OMY Thoughts to Ponder

You will gain little by little and get to know yourself better.

Looking forward to this yoga challenge.

With every breath, every stretch, and every practice you will gain more progress.

I love this part Taffi..........

The living heart gives to us
as does that luminous sphere,
both caress the earth with great
tenderness.

it speaks to me :-)

Thanks Taffi, just caught up on these :-)

On a day
When the wind is perfect
The sail just needs to open
and the world is full of beauty
This is such a day.

My eyes are like the sun
that makes promises;
the promise of life
that it always
keeps
each morning.

The living heart gives to us
as does that luminous sphere,
both caress the earth with great
tenderness.

This is the breeze that can enter the soul,
This love I know plays a drum.
Arms move around me;
who can contain their self
before my beauty?

Peace is wonderful,
but ecstatic dance is more fun,
and less narcissistic;
gregarious He makes our lips.

On a day when the wind is perfect
the sail just needs to open
and the love starts
Today is such
a day.

~Rumi

"As we say goodbye to 2014, let's give thanks for what we've learned and how we've grown and then move forward into the new by trusting that whatever's occurred in the past, we deserve the best in 2015." ~ Anna Taylor

How to Maintain Your Yoga Motivation - Advice for the Holidays + Beyond


1 . Stick to a Schedule

You know how most kids respond well to a scheduled week? Most adults do too. If you always go to yoga on Tuesdays or spend 10 minutes stretching before bed, let that habit carry you through any rough patches. If you can manage to get yourself onto that mat, the yoga will usually take care of itself, especially in a class setting. It may be tempting to blow off you routine in favor of holiday parties or last-minute shopping, but it's often not worth it.



2 . Or...Change Things Up

Remember what I just said about sticking to your routine? Well, feel free to ignore that advice. If you’d rather die that go to the same-old same-old class again, by all means strike out and try a new kind of yoga. We have a tendency to put things on hold when we’re going through stressful periods. But there’s no reason to wait until January 1 (literately or metaphorically) to try something new. There’s never going to be an ideal time, so why not do it now?


3 . Get Online for Convenience and to Save Money

If you are traveling a lot for work or to see family, it can really throw off your yoga routine. A subscription to a yoga video website makes good quality yoga classes available where ever you are (provided there is an internet connection, of course). It's a little harder to motivate yourself alone in your hotel room than in a class, but there is such variety available in online classes that it can be a nice chance to check out some of those teachers you see in the magazines but might never otherwise have an opportunity to practice with. If you have a choice about where you stay when traveling, more and more hotels are starting to offer yoga amenities, either in you room or group classes. Online yoga is also a budget friendly option for when you're feeling like all those classes are really adding up.



4 . Phone a Friend

There is strength in numbers. Recruit a friend to do yoga with you. If you can't find a buddy who is already into yoga, try accompanying friend who has always wanted to try yoga to his or her first few classes. A basics class can be a good place to reconnect to your own practice and renew your enthusiasm by sharing the joy of yoga.


And a Happy New Year
Sticking to your yoga routine during the holidays also makes keeping your new year's resolutions a breeze.

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

"Surrender is not such a difficult thing once we realize that within us is a brilliance that is already perfect, already wise, already healthy. You stop worrying about fixing what's wrong with you and start living from all that's right within you."

Baron Baptiste

I breathe in love with gratitude and reverence. I breathe out love without condition or expectation. Every breath is a sacred and extraordinary gift.

Author Unknown

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." ~ Jim Ryun

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because he has a song." ~ Maya Angelou

"Think progression, not perfection" Trainer T.

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." ~ Richard Bach, Illusions.

- C

"The goal is not to tie ourselves in knots, we're already tied in knots. The aim is to untie the knots in our hearts." ~ Max Strom

"Burning zeal in practice, self-study and study of scriptures, ad surrender to God are the acts of yoga." ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." ~ Sir Francis Bacon

"You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny." ~ Upanishad

Sat and Sun yoga complete.

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." ~ Louisa May Alcott

"I know change is part of the plot; that's how your character evolves. And with change, there is grief for what has been lost, but also opportunity ~ and the choice of how to see it. Choose wonderful." ~ Suzanne McMinn

Merry Christmas
"I feel the fulfillment and peace, and I celebrate the holiday season with a loving heart. I embrace all of life and recognize that I am a part of a greater whole." ~ Louise Hay

Finding my way around this board slowly. I LOVE that Charles Schultz quote below! Thank you for posting it here - I think I will share it, if you don't mind!

"We think we have to do something to be grateful for or something has to be done for us to be grateful, when gratitude is a state of being." ~Iyanla Vanzant

"No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now... ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads." ~ Deepak Chopra

"What if today we were just grateful for everything?" ~ Charles Schultz

"We are all at risk of something. Of ending up exactly where we began, of failing to imagine and find and know and actualize who we could be. The only difference is the distance of the leap."
~ Cheryl Strayed

"Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it." ~ Steven Pressfield

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine ~ and shadows will fall behind you." ~ Walt Whitman

great tip!

Even if it seems difficult keep a journal you can come back and see how far you come in your practice.

I wrote down 3 poses I could not do.......Now I can do 2 of them

An article about Complete Breath: news.yahoo.com/brain-yoga-complete-b
re
ath-144647813.html

"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for ... The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides." ~ Barbara Kingsolver

"Let your heart lead you, do not be afraid, for there will be much to regret if reason and sense and fear are your only markers." ~ Tara Conklin

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage." ~ Friedrich Neitzche

"It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal." ~ Helen Keller

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." ~ Seneca

I am clear light, clear light, clear light ........... thanks Taffi!!!

"No matter how long the room has been dark, an hour or a million years, the moment the lamp of awareness is lit the entire room becomes luminous. You are that luminosity. You are that clear light." ~Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

"If you do what you did, you get what you got."

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." ~Sir Francis Bacon

"May all beings be free from suffering and Negative Thinking ~ May all beings have happiness and Positive Thinking." ~ Buddha Shakyamuni

- I mean the whole thing about meditation and yoga is about connecting to the higher part of yourself, and then seeing that every living thing is connected in some way - Gillian Anderson

"Turn the same effort
Upon the center at the navel,
And you will understand
The structure of the body."
III.30

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"Change your thoughts and you change the world." ~ Norman Vincent Peale

"You must cultivate your practice
Over an extended period of time."
I.14A

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"Your practice must be done correctly
For then a firm foundation is laid."
I.14C

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"Learn to keep your feelings in balance,
Whether something feels good,
Or whether it hurts."
I.33D

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"Keep a close watch
On the breath;
Outside or inside,
Stopped or being exchanged."
II.50A

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"If you have the capacity to be more than one thing, do everything that's inside you." ~ Bishop T.D. Jakes

"Your practice must be steady
Without gaps."
I.14B

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"The poses bring a feeling of well-being
Which stays with you."
II.46

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

"Things that cannot last
seem to us as if they will."
II.5A

Yoga Sutra from How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach

In our uniquely human capacity of connect movement with breath and spiritual meaning, yoga is born. ~Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." ~ Sir Francis Bacon

"I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul." ~ Cat Stevens

"Here in this body are the sacred rivers, here are the sun and moon, as well as all the pilgrimage places. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body." ~Saraha Doha

"Love was born first, the gods cannot reach it, or the spirits, or men...Far as heaven and earth extend, far as the waters go, high as the fire burns, you are greater, love! The wind cannot reach you, nor the fire, nor the sun, nor the moon: You are greater than them all, love!" ~ Atharva Veda 9.2.19

"You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love." ~ Cheryl Strayed

The yoga mat is a good place to turn when talk therapy and antidepressants aren't enough.

~Amy Weintraub


For me this is so True!!

While doing yoga we are more ourselves, and more than ourselves.

~Valerie Jeremijenko

Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!
-- dr. Seuss

"Future generations, riding on the highways that we built, I hope they have a better understanding." ~ John Cougar Mellencamp

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." ~ Sir Francis Bacon

How true Tafodil !!

"The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved."

"You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible." ~ Jojo Moyes

"All stress comes from resisting what is." ~ Oprah

"Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor." ~Thich Nhat Hanh

"When you are in harmony with yourself, everything unfolds with grace and ease." ~ Panache Desai

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose." ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some days seem to fit together like a stained glass window. A hundred little pieces of different color and mood that, when combined, create a complete piece." ~ Maggie Stiefvater

"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it." ~ Albert Camus

"Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them." ~Eckhart Tolle

"Moderation ~ Small helpings ~ Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health." ~ Julia Child

"There can only be a relationship between human beings when we accept what is, not what should be." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic." ~ Laini Taylor

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." ~ Carl Jung

"Victories in life come through our ability to work around and over the obstacles that cross our path. We grow stronger as we climb our own mountains." ~Marvin Ashton

Forgive always and always keep boundaries