Posts In: self-help

by Olivia Cecchettini

The Awakened Family 

by: Shefali Tsabary, Ph.D

Summary: I’ve seen yoga used as a tool for radical self-acceptance, helping people become more aware, present and in tune with their lives. Using many techniques familiar to yoga and meditation practitioners, The Awakened Family encourages readers to shift their perspective on parenting. In this way, everyday situations become opportunities for spiritual awakening.

The Awakened Family is Tsabary’s 2nd New York Times best seller. It invites readers (whether or not they are parents) on a journey of enlightenment. From a young age, our families and society tell us what is expected and what is acceptable. In response, sometimes we hide our true selves when that image doesn’t line up with society’s norm.

Why I Love It: I remembered my own feelings as a child of wanting to please my parents but also wanting to stay true to myself. The line between my own ambitions and dreams was easily blurred by the expectations and suggestions from mentors, family members, and friends. This book acknowledged that sometimes we parent our children the way we wish our parents would have acted in the past, reliving or recreating unfulfilled childhood dreams or needs.

Tsabary encourages the reader to co-create a parenting experience with their children, acknowledging the child as co-teacher with valuable input of their own. This opened my mind to a new way of thinking about parenting, which can lead to a new way of acting. This also reminded me of how similar some of Tsabary’s techniques are to a yoga practice. Yoga opens the body to new ways of feeling and moving, which leads to new ways of being within ourselves.

Recommend For: Individuals wishing to understand and connect more with the children in their lives. The Awakened Family is an excellent read for people trying to understand their family, whether that’s the family of their childhood or the family currently living under their roof.

I believe true life transformation comes through education, empowerment and example. As we transform our old habits of thinking about families, we open ourselves to seeing each individual in our lives for who they are in that moment. Allowing people the freedom to just be themselves in the world, without any expectations, may be the most radical form of love I know. May we experience this love ourselves and may we share it with others.

Ciao,
Olivia

Yogi Reads for Children!

Enjoy sharing these titles with your little ones and please comment below to add to our list!

• I Am Yoga, by Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds. A fun loving, very easy read about the practices of yoga. A perfect book for even the youngest of babies.
• Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles, by Thich Nhat Hanh. This book teaches a playful and fun pebble activity that parents and educators alike can use to introduce children to meditation. Recommended for children ages 1-5.
• The Dot, by Peter Reynolds. A powerful story about creativity and surrender. Great for children ages 1-6.

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Olivia Cecchettini

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda

Summary: Sutra in Sanskrit means “thread.” Each verse of the sutras is a thread in the tapestry of Raja Yoga, a yogic path of meditation and concentration. The Sutras of Pantanjali are at least 1,700 years old and contain ancient wisdom in yoga ethics, meditation, and physical postures. This compilation by Sri Swami Satchidananda not only includes the original Sanskrit alongside the translation, but also personal stories and advice shared from his own spiritual journey.

Why I Love It: Timing is everything. I picked up this book in the past and felt overwhelmed. My intuition knew that it wasn’t the right time yet, so I put it back on the shelf until some months later I began to read it one sutra at a time. I gave each one time to marinate in my thoughts. I really believe the quote, “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali uses metaphors and examples that are easy to understand and applicable to a modern lifestyle. I love that the full depth of knowledge contained in each sutra is so accessible because knowledge is power. When we become as curious about our internal landscape as we are about the external world, we are limitless. This book offered me the tools to live a life of introspection, fulfillment, happiness, and peace. It raised and continues to raise my vibration.

Recommended For: Those seeking emotional intelligence, who want to find balance between mind, body and spirit. Understanding The Sutras may come easily, but applying the book’s teaching in your everyday life might be a much harder task. The spiritual methods may be simple, but there could be a lot of work that goes into embodying each step forward.

I’ve found that it’s not by reading that I actually grasp new teachings or new ways of being in the world; it is through experimenting. Practicing, failing, having devotion and patience, and fully participating in my own life is where the learning happens. Being alive and feeling alive can be two very different experiences. My hope is for all to experience the fullness of life.

Ciao,
Olivia

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Olivia Cecchettini

The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul

by: Danielle LaPorte

Summary: Part workbook, part engaging read, The Desire Map may change the way you think and feel about your goals – which in turn will change the way you pursue them. Danielle LaPorte challenges you to look within and to be honest with yourself about your desires. Consciously or unconsciously, many of us hide our true desires by trying to please others or detaching from our own truth. This book will help you identify your core desires and create not just a goal line, but a “soul line” of how you want to feel and be in the world. This is so powerful!

Why I love It: I always wanted the ability to manifest my desires but it never worked for me in the past. The Desire Map helped me identify my Core Desired Feelings (CDF, as LaPorte calls them) and this change in perspective allowed me to see incongruent intentions and actions that were holding me back. When my goals came into alignment with my higher self, I started to see those goals manifest in my life… very cool!

One of the best tools to clarify your intentions and goals is simply to put pen to paper. By writing them out, I began to see which goals and CDFs were the most important to me. Here are a few questions from LaPorte that I thought would be encouraging and fun to share along with my answers:

I crave…. new places, long conversations, sunsets, and sometimes sugar
Other than time or money, what I want more of is… experiences and memories
I need to give myself more permission to be… more reclusive
The colour of joy is… light, darkness, and blue
If I whisper the word bliss… I close my eyes and think of the longest sunset over the ocean
I feel vulnerable when… I share my deepest feelings
In crisis… I breathe, freak out, stay calm, or cry, depends on the day.
When feeling free and strong I tend to… practice a more challenging flow, my personal practice is very gentle at the moment, but every now and then I crave a very strong power class.
If delight were an animal, it would be… the cutest pug ever named Z
I am proud of… completing my Masters in Spiritual Psychology and paying for it as I went along by myself. No debt.

These are just a few of her excellent questions to help you dive deeper in knowing your inner self and your feelings.

Recommended For: Anyone feeling blocked or held back in life, whether it’s mental or physical or emotional. Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world, so all change must start within! This book can help you take an emotional inventory, which will create more awareness of what you can let go and where you can make space for new ways of being and feeling. The Desire Map has been called a dream-fulfilling system that harnesses your soul’s deep desire to feel good – I hope it does just that for you.

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Laura McCorry

What’s weighing you down? That idea pushed to the back of your mind that hasn’t left. Maybe it’s been days or months. Maybe you’ve been thinking about this thing you’d like to change for years.

Sometimes we let ourselves be defined by conditions and labels that have grown up over the years like weeds. They come from family, co-workers or friends – sometimes they have even been planted by our own hand in the night. The weeds grow up around the bloom of your true self and cut off the light.

You are the gardener of your soul. Approach your inner landscape fearlessly and take stock of everything growing there.

Keep the healthy growth: the relationships still in bloom that bring you joy, those habits and ideas that feed your passions with their abundant produce.

Prune back anything that doesn’t fit your true self, the person you’d like to be. Clear away doubt, anger, resentment and guilt. Let go of old sorrows that have ripened and fallen to the ground. Dig down into the earth of your being and rake away the last remnants of any bad seed.

These things weigh on your heart because they are not rightfully a part of you. A gardener’s work is never done. Each day you must go out and pull up small intrusions. Each day you must show up and begin again.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Laura McCorry

How are you doing with your New Year’s Resolutions? If you’re breezing through them, chances are you didn’t aim high enough and if you’ve already stumbled, it’s okay. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and begin again.

Motivation isn’t a delicate butterfly on a clear spring day that either rests on your shoulder or flits away out of reach. Motivation is a skill and like every other skill, it’s something you can practice and improve upon. Here are some tips to increase motivation and productivity, maybe one will give you the extra oomph you need to meet your goals:

• Honestly assess your goals to make sure they’re challenging but not unrealistic.
• Write down concrete steps along the way to achieving your goal rather than vague aspirations. For example, walk the dog four times a week, eat a new vegetable weekly, do yoga for at least 10 minutes a day.
• Make a list (not too long) and cross off items as you accomplish them.
• Pick an activity and a corresponding reward for the end of the day so you can increase your stamina for delayed gratification
• Choose rewards that support your well-being and are in line with your goals (make plans to see a friend or indulge in a leisure activity you enjoy but for which you don’t usually make time.)
• Tell a friend about your goals. Have them call you at a certain time and ask if you were successful that day/week/month.
• Set a timer and see what you can accomplish before it goes off (try the pomodoro technique for increased productivity.)
• Limit distractions. Put your phone down in another room. Block your internet. Hire a babysitter for an hour. Whatever you need to do to work on a goal with focus. 
• Keep a journal and reflect on everything you accomplished that day, you’ll feel productive and be more inspired to pursue your goals. 
• Give yourself a pep talk in the mirror!
• If you miss a day, call it a day off and let it go. Get right back to your goals the next day.
• Encourage someone else to keep striving towards their goals.
• When the going gets tough, take a two minute break to dance wildly in your kitchen.
• Practice gratitude daily. When you write down or say out loud specific things in your life for which you’re grateful, you increase your overall level of gratitude and happiness.
• Have compassion for yourself if you don’t make your goal. Tomorrow is a new day, take a deep breath and begin again.
• Celebrate when you reach a milestone (a goal that takes less than a year but longer than two weeks to accomplish)

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Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Olivia Cecchettini

Recently my mom gave me a stack of O Magazines she had finished reading. They sat in a pile on my floor until one day I picked them up and started flipping through them for inspiration. Oprah interviewed some of the world’s most powerful and influential women, yet I noticed that they all admitted to a common struggle: not owning their own strength and accomplishments.

Women who were doing great, important work in the world were shying away from praise and recognition by choosing to remain small. Worried about how they would be received. Feeling embarrassed. Or afraid of shouting their voice into the world.

I used to be like that. In college, I changed majors from Communications to Psychology because I was scared to give a speech in front of my class. The feeling of getting up in front of people made me tremble inside. I was literally sweating, nervous with stomach ache – I just couldn’t do it.

I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to face that particular fear of mine, but life keeps bringing you the same lesson until you face it head on. If I wanted to become a yoga teacher (and I very much wanted to share my love of yoga!), I needed to be able to speak in front of a group of people.

Everything that makes life worth living happens outside the comfortable little space you’ve carved out for yourself, so I chose to step outside.

I was terrified during the first “practice” yoga class I taught. As I practiced more and taught more classes, I came to see that yoga is about co-creation. Knowing I wasn’t alone, that everyone present contributes their own energy, brought me peace. It was incredibly hard to allow myself to be seen, but I believe it’s the only way to show my authentic self and create connection.

There are many messages the world sends out every day. Messages designed to put us in our place, to make us feel less than capable, or to silence our voices. Those challenges are real, but I also know that we all have a little whisper of guidance inside. As we open our bodies, minds and hearts through yoga, the connection to that whisper is strengthened. We begin to strengthen the muscle of confidence and trust within as well.

What challenges are facing you this new year? My hope is that whatever they are, you look for the lesson, a way forward, the path which leads to growth. Get to know yourself and accept what you find. Be gentle. Be bold. Who knows what we can co-create when we own our power? I’m excited to find out.

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Olivia Cecchettini

“The Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing”

by Carolyn Myss

Summary: Caroline Myss is an acclaimed medical intuitive and motivational speaker. In this book she presents her findings on fifteen years of research into energy medicine as a pathway to spontaneous physical, emotional and spiritual healing. In her discussion of the relation of spirituality to energy medicine, she states: “As spiritual adults we accept responsibility for co-creating our lives and our health.”

Anatomy of the Spirit offers a unique model in which she combines the ancient wisdom of three spiritual traditions – the Hindu Chakras, the Christian sacraments, and the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, to demonstrate the seven stages of development towards higher consciousness and spiritual maturity. With this model, Dr. Myss shows how you can develop and deepen your intuition, as well as cultivate your own personal power and spiritual growth.

Why I Love It: I love this book because it taught me so much. I strongly believe in the mind, body, spirit connection. In my eyes, we are made up of energy and are all sensitive to it. Our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health is all inter-connected. To stay in harmony and balance we need to look at all four aspects of health equally. This means seeking connection through self-inquiry, which is the goal of Yoga – union, harmony, balance.

Keep an open mind and an open heart when reading this book. It’s filled with interesting facts and information that may be unfamiliar to you, see what you connect with the most and leave the rest behind. Personally, this book taught me how to slow down to connect to myself, others, and all the energy that is abundantly surrounding me all the time. Take your time reading and let it digest.

Recommended For:  I recommend this book for anyone wanting to discover or go deeper into learning about their own energy. Caroline states that everything pulsates with energy and this energy contains information. If you have been feeling more sensitive to energy lately or maybe just curious about energy work in general, this book may be just the thing. It will let you know you’re not alone, expand your knowledge and also give you tools to grow and protect yourself. I hope you enjoy it!

“This book is both an important revelation and a major call to awakening.” – Christiane Northrup

Lots of love this holiday season!
Ciao, Olivia

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia is a yoga teacher based out of San Diego. With a love for people, life, spirituality, reading, and, of course, yoga she spends her days connecting with students and nature. Getting outside whenever she can to enjoy all the beauty this life has to offer.