Breath Body Works April 2015

Wellness Wisdom

“Join us for what?” you may be asking.

How about “Time Out Tuesdays” which approaches meditation in three different ways. All classes are guaranteed to help you deal with your busy life in a calmer fashion. We are pleased that Onkar is offering a three-day class as well as a donation class for beginners.

Be sure to visit our booth at the Douglas County Chamber of Commerce Business Showcase.

Thank you for joining us in your search for better health.

Your doing so affects those around you

and so it goes…

April Calendar

Pg. 6

A Four-Day Kundalini Yoga & Meditation

Event April 16 & 17-19

January 6 - March 31

February 23 - April 12

March 14, 21, 28

April 4

April 16

Back Care Yoga

8-week class Marta Olson

Yoga for the

Complete Beginner

Ed Kingham

Kundalini Yoga

Beginners Donation Class Onkar

March 23 & 30

The Yoga of Gardening

2-day class

Ed Kingham

April 17-19

March 20 First Day of Spring

Be Positive

10-week Meditation Molly Dahl

1st Tuesday

February 23 - April 12

April 16

Back Care Yoga

8-week class Marta Olson

Kundalini Yoga

Beginners Donation Class Onkar

April 17-19 Kundalini Yoga

& Meditation

Onkar

2nd, 4th, 5th Tuesday

Meditation Time Out Tuesdays Molly Dahl

Meditation

Yoga Nidra Molly Dahl

3rd Tuesday

Meditation

Just Savasana Molly Dahl

April 16 Business Showcase

DC Chamber of Commerce Stop by our booth

Join Us!

Only available at BBW

Breath Body Works April 2015

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I introduced Sallie in last month’s newsletter. She is an excellent example of what can be accomplished with postural alignment therapy.

Since July of 2014, I have met with Sallie for 15 sessions spaced approximately 2 weeks apart. With each new session, Sallie’s posture and her functionality improved and I was able to give her increasingly more challenging e-cise menus.

There has been a serious dedication on Sallie’s part to improve her posture and her ability to walk, sit and stand. All of these areas have greatly improved because of Sallie’s dedication to her own health and wellbeing.

Sallie’s daily e-cise routine takes one hour to complete. She also uses a tool called the tower three times a week, which takes an additional sixty minutes to complete. This dedication has brought about the changes that you can see in the photos.

Sallie has reported to me that she notices a great improvement in her ability to take her daily walks with her husband, mostly due to her ability to breathe better. Before postural alignment therapy, the forwardness of Sallie’s torso contracting limited her diaphragm’s ability to move freely and made taking in a deep breath nearly impossible for her. According to Sallie, her breathing is much better and she has taken to walking uphill!

The postural changes you see with Sallie’s did not come over night and in turn they did not reverse themselves over night, either. When we change our posture through exercises it creates new muscle

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memory and it takes time to instill. But as you can see, with hard work and determination, change can and does happen.

The photos demonstrate that Sallie has a lot of work ahead of her before she will be standing totally erect with her load joints directly on top of each other and at 90 degrees. I have no doubt that Sallie will continue to

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become more functional and find her daily life more easeful and enjoyable.

I am very proud of the results Sallie

has been able to accomplish and I look forward to future results.

Marta Olson is a Licensed Massage Therapist (NVMT #133) and a

Certified Egoscue Method® Specialist.

Postural Alignment Therapy, A Case Study, Part 2 Marta Olson, LMT, PAS2, RYT

September 2014 March 2015

When I walked behind her to lead her to the evaluation room, I was not able to see the back of her head. Marta Olson, “Wellness Wisdom” March 2015

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Spring is a time of change. You feel lighter; you feel like eating less amounts of food, it’s time to shed pounds from the winter. You probably feel like doing less of everything and increase outdoor activity. Maybe you feel like singing! You feel a need to air out and clean the house from the heavy winter. Well then, you ARE listening to the natural cycle of life and its changes!

Make sure to add to your spring calendar a 7-day detox for your body. Ayurveda feels this should be safe and not harsh. With a mono diet that we talked about a few months ago, you can achieve a healthy way to detox. A simple Kitcheri recipe ( January 2015, breathbodyworks.net/newsletter.htm) that appeals to you can be done easily for 7 days. The way time is speeding by, it’ll be finished before you know it and you will feel lighter and refreshed.

It’s also a great time to clear out the mind. Do you live with a lot of fear? It’s hard to block out all the crud the world is going through right now and staying in a higher vibration is critical for your health and the health of the planet. If someone says something negative, turn and walk away. If the TV has something ugly on it, change the channel or turn it off. Say a mantra to yourself like, “I am Love,” over and over while someone is taking all of their frustrations out on you. Don’t give in to their drama! Know that Our Creator made you perfect and you can stay in that state of perfection if you allow it and want it! Spring is a great time to let go of

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body and mind issues.

Fear can paralyze any part of our life. What are your fears? Spiders, being in an airplane, confrontation and the fear a partner may leave and you will end up alone? These are some common fears. Did you ever think it’s time to change the feeling around them? In this beautiful time in life why live with fear? Any change starts with changing the mind. Fear is a Vata imbalance in our body. The electrical energy that runs down the nerve path dries out the moist layer that coats the nerve creating even more of a Vata imbalance. So, besides changing the mind we have to nourish the body and spirit. This takes practice, patience and forgiving oneself.

When you start your morning meditation think of one thing that brings fear to your mind. Feel it in your body, it’s running down those nerve paths. Now take a deep breath and replace it with calm and kind thoughts. Eventually I would suggest facing your fear straight on. Have a friend help you if you need support. Get creative on how to change it. An easy example is public speaking. Who is not afraid of that! So how to face it? Take a public speaking class or Kat Simmons comedy class, it helps a lot and it’s fun! The key is to get creative in ways that it will not bring you the feeling of fear and by cultivating good eating, sleeping, and spiritual habits our fears will naturally fall away.

Mardi Lester is a Certified Ayurveda Specialist, CAS, and a Pancha Karma Specialist, PKS as well as a Massage Practitioner (NVMT#3203) since 1988. She works at Breath Body Works.

Thoughts on Ayurveda By Mardi Lester, CAS, PKS, LMT

What are Crystal Light Therapy Beds?

Straight from Casa de Dom Inacio, Brazil where John of God does

miraculous healing.

Call Mardi Lester for an appointment

775.883.1800

breathbodyworks.net/crystalbed.html

The Crystal Bed combines the power of Color Therapy and Crystal Healing

Therapy to harmonize the Chakras. FAQ:

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw

Breath Body Works April 2015

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We breathe all day long, every day. In. Out. In. Out. Over and over. A breath in was the very first thing we did coming into this world. A breath out will be the very last thing we do leaving it. It’s what we do. We breathe.

But how often do we really pay attention to how we breathe? The first time someone told me I was breathing wrong I thought they were whacked. “How can I be breathing wrong?” I thought. If this person were any other human being on the planet beside my beloved yoga teacher, I would have given them the look and turned and walked away. Yet, because of my love for my teacher and having come to realize how very much she knew, I buttoned my lip, stood where I was, and listened attentively.

Boy was she right. I was breathing “wrong.” Weirdly, we can breathe wrong. But what does that really mean, to “breathe wrong.” It might not actually mean, “wrong”, but maybe just not efficiently or naturally. It would seem that as long as air is going in and then air is coming out, we’re doing something right.

Deep-belly or diaphragmatic breathing is our natural breathing pattern. Have you ever watched a

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baby or a little child breathe? Their belly is nice and round, moving up and down with inhale and exhale. This is good breathing.

As we inhale, the diaphragm (the muscle at the bottom of the rib cage, shaped like a disc when contracted and like a balloon when relaxed, that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen) contracts and pulls down, creating a vacuum in the lungs. Outside air rushes in to fill the space. Our thoracic cavity, the space inside the rib cage, expands in all directions as the air moves in. Then the very top or our lungs, way up under the collarbones, expands slightly as the tippy-top of the lungs are filled. When the diaphragm contracts, at the start of the inhale, it pulls down into the space of the abdomen. If the abdomen is relaxed, it moves passively outward, allowing the abdominal organs the space they naturally need as the diaphragm expands down into that space. If on the other hand, the abdomen is tight or “sucked in” there is no room for the organs to shift. As a

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result, the breath won’t be full and deep. You can practice this right now to feel how awkward and

uncomfortable it is. Pull the belly in toward the spine and tighten up the abdomen. Now try to take a deep breath by pulling the diaphragm down. Doesn’t happen. The bottom of the rib cage tries to expand, but even that feels strange.

If the abs are pulled in and tight all the time, how does the body compensate in order to breathe comfortably? It breathes into the upper part of the chest. This limited physical space created in the thoracic cavity caused by tight abs, means that we must breathe shallow, short, and rapid breathes to get the oxygen we need. We become inefficient, ineffective breathers.

Why does this matter?

When we breathe short, rapid, shallow breaths, the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight) is triggered. That means that all

Breathing Your Way to Relaxation Molly Dahl

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kinds of stress hormones and chemicals are released in to the blood stream and we’re on high alert. We can’t relax, we can’t think as clearly and logically, we become tight and tense. We feel stressed out and anxious all because we’re breathing wrong.

When we relax the belly, take a deep inhale down into the space below the belly button, we trigger the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and relax). As we continue to breathe into the low belly, the heart rate drops, blood pressure goes down, and we feel a deeper sense of calm and peacefulness. Our stress can melt away if we take about five or so of these deep belly breaths.

Try this now…Stand or sit up straight. Relax the belly.

1. As you inhale, pull the breath all the way down to the underbelly, way down beneath the belly button, then feel the navel move forward as the round part of your belly reaches out in front of you.

2. As you exhale, pull the bellybutton gently toward the spine, compressing way down to the underbelly, as you press the air out from the very bottom of your lungs.

3. Again, inhale to the underbelly and the navel, now fill the bottom of the rib cage. Feel the rib cage take on its natural shape of a cylinder, it moves out in all directions: front, back, side to side.

4. Exhale, lower ribs move back toward each other,

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belly presses to spine, underbelly compresses.

5. Another inhale, deep into the underbelly, the navel, the bottom of the rib cage and now up to the level of the heart. Full, expansive, cylindrical rib cage.

6. Exhale. The mid-rib cage compresses, bottom of the rib cage moves back in toward itself, belly drops in toward the spine. And the final stage, deep into the underbelly, the navel, the bottom of the rib cage, the heart, and now clear up under the collar bones. Exhale from the top down.

Check in. How do you feel? Physically? Mentally? Want to do it again?

This is the power of breathing correctly. When we breathe long, slow, deep breaths, we enhance our calm, we think and process information more clearly, we create mental space in which we have room for others. We become more compassionate and kind. We smile more often when we breathe into the belly.

So let your belly relax. Keep the back of the heart forward and up so the rib cage is expansive and ready for full, deep breaths. (On another note, when the heart is lifted forward and up, we increase feelings of hope, gratitude, and connectedness. Yep, just by lifting the heart.) And breathe deeply and smoothly, all day long.

May you breathe deeply and fully the goodness of life around you. May you inhale the brightness of the sunshine the surrounds you. May you exhale the soft beauty of your inner world and share it with

Continued, Breathing, Pg. 4

TIME OUT TUESDAYS

Start April 7th 1st Tuesday of the month

Yoga Nidra Lie comfortable at rest on a yoga mat while being guided to deep states of meditative stillness.

2nd, 4th and 5th Tuesday

Meditation Guided meditation. Topics include why and how to meditate, the object of meditation, the results of meditation and how to create a committed home practice.

3rd Tuesday of the month

Just Savasana A very gentle yoga practice followed by the deep, still silence found in the corpse pose of a yoga practice. Rejuvenates body, mind and spirit.

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the rest of us. May your life follow the smooth, peaceful, rhythmic nature of your right breathing.

Molly  Dahl  has  been  teaching  the  principles  of  spiritual  living  for  the  past  28  years  and  holds  a  Master’s  Degree  in  Educational  Leadership.    She  teaches  meditation  on  Tuesday  from  6:00  to  7:15  PM  at  Breath  Body  Works.  

Breath Body Works April 2015

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Be Happier Tune Into Your Inner Joy

Thursday, April 16th Suggested Donation: $11 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Kundalini Rising

Friday, April 17th Drop-in: $50 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM Discover your Soul

Saturday, April 18th Drop-in: $125 5:00 AM - 7:00 AM Sadhana (Open to all - free) 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM Devotion & Commitment 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM Deep Listening & Gong

Sunday, April 19th Drop-in: $75 5:00 AM - 7:00 AM Sadhana (Open to all - free) 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM Becoming & Being You ~~~~~~~ 1:30 – 4:00 PM (Open to all - free) Shine Your Beauty Inside and Out Meditation and Jewelry Trunk Show

Onkar and Marta Olson

Breath Body Works is offering a four-day Kundalini Yoga and Meditation Event starting April 16th and ending on April 19th. This is a great opportunity for you to dip your toe into the world of Kundalini Yoga at no expense or dive right in by attending the 3-day workshop for $250.

Kundalini Yoga is the yoga of awareness. It is Raj yoga.

It is the fastest way to establish an aligned relationship between mind, body and soul through posture, pranayama, mantra, music, meditation and relaxation. It will teach you the art of relaxation, self-healing and evaluation.

Balancing the body and mind allows you to experience the clarity and beauty of your soul.

Beginner Donation Class – Kundalini Rising

This donation class is designed to introduce Kundalini Yoga and Meditation to the beginner. It is also appropriate for someone with a busy schedule that is unable to attend the full 3-day workshop.

3-Day Workshop

This is an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in a weekend of relaxation and self-healing. Take the time to tune into your inner joy and the wonderful possibilities that lay in front of you. If your schedule is hectic, allow yourself one day.

Meditation and Jewelry Trunk Show

After a guided meditation, you will have the opportunity to view jewelry designed by Onkar. You can shine your beauty inside and out.

A Four-Day Kundalini Yoga and Meditation Event

Personalize your experience by attending any or all events.

with Onkar

BelightJewelry by Onkar