Relax, Renew and Restore this Holiday Season

By Amy Phillips-Gary

One of my favorite personal holiday traditions is to take a restorative yoga class.

If you haven't heard of restorative yoga, let me clarify. This doesn't feel like much of a class where one must study, concentrate or work hard.

Instead, it is an experience that is truly a treat. It is also one way that I relax, renew and restore my body, mind and soul during the often hectic holiday season.

During a restorative yoga class, props such as bolsters and blankets are used to support the body as fully as possible. Practitioners lay in particular poses on the floor, recline over a bolster with their feet up a wall, or even drape themselves over the seat of a folding chair.

This might sound awkward or difficult, but with the assistance of props and skilled instructors, my body feels gently stretched and almost instantly better able to relax. I always leave a restorative yoga session feeling simply blissed out!

A yoga studio in my city, Yoga on High, offers restorative yoga classes throughout the year. My husband and I create the time to enroll in one during December as a holiday present to ourselves...and to those around us because we always feel so ease-ful afterwards!

Stress mounts within just about all of us this time of year. As holly jolly as we might want to feel, grumpiness can develop and our shoulders tighten right along with it.

You probably already know the detrimental effects of stress on your body, mind and relationships. Stress can contribute to strain and conflict between you and those you love. It can also make you physically sick.

For this reason, I encourage everyone to make relaxing and renewing a priority-- right up there with getting your holiday cards in the mail.

If the idea of restorative yoga doesn't appeal to you, open up to other ways to relax.

I posted a list of what I call “wellness intentions” on a cork board by my bed so that every day I am reminded of my priority to incorporate relaxation into my life. Included on this list are: meditating daily and doing yoga and cardiovascular exercise several times each week.

Your wellness intentions might be very different than mine.

For example, you might not practice meditation, but you can choose to put your lists away, turn off your phone, tv and computer for even 5-10 minutes and just breathe. It's amazing how just breathing can help to loosen tension and open you up to relaxation and renewal.

Believe it or not, paying attention to what you eat and drink is another way to restore yourself.

Of course, just about all of us indulge in foods and drink we might not normally partake (or consume as much of) at holiday parties. I suggest that you join in with these celebrations and savor those food and drink treats as you desire.

But be sure that you are also treating yourself to plenty of water and whole foods the rest of the time. You might include green foods such as spirulina or wheatgrass in a smoothie to boost your immune system and enrich your body.

Give yourself the gift of relaxation this year for the holidays. Make a commitment to yourself to develop your own wellness intentions that can help your body, mind and spirit stay renewed and restored.

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*For more information about Restorative Yoga, you can visit these sites:

Restorative Yoga for Body and Mind-- General Information

Videos About Restorative Yoga

Directory of Restorative Yoga Instructors

Feed Your Soul: Cut the Chatter and Listen

By Amy Phillips-Gary

This week's blogs center around questions such as: “How engaged are you with your own life?” and include suggestions for how to nourish your soul*.

As a prerequisite for feeding your soul, yesterday I shared a few strategies you can use when you notice yourself falling into autopilot mode. Instead of moving through life dulled and dazed or simply reacting to situations from old habits, you can interrupt autopilot and create space so that you can tune in to your soul.

Within this space, you can begin to listen. You can more readily hear the inner guidance, wisdom and clarity that you've possibly been yearning for all along. It is your soul-- which can be experienced as either within, outside of you, or both-- that holds the ultimate answers to your most difficult life questions.

Whether or not you will leave or stay in a relationship, if it's time to look for a new job, how to resolve heartache that you've been carrying around, by what means you could break a habit that's holding you back-- these challenges and more DO have solutions that can help you thrive and be the person you're wanting to be.

But you won't have access to these answers unless your connection with your soul is clear.

I can't even count the number of times that I've been struggling with a heavy problem-- or even just a minor irritation-- and the chatter in my head seems to be drowning out my inner guidance. This chatter might take the form of to-do lists, memories of a conversation I had that day, self-criticizing thoughts or “white noise” types of inner interference like a song I heard on the radio re-playing over and over.

In much the same way that you interrupt autopilot mode, you can make a conscious decision to cut the chatter so that you can increase access to your soul.

First of all, notice that the chatter in your mind has “taken over.” Be gentle with yourself and decide if it's really serving you to rehash an annoying incident you had with a co-worker, for example. Will this focus allow you to access your inner guidance and soul?

All of this takes practice. You might find yourself re-focusing and guiding yourself back to a place where you can truly listen over and over again throughout your day. And this is ok. The decision is truly up to you.

Meditation is a powerful clearing tool.
Meditating is one of the most effective strategies I've found to cut the chatter in my mind and open up to my soul. The great news is, you don't have to set aside hours each day or sit in uncomfortable positions in order to benefit from this practice!

There are so many ways to meditate and I encourage you to learn more by doing an internet search, talking with people who regularly meditate and checking out the free meditation articles at the Personal Growth Planet website.

You can meditate sitting on a zafu (a special meditation pillow), in a chair or lying on your bed. You can even walk, ride your bike, knead bread dough and fold clothes while meditating.

While there are several specific meditation techniques, here are some basic guidelines:

Breathe deeply and from your diaphragm. Keep your focus trained on the breath and allow the chatter in your mind to fade away. Simply continue to return to your breathing. You can even say to yourself, “I am breathing in. I am breathing out.”

If feelings come up for you, allow them to rise and fall away. Keep breathing as the grief, the fear, the anger or another feeling moves through you. This is an important part of the clearing process.

As you meditate, you will probably relax and release tension-- even if you also experience difficult emotions. It is here in this space of openness and clarity that you can listen to your soul.

Don't be surprised if you are given information, assurance or other affirmations during or after you meditate. These are messages from your soul. There is a deeper knowing about these understandings, words or calls to action that is completely different from the chatter in your mind.

This is a gift from your Source, through your soul.

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*The concept of “Soul” is being used here in an expansive and two-fold manner. In one sense, it is the higher power-- Source, God, Goddess, Allah, Yahweh, Great Spirit or other name that resonates for you. Additionally, it is the essence, the animating principle that is you. These can be inter-linked or distinct depending on your belief system.


Personal Growth Planet blog is taking part in National Blog Posting Month. Every weekday in November, you'll find shorter daily blogs linked by weekly themes.

Treat Your Life to a Meditation Infusion

Would you like to feel more alert, energized, happier and healthier? Well, who wouldn't!? If so, you might consider meditation.

You could be like me and know the benefits of regular meditation but just don't make the time for it. Or, you may feel resistant to meditation because of what you perceive about the practice.

If you can set aside the perceptions you may have of meditation and open up to infusing your life with this enriching practice, you could be pleasantly surprised at how great you feel...and how easy it can be.

If you aren't familiar with the benefits of regularly meditating, here are a few:

*relaxation and stress reduction
*lower blood pressure
*increased oxygen to cells
*improvement of chronic diseases such as allergies and arthritis
*greater mental clarity
*increased serotonin, a naturally-occurring mood enhancer

And these physical and psychological improvements come without any of the undesirable side effects you might find with prescription drugs!

If it's so great, why don't more of us meditate more of the time?

Maybe you can't seem to get the image out of your mind of the meditating yogi sitting with legs pretzel-ed, eyes closed, shut off from the “real world.”

Meditation might seem intimidating to you. It sounds or looks difficult and, after all, you might wonder how you can fit one more thing into your day.

Because of your religious beliefs you might feel averse to meditation. It is often associated with Eastern spiritual practices such as Buddhism or Hinduism and you may not want to veer from the path you've chosen.

It is true that meditation is core to many spiritual practices-- this includes Christianity, believe it or not. Meditation takes various forms and can be a way to connect with a higher sense of self or a divine power, depending on what you believe.

Meditation can also be practiced without any explicitly spiritual or religious dimension at all. It is completely up to you to decide why you meditate and how you will practices.

Meditation cushion not required....

There are many many ways to meditate. Some do involve more physically demanding postures, extended time frames for sitting and chants or mantras. But what I'm suggesting here is a bit different.

By infusing your life with meditation, you literally bring meditation into more areas of your everyday life-- the walking around, answering the phone, brushing your teeth sort of moments. And with this meditation infusion, you potentially revitalize each and every moment.

Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh is one teacher who has proposed incorporating meditation into everyday activities. He leads others in walking meditation, for example. Learning how to meditate while walking is a great starting point for infusing your life with meditation.

Walk the meditative walk...

Walk with presence. Consciously take your attention out of your head and move it down to your feet. Notice how it feels as your feet or shoes connect with the ground. Breathe as you step. When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breath and to that connecting between your body and the Earth.

You can do this when walking to your car, walking your dog, or even walking through your local grocery store. Walking meditation can be practiced indoors and outside.

The secret here is to keep your attention focused on this present moment. Really tune in to how your body feels as you take each step. As you breathe and step, watch as your body loosens and a greater sense of peace comes over you.

At its core, walking meditation is about breath, your focused awareness of your own body and a sense of openness.

There's no end to what you can do meditatively...

Take the walking meditation and expand it to other activities. You might set an intention that you will infuse a particular activity with meditation and then try it out.

For example, you might consciously decide to wash the dinner dishes in a meditative manner one evening. As you fill the sink with soap and water, breathe. While wiping down a plate, breathe and notice the connection between your hand, the soapy water and the dish.

The next evening, you could choose to wash the dishes as you might usually do-- which probably involves a less present mind and little or no attention to your breathing. What feels different about these two experiences?

Breathe deeply and step mindfully into meditation-- no matter what you are doing. The only thing you really need is a willingness to try this new way of living and an intention to keep returning to it.
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For more information about Thich Nhat Hanh visit http://www.plumvillage.org/
For more detailed suggestions for walking meditation visit http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/articles/walkingmeditation.html