March 7th, 2013

Benefits Sattva Yoga Can Have on Your Relationships

Benefits Sattva Yoga Can Have on Your Relationships

Bringing your life into balance through focusing on your mind, your body, and directed breath during Sattva Yoga can have tremendous benefits. Your body is nurtured through these positions and the meditation that you use to center yourself and as you are promoting the flexibility, strength, and calm of your body you are also encouraging the health, wellbeing, and calm of the mind.

Sattva Yoga and Relationships

When you engage in yoga you are not just bringing benefits into your own life. Rather, you are opening yourself to the wealth of benefits that can be given to your relationships as well. When you spend time concentrating on what is good for you, and dedicate yourself to fully exploring how yoga can increase your own health, you are also allowing your mind and spirit to extend these same benefits to your relationships.

There are many ways that the consistent practice of yoga can benefit your relationship. It is important to remember that consistency is the key to enjoying the myriad of benefits of Sattva Yoga. Dedicating regular and frequent time to your yoga practice promotes focus, wellbeing, agility, strength, and a consistent sense of inner peace.

A Calm Mind Promotes a Calm Heart

When you are practicing yoga you will quickly learn that the deep meditative breathing techniques and focus physical movement is incredible for releasing stress and calming anxiety. As you continue along your path of learning more about Sattva Yoga and make it a part of your everyday life you will feel these peaceful benefits throughout your day, not just when you are actually engaged in the practice.

With this greater sense of peace and calm comes greater ability to handle tension that may arise in a relationship. This is a wonderful reason to invite your partner to practice yoga with you. Bonding in this way will encourage both of you to feel stronger and more peaceful in the context of your relationship.

Yoga for Improved Life With Your Partner

The opportunity to practice Sattva Yoga together as a couple is a way to bond in a way unlike any other. Yoga is a noncompetitive activity that allows the two of you to communicate openly, enjoy gentle touch, and become wholly and deeply focused on one another. As you are improving the health and wellbeing of your bodies together you are also enhancing the emotional and spiritual bond between you. By opening up yourself to a relaxing environment with your significant other, you will enjoy continued benefits on onto other areas of your relationship.

Sattva Yoga Love

When it is all said and done, yoga is a truly wonderful way to add peace, calm, and meaning to your relationships – both with those intimately close to you and with those you come into brief contact with throughout your day. Emotions play a tremendous role in every interaction whether large or small; Sattva Yoga helps bring those emotions into balance and equips you to approach life in a more centered, peaceful, and fulfilling way.

March 7th, 2013

5 Benefits of Sattva Yoga

5 Benefits of Sattva Yoga

When you make the decision to make Sattva Yoga a part of your life you are doing more than welcoming a calming, tension-relieving physical activity into your routine. While these are popular benefits of yoga, particularly the meditation portion, there are several other benefits that can make yoga an incredibly helpful addition to your life. The key to welcoming the benefits of yoga to you is consistency and balance. You must remain dedicated to your practice and do it consistently in order to truly maximize the benefits that it offers you. You must also seek to achieve balance. This is bringing together your mind, your body, and your breath to one controlled entity so that the world around you falls away and you are concentrating purely on your practice.

Sattva Yoga Instructor Jade Poench

Some of the benefits that Sattva Yoga can offer you include:

1. Compassion and Empathy: It may surprise you that through the practice of yoga you will open yourself to experiencing emotions that you may not have previously been aware of or open to. This includes compassion and empathy. While you are practicing yoga you will be learning the philosophies that teach you to reach out to and seek to understand those around you. You will learn to seek those that you encounter as equal beings each getting through life as best as they can. You will feel the power of connecting to others through your practice and no longer feel the same ill-will and competition that was so easy to experience prior to your yoga.

2. Healthy Eating: Practicing yoga isn’t going to automatically make you a vegetarian that craves nothing but sprouts, but through the continued and dedicated practice of yoga you will find yourself more connected to your body and how the food that you put in it makes you feel. You will begin caring more about how you treat your body and will pay attention to the way that you fuel it, particularly when preparing for your practice.

3. Strength: Sattva Yoga will most assuredly increase your body’s flexibility and range of motion, but you may be shocked when you realize how much strength you will build as you progress through the levels of yoga. While there are very calm and gentle forms of yoga that are ideal for the physically challenged or very beginner, other forms represent an incredible challenge that will require intense strength. As you work through the poses and movements your body will become stronger and more resilient as well as more flexible and agile.

4. Confidence: The physical benefits, as well as the sense of peace, balance, and control, that come along with practicing yoga consistently will make a major difference in how you perceive yourself and the confidence with which you move through your life. Just seeing in yourself the ability to do these exercises will make you see something within you that you may not have seen before—the incredible ability to achieve and the determination to continue to improve.

5. Improved Relationship: When you bring peace, balance, and confidence into yourself you are opening yourself to enjoying a deeper and more productive connection with your partner.  Not only will you feel more able to welcome the emotional and spiritual bond, but your yoga practice will greatly enhance your intimate bonds as well.

March 7th, 2013

Finding Peace Amid Chaos – Sattva Yoga and Stress Relief

Sattva Yoga and Stress Relief: Finding Peace Amid Chaos

No matter what form of Yoga you practice, the end goal is almost always to relax, to find inner and outer balance, and to create an inner sense of peace and connection to the mind and emotions.

Sattva Yoga Instructors Edmonton

Sattva Yoga is focused specifically on accessing all three major human elements – the body, the breath, and the mind – and to work toward a softening of the body’s outer response to the external reality as it is brought into alignment with each person’s inner reality.

To put it another way, the body responds to external stimuli in various ways; these emotions and responses in turn trigger a physical response (perhaps the body becomes tense during a confrontation, for example) that also turns around and impacts the mind and emotions. It is the ongoing cycle of external response converted to internal response that is then converted back into a physical response that Sattva Yoga strives to bring into balance, harmony, and consistency.

Many people do not realize the physical and emotional impact that stress can have – especially when stress is a part of life on an ongoing, consistent basis.

Chronic stress is known to cause extremely problematic physical conditions,including back pain, migraines, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, and more. It can also cause emotional issues such as anxiety attacks to worm their way into what should be a peace and balance-filled lifestyle.

Additionally, stress has been proven to impact the part of the brain where memories are stored, as well as to impair the developmental process of children and young adults. Since the brain and the body are meant to work in harmony together, when one is struggling everything else struggles right along with it.

Sattva Yoga is one of the best ways to combat the negative effects of stress and anxiety. It is gentle, does not require the use of medications or doctor consultation, and it is extremely easy and fun to learn. As Rameen, our edmonton yoga studio founder, has said before,

“To be balanced is to be free. Balance exists in all things.”

Sattva Yoga

Since many things in life are non-negotiable (most people must work and interact with others and experience intense situations on a consistent basis) the one thing that can help navigate those stressful situations is by retraining your body and your mind to deal with those external stimuli so that the natural response becomes one of peace and not tension.

If the stress of life has you feeling tense, unsettles, or even physically ill, we encourage you to find peace amid the chaos by experiencing the benefits of Sattva Yoga. Find a Sattva Yoga location near you – we are currently located in Yoga studios in Edmonton, Calgary (Yoga Santosha), and Regina areas (Yoga Mala) – and experience the wonder of balance and peace in your own life.

 

 

 

 

February 24th, 2013

SATTVA Yoga Photoshoot

Recently The Yoga Loft teamed up with lululemon Whyte Ave and an amazing local Edmonton freelance photographer Nicole to snap some pics in our new space. A few of us gathered in our soon to be new home and started to have fun breaking in the space with a little yoga…

November 24th, 2012

Wanderlust 2012

We are soooo incredibly excited and honoured to be involved with Wanderlust Festival in its first ever Canadian weekend this summer on August 23-26, 2012 in Whistler, B.C….Rameen has been invited to teach!!

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL:
Wanderlust is an all out yogi fest bringing together yoga, music, and art in a beautiful setting over the span of one glorious weekend. Programs run all weekend to offer much more than just yoga – there’s hiking, meditation, cinema, wine tasting, music performances, lectures, kayaking, and even a market. Check out this video.

RAMEEN’S SCHEDULE:
Friday, August 24, 10-11:30am
Who are You? 
A Yoga talk to go into the deeper dimensions of yoga.

Saturday, August 25, 4-5:30pm
Let Your Inner Revolution Begin
A dynamic SATTVA practice, beginner to intermediate levels

Sunday, August 26, 10-11:30am
Advancing the Practice Through Breath
A strong asana followed by pranayama practice, intermediate to advanced levels

Finding the Teacher Within
A strong asana and meditation, teachers only practice

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Tickets are currently on sale! Visit the website for more info on lineup and schedule, planning, lodging, getting there, activities, and everything else to do with this wonderful affair. You can also check out their facebook.

We really hope YOU can make it and join us for this very exciting event!

 

November 16th, 2012

The Meditation continues… SATTVA Ananda

October 29th, 2012

SATTVA Yoga teachers take it to the street on CBC

Click on the image below to see the CBC news clip of The Yoga Loft‘s very own: Hailey O’Hara, Angela McFaul and Mathew Mylod taking their practice to the streets for the Spread the Love Project.

For more information on the Spread the Love Project please click the image below:

 

 

August 19th, 2012

SATTVA Ananda 30 Day Dedication to Meditation

Starting October 7th, The Yoga Loft will be hosting a 30 Day Dedication to Meditation!

The intention for this practice is to establish a relationship with meditation and with yourself.

 

 Why?

The practice of SATTVA Ananda Meditation produces harmony between the body, breath and mind. From this balanced state you can begin to separate yourself from thoughts and emotions, creating space within to let go of distraction and rest deeply into the relaxation of the present moment and the Self.

Physiological benefits: decreased heart rate; decreased respiration rate; increased EEG alpha (a brain wave associated with relaxation); reduced activity in the nervous system and increased activity by the parasympathetic nervous system (the branch responsible for calming the body).

Mental and emotional benefits: improved learning ability and memory; increased feelings of vitality, rejuvenation and energy; reduced anxiety, stress and fatigue; increased emotional stability and feelings of happiness and general well being.

How?

 

  • 30 consecutive days please listen to track 1 and/or 2 of the SATTVA Ananda Meditation CD. This requires a minimum sit time of 30 minutes. I know, this seems intense… and to be honest, it is. But that is exactly the point. This is simple intensity. All you have to do is find a comfortable seat, where the body can truly relax and ground, put on some headphones, press play and listen. Sit and listen. Easy!
  • every Sunday at noon we will meet at The Yoga Loft for a group meditation, followed by group discussion/questions

You can purchase your copy of the CD at The Yoga Loft or you can download it online at the following:

 

 

 

 

 

“There is only one way to understand who you are and that is to look inwards.” - Rameen Peyrow

 

August 9th, 2012

SATTVA Ananda Meditation CD with Rameen Peyrow


Please stop by the desk at The Yoga Loft to pick up a copy of Rameen‘s brand NEW Meditation CD ($14.99+ gst).

The SATTVA Ananda Meditation technique, the method that we use on this CD, is an easy and powerful approach to meditation. It is a meditation on the Self.

To connect to this ‘Self’, the technique uses three important elements:

  • Body: the anchor which draws the mind into relaxation
  • Breath: the inspiration and attention of the meditation
  • Mind: the concentration and direction of the meditation

The practice of SATTVA Ananda Meditation produces harmony between the body, breath and mind. From this balanced state you can begin to separate yourself from thoughts and emotions, creating space within to let go of distraction and rest deeply into the relaxation of the present moment and the Self.

“There is only one way to understand who you are and that is to look inwards.” - Rameen Peyrow

 

July 7th, 2012

Follow Her Bliss: Hailey O’Hara’s journey begins…

OCTOBER 31ST
12:13 AM

The journey begins…

I find the empty prayer room amidst the chaotic airport. It’s completely quiet.  A wall of windows gives me a peak through Dehli’s smog as I move my creaky body. Forty hours I have been travelling, I think , although it has become a blur of takeoffs and landings, boarding calls and coffee cups. When one books the cheapest flight, one gets to spend a lot of time in airports. Luckily, I happen to love them. I can sit, read, write. Or my favourite, I can people watch. There is nothing boring about airports. Anywhere in the world, they more or less feel the same. The language on the intercom changes, the smells vary but people have the same emotion in their eyes saying goodbye all over the world, the same enthusiasm saying hello. People find creative ways to sleep on those awful benches, whether they’re wearing a sari or a suit. There were people getting creatively comfortable all over the Houston airport, where I had my first stop, for eight hours. With so many flights to the east coast cancelled, people anxiously sat around the television watching as the hurricane moved closer. I watched too, as the news caster stood on the empty New York streets. Two hours, they predicted until the storm would hit. My flight was leaving in one. It was eery, getting on the plane, thinking about what destruction would happen while I was 30,000 feet up. Then somewhere over the next 14 hours, I forgot all about it.
Because, no matter what happens, people will come together, do what needs to be done, and life will go on.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been fortunate enough to see what I already knew to be true: people are so GOOD!
Since Angela and I decided to go to Kenya and started talking about the cause we are raising money for, we have been blown away by the support we’ve received.
The first time I went to Kenya, I was eighteen. In my naivety, I thought I was going to help. In reality, they were the ones helping me, teaching me and truly shaping who I am today. In a village that has nothing, there is this abundance of generosity and compassion that I will never forget. I knew the statistics going there, I knew HIV was rampant, that the numbers of orphans was staggering. I remember asking someone about orphanages. The man did not understand the word. I explained and he looked stunned. “Why would we need those? Do you need those in Canada?” He asked sympathetically. What I realized was that there were no orphans. There were families, or sometimes a lone grandparent, raising nieces and nephews and neighbours, but there were no orphans. The sense of community there was beautiful and it was inspiring to feel that same sense in my own community. So many people came out for our fundraisers, offered kind words and gave generous donations. There were even two young girls who asked for money to donate instead of presents for their birthdays.
So, as I get ready to board one last plane, I just want to extend the most heartfelt gratitude for all of the support we’ve received, in every form. I am so moved by your generosity.Thank you, thank you.

NOVEMBER 6TH

India

When I decided to go to India, I asked my teacher where I should go.
“What do you want to do there?” He asked.
“Yoga.”
“Yoga with a bunch of westerners or with an old man up in the mountains?”
I thought.
Old man. Mountains. Yes definitely.

How then, do I go about finding some old man to teach me yoga?
Well, I think I did even better.
I found a woman.
In the foothills of the Himalayas, along the Ganges, I found Mataji, a seventy-something German woman who came to India when she was twenty-four and never left. She met a sadhu and they lived together with nothing on the banks of the Ganges for ten years before establishing an ashram.
The morning aarti and meditation begins at 4:30am and when I go down to the fire, she’s already sitting there cross legged. In the evenings, she leads us through a meditation for about an hour. People usually fall away and head to bed but she’s unmoved. Sometimes I open my eyes and think she has fallen asleep, then I see her fingers, the only movement, running over the mala beads she holds in her hand. During the days, she’s always willing to talk, if she’s not perched somewhere, robed in orange, long dreads wrapped up onto her head, deep in meditation.
Just being in her presence invokes something within me.
Ganga, her son, who leads us through an asana practice every morning, told us that the Indian name for the country is Bharata, which means “come absorb yourself in light.”
As I write this, I’m watching the sun set behind the mountains, a ball of fire in the sky. The color I can’t describe, can’t photograph, like the sparkles of in the sand along the Ganges that glimmer on the skin after a barefoot walk through the waters.
I’m finding myself so deeply inspired here, so surrounded by this light.