SEASONAL SELF-CARE BLOG
WINTER RADIANCE 2021
Posted on December 22nd, 2020
Breathe deeply and accept the jewel and the grit of this moment.– Mark Nepo
We’re arriving at the doorstep of 2021 bruised and battle scarred but resilient and adaptable. No one said that evolution was going to be easy. Our entire way of being in the world is shifting and though we are getting more adept at the continually changing landscape, it’s difficult. As Winter started approaching and it became apparent that things would be in various levels of “lockdown”, I started feeling overwhelmed and alone. I leaned in more deeply to my home yoga practice, boosted my self-care, and picked up my accordion and started singing again. I started feeling more balanced, grounded, and connected with my deeper being. I am so grateful that I have these tools to help me reconnect, re-balance myself and access my creativity. My home practices have been my refuge, my oasis for many years.
This Winter, I would love to help you create or deepen your home practice so that you will have this refuge where you can re-connect with your deepest self and renew your being. I also want to help you really rest so that you can truly rejuvenate during these Winter months. I’d like to share with you many profoundly relaxing practices to help you sleep more deeply so that you can receive the nourishment and healing that only deep sleep can offer. In addition, since our yoga studios are closed now and we can’t go on our fabulous Winter Retreat this year, I thought I’d create a way for us to gather together as a community. So I created the Winter Wellness Journey, as an opportunity for you to deepen individually as well as in the support of community so that we can flourish this winter.
This Winter Wellness Journey is offered live through weekly Zoom sessions, a monthly intensive restorative yoga workshop, as well as a facebook group where we will share our process as we deepen in our internal winter practices. All the sessions will be recorded for those who are not able to attend the session.
Winter Wellness Journey Topics:
Winter Meridian Yoga & Yoga Nidra
Developing a Home Yoga Practice
The Art of Sleep & Rest
Join me and nourish the well of your being this Winter and cultivate your full radiance and vitality!
Happy Solstice and Happy Holidays!
Leigh
dog days of summer cooling tips
Posted on August 17th, 2018
Given the speed and intensity with which climate change is moving, I’ve been getting increasingly involved in climate action and ways to create a more sustainable lifestyle. Those of you who are on Facebook, may have seen my recent posts about my plastic free journey which has intensified in the past month. Challenging and eye opening, this plastic free journey has awakened my mind to innovation, visioning, and community in ways that I had not anticipated. I feel very inspired and hopeful that we can shift this! The ocean & the Earth needs our help now!
One of the environmental organizations that I have been working with is 350 Brrooklyn. At our last monthly meeting, we were asked to share with each other ways that we were keeping cool this Summer without relying air conditioning which uses an excess of energy. As I turned to the people sitting next to me, I first I felt like I didn’t have anything to offer, but then I realized that I have a plethora of cooling techniques from my Ayurveda and yoga knowledge. I proceeded to show them Sitali pranayama, a simple breathing practice that cools your body and mind. It is incredible for the Summer when our Pitta Dosha, the fire element, goes out of balance. In our increasingly heated world, Sitali Pranayama is a great practice to know, as you can do it anywhere, at anytime, and it works immediately. My new friends at the 350 Brooklyn meeting loved it! We were then asked to share our tips with the whole group. So I taught the whole group Sitali Pranayama and they loved it to! By the looks on their faces, I’m sure it was the first time they had ever tried something like this at their meetings, and there was alot of laughter as everyone tried curling their tongues and sipping in the air. But they were amazed at how cool their tongues felt after just a few breaths and how that cool feeling spread through their bodies. Try Sitali Pranayama in these dog days of Summer when the heat and humidity feel overwhelming.
How To Practice Sitali
- Sit in a comfortable position with the head, neck, and spine in alignment.
- Close your eyes, breathe into the low belly (diaphramatic breathing) to relax
- Curl your tongue and put it out of your mouth.
- Inhale through the tongue and into the mouth. It feels a bit like you are sipping through a straw – a stainless steel straw, of course!
- Draw the tongue back into your mouth, close your mouth and exhale through the nostrils.
- Repeat 10 times
Keep it cool!
Leigh
SPRING GREEN SOUP
Posted on February 28th, 2018
Are you starting to feel a little gunky inside as the weather outside keeps shifting between Winter and Spring? Are you experiencing tight shoulders, headaches, eye issues, tight tendons, stiff necks, eczema and other skin problems. Are you getting agitated and irritable lately? These are signs that your Spring organ network, liver and gall bladder organs, are starting to get overwhelmed with the rising energy of Spring and need some loving attention.
SPRING GREEN SOUP
In these first sightings of Spring, warm sunny days sandwiched between snowy or rainy cold mucky days, my insides start waking up and dancing a little “I want to cleanse jig”. But I know that it is still too early to do a juice cleanse or a full on detox. According to the wisdom of Ayurveda, you should wait until true weather to do a juice cleanse because it is too cooling and depleting for your system in the cold weather. But as we start shifting into Spring, I start gently sweeping the main pathways with a Spring Green Soup. It is warm, nourishing and starts the cleansing process in a very gentle way. I just made my first Spring Green Soup of the season! The recipe is from my dear friend, Nishanga Bliss, author of “Real food All Year”. Back in the 90’s she introduced me to the Chinese Medicine Seasonal food practices and we started our Seasonal Yoga workshops which blossomed all the way into my Yoga Sukhavati Seasonal Yoga Teacher Training!
The Spring Green Soup is delicious and easy to make! I chose to use Dandelion greens as part of my cluster of greens to include because of their bitterness and potency in cleansing the liver and gallbladder to help them stimulate bile production which helps break down foods and filters and detoxifes the blood. According to Chinese Medicine, Spring is the time to cleanse the liver and gall bladder, the wood element. So in went the dandelions to my Spring soup! I also added the digestive powerhouse and diuretic, Fennel to help relieve some bloating and indigestion I was experiencing. I’m feeling so much better after 2 days eating this soup & taking my purifying baths! When cleansing it is essential to offer ways for the toxins to leave your body, so I’ve been taking balancing, nourishing and purifying baths this week. Before I bathe, I do a simple skin brushing to get my lymphatic system in tip top shape. The skin is the largest organ in your body and a large part of our detoxification process Check out our Spring Practices post on purifying seaweed baths!
SPRING GREEN SOUP
Nishanga Bliss, from “Real Food All Year”
2 tablespoons ghee, lard, coconut oil, or olive oil
1 bunch spring or greenoinion, white adn green parts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup fennel ore celery, coarsely chopped
1 quart Bone Broth, Poultry stock, or vegetable stock
2 small potatoes or turnips, diced into 1/2 cubes
1 bunch leafy greens, such as spinach, or arugula, or dandelion (include some others in addition to dandelion), coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)
1 tsp fresh or dried dill
2 tablespoons chickpea miso or white miso
juice of 1 lemon
Join me for my Spring Cleanse Flow workshop on Sunday March 25, 2018 at Sacred Sounds in Manhattan, NY or April 15 at BodyWorks in New Hampshire. Or you can download my Spring Cleanse video, and sweep out the cobwebs from home!!
joyous heart!
Leigh