YOGUE: INSIYA RASIWALA-FINN

Yoga + Ayurveda. Rituals for Modern Wellness.

Bali Blessing Ceremony: Why Rituals Matter.

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We have now been “living” in Bali since mid February. Almost nine months.

And while it’s offered us countless beautiful sunsets, memorable surfs, visits to the tropical jungles and waterfalls and time to kindle new friendships and renew old ones; it has also been a place where we have continuously shape-shifted to adapt our work to this current time – which has meant a constant and not always happy dialogue with technology as we move more and more of our yoga teaching online; financial worries in this time of a global pandemic; dealing with tropical flus, bugs; more heat and a few accidents, two of which were way too close for comfort.

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Summer Camping: An Eco Travelogue

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I grew up in Bombay, India, a far cry from the west coast of North America, where I live today.

Yet for a girl who grew up in the city, I was lucky to experience natural and wild spaces far from the paved, urban environment I lived in. My mother made it her mission to get us to a nearby “hill station” (or hilltop town) for school breaks.  And we rock climbed, hiked and explored river banks and followed waterfalls to their source during the downpour of India’s south west monsoons.

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7 Steps to Living your Best Year Ever

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I awoke January 1, 2017 still tired, feeling the lingering effects of a nasty cold and flu that I got hit with exactly 3 days earlier, in the white cold of snowy Whistler, Canada; where we were hunkered down in a cabin with dear friends and our children.  The highlight of the last night for me had been sending the kids off to bed at 9 p.m. with sparkling apple juice amidst the sparkling ice.  No champagne, no dessert, I didn’t make it past 10 p.m.  and didn’t have a choice.  I was in the thick of an icky feeling winter flu.  A part of me rallied against it. I wanted to be more festive, I wanted to talk, to enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner, but the inner quieter part of myself was more real.

That voice said, “You’ve been pushing too hard, you just need to slow down.”

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Cultivating Gratitude: Why it’s Essential to our Wellbeing.

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In Canada, my adopted home country, this is Thanksgiving weekend.  The trees wear their colourful garlands with short lived intensity – soon it will be winter – and our friends and family share laughter and seasonal harvest around their tables.

In Santa Cruz, California, where I currently live; today is a warm 21 + degrees C (80 + for you Fahrenheit folks); we wade in ocean water that is the warmest it has been all year and eat lunch under a cloudless sky. Clouds are unnecessary as the newest Trump scandal clouds all media air waves and conversation.  It does not feel like Thanksgiving.  In fact, it feels like we have much to worry and complain about.

Two nights ago on the eve of my 39th birthday, I was in a funk.  I replayed my list of worries in my head.  The tape ran like this: “I am not sure if we are in the place I want to call home.  Where is home? Why can’t we figure it out, NOW?  Where will we be next year at this time? ” I pushed away the thought of “there are many wonderful people here; our son’s school is amazing and we have slow-melted into this conscious, ocean side community. I love my yoga classes here etc.” Instead I focused on the negative: “I’m not sure if I am living the life I want to live. I am not sure what my contribution in this world right now is etc. etc.”

I played up the negative self chatter.  I wallowed in it and a part of me knew that I wanted to wallow in it.  I know I was in a funk because it was my birthday and I felt a sort of urgency of needing “time” – time away from scheduling life, from washing dishes and organising laundry and childcare and packing lunches and trying desperately to slot in time for yoga and something inspirational – to take stock, to check in with my path and give my life an honest once-over.  You know, the sort of things you think about on your birthdays as you get older.

I sat alone on the couch. My husband was putting our son to bed.  I felt lonely – as though my inner compass had decided to take a hike without me.  On the verge of tears. I let a few out.  Then they rushed out. Uncontrollable soft sobs, until they stopped. And I felt lighter, as though I had released something.  Not everything, but something.  And I slowed down my breathing and told myself I had a lot to be thankful for. A lot to be happy about. I needed to remember what those things were tonight.

I started a list.

  • I have loving, inspiring family and friends around the globe, many of whom I don’t see as often as I would like, but I know we are in one another’s thoughts.
  • I have a beautiful child with a kind, loving man, to whom we are giving a wonderful education.
  • I live by the ocean in a beautiful place. We may not know where we will be next year, but right now, we are here.
  • I am active. I am strong and I am happiest when moving and doing something physical and have always been that way.
  • I get to teach something I love doing for my vocation.  I teach yoga, I write and I inspire people to live their best, healthiest and most peaceful selves.
  • I am alive. I am breathing. I am fully wholly alive. Now, in this moment.  Not the next, but just this one.
  • We are growing a pumpkin in our little garden!
  • I have some amazing skills and talents and I am always open to learning and trying new things.
  • I have goals that I’ve accomplished and those that I still have to.
  • I put my heart into everything I do.
  • I am not perfect and that is ok.

It was a longer list, but these were my initial jottings.  As I wrote, I noticed how things began to shift in my head and in my body.  My shoulders relaxed, as did my jaw.  The space of release did not recede back into negativity. Instead, another voice began to tell me that I was going to be ok.  That life was beautiful and full of challenge all at the same time.  That I was in the thick of it.  That I needed a lot of patience, a lot of communication and focus to make my dreams happen.  That it may take more time. And it was all possible. That tension and worry set up shop in the very muscles, tissues and nerve endings of our body. That I knew through all my years of training in yoga, how to ease it out. That feeling what I felt, was valid, but I also needed to acknowledge that it was exactly that, a feeling.  And feelings are projections of our sensory mind.  The part of ourself controlled by our senses.  And that there was a part of me still beyond that.  More still.  More prescient and more present.

I slowly made my way toward bed. First to my meditation cushion. I lit a candle and I breathed, watching those thoughts, watching those emotions.  That night. I felt huge gratitude. It was in me and around me. It was a reminder that tuning into what we are thankful for is a daily practice, not a once in a year special occasion.

In his book The Buddha’s Brain, Dr. Rick Hansen talks about how we have an inherent negative bias in our neurophysiology.  This has been our body’s way of protecting us from dangerous experiences since millennia. Don’t eat this plant (you may die if you do), eat that one instead etc..   Our tendency as humans is to collect and stick with negative emotions and experiences, even when most of our experiences are actually positive.

To maintain equilibrium takes constant, minute by minute work. Hansen says that we need to revel in the positive experiences. To remember them fully.  In our lives as goal-oriented, hyper achieving individuals, we are not good at celebrating our wins.  But the more we do this, the more happy neural connections we build in our brains.  This in turn has huge benefits on our overall health and vitality.

Meditation helps and so does yoga.  But in my experience, a daily gratitude journal is key to staying on your path toward happiness.

Here are two simple daily exercises that you can include in your life. I hope that they offer you some benefit and inspiration.

  1. Daily Gratitude Journal
    Keep a journal beside your bed just for this purpose! Write a list of five things you are grateful for that day.  Keep it as simple and short or as long as you would like to.  It could be something that occurred as a result of something you were working on, or just something beautiful about the weather, as in , the sunset was stunning tonight.  Anything that lit you up. Be honest. Don’t create a fake feeling about something. Instead try to look at your day and your thoughts and emotions reacting to situations or people with some objectivity.thankful_journal_thrive_pink_angle
  2. A Rose and a Thorn
    We play this game at our dinner table almost nightly.  Sometimes we need a reminder from our 5 year old who loves it.  We ask one another. “What is a rose from your day today and what is a thorn?” It is a wonderful way to look at both a positive experience and a negative experience from our day with objectivity and realism.  Inevitably what I’ve found, is that the negative incident loses its edge just a bit and I am always left with more of a sense of equilibrium. And equilibrium is an open gateway toward happiness.10560587156_78a0ee5eba_b

     

    I hope that you have a wonderful long weekend.  Thanks for reading and and if you have any thoughts about these suggestions please do leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

 

 

Jet Plane Parenting for Modern Yogis

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There is an Arabic saying that the soul travels at the pace of a camel. While most of our self is led by the strict demands of timetables and diaries, our soul, the seat of the heart, trails nostalgically behind, burdened by the weight of memory.
– Alain De Botton

 

You could say that the paradox of modern travel is that while the soul travels at the pace of a camel, our bodies travel at the speed of a jet plane. Since March of this year, I have flown to Bali, Indonesia; from Bali to Sydney, then to Perth and Margaret River in Australia; to Singapore; back to Bali, then Hong Kong, then Vancouver and finally our coastal paradise of Ucluelet / Tofino; which is currently home.

I know I’m exhausted just writing this. But, the trip lasted 3 months and we traveled with our 3 year old son. And if you want your soul to linger longer in one spot, hang out with a child who demands your full presence.

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Be Healthy + Delicious

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I first met Andrea Sergeant, the bubbly force behind holistic nutrition and lifestyle company Healthy Delicious in Sayulita, Mexico, almost six years ago.  At the time, she was trying to decide what she wanted to focus on in her life and knew it somehow related to health, inspiring others and yoga.  A half-decade later, she is embodying her life mission.

I was honoured when she reached out to feature me on her blog.  You can read my interview here and glean her site for great tips and recipes on living a balanced, healthy and delicious life.  Thanks Andrea.

 

 

Why go on a Yoga Retreat? A woman’s perspective

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I recently read Toronto based yoga teacher Matthew Remski’s essay on how modern yoga needs to offer “real” support and connection to its community at the yoga studio level – he calls it the “soup kitchen”-ing of yoga studios.  It’s a brilliant, thought provoking essay and you can find it in the book 21st Century Yoga Politics and Practice;  I admire Remski as he brings a critical lens to our yoga bubble world and his writing and his work is concerned with  growing the yoga practice far beyond just doing asanas to tone your tush.   It is about creating a space much like the churches and mosques and synagogues have done for centuries, that offers community, a space to share the sorrows and joys of life that make us humans on a spiritual search, yet not disengaged with daily living.

Yet, in the essay, he critiques yoga retreats as one of the offerings at yoga studios that have just become a marketing ploy to take people to beautiful places and earn revenue.

That may be.

Yet, I write this post from Bali, where I have just arrived from the wet Canadian winter of Vancouver.  My mornings here begin with a surreptitious escape from our “family bed” so as not to awaken our toddler, who climbs in every night. I spend my first few moments walking barefoot onto dewy grass and looking up at the night sky – blushing toward first dawn.  It is warm and my body feels none of the sting of the winter winds I have left behind.  Instead, I am here taking in a simple connection to soil, to earth and to the ocean air scented with plumeria.

Sounds magical?  It is.  This time in Bali where we arrive each winter after the many airplane flights, the incessant travails of travel – especially with a child – is my manna.  After my first dip into the ocean, I feel reborn and a flowering of my yoga practice – with a little bit of help.  I’m no longer as concerned with the daily tasks of being a “householder” – we eat simple, delicious food that the retreat centre cooks, or at a local restaurant or warung, or I cook breakfast.  I am not folding laundry, one of the many local laundries is happy to have our business and  I have a little bit of help with my son.

As a mom, my yoga practice at home is all about squeezing in a few moments here and there within my day – always flowing with the rhythm of my child, the demands of work and family  – and justifying the compression of my daily practice with the statement: “this is my yoga right now.”

Here, all of a sudden, I don’t need to justify anything.  With just a little bit of space and time I can go a little deeper.  I used to think this was a luxury, something that I shouldn’t celebrate as it seemed so elitist, but especially if you are a woman and a mother and on a spiritual path – if you can manage it – a few moments of time stretched offer everything.  It makes me think about a famous female poet who said, “I write poetry as it is the only thing i can do in between the demands of my children.  Writing fiction would take so much longer.”

Ultimately, what I am looking for is quiet.  The yogis write that the yoga practice is about training our mind to be quiet so that we can feel that “quietness” in the midst of chaos, yet to get there, there’s nothing quite like experiencing external quiet: the pause from the daily-ness of space/time.  Sometimes you need to check out, to check in.

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The recent “trend” in the yoga world is that “retreats” are not as popular as teacher trainings and immersions in exotic locations.  That maybe so, but the truth is, that going on retreat can be a deep ride that offers as much as you are ready to take.  It can help to create new habits – like a daily yoga practice; it can offer a respite with time to journal, to think, to even lay in a hammock especially if that is not your natural inclination. Mostly, it can be a sure-fire way to take your awareness to another plane, a transfusion of spirit and a re-building of the “you.”

I often end my yoga classes with the statement that taking this “time” is not a selfish thing, because the time we spend on renewing ourself helps us to be kinder, more compassionate and present in all our relationships.  I know that I am a better partner, a mother and a friend when I do.

Traveling to Bali may not be in your cards this year, or in this lifetime, but you can go on retreat, for an hour, a day, a weekend or longer to a place not so far from the immediate recesses of your life.

So tell me, have you been on a yoga retreat or aspire to going on one?  Do you see it as something frivolous or wuwu?  I’d love to know.

And stay tuned next week for some Ayurvedic Travel tips and how to choose the ideal retreat for you.

Thanks for reading, I’d love your comments and questions and also your feedback on the new YOGUE site.

Namaste + gracias.

Insiya

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Moving towards the Light

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Processed with VSCOcam with f1 presetThe winter solstice is here.  It is the perfect time to pause.  To become aware of our turning from the dark days of winter here in the Northern Hemisphere towards a journey back into days of more and more light.  I also think it’s the ideal time to take stock of the past year, of the events both in our own lives and in the larger world, the tragic and the hopeful.

One of the things I plan to work on tonight is to write out all my fears and anxieties that are holding me back. The next step?  To burn those fears, to allow them to dissipate and be cleansed. The last step, to replace every fear with a wish, a hope and a goal to take me into the new year.  See more on goal setting here.

Simple, cathartic yet very effective.  Fire is such powerful energy and at the solstice, we welcome more of it’s warmth and light back into our lives and a good way to begin is to use some Fire to help us gain more clarity in our lives. Post those hopes, dreams and goals up where you can see them or put them in your diary or journal, keep them close to refer to them often.

Make this your ritual tonight if you can.  Light a candle, get quiet, get clear.  It doesn’t have to be a very long list, you may only have a few limiting thoughts, or you may have many.  Whether you believe in the prophecies of the Mayan calendar or not, I am hopeful that if we are stepping into the new age, we will experience a shift in our global, collective consciousness.  There is so much hope, especially if you believe, as I do that our inner joy and wisdom and love can overcome everything if we allow it to bubble forth without encumbrance.

Here are two quotes that I read recently that inspired me this week.

From radiant yogini + consciousness raiser Shiva Rea, a quote from Leonard Bernstein:
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein

and via Semperviva Yoga
“The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.” – Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit