Bird of Paradise: 5 Steps to Master this Standing Pose

Benefit
A challenging balance that incorporates hip opening, core and back strengthening, and hamstring lengthening

Instruction
1. Start in Warrior Pose II, with a bent left leg, right foot turned in slightly, and a firm, straight back leg. Inhale and take your arms to shoulder height. Exhale and bring your left arm under the left thigh, and your right arm to the sky, then behind your back. Clasp the left wrist with the right hand. Keeping the left leg bent, twist the torso to the sky as you gently press the hips forward. Your drishti is over your right shoulder as you settle into Baddha Utthita Parsvakonasana, or Bound Extended Side Angle Pose.
Yogapedia Dec 14 Bound Extended Side Angle Pose Baddha Utthita Parsvakonasana

2. Exhale and look down. Turn both your feet parallel and then carefully start to move them toward one another. Once the legs are close to hip distance, straighten them both and twist your torso to the right, keeping the bind and finding Baddha Uttanasana, or Bound Standing Forward Bend.
Yogapedia Dec 14 Bound Standing Forward Bend

3. Pour all of your weight into your right foot and start to lift your torso, bringing the left leg off the floor. Keep the supporting foot’s toes spread; your weight should be evenly distributed between the big toe, little toe, and inner and outer heel, maintaining 4 points of balance. Keep the lifted leg bent in this Svarga Dvijasana variation—Bird of Paradise with a bent leg.
Yogapedia Dec 14 Bird of Paradise Variation

4. Open the chest and extend the lifted leg to the side, being careful not to swing the supporting hip out to the side. You’re aiming to find stability and ease in equal measure. Open your chest proudly, engaging the muscles across your back to hold your heart high. If you start to teeter, revert to a bent left leg and regain stability in the right leg by pressing evenly into all four corners of the standing foot and visualizing a line down the middle of the body that you are hugging into.
Yogapedia Dec 14 Bird of Paradise

5. Fix the drishti straight ahead or over the right shoulder and stay for 5–10 deep breaths, embodying the beauty, stability, and vibrancy of the Bird of Paradise flower.

Stay safe
If the central axis of the body becomes displaced, you may compromise the knee and hip joints. Aim to keep the supporting foot facing forward, toes spread, with the knee over the ankle, and the supporting hip plugged into the midline. Keep the quadriceps on both legs contracted, allowing the standing leg to support you more fully and the hamstrings on the extended leg to open further without strain.

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Lover of Words, Spiritual Teacher, International Kickboxer, 5-Star Chef, TheUtopianLife.com

Eeyore: A Pessimist’s Guide to a Beautiful Life

I’m a recovering pessimist. A perennial one. I know it’s a striking confession given the nature of my site. But in a paradoxical way, pessimism’s been great fuel for personal growth. Pitiful dwellings on life’s miseries launch me into striving for the best possible world.

Perhaps the greatest of pessimists: Eeyore. The thistle eating donkey from A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.

There’s something poignantly oxymoronic about Eeyore — that such laughter and joy can come from a gloomy character.

In the same way being poor teaches us to appreciate wealth, having our hearts broken teaches us to love faithfully, struggle and failure magnifies our victories — Eeyore’s melancholy in a subtle way highlights the joys in life.

Here are seven classic lines and lessons for a beautiful life from Eeyore:

1. “Thanks for noticing me.”

It’s what we all want. Beyond our physical needs, the existential cry for acknowledgment underlies everything we do.

To be noticed, to be love, to be validated.

One of Eeyore’s favorite lines highlights the power in simply acknowledging someone’s presence. Appreciating the uniqueness of their character, the serendipity that allows friends to share the same space and time. Every relationship is made up of chance occurrences which deserve some marveling.

And when silence is no longer awkward in any relationship — it’s a beautiful experience of “noticing” one another that should be celebrated.

2. “It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.

“So it is.”

“And freezing.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”

We’ve all blown things out of proportion before. Our problems will expand to fill the mental space we give it, and often, we give far too much.

Psychologists call it Catastrophic Thinking, defaulting to worst case scenarios — we think getting pulled over means a night in jail. Fear is a powerful mechanism, and if untamed, it knows no boundaries.

Eeyore knows the key — the word “However” causes a mental reappraisal, a mindfulness that allows for a more rational evaluation. And actually, thinking the worst case scenario, allows us to realize how unjustified and unrealistic we’re being.

3. “A tail isn’t a tail to them, it’s just a little bit extra at the back.”

Not everyone will understand you, and that’s okay. We celebrate freedom of speech, but often get bent out of shape when someone expresses an opposing view.

Just like you can take a horse to water but not make it drink, there’s no point going blue in the face telling someone it’s a tail if all they see is “extra at the back.”

4. “To the uneducated an A is just three sticks.”

Ignorance is bliss — for those who are ignorant about bliss. Eeyore must have read some Socrates, who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Knowledge has the power to expand our human experience. To learn any language is to open up to literally a whole new world. To learn any skill increases your self-confidence, and ability to add value to someone else’s life.

Give yourself the gift of seeing more than just sticks; challenge yourself to learn one new thing each day.

5. “They’re funny things, accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.”

To live life in bubble wrap may prevent us from ever getting hurt, but it’ll certainly prevent us from ever experiencing a meaningful life.

So while we can do our best to be wise and cautious, ultimately our best is the best we can do. Accidents are indiscriminate — to try and live in prediction of them is paralyzing.

6. “A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference. Or so the say.”

Our survival mechanism means we possess an inherent selfishness. Babies will learn “mine!” as quickly as “mumma” or “daddy.”

As inherent are acts of selfishness, so too is the desire for selflessness — we’ve said it a thousand times: “It’s better to give than receive.” But kindness takes a little more effort than we’d like to admit; taking action to bridge the gap between desire and act can be an internal battle. But the possibility of making someone’s day, and even their life through what we can give should be good motivation. Even if the difference goes unnoticed.

7. “We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”

“Can’t all what?” said Pooh, rubbing his nose.

“Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush.”

It’s like being an introvert in a culture that preaches extroversion. Thankfully there’s more balance nowadays with introversion seen less as an issue to fix and more of a celebration.

But with any majority view or “cultural norm,” there’s a always the temptation to feel as though there’s something wrong with you if you don’t fit into the neat cookie cutter.

Simple, yet profound words from Eeyore: “We can’t all, and some of us don’t.” There’s beauty in being different. Cookie cutters are meant for cookies, not life.

3 Key Financial Decisions That Can Change Your Life in an Instant
By Tony Robbins

In all the years I’ve worked with people, I’ve found there are three key decisions we make every moment of our lives. If we make these decisions unconsciously, we end up with lives like the majority of people, who tend to be out of shape physically, exhausted emotionally and often bored with or two comfortable in their intimate relationships—not to mention financially stressed.

But if you make these decisions consciously, you can literally change your life in an instant! What are the three decisions that determine the quality of your life? That determine whether you feel rich or poor in any given moment? The first one is:

Decision 1: What Are You Going to Focus On?

In every moment of our lives, there are millions of things we could focus on. We can focus on the things that are happening right here, right now, or on what we want to create in the future, or we can put our focus back on the past. We can direct our focus on solving a big challenge or on appreciating the beauty of this moment, or on feeling sorry for ourselves about a disappointing experience. If we don’t consciously redirect our focus, the environment we’re in tends to make constant demands to get our attention.

Ask yourself: Which do you tend to focus on more—what you have, or what’s missing from your life? I’m sure you think about both sides of this coin, but if you had to look at your habitual thoughts, where do you tend to spend most of your time?

Even those of us who are in difficult situations have plenty in our lives that we can appreciate. Almost half the world, or more than three billion people, live on less than $2.50 per day, which is a little more than $900 per year. The average drink at Starbucks is $3.25. If you can afford that, you’re spending more on one purchase of a cup of coffee than what half the planet has to live on in one day. That puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

Rather than focusing on what we don’t have and begrudging those who are better off financially, perhaps we should acknowledge that there’s so much to be grateful for in our lives that has nothing to do with money. We can be grateful for our health, our friends, our opportunities, our minds, the fact that we get to drive on roads that we didn’t have to build, read books we didn’t have to take years to write, and tap into the internet that we didn’t have to create.

A pattern of appreciating what you have will create a new level of emotional well-being and wealth. And my guess is that if you’re reading this, you may be one of those people who already notices what you have. But the real question is, do you take time to deeply feel grateful in your mind, body, heart and soul? That’s where the joy and the gifts will be found. Not with just the intellectual appreciation or by the acquisition of another dollar, or another 10 million dollars.

Now, as soon as you begin to focus on something, your brain has to make a second decision, which is:

Decision 2: What Does This Mean?

What does this mean? Ultimately, how we feel about our lives has nothing to do with the events of our lives, or with our financial condition, or what has or has not happened to us. The quality of our lives is controlled by the meaning we give these things. Most of the time we’re unaware of the impact of these quick meaning decisions that are often made in our unconscious mind.

When something happens that disrupts your life—a car accident, a health issue, a lost job—do you tend to think it’s the end or the beginning? If someone confronts you, are they “insulting” you, “coaching” you, or truly “caring” for you? Does this “devastating” problem mean that God is punishing you, or challenging you or is it possible this problem is a gift from God? Your life becomes whatever meaning you give it.

A change in focus and a change in meaning can be an emotional game changer. We can all find meaning, even in our pain. And when we do, we may still experience pain, but the suffering is gone.

So take control, and always remember: meaning equals emotion, and emotion equals life. Choose consciously and wisely. Find the empowering meaning in anything, and wealth in its deepest sense will be yours today.

Decision 3: What Am I Going to Do?

The actions we take are powerfully shaped by the emotional states we’re in. If we’re angry, we’re going to behave quite differently than if we’re feeling playful or outrageous.

But even two people who get in an angry state will behave differently. Some will pull back when they’re angry, others push through. Some people express anger quietly or loudly or violently. Some people suppress it only to look for a passive aggressive opportunity to regain the upper hand, or even exact revenge. Some people confront their anger by going to the gym and working out.

Where do these patterns come from? We tend to model our behavior on the people in our lives whom we respect, enjoy and love. The people who frustrated or angered us? We often reject their approaches, but far too often we find ourselves falling back into the pattern that we witnessed over and over again and were so displeased by in our youth.

It’s very useful to become aware of what your patterns are when you get frustrated or angry or sad or feel lonely—because you can’t change your pattern if you’re not aware of it. In addition, now that you’re aware of the power of these three decisions, you might start looking for role models who are experiencing what you want out of life. I promise you, those who have passionate relationships have a totally different focus and come up with totally different meanings for challenges in the relationship than people who are constantly bickering or fighting. Or those who judge each other constantly. It’s not rocket science. If you become aware of the differences in how people make these three decisions, you’ll have a pathway that can help you create a permanent positive change in any area of your life.

***

It’s so easy to lose track of the beauty and grace of what we already have! If we don’t consciously do something each day to plant the right seeds in our mind, then “the weeds of life”—frustration, anger, stress, loneliness—tend to creep in. You don’t have to plant weeds; they grow automatically. My teacher Jim Rohn taught me a simple principle: every day stand guard at the door of your mind, and you alone will decide on what thoughts and beliefs you let into your life. For they will shape whether you feel rich or poor, cursed or blessed.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/money/Key-Financial-Decisions-Tony-Robbins#ixzz3KsfFGi00