Measuring progress is incredibly detrimental to your health as you have nothing rational to
measure against as this moment is unique, and your experience is being influenced by so many
tangible and intangible things. To try to do as much as you did the last time or to try to do more
or even to get happy or excited when you notice you can do more is just taking you down the
wrong path. Because some days you shouldn’t do more you should do less and forcing yourself
to do more is damaging! Ultimately you will do less as you age and change and dealing with that
will be much more difficult the more attached you are to your physical prowess.
This doesn’t mean that you won’t get stronger or more flexible or have more endurance then
previously (at least initially) as you exercise, it just means that you don’t get attached to that and
you realize that that’s not important for health. What’s important is that you’re activating your
body.  This activation is a natural by-product of your participation in any exercise or activity. See
the quantity of your action is not important and should only be a by-product of the quality of
your action. In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you do what matters is that you do the
right amount. I like to say it's not the quantity of the touch it's the quality of the touch.
Everything that’s good for you becomes harmful when it’s done in excess (except love).
  
This right amount is always changing as your body is incessantly changing. Just like your mind
has moods so does your body. Sometimes you feel strong and sometimes weak, sometimes you
feel loose and sometimes tight, sometimes you’re energetic and sometimes lethargic. Your body
is responding to a whole host of obvious and not so obvious conditions. Our actions should
reflect our mood just as our actions take into consideration the mood of those around you. What
makes a workout healing is our ability to tune into our experience (what we are feeling) and
decide what is appropriate. Not worrying about how much we are doing or how much we did last
time or how much you want to do, mindlessly pushing your body to a greater and greater degree
in the name of health, simply to fulfill some misguided desire that more is better! Ultimately this
pushing takes an adverse toll on our bodies. After all the universal law states “the harder you are
on anything the faster you destroy it”. This is why walking is considered the healthiest exercise.
   
We have been conditioned to want more stuff! Whether it’s food, money, beauty, youth, strength,
flexibility, cardio, stamina, friends, likes, comments, cars, houses, adoration, etc…
This is the rat race internalized. It’s like we are all running around trying to fill a hole within us
that’s not there, we have just been told it’s there so much we believe them.
   
Instead of trying to make gains, how about trying to care for oneself? If you didn’t know the only
way you can care for anything is to touch it gently.

The post The Absurdity of Measuring Gains appeared first on Power Yoga.

Discipline becomes harmful when you are hurting yourself or others to accomplish something. When you become so blind to everything else to accomplish your objective. When your daily workouts don’t allow rest, when you push so hard you cause damage, when your goal supersedes your needs, when you think it’s good to ignore what your mind, body, or the people closest to you are saying in the name of discipline. In that case you may achieve your objective yet the wreckage you leave in your wake is unrepairable and those things were important too. Discipline is your tool to accomplish your objective it is not your master, it is commendable, yet it is weak to succumb to it. It takes great strength and humility to find moderation. Be strong yet flexible, be focused yet accepting, sometimes making room for someone or something else takes more strength than being extreme. Discipline is damaging when you commit to driving straight yet the road is turning. You don’t always know what you need, you must keep watching and listening to your teacher. Your teacher is the reality of your experience and what’s immediately in front of you. If you’re ever unsure error on the side of gentleness:).

Those who accomplish the greatest feats and receive all the accolades can find satisfaction in those things but not happiness. They find happiness only in the same place as everyone else, in the love and care they give to themselves and everyone else.

sincerely, bryan

The post Self-Discipline and Damage appeared first on Power Yoga.

This is how any yoga class becomes healing because you are honoring what you are feeling. As this is why you have feelings, to guide you. Oh yeah one more thing: At the buffet if you overeat you don’t blame the chef it’s your fault and at your yoga class if you hurt yourself don’t blame the instructor it’s not their fault it’s your fault. Because the instructor doesn’t know how far you should go as they don’t know how the poses feel on your body. You need to back off and/or take breaks when you feel it’s appropriate and if you’re ever unsure always error on the side of gentleness as opposed to aggressiveness and certainly you will never have a problem. Just like at the Buffet better to eat a little less than too much!

This prevents you from blindly following the instructor as no instructor worth their salt would want that and necessitates you tuning into your own uniqueness (how you happen to be feeling that day). Your age, injuries, issues (physically and mentally), life events, mood and a plethora of other things are affecting you. Making progress in your yoga practice does not mean that you will go deeper into these poses, and it does not mean that your focus will be more acute. Making progress in your yoga means becoming better at assessing your needs which allows you to make more optimal decisions and the workout starts to become healing instead of just blindly pushing forward for no apparent reason other than to appease your vanity and/or your attachments to how you want things to be. Health is not a state of physical prowess it’s a state of balance and harmony.

When you practice like this your yoga practice automatically becomes a meditation as the first step in meditation is focus and concentration and this is exactly what’s necessary to assess your needs at any given moment. You also can start recognizing your judgments, criticisms, attachments and other stuff like competitiveness and reactivity. Noticing this stuff is very important towards the dismantlement of these stress inducing tendencies. As you start to notice these malevolent qualities you can then choose not to indulge. The less you indulge in these qualities the weaker these qualities become as they need your indulgence to maintain their dominance of your mentality. Now you can start to steer yourself as opposed to being steered by mental habit patterns.

The Sanskrit word “Yoga” translated into English means “to yoke”. The only reason on earth you would ever yoke some thing is to steer it. So right there in the name Yoga they are really telling you what this is all about. This is about steering yourself instead of being steered by mental habit patterns and cultural tendencies.

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In a way the universe is kind as initially, probably between the age of 35 and 40, you get your first wrinkle or grey hair. At the sight of this wrinkle many people will run to the store to buy Oil of Olay or some type of wrinkle cream. This is due to our cultural program we inherited that says getting old is ugly or something not appealing. But here’s a kool experiment. Instead of going for the wrinkle cream take a deep breath and, on the exhale, let your feelings and thoughts about the wrinkle go. Soon you will notice something, you will notice the wrinkle didn’t hurt you. It may help you in the sense that it’s one less thing you need to worry about.

According to Einstein, your experience is your teacher, and your teacher has taught you the wrinkle didn’t hurt you, letting go didn’t hurt you. Now the 2nd wrinkle comes, and you let go a little easier because your experience has taught you the 1st wrinkle didn’t hurt you. This is called experiential knowledge; this is what Einstein was talking about. The knowledge you are gaining here is when you let go, nothing bad happens. As this knowledge is constantly reinforced through the changes you go through letting go becomes less and less difficult. Eventually one day it’s time for the big let go, it’s time to die yet we are not stressed or scared or at least much less so because we have been letting go throughout the entire aging process and our experience has taught us whenever we let go nothing bad happens. You are at peace!

The law of your life is “change”. Everything is always changing, and you cannot imagine anything that you will not have to say goodbye to. So, let’s practice saying goodbye to the things that are changing! Can you imagine that this is why the aging process is so gradual. It’s a kind universe giving you an opportunity to practice letting go so you are more prepared for the big let go!

The less able you are to let go of what was and embrace what is, the more you will suffer. According to yoga philosophy all human suffering has its origins in attachment. This attachment is also the precursor to stress. The foundation of mental stress is basically not being ok with what is. According to the AMA (American Medical Association) this stress is responsible for most disease. So, this understanding and practice is vital for health, wellbeing and aging gracefully, which means living gracefully.

Most people are so embedded in their cultural program and its perspective on aging that they don’t see the program and therefore have no opportunity to step out of it. This is why the goal of yoga is awareness (enlightenment). It allows us to see (yogis of old were called Seers) and seeing creates choice. The choice here is do I want to continue down my path (or perspective) or do I want to head in a different direction. Do I want to use the aging process as my teacher to help free me from my attachments or do I want to allow it to disturb my peace and strengthen my attachments? Yoga doesn’t really care which one you are choosing; it just cares that you are choosing!

The post Letting Go appeared first on Power Yoga.

Yoga practices are specifically created for wellness. Wellness is health in its deepest form. Wellness is the eradication of disease and the foundation of homeostasis. Within yoga you will find diet and exercise prescriptions, yet most yoga practices are practices that address our mind state. 

Why Should We Have a Healthy Mind? 

It’s not a coincidence that our medical community is now saying that most diseases (90% or higher) originate in our minds. It seems the yogis of old knew what modern science is now discovering, which is that most all real health comes from a calm and peaceful mind. A calm and peaceful mind is a healthy mind full of benevolent qualities and free of malevolent qualities.

What is almost never articulated is that mental qualities, which are the qualities underlying one’s thoughts, are like muscles. For example, anger or compassion or fear or gratitude are very much like muscles. When they are used, they develop, and when they are not used, they atrophy. 

Angry thoughts strengthen anger and thoughts of gratitude strengthen gratitude. Similarly, the lack of angry thoughts weakens anger, and the lack of gratitude weakens gratitude. The more time one spends in gratitude the more gratitude is developed and similarly the more time one spends in gratitude the less time one is spending in angry or malevolent thoughts, so those qualities weaken.

I have a prediction: When our wisdom supersedes our vanity (when feeling good becomes more important than looking good) our meditation practices will supersede our physical exercises. Because the body really does not need that much attention and our mind is responsible for our reality.    

We know a calm and peaceful mind is a healthy mind that is quiet or full of harmless qualities. Having gratitude reduces stress. Stress inducing qualities are the largest factor in disease. That is all disease, not just physical disease. The goal of yoga is wellness. So, putting 2+2 together is the connection between benevolent qualities like gratitude and wellness (which is the goal of yoga) which very clearly demonstrates the connection between gratitude and yoga.  

This is most likely why all great beings like Jesus (non-judgement & forgiveness), Buddha (moderation), Gandhi (non-violence), Mother Teresa (compassion), Martin Luther King (equality) emphasized benevolent qualities as top priority. These beings are the greatest of the great because they cared about humanity so much, they demonstrated their care and every moment of their waking state. None of them ever said you need to stick your legs behind your head, or you need to touch your head to your legs. They didn’t say you need to run great distances or do a handstand or over develop your muscles. Yet, they all said develop the benevolent qualities of your mind and demonstrate those benevolent qualities in your actions.

The post Healthy Mind, Healthy Body appeared first on Power Yoga.

More questions pop in: If I’m telling myself something I already know aren’t those thoughts redundant? When I’m thinking about something I’m basically talking within my head so who am I talking to? If all my thoughts come from me, and I already know everything I’m thinking, are thoughts necessary? 

I’m aware I’m sitting in an airport right now, so I don’t need to think, “I’m sitting in an airport right now”. I feel hunger pains so I’m aware I’m hungry, so I don’t need to tell myself, “I’m hungry”.

Is it a coincidence that the goal of yoga according to Pantanjali the ancient yogi who penned the “Yoga sutra’s” over 2,500 years ago is: “Chitta, vritta, nirodha” which translates to English meaning: the cessation of fluctuations of the mind, or quiet down the mind. Is that alluding to the needlessness of thought or even the harmfulness of thought? There is an old English saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. This basically means a mind not engaged (when the mind is engaged and focused on something, it is quiet) can be dangerous and even evil. 

Is it a coincidence that according to Psychology Today magazine 80% of our thoughts are negative? And, according to the American Medical Association, most of the disease in our bodies come from our thoughts?

Carpe diem, be present, be here now, the past is history, the future a mystery but the present is a gift – breath!  All these sayings, suggestions, and catchphrases create a silent or empty mind.  

How Thoughts Affect the Body

1. Thinking requires energy. If I am unnecessarily thinking I am wasting energy.
2. It’s impossible to focus on two things at once, so when I’m engrossed in thought I am not paying attention to the present moment and all I’m experiencing. You could say I am missing my life when I’m lost in thought.
3. The teacher in my life is my experience. When I’m lost in thought I’m not paying attention to the teacher, and I cannot learn all there is for me to learn.
4. Many of my thoughts can be misleading and erroneous as my judgments and opinions are subjective therefore reinforcing ideas that may not be true.
5. My thoughts (according to some studies) are 80% negative. This can be a huge source of mental stress and a large contributor to disease.
6. The quality of thoughts is like muscles; when used they become strong and when unused they atrophy. If 80% of my thoughts are negative, I’m incessantly strengthening a malevolent mentality entrenching myself in negativity. I’m digging myself deeper into a hole that will be harder and harder to climb out of. Like the deeper the addiction, the more intense the withdrawal symptoms.
7. Most disease begins in our minds (mental stress) and manifests in our body.  A quiet mind, empty mind, present mind is the opposite mind state of that which is producing disease. A quiet mind or as Pantanjali says: chitta, vritta, nirodha is the key or at least a huge factor in health.
8. A quiet mind means being present and hearing all that’s being said tuning into subtleties. It’s like we become more sensitive to our experience. This allows our decisions to be more optimal, as well as our relationships. One of the keys to healthy relationships is being a good listener.
9. We become less arrogant and humbler as we don’t “think” we already know something because we’re not thinking.
10. As I work on quieting my mind, I start to notice these intrusions into my quietness which are my thoughts. I notice the quality of these thoughts and I can see (yogis of old were called “seers”). Once these thoughts are seen I can determine whether they are benevolent or malevolent and whether I want to indulge or not. I become the captain of my ship and can steer myself away from the malevolent and towards the benevolent. If my thoughts happen to be the foundation of my reality, then my reality takes a turn toward a direction of my choosing.

Quietness, stillness, mindfulness or being present is a muscle. It needs to be developed. This means we need to start climbing out of the hole we’ve been digging. Depending on how long we’ve been digging and how deep this hole is we are in for a lot of work. 

Yet, if the goal is a healthy mind, peace, and harmony within and without we have no choice but to start taking baby steps in this direction. It certainly will be much easier if I’m surrounded by a supportive community. Like the addict goes to the treatment center and the yogi goes to the ashram feel free to join our classes at poweryoga.com

Another question popped into my mind: Is there an appropriate time to be thinking? An answer popped into my mind shortly after. Yes! Our intellectual capacity and our cognitive abilities are very valuable to us. They are one of many tools at our disposal. This tool is very good at problem-solving (usually). If you are involved with figuring something out like a math equation, business strategy, or what’s the best play to run on 3rd down with eight yards to go in the red zone, then yes, think about it and figure it out and use your tool. But when you’re not trying to figure something out, why are we in a state of thinking? How did the tool become the master?

Don’t let your tool become your master!   Take the power back! This is poweryoga!      

The post How Thoughts Affect the Body – And What To Do About It appeared first on Power Yoga.

When addressing Weight Loss from a yoga perspective there is no set of rules, there are just certain principles. In other words, yoga will not tell you what to eat but will suggest that whatever you eat, eat it moderately.  Yoga will not tell you what to do it will just ask you to “wake up and see what you’re doing and then ask yourself if what you are doing is helping or hurting?”

Before I get into the specifics I’d like to address the mental sickness and marketing manipulation around much of the weight loss and dieting mentality.  The sickness really lies in not being able to see one’s own beauty and not trusting our own process. It’s so obvious that an anorexic does not see their beauty. Yet it might be less obvious that we too (to a lesser degree) cannot see our beauty clearly.  Dieting, diet pills, diet shakes, surgery, wrinkle creams, hair dye, body sculpting, supplements & drugs, etc… These are common endeavors to fix (who we are, how we look, and our aging process) what might very well not be broken. We have been convinced that we are not beautiful by a culture that force-feeds us incessant images of what beauty is and by a culture more interested in us buying their products than actually being well. Constantly emphasizing beauty in a certain way as well as steering beauty to a sexual disposition (sex sells) rather than a unique or personal disposition.

Understand this: Next time you get naked and look at yourself in the mirror what you see is beautiful! If you have been convinced otherwise you are not alone. How come we can see the beauty of a mountain range or a field of wildflowers or sunsets and rainbows but we can’t see our own beauty? It’s all nature, all of it including ourselves. These ideas of human beauty implanted in our minds by our culture plays itself out to a large degree in our body image. Because of all this, there are many people pursuing dieting and weight loss unnecessarily. These folks don’t recognize their beauty because they don’t fit the image associated with our cultural ideas of beauty. They feel they are too big or some parts are too small or too old or too heavy or hairy or something.  So they are trying to conform to our cultural ideals of beauty. Please consider all this. Be mindful of our culture’s emphasis on physical beauty and be aware that you are not allowing this emphasis to dictate your thoughts, actions, and truth.  Basically what I’m saying is you may not need to lose weight. Your weight may be perfect for you.  If this is you, my program will not help you lose weight although it will help you in many other ways. You know what’s harder than losing weight? Loving and accepting yourself the way you are! That’s why dieting is so popular because it is much easier than self-love and self-acceptance. Dieting is a shortcut to self-love that does not work!  Remember if you saw your own beauty you would not need any of these beauty products, diets and procedures. The diet and weight loss industry has a tremendous investment in you not seeing your own beauty! Their marketing gurus have come up with clever ways and subtle psychology to help you despise yourself. Did you know if you grew up on a deserted island you would not even know you are fat and ugly? Can you imagine how you view yourself is not really how you view yourself but actually how you were taught to view yourself by our culture? I remember driving to work one morning listening to a commercial on the radio. The commercial narrator was asking the listening audience if they are tired of being bald if they are tired of people laughing at them? If so come to their hair growth clinic or method, which is proven to grow or replace your hair. The company behind this commercial is trying to manipulate you into buying their product by making you think there is something wrong with you. Yet before the commercial, you were rocking out to the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams feeling amazing, and now your feeling like shit because you’re balding. They are trying to create fears about other people’s perception of you or to activate or instigate fears you have about your appearance and aging process. Balding, greying, wrinkles, these are not diseases. There is nothing inherently wrong, these are a natural part of aging and changing and if you don’t embrace them you will be sorely unprepared for all that is coming! Marketing gurus will use deceit, modern psychology and any other means they feel will get their client a sale. If they succeed these marketers are rewarded with awards and bonuses. A “ sexy body “ has certain prominent features yet this is only one of many body types. So our cultural stereotype of beauty may not be congruent with my body and may prevent me from seeing my beauty. But for the marketers and most companies (especially if they are publicly traded), that’s the point! The more you don’t see your own beauty the higher odds that you will feel you need their products to become beautiful.

Now understanding all this and being mindful of all this, certainly, there is a valid reason one may need or want to lose weight because you are truly overweight. You are most likely overweight because of one or more of these reasons:

1) you eat poorly (types of foods consumed)

2) you eat too much (quantity and frequency)

3) you consume more calories than you burn.

4) you do not exercise.

Certainly, there may be psychological conditions that can instigate or facilitate any of these physical food-related choices. If so these conditions will need to be revealed. Yet these conditions can not be revealed if they are being camouflaged by food choices. So implementing new food choices may not only be great for the body it is a great catalyst towards awareness and the perspective and choices awareness brings.

So for healthy weight loss, this program will address these behaviors and steer us toward a higher quality and more balanced approach. This program has four components

1) diet,

2) exercise,

3) meditation,

4)  abstinence or self-restraint.

In other words, we will address the mind, body and social input and habits, this will be truly transformative. Ok, let’s have a look at weight loss and its components: diet, exercise, meditation & abstinence(social-media input).

Let’s have a practical and balanced approach toward health and wellness and let’s allow our bodies to fall into a balanced place (homeostasis) by living in a balanced way.  First things first, let’s agree that our goal of weight loss is a goal of health and wellness. When I make healthy choices my body will be at a healthy and natural weight. We will not be forcing our bodies to fit some image our society has emphasized. We will not partake in the age-old tradition of making ourselves sicker trying to look pretty. After all “the beauty of the human race is all the differences between us”. This is no longer a catchphrase for me, I am ready to walk the talk.

This program is going to be challenging! I will ask you to experiment with new ideas and practices, all tried and true yet may be new to you.  The level of difficulty will depend on how deeply ingrained unhealthy habit patterns and behaviors have become. We all know how difficult it is to break addictions. What most dieters don’t understand is prior established behaviors such as food choices as in food frequency, food quantity, food types and food quality have become similar to addictions.  I truly want to support you and set up a support group, but NOBODY can do this work for you. You may stumble but you will need to pull yourself up and continue. I will not ask you to partake in anything I have not done myself and of course, in line with yoga philosophy you should discard any suggestions I make that you feel are inappropriate.

The reason this is 5 weeks is because I want to be with you for 5 weeks. I want to help you lay a foundation and kick start this process with this program. I will keep our support page open indefinitely for continued support. The truth is that this healthy and balanced approach to weight loss and health should continue for the whole life. I want you to have a strong and solid foundation.

Check out the “events” page on poweryoga.com we offer this program thrice yearly.

Aloha,

BK

The post Power Yoga Weight Loss & Wellness Program Background appeared first on Power Yoga.

Yoga is a physical exercise that can be as dynamic as you want. It is also multi-faceted, making it the ultimate cross training and leaving you feeling like no other exercise will. What other exercises include cardio, stamina, strength, balance, and flexibility all in one session. That’s five in one–the whole fitness paradigm in one session! The combination of deep breathing, the release of endorphins, the dissolution of tension and the quietness in your mind creates an ultimate feeling of wellbeing. Kind of like you are a fortress of calm completely drained of any toxicity! Looking at the world from a realm of tranquility as opposed to being caught up in the swirl of it all. Yes, you can call this detachment, yet this detachment doesn’t bar empathy and compassion. It enhances these qualities. Yoga challenges you to stay calm or less reactive to the challenging situations and stimuli that can normally be stressful. Therefore, strengthen your ability to do so. This nonreactive-ness can be a helpful tool in the fight to not allow old eating patterns to overtake us. It’s a very empowering feeling like you are the master no longer succumbing to petty cravings that were previously dominant. It’s like the power was taken away from food and placed back within you. Yoga also teaches moderation which is the key to all real health. So over exercise is not necessary for weight loss. As the quantity of food we eat becomes more moderate there is no need to burn unwanted calories as those unwanted calories were not stored in our bodies in the first place.   

The meditation aspect of yoga not only creates calmness, it also gives us the tools to stay calm no longer needing to use food to pacify our stress and anxiety. 

 But remember, yoga can help you lose weight, but it is much more than a weight-loss tool. That is a by-product of this uplifting, life-affirming, healing, and wellness practice designed to strengthen benevolent qualities that enhance all relationships in our lives including and most especially the one we have with ourselves. While simultaneously eradicating self-degrading malevolent qualities that poison our minds and bodies. These malevolent qualities like fear, anger, sadness, regret, and self-doubt and the thought patterns that propagate them are at the very foundation of dis-ease. These qualities cannot co-exist with the benevolent qualities we choose to develop as darkness cannot coexist with the light.

Most weight loss programs are short-lived and ephemeral due to the fact they are only dealing with food and/or exercise. They are not dealing with the root cause of sickness and dis-ease which exist in our minds, thoughts and learned behaviors. When addressing all this our endeavor to be healthy and lose weight becomes holistic and life-changing. This is the purpose of yoga and specifically Power Yoga.

Aloha,

BK

The post How Yoga Can Help You Lose Weight appeared first on Power Yoga.

Is your resolution to get into shape and/or become as healthy as can be? What I have discovered is having a well-thought-out plan is most helpful. This means knowing what you will do and putting any necessary pieces into place to support your goal. This is where poweryoga.com can hopefully help you. Poweryoga.com exists to support people seeking to begin and maintain a fitness/wellness practice and lifestyle. Power Yoga training could be the perfect first step, or addition, to your healthy new year resolutions. 

I’m not sure what’s been happening in your life before now. I don’t know what you have become accustomed to and how far you have drifted away from a daily wellness routine. So, I like to slip in slowly. This will make the entrance into an updated lifestyle less shocking and abrasive to your body and mind. Even if you have not drifted too far away from optimal health, a gentle, gradual implementation of new practices into your daily routine will certainly make things more receptive to mind and body.

My “30 Days to a New You” program is specifically designed for you to transition in a “gentle” way from wherever you are right now to a stronger and healthier you. Power yoga training focuses on the slow and steady strengthening of your body. Strengthening doesn’t just mean strong; it means all five pillars of fitness: strength, flexibility, stamina, balance, and cardio are activated. It’s a complete type of strength that still wouldn’t be complete unless we also addressed the mind state. The yogis of old have always known that most natural and optimal health comes from a calm and peaceful mind. Modern medicine is now telling us stress is the largest impediment to health. Knowing this, if one is truly interested in being healthy, then one must address their mind as well as their body. This program addresses this in spades!

For a more comprehensive experience, I created my “Weight Loss and Wellness Program.” This program uses the same fitness classes to help people build themselves stronger in a gentle way by building gradually to minimize shock and abrasion and make the whole experience more easily digestible. This program implements a broader approach than the “30 Days to a New You” program. For my “Weight Loss and Wellness Program” I include seated and walking meditations and take a good hard look at diet. We were taking a good hard look at what we put into our bodies and learning about and experimenting with different dietary concepts. 

The obesity rate in our country is off the charts, and 70% of people are overweight, yet the goal of this program is not to lose weight. The goal is to live in a healthy and balanced way. If you happen to be overweight, then you will lose weight. Weight loss will be a by-product of being healthy and achieving balance. My Weight Loss and Wellness Program will introduce you to new concepts and modalities which will minimally offer a broader perspective on a healthy lifestyle, and if your experience is like many others, it will put you on the path of health and well-being. See if Power Yoga training is the decision for you going into 2022 – you’re always welcome. 

Join me anytime!
Sincerely, Bryan Kest     

The post New Year, New You: How to Incorporate Power Yoga Training into Your OWN Practice DAILY appeared first on Power Yoga.

Health

“Vitality”. Vitality represents strength, vibrancy, alertness, and energy. Vitality means “Life force”! Vitality doesn’t look a certain way as one would not expect a vital 25-year-old to look or be like a vital 85-year-old. In other words, Vitality doesn’t mean you stay young or maintain a youthful prowess. Vitality doesn’t mean you have more energy or better complexion or bigger muscles than you had in your youth, or the next person has because all our genetic make-up is different. Vitality just means your strength and energy are exceptional for the stage of life you are in.

Homeostatic Vitality
Another word I might use when describing health is “homeostasis”. Homeostasis which connotates an internal balance among all the parts and systems within us. Many imbalances can be hidden from immediate sight. Youth can camouflage many percolating issues. So, there could be the presence of dis-ease and the appearance of vitality simultaneously. Homeostasis basically connotates the lack of dis-ease.

So, I would say the definition of health is homeostatic vitality. Homeostatic vitality is a personal experience that is a natural by-product of healthy choices and being tuned into one’s needs and maybe a little helpful karma. Although there are many general practices and concepts that contribute to everyone’s homeostatic vitality like enough sunlight, exercise, hydration, nutrients etc…all of that and so much more needs to be modified and personalized to the individual needs that are constantly changing. Thus “being in tune with one’s needs”.

Without a doubt, unhealthy conditions can bring about an early demise yet even the healthiest conditions with complete homeostasis and extraordinary vitality does not guarantee you will live super long in comparison with others. It does guarantee (barring outside events) you will live your genetic disposition fully. Longevity is not a legitimate measure of health. Lifestyle and plain old genetics play immense roles in longevity. So yes, a long life may be optimal, yet it is not the best measure of health. The best measure would be feeling homeostatic vitality for as long as you are alive. How to have this?

Impetus for this article
The impetus for this article was the mind-boggling amount of information out there on health.

So many talking heads (I know now I am one of them), articles, books, etc. I just wanted to attempt to cut through it all and get to the meat of it all so to speak. I am 56 years old and started my journey in health at the age of 14 when I started exercising and practicing yoga as well as experimenting with diet. So, for what it is worth, you are about to get over 40 years of experience.

There might be too much information pertaining to diet, exercise, and lifestyle and much of it can be confusing, contradictory, and misleading. The very first and obvious reason is as you all know not one size fits all. The diet plans, exercise regimens, vitamins, herbs, gadgets, and gimmicks. The podcasts and videos hosted by fitness gurus, scientists, doctors, and experts are all over the place. Propagating diets as extremely different as Keto and fat free, from five meals a day to fasting, from brown rice being the ultimate food to saturated fat being ultimate. Mushrooms, herbs, tonics, and super foods. Take these they’ll change your life!  Each one promoting something different with the science to back it up. The supplements and fad diets that a few years later have disappeared give way to the new concepts, discoveries, or science. I have witnessed hundreds of diets and supplements throughout my life being promoted as the best, the ultimate missing ingredient to the healthiest life. The crazy thing is each one has a doctor or scientist or expert explaining the cold facts of why us people need to get with their program. Many of the experts promoting these diets don’t stick with them themselves as they make new discoveries and move on forgetting to inform all of us. I’m not saying that all these opinions, ideas and concepts don’t have any value, many do have value. Yet it doesn’t mean the program is optimal for everyone and the program could be harmful. For example, you could become an organic vegan as veganism has loads of scientific support and yet unwittingly be irritating or even inflaming your intestines with all the grains and depriving your body of much needed saturated fats and proteins. Or maybe you’re an athlete attempting to eat a macrobiotic diet that’s not getting you the nutrients in the quantities you need. That happened to me.

In my youth I was an intense athlete not great at any sport although I played many and loved them. It’s just that my fitness regime was off the charts and at that time being a strict macrobiotic I honestly believe that I was not getting the nutrients that I needed. My belief stems from the fact that my hair was falling out and I would get spontaneous nosebleeds all the time. As soon as I switched up my diet the symptoms disappeared. So yeah, these diets are cleaner, less toxic and yield many other benefits. Yet, that doesn’t mean they are optimal for all. By the way, just because a diet or food or supplement has value doesn’t mean it’s needed or that it’s not detrimental to you in some way.

The Role of Science
Basically, as we do with almost everything, we mess things up with the help of science. We take a good thing, and we mess it up due to our lack of awareness (which is the goal of yoga). Refusing to understand that not one size fits all. Just because something works for you doesn’t mean it will work for others it doesn’t even mean it will work for you at some other point in your life. There are many things that we believe to be true today that we eventually discover tomorrow, or some other day are false or harmful. Science is not inherently harmful though, what’s that old saying: Fear not the science, but fear the scientist.  Science doesn’t ask you to stop trusting your intuition in favor of a scientific conclusion. But scientists and their followers may. Science is a process of discovery which means it’s always incomplete. Please don’t ever confuse science with fact and don’t confuse fact with truth. The only thing science can say to us is “this is what we know now”.  We all got to witness this with the ever-changing pandemic protocols and the ever-changing message from our scientific community or how about the 30% of all prescription medication that’s scientifically approved for human use that’s eventually recalled due to unforeseen harm they caused. In my view most scientific discoveries are canceled out by all the harm science has caused. Certainly, we have benefited from science yet that science that does no harm is most likely the science that’s not motivated by profit.

Where We Are At
We have become way too busy, complicated, and stressed. Stressed to a degree that it has become the largest factor in our health! We have no idea what’s been sprayed on our food and its effects, what all the ingredients are in the foods we eat. Food labels are almost a foreign language and why does a loaf of bread or a jar of olives have so many different chemicals in there?  The answer is not goodness the answer is cheaper to produce, longer shelf life, in other words “more profit”. Profit supersedes health as fear is our strongest emotion and people fear not meeting our societies definition of success. Even to the point where corners are cut, and ethics sacrificed. Profit has importance BUT it should never supersede our health, ethics, and morality!  Most everyone has some intuitive sense of the high level of man-made (by scientist) toxins within our environment which is becoming more and more of a problem for our health and the health of our planet. This doesn’t even address the stress and anxiety epidemic caused by technology (more science) and information overload that has horrendous effects on our health. Instead of eradicating this issue (which may not be profitable) science gives us a drug, chemical or solution (which is highly profitable) to camouflage the issue whose side effects and toxicity create more issues and possibly the need for more drugs (more profit). This is a sick cycle that removes us further and further from homeostatic-vitality and the cause of our disease and digs us deeper and deeper into dependency on science which honestly can’t handle that responsibility.

The Healthiest Diet
Diet, exercise, and lifestyle does not need a gadget, calculator, machine, or need to be complicated. It doesn’t include starvation or exhaustion and it doesn’t require too much money. Why do we think we need a machine or pill or a complicated plan? Things have become so convoluted and complicated it’s almost just as complicated to try to un-complicate things! Geez! You must find special stores that sell basic products that are uncomplicated where science hasn’t left an unnecessary mark. This means local, organic, untainted, unprocessed, untreated, unsprayed, humane, and non-GMO.

Can you imagine the healthiest diet is the simplest diet, the healthiest exercise is the simplest exercise, and the healthiest lifestyle is the simplest lifestyle? Our forefathers Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams lived into their eighties and even nineties without prescription drugs, gym memberships and supplements. Pollution was minimal and the planetary biology teeming with life and vibrancy. Why? Because science hadn’t evolved. Our personal health is directly connected with planetary health and mother earth is dying. Some of you may say it’s unrealistic to go back to the quality of our forefathers but the truth is it isn’t. It’s not unrealistic to find a balance based on what’s sustainable! After all we landed a space craft on an asteroid that was traveling over 40,000 MPH 300,000,000.00 miles away! What’s unrealistic is not our ability to heal, to undo much of the tremendous damage we have done, but for people to want to make the effort. For people to give up their toys and attachments. What’s the old saying? “The right path is never the easy one”. Who would suffer (the discomfort associated with releasing attachments) for a greater good, for health and spiritual satisfaction, for future generations, for their true mother?

I remember growing up in Hawaii on the island of Maui. I was living in a remote town and was told this story by a local. This town was at the base of a 10,000-foot mountain where there was no television reception. Each evening the community members would gather and socialize.  Women would chatter and men would drink Budweiser and the kids would run and play. This was their entertainment, this was a community, a symbiotic intertwining of all people and personalities. Then at one point they brought over the mountain cable television. Those community evenings instantly disappeared. The families would all isolate in their homes watching their shows and movies. Those community evenings are long gone. Replaced by the internet and now it’s all day long on screens. Obesity, anxiety, and drugs are the norm and those community connections long gone. This is called progress but is this progress? Are we happier? If health and happiness is the endgame, profit cannot be the motive, greed has to be recognized and not tolerated (within ourselves). There is nothing inherently wrong with science, innovation, capitalism and all isms. What’s wrong is they are missing their sacred partners morality, compassion, generosity, humility, gentleness, kindness, virtue, moderation, or simply benevolence.

Well, you know that old saying “be the change you want to see” (Gandhi). All we can do for our wellness and others’ wellness and this planet’s is to make a shift in our own lives so let’s take a look at things.

Food

We are seeing calorie restriction as a huge factor in living a long and healthy life. This most likely means eating less than you are currently eating, yet it doesn’t mean you are not eating enough! It may initially feel that way as you deal with those initial withdraw symptoms emanating from your previous eating habits. Experiment with eating one less meal per day (unless you are already only eating one or two meals a day) and completely eradicate snacking (these are unnecessary calories). Eat only organic (when possible), wild caught, pasture raised, grass fed, non-GMO this is a more natural form of food and more readily absorbed and complete. It’s better for you, your family, and the planet. Eat local and get in rhythm with your environment, in other words eat what is in season in your city when possible. Almost overly simple right? Not easy but simple!

With food it’s important to remember to always be honest with yourself about how you feel. Sometimes we can get emotionally or ethically attached to a diet and be in a kind of denial about any issues we’re experiencing. Sometimes the diet you are on can be physically harmful yet emotionally placating. For example: Way back in my youth I was a vegetarian not only for health reasons but for ethical reasons as well. Not long after becoming a vegetarian I began suffering intestinally from gas, bloating, low energy, sugar cravings and overall discomfort. The food that I was eating—beans and grains–which is where I derived my protein were the cause of all these problems. Yet, because I had learned in a nutrition class that everything I was eating was incredibly healthy, I did not consider that the brown rice and tofu was actually poisoning me. I thought that there was something wrong with me (not my diet)! Maybe I had a parasite from India, maybe it was something else. I was emotionally attached to my diet which prevented me to even consider the obvious that it was my diet that was the problem. The health and nutrition information I had been reading which had scientific validation was inappropriate for me. If your body is talking to you in the form of discomfort, disease, lethargy etc…keep reading, learning and experimenting. I did not grow into my current diet in one day. It’s been a constant refinement.

So basically, eat clean and moderate then try to figure out the right kinds of food and the right combinations that suit you. Have an amazing journey! Oh yeah don’t forget to drink plenty of clean water!

Exercise

As with most other items here this is very personal. What is desired and needed is different for each person. The objective is Homeostatic vitality. Which means living as long as possible feeling as amazing as possible. Since the universal law states “the harder you are on anything the faster you wear it out” whichever means of exercise you choose, don’t beat yourself up! Be moderate (just like diet). Walk don’t run. Yes, you could push harder and do more but don’t. Be gentle (unless your objective is something other than homeostatic vitality). From my research it seems walking is considered the healthiest exercise with swimming not far behind. Both activities are nonimpact, gentle activities. Although this approach to exercise is not common, it is full of common sense (Check out this blog on the Absurdity of Western Fitness!). No relationships in your life including the one you have with your body responds optimal to force or aggression and all relationships do respond optimally to gentleness including the one you have with your body.

Something else to consider: My understanding is that the slowest breathing animals live the longest. So, although a small and moderate amount of cardio may be appropriate to prevent atrophy, keep it small and moderate. Keep that breath rate slow by staying relaxed. Staying relaxed will be addressed next.

Remember all exercises can be beneficial if performed moderately or gently and no exercise is truly beneficial if performed aggressively, forcefully, or violently. So, pick an exercise you like and be gentle.

Include meditation. Meditation is mental exercise. It strengthens benevolent mental muscles and seriously helps release stress. Allowing you to breath slower. Knowing what we know now about stress being the dominant factor in most disease it would be irresponsible not to address our mind state if wellness is the objective. Poweryoga.com has many meditation tools and techniques, so dip your toes in and start to explore the full and rich world of meditation.

Lifestyle

Here’s an odd twist when addressing lifestyle. I want to start with addressing our mind state.

When it comes to lifestyle, and it pertains to health, the priority should be “stress free”. This means our lifestyle needs to facilitate peace, it needs to be a place we can relax. Remember from above my understanding is that the slowest breathing animals live the longest. You are breathing your slowest when you are relaxed and peaceful as opposed to stressed!

There are possibly an infinite number of “healthy lifestyles” yet what they all must facilitate is peace. Regardless of the environment you are in, your mind state is key to this peace and wellness. The term “dark thoughts” might seem overly sinister and although it would include evil thoughts it also includes the everyday mundane thought patterns that for the most part are negative or stress inducing such as: angry thoughts, aggressive thoughts, worry or regretful thoughts, sick thoughts, vengeful thoughts, fearful thoughts, competitive thoughts, gossipy or vain thoughts etc. The dark path just defines a lack of awareness (a lack of light). This is where one is unwittingly rolling in a malevolent mentality. It’s not easy to get out of this ignorance because one doesn’t know they are in it. Sometimes one may be aware to at least some of the harm one is doing to themselves yet the task of removing these harmful tendencies seems too daunting, so the awareness is brushed aside. It would not be daunting at all if this was our cultural objective and “peace” was our definition of “success”. Yet for some sick reason our culture defines “success” by something other than “peace” even though that’s what we all truly want.

Meditation
The technique given too slowly rid ourselves of our malevolent thought patterns or tendencies is meditation which develops awareness (enlightenment). Having awareness allows us to see how we our creating our own problems and issues. For example: The heart disease is stress induced and the stress is coming from our mind-state. Once we acknowledge that we are the source of our own suffering we now have a choice to pull our mind and/or actions away from this harmful place. No longer rolling in (and strengthening) harmful tendencies and liberated from their effects. Then, if so desired, we could redirect our mind state into a benevolent place. These are simple and time-tested concepts, yet this is not an easy process and generally unsupported by our culture. But if our goal is wellness, then we have no choice but to cultivate awareness. This is Power Yoga’s true aim.

Now that our minds are more at ease and less reactive to all the noise, what else should be happening? 1) Minimize screen time to the essentials. 2) Our bodies and mind should be active. I don’t mean “working out” per se, but rather engaged. This engagement will change throughout the years as our metabolism, energy and interests shift, yet we should remain somehow engaged. What’s that old saying? “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. An idle body as well.

The Definition of Success
From a very young age we have been presented with imagery of success and told that success looks a “certain way”. For example: Maybe there was a fancy wine commercial played repeatedly throughout our youth of young, good-looking people, casually clad in stylish robes, sipping their wine, on a yacht, everyone is smiling on a sunny day with seemingly endless amounts of free time. If this image of success is portrayed to you repeatedly (which they are) then you start to believe success is full of sexuality, youth, materialism, leisure, and expensive activities. Psychological law “the more you see something the more you believe it”, even if it’s insane! It’s no coincidence that what most of us want is wealth, beauty, youth, thinness, and plenty of leisure.

Are you successful if you’re unhappy and unhealthy? Our culture has programmed us through incessant imagery of a false image of success. Instead of success meaning contentment, satisfaction, or fulfillment we have been told success lies in materialism, leisure-ism and even extraordinary-ism. Thus, you have people trying to get young looking, slim, rich, and powerful as a means toward the success they’ve been sold instead of trying to get happy. Instead of following their bliss, they are following the program implanted in their mind by the media and all those commercials.

Once you have acquired enough materialistic wealth to lift you from poverty there is no link between happiness and monetary or materialistic wealth. Don’t be fooled by your cultural program and the incessant imagery that’s ubiquitous. You’ve been programed since the time you could open your eyes. Remember “the more you see something the more you believe it” even if it’s insane!

Do whatever you have to do so you can do what it is you love to do. Move to where you want to live, work in the field of your passion. You may at one point change, your passions shift, that’s fine but whatever you’re passionate about continue to pursue your passion. This is what I meant when I said, “stay engaged”. Don’t let challenges and obstacles dissuade you, know they are components of your success as they are necessary for strength, wisdom, and creativity.

Many of us are held back by our fears. Fears of things not working out and fears about what others will think about us. If you are fearful then I would assume the fear of failure would be second to the fear of living your whole life with the knowledge that you were too afraid to give something a try. So, give it a go! What if things do work out! Just remember the path toward your destination will probably be full of unintended or unwanted obstacles. These obstacles are important and necessary challenges you must experience to become the wise strong person that persevering through obstacles creates.

If you are wanting to be supported in all the above, you will always be welcome in our poweryoga.com community!

Sincerely, bryan kest

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