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You are here: Home / Archives for imagination

imagination

On Consciously Creating Your Future vs. Going with the Flow

On Consciously Creating Your Future vs. Going with the Flow
On Consciously Creating Your Future vs. Going with the Flow

One of my favourite things about the New Year is getting a new planner. I’ve ordered many different workbooks over the years to guide me through my goal setting.

I love when they arrive in the mail and I can explore all the boxes to fill out. The ritual of looking back on the past years and reviewing my accomplishments and the hard lessons learned is my way of honouring the past year. I feel like I can truly let it go and focus ahead. The cycle of the calendar propels me to plan for the year ahead.

Consciously Create Your Future

Many years of my meditation practice involved filling journals with what I wanted for my life. I believe that caring for yourself means examining what you value in this life, what your goals are and where you will set your direction. If you don’t choose your direction, someone else will choose it for you!

Everyone is so busy these days, there’s so much to do. It reminds me of the Greek Myth of Sisyphus, the greedy and cruel King who was punished with the task of rolling a massive boulder to the top of a hill, only to have it roll back to the bottom for him to begin rolling it up again.

Sometimes work, no matter what you do, can feel like that. Another day rolling the boulder up the hill, only to start again the next day.

To break that cycle I registered for some Continuing Education in business development.  The course started with the question: Why do you do what you do? It is a very spiritual question. It applies to all areas of life. Why do I do what I do?

Because there’s the work (the boulder) that needs to be rolled, and then there’s the direction we’re rolling it. The course refers to this as your compass that points your direction.  Your compass shows you what your core principles are, and why you are doing what you do. It’s the direction of what you believe.

I’ve asked myself these questions before in different ways but I keep asking them to make sure I’m still heading in the right direction. Sometimes I need to change my route when I find myself straying from my core principles. Sometimes, I’ve changed my core principles of my business, especially when I’ve taken on too much and am headed too many directions.

One core principle I’ve held onto for 18 years of teaching yoga to kids is:

Go with the flow! Yoga should be enjoyable.

I want kids to think of yoga fondly. If a child does yoga, when they grow up, I want them to look back on the experience and think “I like yoga, I want to do it again.”

Why do You Enjoy Yoga? Why do You want Others to Join the Yoga Community?

When I dig deeper into the question of why I do what I do, I see it’s because yoga helped me so much, in so many ways it helps me be happier. In turn, I feel happy when I help others discover how good yoga feels.

There is another core principle there:

Helping Others Brings Happiness

So whether it is the new year or mid year, consider how focusing on your own compass can help you live your purpose and avoid rolling that boulder up the hill each day!  There may be times when you roll uphill, but you will push that boulder over the top and roll it forward rather than backward.

 

Upcoming Kids Yoga Teacher Training Courses and Dates in Toronto at this link
Our next Kids Yoga Teacher Training starts soon!

Filed Under: Kids Yoga Tagged With: conscious planning, imagination

May You Be Blessed Like This

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  A quick message of Thanks Giving for those celebrating today and those who posses an attitude of gratitude everyday.  May you be blessed with a quiet moment to reflect on the things that you are thankful for.

Here are five things I’m thankful for:

  1. The enthusiastic three year old who answered my question, “What is Bliss?” by pointing to her foot and saying “It means you have a blister!”  We sing the song:  I am the Light of my Soul.  I am beautiful, I am bountiful, I am bliss. I am. I am. Finding out what children think it means is sometimes a shocker. I’m thankful that I’ve been blessed to enjoy kids yoga and their delightful surprises.

    meditation for kids
    Give thanks for your blessings with the joy of a child!
  2. Running water, electricity, a roof over my head.
  3. All the Teachers who have guided me along the path.  Teachers who told me your job as a teacher is not to get students but to make teachers who are ten times more powerful than yourself.
  4. After last weeks Teacher Training weekend one student left this comment on my Facebook wall:  “EVERYTHING is different. I absolutely loved it, and highly recommend it. Aruna is definitely a gift sent to us by the Creator of imagination.”   To all the students I get to teach: THANK YOU for being there so I can pass on what I learned from my teachers.  Don’t let the wisdom die with you.  Make those kids ten times more powerful than yourself!
  5. The belief that I can make the world a little bit better.

What are you thankful for?  Please spread your blessings in the comments to help inspire anyone out there who has forgotten.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspiration, Kids Yoga Tagged With: imagination, Thank You, Thanksgiving

Kids Yoga for Disabilities

First off, take a look at this fun video of two Canadians, Rick Mercer (comedian/host) and Rick Hanson (Man in Motion hero/educator) blowing away all ideas of what one can and cannot do when one has a disability:

Pretty Amazing, Eh!

This Friday marks the beginning of the Paralympic Games  in Vancouver.   It’s another event that shows how ABLE all people are.  The first Paralympics Games were held in 1976 in Sweden and this Paralympics has  five sports:

  • alpine skiing
  • biathlon
  • cross-country skiing
  • ice sledge hockey
  • wheelchair curling

Here’s a link to a whole page of activities from Official Website of the Paralympic Movement. I’m looking forward to reading this worksheet in my kids classes:  A Fairytale:  A Class Discussion of Inclusion it’s a great story with discussion questions included.

I also want to try the Sitting Volleyball Skills Sheet with a soft volley ball for younger kids.

When it comes to yoga, are there any limitations that could prevent a child from joining a class?  Considering that kids yoga is already so imaginative I think kids yoga can be done by all.

The best tip for teaching yoga to someone with a disability:  talk to the person to  find out what works and what won’t work for their particular situation.  They’ll be able to tell you what they need to make it possible, what they want to try and what they can’t.  Don’t make assumptions!

If you’re stuck for ideas – a simple Google search of “wheelchair yoga” produces over 400,000 results!

Finally, this book  Susan Laughs by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross is recommended for discussing disabilities with young kids.  It looks like a great book that I’ve just added to my wish list.  Let me know if you’ve seen this book or if you have any other ideas for including all kids in yoga classes.

Filed Under: Attitude, Co-Operation, Kids Yoga, Resources, Yoga Games Tagged With: book reviews, disability, fairness, imagination, Olympics

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