Yoga: How It Clicked for Me

Yoga is not meant for "keeping up with the Jones'" in a contortion contest. Believe it or not, it honestly is a mental and physical journey. Seeing what your body can do, learning patience, and keeping your mentality in the present makes the practice even more intriguing every time you step on the mat.

I took up yoga last summer, but haven't found the types of powerful resources and inspirations until this summer.  Why not share what I look into for my specific practices, so hopefully readers can come across the same "ah-ha!" moments as I have?

Yoga with Adriene

I used to watch youtube videos here and there, but I decided to watch one of these yoga videos by Adriene and fell in love. She's a quirky, calming, and a vividly informative yogi. One of my favorite traits about her is the way she approaches each move like she's reading your mind, and solves any problems you could possibly have with a move by creating verbal visuals. I don't know how many times I've had her explain a move, resulting in me telling myself oh NOW I feel it! What a difference!

Good quality videos, a great yogi, excellent energy. Perfection, in my eyes.

Instagram: _kariooo

Her bright and vibrant photos, and captions create a lot of good vibes for me! She has wonderful tips on how to improve your practice and you can even email her if you need a list of resources to begin your yoga journey. Her email address is: k.champagnie@icloud.com.

Instagram: yoga_girl

Rachel Brathen is a woman that possesses a wonderful way with words. Her photos are beautiful, but I 

love the words she speaks more than anything else. She has such meaningful captions and keeps her

emotions raw and real. Sadly, she has lost many dear ones to her heart this year, and she writes about all

of those events and just as a way to get through it. She also has a blog or two I'd read through, because her

posts-- although lengthy-- are captivating enough to read and feel uplifted and connected unlike any way I've 

felt almost any other way by a collection of words before.

Get on your mat today-- especially with these motivational resources-- and start your yoga journey! Even if it's focusing on your breathing, or a gentle five-minute stretch. Just take that first step on that mat and run with it. 

What REAL Journaling Has Taught Me

Looking through the blog of one of my inspirations (Alex Elle, as mentioned in a past post), I ran across this journal-writer and creator who blogs under the name: vagabroadjournals. 

This was the very first post I read of her's, and reading it opened my eyes to what journaling really is all about. This post, and many others answers Q&As as to why people give excuses for not keeping a journal. She teaches the reason why EVERYONE has something to write about, and a reason to document their lives. Her writings have made my mentality do a 360.

Source: vagabroadjournals

I'm now on page 28 of her blog, and page 10 of my own journal I've only started two days ago. That's mind-blowing for me, because I am one of those people who has dozens of unfinished journals and notebooks. Many of them with majority of the pages ripped out because I felt what I wrote was "flawed" or not "perfect" enough.

Penmanship was too sloppy, wasn't aligned right, I didn't sound deep, I had nothing to write about and was just wasting time and ink... Those types of thoughts ran through my mind every time I tried journaling. I felt defeated before I finished the first word of every entry.

Source: vagabroadjournals

But not only were her persuasive words able to let me accept myself by letting go of the little things, but I've also started to think outside the box. Something I've always had trouble doing.

I always stay inside the lines. Always follow exactly and can't think of any variation to what I'm told. But seeing her doodles and cover work made me illustrate as I journaled for the first time ever in my 22 years of life. I've drawn several doodles since then and each time I draw, write outside the lines, scratch out words, and change pen colors, I feel soooo good. It feels so good to find something I'm able to be so free-spirtied with!

She was able to push more out of me than a Wreck This Journal has ever been able to. And I became quite disappointed in how hard it was for me to feel what everyone else was raving about, when destroying their journals. Now I feel it though. And it's a beautiful feeling-- probably what helped me write ten pages in two days.

Source: vagabroadjournals

One last thing I loved reading from her was how she recognized how much social media has engulfed us. She makes it clear that she's human too, and has to stay aware of what she's doing in order to rewire herself into not taking pictures of everything and sharing her whereabouts every time she leaves her doorstep.

We post every little thing about our lives but never make time for ourselves. Not everything is worth sharing, and sometimes it's good to step back and away from social media to get to know yourself. 

It all-of-a-sudden made sense why blogging was rough for me. All these post felt forced and once I published them, I still felt off and unsatisfied. I've realized it's because I wasn't posting for me. I was doing tags and what other bloggers do and in a rush. I never enjoyed the content I wrote. There was no passion behind a lot of the posts I did. And now it has clicked. It all clicked thanks to this woman.

I'd highly recommend checking her out. Maybe you'll grow, too.

Inspirations for April 2014

This month I've decided to post about things that inspired me to keep chugging. These things and people have unknowingly kept a constant light in my life, so I'd like to share a little about each one:

#100HappyDays:

On the first day of this month, I decided to go ahead and accept the challenge of finding at least one thing to be happy about for 100 days. My first day, I posted one sentence about having strawberry banana jello for dessert. Now, I may post two or three posts in one day with that #100HappyDays tag, followed by a long paragraph listing everything I appreciated that day.

This site claims many things if you follow through this whole challenge. I may not be able to vouch for all of it, but I can say that it has helped with my mood. Now I automatically try to look for the more positive side of things. To be honest, I don't remember when my last melancholy and sullen day was! I'd say that's a huge hurdle to overcome within itself.

Alexandra Elle:

This 24-year-old woman is a beautiful, and inspiring soul who shares her everyday struggles and strengths with the rest of the world. She has gotten to the point where she has become her own boss by building her own brand, is a mother of a little sprouting girl, and is also an author.

The first things I saw from her a year or two ago were quotes sprinkled all across Tumblr. She'd write brief diary entries to herself, self-righteous, strong posts that spoke on a lot of levels. As she grew, she posted all of her impactful words into a book a few months ago, and she's finishing up book two. She has many social media sites where she has posted many, many gorgeous photos of her life and food she has put together. Recently, she has become vegan, and the food and drinks she puts up are always so gorgeous. I love that supports local and small businesses, too.

She just keeps growing, and growing! It is much-deserved, because you can tell how hard she works. The end product is always something beautiful and inspiring.

.     .     .

I ran across this post on her instagram, and it really hit home for me.

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I'm sure at least her website is over on my inspiration bar to the left, but here are all of her links that I know of:

Instagram: http://instagram.com/alex_elle

Breakfast with Alex blog: http://breakfastwithalex.com

Her book, Words from a Wanderer: https://www.createspace.com/4270960

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AisforALEX

Rachel Brathen:

A friend introduced me to this yogi named Rachel. I ran across her at a sullen time, though. Her soul sister had died in a car crash and her posts were beautifully-written ones filled with stories that draw you in. It was such a crazy situation... At the same time her best, best, best friend crashed, Rachel collapsed at the airport in pain. I think her appendix ruptured, but for it to happen then and to see the tremendous love that they shared... I truly believe a part of her died within that moment.

Here's a peak at a post she did on Instagram a day or so ago. How deep she gets into her writings is a God-given talent.

She likes making short spurts of inspirations, too. Just scrolling through Instagram and coming across short words of inspiration have radiated in my spirit all throughout this month.

Her life-- internal and external content-- is stunning.

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I love her Instagram and blog, so I shall share those two things:

Blog: http://rachelbrathen.com/blog/page/2/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/yoga_girl

Motivational Whispers

I have the Bible app, and you can sift-through plans that'll give you a couple minutes of inspirational readings each day until the individual plan is complete.

I read the plans I subscribe to under a towel at night as I'm steaming my face.

Since I'm currently under this towel chilling, I thought I'd share a few screen shots of words that really spoke to me; I hope they do the same for you:

Have a great week, everyone.

What Stealing Taught Me

For awhile now, I've been hearing and seeing more and more of Questlove and The Roots. Just seeing this The Red Bulletin magazine in the waiting room peaked my curiosity to the fullest.

So I stole it.

And boy, did I learn!

The only things I've known The Roots for is playing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and being musical guests on Yo Gabba Gabba... Now, I was generous enough to leave the Yo Gabba Gabba video down below. Don't knock it until you've listened to it! I swear the musical guests on that show always kill it.

Anyway, from reading Questlove's interview, I learned that a lot of talent curated in this man from the time of birth. His parents were a part of the music business, so he had the opprotunity of running every facet that show business calls for.

When asked what his sense of where new and emerging talents were honing their skills, I'd have to say his answer resonated more than anything else in the interview:

"Hip-hop kind of turned its own Ginsu sword on itself in about 1997, when suddenly only winners counted, and losers or strugglers weren't shit... You just want to watch the amazing slam dunks, not well-executed team play. Puffy started that era, in my opinion. The narrative became aspirational and all about winning. It no longer celebrated the water boy, the statistician, or the assistant coach. Those people helped the team as well." -Questlove

Questlove is like a human music history timeline. I wasn't able to finish reading the interview while at the doctor's so I slid away with it, have become enlightened and humbled because of it.

Who would've thought the waiting room was like a permanent library?