Did you know that your yoga practice is also increasing your wealth?

We measure our material wealth in terms of assets and liabilities.

We want to increase our assets and reduce liabilities.

We do our taxes, and count our assets. We review the bank balance, manage funds and do an inventory of our belongings, even if they are just an old yoga mat that we look after.

We all know that the old yoga mat is a depreciating asset and our savings account is hopefully an appreciating asset.  We all love appreciating assets because they increase in value over time.

Our engagement of time can also be measured from the asset perspective.

When we spend our time, for instance, on personal beauty, it is like polishing the rusting Volkswagen. Whether polished or not, one day the wheel will fall off and the engine will blow. We are working with a depreciating asset.

If on the other hand, we spend our time increasing consciousness, we are creating an appreciating asset. To use the Volkswagen example, we are replacing the engine with a more efficient one. All the essential parts are being replaced so that the car may look like a Volkswagen but it now functions like a leading-edge Tesla!

What I particularly like about this way of looking at assets is that it takes our current understanding and values and turns them on their heads!

As a Yogi and Life coach, many of my clients are looking to build up their assets, but when they speak about assets they are speaking of financial assets. The above information turns this concept totally in its head.

When I researched the amount that people spend on beauty products in their life, it adds up to an average of $500,000 per person! This money is spent on a depreciating asset. Instead, if that money and time were to be invested in an exponentially appreciating asset, it would yield amazing results!

Other depreciating assets that are worthwhile noticing are foods that do not increase health. Not only do they cost money to buy, but they cost more money to fix the problems they are causing!  We get the high sugar diet fairly inexpensively, but we pay for it with all the illnesses, the ramifications of the illnesses, and the costs of recovery or remediation!

The appreciating asset of meditation can be contrasted with the decreasing asset of watching violent TV shows. The statistics on meditation indicate that every minute increases brain function, increases emotional resilience, and literally reduces violence in the area. What a lovely appreciating asset!

On the other hand, we can all see the effects of violent TV shows and violent words on society, and the obviousness of the deprecation of the societal asset of civility, compassion, and non-violence, all of which has a direct effect on the quality of our lives and our relationships.

The Yogic Way to Wealth

Here is an exercise for you:

1. Write a list of the activities you do that create increasing assets for you. (Don’t forget to include yoga!)
2. Write a list of the activities that you do that are in the depreciating-asset category.
3. Review both lists and decide:
   1. Which activity, that increases my assets, if I do more of will give me a big return?
   2. What activity that decreases my assets, would be useful for me to do less of?
4. Having made those decisions, plan on how to put them into practice on a daily basis.

Here is a link to my coaching services I can help you sort and stay focused on the appreciating assets of your life.

Yes it is possible to Sleep your way to Union with the Divine!

And wake up a better yogi

Most people sleep 8 hours a day, or 1/3 of their life away, not knowing that this 1/3 of the life can be used to design the rest of your life!

We take it for granted that sleep takes place,  but we tend not use that time for anything more than getting some rest.

Instead we can use that time we are asleep to design our life.

In fact the time before we go to bed is critical to the way in which we sleep. If we have watched horror movies we may have nightmares.

If we are not having nightmares after watching a horror movie what are we likely to be doing? For me, most likely running the same pattern of energy as when I went to bed: on edge, fearful, ready to be scared, wondering what is around every corner. I then wake up tired and upset, and begin my day. What am I going to project into my day? Tiredness, and upsetness with life? Most likely.

What happens after some time of watching horror movies just before bed? We become more fearful about life itself.

Once we see the logic of this, then we can realize the importance of utilizing the last several hours before bed in ways that put us into the best frame of mind to enter into 8 hours of sleep.

Let us start then asking how do I want my day to be? If I answer full of joy, life and vitality lets at how I create that starting a couple of hours before bed.

I enjoy my evening doing things that generate joy, and avoiding activities that create fear and upset. For instance, evening news is not a good activity just before bed. Reading or watching some inspiring content is great.

To create more energy in the morning and sleep better dancing for 5-10 minutes sends you to bed with high oxygen in your system and a feeling if vitality that you also wake up with.

Finally, a great technique to apply just before bed is to fall in tune with the divine, cosmic consciousness, or whatever term you call the ultimate space. You can do this by setting the intention and also taking action!

Yogic Technique to fall into Union

You set intention by speaking out loud “Let the cosmos breath through me’.

You take action by breathing as though the cosmos is breathing through you.

Do this just as you go to sleep, say it 3-6 times as you drift off. Then wake up with a clarity and calmness that is cosmic.

Below is a great video about the power of sleep to improve the quality of your life.

Sleep your way to health Meditation Technique by Paramahamsa Nithyananda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guGel23tSOs

 

Yoga and Impossible

As a yoga teacher and student our mind has a huge effect on the yoga practice. We have a strong tendency to rule out our potential as humans by using the word impossible.

It is a common word among yoga students when they first encounter some of the advanced poses.

This is ultimately a self-fulfilling prophesy for many students.

Saying anything is IMPOSSIBLE creates limitation, and stops expansion. If as a child you dream of interstellar travel, but you are led to believe it is impossible, that dream will never manifest as a true potential for you. Interstellar travel will remain unexplored by you, because of the “impossible” residing within you.

The virus “impossible” is the dream killer, responsible for not trusting your heart and inner calling. But it doesn’t stop there, the negation of your dream remains in your subconscious, lurking as regret and disappointment in yourself.  

From where do all great inventions in the world come from? They come from a “blank” space, a space that communicates via intuition, flashes of knowingness, daydreams and in other unexpected ways. When asked about inventions such as the Apple computer, Steve Jobs professed that the idea just came to him. It is interesting to note that before the idea came about, Steve had spent substantial time as a spiritual seeker practicing zen buddhism and traveling in North India, searching for the solutions to the unanswered questions of science.

It is only from the blank space of unlimited possibility that inventors such as Steve Jobs have created some of the biggest companies in the world, with inventions that have transformed the lifestyle of humankind.

Einstein and Impossible

Einstein’s formula E=MC2 was revealed to him in a flash of intuition, a knowingness that was not based on scientific calculations or mathematical equations.  He just knew “It’s got to be so”. The formula was proven correct 20 years later, when technology was advanced enough to rigorously test its validity. For Einstein, the word impossible was not part of the equation.

Walt Disney and Impossible

Walt Disney’s inventions came to him in the form of daydreams, daydreams so vivid, that in spite of the many obstacles he faced, he endured in creating Disneyland Amusement Park.  To this day the park not only nurtures the magic in children, but celebrates possibility thinking and imagination. It prides itself in showcasing innovations that point to the future of technology. For Disney, the future depended on the young generation going well beyond the word impossible.

Why we love the word “Impossible”

Best selling author Rick Hanson in his book “Hardwiring Happiness” says that brain research indicates that part of the brain loves negativity, nurtures it and enjoys it. What does that part of the brain do with the word impossible?

The brain’s“enjoyment of negativity” means that our tendency in life is to automatically choose impossible over possible.  By choosing “impossible” the ego strengthens, and it constantly scans for information and events that will proof to us that the choice of impossible is valid.

“A Crime of the Mind”

 As we take this line of thought even further in our questioning, we discover that the mind so loves the word impossible that it shouts it out, screams it out to us. We can describe this as the“Crime of the Mind”.

If we truly sit with the thought that impossible is a “crime of the mind” and witness its devastating effects that keep us trapped in smallness, this contemplation can be liberating.

As soon as we increase the awareness of ourselves and see the world through the lens of “possible”, our horizons expand and magic flows with ease.

Exercise to increase yogic performance

1. On a paper write the heading Impossible. Then write down 10 postures that you desire but consider difficult or impossible.
2. Sit with the idea that what you have been labeling as impossible is a “crime of the mind”.
3. When you have shifted your consciousness, on the list of 10 postures, from impossible to potential, take a pen and cross out the heading and write possible instead.
4. Repeat this exercise for 21 days until you can look at the list and smile. Enjoy the potential of your future.
5. Now in the yoga class feel your body move into those postures with excitement and ease.

 

The short book on Worry that I produced has some great exercises that also shift thought patterns about “Impossible” Click here to go to that page.