Part of the practice of yoga, is to bring awareness to ourselves about ourselves, so we can minimize or eliminate damaging samskaras, and consciously choose the imprints we want to leave on ourselves and our world. 

Call it your soul, essence, the divine spark, is doesn't matter. What does matter, is that there is an intelligent, loving and creative force within you waiting to be seen, felt, and activated.

There comes a time, when you have to say NO to all the little, soft whispering Nos, to make room for the big, loud, resonant YESes.

The body speaks the language of sensations; the thoughts, feelings and physical sensations you experience, are your body's way of communicating with you. They are showing you parts of yourself that you may have never seen before, and serve as a compass to help you navigate your way through life.

What you do everyday matters more then what you do once in a while. It's the cumulative effects of our daily, seemingly small choices, that create our "practices" and experience of life. Do you want to be more loving? Practice being loving and carry it out in your actions. Do not only practice being loving when it's easy and you have a reason to, but practice what responding with love would feel and look like when it's not so easy.

Be patient toward all is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, liked locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek now the answers, which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer"

There are no guarantees in life and no one knows how long they will be on the planet. What we do have is autonomy over how we author our experience of life. May every day be lived fully free of fear, and infused with loving awarness.

Although we do not have control of what happens in life, we always have the power to choose how to respond and how to be in any situation. My teacher Hareesh offers this: How you react to what happens to you is not determined by what happens to you, it is determined by your inner work. 

When we stop trying to control events, they fall into natural order, an order that works. We’re at rest while a power much greater than our own takes over, and it does a much better job than we could have done. We learn to trust that the power that holds galaxies together can handle the circumstances of our relative little lives.”

How often do we choose to remain eggs because it's more comfortable? How many times do we choose to stay within our perceived limitations of what's possible because it's all we've ever known? We fear pain as the adversary of joy and freedom, when it may actually be it's midwife. Even the emotions we call negative, when approached in the right way, allow greater access to the heart.

Life is full of joy and sorrow. Pain and loss are part of the human experience. Our healthy lifestyle and spiritual practices will not stop these things from happening, but they can serve to minimize suffering as a result of how we practice responding when life inevitably presents us with hardships. We can choose our spirit inspite of everything.

Awareness is often described as a a source of light and illumination. Becoming aware, is recognizing or seeing parts of ourselves that influence the way we perceive the world, and move through our life. 

One story goes that God planted his hands in a lump of clay and breathed the breath of life into his handiwork. If we are to participate with the creative force moving through all of creation, isn't it possible that we have the innate capacity to shape the world in which we live from the inside out?"

We might not always love or even like ourselves, or the current circumstances of our life, but if we are to heal and flourish as individuals and humanity, if we are to save and build bridges that connect us to ourselves and each other, than it must be done choice by choice, small act by small act, in the name of and infused with LOVE.

Being in presence means that all of our senses are open and awake. We are not grasping at successive moments in linear time with our mind. We are in a condition called samavesha, or immersion. We are fully immersed in the vital texture of livingness.

When faced with day to day decisions, the answer in most modern day yoga/creative/abundance oriented/coaching circles is, to go with the choice that feels good. Ease, is the new black, the one size fits all sexy metric by which to live your life.

Your awakening and liberation does not result from the hours you put into your yoga and meditation practice, how many workshops and retreats you attend, or how many books you've read. It's not about getting anywhere or being like anyone else.  

Do you ever feel like you spend too much time putting out the proverbial fires of your life and not enough time creating and doing things you love, or enjoying all the amazing things that are happening around you?

"The Heart is not only a physical organ; it is an incredibly wise guidance system that can be used to make powerful decisions in our lives- to take us further on our Soul's journey. Heart-knowing is an advanced form of intelligence, where through feelings (energetic, emotional, and somatic) located quite literally in the heart centre, we receive guidance from our Souls to make life decisions. The heart is the home of the intuitive voice, the tuning fork of beauty, and the seed of the blueprint of our soul" 

The more intentional we become about how we spend our time, our energy and our attention; the more conscious we become about what to hold onto and what to let go of. The more we practice discernment and presence, the more we are free to live a life devoted to what matters most, embodying who we are and cherishing what we most value.