Get Healthy Happy Hips and CURE Your Back Pain!

We hold a lot of tension in our hips. We sit at work, we sit in cars, we sit on couches and this all adds up to tight hip flexors and hamstrings. We have become a very sedentary society, and the effects are discouraging and critically affecting our health in more ways than we realize.

Sitting for hours on end encourages muscle tension, lack of mobility of the spinal muscles and fluids, and an endless list of health risks. The spine is the most precious skeletal structure in your body. The health of your spine determines so much of your overall level of health. It is the primary structure that keeps your whole body connected. It is not only composed of bones, but connects numerous nerves, blood vessels and holds spinal fluid which is one of the most precious fluids in your body.

The longer you stay seated, hunched, lying on your sofa the more you encourage the decompression of the disks in your spine. This over time causes degeneration of the whole skeleton, compressed nerves, and osteoporosis.

Yoga Keeps You Young!

Keep your spine healthy with Yoga and exercise and you will also slow down the aging process. People who don't exercise or keep good posture will age much more quickly. Exercise brings more oxygen to your whole system, and improves bodily processes such as growth, regeneration, assimilation, and elimination.

The hip bone, the lumbar veterbrae and sacrum make up the pelvic area of your body. Tight muscles surrounding the hip joint creates tension and pulls primarily the lower back out of alignment. This translates to possible back problems such as sciatica, lower back pain, and degenerative disk disease. Low back pain is the second major contributor to sick days taken by the workforce. That is a huge problem for both business and personal productivity.

Healthy Hips for a Healthier Back!

The following 4 exercises will encourage back health, open hips, and prevent acute and chronic back pain conditions.

Pigeon Pose: focuses on piriformis, glutes, it band

One of the best and most intense hip openers around, the pigeon pose will encourage the IT Band to lengthen, and bring more circulation to the entire hip area. Try to keep the front shin parallel to the front edge of your mat, keep the spine straight and aim to maintain both hips square and levelled facing forwards.

Knee to Ankle pose (Agnistambhasana): focuses on piriformis, IT band, lower back

This is a seated pose where you bring your ankle to rest on the opposite knee. The key here is not to force the knee down. Knees should never feel pain, or go beyond a moderate sensation. If you already feel it in your knee, do not fold over. Simply breath into those tight areas, and with time you will develop more flexibility.

Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Lord of the Fishes Pose): focuses on outer hip, erector spinae, lower back

The key here is to twist from the lower spine, pulling the belly in towards the navel, and not compromising the alignment of the spine in the twist. It is far better to twist a little less, and have a straight spine. You will notice a beautiful quality to the breath when you don't go beyond where you are currently at.

Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) : focuses on inner outer thighs, lower back, erector spinae

This is one of my favourite seated poses because it targets the outer and inner hips, and groins. If you cannot maintain a straight back with ease and stability then do not proceed to fold over. Just stay upright and you may find placing your hands behind your hips a great help to keep you straight in this pose. Eventually your hips and groins will lengthen and open enough for you to maintain the pose without using your hands.

Incorporate these poses in your daily practice and in only a few weeks time you will see an amazing improvement in your mobility and the overall flexibility of your spine. Say good bye to any back pain and watch how you improve in all the poses of your practice!!!

In health always,

Namaste

Piera

What is Yoga?

So you have started a yoga practice I hear!

FANTASTIC!

I'm excited! Ecstatic! Love love love that you are exploring a new terrain! Yoga can open new paths in your life you never thought possible. It has for me, over and over and over again. I started practicing about 10 years ago and haven't looked back.

In the beginning it was just a "condiment" to my fitness routine. I would take a class maybe once or twice a week, to undo the damage I was doing in the gym with weight lifting and running. Eventually I "awakened", and I mean that in a literal and figurative sense. I literally felt more connected to my own intuition, and the process of unraveling years of "stuff" just began to happen. Not always pretty, and for the greater part very very rewarding.

For me Yoga allowed me to step out of my mind, and into my body, and further on into deeper realms of my essence. Again, it's a process. It never really gets done, and the magic, the beauty of this thing we call Yoga is that every single time you come onto your mat, you experience a whole new practice. Even if you did the exact same class, with the exact same sequences, it never ever is the same!!!

I just love that! So for the ADD kid in all of us, this is a god send :)

Yoga means "union" in the broadest sense of the term.

You are "yoking" the Self in you with the Self of every other thing, person and place in existence. Ok perhaps that is a little hard to wrap your mind around right now. Let's just start with the union of You to You.

Essentially yoga nurtures the "Core Connection" we all are capable of. Yoga is thought to be only the physical practice of the asanas (poses) on the mat. However the real yoga is in every single moment, every single experience and every single breath. So what we learn on the mat, is useless if we are not bringing that "union" or "Core Connection" further into our daily lives.

Once we engage that Core Connection I so often talk and teach others to do, we initiate a very profound process that enables us to release stress, focus, and participate from a place of presence. The chaotic mind recedes into the background, and you essentially become free to feel and live at your highest level. You come to learn how being present, in this moment, right here and right is true liberation from suffering. It is our attachments to our past, our future, and ultimately the identity we have created about ourselves.

So Yoga allows you to let go, and let go, and let go some more.

If you can take one thing away from this today, please let it be the following. The only thing you have that is real is this very present moment. What happened this morning, doesn't exist. What you may think will happen in 2 months from now doesn't exist. Only your thoughts create this things, and they appear to be real for you. They appear to be your "reality". Why hang on to illusions, or things that don't exist? When you can be here, right now, enjoying what is.

To your health always,

Namaste

Piera

How to breath to Nirvana in 5 minutes!

Feeling a little blah? Are you struggling to feel more energy and less of the heaviness and low vibes you may be experiencing lately? We all want to get to Nirvana at some point...well most of us at least can admit to wanting joy and a more satisfying life experience. So where do we turn?

Inwards.

Its starts with YOU.

You can buy all the "magic" energy pills, go on a extreme diet, get the great new self help book out there, or repeat affirmations till your blue in the face, but all of that is not the best direction to take.

The energy and capacity to feel your authentic true vibrant self is already within.

What do I mean by this?

Many of us are grasping outwardly. I call this the "grasping syndrome". We look, reach, seek, and GRASP outside of ourselves continuously. We look for another to love us, to accept us, and to acknowledge our needs. It gets to the point you don't even know your doing it. Your on AUTO MATIC PILOT , AND black berry, iphone, ipad, youtube, msn messenger, skype, twitter, facebook, stumble upon, google, fire fox, RSS feeds, Flickr, and on and and on and on.

THIS is a huge energy vampire, that can suck the life out of you.

We look to material things, media icons, what Sally next door with the white picket fence, 2 kids, gorgeous husband, and beautiful 5 bedroom house is doing. We COMPARE ourselves to externals and then wonder why we keep feeling tired, unhappy and unsatisfied.

The connection to feeling better, more joy, more love, and eventually FANTASTIC starts by simply stopping all the chaos in our minds, stopping physically, and taking a moment and being with YOURSELF. I call this "pushing the PAUSE button".

Sounds too easy? A fairy tale fantasy to get your wish? Give it a try, what's the worst that can happen?

Assign yourself 5 minutes, 2 times in your crazy day. Ya I know, we all are BUSY, and have NO time apparently. 5 minutes, can be while your sitting on your toilet.(I'm exaggerating here, and I know you get the picture). Let's stop making excuses, and get to the work we need to do to live our best, and fullest life.

Here is how:

5 minutes - 2 times in your day.

Sit, listen to your breath, elongate the breath till you can count 4 seconds for every inhale, and 4 seconds for every exhale, and just be. You'll reset your whole nervous system, get clarity and springboard yourself from YOUR own center, not Sally's!

Allowing yourself to be more creative, productive and living what you are passionate about in life is so very possible, if you take the initiative to do something for your health and well being on a consistent basis.

Because, frankly if your not loving what you do, who you are and what you have then you got some work to do on YOU. Breathing isn't all that difficult and the best place to start ;)

See what happens, and let me know :)

Namaste

Piera

How Lying Down will get you Standing Up Again

Last December I spent 10 days and 10 nights lying down on my hardwood floor. No it wasn't some nutty new esoteric practice I was trying out. My low back went out on me, and left me flat on my back. I literally was forced to spend the next 10 days and nights in the confines of my room and with myself. My back felt like a thousand daggers were stabbing every inch of my sacrum. Any movement brought me to tears within seconds, and electrical shocks down my whole lower body. I cried, I sobbed and begged for mercy. Nothing helped until I just let go and stopped resisting. The moment I felt my pain, allowed it to be and drew on my inner capacity to feel compassion for myself was the moment my body started to relax and heal.

The whole experience actually turned out to be a gift from the universe. As much as I cringed in pain and fear , I am so very fortunate to have that happen to me.

It was the spark that initiated this Core Connection Healing project and book. Lying on my back brought me to the ground in a very literal sense and also a deep metaphorical one. I was given the opportunity to STOP right in my crazy tracks of being in auto pilot mode, to truly experiencing PRESENCE and BEING in the now.

From grasping outwards to gain insight, and "guidance" from all kinds of teachers, yogis, gurus and the like, I began to do the real work and instead went INWARDS. Lying on my floor prompted me to face my pain directly as it was. No running away, no heading to the gym or yoga studio, no going out and socializing, no helping or healing others, and no throwing myself into my work or relationships.


Grounded and Grounding :

It was me, my pain and the floor. A trio that brought me to gain greater understanding of my own self and inner terrain. I realized how much my body communicates to me and how much I neglect to hear it. I realized that if I kept ignoring the signals and inner voice that was screaming for me to just stay still for once and listen, I would lose the very precious gift that life offers us each and every day. The gift of knowing we are already blessed and perfect just as we are.

Just as Osho states "you can go on changing the outer lives, and never be satisfied", I knew I came to a point of needing to just stop from having to feel the need to change all the external circumstances in order to feel ok and acceptable to everyone around me.



Where does it stop?

The reality is, it doesn't. We can continually go outwardly and change our bodies, our clothes, our homes, our cars, our bank accounts, our friends, our partners, our networks, our gadgets and never FEEL the only thing that truly gives us satisfaction - our Core Connection to source and that inner being.

They say you need to stumble and fall, in order to rise higher. For me this really did happen. Not in the sense of getting better or more ahead, that would be EGO talking. What I mean here with "rising Higher" is coming closer to that higher self, or THE inner TEACHER, that is infallible and speaks our TRUTH.

Tools you can use to get grounded!

1. GET ON THE GROUND:
   

Lie on the ground for a few minutes everyday. You can do this just before bed. Get down to the primal ground we came from. Feel what it's like to just be close to the solidity that is always under our feet. Even in those times when we feel the rug is being pulled from under us, or when our "world" feels like its crumbling apart before our eyes, the ground is still there! This will allow you to feel how solid your foundation remains regardless of what your mind tells you.



2. MEDITATION:

Sitting on the floor gets you connected with your base or 1st chakra. The base chakra is found between your genitals and anus. Breath into this area as you sit and envision red light illuminating it. This is your connection to security and the basic needs of life. When we feel FEAR and become scared that we are not going to have our basic needs met, this area shuts down. So physical ailments such as constipation or diarrhea, hemorrhoids, colitis, IBS, Crohn's, bladder and urinary ailments can arise when this chakra is blocked or out of balance. Just sit, breath and feel the body from within.



3. Standing with Awareness:

So after practicing the above, we can rise up and feel that grounded stability as we stand. Standing with a long spine, relax the neck shoulders , and back, and slightly tilt the hips forward. Feel the feet pressing into the ground beneath you, drawing up the energy to the rest of your body. Feel all 4 corners of your feet pressing down as if they had roots. Doing this just for a few minutes everyday will encourage your self awareness to become stronger and stronger. You awaken your whole being when you come into mindfulness and the practice of experiencing the NOW.


In health and happiness,

Namaste Piera