It is pitta season! It is hot. It is humid. It is feisty and its days are longer! We experience vitality and drive. We can do the most. While doing more can be great, excess doing will burn us out…literally! We will end up with burning sensations in the body, sour stomachs, and inflamed tempers. In Ayurvedic terms, we will end up with excess pitta.

Now more than ever, we need to find our inner resilience and cultivate calm, so these uneasy feelings can be reduced and released, and we can be useful to our families and community. Yoga & Ayurveda offer insights and practices that are powerful support for the body, mind, and spirit. These practices help us to stay grounded and healthy.

Yoga and Ayurveda are related healing disciplines of India. Both have their own exclusive benefits; however, they were designed to be practiced together, providing us with a complete system of wellbeing for the body, mind, and spirit.

I have been waiting and waiting and now I can finally see the hopeful signs of spring! The earth is awakening once again. The trees are coming back from hibernation, pollen is increasing, daffodils are popping up, and insects are starting to buzz... The rain makes the land soggy and muddy. The combination of moisture and dust brings a heavy quality to the earth and our body senses it is time to lighten up.

For anyone who begins a home practice, I believe sincerity is there already! Consistency and frequency can be more challenging, but they are the keys to experience the benefits of yoga.

Winter is kapha season, with strong vata undertones. In the natural world everything is withdrawing -- preparing for hibernation and rest. The sky is often gray. The weather is cold and there is increased dampness due to rain or snow. There is a sense of heaviness and life in general moves more slowly.

We can use our hatha yoga practice to help us remember and appreciate the many blessings in our life. Healing happens when we express and feel gratitude and our yoga mat can be a perfect place to reflect on and express those feelings.

From the Ayurvedic perspective, travelling, especially flying, increases the Vata dosha — the energy governing all movement in the body-mind. The more we move around, the more Vata qualities we bring in.

We are interested in thriving! One simple way that you can protect your well-being is to make lifestyle choices that counterbalance the potential for seasonally induced imbalances.

The transversus, I call the “king of the core” because to me it has a more yang or masculine role. While the psoas senses and sends us messages about the integrity of our center, the transverse is a key stabilizer! It provides protection and stability to the spine so when we move through our asanas and daily activities, we do so more safely and more effectively.

A beautiful seed of grace was planted within me right from the point of my first practice, and it continues to be nourished and encouraged to grow by the Level 3 Hatha practice. I started at the beginners’ level and gradually, mindfully, and joyfully advanced in the practice.

When you cook for yourself, you are exercising self-responsibility, and making the right choices for your health, both body and mind. Here are four tips to make cooking your own meals both manageable and fun!

Done correctly, a cleanse strengthens our power to digest everything we consume through our five senses! It can facilitate renewal and healing at multiple levels by eliminating the very toxicity that can inhibit the digestion power.

The differences among the classical branches relate more to the way in which self-realization is accomplished and how the transcendental reality is defined.

If you’re missing the gifts this season has to offer, these four lifestyle choices can help to overcome spring’s challenges while promoting optimal health, so that we can truly celebrate the earth’s awakening!

Establishing a daily routine was crucial on my path of healing. I believe we need to work on our health every day and a daily routine is a wonderful and simple way since it balances our constitution, regulates our biological clock with nature, aids digestion, absorption and assimilation, and generates self-esteem, discipline, and peace.

The practice is approached like meditation in action. By doing so, we can discover and adopt the most effective flow of energy that allows us to strike a balance between exerting the right amount of effort and surrendering to the process.

By cultivating core awareness and healthy psoas, we are first reconnecting with the life force, allowing it to flow through the bones, muscles, and joints. Consequently, ease and buoyancy are introduced to our movement and asana practice. A functional psoas muscle can enhance joint integrity, muscular tone, breathing, healthy organ functioning, and core stability.

Musculoskeletal aches and pains can arise from many sources. It can be from an injury, from sitting for a long time every day, from poor posture, from driving too much, from repetitive activities, from harmful emotions, from digestion, from lack of exercise, from stress, etc. The ancient sciences of Yoga and Ayurveda offer natural and sustainable relief from these pains.

The way I implemented the new routine was slowly and progressively so my instruments – body and mind, would not rebel. I want the new habits to stick for a lifetime so I had little and short goals; the secret to make them doable and sustainable.