Hitting reset on my body

Ananda helps me reset my spirit, trying out this juice cleanse to reset my poor diet habits! I am on day 2 of a 3 day cleanse by love grace. It includes 5 juices a day with one smoothie. I think there are enough calories to keep me going even while working out. I think I'm doing pretty good. Day 1 was definitely easier than I thought! I even skipped one of my juices. Hoping to keep with it today. I only found myself aggravated when I watched the food network and they were talking about SPAM! ACK. Now I feel like everything smells like SPAM or salty nitrate-y processed meats...kinda yummy...BUT I had my love grace. green protein smoothie and am looking forward to my next juice in 2 hours!

I love hitting the reset button

...to come back to the present moment. Ananda Ashram is my reset button!

Breath and feel the present moment!

Our minds tend to regret or put too much emphasis on the past and/or create anxiety about the future. Our breath helps us to stay in the present. Being aware of our thinking/mental patterns helps us to not get caught up in them. Take a breath in and feel the present moment. Feel connected to the universe and truly feel connected to the people in your life.

Everything is new

We often look to gain experience, gain status, gain labels, gain money, gain love. Gain is such a common theme but we forget to look at things with new points of view and live in our present moment. This can allow us to be more playful in life and therefore able to discover new abilities and experiences. Newness is hard to come by -as each day passes we further ourselves away from our true nature and forget playfulness.

Try turning your senses inward

Staying present in Yoga is sometimes super easy. It's probably why we all come to class. We drop in, we automatically let go of whatever else is going on and we just do our sun salutations and give ourselves a break from life. If only for 90 minutes. It can change everything. This is why I love starting my day with Yoga. Because if nothing goes right that day, at least the Yoga happened. But we do all have those days where your outside life just invades your practice. OR you just can't let go of what happened at work, you hate the teacher's playlist or voice, and your hands keep slipping on the crappy mat that you rented. UGH. It happens to all of us! The more we practice, the more we can prevent these challenging moments. More importantly the more we practice, the more we can incorporate staying present into our regular life when we need it. This is why I believe, I've always sought out Yoga. And the more I practice the more I really feel like I can use it as a tool when I am feeling anxious or stressed. I can just get into a place where I can imagine being in class and holding and chair pose twist for 5 breathes. Then the 5 breathes are over and I am so much calmer because I stayed with it!

Practicing being in the present moment can do so much good for us! We're so often caught up in what's going around that are senses are constantly "reacting". When we turn ourselves inward we can allow our senses to instead, notice what's going on within ourselves which is the important part! We don't often notice how we feel internally until our body is setting off red flags like pain, discomfort, panic, etc. If we can notice these things before they happen it can become preventative.

Enjoying the Present Moment

We always talk about being "present" in Yoga. Being in the moment and letting go of past and future. The brain is so amazing in that it helps us remember things, think and also controls our physiological processes. The brain juggles all these important tasks and is constantly multi-tasking. This is why its important to stay present. In order to give our minds a break from the juggling. Getting stuck or being heavy in our past is a common issue. Or anticipating the future to the point that it creates anxiety or stress. These are things we all commonly do and while our brains are trying to manage these thoughts, we might be putting a little less energy into our important physiological processes like digestion or resting and healing.

Sometimes when we get caught up in worrying or dwelling, we forget to live in the present and be in the moment. More importantly we forget to enjoy that present moment. Our lives are a process. Our Yoga practice is a journey. There are difficult times and bumps in the road but its all part of the work to bring you forward. We have to go through these things anyway, we can only make it easier on ourselves if we decide to find joy in that. Next time someone asks you told hold utkatasana/chair pose for 5 breaths...just curl up the corners of your mouth and find the joy in it. You will find that the 5 breaths will be over much faster than you think!

Take it from Deepak