near the fireplace, where for the last two weeks, I sat, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes for twenty minutes of mindful meditation. Now, some people may still consider meditation as a strictly spiritual practice. Something reserved for chakra juggling mystics after new moon parties. However, tons of scientific research credit meditation and mindfulness with reducing anxiety, improving cognition, and decreasing distraction.

In a world where external stimuli chases us down like an avalanche, a mindfulness practice can be a beacon in the snow storm.

Craving the benefits of this so-called bicep curl for the brain, I had enthusiastically committed myself to a 30-day mindful meditation challenge. This morning would have been day 18. I sat in my corner, felt the heat of the fireplace and wiped the sleep from my eyes. Eager to begin my cerebral scrub down, I set the timer. That’s when it hit me—yesterday came and went, and I didn’t meditate. I had told myself I’d find the time, yet somehow, the barrage of office emails and hours of mindless internet scrolling took precedence over my mental hygiene. All that time lost in thought, rehearsing arguments in my mind I’ll never have in real life, added up to a day lost and a meditation streak broken.

Some of us might consider dieting one day a week, or lifting weights only once a month, to be pointless.

We don’t like to believe lackadaisical regimens can produce the fast, proven, real, extreme results we crave. If we can’t do something correctly and consistently, why bother at all? What we forget, however, is what Einstein called the 8th wonder of the world—compound interest.

The power of compound interest is simple. In financial terms, it means we earn interest on both our initial investment along with whatever interest has already been earned. If we invest $100 and compound 1% interest every day, in one year we’ll have $3,778.34. That’s an increase of 37x! I considered this 8th world-wonder and my last few weeks of meditation. I realized how my sense of contentment and emotional well-being had increased not only from when I started the challenge but how it continued to build upon the progress I made from each previous day. While I may have failed the 30-day challenge, all was not lost.

Opening The Throat Chakra

henri_german — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 15:03:28 +0000

It can be argued that your throat chakra is one of the most essential of all, connecting and bringing forth the ability to harness the use of the other six chakras. Without your voice and true expression, the health of the other chakras can fall away. A balanced throat chakra can change the way you approach life and the way life responds back. The ability to express ourselves to others purely through ideas, beliefs, and emotions becomes an easy flow of energy and our capacity to connect with others and listen is strengthened.

From a young age, I often found myself struggling to maintain friendships and felt isolated from my peers.

I suffered from constant sore throats, tension headaches, and migraines. I was at a loss for a way to cope. I had been feeling dormant in my career and unable to communicate to myself and others what needed to change in order for me to feel at ease and happy. What was wrong with me? It was not until recently that I was able to understand and channel the power of my throat chakra to create a balance within my mind and spirit. I first approached the chakra system through yoga practice. My yoga teacher structured an entire class focused specifically on opening up our throat chakra through physical postures. The physical poses, or asanas, work to release stagnant energy from the body while activating and balancing fresh energy.

As a vital element of our entire chakra system, the harmony of a stabilized throat chakra is revolutionary.

From the moment I focused my awareness on my throat chakra, I felt a physical and mental shift within me. It was as if I took an eraser to a chalkboard and removed a lengthy mathematical equation that had finally been solved.

The biggest shift came when I began expressing myself through writing. I finally had the courage to launch my own blog and share my voice on a number of topics I am passionate about. Within a month, I was able to land two different writing and media gigs for organizations I was enthusiastic about. The awakening within me and moments that came from my ability to communicate, express my true self, and put myself out there were, and continue to be, uncanny. There are a number of ways to open your throat chakra including singing, visualization, and aromatherapy. I like to start with a simple yoga practice since asana first guided me in the direction of balance. Here are three easy yoga poses you can try at home today to help open your throat chakra!

Making Meditation Mainstream

henri_german — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:01:13 +0000

In the Seventies-set movie, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” main character, Ron Burgundy, takes up the new fad of jogging. His friends thought he was crazy. There was once a time when everyone would ask, “Where’s the fire?” at the sight of someone running past. Decades later, taking a jog is a perfectly acceptable way to exercise. These days, meditation is listed as part of the wellness bandwagon taking over our inbox, but it won’t be truly accepted as mainstream until every yoga studio and gym puts a meditation class on their schedules.

Just like jogging, science has backed up all the health claims for meditation, proving it to be fitness for the brain.

There are over 3,000 scientific studies proving meditation is good for us. There are too many to list here, but the following life enhancing benefits would be more than enticing to any fitness club member who is interested in health, beauty and longevity. Among them: increased vitality, lower blood pressure, increase in the anti-aging enzyme Telomerase, growth in the thickness of the pre-frontal cortex, increased immunity, lower heart rate, strengthening of neural connections, better sleep, and boosts to relaxation and happiness. Meditation is flexing the brain like a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Alan Watts, Western philosopher and author of The Way of Zen wrote, “If you can’t meditate in a boiler room, you can’t meditate.”

Not many are comfortable entering a Zen center or ashram to try meditation. Classes need to be more accessible for the average person. A place where it doesn’t matter what your beliefs are or what you wear. Meditation is for everyone and everyone can do it, even the type-A gym junkie.

All yoga classes give that extra element of inner peace, but clients may need additional stress relief at other times too. According to the American Institute of Stress, numerous emotional and physical ailments are linked to stress. Even the fittest and most flexible amongst us may be suffering from anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, or headaches and skin conditions to name just a few stress-related disorders. Unfortunately, the endorphin high doesn’t last very long for the type-A gym junkie. Stress starts to build as immediately as trying to find the car keys in the bottom of the gym bag while the phone is ringing.

Meditation And Aging

henri_german — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 15:00:12 +0000

What happens in the body that causes aging? Scientists have discovered a fundamental process of aging in our cells that occurs on the strands of our DNA. This discovery won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2009. This discovery is important to everyday life because we now know the speed of aging can move faster or slower and we have some control over the process. Aging can be seen to literally speed-up from stress and slowdown from meditation.

We have known for decades that meditation improved health by reducing stress, anxiety, improving cardiovascular function.

Even beginning meditators report they feel calmer, happier, sleep better and have more energy. These benefits should be enough to encourage everyone to meditate as the cost and time involved is minimal compared to the rewards. New research shows that the benefits of meditation are far greater than previously thought as it produces changes at the deepest level of our brain, cells, and DNA. In addition to living healthier and happier from meditation, the deeper changes could bring dramatic improvements in longevity and cognitive function in old age. Meditation also helps us stay healthier throughout life, not just live longer. Our cells are always aging and the faster they age the more susceptible we become to disease, so the benefit of slowing the aging.

The physical release of stress hormones is the same whether the trigger is from a real event or an imagined one.

A stress response is triggered by an overwhelming experience or perceived threat. If you need to run away from danger a stress response will help you run faster and farther, but at a cost. A stress response is also triggered by simply thinking of something that worries or disturbs us.

Scientists found that aging can be measured by the length of a protective cap on the ends of our chromosomes called “telomeres” and by the presence of “telomerase,” an enzyme that protects the telomeres from the wear and tear of cellular division. In 2009, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of telomeres. The length of telomeres indicates the remaining lifespan of a cell, the amount that a cell can continue to divide and replicate normally. Telomeres naturally become shorter with age, but research shows this aging process doesn’t happen at the same speed for everyone.

Ways Yoga Helps With Anxiety

henri_german — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 14:58:30 +0000

One out of four Americans will experience an anxiety disorder at some point during their lives. Such disorders are sometimes accompanied by panic attacks – intense feelings of panic that often come out of nowhere. Panic attacks can include a pounding heart, sudden sweating, dizziness, and shallow breathing. Living with anxiety and panic attacks is difficult, but there are a variety of techniques that can help to ease symptoms.

Yoga is an excellent way to reduce anxiety (and stress). Yoga forces you to focus on your breathing.

When someone has an anxiety attack, they make short, shallow breaths. This can actually make a panic attack worse because this type of breathing can cause a lightheaded, faint feeling. The most important aspect of yoga is focusing on the breath. When you’re feeling tired or a pose is particularly difficult, focusing on taking deep, slow breaths makes all the difference. Training yourself to follow your breathing during yoga class is a useful skill that can be applied to other areas of life. Whenever you’re feeling anxious or stressed, remember to take deep, slow breaths until you start to feel more relaxed.

Endorphins are neurotransmitters in the brain that have been shown to improve mood, reduce symptoms of depression, and relieve stress and anxiety.

Endorphins are essentially an all-natural antidepressant. Additionally, flexibility and strength gained from yoga can help to prevent injuries and reduce chronic pain. Who isn’t happier when they aren’t in pain all the time?

When we’re feeling anxious or stressed, we often tighten certain areas of our bodies without even realizing it. Prolonged stress or anxiety can lead to pain and muscle tension in the back, head, neck, shoulders, and other areas. Yoga helps relieve muscle tension by strengthening, lengthening, and relaxing sore muscles. Over time, yoga can also improve posture, which aids in reducing muscle tension. Yoga is challenging – even if you’re a more experienced yogi, you will probably have certain poses that are still tough for you. Engaging in something that is challenging – and sticking with it even when it’s hard – will give you more confidence and faith in yourself.

Establishing A Home Yoga Practice

henri_german — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 14:57:31 +0000

Yoga in America is booming. A 2016 report by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance reported that 36.7 million people practice yoga, up from 20.4 million in 2012, and 28 percent of all Americans having taken a yoga class at some point in their lives. As a result, the demand for yoga instructors has never been higher and increasing numbers of practitioners are becoming inspired to teach — a career that can be as challenging as it is fulfilling.

Have you ever taken a yoga class when you could just tell that the teacher was not into it? Or have you been that teacher?

A passionless teacher can’t inspire students. Fortunately, there is a remedy, and that is to get on your own yoga mat and meditation cushion. As the yogini Dana Trixie Flynn puts it, “Just as a concert musician must practice their instrument, a yoga teacher must practice on their mat.” This doesn’t mean going to a workshop or retreat only once in a while — though that can be nice — and coming back inspired and enthusiastic. This is about continual refueling. It means getting on your yoga mat consistently, at home, in a class, or at a practice for teachers and advanced students. This may seem obvious, but the majority of teachers we’ve polled complain that their single biggest challenge as a teacher is keeping up their own practice.

If you don’t continue to practice regularly in addition to teaching, your only source of inspiration for your teaching is the stale memory of a regular practice.

Vow to practice at least ten minutes a day, five to seven days a week. By committing to only ten minutes, you avoid putting pressure on yourself, and you’re more likely to stick to the resolution. If you start small, you will find yourself craving more time on the mat.

Create a dedicated space in your home for your practice. This will encourage you to practice at home more often. It doesn’t have to be anything special — and you certainly don’t want to put so much thought into it that the planning process prevents you from rolling out your mat! But when you put just enough energy into a space, it can become magnetic, drawing you onto the mat. Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith, PhD are the authors of The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga and founders of the online school 90 Monkeys, which has enhanced the skills of yoga teachers and studios in over 40 countries.

How Yoga Improves Back Pain

henri_german — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 14:54:54 +0000

It’s estimated that roughly 80% of people will experience some type of serious back pain in their life. The world’s population is around 7 billion people. So statistically speaking, 5 billion people will encounter significant back pain. That’s an outrageously high number for a problem that is often curable and preventable. Unfortunately, people are unaware of how to prevent back pain, and how to handle it once it arises.

Mentally, yoga has the power to reduce stress, bring you to the present moment, and increase your happiness.

To understand how yoga is physically improves the aches and pains in your back, let’s first address the impact of flexibility. Your flexibility is dependent on your joints, ligaments, tendons, and muscles. When you stretch these areas of your body you increase your range of motion. When your range of motion increases, you become more balanced. On top of this, stretching relaxes tense muscles and increases circulation in your body. One of the main causes of back pain is muscle tension. The flow of yoga poses forces your muscles to loosen up in these areas. In fact, if you’re suffering from purely muscle tension issues, yoga poses may be enough to completely solve your problem.

Yoga is such a wonderful medicine for preventing injuries and promoting recovery because tissues become relaxed and lengthened.

Now that we know how flexibility plays into the relief of back pain, let’s take a look at what the strengthening component of yoga does. Building strength is always a good way to keep your body healthy. Especially since many people suffer from back problems because they are overweight.

When it comes to back relief, yoga is wonderful because it focuses on our core, or the center of our body. Back pain is often caused by weakness in our abdominal muscles because our abs are the front foundation of the spine. So… if your abs are weak, things connected to and associated with them will be weak. The stronger your core muscles become, the less likely you are to injure your back. Because yoga focuses on alignment and the idea that all body systems are interconnected, it takes a full body approach to recovery and prevention of injuries. The unique thing about yoga is that it incorporates mindfulness, strength, and flexibility. The combination of these characteristics is what provides our bodies with so many wonderful health benefits.

A Mental Life

henri_german — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 14:48:09 +0000

Have you ever scrolled down Facebook and felt “icky” afterwords? There’s a reason for that. We often feel the need to lead our lives glazing over the “cracks” in who we are. We feel trapped by the inability to express our deepest frustrations, failures, insecurities or weaknesses. In an age of social media, all we can do is show our vibrant social lives plastered with smiles in the happiest of times. We’re linked in to each “like” we get and the subsequent hits of dopamine to our brains.

We’re physiologically wiring our brains for the instantaneous and transitory need of external validation.

On the other hand, I look to Facebook, Instagram and other social media for inspirational messages, news and to share in the lives of my friends and family. In many ways, it’s helpful. There’s nothing wrong with sharing our moments of joy with our extended social networks. However, for me, as someone who experiences times of “funks” or downright depression, social media is not always my friend. On some level, social media has taught me that not all parts of myself are acceptable. What about those moments that we feel are not Facebook worthy? We dropped the ball at work. We failed on our diet. We didn’t stick to our commitments. We didn’t do what we said we’d do.

Facebook amplifies this disconnect between the image we show to the world and the person we can be in quiet moments.

Who are we when we are not crafting the perfect narrative of ourselves to share with the world? Is that person still worthy of love, acceptance and respect? Sometimes, it doesn’t feel that way when for the majority of the day we are plugged in to seeing the veneer of perfection in the lives of others.

What happens when we’re struggling personally but link into the perfection of others’ Facebook profiles? We might not love our husband or wife. We might feel that the demands of life are driving us to our wits end. We may be in a job that feels like it’s going nowhere. We might be experiencing feelings of depression. We may be struggling with alcoholism or drug addiction. The list is endless. Where do these “cracks” in our lives fit into the realm of our social images and persona? We’ve placed Facebook and social media at the crux of expressing who we are within our social lives. It’s become a place wherein we present everything from the random thought, to deeply held beliefs, the birth of a child and even the loss of a family member.