 Some of you have sent me notes to ask about my typical day -
There is a 5:30am wake up bell that sounds throughout the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat, with another ringing of the bell at 5:45am. The first week here, I took a course on Essence of Yoga, and we were told that showering in the morning before meditation and chanting is the most desirable. In an effort to try out the effects of this, I’ve been showering each morning before going to the 6am satsang. Also, from an Ayurvedic perspective, KP Khalsa has advised me and is prescribing based on the ‘ideal’ waste elimination being first thing in the morning, upon waking - both urine and fecal waste. I mentioned in earlier updates that my laxative of choice, my entire adult life was strong black coffee. I have not ever naturally eliminated upon waking to my recollection. Maybe when I was a child? It has been 5 months without coffee for me, as it is not a balanced choice for my specific constitution, especially as I am trying to balance all my imbalances and heal. I’m naturally slow in the morning. I found waking at 5:30 did not allow me relaxation for elimination and a shower and teeth brushing, dressing etc. plus walking back and forth between my tent and the facilities and then the satsang hall. The rushing just did not work the first week, so I’ve chosen rising at 5am or close to that. I do not use an alarm. This earlier waking so far is working better. (Sleeping is a different issue for another update.) What is satsang? It is a gathering for silent meditation, joyful chanting and then a lecture about a spiritual topic, usually led by one of the senior staff. The lectures are quite interesting. The challenge for me comes in sitting cross legged for that long, and the bug bites often seem itchiest during satsang for some reason, but it’s getting a little easier. The Mobile Meditator cushion, given to me by a dear karma yogi is a huge help, and I highly recommend. She said she purchased it on Amazon. My favorite satsangs start with a silent meditation walk on the beach and then our chanting and lecture is on the beach with the beautiful sunrise as the backdrop - breathtaking. I’ve experienced many a sunset, but I’ve not been witness to many sunrises - always preferred sleep. I realize now that I have been missing out, as sunrise is wonderful:) The satsang lasts from 6am-7:30am, followed by a brief staff led meeting daily to go over the introductions, goodbyes and daily schedule. The morning yoga class is at 8am-9:45am. There is also an afternoon yoga class from 4-5:45. Karma yogis, everyone except for the Teacher Training Course students and vacationers, choose one of the yoga classes in accordance with our duties and approvals of our supervisors. We also have the opportunity to attend classes, such as the two I took on Essence of Yoga - each one week long classes, with an hour and a half lecture, plus a specialized small yoga class. I am currently assisting with the Communications team here, helping with a variety of tasks that change daily. I enjoy the people on our team, and am happy to contribute. My supervisor is wonderful to assist, and I learn something new each day. On a couple occasions I have helped with serving a meal - cafeteria style, with servers providing the food onto the plates - a simple and fun task. I also help out now with Prasad, the blessed fruit that is offered to everyone as they leave satsang. I enjoy this role too. The karma yogis who are here provide their services for 5 - 7 hours/day, depending on the job and depending on the day. It is all pretty flexible and dependent on needs, more than routine. Some days I have the luxury of working in an air conditioned office space, and other days I am in the heat the whole day - not in direct sun, as there is much shade here, and if not in a meeting, I work in my tent hut. It has been quite warm and humid most days I’ve been here, as would be expected in an island setting. We have two official meal times, at 10am and then at 5:45pm. Mid-day healthy snacks can be purchased in the Boutique, but rarely do I feel the need for anything other than our meals. The food is quite good. Lots of interesting preparations of vegetarian fare. Often both vegan and vegetarian options are available, and always fresh fruits and greens and vegetables, plus warm freshly baked bread, peanut butter and strawberry jam and oatmeal at breakfast. Most days we have soups as well and different types of rice. I’ve enjoyed the food, and I am happy with what is available. Evening satsang is another opportunity for silent meditation (25 min), chanting and guest lecturers. These are from 8-10/10:30pm. There have also been three birthdays and three cakes with special chanting and singing of Happy Birthday at the end of the satsangs. The quality of evening presenters, and the variety are outstanding. Just some of the experts I’ve listened to - an expert in neuroscience, a cardiologist, a quantum theory physicist, nutrition experts, a chanting group providing four nights of music fest, a visiting Swami from India, a specialist in neuro-rehabilitation and neurology psychiatry, who also amazed us with his classical guitar performance. Great programming here! CHALLENGES: I have found myself challenged with learning names of people, processes, locations and fitting in my herb consumption and making teas, etc. - just the logistics of living in this very different and new environment. Even zipping and unzipping my tent flaps in order to keep out the insects, mosquitoes and rain takes time and planning- small things add up when they are all such new tasks. It would be funny to see me some mornings when I really have to go to the bathroom and the zipper on my tent gets stuck as I try pulling it up - all rather humorous as I think about it, but I've been panicky with lots of little things as I learn how to adjust day by day. I'm learning alot about myself. I’ve never camped nor stayed in a tent. The closest I've experienced to camps were dance and cheerleading camps, where we were in air conditioned dorm rooms. My supervisor here encourages me to go to the beach for relaxation and to cool off, but I’m still struggling to get everything done without major rushing. In time, I’ll get faster and more efficient. The past two days, I spent just 10-15 minutes in the ocean and felt refreshed and rejuvenated. The water is so clear, it appears to be pool like. The colors are spectacular to behold, and today’s gentle breeze was heavenly. I will do this more as I am here longer. So far, I have done a few silent meditation walks on the beach and eaten a few meals overlooking the ocean. More ocean and beach time will be in my future days, as I acclimate more. For now, I’m pleased with myself that I am attending everything, taking classes and workshops, honoring my karma yoga commitments and following my Ayurveda prescriptives as best I can. Plus I journal daily and am sharing with all of you the experience:) PROGRESS TO REPORT: The rather hush hush topic of bodily waste is very important and significant in health and the well being of our bodies, mind and overall spirit. You may recall that my digestion and sleep are the big areas that KP Khalsa is focusing on with me initially. He refers to peeling back layers and says that with my having so many years of a different lifestyle and different eating/drinking habits, it is like “moving the Titanic” and takes time. Though it may not seem a big deal to most, to me, reporting that I have had wake up bowel movements a few days in a row is a sign of real progress. I'm nowhere near regular and balanced in this area, but there has been progress already:) If you’d asked me 6 months ago, if I thought coffee free eliminations upon waking was a possibility, I would have strongly doubted it. Who knows What else is Possible? I hope you continue to follow along to find out. I am grateful to my guide, the highly esteemed KP Khalsa, and I continue to daily take herbs from the high quality, best organic provider of herbs in the U.S., Banyan Botanicals. And last, but certainly not least, I will be immersed in the beautiful and spiritually rich Ayurvedic life that is lived at the Sivananda Yoga Retreat and Ashram in the Bahamas. I am grateful, blessed, excited and nervous as I inch my way forward to Friday, when I take the final leap. I won't have my eyes closed, and I will have my heart and mind open:) If you haven't signed up for the blog post updates, please do. I also welcome you to leave a comment below or post one on my BestYOU facebook page. Sharing your thoughts is a gift to all of us! If you know someone who may like to sign up for my blog posts, please share this link with them. Thanks! Sending you Love from the Bahamas  So much has happened this week at beautiful Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas, and not surprisingly, there are still struggles in the adjustment. My world has been turned upside down! Yet the petty little annoyances are having less and less importance - finding time to take my herbs and make teas; bug bites; being tired, sweaty and hot without deodorant; a couple tough nights of sleeping; still unable to sit still for 25 minutes of meditation; waking before the sun and quite literally stumbling to the shower some days; waste elimination irregularity - transitioning to a new normal. I point out these minor irritants, as they relate well to the typical daily lives we all live, whether in cities or rural areas or suburbia - discomfort and irritants consume much of our thoughts throughout the day. Cranky bosses at work, children who do not listen to us and do what we'd like them to do, slow traffic, high prices, too little time to get our work done, too many bills using our money, tired from too little sleep and the list could go on and on. I say my challenges here this past week are of little importance because the benefits of this past week have surpassed what I might have imagined. What I will be challenged with in weeks and months to come is how to keep a focus on the positive healing and growth, while minimizing the impact of the minor irritants. What is exciting to me is that I now clearly recognize this! The medical guidance of KP Khalsa, the quality herbs from Banyan Botanicals, and this amazing place of spiritual healing at Sivananda Ashram Bahamas are all impacting the very fibers of my being, and I am noticing different things about myself than I did before. I am learning daily by being in the presence of my devoted and loving supervisor, other staff here, an others that I encounter. Each of us interested in journeys of healing, health and spirituality. I Love it! Practically speaking - You may be asking, why no deodorant? Really just because it was the one natural product I forgot to buy before I left. The boutique/store here was out of the product. One benefit or blessing I realized this week was the kindness that is possible from complete strangers, if we open up. A Teacher's Training Course student I've just met was almost joyful in sharing some of her deodorant paste with me. Problem temporarily solved, and today I took the boat over to Nassau for a trip to the pharmacy and post office. Bug and mosquito bites also yielded a blessing, as another karma yogi who I've just met shared her Tiger Balm, and yet another karma yogi shared her anti-bug cream from India with me that helped tremendously :) Then there was the matter of a couple of nights of not much sleep - once my own fault as I checked my emails and Facebook after satsang and right before sleep. One of the amazing findings I have experienced first hand with Ayurvedic lifestyle changes is limiting technology right before bed makes a tremendous difference in the ability to settle the mind and fall asleep. You may find the article by KP Khalsa on sleep interesting. The second restless night here was due to a later bedtime and much stimulation from the joyous dancing and chanting the whole Ashram experienced with Gauravani and As Kindred Spirit, an amazing mantra group here for the Bhakti Yoga (Love and Open Heart/Devotion) Retreat. I was reminded that for me, even spiritual chanting, if it is accompanied by dancing and clapping and raising the heart rate, will yield a restless sleep and difficult time falling asleep. It was great fun, and I'm glad that I experienced it, but I was carried away by the frenzy of it. I am learning about the consequences of my actions and getting more in tune with my own body rhythms. It is an interesting process for me. The next night of the chanting by Gauravani and As Kindred Spirit moved me to tears and such pure love that it is difficult to explain in words. It was a calming and wonderful path to sleep. I believe that my heart had been opened more during the day by an incredibly powerful Bhakti Yoga practice that one of the senior staff here led. The practice was filled with gentleness and heart opening postures and reminders of being loving to ourselves in devotion to God. I came into the 4:00 class feeling hot, sweaty, bug bitten and generally a bit depleted. By the end of the practice I was uplifted and energized and had joy radiating out of me. This teacher of our Bhakti Yoga practice is like being in the presence of a gentle ray of sunshine that embraces you with love. Trying to explain this feeling and the transformation that came from a mere 2 hour yoga class is difficult. The closest I can come to explaining the purity of the feeling, is comparing it to how I felt when each of my children were born and recently the births of my grand babies - the purity of the love is without thoughts of anything else and can be felt deep in the heart with a warming and almost expansive feeling of the heart. It is an overwhelming presence within. Explainable or not, it is a feeling I want to feel much more of, and I hope for everyone to know and have more focus on this Love. WHAT I AM TAKING THIS WEEK: My Prescriptives are much the same as last week, with the exception of not drinking the poppy seed tea before bed. It worked wonderfully for me at home, as I would drink it about half an hour before bed. It helped be fall asleep quickly, but here, the timing of drinking tea has not worked well with satsang until 10/10:30. It is too late for me to be drinking the tea without having to wake and trek to the bathrooms in the middle of the night. I drink fluids all day long though, and still drink the Coriander, Cumin, Fennel tea after meals. A Taboo Subject that is SO IMPORTANT - I'm also watching a possible linkage for my bowel waste regularity with eating beets. I've learned to not be concerned with a bit of red in your elimination if you eat a good quantity of beets. Beets are recommended as good for the digestive tract, and I really think that they are a tremendous help in the elimination function for me. I'm also taking Triphala daily, as an herb supplement. I'm still tracking the beet impact at this point and will let you know if this is confirmed over time. Sending You Love from the Bahamas💗 If you haven't signed up for the weekly updates, please do. I also welcome you to leave a comment below or post one on my BestYOU facebook page. Sharing your thoughts is a gift to all of us! If you know someone who may like to sign up for these weekly posts, please share this link with them. Thanks!  KP Khalsa and I began the work of transitioning my body for this year of living an Ayurvedic-Yogic lifestyle at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat in the Bahamas.
Proper digestion, proper body waste elimination, and an uninterrupted, good night’s sleep are three of the long standing issues that I’ve pretty much ignored for most of my adult life. These issues gave me discomfort from gas to constipation to rarely getting more than 2-3 hours of sleep at a time. WHAT I AM TAKING RIGHT NOW KP Khalsa Prescriptives: (I’ve not included doses, as they are customized specifically for me. Even for me, we will try short periods of trial and error to see what dosage has the best impact, while still being comfortable and workable.) KP has advised that I select foods from the vegetarian offerings at the Ashram, that are Vata pacifying - mostly cooked foods that are hearty and easy to digest. I also am eating root vegetables for 1/3 of my food intake. More will be explained about the Vata imbalances I have in future updates. Find out about your constitution on Banyan Botanicals website. Vitamin D3, Chyavanprash, Gokshura Powder & Triphala with oil - each are one dose daily Poppy Seed Tea - before bed Trikatu Powder (with meals) and Tea made with Cumin Seeds, Coriander Seeds and Fennel Seeds (simmer for an hour and drink after meals) Banyan Botanicals has generously provided many of the herbs and supplements. The high quality of their products are consistent and certified organic. Thus KP Khalsa suggests them as an excellent resource and provider of products. My idea of good nutrition and being healthy was maintaining an average weight and not having much pain in my daily living. I am grateful for my ancestry and genetics that allowed me to digest any and all that I put into my body - hot/spicy, large quantities, sweets and salty both, starve and binge eating - I like to eat and have a healthy appetite. Little did I realize that while I could put the food and drink in with no burning sensations or problems, much of it was not being properly digested and remained in my body in the form of toxins. I also loved my daily coffee and its dual purpose for me as a laxative. My son called my coffee “nuclear strength” and my daughter in law laughed that it made her have to eliminate just smelling the coffee:) Red wine, Margaritas and Martinis - all were favs and fun drinks that I enjoyed drinking. Late nights and sluggish mornings were normal for me - and for millions if not billions of people in the world. My coffee could always be counted on to get me going. Coffee for me was a NEED that I developed into a ‘want’. My work for the last 15 years was the bulk of my life. I worked very hard, had great drive and stamina for long hours and highly stressful situations. Pinched nerves in my lower spine manifested and caused sciatica to the point of doctors suggesting surgery to alleviate the pain. I refused the surgery. That was when I first began yoga. I typified the work hard, play hard American. I’ve always enjoyed life and am an eternal optimist by nature. Again, that constitution is genetics and a gift from God. So, what is someone like me doing in an Ashram Yoga Retreat for a year? I’m not sure why I was compelled to be here, but there was no doubt in my mind as I set the plan in motion, that I was meant to come here. I still feel that way today, after my first week. I’m generally a more thoughtful and intellectual type of person, being intrigued with learning and interested in new approaches and ways of looking at things. In school and in business, I knew that the intellect was respected. In an effort to conform and to succeed, I tended to bury the softer side of me within, showing unconditional love and vulnerability to a very select few. I think this dual nature and daily need to show a ‘me’ that was tougher and more business oriented are rather common. We have our work personalities and our family/friend personalities. Unfortunately, what I’ve found is that the work personality was visible so much of the time, that it had a strong impact on the softer me. I also believe that the need for party hearty, excess was in part the result of so much build up of stress. It isn’t easy maintaining a distinctly separate professional image for so much of our lives, besides the long hours in front of computers and dealing with fire after fire in our usual workplaces. Eventually the work personalities tend to take over. Some interesting observations from my 1st Week at this beautiful Sivananda Ashram:
The ocean breeze and sound of waves are so peaceful and rejuvenating. A mantra we learned in class is Each day, in every way, I feel better and better. It is true:) If you haven't signed up for the weekly updates, please do. I also welcome you to leave a comment below or post one on my BestYOU facebook page. Sharing your thoughts is a gift to all of us! If you know someone who may like to sign up for these weekly posts, please share this link with them. Thanks!
I learned quite a few lessons on Leap Day, and one of them was quite costly. Yet, I moved forward, and now I am here at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat in the Bahamas - for a year!
LESSONS LEARNED ON MAY 1:
I will be bringing quite the challenge to my guide, the highly esteemed herbalist and Ayurveda expert, KP Khalsa. These past few weeks, I've been really out of sorts and am sure I added to the list of imbalances for us to work on:) Learn more about what KP Khalsa has prescribed to aid in 'moving the Titanic' as he refers to some of my adult life-long issues. A big part of the 67 Lbs gratefully came from the well respected and best organic provider of herbs in the U.S., Banyan Botanicals. If you haven't signed up for the blog post updates, please do. I also welcome you to leave a comment below or post one on my BestYOU facebook page. Sharing your thoughts is a gift to all of us! If you know someone who may like to sign up for my blog posts, please share this link with them. Thanks! |
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