Several weeks ago I came across something regarding chakral imbalances and physical stressors. I’d always slightly known about them and learned a little in my yoga training but never really looked much into it. Anyway, I decided I would start a cleansing process. I thought I would spend like a week on each chakra and then, wah-lah, I’d be better than ever after seven weeks (because there are seven chakras). I started with the root chakra which deals with a sense of home, support and love. I’ve felt super lost for years and an imbalance in the root chakra can lead to actual physical abdominal pain and digestive issues so I was like “omg this is what I need to focus on.” I spent everyday for a week guiding myself through root chakra meditations, used essential oils associated with it and had pictures printed off and hung around my apartment of different visuals also associated with the chakra. Turns out…I needed five weeks of this to finally feel like it became balanced. And you know when that was??? The fifth week was the week of my crazy, intensive CycleBar training. I finally felt like I had a home, a family and people who cared. As silly as it sounds, I pretty much burst into tears one day during lunch as I ran back into the studio theater to grab my chapstick as I overheard someone from outside the doors ask the group, "Guys, where's Liv?" I was only gone for a matter of minutes and my absence was not only noted, but it was missed. After the training, our bond only grew stronger. Our group text never seems to stop dinging. Again, going back to being cheesy but something as simple as our group text gives me a sense of connection and love that I've never experienced. I never feel alone. I feel like I have seven best friends who are always ready to listen and joke and support. Then, things became super busy with more training, teaching and scheduling; I didn’t make time to move on to the next chakra, the sacral chakra. The sacral chakra’s affirmation is “I enjoy life fully” and deals with loving yourself completely without judgment, bringing true joy and pleasure into your life (way beyond the superficial) and self-esteem. This is the most self-conscious I’ve been in a while so again, its like a no-brainer….sacral chakra needs to be addressed. Guess what some of the physical pains associated with an imbalanced sacral chakra are?? Abdominal cramps, over-emotional state of being, increased anxiety. So honestly, I think that this whole tummy thing is a lot more than just food intolerances. One of the “setbacks” (and it only seems like a setback because I have a lot of work to do. This is a beneficial "setback" and not a setback at all) of adopting a super mindful lifestyle is that you open yourself up and expose all your weaknesses and pains to the ultimate state of vulnerability, causing more sensitivities and seemingly unexplainable reactions than what would seem “normal.” Last night, I reached out to someone who is legitimately growing more and more dear to my heart by the minute... she listened and offered so much love and support that again, I was brought to tears. The most grabbing thing she said? “You are truly radiant.” And you know what? I am. I am truly radiant and so are you. We always have been and always will be. Sometimes, we allow this early life and body to blind us from our true selves...our radiant selves. Want to know a little secret? Our radiance never goes away. That inner light is always there. We are always shining and powerful and full of love we just have to remember that. That's why I love yoga. Its not just something you DO. Its a legit lifestyle and leads to so much soul searching and peace and joy…. its not easy though. However, stay strong lovely beings. Let's support each other. I'm here for you.
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You can change your mindset. Our emotional body responds to our physical body, and vice versa. Amy Cuddy takes the "fake it 'til you make it" mentality and elaborates...she goes into the HOW and WHY this works. We CAN create our realities, guys. Put good vibes into the universe and into yourself. You are what you believe you are--what you TRULY believe you are. So maybe start small with some affirmations in the morning... wanna know what I do almost every morning when I wake up? Well, before even getting out of bed, I literally say "I am grateful," as I'm staring at my ceiling. Before I left myself step out of bed, I think about 3-5 things (people, opportunities, memories, etc) that actually fill me with gratitude. Then, off to the coffee maker... 😉☕️ While the coffee is brewing, I sit in virasana and practice mindful breathing and affirmation statements. "I am Bold. I am Strong. I am Healthy. I am Grateful. I am Compassionate. I am Light." I inhale with each affirmation and exhale as I envision it. Inhale with the next affirmation, exhale as I envision it. And so on... I've found that on morning where I "don't have time" to do this, my mental state is all out of whack. Guess what, we can do this at any point of the day, as many times as you need. Not going to lie, I've already done this three times since I woke up. Wanna know something? I feel like superwoman. 😏😋 Back to the emotional body responding to the physical body....take a look at this video. Well worth the 20ish minutes. Trust me. If the video doesn't load, click HERE
(Weather permitting) Let's get these going again! Join Olivia on a short hike through Raven Run to the orange path "meadow" and allow your breath to heal, move and motivate your body with a 60minute vinyasa practice. BYOM. Monetary donation suggested.
Click HERE for more information. First picture taken about thirty minutes after I demolished a mountain of rice, who-knows-how-much almond butter, yummy blueberries and @amazinggrassgreens all mixed together (I do a form of intermittent fasting).
Immediately, I felt super full, guilty and "huge." So I decided to take a picture. I knew I was being silly but couldn't ignore my feelings. I then forced myself to smile and then guess what, my attitude changed. I told myself I was NOT what I felt. I snapped out of it and reassured my belief that if we put nourishing, whole foods into our bodies AND regularly use our muscles/brain power plus heart-fulls of compassion, then we can only grow. The third picture is after I spent a couple hours teaching yoga, surrounded by good vibes and beautiful energies. I spent a couple hours doing what gives me PURPOSE...what literally keeps me going each day and has me excited to wake up in the morning...and my body responded. It USED the food I put into it and cooperated with the energies I surround myself with and cultivate...and BAM...healthy Liv. This is a process. It's taken a LONG time for me to be okay in my body and even now, body dysmorphia causes me to see something entirely different and I get down on myself. What's important though is to love your body no matter what it looks like. Change your mindset. "Fitness" is not as important as overall health. You can look fantastic but not be healthy. You can look fantastic and feel miserable. So do a little self-check today-MENTALLY-and see where you are. Body stuff comes later. Let's heal our minds first. Sometimes, life presents you with moments that remind you, THIS is why you're alive. These seemingly "little" moments can come in the form of people, conversations, reactions, events, visuals, etc.
These moments remind you to stay strong and continue on your life journey, stand up for what you believe in and stay away from the sheep epidemic. Even though finding, following and advancing your passions can lead to sharp judgment and toxicity from others, you can't be shaken. We can't control others' reactions. We can't change others' mindsets. We can't wake people up. The change starts with YOU. The change starts with ME. The change starts with US. We need to stop doing "easy" and start creating our realities. Let's invite compassion back into our lives. Let's invite curiosity. Let's invite exploration. Let's invite respect. It's time to get out of the shallow end of the pool and move toward something deeper. Even if we're just barely treading water or hanging onto floats for dear life...we need to step out of our bubbles of ignorance, naivety, blind selfishness and conforming tendencies. Pop that bubble and let it go. Create something else. We DO matter. We ARE powerful. WE ARE LIGHT. Let's search within, grab that light and let it grow. Never stop learning. Never stop asking questions. Never compromise passion for a paycheck. Push your passions to the top of your priority list and make your life mean something. Let's stop going through the motions of life and let's become active participants in every moment. A very wise friend once told me that there are two types of people in this world. The Pullers and the Pushers.
On the surface, the Pullers might seem better than you. They may seem unearthly intelligent, fit, friendly…you think that you can’t measure up. Indirectly though, they inspire you. They motivate you to better yourself because you see that it is possible. You see that the commonly dubbed “unattainable” is indeed, attainable. Not simply attainable, but achievable. So, the Pullers pull you up, in a way. They may not literally grab you by the hands and drag you out of a trench, but they’ll provide you with a vision. They’ll light that fire within yourself that pulls you in their direction—not as exact copies, but as a better you. We can all be a better us, we just need to wake up. The Pushers are seemingly the exact opposite. They can either literally or figuratively push you down. Whether they mock your values, disrespect your opinions, assault you physically, they are initially seen as negative. The Pushers, however, are just as beneficial to your enlightenment as the Pullers. The Pushers challenge your beliefs; they challenge you and all that you stand for. You can do one of two things: fall down and join them or use them as a resource to strengthen your own beliefs. You can redirect the energy. Instead of looking at it as being pushed down, redirect their criticism and use it to push yourself forward. Transform the hate into something else. Ultimately, it is up to you to push yourself forward and pull yourself up. As mentioned earlier, the Pullers may not even directly offer you advice of pull you up. That direction has to come from within. We need to have open enough minds and a sense of self-awareness that we can acknowledge what it is that we want to achieve with our lives, and go after it. If we wait around for someone to do it for us, for someone to tell us what to do, we will live quite under-par lives. So first, direct your energy inward. Search your soul and question yourself deeply. Thoroughly. Get to know the deepest parts of your being and become comfortable with them. Become best friends with your demons, neighbors to your weaknesses, babysitters to your doubts. Awaken that inner spark and pull yourself up. Work with all your heart to become the essence of yourself that you want to be. The light that exists within each of us has become hidden; as a society, as humankind, we’ve violently shoved it down to where we are almost completely unaware that it does exist. But, my friends, it does exist. Wake up. Look inside. Pull yourself up and push yourself forward. Namasté. How many of your are waking up each morning with some sort of unpleasantry? By "unpleasantry" I mean anything from stiff, achey limbs to a pounding headache to slight nausea. How many of you are treating your pains with over-the-counter or prescribed medications? Maybe after you pop that pill, move around and gets yourselves ready for the day you start to feel a little better. The unpleasantries become tolerable and you go about your day. Halfway through the day do your unpleasantries come back? Do you pop another pill, or two, and carry on? Maybe feel better after another hour? I want us all to stop and take a look at our medicine cabinets, glove compartments, purses and pockets. Let's switch from the pill-popping to body-nourishing. Yes, all those little anti-inflammatory and fever reducing pills are convenient; but do you know what they do? Before we even touch the side effects, let's just make it clear that these pills are merely TREATING THE SYMPTOMS of your unpleasantries. They mask the real problem. Most of us don't even back track to solve what the source of our unpleasantry really is. Please, ask yourself... "Why do I have a headache? Why are my joints aching? Why is my stomach churning right now?" Once we figure out the WHY of our unpleasantries, we can really get down to taking care of ourselves and preventing these things from happening in the future. I know what you're probably thinking... "Yes this sounds great. But really, I don't mind my unpleasantries too much. Ibuprofen seems to do the trick and it's what I have been doing for years. Think I'm okay, thanks." NOOOO please, no. What if your unpleasantry were something more serious? Some sort of infection or chronic flare-up or a type of cancer? Would you take me seriously then? I really believe that eating a nutrient-dense, whole food, mainly raw diet can help us not only cure and prevent our unpleasantries, but also introduce a whole new level of contentment and energy into our lives that we've never experienced before. How do you start? My friends, the answer is simple. (Although, I will say that this approach is easier said than done. BUT! Once you make the change and develop a habit and then lifestyle, you'll never want to go back.) If you want to get started right away and can't wait for my upcoming posts....check out these videos! The full versions are available on Netflix: "Food Matters" and "Forks over Knives" .....remember guys, EAT TO HEAL! My weight changes so often I don't even pay attention to the scale anymore. One day, I'm closer to 116; the next, I'm barely 109.
Numbers don't matter. Focus on how you feel--pay attention to your energy levels, ease of digestion, the way you feel in your clothes. These photos show my body's changes over the span of 9 weeks. Want to know what I did? I listened to my body. I paid more attention to its red flags and subtle messages, and then catered to those needs versus what I thought I needed. But let's backtrack a few... I have a rough history with food. If I solely ate based off of what I thought I needed, I'm sure I could convince myself to not eat anything at all. I remember telling myself, "You didn't deserve this," after every time I ate. Once that goes on for so long, anyone would start to associate a negative connotation with eating. The deserving-factor came about for a few reasons. I honestly can't remember when I went into this mindset because it goes as far back as I can remember. I have memories of counting the exact number of goldfish I would put into my ziploc bag as a snack before heading off to seventh grade at my new public school. I remember cutting protein bars into thirds and telling myself, "You can have this portion for breakfast, and this as a snack and then if you eat it slowly, this may be okay for lunch too." I remember waking up around 5:30/6am before high school so that I could either run at least three miles down the RJ Corman Trail near my family's home or make the mad dash to the gym so I could get in round one of two, sometimes three, in before being forced to sit all day in classes. Then, I remember the shame I began to associate with eating. I believed that if I didn't burn X-many calories then my body didn't need any extra,at all. I adopted the calorie-burned-equals-calorie-deserved mentality. So, let's say my watch said that I only burned 800 calories from my multiple workouts that day...then 800 calories was what I tried to keep my consumption around. The gym became my home. I started to become very small. And fragile. My immune system essentially sucked. Doctors scared me with the early signs of osteoporsis. My periods stopped for five years. Then, I remember going into a deep, deep depression that I'm not even going to begin to touch in this post. I started drinking alot. I didn't really watch what I ate and started eating in private so that no one could tell me I didn't deserve the food. I lost all motivation to do anything, even the only thing that seemed to give me purpose: working out and teaching fitness classes. I started to feel extremely uncomfortable eating around others and therefore, didn't. I remember going weekends without food if I went on a trip or spent that time with a partner. I also remember binging when I woud finally return home, only to purge because I felt so guilty. Long story short, I have had quite an unhealthy relationship with food and the whole concept of eating. All the stomach acid and digestion disruption I caused from restriction and purging led to a wide array of tummy troubles. Now, I can't digest a lot of foods and I often experience pain after after eating which makes banishing the negative association quite difficult. For me, eating meant pain. It went from meaning pain as in guilt and shame to pain meaning actual, physical pain. So even when I fully tried to get better there was so much damage that I needed to reverse. The physical pains from eating were so uncomfortable that it became all I could think about. I began to plan my entire days around when I would eat so that I could time out the pain appropriately. (For example, if I knew I had a social event later that day, I either wouldn't eat at all or I would wake up extremely early and try to eat enough nutrients to keep me going for the day...but I knew I had X-many hours for the pain to hopefully go away that I could be fully engages with those whom I was visiting with). It affected every aspect of my life; the pain interfered with work, social outings, sleep and so I decided to go to the doctor and end the suffering. I found out that I'm experiencing a form of IBS (which sadly, is chronic) but also due to my past of eating disorders. Over the past two years where I've been really trying to cure unhealthy mindset on food, reintroducing normal eating habits has proven quite difficult. My doctor prescribed a certain medication for IBS that helps with intestinal spasms but really, mindful eating is what has saved me. I've adopted a sort of intermittent fasting approach (learn more by following the link--I will do a separate post on this within the next week, also) to eating so that I give my digestive system a good break between meals. Technically, I still time my days around when I eat because I still experience pain; but it's far more tolerable. With intermittent fasting, I eat all my nutrients within a certain time frame so that my digestive system doesn't have to work all day long. Some may argue that several small meals a day is good for your metabolism and that I am hindering my metabolic health this way. However, as you can see from the photos my body and its ability to grow and strengthen has not been hindered by this eating approach. What good is look lean and sculpted if you can't hike 6 miles uphill to your favorite sunset spot? What if you deprive your body of so many nutrients that you physically can't muster the energy to drive 25 extra minutes and support your sister in her cheer competition after you get off of work (yes, that how week you can become from consistly starving yourself. It sounds like an exaggeration; but really, sometimes that energy could not even remotely be mustered)? Are you willing to sacrifice life experiences for the sake of your temporary physical appearance? Intermittent fasting has taught me to look at food as what it is-fuel. Food is fuel for our bodies to do the things we love to do. So now, I know that I must eat and I strive to fill my body with the food and nutrients it needs so that I can actually live life. Since it's still an actual painful process considering my past, I have to go about it with a somewhat-scientific approach. Here's what I mean: Before every meal:
As I eat, I think about what I am eating and what I want the food to fuel me to do. For example, if I'm eating an avocado I will picture the avocado and where it came from, then think, "This will help be do 30 more kettlebell swings later." This way of eating has helped me slow down and really think about what I am doing. It has helped me to stay energized and able to take and teach more classes plus stay productive at work. Added bonus....my abs appeared! Magic. I know that I only briefly mentioned some of the topics in this post; I will into more depth later in separate posts. Until then, peace and love! Get sweaty. Fuel yourself. ~yoginiliv I've never really been one for rigid routine schedules (eg. wake up at this time, always eat this at this time, grocery shopping on this day, social event from this time to this time, etc.) Yes, I have a little morning routine but it changes each day. I live intuitively--I listen to my body and try to decode its messages and hints. Having everything planned out to a tee actually stresses me out more than anything--I feel pressure from myself to stick to the schedule I created; and who wants to let themselves down? That being said, I do notice that I get alot more accomplished if I have not a schedule, per say, but moreso guidelines for the day ahead. I leave little post-it notes inside of cabinets, memos on my mirror and DIY dry erase boards dispersed throughout my apartment to serve as little reminders and motivators. Take this little board for example...I keep it by my coffee maker so that I'm sure to see it each and every morning. I might change this board once a week or every other week to change up my meditation routine or if there's something else I decided I want to incorporate into my mornings. I also have a board that I write out the night before because it's day-specific. I include options for breakfast, workout reminders, snack ideas and health regimens that I'd like to follow through with. Here's the one I wrote for myself last night: It's important to encourage ourselves--we can't expect anyone else to. These little reminders give me an agenda even on lazy Sundays (now, I really don't have any lazy days unless I'm utterly sick. Movement = bliss for me. These non-time-rigid guidelines help get me moving without the pressure of looking at the clock).
I take each day, one at a time, encouraging myself to be fully present in each moment. This mindful approach to each day, each hour even, help ward off anxiety and depression. I'll go more into that in a later post... Until then, remember to make each day your own. You are in control of your life. Create your reality. E-mail [email protected] for more information or if you have any questions. You can also see the Contact page for a larger image of these descriptions and links to social media accounts.
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AuthorNature-loving, adventure-seeking, holistic and wellness advocate: Yoginiliv. Archives
May 2017
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