Some people approach their yoga practice as a break from the world, a separate space where they can recover from life's stresses and strains. Once they've pulled themselves back together, they return to their families and jobs renewed.

But what we really want to learn is how to incorporate our yoga practice into the rest of our lives and to respond to life's challenges without adding tension and stress. It is at this level that yoga really becomes a deeper practice. You can be under tremendous stress and come back into experiencing feeling grounded as though it were just another moment of Tadasana (Mountain Pose); or you can receive a big disappointment and be able to drop into your breath, realizing it's just another moment of practice; you can be in the daily tension of your everyday life, and allow the breath to move the feelings through your body allowing you to relax.

Close your eyes, relax, get centered, get balanced and breathe.............Namaste Cyn

Vinyasa yoga teaches us to cultivate an awareness that links each action to the next—on the mat and in our lives. Applying vinyasa in your yoga practice and daily life has many parallels to our breath in class. Moving through life demands a synchronization with natural forces that requires skill and intuition, the ability to set a course yet change with the wind. You have to know how to assess ourselves; in our physical, emotional, and spiritual states.

The teachings of yoga include a view called parinamavada, the idea that constant change is an inherent part of life. To proceed mindfully with any action, we must first assess where we are starting from today; we cannot assume we are quite the same person we were yesterday. We are all prone to ignoring the changing conditions of our body-mind; we often distort the reality of who we are based on who we think that we should be. This can show up on the yoga mat in any number of inappropriate choices: engaging in a heating, rigorous practice when we're agitated or fatigued; doing a restorative practice when we're stagnant; going to an advanced yoga class when a beginning class better suits our experience and skills. In order to avoid such unbeneficial actions, we need to start out with an accurate assessment of our current state.

Be who you should be each and every day (it will be different).............

We all have moments of insecurity—moments where we really dread something is about to happen. When maybe fear, anxiety and maybe even anger are about to set in! So how do we change those feelings into insight, freedom or a sense of calm.

During these insecure moments, we need to examine our feelings, acknowledge them, which with practice will bring us back to a sense of calm. It won't change the situation but it will change the way we react to it.

But that's easier said than done. One technique is paying attention to the feelings that accompany them. Then turn your focus on your breath, each time you relax and listen to your feelings, you open yourself to acknowledging that they are present.

When you simply witness our feelings first rather than just reacting to them, we allow our life to unfold with connection and we open ourselves to greater sympathy and understanding. Most important, we start to develop our capacity to be mindful in an often challenging life.

One breath at a time.........Cyn